War Remnants Museum

Back in Saigon, we spent the last morning of our trip at the War Remnants Museum. The outside of the building was surrounded by American fighter jets, tanks and various heavy artillery sitting still and silent in the mid day sun. A man wearing a U.S. Army hat walked past us as we entered the building. He smiled and nodded to us as we passed, and it was impossible not to imagine him as a veteran of the war, returning to pay his respects and perhaps to find peace in revisiting this land of endless war that has finally arrived at a peace of its own. Inside the museum we were faced with the ghastly images of war and its cost in human suffering. Civilian victims of bombings, napalm and massacre stared out at us alongside images of human bodies, horribly disfigured from the effects of Agent Orange and other pesticides that were sprayed on the countryside during the war. These photographs were indescribably haunting, and although the museum is unfortunately propagandistic and one sided in its depiction of the American War, what is left after viewing the horrific record of needless death and destruction is a powerful sense of war's ultimate futility and of the tragedy of sacrificing so much beauty, life and possibility in the name of war's countlessly unobtainable objectives.

In our travels throughout the country, we often commented on the incredible beauty of the land and of the culture, wondering how such a place could find itself on the wrong side of history for so many years, the victim of so many conquering powers, and yet, the feeling that you get from traveling through this land that has only so recently emerged from one thousand years of fighting, and from meeting its people who are so proud of their history and culture, is a renewed sense of appreciation for the resiliency of hope and peace and of the vast potential of our shared human experience.

Hoi An

The last leg of our travels began in Hoi An, a perfectly preserved ancient seaport that, unlike most cities in central Vietnam, was almost completely spared from bombing during the American War, due to the cooperation of both sides. The town was recently declared a Unesco World Heritage site and many of the historic buildings are open to the public. All motor vehicles have been banned from the town center which lies on the banks of the Thu Bon River. At night, the town is lit by hundreds of brightly colored paper lanterns, strung across the narrow, unpaved streets and hanging in the openings of store fronts and houses. It was a very romantic setting to while away the last few days of our honeymoon.

Hoi An is also famous for its legions of tailors and cobblers whose storefronts line the streets of the old town center. Renowned as master copiers, the tailors of Hoi An can take a picture from a magazine and turn out an exact replica in a couple of days at a fraction of the price that you would pay for such a service in the states. Our hotel referred us to their favorite shop and we headed down to check out the operation.

The long and narrow store was lined from floor to ceiling with the raw fabrics in every imaginable color and pattern. Manequins were adorned with samples of the tailors' work, lifted directly from the pages of current fashion magazines. Sales girls roamed the floor, offering suggestions and samples from their vast library of catalogue and magazine clippings. We went in expecting to have a quick look and maybe pick up a shirt or two, and left with an order in place for a dress and shirt for Tara and three piece suit for me. Over the next few days, we would return to the store for fittings and alterations, often surrounded by two or three tailors who analyzed every seam and fold of the suit, reworking it through several rounds of revisions until it was up to their standards of perfection. My suit and Tara's dress both turned out beautifully, and we have been trying to rationalize making return visits to Hoi An every few years to stock up on a new wardrobe.

We got an unexpected surprise our last day in Hoi An, when we went to check out of our hotel, and realized that we had reserved it for another day. Happy to stick around, we took advantage of our "extra" day by taking a bike ride to the nearby beach through a spectacular landscape of rice fields and palm fringed river bends. We ate lunch at a beach front sea food restaurant and enjoyed one final afternoon gazing out into the turquoise waters of the South China Sea before beginning the long journey home.

