MARCH 8, 2008 – IN HO CHI MIN CITY

UP THE RIVER: I awoke at 4:35 am and peeked out to see the river bed rolling by. It is still funny to me that I have learned to tell where we are by the behavior of the ship. I think I got more sleep but I was still aware of the movements of the ship. This river is muddy and there are water hyacinths in little islands moving down with the current. I first saw this in Cochin after a hard rain on our 2004 trip.
Ho Chi Min City (old Saigon); the view from the ship now that we are berthed is of very old buildings and water craft, almost all rusty. We are on the side away from the pier this time so it may look better on the other side. I did see some tall buildings in the distance as we approached the city.
I have to pick up our passports and get our packing done. We don’t leave the ship for Angor Wat until 2:30 pm and I’d like to get off the ship for a few hours to see the city. There is a free shuttle bus to the Rex Hotel, the site where most of the journalists stayed while stationed here during the Vietnam War.
I’ll write when we return. Love to all.
MARCH 7, 2008 – TO HO CHI MIN, VIETNAM

REMINDER: We are leaving the ship tomorrow to travel to the Angor Wat region so it will be several days before I’ll make another post.
WAKE UP, WAKE UP. Ok so I’m lazy to get up, but eventually we rolled out, caught up on some of the CNN news (which was of varying quality due to the satellite link.
HOLLYWOOD’S LEADING LADY: This lecture was done by Barry, the speaker h whom we had lunch yesterday. He has obviously put a lot of work into these presentations which are highlighted with video clips of movie scenes and interviews. Today’s biopic was on Bette Davis. There was a good turnout; clearly we trivia buffs were listening especially hard.
TRIVIA: The crocks were in good form…still we (barely) lost. What just kills us is when we have a correct answer and change it later to the wrong answer. That happened in two instances (we should have listened to Murray!). Our scribe for the morning (who shall remain nameless) put down the name she thought she heard instead of the correct answer which came from the lower end of the table. We should have double checked but we’ve never had that happen before. Had we gotten either of those, we’d have tied the winners. The Genius group won today and got Princess caps as their prizes. Eric offered to give Murray one of his (leaky) water bottles as a consolation prize, but Murray declined with a big laugh.
Some of these groups are soooo serious…not us, we howl with regularity and no one gets their nose out of joint if they gave the right answer and the group chose another. Sometimes we get so rowdy that others stare at us, some with grins themselves and we just ignore the sour pusses. As someone pointed out, each of the groups has won at least once. This population on board is a bright lot overall and they all have interesting and diverse experiences from which to pull for the answers.
LUNCH: After looking over the temptations that Princess has for sale in the atrium, we made it to lunch where we were joined by a couple from the Geniuses, Bill and Lea, and another couple (of the latter, the wife is clearly a liberal Democrat; we fit the same category but knew that the table was probably dominated by Republicans some of whom are Bush—even though mildly—defenders). We talked about global warming and Gore’s documentary, a little politics, some of the ports, and such. Ed and I ordered a pork chop which we both expected to be on the small size. It was huge and delicious. I simply couldn’t leave any on the plate or I’d have felt guilty. So much for my calorie restriction resolve.
BOUTIQUE: I made the mistake of going into the boutique to look for a Clinique product I’m running out of. They don’t carry that brand of course but I wound up with a (way overpriced in my estimation) Estee Lauder product which is supposed to preserve my excellent complexion. (Sure, right. And it reverses the wrinkles and firms up the jowls too I bet). While there, we also took some fragrance samples of a new cologne which is supposed to enable Ed to Hypnose me.
LINDA’S STORY: ESCAPE FROM VIETNAM: There is a very sweet young woman on board whose parents have a horrendous escape story from Vietnam. Frankie asked her to agree to an interview. She had some photos on her computer to illustrate the tale, and a video of her brother driving a scooter through the streets of Saigon/Ho Chi Min City, so we could get a personal view of the traffic experience there. She was born and raised in Australia, but visits Vietnam to see family with some regularity. She is looking forward to the port stop in Ho Chi Min City to reacquaint herself with the family who remain there.
