From Lan Ha Bay to Saigon

Oops, another correction. But this is a self correction…this is Lan Ha Bay…not any variation I called it yesterday.

Another middle of the night phone call awoke us…this time at 2:30 am. Our phones that were originally on silent somehow changed, but to anyone else who tries to call us again – we’re on to you – the phones are silenced again.

We start the day with Tai Chi at 6:30.

Here is our boat – Ginger Cruise

Then a quick change and off for an hour of kayaking

Our cabins are on the second deck on the right and go from the balcony by the flags (which is ours) thru 3 sets of windows to the left. I think each of our suites is one third of the deck.

Yvonne and Ian turn their kayak into a clean up expedition and start collecting plastic and discards from the bay – including someone’s life jacket! They were disappointed when we had to go back and wanted to continue their mission.

Now we pack up and get ready to head back to the pier. And it isn’t even 9:00 am yet. We are taken to a pearl factory (think rug factory in Turkey, jade factory in China, alpaca in Peru) – we didn’t buy any over priced pearls. But we learned how cultured pearls are made and farmed.

So now we are off to the airport (a few hours away) for our 5 pm flight to Saigon. Our guide, Duc, takes us into the airport with our airline tickets and luggage. He checks us in and we step aside. We think we are ready to depart when Duc comes back with a Vietnamese security officer and asks the men to follow him behind a door labeled Security. That left Yvonne and I standing there alone and totally confused. About 5 minutes later they return and on we go. Turns out Ian had his laptop in his checked luggage. They weren’t sure whose bag it was – thus both men had to go with security. Who knew it was not legal to check a laptop. And this is the country that lets you bring water thru security.

We arrive around 7 and are met by our new guide and driver – Yang and Sam. It is obvious Saigon is a metropolitan city. We decide we don’t have enough time here- and that’s just at first glance. Tomorrow we are supposed to drive 2 hours to the Cu Chi tunnels, take a 1 hour tour, then drive back 2 hours to the hotel. That’s a big chunk of our day and we’ve got lots to do. So we arranged to do the tunnel tour on our way to the boat on Saturday, so we have all day tomorrow to explore Saigon. We have an extensive day mapped out but that’s tomorrow-and we aren’t finished today.

Here’s a picture Ian snapped on our way in from the airport.

After a drink in the martini bar of the hotel, we take a walk. Our hotel is central to many things.

Here is City Hall.

And Yang told us there is a flower show going on through the rest of their New Year (which ends in a few days) – so we tracked that down tonight.

And now it’s after 11pm and we are back at our hotel.

This is what greets us in the lobby.

Good night and wish us well on our self directed tours tomorrow- I’m hoping to sneak in a little bit of shopping and maybe pool time, but I don’t want them to know.