Hue to China Beach

We stepped on the train in Loa Cai at seven and slept hard through the night in our private sleeper car. At four in the morning we got off the train in Hanoi. We found a taxi and negotiated a price to the airport. Up to this point in the trip, we felt that we had come to grasp the counterintuitive logic that structures the flow of traffic in Vietnam. Whereas in the west, we drive fast and straight, keeping more or less within our given lane, obeying traffic signals, etc., in Vietnam, they drive slowly and constantly, flowing together in currents of traffic that merge and separate much as the currents of a river. Although this seemed at first chaotic and dangerous, we found that drivers seemed much more highly attuned to their surroundings and in the rare case of a collision, the vehicles would be moving so slowly that damages would be minimal. In fact, we would later witness one such accident in downtown Saigon in which a young fella on a motorbike was struck by an SUV and though he did fall off his bike, he jumped immediately to his feet, a still burning cigarette hanging from his lips, took a drag, brushed himself off, waived away the approaching traffic cop, got back on his bike and sped away.

However, our taxi driver on the early morning in Hanoi broke all of our preconceived notions with regard to the accepted rules of the road in Vietnam. At one point, I glanced nervously over at the speedometer to see the needle quivering around 150 km/h, just before we careened into the right hand shoulder around a plodding eighteen wheeler. The grand finale of our harrowing drive came as we approached the airport terminal and Tara, concerned that we were heading to the international terminal, leaned forward and said, "We're going to Hue." The driver turned around, wild eyed, slammed on the brake and came to a complete stop in the middle of the onramp. He grabbed our plane ticket from her hands and scanned it rapidly, tossed it back at us and laid on the gas, the wheels screeching and burning beneath us. "Vietnam Air, this way!" he said and sure enough, he dropped us off right at our gate, in about half the time that it should have taken to get there. Guess that's what you get for settling on a fixed price before heading out to your destination. "Good luck!" he waved as we put on our bags and headed off to find our flight.

We landed in Hue at six in the morning where we had arranged for a driver to pick us up and take us on a tour of the city before transferring us to our fancy resort at China Beach. What we didn't know was that we had apparently purchased an entire Mercedes-Benz mini-bus with a driver who spoke about as much English as we did Vietnamese. If we could just have split the difference between that bus and all the various vehicles we'd been crammed into on the trip, so far, it would have evened out quite nicely. And so began our magical mystery tour of the ancient imperial city of Hue and the central Vietnamese coastline. With no idea of where we were heading, we followed the instructions of our driver as he dropped us off at an assortment of interesting sites. "You go here. See the citadel." He said, and we found ourselves at the 17th century imperial enclosure, a moated fortress compound filled with the ornate temples and palaces of the Nguyen Dynasty. We visited a towering pagoda and a sprawling complex of tombs and temples built for the emperor in a beautiful pine tree forest along the banks of the perfume river.

After we had wandered around the outskirts of Hue, our driver headed south along the rugged mountain coastline. We stopped at the peak of Hai Van pass and hiked up to an old French battalion that had been used as a bunker by the American army during the war. The old brick buildings were pock marked with bullet holes and the place had an eerie, haunted feeling even as the vast ocean beneath us shimmered in the mid day sun all the way to the horizon.

Our driver dropped us off at the Furama resort, one of the swankiest places we would be staying on our trip. It was a luxurious, beach from resort that felt a world away from the most recent leg of our journey which had seen us sleeping on trains and staying in modest backpacker accommodations. We were quite pleased to be back in full on honeymoon mode and took full advantage of our decadent digs. Unfortunately, it was my turn to get the stomach bug and so, ironically, Tara and I were both knocked out of commission by the food our two fancy hotels, while all the local food we ate on the trip treated us just fine. Fortunately, I brought along some antibiotics and was back at it in no time. The beach was pristine and we spent many long hours lounging beneath our palm thatched umbrella, staring out into the ocean, just enjoying our time together.

Sapa

We took a night train from Hanoi, 8 hours north to the small town of Lao Cai on the Chinese border. When we arrived at the train station at 4:30 in the morning, we were piled into a mini-bus with a mixture of other weary travelers and early rising locals. It was an hour drive from Lao Cai to Sapa on a winding mountain road that climbed over a mile of elevation through the alpine terrain to the old French hill station of Sapa. The dense, low lying mists seemed to have followed us all the way from Halong Bay, and the scenery that materialized through breaks in the fog was on a very grand scale. Mountain peaks soared over head, while cascading rice terraces followed the steep contours of the hillsides as they plunged into the valley below.

