Tai Chi at 6:30 am on the sundeck!  (For some people, that is.)  For others, there was a light breakfast at 7 am and a tender to take them to Titov island for either swimming or climbing up 400 steps to a pavilion which gave a 360-degree view of the bay.  It was named for a Russian astronaut who visited Vietnam.  Bags out by 9:45 am, and return to land by 10:30 am, so the crew could restart their 2-day cycle all over again.  I do not envy them!

Another 4-hour drive back to Hanoi to the airport to head to Saigon.  Although it’s officially called Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the locals still call it Saigon.  We took a different route back.  One of the rest stops was a shopping mall designed for tourists to provide plenty of toilets and lots of shopping opportunities (lacquer, embroidery, clothing, stones, foods, etc.).  But we had questions about all the small burial plots we had seen, so our guide stopped at one and explained the most common ritual for burial.  Most Vietnamese follow the Taoist tradition of burying a person in a wood coffin without a formal grave marker.  Then in three years, they dig up the body, wash the bones, and put the bones in a more permanent casket and bury them with a formal grave marker.  Another impromptu stop was a vegetable garden with many different types of vegetables.  We also passed the largest Samsung factory in the world.  They employ 100,000 people and produce most of the Samsung phones, plus many of the TV monitors and washing machines.

The airport in Hanoi is quite new, and we had a couple of hours to relax before our 2-hour flight to Saigon.  We had arranged to meet some friends of a friend, Elaine and Greg.  They took us for dinner at a fantastic Vietnamese restaurant called Di Mai.  Elaine was kind enough to order a few of their favorite dishes, and each turned out to be better than the next.  A double treat – neat new friends AND delicious food.

Cheryl