Greetings from Hue, the old capital of Vietnam. I arrived here yesterday morning from Hanoi where I've been for the past three days. My friend Sally Harpole and I flew in from Hong Kong on Sunday and have been totally charmed. I expected the Vietnamese to be a bit cautious or cranky around Americans, but we have been greeted with nothing less than enthusiastic attention.

 

Because of APEC being in Hanoi the hotels were booked up and we stayed at a two star hotel, the International Convention Center. Clinton was there, not at the hotel but at the Convention Center part of the complex, a while back and they are excited that Bush is going to visit after the elections. The rooms were a bit worn around the edges, although it is only a few years old, but it was in a great section in town and had HUGE rooms and extremely attentive staff. Across the street was the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum. They (the military at the Mausoleum) wake you up in the morning (6 am) with the national anthem and other sounds blasting from a loud speaker and then have a flag lowering ceremony with more music from the loud speaker at 9:00 pm nightly. The streets have strings of lights decorating them like Christmas in the states, only here they feature communistic symbols all lit up in red and yellow. There are military-oriented posters all over that feature a very 70s-Russian looking group of people promoting the unification of Vietnam. Buildings fly the red flag with the yellow star all over and many of the official buildings are painted bright yellow. The Hanoi Hilton was a little schlep away from our hotel and we managed a very quick visit. See the photo above which I took at the entrance. Don't worry, you'll see more. I have been taking my usual tons of photos and had to free up two memory cards onto a disk today.

 

In Hanoi we had a fantastic young guide named Tho. He loved learning new vocabulary words so I was able to teach him a lot of new words and phrases (goof ball, playing hooky, bum, cranky, holy cow, don't have a cow, etc.) We had a new car and driver and were whisked about town to see the sights, museums, water puppets, and of course eat. The day before yesterday I drove out to Ha Long Bay for a boat tour. The countryside was beautiful although it was rather hazy. (So was Hanoi, which has rather poor air quality.) There were kilometers and kilometers of rice paddies with farmers in their conical hats working the fields. Tho said that there is a saying "head down, bum up!" that he learned as a child. And as I saw this illustrated constantly along the way, I explained to Tho what a "visual aid" is.

 

Motorcycles and bicycles are the main mode of transportation here. You are only supposed to have two passengers per bike but we've seen as many as five crammed on one bike. Most of the drivers wear scarves or cloth similar to surgical masks over their mouths because of all the pollution. There's a helmet law that is punishable by confiscating the bike, but only about one person in fifty wears one. They transport EVERYTHING on bikes from huge sacks of rice, coal, pregnant woman, pigs, large tubs of oil, groceries, etc. 

 

We greatly enjoyed and got used to being chauffeured around in a private car in Hanoi. So, this morning we were a bit surprised when our tour guide (Mr. Sam - which means big thunder) greeted us at the hotel and MARCHED into the POURING rain down a long road/puddle to the dragon boat for a tour of the Perfume river. We were expected to follow. We were SOAKED by the time we got to the river. Luckily I was wearing my Crock sandals (rubber) but Sally's tennis shoes and sox were more like sponges. (We went back to the hotel, dried off and set out again.) We eventually got used to it and toured temples and tombs in what seemed to be a Monsoon. I kept telling Sally to think of it as our "purification process."

 

Mr. Sam is very impressed with Sally. He is quite a scholar and is quite tickled that she reads Chinese characters (also that she's a third generation lawyer.) He said she's the only American he's toured around who can read them. He is our age and grew up during the war here. We figured out that all three of us were born within about four months apart and are TIGERS (Chinese astrology). 

 

The towns and cities are very colorful and feature a medley of housing and businesses all mixed together. It is very poor yet there are upscale buildings plopped down in the middle of everything. The hotel where we are staying in Hue (La Residence) is French and rather swank. It was originally built in the 20s as a residence of the governor and is very art deco. It's also a spa. I had a foot and leg massage/treatment a little while ago and feel great. This is the life.

 

Tomorrow Sally has to return to Hong Kong and I will drive down to Danang and Hoi An for two days of touring and shopping with Mr. Sam.I better get upstairs and pack.

 

And so I bid you goodnight as you are all beginning your day.