The town of Sapa is an interesting mix of French colonial architecture and traditional hill tribe structures. The hill tribe people who live in the mountains of north Vietnam are composed of a variety of nomadic ethnic minority groups whose farms and villages are scattered throughout the mountainous highlands. Although farming remains the primary source of subsistence for many of the these villagers, the rapidly developing tourism industry has provided new economic opportunities for some who now earn their living by selling handicrafts and embroidery to travelers as well as offering homestays and guided tours of their villages. It is a common sight in Sapa to see western travelers flanked on all sides by groups of Black H'mong or Red Dzoa women dressed in their traditional attire of elaborately embroidered clothing, offering up a selection of hand crafted garments or jewelry. Although the growing tourism market has offered new commercial opportunities to some of the hill tribe people, it is also contributing to the erosion of their traditional way of life and has lead to some forms of exploitation as children are often forced to sell trinkets or beg for money from travelers. The Vietnamese government has set up schools and health clinics in some of the villages in an attempt to integrate the younger generation in mainstream Vietnamese society. Although this will provide greater economic opportunities to what are some of the poorest communities in the country, it is also seen by some as an unwanted effort towards assimilation, while many of the tribal people wish to remain autonomous, and do not consider themselves a part of this or any nation.

For now, the tribal people, and particularly the youth, are living in between worlds. On our first hike in the mountains overlooking Sapa, we were passed by a group of Black H'mong teenagers dressed in their striking ensemble of of indigo dyed linen clothing, skirts, tunics and cylindrical hats. Every one of them was either talking on a cellphone or bobbing along to a track on their iPod as they hiked upward through the rocky terrain toward their village.

Later, we took a guided tour through a couple of hill tribe villages in the valley. We purchased some handicrafts and walked along the terraced rice patties. Once we were out of Sapa and down in the villages, nobody really paid us any mind, as they went about their daily business of plowing the fields and planting the new season's crops. This life of subsistence farming truly did feel a world apart from our daily lives in the "developed" world, and though it would be absurd to idealize this life of endless toiling and laboring and trusting in the land to provide, it struck both Tara and I profoundly the degree to which we are disconnected from the sources of our own subsistence back home. From the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, to the endless barrage of new products, we are so far removed from the origins and from the true cost of the items we consume on a daily basis.

After a couple of days of hiking through the breathtaking mountain scenery, we were ready to begin our long journey back to the beach. We spent our last afternoon in Sapa drinking Bia Hoi with a rotating cast of locals, all of whom were eager to practice their English with a couple of "Tay balos," a teasingly derogative term that translates more or less to scruffy western backpacker. Every time we finished a glass, it seemed that there was someone else there with a new pitcher to top us back off again. It was a good thing that our bus come along when it did, or else I may spent the whole afternoon at that Bia Hoi joint and Tara would have had to carry me back to the hotel.

Ha Long Bay

As we approached The Jasmine in our motor boat, Tara and I exchanged looks of excitement, our smiles widening as we moored alongside the elegant wooden form of the Chinese junk ship. We were greeted by the ship's captain and escorted up two flights of stairs to the main cabin. I was immediately struck by the craftsmanship of the vessel in which all surfaces were finished in dark tropical wood or bamboo with hand carved railings and trim work. We met some of the the other passengers, mostly Australians and Europeans on holiday and then went to check out or private cabin. It was a lovely little room with bamboo paneled walls, a beautifully tiled bathroom and best of all, a private deck looking out over the sea.



