Diane had told me stories about taking her
sister on a vacation trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. I had not been there or in the three most
northeastern states in the United States (Vermont, New Hampshire and
Maine). Therefore, I planned a trip to
rectify that starting with a visit to Acadia National Park in Maine before traveling
south to visit friends and family. I planned
our departure for mid-May 2013 so that it would be after the scheduled reopening
of the park for the summer season on May 1st.
We flew to Bangor, Maine, rented a car and
drove to Bar Harbor, the town near the park.
We had reservations at what turned out to be a lovely Bed and Breakfast
within easy walking distance of the town and harbor. Unfortunately, Washington, DC was having a
budget fight that froze the funding for the National Parks at previous levels. That resulted in a month’s delay for the
official opening of the park. Although
we could still enter, park service staff and programs would not be available. We only found this out when we drove up to
the Visitor Center. We went into the
park and hiked around some, and then came back to town for lunch.
No park rangers at the Visitor Center
We spent two hours in the afternoon on the
Lulu Lobster Boat Ride. We sat in a
traditional lobster boat while the captain took us out into the bay. We enjoyed the sights which included a
lighthouse, seals, bald eagles and other wildlife. The captain gave a demonstration of how to set
and haul up a lobster trap. He described
all the parts of the trap and how the lobsters (and many other sea creatures)
find their way inside to the bait. He
showed us the anatomy of the Maine lobster including the difference between
males and females. He explained their
life cycle and the regulations which describe the minimum size that trapped lobsters
have to meet or be released. That
evening, and every day we were in Bar Harbor, we ate lobster for dinner,
correctly identifying the sex of the lobsters we were served. How did we know we were correct? Inside a female lobster, we found the red
balls which are cooked immature eggs called roe (uncooked are naturally black).
Lighthouse
Seals and bald eagles
Captain and traps
Birds and bees for lobsters
We were glad we went out on the boat earlier
because the next two days were cloudy and rainy. We drove to the College of the Atlantic where
the George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History is located. It featured dioramas of coastal Maine
wildlife. Outside the museum we saw
sculptures of moose and the actual skull of a Finback Whale (which is only
second in size to the blue whale). We
took a walk along the Shore Path that follows the edge of the ocean from the
municipal pier through residential areas and then loops back. We only walked along the shore part. There were informational signs labeled “The
Museum in the Streets” along the way.
Me and skull of a Finback Whale
Me walking on the shore path
The next morning, we were happy to find out
that we could meet and take a National Park Service bus driven by a former
employee. With the unexpected closure of
the park services, he had volunteered to drive the bus through the park and provide
commentary. He stopped at the only place
to eat in the park, the Jordan House Restaurant, where we had popovers and
jam. As the bus continued along the way,
there were beaver homes and, despite the fog, the views of the mountains and
the ocean were outstanding.
Beaver home
Diane in Acadia
Diane
and I then drove across the island to Bass Harbor where we explored the harbor
and found a restaurant for a good bowl of seafood chowder. We visited the Bass Harbor Head Light
Station. Diane was very happy to be able
to indulge in her favorite pastime of visiting lighthouses, and this was only
the first of many we would visit on our trip.
It was a historic and picturesque structure equipped with a Fresnel
lens. The lighthouse itself was now a
private residence for a local Coast Guard member and his family.
Bass Harbor Light Station
We enjoyed our stay in Bar Harbor,
particularly the fresh lobster. We left
Mount Desert Island and drove down the coastal highway to see the Rockland Breakwater Lighthouse. It is a historic lighthouse complex at the
end of the Rockland Breakwater in the harbor of Rockland, Maine. We didn’t take the time to walk out the
breakwater.
Rockland
Breakwater Lighthouse
When we stopped in the town of Farnsworth,
we discovered their Art Museum. It
focused on American art from the 18th century to the present, with a special
emphasis on artists who had lived or worked in Maine, making much of their
artwork very scenic. Of particular
interest to us was the exhibit they were just setting up: “N.C. Wyeth: Every
Picture Tells a Story.” The exhibition
was based on the holdings of the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford,
Pennsylvania. It was composed of thirty
paintings that spanned four decades of his work, from early western pictures
through Robert Louis Stevenson classics to later illustrations in experimental
styles. How lucky we were to happen upon
this exhibit.
