How Exactly Did We Decide To Visit Vietnam?

It should be no surprise that our latest travel adventure was another Gate1 Tour.  They remain our trusted go-to tour company, particularly for places we would never visit on our own.  In this case, we often look through the various tours and keep a running mental inventory of what interests us.  For Asia, we still have Japan and Vietnam on the list, the latter being there primarily because of the associated sense of mystery.  The timing and location of this trip, however, had an added element.  Long story, but I transferred a slew of frequent flier miles to ANA (Japanese) airlines a couple of years ago.   They were originally to be used to book an award ticket for our travel to Patagonia.  After booking those flights, however, we ended up finding much better routing and pricing elsewhere, so I canceled those original tickets and banked the miles with ANA.  In the middle of 2024, I received notice that these miles would in fact expire in March 2025 if not used.  I could find no way to extend their life, so I set out to find a way to use a not insignificant number of award miles.  The natural first option seemed Japan, as ANA flies nonstop from DC to Tokyo.  Alas, I would learn that using ANA miles for business class seats is next to impossible.  Much better availability existed to book flights on ANA partner airlines, just not on actual ANA flights.  We first looked at using them to get to Namibia, which is on my bucket list.  We wish to visit with our friends the Rieckhoffs, and the dates/tour did not work out for them, so we were back to square one, and that was when we revectored on Vietnam.  I did eventually locate business class seats on Turkish Airlines for at least the return part of our trip, and I was able (after a lot of frustrating calls to the ANA ticket agency) to book those seats and "save" the miles.  With our return set, I found an excellent deal on tickets on Qatar Airways to get us to Vietnam, using credit card points.  That all set, we elected to travel in February, as it is noted as a good time to visit Vietnam (near the end of the dry season, and before the extreme heat), and the our miles we good through the end of the month.

This trip was on the books months before I even thought I'd be in a new job.  On top of that, I could never have anticipated how awful the change in presidential administrations would be, and how work would be absolutely insane.  That is all to say that is was horrendous timing to be away from work, but I couldn't cite "presidential incompetence" as a reason to exercise our trip cancellation insurance.  I had to get over the guilt of going, and being away for almost two weeks, but I saw no alternative.  This is all to lay the groundwork that both of us were not overtly thrilled as we headed to the airport on a Saturday evening.  It did not help that we had warnings of an ice storm for that very afternoon/evening.  The airport was eerily quiet, which we didn't mind, but it was obvious that we were leaving following the normal afternoon crunch of flights to Europe.  We waited in the Turkish Airlines lounge.  We had some food and soon realized we had people at either table around us who were actively sick.  Both were sniffling away and I got skived out, so we moved.  In hindsight, as we both got sick during this trip, I'm still not sure if it was truly all from exposure in Vietnam, or if maybe this was our "patient zero" experience, before we even left the United States.

We had what are marketed as "honeymoon seats" on our Qatar Airways flight to Doha.  Two seat pods in the middle of the aircraft.  Each had a sliding door, and the partition between the seats could be lowered completely, allowing the seats to be made up into a double bed.  It was, by far, the nicest business class I have ever flown, with outstanding service and very good sleeping.  It was a 12-hour flight to Doha, but it went quickly, arriving in the early evening of Sunday.  

In the Doha Airport During Our Layover

You Can Take the Girl out of England, But Can't Take the England Out of the Girl

Overlooking the Huge Indoor Garden in the Doha Airport

We had a shortish layover and visited a gigantic lounge, which was only one of several for Qatar Airways.  The scale was truly over the top.  Our next flight was nonstop to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, and was to depart around 8:00pm.  We did not have honeymoon seats on this final flight, but the seats did become beds and we both got another solid block of sleep.  It was an almost 8-hour flight, and we arrived into Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) early on Monday morning, just in time for the morning rush hour.  