We set sail and made our way up to the top deck of the ship. It was a calm and misty morning and the deep blue waters were like a sheet of glass. As we ventured further out into the bay, the looming forms of Ha long's famous limestone islands began to emerge from the curtain of fog. The bay is home to thousands of these islands whose limestone cliffs tower over the waters below. Our ship charted a winding course through the rocky formations, as we dined on a multi-course meal of fresh seafood that included crab soup, chilli and lemongrass prawns and clay pot sea bass.



We anchored in a quiet lagoon and went ashore to explore a massive cave of "cauliflour" limestone formations, stalactites and stalagmites. The path through the caves lead us to a viewpoint at the island's peak where we could see for miles in each direction. Thousands of islands rose from the sea and dissapeared into the misty sky above.



That afternoon, we sat on our deck and watched as the evening light turned the waters and the mountains to darker shades of blue and green. Over dinner we were treated to a surprise gift of champagne, roses and a traditional Vietnamese love song in honor of our honeymoon. Returning to our cabin, we were lulled to sleep by the waters below us and in the morning we awoke to the first light of the sun as it filtered through the misty air, ushering in another beautiful day of new adventures.

Perfume Pagoda

Our last day in Hanoi, we hired a guide to take us to the Perfume Pagoda, a complex of temples and shrines built into the limestone cliffs of Huong Tich Mountain, about 60 km from the city. The journey to the pagoda felt like venturing back in time as we traveled two hours by car through the increasingly rural farmlands. Our guide, Tu, provided us with a wealth of historical and cultural context for the sights that we encountered along our trip. Tu was 28 years old and was raised in a small town on the outskirts of Hanoi. As we drove, he offered many insights into the complex and war torn history of Vietnam, as well as his own perspective on the rapidly changing cultural and political landscape.

Leaving the city, we crossed the bridge over the Red River and Tu pointed to his palm, "Here," he said, "is Hanoi, and here," he traced a half circle around the point in the center of his palm, "is the Red River. See, it is shaped like an ear. In Vietnam, we have a saying that having big ears means that you will be a very rich man. You see, I have small ears, and so I am a tour guide. So, the Red River is like a very big ear around the center of Hanoi. It means that Hanoi will be very powerful and for a thousand years we have fought against many great nations. We have fought one thousand years of Chinese domination, and then the French and the Americans. So my ancestors fought against the Chinese for many years, and my grandfather fought against the French, and my father fought against the Americans. We have a saying that these great nations are like an elephant and that the Vietnamese people are like a tiger that hides in the jungle. You see, the elephant is so big that it could crush the tiger, but the tiger comes out only at night while the elephant is sleeping and it claws the elephant a little every night until slowly, the elephant loses all its blood. And so, no one can defeat Vietnam, because the whole Vietnamese people are like a family. Everything is connected, like a web through all the villages in the country. But for now, we have peace for the first time in a thousand years and now things are very good in our country."

We would later learn that Tu's mother and father had both carried supplies for the North Vietnamese Army along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the war, in what would be the final chapter of his family's long, battle scarred history. Even as Tu described the Vietnamese struggle with so many years of foreign occupation in a tone of nationalist pride, he also spoke favorably of the more recent economic reforms that have seen Vietnam engaging with the global economy, telling us that he preferred the more "modern" economy of Saigon to that of Hanoi. As recently as the 1990s, it was uncommon to see any form of motorized transportation in Hanoi, a city that is now clogged with cars and motorbikes and an increasingly dense urban population of over five million as people migrate from the farmlands in hopes of more prosperous opportunities in the city. But as we ventured further out into the countryside, we began to see scenes of life that have remained unchanged for centuries. Green fields of rice patties stretched out in all directions to a horizon that was studded with the dramatic forms of towering limestone mountains.

"In Hanoi," said Tu, "People are making maybe five dollars a day, and it is not enough to live on. But here, people are making less than one dollar and still they have more than enough, and they are even saving money because they grow rice, and so they have food, and one person raises maybe some pigs and some chickens and they sell them at the market. Everyday they wake up early they kill one pig and go and sell it and someone else grows some herbs or vegetables and they can sell those. It is very good, because our food here is very fresh. Not like in America where you shop at the supermarket and everything travels from far away to get there." Tara told Tu about our farmers' markets in Seattle and he seemed quite surprised to hear that not all Americans shop in Safeways and Walmarts.