Our destination in the area had originally
been the Owl’s Head Lighthouse and, after we left
the art museum, we started driving in that direction. Being hungry we stopped at the Owl’s Head
General Store to buy ingredients for a picnic lunch. Once inside we found they had some tables set
up for lunch customers. It was open
seating and we joined a table with two men, one older and one younger. While we waited for our lunch to be brought
to us, we could see a bulletin board that was advertising for a sternman. I asked Diane if she knew what that was and
she didn’t. The young man spoke up and
said that was what he did, assisting the lobsterman who had the license to
bait, set up the traps and bring them into the boat. Then he went on to tell us of the big problem
lobstermen were having hiring sternmen because of the opioid epidemic. He personally had friends and acquaintances
who had died of overdoses. It was a
tragic story. We drove to the lighthouse
and walked partway up the long exterior stairway for a good view of the harbor.
Diane and me at the Owl’s Head Lighthouse
We were probably not going to be back in
this part of the country again.
Therefore, we were making a project of learning the history of these
states by visiting their state capitals.
We proceeded to the capital of Maine in Augusta and entered the Maine
State House. We were surprised by the
current exhibit on Maine’s participation in the Civil War and a plaque that commemorated Maine women veterans. The inside of the dome was beautiful. The
legislature was not in session which allowed us to walk around both the house
and senate chambers. We were surprised
that even though Maine is a smaller and less populated than Missouri, the
number of state representatives and senators is similar. Therefore, the size of the districts must be
much smaller. That means each
representative represents fewer people than they would in Missouri.
Maine State House dome
Plaque commemorating Maine women veterans
In a visit to the Maine State Museum, we
learned that Maine and Missouri were admitted to the Union at the same time as
a result of the Missouri Compromise. This was the first national-level
agreement to keep the United States from breaking apart under the weight of
slavery. The U.S. Congress admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a
slave state simultaneously to maintain an equal number of slave and free states.
The next morning, we enjoyed the lovely
landscapes as we drove through the White Mountains to Montpelier in order to
visit the Vermont State House. It is one of the oldest state capitals and
its House and Senate chambers are the oldest active legislative halls in the
United States that have preserved their original interiors. We toured the building, enjoying the many
pieces of art on display and visited the legislative chambers. It is the only
state legislative body in the United States in which a third-party, such as
Independents and Progressives, has had continuous representation and been
consecutively elected alongside Democrats and Republicans. We learned more about the state after
visiting the New Hampshire History Museum. We were happy to have dinner that
night with Charles, the man who had been on our post-trip to Victoria Falls
earlier in the year.
The Vermont State House
The next day we drove to Concord, New
Hampshire to visit that state’s capital.
After touring the New
Hampshire State House, we visited
the State Historical Society which had an exhibit about early slavery in New
Hampshire.
New Hampshire State House
Enough of history, now we were on the
family part of the trip, first driving south to visit my niece, Joyce. She lived at Stoneymeade Farm in Concord,
Massachusetts where she and her husband managed a horse farm. She specialized in tall horses that could be
shown as jumpers. Her two sons and
daughter had grown a lot since we last saw them. Not only was Joyce showing horses, but her
daughter was starting too as well. They
were going to horse shows most weekends.
Joyce with a client on one of the tall
horses inside her training facility
From Concord, we drove south to East
Stroudsburg, PA where Diane was able to see her sister, brother-in-law and all
their children and grand-children. Driving
further south, we stopped to have lunch with Chao-Min in Lansdale, PA before
continuing to my sister’s house in Princeton, NJ.
Diane’s nephew and two nieces
Since Vince’s death, we stayed at Earlene’s
house when we visited her instead of a motel.
The first day we all went on the train from Princeton Junction to New
York City. Earlene had tickets for Ann
the Play, about the historic Texas Governor, Ann Richards. Since we had previously appreciated the governor’s
acerbic wit, we all enjoyed it very much.
The following day we visited the Princeton campus, and Earlene gave us
her personal docent tour of the Princeton Art Museum. We spent the afternoon at her son Craig’s
home with his wife and three children.
Our two-week vacation came to a close with our flight from Philadelphia
to St. Louis and drive home.
The Princeton University School of Public
and International Affairs Building by Yamasaki
Craig’s three children, Adam, Anna, and
Andrew
We were back in Columbia in time to attend the
six-week summer season of Hot Summer Nights with the Missouri Symphony that
starts in early June. Before opening
night Diane and I were able to spend time with the violinist we sponsored at
the Chair Sponsor event.
