After a long wait and the very kind help of the restaurant owner in Cai Be, we were finally picked up at 2:30pm and driven back to Ho Chi Minh City. With the return journey being on the same bumpy roads, we both stayed awake and watched Vietnamese daily life pass us by on the two-hour journey. I find it strange that there is so much contrast in aspects of the people’s lives here. They take so much care and attention in the preparation and presentation of their beautiful food, it is second to none. The silk clothing they make is stunning. The school children always look so smart. The women look exquisite, even in the simplest white ao dai and conical hat. Their temples, of all faiths, are painted and decorated so brightly. And even the cockerels are so superbly presented and cared for. Yet the streets are an absolute mess, the pavements are so difficult to walk on without tripping, slipping or falling, it has to be an older person’s nightmare. Electrical wiring is absolutely shocking and it seems like once a building is completed, it is never cared for, or looked after. The contrast is really quite alarming.
Back at Rick and Lans’, while Rodney caught up with the world’s news, I spent time reading with Carmen and whipping up more origami boxes and cranes. Go Chin cooked up a storm again and we played pass the parcelled-chocolate-in-an-origami- boat for dessert, a bit long winded, but a lot of laughs. On Thursday morning, we all piled into the car for the trip to Rick and Lans’ offices. While the workers worked hard all day, we two retirees tottered around the streets of Ho Chi Minh City for hours. The Independence Palace was definitely worth a visit. This is where a tank of the Liberation Army crashed through the main gate on 30 April 1975 and put oysters on the flag, sorry, hoisted the flag of the Republic of Vietnam, ending the thirty year war. It is now a wonderfully airy place that somehow seems stuck in the sixties, architecturally. We spent quite a while there and then met Rick and Lan for a quiche lunch.
Rodney and I then wandered round to the War Remnants Museum, which I’ll admit to being, justifiably, a little wary of visiting. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay in there and had to leave Rodney to continue the tour on his own. I wrote the next paragraphs while sitting, in tears, in the foyer:
There is nothing in this building that I can bring myself to look at. Every picture, every gun, every description reduces me to tears. I look at all the people, all nationalities, shuffling past and staring at each exhibit. I don’t understand at all why they want to look at it all. Nobody else seems to be crying, though one old Asian couple sitting silently near to me, seem to be seriously contemplating the awfulness of what is on display here. I hope it is not reminding them of something they have experienced.
I don’t want to be here, it is as if the yin and the yang of this building are completely out of sync. Do these displays prevent human beings from future evil and war mongering? I can only hope so. I feel like I’ve just watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’ again, a movie that I hated. Do people really need to be reminded of how dreadful wars are? Are they really so stupid that they can’t imagine how horrific it is? The only people that need to be in a place like this are all the international warlords currently engaged in such atrocities around the world. The heat and the sweat inducing humidity is making my body feel ill and now my heart feels like it is badly hurt by all the horror and sadness in this place.
We have already stayed with Lan for four nights and we haven’t asked after her family, so why did we visit this museum? Are we scared or embarrassed to find out what her family went through? Lan has been more than generous to us, yet we live in a country that sent troops here to kill her people. I feel we owe her far more than everything she has done for us. Incongruously, our next stop is a massage spa, another gift from Lan; I’m not sure I will be able to relax this time.
A tiny Vietnamese child just ran from his father and sat on the seat next to me. He made me smile broadly and I wiped away my tears with a scrap of bright pink crepe toilet paper.
At 7pm Vinh drove the four of us back to the house for a delicious yellow curry and a large origami order from school, allegedly including one request from the teacher….
With sleepyhead Carmen, we had croissants and water melon for breakfast the next morning and then we were off again. A lift to Rick’s office, a taxi to the bus booking office, no terminal, just the usual chaos that always seems to work and then a big orange bus finally drove us south at 8am. At 10:30am we had a ten-minute break to buy cashew nuts and chocolate chip cookies to supplement our cheese & onion Pringles. After that, the city finally gave way to plantations of trees and the motorbikes seemed to fade to only a few here and there. It was also a relief to finally see a few bumps in the landscape as everything had been so flat up till now. It didn’t last long; we were soon back crawling through the traffic in numerous towns. Having already indulged in our gourmet snacks, when we had an unexpected lunch stop at 12:30, we weren’t really hungry, so we just had an ice cream in the huge open-air restaurant.
We finally arrived in Mui Ne just after 2pm and surprisingly got dropped right outside the hotel that we had booked; the one with the longest driveway! We checked in to the spacious room and then went for a stroll along part of the 13 km long beach……. a small part of it. We then roamed back along the main road that runs parallel to the beach, ducking in to the occasional shop and checking out the local tours on offer. At 7:30pm after a refreshing shower and a bit of necessary hand washing, we strolled up the road to an Italian restaurant called ‘Good Morning Vietnam’