Our drive through the farmlands ended in the small town of My Duc where we were to board a river boat for the hour long journey upstream to the base of the mountain. Our trip to the pagoda happened to coincide with an annual pilgrimage that takes place in the first and second month of the lunar calendar. Thousands of Buddhists from all over Vietnam make the pilgrimage to the pagoda to seeks purification and blessings of fertility. This meant that we would see very few other westerners and drew quite a bit of attention as we joined the hundreds of pilgrims paying their visit to the pagoda.

The river meandered through a striking landscape of limestone cliffs and dense forest. The boats were rowed almost entirely by women, who sat facing forward and rowed by thrusting their arms out before them, in arcing movements that propelled the boats swiftly forward against the lazy current. As we approached the village at the base of the mountain, I pulled out my camera to take a video and one of the passengers of a nearby boat called out to me. "I think he wants you to take his picture," said Tara. "No, he wants you to drink some snake wine with him," said Tu. "Do you know this wine? Two drinks will bring you good health, but any more will make you dizzy and confused." We had seen this wine in store fronts in Hanoi where bottles containing cobra heads, scorpions and ginger roots suspended in the amber liquid lined the windows facing out onto the street. At ten in the morning, it was a little early for me to indulge in the fermented snake head, and so I had to respectfully decline his generous offer.

On shore, we walked past a row of makeshift restaurants and souvenir stores. "The people here make all of their money for the whole year in these two months of pilgrimage," said Tu. "But if you want to buy something, you must bargain because the people here are very poor and they have no education. They will ask you for a very high price. Would you like to try the squirrel?" He pointed ahead to one of the restaurants where there hung, suspended from above, the carcasses of squirrels, nutria, small deer and what I'm pretty sure was some kind of cat. "There is still much forest here, so the people can hunt for these animals. You want to try?" "Maybe on the way back," I said and we continued up the path to the base of the mountain.

Our mountain ascent was aided by the newly installed cable car which carried us hundreds of feet over the densely forested mountains. At the summit, we joined the throngs of pilgrims shuffling their way down a long stone stairway leading to the mouth of the cave that held the Perfume Pagoda. Inside, we were enveloped by the mass of worshiping pilgrims, their recitals of prayer echoing throughout the cavernous enclosure that was lit only by hundreds of flickering candles casting wavering shadows across the rocky walls of the cave. We walked back down the mountain, through scattered villages and thickly forested valleys, to where our boat was waiting on the river to carry us back.

On our drive home, our conversations with Tu took on a less scripted and formal tone as we chatted about the differences between marriage traditions in Vietnam and America, and the merits of handmade goods versus mass production as it related to my own work in custom cabinetry and Tu's observation of his country's shift from traditions of handicraft to the sweatshop labor that fuels their largely export driven economy. He told us of his hopes to one day find work in Australia or Canada.

Back at the hotel, we thanked Tu and our driver with a tip, and I worried for a moment if it was enough, for although it was a generous amount by Vietnamese standards, it seemed paltry to me when you consider the experience they had provided us. These worries were a reminder of the ocean of differences that stood between us, economic, historical and cultural, and of the impossibility of really knowing what the other sees when they look across these divides. But we left with smiles and wishes of good luck and were thankful to have the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences across the boundaries that divide us and find recognition, laughter and solemn remembrance of the violence that has preceded us.