I was thrilled that we also found someone
to clean our house. I simply hated
dusting the furniture, a duty I no longer needed to do. We were having more and more of the house and
yard maintenance done by others. We
could afford it, and it gave us more free time to enjoy our retirement in other
ways.
There was an important announcement at the
end of the month. On June 26, the
Supreme Court issued a 5–4 decision in United States v. Windsor, ruling Section
3 of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) unconstitutional "as a deprivation of
the equal liberty ... protected by the Fifth Amendment.” Section 3 of DOMA had said that the federal
government would not respect the legal marriages of same-sex couples, but the
ruling didn’t require any states to allow same-sex couples to marry. Gay
marriage would still not be legal in Missouri.
However, we did find out that if we were married in a state where it was
legal, we would be able to file a joint return in Missouri. Our marriage was afoot.
Diane and I had dinner with Larry and Carl,
and we made our marriage plans. We would
all go to Iowa, the state to our north, where gay marriage had been legal since
2009. Our friends, Mary and Chris, also
wanted to go. Wapello County, Iowa was
just over the state line, so we called and asked that they send us the
application form. I did more research
and found that we might prefer to actually get married in Iowa City. There was a friendly judge who would come to
a gay Bed and Breakfast to conduct the ceremony.
As discussions continued, Mary and Chris
wanted to do their marriage differently than the rest of us. We couldn’t reserve a time for the judge
until late October. However, we could at
least make our reservations at the Bed and Breakfast and a restaurant. And we could purchase our wedding rings. Neither Diane nor I wore any other
jewelry. Kenny Greene had known us for
years at Tai Chi classes, so we visited his jewelry store, Monarch Jewelry
(named for a historic black baseball team in Kansas City). He suggested simple good-quality silver
bands, measured our fingers, and we selected the ones he recommended from a
catalog.
On September 1, Diane and I left on an
Olivia trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and the Mekong River. We had our second long flight of the year,
almost 14 hours, from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Tokyo before the final leg from Tokyo
to Hanoi. In Hanoi, there was a long
line at immigration, and I struck up a conversation with the woman behind me in
the crowded line. It turned out she
wrote a food column for a Hanoi newspaper.
I asked her for the name of a good restaurant where Diane and I could
try the local cuisine.
We had arrived a day early for the pre-trip,
giving us a day on our own. Leaving the
hotel, we only walked a couple of minutes before we came to a lush park with a
tall fountain that was being used as the backdrop for the newly wedded couple to
pose and have their pictures taken.
Married couple
Our destination of the Old Quarter required
us to cross some busy streets. The
vehicles were scooters, cycles, bicycles, or cars, mostly scooters. There were no pedestrian walkways or
lights. With great trepidation, we did
as we had been told. We stepped off the
curb into the street and started walking in the traffic toward the other side,
keeping up the same, steady pace, and the drivers just went around us. It was like the parting of the Red Sea as
shown in the movies. Whew, we made it!
Scotter traffic
We walked along the shore of Sword Lake,
the picturesque lake in the middle of downtown Hanoi, continuing to the Old
Quarter. Going through it on foot
reminded us of our experience in the older parts of Shanghai, the sheer joy of
experiencing the sights, sounds and smells of another culture before the
conveniences of modern times completely took over. We walked into an area of
stores with attractive items for sale and started spending some time going
inside and looking around.
Old Quarter scene
The food columnist also told us to look for
embroidery. We finally found what we
wanted and purchased it in a Tan My store.
It portrayed a child watching her mother doing embroidery and was so
realistic that it looked like a painting.
I had to look for the one stray thread end to convince myself it was
embroidery. The store clerk told us
there were rural villages where embroidery was the specialty.
Embroidery
That evening we took a cab to the
restaurant the woman at the airport recommended. If other tourists were there, we did not see
them. Hanoi was the least Western city
we had ever been in, so we were feeling a little insecure. We were seated at a small table across from
each other on stools. The server brought
several small bowls of different ingredients that we didn’t know how to deal
with. Fortunately, the man and woman
with a small child sitting next to us were friendly and knew English. We relaxed and started feeling more sure of
ourselves. They told us how to assemble
the food, and it was delicious. We
cleaned our bowls. This day was a
wonderful start for our trip.