On the Flight to Ho Chi Minh City

Arrival into Smoggy Ho Chi Minh City

I had read that clearing immigration in Vietnam can be particularly time consuming.  We had to get tourist visas to visit, and we knew they were extremely judicious in enforcing that.  When we checked in for our flight at Dulles, the Qatar Airways agent spent an inordinate amount of time scrutinizing the paper visa, and a supervisor had to personally double check before allowing us to check-in.  I guess a lot of folks get turned around when they try to enter Vietnam, and the cost to return those folks falls on the airline.  Knowing this, I had booked an expediter service, which was to "whisk up through arrival formalities."  The expeditor was waiting for us as we deplaned, and he did "whisk" us past a very long and incredibly slow-moving queue of folks waiting to clear immigration.  He brought us over to the diplomatic corps line, which was nonexistent.  After a lot of talking back and forth with an agent, he was told to instead deposit us in the wheelchair line.  I felt guilty, but he assured us it was okay.  This line was very short, but also very slow-moving.  Whenever someone in a wheelchair came up, they were put at the front of the line, which helped assuage my guilt somewhat.  We had to clear immigration separately, and for a while it looked like they were going to send me elsewhere for more screening.  Right after he pointed me to secondary, he called me back, pointed at his computer, said something, and promptly stamped my passport.  The expediter was on the other side and got us to our luggage carousel before melting back into the airport crowds.  

Both of our bags happily arrived and were among the first to come out.  We emerged outdoors to meet our transfer driver, and it was an incredibly pleasant morning.   Warm, in the 70s, with low humidity, which was a nice surprise.  I had expected to emerge into a wall of humidity, as when I arrive in Thailand, but was pleasantly surprised.  Our driver, however, was nowhere to be seen.  I don't think they expected us to clear so quickly, so I had to contact them via WhatsApp.  They responded immediately, and our driver was there a few minutes later. 

I'm not sure what I expected, other than maybe another version of Bangkok, but that was proven wrong.  As soon as we left the airport, we were assaulted by the sheer number of scooters on the roads.  It was a literal sea of scooters everywhere, and the far, far outnumbered the cars, around which they swarmed.  It was almost rhythmic how they ebbed and flowed around our taxi, as he navigated the city streets.  I quickly lost any sense of direction, and I knew that our hotel in "old Saigon" was not overly far from the airport, but it nonetheless took almost 45 minutes, given the volume of traffic and the mishmash of streets and arteries.  It was quickly evident too, especially once we were driving alongside the Saigon River, that Vietnam has a serious problem with trash.  Litter was prevalent, and the river looked almost half frozen, given the volume of flotsam and detritus in the water.  I tried to look beyond it, but the image remains.

On Our Drive to the Hotel

Our hotel was quite nice, and well located in what is called old Saigon.  We quickly learned, too, that while Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) became the official name of what had been Saigon in 1976 -- when the communists prevailed and "unified" north and south -- locals use both city names interchangeably.  There seemed no stigma to using either name, and HCMC is certainly a lot to write out every time.  I will admit, too, that I had expected Vietnamese to have their own script, similar to Thai, Cambodian, or Chinese, but while they had used Mandarin script in the past, under French occupation, they adopted Western characters, so all of the signs were written in readable Vietnamese.  That did mean, however, that unlike in those other Asian countries, English was not on most signage.  That was at times challenging, but I found it all rather interesting.

We arrived at the hotel around 8:30am, and our room was not yet ready.  Our actual tour did not begin until the following morning, and while we had this first day to acclimate, we also did not want to "lose" the time.  Knowing what we'd be seeing of Saigon in our tour, I had booked a "cyclo tour" of "hidden Ho Chi Minh City" for the late morning.  We were to be picked up at 11:00am, so we settled into the hotel lobby and waited.  Our room ended up being ready in less than an hour, so we had time to unpack and freshen up, being careful to avoid the desire to crawl into bed.

If You're To Meet in Saigon, You'll Find Them in Ho Chi Minh City

On Our "Cyclos"

As soon as we arrived back in the hotel lobby around 10:55, our guide was waiting for us.  He was a college-aged student with very good English, who walked us outside to find two bicycle rikshaws (or cyclos) waiting for us, each with an admittedly very old looking driver.  Our guide explained that he would travel ahead of us on scooter, waiting for us to arrive by cyclo.  During our drive from the airport, we'd witnessed the morass of scooter traffic from inside a car; now we were, however, plucked smack down into that chaos, but in an open rikshaw.  It was quite the experience.  We realized quickly, too, that we should have worn masks, as the pollution from all the scooters was extremely evident.  In fact, everyone on scooters was wearing masks.  Literally, everyone.  We chalked it up to a rookie mistake and instead tried to enjoy the slow ride amongst the traffic, until our first stop, which was a local food and flower market.  Our guide was waiting and walked us through a series of winding alleys comprising several successive types of local markets, the highlight of which was the flower market.  We were, quite literally and very noticably, the only Westerners to be seen.  While I did not expect anti-American sentiment to linger too much, I was still not quite sure how welcome we'd feel.  To my delight we did not engender much interest at all.  I might have expected sellers to swarm us, as obvious foreigners, and try to hock their wares, but quite the opposite happened.  We were all but ignored, and when we did interact with anyone, they were extremely pleasant and helpful.  

