On Sunday night we met with our Spice Roads group – a couple from Australia that we have so much in common with it’s creepy, and a solo gentleman from Belgium who bikes a lot, works for a Son-of-Siemens company, travels 2 weeks of every month, and lives next door to his parents. Our guide is a young Vietnamese man named Phuic –ok, try pronouncing this using your best manners. No matter how you try, even being super careful, it still comes out the same way. Of course, this is causing us no end of giggles and glee.

On Monday, the van dropped us for our first ride, through villages and semi-rural areas on the outskirts of Saigon. The kids love yelling “Hello”.


The street economy is lively, with everything you can imagine being sold along the side of the roads. People buzz around on motor bikes and bicycles, carrying loads that defy our Western judgment of what can be schlepped in one trip; the guys in the tire business are always busy. Lots of interesting smells, some from cooking (good) some from trash and ?? (not so good). We also cycled by acres and acres of rubber plantations.















We stopped at the Cu Chi Tunnels, which is an amazing and extensive network of multi-layered underground tunnels built by the Viet Cong.

The intro film was especially interesting, as we’re not used to the perspective that the North Vietnamese were the heroes. In fact, the film introduced several young women who had won the “Medal for killing Americans”. After touring the site, tourists are invited to shoot machine guns or rifles from the war. And it only cost $1 extra! Doesn’t get much better than that, huh?


Next, we visited The Museum of War Remnants. Not for the faint of heart. Lots of anti-American depictions of the war and blame for the impact of Agent Orange during and post-war. The Americans are blamed for every birth defect since the late ‘60’s. Steven and I were both struck by the similarities of what the US did then and some of what we’re doing now. We all knew it then and we all know it now. Yet it continues. Not sure how to explain this.


For all you foodies – yes, it’s wonderful. Lots of variety, interesting taste combinations and of course, pho, which is a clear broth soup with rice noodles and nearly anything else you want in it. Available for breakfast, lunch or dinner. We’ve been very careful to only drink and brush with bottled water and it’s been easy because bottled water is readily available. But they don’t use it to make ice, so we’ve backed off the hard stuff and I’ve made do with tepid diet coke. The local beer is pretty good and hits the spot. Course the prospect of many-mile bike rides, uphill both ways, has been quite effective in stifling my party urge.