What  a difference in Hong Kong and Vietnam?  Hong Kong is very, very clean, Vietnam is not.  Hong Kong shopping is extremely high end.  In Vietnam you bargain for a hat for one dollar.  In Hong Kong the cars are expensive, in Vietnam, everyone owns a motor scooter. I do not know the average income n Hong Kong but in Vietnam it is between $150USD to $300 USD per month.

Our first day in Vietnam began with an excellent cooked to order breakfast and then free time before meeting our local tour guide. I wish I could describe walking across the street in “Old Town.” It’s not like a salmon swimming up stream because the scooters are going in both directions.  Actually Ron and I agree that it is sort of like PAC-MAN only worse. There are no lights or stop signs at the corners.  Everyone is honking which says, “I’m here,” not “get out of my way.”

Carol got hit by a motor scooter.  She did not even fall down but it was quite amusing seeing her keep her balance.  The driver, in perfect English said, “Why did you run?”  To me this said that he was looking out for walkers, but when she picked up speed in just 2 or 3 steps, he could not anticipate her move.  Thus, he nudged her because he could not stop and avoid hitting her. Later we learned ( from our guide) the secret of crossing the street is to take slow steady strides.  Makes perfect sense when you are involved in the picture.  We do try to stay on one side of the street.  Otherwise, when we cross we stay in a huddle and oftentimes hold hands like kindergartners. So far we have survived.

here are some pictures of the traffic. Please add your own “beep beep” every 6-8 seconds.

Our guide took us to the temple of “Confucius” which was interesting for the first 15 minutes. Then he took us to the “Hanoi Hilton” and someone is not quite telling the whole truth.  The messages said the American prisoners were treated very well with good medical care.  Actually the prison was built in the 1890’s by the French to house Vietnamese political prisoners.  It was not a pleasant place to be.  Because of progress in building the city, only about 1/3 of the prison still stands. Our guide did also refer to the fact that the Vietnamese were the victors in the American War.

We were getting hungry, but we made a short stop at the day market before trying some PHO with beef and noodles.  Yummy.  And filling.  And cheap.  Back to the day market.  It was inside a warehouse.  Kind of like wholesale.  I cannot begin to tell you how much STUFF was crammed into that building.  The inventory of the vendors was tremendous.  We did not see too many Caucasian’s so I am thinking, not too many tourists.  However, there could have been a lot of Asian tourists. On the street near our hotel was a vendor with zippers.  How many, probably a million.

Next we went to the water puppet show.  The music was outstanding, the puppet show caused most of us to doze off for a time or two. We then walked back to our hotel because it was Saturday night and there were so many people out, that they close the streets to traffic.  It was another amazing experience.

There are 9 million people in Hanoi, and 95 million in Vietnam. Approximately 1,500 people die each year, and 4,000 babies are born.  It is hard for me to believe that death ratio, but that is what our guide told us.

Here are a couple of more pictures.  The first one is our meal, the second is a woman pushing her goods down the street. The last one is Sandra, Carol, and me sitting on a child’s plastic chair enjoying our smoothies at a street vendor next door to our hotel.

We were happy to drink delicious and freshly peeled fruit smoothies in a plastic cup, because we saw how the really cute ice cream dishes were washed.  Not sterilized at all.

Sunday we take a ride out into the country and visit HaLong Bay.

Everyone is keeping up.  I hope you are too.

It is really Sunday September 30; but I want to back up to Friday.

Friday was a travel day for us.  Our morning was free, with 2 rooms checking out at noon and two at 2:00 pm and our driver picking us up at 2:45 pm to catch our 5:30 flight (2 hours) to Hanoi.

This tour is designed so 8 different personalities don’t have to spend every waking minute together, and it worked this morning.  Some shopped, some walked for seemingly miles, some rested, and some nursed the beginnings of a cold.

Fast forward to arrival in Hanoi! Hanoi means land surrounded with water. Our transportation met us at the airport as scheduled.  Then we probably traveled 40 minutes through the countryside. As we got closer to our accommodations for the night, we tried to make light of the surroundings, but they were fairly gloomy. Have you ever made advanced hotel reservations and been concerned that they were going to be as expected or at least adequate? If so you know my worst fear about being in the tour business. Is the hotel going to be okay? Tonight, in the dark, all of us were experiencing that feeling.  As we approached “Old Town” there were hundreds, no thousands of motor scooters sharing the road with just a few cars, and I might add, they were all honking their horns.  Therefore, none of our pictures will show the whole scene because there is no audio.

We. finally arrived at the Hotel Luxury and were most pleasantly surprised.  The lobby was bright and very clean, and the rooms were just as nice.  However, the sidewalks were filled with parked motor scooters and Vietnamese people sitting on plastic children’s chairs, eating, drinking, and just enjoying their friendships.  We thought it quite strange, but the longer we are here, the more we find it quite acceptable.

I have a speech that I give on “how travel is good for your health.” One of the reasons, is that you become more aware,  which translates into more  tolerate of other people’s culture.  Being more tolerate of other cultures, makes you relax around them, and relaxation is very good for your health.  We see this trait working in just a few days and right before our eyes.

On this trip we are having a hard time staying past 9 pm before we fall asleep in just a few seconds after our heads hit the pillow.  Then we usually get up earlier than at home.