Must Be Good Food; All the "Grab" (Vietnamese Uber) Drivers Were Lined Up

Dragon Fruit (White with Poppy-Seed Like Seeds When Cut)

Before we reboarded the cyclos, our guide took us to get fresh-pressed sugarcane juice.  A man used a hand-cranked press to run stalks of sugarcane through to get juice, which he mixed with ice.  We were wary, however, of the water used to make the ice, so we both took a few sips but did not finish, not wanting to take the risk of gastric distress, so to speak.  We were then off again, this time heading further north, to a huge indoor wholesale market.  It was housed in a colonial French building, which was quite lovely, and it was absolutely stuffed full of stalls selling every conceivable item.  Again, it is not a tourist destination, so we again were quite unique among the clientele.  They also sell everything in bulk, so while they had -- for example -- counterfeit Guicci bags, you would have to buy 50 and not one.  The sheer variety of items, and scale of the operation, was fascinating, and I particularly enjoyed this stop.

Fresh Sugar Cane About To Be Pressed

View From the Cyclo

Our final stop was to be a Chinese shrine, in the area of Saigon still known as China Town.  Our guide was again waiting for us when we pulled up in our cyclos.  He told us a lot, but I'm sure it was only the surface, about the history of the Chinese in Vietnam.  They have always been a large minority among the population, and they used a common alphabet for centuries, as well as shared religions, etc. Buddhism remains the overall dominant religion, with Christianity in a distant second place and indicative of French missionary work during their occupation days.  This was the Ba Thien Hau Temple, which was dedicated to the Chinese goddess of the sea, and was popular among the significant Chinese population which plied the seacoast, shipping items to and from China in the late 20th Century.  The temple was over 200 years old, and had more incense than one could possibly imagine.

Ba Thien Hau Temple

Papa Ho Was Always Watching

It was interesting to see, but again we were the only tourists, and everyone else was there praying and lighting huge ornate hanging chandeliers constructed of incense, which would burn slowly for days on end.  While there, we sat in an antechamber and our guide told us about our cyclo drivers. He described them as homeless men, but that was a misinterpretation.  In fact, we saw no obviously unhoused people at any time on our trip.  I'd like to chaulk that up to communism and their socialist state, but at no point did we hear anything to indicate that the Vietnamese Government has anywhere near the budget coffers needed to truly provide across the board for the population.  More about that later, but I also should have mentioned that I had fully expected to see no signs of communism, thinking that Vietnam was communist in name only.  That may be the case for economics, but I was struck throughout the trip at the number of flags flying everywhere in the cities and tiny villages.  They invariably were hung in pairs, or when they were lined up, it was always the red flag with the yellow star (the official flag of Vietnam, with the red symbolizing the "blood shed for our independence," and the yellow star reflecting the complexion of the Vietnamese people), and paired with a red flag with the Soviet hammer and sickle.  I guess Vietnam and North Korea are the only countries still flying the hammer and sickle, and it was a bit jarring to see so often.  Lots of propaganda posters, too, all over the place, with many of them showing the trifecta of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Ho Chi Minh.  I digress.  Back to our cyclo drivers.  As our guide spoke, we realized they were in fact men without families.  Vietnamese tradition is to honor your elders, and children are expected to house and take care of their parents until they die, with the typical household having three generations under one roof.  These men had no families to take care of them, so they lived in communal homes and were forced to work well into their old age, usually any meanial jobs, to sustain themselves.  While of course we already planned to tip all of these men, our generosity grew after hearing this story.