Hanoi

We must have been quite a sight staggering into the lobby of the stately Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi, our bodies loaded down with multiple packs and bags, still sporting the t-shirts, shorts and flip flops that we'd put on that morning in Mui Ne, panting and sweating from the final leg of a journey that had seen us traversing the misty, winding streets of central Hanoi in search of our hotel, stuffed to the gills inside a minibus loaded floor to ceiling with luggage and passengers, only vaguely certain that we were heading towards our intended destination, holding tightly to each others' hands on our flight from Saigon as our pilot made turns that felt as though we may corkscrew into a barrel roll at any moment, searching the teeming streets of Saigon for an internet cafe that would allow us to print our boarding pass in the 95 degree heat, fully loaded with our packs and bouncing along the open highway in the tour bus that we climbed aboard that morning in Mui Ne. "This is like an episode of the Amazing Race," said Tara as we moved from one hurdle to the next, feeling a wonderful sense of accomplishment in completing what would be in another context the most mundane of tasks -- catching the right bus, finding a computer that will print our documents -- but this is one of the most enjoyable experiences of traveling: to step firmly outside of your comfort zone and trust in your instincts and in the kindness of strangers to help you along your way.

So we were very happy and relieved to arrive finally at our hotel where we were greeted graciously with a room upgrade, a box of chocolates and a bouquet of roses in celebration of our honeymoon, even though our appearance wasn't quite in keeping with the "elegant, yet casual dress code" that the Metropole requires in all public spaces. It was quite an experience to stay in the elegantly restored colonial era hotel that was located just a few blocks from the Old Quarter of Hanoi with its narrow, winding streets, food stalls and street vendors who brought a whole new meaning to "fresh and local" with their buckets of squirming river fish, scampering tiny blue crabs and bag loads of hopping, croaking toads. Inside the Old Quarter you can find yourself turning the corner from a modern scene of buzzing mopeds and florescent store fronts to a narrowing, stone paved alley that feels lifted straight from the medieval era of the city's founding, one thousand years ago. At the center of it all is Hoan Kiem Lake, with its murky, emerald waters and mist that hangs like ghosts around the mossy stone pagoda resting in the center of the lake. Lanterns hang in the trees along the shore and young couples gather in the evening to sit on stone benches and watch the lights dance across the water.

We found Hanoi to be endlessly fascinating and spent much of our time just wandering around the city, shopping in merchants stalls and storefronts, eating delicious meals that ranged from a simple bowl of Pho to gourmet Vietnamese fare that was unlike anything we've ever tasted in the states. Tara enjoyed shopping for hand woven silk items and I got a great deal on a custom tailored pair of wool and cashmere dress pants. We drank freshly brewed Bia Hoi on tiny plastic chairs in makeshift storefronts surrounded by a lively mixture of travelers and locals. We explored the thousand year old Temple of Literature where students of Confuscianism have studied since the founding of the city. We were able to combine our love of food with our desire to support local NGOs addressing the issues of poverty and inequity that are an unfortunate reality within Vietnam's rapidly developing economy through a couple of organizations that operate restaurants and training programs for disadvantaged youth and street kids, preparing their graduates for employment in the high end restaurant and hotel industry. These organizations, called KOTO and Hoa Sua are similar in mission to Seattle's Fare Start and worth checking out if you ever find yourself in Hanoi.

Our last night in Hanoi, we went to the water puppet theater to watch a performance of live music and puppetry. Water puppet shows originated in the Vietnamese rice farming culture, providing a form of art and entertainment during times of flooding. The puppeteers stand in knee deep water, hidden behind a stage and control the hand carved wooden puppets by long reeds of bamboo concealed beneath the water. The puppets are elaborately carved and painted into figures of humans, animals and dragons, and act out playful, humorous scenes set to a traditional Vietnamese folk music that centers around a single stringed instrument that sounds like a mesmerizing cross between a theremin and a banjo.

After the show, we took one last walk around the lake in the misty Hanoi evening, joining countless other couples who had come there together to look out across the shimmering surface of the water, and I wondered at the mysterious allure of this city that holds so many seemingly opposing forces -- the ancient and the modern, the Eastern and the Western, the communist and the capitalist -- and yet maintains an ever shifting harmony that is truly enchanting and can only be felt by being there within it.

