Friday 10 - Phong NHA Cave

Today we took a tour to the Phong Nha Cave. We departed our hotel at 6:30AM and arrived in Phong Nha (World Heritage site) at 11:45 and had lunch. After, we boarded a boat for a ride up the river to the cave. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_Nha-Kẻ_Bàng_National_Park ) The river runs from Laos through Vietnam to the South China Sea. An interesting fact about the cave is that during the Vietnam War the caves were used by the North Vietnamese. They kept their military supplies, ammunication, etc., had a hospital and lived in the caves. The US tried to bomb the caves but were unsuccessful and failed to destroy this post.

Gathering seaweed that is used to feed the fish in the fish farms.

Entrance to cave system.

Standing inside the cave in an area that had a sandy beach. The North Vietnamese Army had a hospital located at this site.

  

Boats had to wait their turn when going inside the cave. Our boat took us into Laos, as which point the cave became to narrow to navigate and could only be accessed by a canoe.

We were in the cave system about an hour and then back up the river to the tour bus and home. We arrived home around 7:30PM. The bus ride was 4 hours each way and pretty bumpy. We got to chat with the other people in the bus but we were pretty worn out by the time we got back to the Jade Hotel.

The day didn't end here.  Our protector, Otter, picked us up and took us to a vegetarian restaurant to eat supper. 

Pho vegetarian soup with tofu and some kind of food wrapped in banana leaves.

In bed by 10:30PM.

Hue

January 9 - Tu Hieu Pagoda 

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Otter takes us to a temple outside of Hue City. We meet the director(? not sure of his title) of the temple. He invites us into the inner rooms of the temple to have tea with him. This is a monastary where children at a young age go to live to learn how to become a monk.  The director tells the temples's history, explains the steps needed to become a monk and gives us a tour. We toured the meditation center, garden of bonsai trees, kitchen, dining room, grounds and gift shop. No tourists are allowed in these areas unless invited.  We were honored that we were able to have this experience. We did give a nice donation to the temple. We went back to the hotel and was in bed by 8:00PM.

                            Ven. Thich, Tu Hoa & Ven. Thid, Phiior Nien (Otter)

                                                      Buddha inside temple

                                                     Bonsai Garden

                      Table made from stone that we sat around having tea.

Getting to Vietnam

Thursday, January 9
We have had quite an adventure getting here, so we will try to give you a very brief back view of what has happened so far.

Tuesday the 7th and Wednesday the 8th
We went to the BTV airport to get our flight to NYC at 6:00 AM and it was canceled. So we rented a car and drove to New York. We had a little problem with our GPS (we programmed it wrong) and got lost. We let Jon off at JFK 15 minutes before his flight, not knowing if he would make his flight. Later, he sent us a text message and told us he had just made his flight. They held the plane for him!!

We drove to Newark Airport and checked in. We were waiting at our gate when we realized that there was no one there headed to Hong Kong. There was a gate change and we had to run to our new gate. Luckily, there had been a delay and we made the flight. Charlie was called out of the flight line as there was an issue with his passport. It turned out that the person in Burlington did not put in his correct passport numbers. They figured it out and issued him new tickets and he got on the plane.

On the 15 hour flight I lost the lens to my new glasses (did find it) and my water bottle opened and got all our travel documents wet. We arrived in Hong Kong around 11:30 PM. The international airport is HUGE. We joined a Vietnamese women named Connie who had an airport employee that was helping her to get to her flight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We had a walk a long way through the terminal, take a train, and then a bus to get to our flight. We had to wait for our plane and sat with Connie .  She gave us lots of advise on food and fruit to eat and told us to call her when we visited Ho Chi Minh City when we returned there from Hue.

                         The women who helped us get through the Hong Kong airport. She was playing "Candy Crush" on her cell phone as we rode the train and bus.

January 9
We arrive in Saigon and Jon is waiting for us outside the airport. We are so happy to see him!! It's about 2:00 AM and we have to wait until 6:30 AM to catch our flight to Hue, where we will start our trip. Not much to do at that time in the morning!

6:30am

We board the plane for Hue. When we exit the plane, we had to take a bus to the terminal. In the bus we meet Otter, a Buddhist Monk.  He tells us he will give us a ride into town for free. As we are walking to the car, we meet Jim. Jim and Otter had sat together on the plane. We all get into a car that is waiting for Otter and head for the Jade Hotel.  We get to our hotel and Jim needs a place to stay so he shares a room with Jon. Otter tells us he will set up a tour of Hue for us and we decide to go that afternoon.

                                        Authur Nguyen (Otter) & Charlie

Jim, our new friend from Florida. Jim completed four tours in Vietnam, received three Purple Hearts, and was a POW. He was a ranger in the 101st Airborne Division. This is his sixth visit to Vietnam since the Vietnam War.