We were back at our hotel in the mid-afternoon, and while we certainly enjoyed the trip, the assualt on our senses from all of the people and traffic was a bit much.  We retreated to our nice and quiet room to detox and regroup, while also resisting the urge to sleep.  We elected to go out and get a massage, as we had seen countless massage, nail, and beauty parlors on literally every street.  Relying on TripAdvisor for ratings, we found one only a few doors from our hotel.  We were the only customers and were treated like royalty.  Foot baths and tea while they prepared for the massages, which we received upstairs on tables next to one another in an area for couples.  The massages were 90 minutes, and both of us admittedly dozed at various times during the very relaxing procedure.  We finished off with tea and cookies at reception.  The fact that each massage cost less than $20 solidified our pledge to get massages as often as possible during the trip. While making the short walk back to the hotel, we saw a nail salon.  K wanted to get a pedicure.  As soon as we showed interest, a woman came out and ushered us in with broken English.  We both ended up getting manicures and pedicures.  The woman had been alone, but she got on the phone and called a friend working as a nearby shop, who appeared within minutes.  The combined manicure/pedicures were less than $10 each, so again we felt the money and time were well spent.

Preamble to the Massage

Two items I should have mentioned.  I had withdrawn Vietnamese Dong (their currency) from an ATM at the airport when we arrived. The exchange rate is a rather astonishing 25,000 dong per dollar, so we were forever referring to little cards or our phones to figure our prices.  To hear a mani/pedi costs 250,000 dong sounds daunting, until you realize it's only $10.  The other basic fact about Vietnam I failed to mention is the insanity of trying to cross the street.  Yes, there are painted crosswalks all over the place, and there are in fact also crossing signals for pedestrians.  They are all purely for show, as traffic simply does not stop.  Even when there are red lights, scooters which should stop instead slowly merge into traffic, as if the light didn't exist.  So, if you tried to wait until there was a break to cross the street, you would simply NEVER be able to cross.  Our Gate1 guide gave us lessons beginning the next day, when we first met him, but it involves simply stepping into traffic and proceeding slowly, while NEVER stopping or turning back.  The oncoming traffic will "simply" serve around you like water around a submerged rock.  If you look left or right while crossing, most folks will freeze, so the trick was to look straight ahead across the road and to, as our guide said, "have faith that the Buddha will see you across."  This came to mind, as getting our massage required our first official street crossing on our own, and it was rather harrowing.

Our Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City

We were both dragging back at the hotel, but we'd made it through the day.  Rather than go out to eat, we instead elected to eat in the hotel and call it an early evening.  There were prominent "buy one, get one free" signs in the lobby for happy hour, so we availed ourselves to two margaritas (a drink we would have often during this trip), followed by dinner in the lounge.  Our stomachs weren't sure what time it was, but we ate.  We were in bed and asleep by 8:00pm, which was almost exactly 36 hours since we left Washington two days prior.

 

Introductions and Indoctrinations

This was our first official tour day.  We received a welcome letter from our guide the day prior, but had yet to actually meet him.  We both slept, waking at different times of the night, but given how early we went to bed, we both had at least eight hours of sleep, if not consecutive.  At breakfast in the hotel we saw that almost everyone there had a Gate1 lanyard on, except for us.  There were more people than would normally be on one tour, which also intrigued us.  We soon learned that Gate1 runs this particular tour six days a week, so there were in fact multiple tours staying at this hotel, each at a different point of their itinerary. 

This first morning was actually an optional tour.  In most of our other Gate1 trips, we would have an orientiation meeting on the night of the arrival day, where we'd introduce ourselves and learn about the upcoming trip.  Our welcome dinner was actually not scheduled until this evening, with an optional tour in the morning to the Cu Chi tunnels.  For the afternoon, we were to have a full-group city tour, followed by the formal welcome meeting and dinner.  So, when we boarded our large tour bus this morning, it was only about half way filled, and we had yet to meet anyone.  We had a quick introduction to our guide -- Tony Nguyen -- in the lobby earlier that morning, but that was it.  On the bus, we realized that a lot of folks knew each other.  Only then did we learn that we were in fact joining a tour already in progress.  We had booked the 12-day "Classic Vietnam."  There is a separate 15-day "Cambodia and Vietnam" tour, which began in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.  We learned that 26 people booked the longer tour, and they had in fact flown in from Cambodia the night before.  In HCMC, 10 of us were joining the group, to make our complete complement of 36 people.  That meant this would be the largest Gate1 group we'd ever had, with 36 being the max.  Most of the people on the optional tour were from the original contingent, so we slowly integrated ourselves into the mix.  Among the group was a group of six couples, five of which knew each other from South Bend, Indiana, and who had traveled the world together.  The sixth was a couple from Alaska -- of all places -- who had met the Indiana contingent on a different tour and was joining them.  There were a couple of other "couples of couples" traveling together, along with a couple of trios, so there was built-in familiarity across the board.  The size of our tour, and the fact that they ran this particular tour six times weekly, along with several other Vietnam tours, spoke to the popularity of the destination.

