sayhitojohn

Always Remember Step 15b Ladies and Gentlemen...Start Your Engines Hair of the Snake That Bit You Only The Finest Racing Footwear Imported?

Sunday morning I awoke to another "You reek" from a Patti. Nice big garlic cloves in my dinner on Saturday night! Yeah! At breakfast we were greeted with a very large fruit spread and were able to sample many of the local product. We decided to get a guide for today to get a little deeper into the local and national history and culture. Bang was his name and he did a great job. He is a freelance tour guide and says it's really paying off because he did not have to buy his job. The best jobs are with the government but you have to buy your way in. He took us to the tombs of three kings from the Nguyen Dynasty. The first and most impressive was from the 12th of 13 kings. The last king abdicated the throne and essentially self exiled to France for the rest of his years. The 12th king was stripped of power and relegated to the position of a puppet and decided he was going to build a grand legacy in the form of a tomb modeled after the Palace of Versailles. To finance

The brother and sister-in-law of a friend of mine, Andrew, had traveled to Vietnam and had an interesting post-culinary experience. I asked Andrew to recount the story from his sister-in-law. ----- A few years ago my sister-in-law was attending a professional conference where she was to give a speech. Just before giving her presentation, she felt a sudden urge to go to the ladies room. What came out was very unexpected, a foot long worm looking creature. Obviously she was completely freaked out, but also being a doctor, she knew she had to retrieve the worm from the toilet (it was dead) to get it analyzed. She wrapped the critter in a bunch of toilet paper and stored it in her purse. She then built up the strength to give her speech before heading home. The person that analyzed the specimen asked whether she had done any traveling recently. Her response was that the last trip she took was to southeast Asia over a year ago. That is when she learned about common intestinal worms f

Good Luck! First Class Hey, Which Way Did The Tour de Hanoi Go? Eat 'Lucky Food' Prior to Boarding Plane Not Flatbread, But Phatbread

We left Hanoi Saturday morning with all of its bustle and headed to the airport for our flight to Hue. Even at 6:30 in the morning the street markets were up and running with the sales of produce and various other goods. The public address systems were broadcasting their message as we swerved back and forth avoiding the oncoming mopeds on all sides and trying not to crush those going in our direction. While wandering around waiting for our flight, Tara and I uncovered the Hanoi Airport Noodle Bowl Scandal. We were in a mini mart and saw ladies in the back of the store taking apart the packages of instant noodles to sell in the Fast Food Restaurant. Avoid this restaurant if you want good noodles! On the plane I sat with the kids and Patti was across the aisle. Poor Patti. The guy she sat next to, some European, made body odor seem like too kind a term. Her new friend also did not fit well into the seat and had one arm raised to squeeze in, not helping the odor issue. She then pro

Seeing little alters in homes, businesses and grave sites is a common image in Vietnam. The Vietnamese as a people group share a belief that we continue to exist for several generations after death, and the most upright continue for longer than that. They believe that our ancestors can give us good fortune in this life. These alters serve as their connection points where items are left for use in the afterlife. It is interesting to note that the Catholic Vietnamese also maintain alters but maybe not so surprising as the Catholics have a long tradition of venerating the saints as their advocates to God, this practice takes it further. Jesus teaches that we do go on existing after our earthly grave. That next state is either a second continuing life or a second continuing death. He says that we all deserve the second and ongoing death and that nothing we are able to do can free us from that. There is no room for self righteousness as a means to overcome our judgement from God. It

This morning Patti was also a believer that some dreams really do come true. Patti, as most of you know, is unable to eat any food with even a hint of flavor. Her collection of food allergies has made her the self-anointed Queen of Bland, but not on this cruise. The chef prepared a version of every dish for her accommodation and after all 18 courses yesterday she woke up this morning without a headache. Yesterday I mentioned the cave dwellers that originally settled here in war time. These folks found refuge not only from war but from nature as they called these climate controlled environments home. They survived as fishermen In 1985 UNESCO claimed Ha Long Bay as a World Heritage Site and with that came eviction of the cave dwelling fishermen. They were resettled in floating villages. Many spend their whole lives there simply fishing to survive. Some are able to earn and save a little towards a few amenities like a generator and a DVD player. We were rowed around by women in t

On Thursday morning we had a quick breakfast before we would start our day. My OCD was tested again at breakfast as my malaria pill fell of Patti's hand not once but twice and rolled swiftly across the floor of the dining area. After eggs and Dragon Fruit we boarded a mini bus from our posh :-) Camel City Hotel digs to Halong bay for our cruise ship experience. Having never been on a cruise ship I was looking forward to this. This does not qualify as the Pacific Princes you are imagining, this one only only 11 rooms. I was all excited until Patti told me that last year one of these sunk and many of the passengers said goodbye to this life. God willing, that will not be repeated anytime soon. Years ago Patti and I spent a few nights on a 0 room cruise ship on the Nile River in Egypt. It was just a few pieces of foam covered with some old bed sheets on a traditional Egyptian sailing boat called a Felluca. It was like camping with no tent on the water and was in reality a very i

As I stepped down from what is our last overnight train in Vietnam, I must say that I will not miss it. This train was one of the more frightening transports I have been on. Have I said that before? Will I say it again? I did take a few Tylenol PM just to make sure I would get some sleep. What ruined me this time was possibly figuring out why the train was rocking so wildly. The passenger car would always rock from side to side enough to make drinking water from a cup all but impossible. At times it would rock so violently that you could not stand without bouncing off the walls. My guess is that this is due to something similar that occurs to our roads. Where a dip forms it slowly gets more pronounced as the weight of more vehicles drop into it. So the rocking of these trains gets very slightly more amplified with ever car that passes. Eventually, I presume, the car will roll off the tracks. I did not want to be involved in that eventuality. Did I mention, on our first train