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When I had the opportunity to use frequent flyer miles for an overseas trip, I decided to use them to go over a different sea than usual for a trip to Asia in November 2002. Here is a report on that trip to Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
TRIP TO ASIA, NOVEMBER 2002
Amc2004-09-13 14:42:34
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should make it easier to cross the street.
Four days was too much time to spend in Saigon; since I wanted to do the minimum of wandering around, I picked top destinations. I went to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, combining natural history and photographs of city history. One cyclo driver had made a big campaign for me as I approached the museum, showing a portfolio of testimonials from past passengers. He was still there as I left, and I relented and took one cyclo ride to the War Remnants Museum. The ride gave an interesting perspective to traffic, but I didn’t want to repeat it. So the museum was the big attraction. It had photographs, weaponry, torture devices, and antiwar posters and banners from around the world. There was an exhibit of pictures taken by photographers who had been killed in the war, put together by Westerners, as I remember.
I had my tour of the Cu Chi tunnels on Sunday morning. What I had booked was a tour for me alone, with a guide and driver. They picked me up at the hotel and we made our way out of town; I was impressed to see how many people were out and about, going to market, even at 8 a.m. Sunday. I was interested in seeing at least a bit of rural Vietnam; the city extended far, but there was a small stretch of lush green countryside. My tour first stopped at a place to demonstrate making rice paper. Then we got to Cu Chi and its network of tunnels, where the guerrillas hid out underground beyond the reach of Americans who had a base right above them. There was a film to see, a tour of the grounds, and a short walk through a tunnel, widened for Western visitors. Back in town, the tour included a lunch of pho soup at a popular restaurant for it, not great for me, not a fan of soup. The tour was interesting, but I wish I’d found a better way to get around than this $40 tour.
My outing within Saigon outside of the central area was to Cholon, Saigon’s Chinatown. Even if I was starting to get tired of
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See photographs from:
Vietnam Gallery
,
Macau Gallery
,
Hong Kong Gallery
,
Cambodia Gallery