We were driving to the Cu Chi tunnels, which is an underground complex at the end of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.  These underground bunkers and tunnels were the Viet Cong's central operating base during the Tet Offensive in 1968.  Oh...total nonsequitur, but we arrived in Vietnam at the end of Lunar New Year, or "Tet," so we saw symbols of the festivities everywhere we went.  This Tet ushered in the Year of the Snake, so almost all the signs and statues features large snakes prominently.  As I said, I digressed.  

Happy Tet (New Year)!  Year of the Snake

We were the first bus to arrive at the very modern looking visitor complex for Cu Chi.  Our guide assured us that crowds would soon descend, as it is an extremely popular sight, for both foreigners and more-so Vietnamese.  We'd been told, too, to wear bug repellent, which actually came to be a daily refrain, whenever we were near water.  That said, we never really saw mosquitoes during the trip and I can't recall receiving any bites.  We were required to have a local guide bring us through the complex of buildings and underground structures during the visit, but our Gate1 guide, Tony, did all the translating.  As I said, this was an optional tour, and I'm sure it is because of the sensitivities of the war.  I have no evidence, but I am certain that the local guide was spewing an extreme Vietnamese version of history, and that Tony was tempering as best he could when he translated.  Nonetheless, the stories of how the tunnels were built and used, particularly to ambush and attack American soldiers was all presented very clinically.  We even walked through a large thatch-cover building which had about 20 different forms of boobie trap displayed, and our local guide eerily used large sticks to activate each trap, and to show us how it would injure the U.S. soldier.  Up until now, I had stupidly not conceived that there might be U.S. veterans among our group.  As we progressed, I got to talking with one of the men from Indiana, and it was obvious that he was upset.  He talked about how the boobie traps were specifically designed to injure but not kill, as invariably the U.S. military would send in troops to rescue the injured soldier, giving the Viet Cong opportunity to ambush and kill larger numbers of Americans.  It came out that he was in fact a Vietnam combat veteran and that this was his first visit back since his deployment.  During the course of the trip we learned that his wife encouraged him to visit for decades, but he always refused, and it was only when their group of traveling friends booked this trip, that she was able to convince him to visit.  He was not happy, and at various points during the trip he was visibly upset.  To his credit, he kept it to himself, and never confronted our tour guide.  Tony, for his part, did a very deft job in addressing the history of the "American War," and I'm sure they have all been given training in how to handle the delicate situations.  This reflected, too, in that most of the war-related sights were offered as part of optional tours, or not at all, such as the infamous Hanoi Hilton prison, which K and I visited on our own at the end of the tour.  Stay tuned.

The Cu Chi Tunnel Complex

One of the Boobie Traps

A Hidden Entrance/Exit to the Tunnels

An Assortment of Boobie Traps All Under One Roof

As we progressed through the tour and jungle, we kept hearing gunfire in the distance, but it was getting closer.  At first I thought it was piped-in sound effects, but at the half-way point, we hit a firing range, where visitors could pay $100 to fire vintage Vietnamese machine guns from the war period.  I found this, frankly, obsence, and the price indicated that the audience was most certainly foreign tourists, as no Vietnamese could afford such prices.  While no one from our group took part, I was dismayed to a small but steady line of customers.

Near the end of the Cu Chi visit, we had the opportunity to go down into one of the tunnels, and to go about 100 meters, and emerge in the forest.  I elected to go, and was told the tunnel had been widened to accommodate Americans.  That said, the tunnel was so narrow, claustrophobic, and hot, I could not imagine how the Viet Cong literally ran through them, or worst yet, how they survived for weeks on end underground during sustained American bombing.  I would have turned around and gone back if I'd been able, but it was impossible.

Entrance to the Tunnel

The large gift shop we visited upon exiting seemed in extremely poor taste, but at least it was predominantly stocked with non-war related souvenirs.  As we boarded the bus to leave, we saw that Tony was not exaggerating in saying that more buses would arrive.  The parking lot was completely full, with several coaches double parked.  We were glad to have had the place almost entirely to ourselves.  