I hope you are enjoying our trip.  I am sorry I cannot see where anyone is making posts.  When we get to Europe, I might be able to get in touch of Word Press and find out why.

I’ll write something later

Our day was a little shorter today because we chose to make it shorter.

With 7 million people, you can imagine there needs to be lots of shops.  But, this is ridiculous.  Many of the shops are extremely high end.  Our guide said the men like to show off their successes with Rolex watches, and other expensive things, ending with Prada shoes. There must be at least one shop per person.  We decided to get off in a shopping district and walk the streets for an hour.  On one side seemed to be all ladies make-up shops and on the other side was all telephone shops.  So that was not too interesting.  The Hong Kong people love to shop.

Remember about 10 days ago there was a Typhoon that hit Hong Kong?  Well here are two pictures to see some of the devastation.

We found a great photo op and took lots of pictures.  Below are a few.

We even saw a local Bride And Groom at the ice cream food truck. 

Here is the whole group of us standing along Victoria Bay in Hong Kong harbor. And, another in front of our Big Bus Tours bus. It has been overcast and very humid since we arrived in Hong Kong. Again we enjoyed the day. Maria and Gerald, Cathy and Robbin And Sandra are still out seeing a light show on the harbor. Me, I have been trying to make this post but I keep falling asleep, so so-long for tonight.  Tomorrow we have the morning free and late afternoon, we fly to Hanoi.  Thanks for tagging along with me!

 

 

 

 

Hong Kong is big with 7+ million people. We did not have much problems getting around this morning, but this afternoon was a different story.

The hop on hop off tour was an excellent idea.  We all hung together all day and  saw lots of sights.  During my first hop on, I sat with a man from Thailand. I could not believe he was 65 years old so I got his picture. He studied in Nashville and got his Doctorate in Illinois.  He still teaches part time.  He was with his wife, 55 years old and his son 25 years old.  It is really difficult to guess someone’s age from a different nationality.  Don’t you think?

 

Our bus tour included a sanpan boat ride in the bay.  You cannot imagine how many people live on dilapadate boats and then turn the corner to see beautiful multi million dollar yachts.  It was quite a contrast, with extremes just feet from one another

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Then we took a tram to the top of the summit.  This tram ride has been around  since 1888. Prior to that 2 men carried the people on a chair.  It is amazing because the grade to get to the top is 14%.  And I think it is 400 meters up.  However, the view was beautiful.  Too bad it was so overcast.

Below is the Hong Kong flower.  This one was presented to the people when they gained their independence from Great Britain in 1997, over 150 years  as a British colony.

 

Below is an above ground cemetery.   You may have to enlarge the photo to see the grave sights. We did encounter quite a bit of rain for an hour or so.  All in all it was a wonderful day in a never-before visited country.  Thanks for sharing our day.

WOW!   15 hours in a seriously long time to live in an airplane seat.  Luck of the draw, we had bulkhead seats. Carol, Gerard, and Maria each had 3 seats to spread out prone.  I have a feeling Maria and Gerard are out and about while the rest of us are in our rooms shortly after arrival.

Our flight was uneventful with extremely smooth flying. Thank you for praying for us.  We did get an education and we found out why it was a 15 hour flight.  See the picture below.  We traveled north via Canada and through the Arctic Bay so I assume we were at the Artic Circle, then through Russia and China, finally landing in Hong Kong.

We plan to Hit The Bricks at 9:00 am tomorrow with a hop on hop off tour.

thanks for coming along

who is going

 

GERARD AND MARIA

 

RON AND SUE

 

ROBBIN AND CATHY

 

  CAROL AND SANDRA

So far it has been delays for both flights but not for very long.  Everyone seems to be visiting with each other and that is GREAT.  When we arrive in Hong Kong  at 9 pm on Tuesday, we are thinking it will be 9:00 am Tuesday morning in Detroit.  We met at the airport this morning at 9:00 am.  That’s on the go for 24 hours.  We are going to be tired puppies and ready for a nice clean and warm bed.  Look for us again on Wednesday.

 

You can see we are doing our last minute preparation for our ATW (around the world) trip, by taking out our garden.   Actually if you will bear with me, this is a new blog and I am pretty much  technologically challenged. Therefore, I need to practice before I get in the thick of things.   We depart on Monday. Just 2 days from now.  All our preparations are complete, just put a few more things in the bag and head off to the airport.

It is just 4 days before Ron and I begin our “Circumnavigating the Globe” tour with 6 other friends.  We will begin in Detroit and go to Chicago to change planes and head on out to Hong Kong for a few days.  Then we will go to Hanoi, VietNam also for a few days.  Actually, we will be spending a few days at each of our stops.  Next stop is New Delhi, India to see the Taj Mahal.  Next to Dubai to see one of the most progressive cities in the world.  Six people are planning to go to the top of the tallest building in the world.  Not me!  I am staying on land.  Then we travel to Muscat, Oman and stay at the Shangri La hotel for an exquisite stay on the Gulf of Oman.  It is a very beautiful and luxurious (and expensive) hotel.  Only 2 nights there for resting.  Then we fly to Athens, next on the route is Budapest via train, with a brief stop in Bratislava, Slovakia and a boat ride to Vienna all on the same day.  After that we fly to Berlin and then on to Reykjavik, Iceland, which is our last stop before heading home.  It is a 30 day tour.  I will try to update you each day on what is happening.  Thanks for coming along.