Feb 20 Con Dao

I was up early and on the beach at 6:00 am this morning. Overnight the fishermen had beached 2 fishing boats to perform some maintenance. The larger boat had 8 people crowding around the stern and one was removing the propeller. The 2 youngest boys were scraping the hull and cleaning off the barnacles. There are some young crewmen on these boats that cannot be more than 12 years old. Due to the clothes hanging from most of the boats I assume the crew lives onboard. I don’t know what the Vietnamese do to enforce the education policy.
Then Joan and I went into town to visit the museum. Con Dao’s history seems to be based on prisons. There are at least 3 prisons on the island that are now museums. The prisons were used by France during the colonial period and the USA during the Vietnam war. The first museum was enough – they are dreary places. However the main village on Con Dao is anything but dreary. It is a town with a very French flavour – red and white road markings, wide boulevards and lovely villas all throughout the town. There are several government buildings and they are well maintained. Flowers are everywhere and the people are always in the street and friendly. The total population of the island is only 6,000 but there seems to be more people here.
We finished the day with a very nice meal in town. After eating squid for 3 days I broke out of my rut and ordered a fish hotpot. Joan ordered a beef with chilli. Joan got beef with onions and it was delicious, however it was intended for the only other couple in the restaurant. I hope they enjoyed the beef with chilli.

Feb 19th Con Dao

Today I was up early to take pictures of the sunrise. But there was no sunrise. The east facing side of Con Dao island has a permanent cloud over it and the sun doesn’t really shine until it is high in the sky. So I took some pictures of fishermen unloading their boats. Here on the island they still use coracles, a round boat we last saw in Ireland. The fish are caught using a small trawler and then ferried to shore in a coracle. They seem to make it to market the same day. The fishermen stopped on the beach and arranged their catch so I could take a picture. Then they picked them up again and continued carrying the fish to a waiting truck. One man spent a lot of time trying to teach me the name of the fish, but it didn’t work. I forgot it before I could tell Joan.
After breakfast we rented a motor scooter and did a partial island tour. We drove around the south part of the island as far as we could go and then had a picnic of pomelo, bananas (with seeds) and tangerines. The pomelo is a giant grapefruit and the market lady cut it up for us when she sold it to us. Delicious! Later, we stopped off at a fishing dock in Ben Dam and immediately got propositioned by a water taxi driver who offered give us a tour of the harbour which we accepted. For the next hour we toured the harbour, taking pictures of the boats and every now and then the driver leaned over the side to fix something with his fishing net.
After a siesta (after all - we are recovering from jet lag) we took a little walking tour across to the other side of the island. The nature walk goes downhill for one kilometre and then you return uphill one kilometre. Much to my surprise the downhill was worse than the uphill, since the steps are so steep. But we made it with no mishaps.

Feb 18th: Con Dao

The ride through HCMC in rush hour is fun when you’re in a big safe taxi-cab. It’s hard to believe that there are not thousands of accidents every morning when you are in the mass of humanity that drive left, right, and straight ahead with no clear cut rules. However we have seen no accidents and the drivers seem calm cool and collected at all times. The traffic tempo is slow, bur there are few traffic jams, just slow spots around construction sights.
We headed back to the airport and flew to Con Dao Island this morning. After a brief flight of 45 min and a bus to the hotel we were swimming in the ocean by 11:30. The island is a delight with warm water, sandy beaches and old spacious French architecture everywhere. We have a room overlooking the ocean and the seafront is full of small fishing boats. The island is reknown for the prisons it has hosted during the French colonial times and the civil war. The prisons are now closed and Con Dao and the surrounding islands are a national park and the prisons are attractions for visitors. The island is relatively undeveloped and quiet. Joan and I walked into town this afternoon and toured the local market. We bought some fruit and a knife and sat on the seawall eating something that looked like a big apple. I cut off a piece, peeled it, and started to eat it. It tasted a bit like glue and looked a lot like glue. It was awful. Then I tried to wipe my hands and the serviette struck to my finger and shredded when I wiped my face. Then a young girl on a bicycle rode up to us and described in sign language how to cut it and eat it. It 15 seconds she had us sorted out. You cut it in 4 and eat the centre, not the glue on the outside. It did taste a lot better like that.

Feb 17: Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC)

We arrived in HCMC last night, right on time. We picked up our visas at the airport and then our luggage. Everybody was so helpful it was amazing, however we were the last people on the last flight and they were all waiting for us so they could go home. Katherine met us and we were soon at her place (the castle) and finally got into bed at 12:30 Tuesday.
PART 2 UPDATED
On Tuesday I started the day with a 30 min taxi ride. I picked the first motorcycle taxi I could find and climbed on. The whole theory behind the traffic flow in HCMC is “timing is everything”. You aim to just miss the person crossing in front of you, and then both you and he hold steady. This applies to both traffic at intersections and pedestrians crossing the street. It helps if you have worked for the RCMP musical ride. After the ride I am convinced that it would take years to learn how to drive in HCMC.
Joan and I then walked around the city for the rest of the day. We started with the market right outside Katherine’s house. I both some stuff to eat (probably pork) but she gave me way to much. What I did eat was very good. Then we walked to the reunification palace and Had our first cup of HCMC white coffee. This is a strong coffee with sweet thick milk syrup. It tastes lovely, but it can’t be the healthiest drink. After more food and drink we returned to Katherine’s place for wine on the rooftop. Oh that was nice!

Feb 16: In transit.

We are in Tokyo (Narito airport) after travelling for 20 hours so far. We flew across the Pacific ocean for the first time ever today. Much to my surprise we actually flew north of Alaska and over parts of Siberia. The terrain became more interesting as we flew farther and farther north. The last stretch over Siberia was beautiful with snow white mountains coming right down to the ocean. We did not see any signs of civilization until we hit the Japanese islands. The second hop of the journey was a 13 hour flight – definite too long, but they kept feeding us and we survived. My rear end is sore.