The rest of the Olivia group arrived the
next day. First order of business was a
sightseeing tour of Hanoi. We stopped at
a prison that earlier was used by the French colonists for political
prisoners. Then during the Vietnam War
(or what is called here, the American War) it was used by North Vietnam for
American POWs. It became known as the
Hanoi Hilton. The exhibits included the
guillotine room and displays of artifacts from prisoners, including the flight
suit and parachute of Senator John McCain.
After a stop at a Buddhist temple, we spent time at the Ho Chi Minh
Museum dedicated to the former Vietnamese leader, as well as Vietnam's
revolutionary struggle against foreign powers, including the U.S. There was a plethora of propaganda material
pertaining to the Vietnam War on display.
John McCain’s flight suit and parachute
Buddhist
temple
In the rainy afternoon we were loaded onto
rickshaws and taken on a ride through the streets of the Old Quarter to a
theater to see a traditional water puppet show.
Water puppetry is performed in a waist-deep pool of water so that the
water's surface is the stage. The puppeteers stand behind a screen controlling
the movements of the puppets using long bamboo rods and string mechanisms which
are hidden beneath the water surface. It
was not like any puppet shows we had ever seen.
Me in rickshaw
Water puppets
The next day, our group left Hanoi in
a motor coach for a scenic ride along the coast to HaLong Bay on the South
China Sea. Our large group was divided
into three smaller ones, each group taken to its own traditional wooden
junk. We sailed out among the thousands of
limestone karsts and isles of various shapes and sizes that populated the Bay
and the reason it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Then four at a time, we boarded small boats
rowed by a man standing in the back with very long oars. This way we could get even closer to the
amazing scenery and people. There was a
large population living both ‘on the water’ and ‘off the water.’ By ‘on the water,’ I mean that the structures
they lived in were on the water, usually along the bay side of one of the
karst/isles. Multi-generational families
spent their entire lives on one of these.
By ‘off the water,’ I mean they lived off the sea life they caught and
plants that lived in the water and off the tourists that came to see them, like
us. We were served a sumptuous dinner on
board our junk. We enjoyed sleeping to
the gentle rocking of the boat.
Wooden junk
Small boats
Living on the water
The first time I awoke in the morning, I
noticed a strange numbness and puffiness in my cheeks. It didn’t seem serious so I didn’t bother
Diane. When I woke up later, the symptoms
were worse, spreading to my lips and nose.
I began to be worried, so I woke Diane up and told her about it. She was very concerned and left the room to
find the Olivia staff member on board.
She knew a guest who was a doctor, gave Diane the cabin number, and we
knocked on her door. We woke her up, but
she was very nice and diagnosed an allergic reaction to something in the food
the night before. I agreed. She got her backpack full of medical products
and pulled out prednisone. It didn’t
take long before the numbness and swelling began to recede. Weren’t we lucky to be traveling with Olivia
where we were likely to be traveling with a doctor?
Our junks took us on another scenic
tour in HaLong Bay before we left to board a motor bus for the trip to the
airport. We then flew south to Siem Reap
(pronounced seam rip, as in ripping a seam of clothing) in Cambodia. Our lodging was the fanciest I had ever
stayed in with a walk-in closet and living room as well as the large
bedroom. That night began my romance
with Cambodian food. I loved the way the
vegetables were prepared, their seasoning and the ways the fish, seafood, or
meat were combined with them. My, oh
My! The hotel provided an evening show
of young women dancing in native costumes performing traditional dances.
Walk in closet
Women dancing
Next on our schedule was a guided
sightseeing tour of the Angkor Archaeological Park, another UNESCO World
Heritage Site. It contained the remains
of the capitals of the Khmer Empire from the 9th to the 15th century. We visited several of the temples, Angkor Thom, the newly-restored Baphuon Temple, Terrae
of the Elephants, Terrace of the Leper King and the Banyon. During the lunch break, Hana and Dorene hired
a large rickshaw to take the four of us downtown for lunch at a Cambodian
restaurant. We had eaten breakfast with
this couple, found them very interesting and wanted to get to know them
better. Hanna was a Dane and Dorene was
an American. They met when both of them
worked for the U.N., and now they were retired and living in a village near
Vienna, Austria. In the afternoon, we
traveled through the rural countryside to visit the pink sandstone temple of Banteay Srei, known as the “Shrine of the
Women.” Lastly, we visited an
English-language school in the village of Ta Toum to meet the children and
donate supplies we had been asked to bring on the trip.