Mui Ne

Our journey from the busy streets of Saigon to the beautiful beach town of Mui Ne was as smooth as the smooth jazz versions of early Nineties love songs that serenaded us on repeat for the entire length of the four hour drive. Bryan Adams, Celine Dione and that sultry number from Top Gun never sounded so soothing. To this languid soundtrack we watched the landscape transform from the sprawling industrial outskirts of Ho CHi Minh City to the dense jungle and rocky green mountains of rural Vietnam. The crowded, exhaust choked streets gave way to sleepy towns of oxen carts and hammocks draped out front of houses and store fronts. Our first views of the coast came in the port city of Phan Thiet where we caught glimpses of the brightly colored wooden fishing boats that dotted the horizon of the South China Sea.

Upon arrival at the Full Moon Beach resort, we felt immediately in paradise. Our beach front bungalow was a mixture of rustic and refined with a thatch roof, woven bamboo walls and a tile Jacuzzi style bathtub. The porch cantilevered out over the breaking waves and provided views of the palm lined, crescent shaped beach and the rolling red sand dunes that towered over Mui Ne. With Tara fully recovered from her tummy troubles, we were ready to enjoy some of the local cuisine and lucked out on our first try, discovering a small, family run beach front restaurant where a delicious meal of whole fried fish with lemon grass and chile, fried noodles with vegetables, spring rolls and a couple of beers could be had for about four dollars. We were, needless to say, quite pleased with this discovery and so began a bit of an obsession that resulted in each consecutive meal being declared "the greatest meal we've had yet in Vietnam!"

Mui Ne instantly placed us in full on vacation mode, a state which we quickly realized meant for Tara endless, unimpeded lounging and relaxation and for me meant a restless urge to explore. We compromised by doing our exploring early in the morning before the temperature shot up into the high nineties. Our adventures in Mui Ne included wading up the ankle deep waters of the Fairy Spring, a stream that cuts through other worldly rock formations and lush jungle foliage, ending at an outcropping of waterfalls and palm trees. The hike is best described by the guide book at our resort as "a very clean and pure stream with one side of red mountains and other side of natural green grass. You can enjoy the babble and songs of birds in a wild nature like being lost in fairy place." Nuff said. Other excursions included a trek up the red and white sand dunes where I tried, to a questionable degree of success, to slide down the dunes on a plastic sled like the local kids. The sight of me, face down on my belly, plowing a slow but determined path down the steep slope of the dunes sent a whole lot of laughter echoing out across the desert that morning.

We loved watching the fishermen set out early in the day, with one lead motor boat towing several round "basket boats" that were tied together by lengths of line. Later we would visit a local fishing village and get a close look at the little round boats, woven from bamboo with a wooden frame, just big enough for one or two very friendly fishermen. We watched them bring in their catches of snapper, tuna, squid and shrimp and sell them by the basket full to local merchants fresh off the boats on shore.

The Philippine typhoons bring heavy winds to Mui Ne this time of year and with them come droves of kite surfers from all over the world to ride the powerful, seemingly endless gusts. In the afternoons, their kites would glide throughout the sky, lifting the boarders ten times their own heights through the air in a controlled, arching free fall across the wind that must feel for an instant as close as you could come to flying.

Between our excursions, Tara got a plentiful fix of pure relaxation. We spent many hours reclining beach side with a book or a pen and pad to pass the time. Our long walks down the beach beneath the rising or setting sun were moments of peaceful wonder, breathing in the beauty of our natural world and feeling very, very fortunate to be here at this place together.

Saigon

Our first morning in Saigon, we awoke at sunrise. The night before, our first glimpses of the city had come through the windows of our taxi, our weary eyes widening at the sight of the swarming hordes of mopeds that rule the streets of Saigon. Traffic lanes, signals and stop signs seem to be merely decorative here, as the vehicles surge and wander from lane to lane, to the constant sounding of their horns, honking what Tara described as friendly honks, as if to say, "Hi there, I'm on your left side. Please don't hit me." We arrived at our hotel, exhausted from our journey across the Pacific, but thankful for the safe and comfortable passing we had made from one side of the world to another.

