Back To Vietnam And On To Cambodia

   Patti and I got home a week ago today, tired but very satisfied with our trip. We had a marvelous time in Vietnam and Cambodia. Not only did we meet some very nice fellow travelers, but we found the Vietnamese and Cambodian people to be very warm and friendly. I apologize for not being able to update the blog while I was traveling. It turns out, much to my dismay, that I had downloaded too many Prime videos onto my laptop, a fact and a lesson I did not learn until I got home. The result was that my computer's memory was at its limit, so I left my laptop home. When I blogged on my phone, I discovered that I could not access the blog readers group I had created on my gmail account, so I formed a group on Whats App and kept people on Whats App up to date. Since I know not all of you use Whats App, some were left out, and for that I apologize. When I got home, with the help of Campbell Business Solutions, I was able to free up space on my laptop by deleting the Prime videos and...

   I still have some catching up to do, but first a few observations.    Do not even think about driving in either Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City unless you have a death wish. There are many busses, cars, and probably a few million motor scooters and motor cycles, and all of the motor scooter and motorcycle seem to decide to meet at the same time and same place and engage in choreographed chaos. The drivers regardless of what they are driving use their horns and beepers liberally. Stop signs seem to be suggestions.  In spite of all the traffic, noise, and fumes, traffic moves, albeit at a snail’s pace at times,  and we have not observed an accident……yet.    Pedestrians need resolve to cross streets at uncontrolled intersections. General rule of thumb, wait for trucks and busses and cars. As to motorcycle and motor scooters, start crossing and don’t stop. They beep at pedestrians and sometimes whiz around them, but don’t stop. Just keep walking…….and pr...

   In the previous post (which actually will probably be the next post in the blog), I spent some time describing some of the ugly part of the history of Cambodia, the dark days of the reign of the Khmer Rouge. The rest of today’s catchup will be devoted only to the beauty of Cambodia, its people, and its culture. This account will be chronological, although truth be told, the days do run into each other a bit. On the day we departed Siem Reap and bussed to where our boat was we visited a school supported by Viking. The mission of the school is to teach English and computer skills to students. The age of the students ranged from elementary to secondary. The students gave us a warm welcome and sang “If You’re Happy And You Know It” for us and it was delightful. Then the students were released and ran to us and paired up with us for a tour of the school. I was chosen by a very sweet 14 year old girl whose name I can’t remember for the life of me. She showed me the English room a...

   We have been on the go with morning and afternoon excursions so time to update has been sparse. Today is a cruising day. As I write we are departing Phnom Penh. Around midday we will cross the border back into Vietnam. I will take advantage of this “day off” to try to catch up with the past few days.    We have seen a combination of beauty and ugliness since my last big update. I will do one entry on the ugliness and then have another on the beauty. I am happy to say the beauty exceeds the ugliness.   Three days ago I went on an excursion to one of the hundreds of killing fields in Cambodia. The killing fields are mass burial sites where the Khmer Rouge executed 1,500,000-2,000,000 Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge reign of terror lasted from 1975-1979. Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge and his vision of society was that Cambodia should be an ideal agrarian society. Anyone who did not fit the mold or who resisted was to be eliminated. Former government offi...

   We have been quite active with morning and afternoon excursions so I have fallen behind on the blog. I will try to do a more detailed post in the next couple of days. We caught a break with the weather today. We actually had a bit of liquid sunshine which made our cyclo tour to the Royal Palace comfortable. We are having a wonderful time. I will attach some new photos to this entry.