Baphuon Temple
Hana and Dorene in the rickshaw
Temple of Banteay Srei
English-language school visit
It was a sunny morning for the next
day’s visit to Angkor Wat. It is known as the world's largest religious temple
complex, built in the early 12th century by the Khmer King Suryavarman II and
dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu. It
was mobbed with tourists, many of whom waited in a long line to walk up the
steep stairs for a view of the central sanctuary
called a Bakan. Instead of doing that, Diane
and I waited in the shade for the rest of our group. Our group next visited Ta Prohm, a temple
famous for its intertwined trees (and showcased in the film Tomb Raider). For lunch we returned to the previous day’s
restaurant since it was so good. Back at
the hotel, we spent the afternoon swimming in their large, gorgeous swimming
pool.
Angkor Wat
Stairs to the view of the central
sanctuary
Ta Prohm
Our Olivia group was very lucky. We could board the ship that would be our
home for the next five days near the north shore of the Tonle Sap Lake near
Siem Reap. There had been enough rain so
that the increase in water level enabled our ship to come closer to us. Otherwise, we would have had to drive part
way down the lake before we could board.
When we got to the floating village on the lake, we were seated in small
wooden boats which took us out to our larger boat. We sailed in that boat through the lake to
the Tonle Sap River which meets the Mekong River near the city of Phnom
Penh. We again saw families living in
structures on the water, this time on the edge of the lake. Sometimes there were so many of them that
they formed fishing villages.
Small wooden boat
Small boat delivering passengers to our ship
We woke up the next morning approaching
Kampong Chhnang. We boarded a large
motor boat for an excursion into the lakeside wetlands that form the mouth of
the Tonle Sap River. The families were
farming plants growing on the water, as well as drying the small fish they caught
in the lake and river. I enjoyed the
variety of bird life and seeing the numerous great fish traps, some over a
half-mile long.
Village
Their water garden
Dried fish
Bottled gasoline for sale
Stall in farmer’s market
As we traveled downstream, we could see
many oxen on the riverbank. We were
taken in small boats to the shore. We
sat in uncomfortable ox-carts as they pulled us through the countryside to Wat
Kampong Tralach Leu. There we toured the
pagodas and boarded a motor coach to Oudong, the former capital, to tour the
Buddhist monastery, the biggest in Cambodia.
Our guide took us inside barefooted where a monk gave a talk. We then walked around the complex, noticing
the female as well as the male monks, many quite aged. We then returned to our boat.
Oxen
Our boat traveled down the Tonle Sap River
during the night, reaching the confluence with the Mekong. Near there was Chong Koh, a silk weaving
village. Leaving the boat, we boarded a
bus that made its way from the river bank to the town, and we stopped to visit
the houses on stilts for people who lived on the land. We saw the residents sitting on the ground
below their houses engaged in a variety of crafts like preparing silk for
weaving, making furniture and pottery, using coal-fired heat to glaze some pieces
with intricate patterns and silver-plating plates, bowls and jewelry. I noticed soda bottles of gasoline for the
nearby motorcycle, probably the way the gasoline was sold. There were many Buddhist shrines and temples,
and graveyards with cows lazing around.
We visited an outdoor classroom where I could tell from the formulas and
drawings on the blackboard they were learning about trigonometry and geometry.
In
the village, we toured a silk factory where the very large looms were all made
of wood.
Gasoline being used for motorcycle
Workbench for making pottery
Silver plated jewelry and other objects for
sale
Math class
Our boat then departed for the short trip
to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
To orient us, our guide took us on a walking tour. We climbed up the many stairs to Wat Phnom, a
beautiful Buddhist temple. The pagoda is named for Lady Penh and her story of
the discovery of the five statues: one Vishnu statue and four Buddha
statues. As we walked back to the ship,
I absorbed the local sights including what the people were doing and
selling. They seemed very entrepreneurial.
I was concerned about the tropical birds
for sale, but loved the fish market with all the fresh seafood brought up the
river from the South China Sea. We
returned to our boat accompanied by a nice rainbow in the sky over the river
along with the rainbow flag on the boat.
After dinner we were entertained by children from a local orphanage in
native costume performing a traditional dance accompanied by musicians and
singers. This was followed by what
appeared to be a courting dance between a masked man and costumed woman.
