A Visit to Vietnam - Part One, An Introduction

We interrupted our annual snowbird getaway in Cairo for a two-week vacation to Vietnam this year.  Long on Tom's list of places to tour, I finally got to work on planning a visit after last year's return from Cairo.  

Tom had visited the country in 1970 on a government-sponsored trip funded by the U.S. Army.  I spent a memorable 331 days just north of Saigon with the 1st Infantry Division (Big Red One) at Di An and the 25th Infantry Division (Tropic Lightning) at Cu Chi. 

Way to Vietnam is a travel planning / tour company that I found mentioned in the 25th Infantry Division Newsletter; the company turned out to be a wonderful resource for our trip.

Vietnam is a large country, comparable to Egypt in population (both have over 100 million population).  Stretching about a thousand miles from North to South and with over two thousand miles of winding coastline it has very distinct climates along its length.  We visited three relatively small areas of the country over the course of two weeks.  This blog post will introduce our journey.

We began by flying from Cairo to the capital city of Hanoi in the north of the country which lies near the border with China.  Because of an attractive low round trip fare, I chose Qatar Airways with an intermediate change of planes at Doha, Qatar.  This would later turn out to have interesting consequences.

 

This year on February 18th, the first day of the Islamic month of Ramadan coincided with Tet, the start of the Asian New Year.  We were getting away from Ramadan and, I believed, just missing Tet in Vietnam.  Little did I know that the Tet celebration extends for ten days!  We were greeted by a grand celebration of the year of the Horse - but not just any old horse, this is the year of the Fire Horse which occurs only once every 60 years.  "Happy New Year, 2026" signs were everywhere, not to mention golden horses.

 

 

Hanoi lies in the midst of a large flat delta drained by the Red River.  Hanoi is a city of lakes, the most prominent of which are West Lake and Hoan Kiem Lake, the latter regarded as the symbolic heart of the city.  The "Old Town" neighborhood where we were staying at the Silk Path Hotel, borders Hoan Kiem Lake and we spent a good bit of time in that touristy but fun neighborhood while in Hanoi.

   

 

We spent several days in the Hanoi area touring the city, exploring the nearby river and caves of Tam Coc:

 

then headed out to the famed Ha Long Bay for a couple of days on a small cruise boat.

 

Following that we headed south to the central highlands to visit the well preserved ancient trading center of Hoi An 

 

and the Imperial City of Hue.

 

along with a day at the beach south of Da Nang.

 

From Hue, we headed south to Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) where we briefly visited the former Presidential Palace now known as Reunification Hall. 

 

 

Tom, ever the electronics geek, loved the radio room and command center in the basement!

 

We took two major side trips from Ho Chi Minh City, first to visit the operations area of the 1st and 25th Infantry Divisions including the tunnels at Cu Chi, 

 

then an afternoon cruise on the Mekong river

 

 

Returning to Hanoi, we discovered that war in Iran had closed the two airports that all airlines, including Qatar Airways, use as hubs for their operations between the far east and the middle east.  It took a couple of days to locate an alternate route back to Cairo but with the help of our new friends at Way To Vietnam we were able to book a flight to Cairo via Shanghai, China - it's a thirteen hour flight between Shanghai and Cairo, if you were wondering.

We are now safely back in our Cairo apartment and putting together a few blog posts about the trip.  Much more detail to follow.