GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!

Barry fulfilled one of his desires and Phyllis fulfilled one of her's when we Visited two places in Vietnam last week. Barry got to see Vietnam and Phyllis succeeded when they both concluded, there is no reason to go back for more sightseeing at another time. We wanted most of all to see the famous US Embassy which was the site where US helicopters landed on the roof and evacuated Americans and as many Vietnamese as they could scramble aboard the choppers. It was the event that the stage play Miss Saigon was written from. Below is the embassy today with armed Vietnamese soldiers guarding it. Our guide told me privately that his father and uncles fought for the South with the US and paid for it with a year in jail..probably a lite sentence. Occasionally the guide might make a reference to the war but we could have easily spent our 2 days in Vietnam without ever talking about it...it is something to most of them that happened too long ago.

This Vietnamese toddler was being used by her mother to evoke sympathy for selling post cards and other stuff for "just a doll ah"... While Vietnam is doing well, there are still many uneducated and living in shacks.

We had almost 2 hours drive into Saigon from where we docked so our guide, who was a real hoot, made a "happy stop" so we could go to the bathroom in this Walmart type supercenter. Facilites were western style and clean. Just a few years ago this kind or market store didn't exist in Vietnam.

This is the old Vietnam Palace now called Reunification Palace (something close to that). It serves as their government headquarters.

Our guide was very careful to tell us about Ho Chi Minh as the savior and grandfather of modern day re-unified Vietnam. However he was also quick to say that when the people saw socialist communism fail, the leadership of Vietnam was smart enough to open the country to normal US relations and participation in the WTO. The economic change has been outrageously successful and they will never want to go back to the old way.

Our guide said they practice several religions in Vietnam and he in fact has a brother who will be ordained a Catholic priest in May. This Mary the Virgin Church built by the French is in the very middle of downtown Saigon. It is right across the street from Ho Chi Minh Post Office which is a beautiful 19th century European influence architecture.