Wat Phnom
Birds for sale
Fish market
Rainbows
Dancing
The
next day was one of contrasts. We first
went to the Killing Fields and the Khmer Rouge's Detention Centre and Genocide
Museum. The Khmer Rouge won power in
Cambodia through a guerrilla war and ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. A local guide took us to see the skulls, bones
and mass graves that resulted from the systematic persecution and killing of
more than 1.7 million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Then we visited the elaborate Royal Palace,
the Silver Pagoda and the National Museum.
Display of skulls
Royal Palace
Silver Pagoda
National Museum
Our friend Hanna chose a restaurant for
dinner and ordered the rickshaw (and picked up the check). The rickshaw ride was interesting as it went
along the river, and we could watch the nighttime activities along the bank. What I found of particular interest was the
large group of exercisers not doing Tai Chi, but rather practicing their moves
to popular dance songs. At the
restaurant, the food seemed to never end with the plethora of different
selections Hanna ordered from appetizer to dessert. I particularly enjoyed the grilled squid with
baby Bok choy.
The next morning, we slowly cruised down
the Mekong River, crossing the border into Vietnam. I could sit in our room on the boat, reading
a book and looking out our sliding glass doors to watch the scenery. I thought about the stories we heard from the
Cambodians who complained about the Vietnamese immigrants who snuck across the
border, taking jobs away from Cambodians.
It sounded all too familiar. The
boat’s cook gave a demonstration of how to carve beautiful designs into fruits
and vegetables. I could barely use a
paring knife, so it was not something I would ever try.
Carved fruit
At Tan Chau, Vietnam, we toured two
facilities, one for the production of silk cloth and another for the production
of rattan mats and slippers. We transferred to small boats in order to navigate
through narrow channels that took us to an island where we saw a typical rural
community with which we were by now familiar.
Back ashore, we boarded a traditional xe-loi (trishaw) which transported
us around Tan Chau. Reboarding, we
continued downstream towards Sa Dec.
The next morning, we boarded a local boat
for the trip to Sa Dec, passing floating markets as the boat maneuvered through
the river's channels. Once ashore, we
toured the town where the French writer Marguerite Duras spent many years in
her youth. We visited a local market,
Fujian Temple and the house of Mr. Huynh Thuy Le, Duras' Chinese lover, which
is now a small museum.
We then boarded a motor coach for a
one-hour ride to Xeo Quyt, used as a base by the Viet Cong during the French
and American wars and now an important ecological site. Boarding local boats, we went to Cai Be's
floating market, and then ashore to see how rice cakes and candies were made
and packaged for sale. After seeing the
working conditions, I would never buy food made in these countries. The factory tour ended with a person showing
a big snake draped over himself. He asked if any of us wanted to do it, and
there were some who did.
Shredding coconut for candy
Packaging candy (no gloves)
Olivia traveler with snake
Our
boat docked at My Tho Port the next morning, and we all boarded motor coaches
for the trip to Ho Chi Minh City (which I continued to call Saigon). As we drove in, we could see the influence
of the French colonists with the wide boulevards and modern office
buildings. Our guide took us to the
former Presidential Palace, Central Post Office, Notre Dame Cathedral, Cho Lon
(China Town) and its famous Binh Tay market and Thien Hau pagoda. We had dinner at a local restaurant, but, in
my opinion, it did not hold a candle to Cambodian food.
Wide boulevards and office buildings
Former Presidential Palace
Remnants from the American War
Thien Hau pagoda
There was only one tour activity the next
day, a morning water-puppet show. I
didn’t think it was as good as the one in Hanoi. In the afternoon, Diane and I went to what
was still labelled The Saigon Zoo and Botanical Garden. We did have a nice meal
at a restaurant primarily because of the good service by two lovely young women
waiters. We then went back to our hotel
where we took the elevator up to the bar on the roof so we could take
pictures. After dark, the office
buildings were nicely lit, but they didn’t have the moving light displays on
the buildings that we saw in Shanghai.
Puppet show
Me in Botanical Garden
Two waiters
Night time view from our hotel room
Our trip was coming to an end and it was
yet another tour that I would not have taken had it not been for Olivia. We also really enjoyed being a part of
Linda’s group the entire time. Our group
color was white, so she called us the Peace Group. She kept us organized,
holding up the peace sign for us to follow, always with good humor. Now we had the long trip home, flying to Hong
Kong, Los Angeles, and Dallas/Ft. Worth, spending the night, then on to
Columbia.