Merry Christmas everyone!
We're in Dalat in the highlands of Vietnam right now. It's downright chilly. We're so used to the 90 degree weather everywhere else so it's been quite a shock to have weather in the 50/60 degree range. But nice for Christmas.
To finish up in Saigon, we took a trip to "Reunification Palace" which is where the South Vietnamese army surrendered to the North Vietnamese in 1975. It's a very interesting building...the president who commissioned the latest remodel was assasinated by his own army before the palace was finished. What's interesting about the building is that there's a secret passage from the president's quarters to a helipad and also to the basement where there were escape tunnels. You can also see the War Room where all the US military advisers sat. Kind of scary that the equipment in there (original) looks like my high school radio station. December 22nd is the 60th anniversary of the Vietnamese army (to fight the French way back) so there was a lot of preparation around the palace...we essentially got to see the practice for the parade. A lot of soldiers, ordinary men & women, and even kids that marched. The soldiers had it together, but the ordinary folks still needed a LOT of practice - I hate to see the consequences if you mess up in this parade!
The next evening, Deanna had a wonderful idea to go see the Ho Chi Minh Symphony & dance recital. It was great...they played a lot of "winter theme" stuff like "Winter" from the Four Seasons...it got me in the Christmas mood a bit more. It was a really nice and small concert hall...great views and great acoustics. For the dance, there were a few ballet pieces, some modern dance (think Will Ferrell in Old School with the rhythmic gymnastics...yeah), and even some Russian dance. Strange to see Vietnamese doing these Russian dances - but the communist countries stick together (especially when Russia used to fund 30% of the Vietnamese economy).
We made our way to Dalat from Saigon (and believe it or not had a GOOD bus ride) and it's just beautiful. It's very hilly and they can grow all sorts of vegetables and flowers here because of the climate. There's a small Eiffel Tower (they call this Little Paris - the French built a lot here) and Dalat is a destination for Vietnamese tourists. There have been many times where we have been the only foreigners in a crowd of people. It's nice...very different.
In Dalat, we did another trek - this one 17km climbing to Tiger Falls. Our guide was fantastic...a university student named Hoan...who was really funny and made the trip fun. We walked through an ethnic minority village in the hills (the marginalized people of vietnam) where 15 families did subsistance farming and descended/climbed hundreds of meters to get water every morning. We also walked through coffee plantations...in one shack a group of people were drunk and chased us off. I am ashamed to say that I had NO idea that coffee grew on a tree...for four hours I thought we were walking through cranberry orchards. Finally...after the hike...we went with Hoan to try Banh Xeo - a kind of rice pancake - which is his favorite food and now my favorite Vietnamese food as well. Delicious.
The other cool thing in Dalat was riding around on motorcycles with the "Easy Riders". It's a group of older Vietnamese men...all speak English and some speak French...who take people on tours around Dalat. They were great guys...very knowledgeable and besides the tourist stops, they tried to show us things you can't see on a bus tour. They were also very safe drivers - I think we were amongst the 0.5% of people that wear helmets around here. One of the gentlemen, Hung, had fought for the South Vietnamese...so when the North won, he went into a re-education camp for two and a half years. Turns out that the US accepted any political refugees that had been in the camps for three years or more - so he stayed in Vietnam and became a farmer. He was a really interesting guy. The other gentleman was also a farmer -growing coffee and persimmons - and gave a good discussion of what it was like between 1975 and 1995 when the government finally allowed private ownership again. We had thought about riding with these guys for 5 days to take us to Hoi An (in the North near the Demilitarized Zone). Unfortunately, heavy rains have washed out the backroads a couple weeks ago...so we'll take the bus (and the hugely trafficked Highway 1) tomorrow morning. Perhaps it's better...five days on a motorcycle wedged between the driver and my huge bag could be a little tiring.
Christmas was nice...we went to the Sofitel (high-end hotel) to see some caroling (in Vietnamese). We also got to see Santa distribute presents to the kids (Santa was Vietnamese as well). And then we went to a fabulous five-course dinner at a nearby cafe - and the food was incredible (and not Vietnamese). There were thousands of people out last night walking around town, going to the Catholic church, talking to family, buying items in the street market - quite the carnival atmosphere.
Have a wonderful holidays!
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