Our hosts are extremely congenial and want to do everything they can to make our stay here as comfortable and informative as possible. The problem is, they assign their youngest staff people to show us around the city and they have more energy to expend in one hour than I can muster for the entire day! Our bodies still haven't adjusted to the time change so I'm dozing during important explanations of the city tours and wide awake in the middle of the night.

Today is Sunday - isn't this supposed to be a day of rest??? But I was met early morning (before 8am!) by a staffer from the Center for International Cooperation by the name of Ngoc who brought me to a beautiful restaurant across the Perfume River done in traditional Hue architectural style to meet her boss, Mr. Nhien, for breakfast. The buildings are all built up about 5-6 steps off the ground with beautiful wooden carved doors, shutters and beams. A series of several buildings attached by walkways, there was a huge buffet set up at the far end of the last building. Of course, we were seated in the first building. Their breakfast fare does not begin to compare with the usual American meal. Pho, the traditional soup dish of Vietnam, of course, as well as various forms of rice, vegetables, some cheese and breads (probably to satisfy us Westerners), fruits and a lot of other things I couldn't identify. It's always an interesting experience to be seated surrounded by a half dozen of your hosts who all want you to try their favorite unusual delicacy when all you really want is a piece of toast and a cup of tea! But I managed the pho and some other things I can't even remember, chopsticks and all (at least I'm proficient in that) with some various sweet breads with coconut and jasmine tea. Mr. Nhien is a very nice man whom I'll be meeting with on Monday or Tuesday to discuss opportunities for possible areas of cooperation between our two cities.

After breakfast, Ngoc and I returned to pick up my sister, Kelly, and began our walk around the city. The Hue festival is in full swing now and there was a children's area set up along Le Loi, the main street that runs along the river on the opposite side from the Citadel. We walked through beautiful gardens and watched the children painting murals and various built objects. There was a small children's stage where some children were performing, an artist drawing portraits for a fee, and some apparently very popular and well-known Western-appearing authors autographing children's books.

Farther down the river walk we came upon the Art Foundation exhibition and went into look as some of the traditional - and not so traditional - Vietnamese art. All the things are so beautiful and artfully crafted that I want to buy them all - porcelains and lacquer ware, bronze statues, incredible dragon kites that fill the sky - and all so insanely inexpensive. But all I bought were more postcards (if only I had a minute to write them out) before we sat outside to have some ice cream.

The weather is unbearably hot. Even as a former Peace Corps Volunteer who spent two + years in the tropics, I'm having a difficult time. I try to remember to slow down, saunter, don't rush but my Western sensibilities get in the way and repeatedly I'm forced to sit down and catch my breath. It's interesting to see how the people here have learned to take the heat & humidity in stride and manage to shuffle through the day without breaking a sweat. They are also very smart when dealing with the pollution caused by the endless stream of motorbikes. A good percentage of people wear face masks both on their motorbikes or just walking down the street. In fact, the market stalls and shoppes are filled with an endless variety of printed and colored face masks and it's not unusual to see a woman dressed impeccably wearing her face mask just walking down the street. Some of the masks actually cover more than just the mouth and nose and extend to cover the neck and shoulders as well. The women's variety are even offered in lace and silk. While most of us would feel self-conscious walking around in public like that, here it's just an ordinary sight.


After ice cream we headed back to our hotel to meet Anh Thu, another young woman from the International Center who was joining us for lunch. We had so time to kill along with way so we stopped at the Hotel Saigon Morin (the site of the big dinner celebration the evening before that we missed when our flight was delayed) to see this historic hotel. The interior was breathtaking. Old colonial architecture impeccably restored and maintained to match any 5-star hotel property in the West. Since the Asia Hotel where we'd moved last night can only accommodate us another night, we decided to check out the price to see if we should splurge. Much to our surprise, the hotel has rooms available . . . a double room on the 2nd floor overlooking the main street and river, with balcony for two with a huge breakfast buffet . . . for $US-90 a night! We booked it immediately for the next 3 nights. We fast-tracked it back to the Asia Hotel to check out immediately.

I never packed so fast in my life - and before we knew it we were happily settled in our new digs. All we need now is a few hours to take advantage of the pool and garden, the spa ($US-6.50 for a pedicure and $US-16 for a massage).

To be continued...

Source: http://www.traveljournals.net