Sunday, March 8, 2015
Phu My is the docking port for the
largest city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Saigon. With the improvement of the highway, it is
still approximately an hour and 45 minutes travel time. This area has a tropical climate, hot and
humid. The dry season is from November
to April and you could definitely see the lack of rain. Today the temperature was 96 or 97 degrees F
and felt way over 100F and dripping......"Vui long dua toi tro ve la tei
tau Princess" - please take me back to the ship!!!!!
Having visited this area several
times and Ho Chi Minh City recently, we choose to travel to a local city, Ba
Ria, in the Province of Vung Tau, a 45 minute bus ride. It is a Sunday but the local market is
jumping. We saw ample offerings of com
(boiled rice), Pho (noodle soup), banh khot
(coconut fritters), goi du du bo (papaya salad), and nuoc mam, Curt's
favorite fish sauce!
As we have always found, the local
people are always happy and smiling. We
didn't sample the dried fish but did sample the dried bananas and found them to
be quite tasty. It was refreshing to
spend time in a city where the main transportation is motor bike, no loud
honking of horns and no cars.
Interesting tidbit - Until the end
of the 19th century, Chinese script was universally used for all documentation
in Vietnam. Today, the Vietnamese
language uses a script that includes 29 characters, most of which are identical
to those used in English. But definitely
not the sounds - LOL.
It is 5PM and we are off to Bangkok!