During this first morning, we got a sense of what kind of guide Tony would be.  He was 39, but looked all of 18; lived in a three-generation home with his mother, wife, and young daughter near Hanoi.  His English was good, but as we saw throughout our trip, the Vietnamese accent is heavy.  He learned English in university, and he was the first person from his village to attend college.  Many words he pronounced had a distinct Australian slang to them, which was indicative that we came across scores of Australian visitors during our visit.  He laid the groundwork with much basic information about Vietnam and its history, and built upon it during week.  He was very good.  It was this morning that I was amazed to learn that Vietnam has a population of 100 million people.  That shocked me.  I knew it was the size of California, but I never expected that many people.  Ironically, there are 92 million scooters in the country, which I could believe, after seeing the never-ending stream of scooters whenever and wherever we went.  He also gave us a primer on Vietnamese cuisine, and on his recommendation we went to "Mamo Pho" restaurant once back at the hotel, for a lunchtime meal of the namesake dish.  On this first morning, Tony presented us with a bound book of our trip, which included all of the daily schedules and tips/recommendations for each city we would visit.  This included recommended restaurants, and he encouraged us to stick to these, as he could attest to their hygiene.  We learned that several members of the tour which began in Cambodia had already come down with stomach troubles, so we were eager to not suffer the same fate.  Well, I can happily report that Mamo Pho was excellent, and we both really enjoyed our first -- but not last -- taste of Pho during the trip.  It was finally confirmed to me that Pho is pronounced "FA."

Most Women Riding Scooters Would Cover Themselves Completely, To Avoid Sun Exposure

At around 2:00pm our entire tour group convened in the lobby for a three-hour tour of HCMC.  This was when we first laid eyes on our entire group.  About 80 percent of the group were older than us, but everyone was well traveled.  We did fill up the bus, and as usual for Gate1, we had assigned seats, which rotated each day.

Navigating the streets in a car was challenging enough, but a full-size tour bus was almost too much.  As I'd almost become accustomed to, though, the scooters simply made their way around the bus, as our driver snaked his way forward.  We did a general overview drive, to get our bearings, and then went to the colonial heart of the city for a walking tour, which actually meant that we were traveling faster than on the bus.  We saw the standard sights, including their Notre Dame Cathedral and a slew of colonial era French-designed buildings which gave this part of town a somewhat European feel.  In multiple cities we would visit on this trip, we saw buildings and bridges designed by Gustave Eiffel (of Tower fame), as well as his father, Francois.  We saw the famous rooftop from which the final helicopter evacuations by U.S. Marines took place in 1975, when North Vietnamese troops overran Saigon.  I had always thought this was the roof of the former U.S. Embassy, but it was not.  It was simply the tallest building in the city at the time, and it is today a bar and tourist spot.  Also in poor taste, in my opinion.

Lots of Propoganda Posters Around -- No Idea What They're Promoting, Though

Eiffel-designed Central Post Office

Notre Dame Cathedral, Under Renovation

Inside the Central Post Office

Roof-top From Where Final Evacuees Were Flown by Helicopter As Saigon Was Overrun

Opera House

The walking tour ended at Ho Chi Minh Square, which features a large statue of the communist leader.  Ironically, both sides of the park are lined by shopping arcades with the likes of Gucci, Hermes, and Cartier.  It was quite the juxtaposition.

Ho Chi Minh Square

Expensive Western Retailers Line the Square

Back at the hotel, we had some time to freshen up ahead of our orientation meeting and welcome dinner.  K rested and I visited the hotel's gym, hoping to keep up some semblance of fitness routine during the trip.  I did so with mixed results, partly because of time and partly due to the lacking facilities.

We finally got to formally meet everyone during the orientation, and unlike our last trip to Italy, this group comprised seasoned travelers, which I think makes for a better group.  Dinner was a short walk away, and a rather funky restaurant.  It featured a variety of Vietnamese dishes served family style at tables of four or six.  We sat with a couple -- part of the South Bend contingent, but who moved to Scotsdale, Arizona last year -- with whom we cliqued and ate many meals together during the trip.  They were very interesting folks and we enjoyed their company immensely.

Lobby of Our Hotel

Even though we had slept during our flights and had a full day to acclimate, we were nonetheless more than ready for bed when we slowly walked back to the hotel around 9:00pm.