The sunrise of that first morning lifted us gently from our sleep, and we decided to take advantage of the energy we had, setting out into the city to a district called Cholon. Cholon is Saigon's chinatown, known for its pagodas and busy public markets. It was, perhaps not the most appropriate choice for easing into the Vietnam experience. Our taxi dropped us off in front of the Thai Binh market, a labyrinthian maze of vendors, plying everything from fresh herbs and dried seafood to assorted gadgets, toys and clothing. We wandered through the bustling stalls and though we were the only tourists out and about at that early hour of morning, no one seemed to pay us any mind, the sight of pleasantly dumbfounded westerners seeming to be a commonplace anomaly in this and many places like it in Saigon.

Back out on the street, we were greeted by a troupe of eager xe om drivers, beckoning us with waves and smiles, their moped taxis lined up outside the market, just waiting for a couple of confused and disoriented tourists like us to come their way. I was, however, determined to navigate our own way to the nearby pagodas, undeterred by the fact that we were unable to locate any of the surrounding streets on the tourist map that our hotel had provided us. In an effort to at least make it look like we knew what we were doing, and shake off the attention of the persistent xe om drivers, we decided to start walking in the direction of a church spire that towered above the interweaving streets and alleyways, figuring we could then locate the church on our map and get our bearings. This was our first initiation into the comlex coreography of crossing the streets of Saigon. We learned from watching the locals, that the trick is to move very slowly, and allow the mopeds, cars and busses to weave their way around you. Waiting for a break in traffic is futile, and will only get you smirked at by the other pedestrians as they wade through the rushing currents of traffic in what looks to us like a vehicular version of russian roulette. We never realized that the act of crossing the street could make us feel so accomplished.

Once we found our way to the church, we were able to get our bearings and spent the rest of the morning admiring the architecture and hand carved statues and pillars of the Chinese style pagodas. Scenes of dragons and warriors were juxtaposed with natural scenes of animals and landscapes, some were painted on the walls, others were forged from wood or tile. Bright, vivid red colored the walls and pillars, and people knelt in prayer before the Buddha, while smoke rose in swirling whisps from the incense sticks that burned throughout the pagoda. It was a strange sensation to move from the constant noise and motion of the city streets into the quiet and solemn refuge of a pagoda, but there is a subtle sense of intrusion, that Tara commented upon in observing another's religious practice. At one point, a man grabbed me by the arm and pulled me over to a painting of the Buddha whose eyes were made to watch you as you move. I think that he wanted me to burn some incense before the painting, but the barrier of language was too strong between us, so we exchanged smiles and shrugs and made our way back out into the street.

The jet lag was starting to take hold and so we took a cab back to the hotel, where we decided to take it easy and enjoy our luxurious digs. Unfortunately, this "taking it easy" invlolved a bowl of pho and spring rolls wrapped in lettuce that were as delicious as they were damaging to Tara's digestive system. Her stomach troubles were compounded by a head banging injury sustained during the more rockin' section of our wedding reception, and she decided to spend most of the next day in bed.

I made another early morning venture to Ben Than Market, the largest and most centrally located of Saigon's public markets. It was confirmed through this excursion that I should not be permitted to bargain without Tara's supervisions, as I ended up returning to the hotel with a pair of shorts that didn't fit and a polo shirt that I will never wear. By the evening, the worst of Tara's stomach troubles were behind her and we went for a drink at the top of the tallest downtown hotel. We watched the sun set over the sprawling lights of Saigon and wondered why the gecko that chirped at us from the ceiling over our table had bothered to climb 23 stories to the top of the building. Probably for the same reason we had, to see things from a different view; to try and climb high enough to see it all at once.