The audience was packed and there was clearly good interest in hearing this story. Val and Eric were there. We had discussed the fact that Ed and I will be gone for a full day of trivia and the crocks were going to have to decide how to handle that. So Eric told us on the way out of this talk that the group was going to be interviewing substitute group members for trivia while we were gone so we’d better be sharp.
GET TOGETHER: Ben had the folks who went to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos join at 4 pm for a get together. This posed a problem for us since we have trivia at 4:15 pm. Initially, these events were to be in the same room, so we assumed the get together would break up in time for the trivia. There was an announcement about a change of location for this afternoon’s trivia. So I left a note for the crocks to let them know why we couldn’t join them! I met Ro and Murray before then and explained to them.
There was a large crowd for this cocktail hour: the 38 of us who went to the Galapagos and the 100+ who went to Machu Picchu. We thought perhaps there’d be a program with a pitch or something. It was just cocktails and hor d’ouvres. It was nice visiting with Linda and Claude and some of the others. Jan had gone to Beijing and sprained her ankle on the Great Wall. She’s going with us to Angor Wat tomorrow. When I asked she said she’d bought a cane at the Great Wall so she’s ready. If nothing else, we are a hardy bunch.
Some of these shore excursions we go on, particularly the day trips, many people come back complaining about how tired they are. Many on the macau trip were like this. Ed and I aren’t any more tired than usual. You sit on the bus, ferry and such and the amount of walking and climbing is minimal truly. But these are also the folks who don’t ever take the stairs on the ship; they’re always on the elevator. Any exertion is too much so what do they expect on these tours?
We saw Val and Eric on the way to dinner. First thing Eric says to me is: “What’s the Spanish word for butterfly?” “Mariposa”. Correct he says. If I’d been at trivia today they’d have gotten it. There were other questions they shared with us. We are all so funny about those trivia questions.
DINNER: Dave’s pinkie is doing fine it seems and he’s still planning on Angor Wat tomorrow. I had seen Hank and Erna earlier today. They are both still fighting the cold and pulmonary sequelae; Hank in particular is having a hard time. They had come on this cruise especially to see Angor Wat and now they are too ill to join us. We are all so sad for them. There’s been some discussion of them flying back home to Hawaii. But they are just as good on the ship where your meals are all provided, your room is done daily, and the medical clinic is right around the corner. I can’t imagine the ordeal of packing and managing to get back home as ill as they are right now. And they’d lose all the money they’ve put on this cruise. So we’re reinforcing their decision to remain.
We told Rod that he’d be alone for the next few nights. Bill and Lea are leaving tomorrow as well to go to Angor Wat independently; they won’t rejoin us again until Bangkok.
PAPERWORK: We have lots of Cambodian and Vietnamese paperwork to finish so we can travel. We filled out one set, got our passport sized photos attached (Ilana took some really good ones of us!) and we’re set for that part. Then the Vietnamese forms cannot be separated so we had to complete a second set as I didn’t understand to separate them at the left staple rather than tearing the perforation on the right. They give you directions on how to fill all this stuff out and I’m still confused and I’m a high school graduate! Nonetheless, the nice fellow from India at the purser’s desk double checked and cleared everything for me on the second try. Our Vietnamese landing passes are supposed to be delivered to our cabin mailboxes in the night. I cannot imagine the behind the scenes stuff that the personnel have to complete for us to be able to travel into all of these countries with their differing regulations and forms.
TONITE’S SHOW: I wasn’t too sure but we showed up anyway. It was a singer, Claude Eric. WOW! Great voice, terrific selection of songs. But that’s not all. Val said: “Did you see those EYES!” and I’m sure half the women in the audience were saying to themselves: “Boy I’ll bet he’d be fun.” He’ll be back for another performance after we return. He’s from Montreal and fluent (and unaccented) in English and French. Some accused us of looking for a ‘toy boy’ but we all knew he had a wedding ring on and was probably young enough to be our grandson.
One of the songs he sang was by Josh Grogan and he dedicated it to his grandmother. It is about someone who has died and gone to heaven. It’s lovely and I thought as I listened to it that it would be a wonderful selection for my funeral. Val thought exactly the same thing and asked Eric to remember that.
YIPPEE! We turn our clocks back another hour tonite. These extra hours are like long awaited Christmas presents!