{"id":26239,"date":"2015-11-25T01:00:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T09:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=26239"},"modified":"2015-11-25T01:00:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T09:00:30","slug":"wednesday-142","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=26239","title":{"rendered":"Scooting Around Ho Chi Minh City"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ho<\/a><\/p>\n

Going on cruises has led us to do things in life that are out of character. One was during an Alaska<\/a> cruise with Princess<\/a>\u2026being afraid of heights and then taking a helicopter onto North America\u2019s tallest mountain, Denali.<\/p>\n

\"Ho<\/a>The most recent was after a river cruise with AmaWaterways<\/a>\u2026taking a scooter rider with two complete strangers on a street corner in Ho Chi Minh City<\/a>, as Saigon has been called since 1976.<\/p>\n

Actually, they were two scooter rides. One on the \u201cback seat\u201d of one Huynh brother scooter; one in the same place behind the other brother.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d just walked out of The Independence Palace<\/a>, formerly the headquarters of the South Vietnamese government before it fell and North Vietnamese tanks rolled onto the palace grounds on April 30, 1975. The Hunyh brothers were waiting for us\u2026or anybody else daring enough to go touring with them.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, we agreed to go. For whatever reason, we (obviously) made it back safe and sound.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always been a tendency in our household to shy away from street vendors who want to take you \u201csomewhere.\u201d Not only did we throw that theory out the window, we didn\u2019t even know where \u201csomewhere\u201d was, only that they were going to show us Saigon, as it\u2019s still known to people of our vintage, both in and out of Vietnam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These were two of the 9 or 10 million people (it depends who you ask) in Ho Chi Minh City, taking us on two of the 7 million scooters. One of us thought it was safer than trying to cross the street, and that seemed\u00a0like sound rationale to the <\/span>other.<\/p>\n

Off we went with the brothers Hunyh.<\/p>\n

What became a 90-minute trip to see the city through the eyes of locals, the first stop was the post office. That\u2019s right, the post office. Either locals are proud of its French \"Ho<\/a>architecture or they think it\u2019s something tourists want to see, but the post offices in our world are places we go to mail things. Period. Nonetheless, this one was beautiful, and adorned with a huge picture of the country’s patriarch, Ho Chi Minh.<\/p>\n

We had a glimpse of the cathedral down the street that was not open, and running commentary (make that riding commentary) about a variety of sights along the way and the life of the two brothers: Both are married, one for the second time and one for 24 years to a woman who \u201cI love forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next stop was the Viet Cong Museum, also closed, but with enough artifacts on the grounds to take it interesting. One of the Hunyhs insisted we climb onto a Viet Cong tank, \"Ho<\/a>an act which we suspect would not have been met with much of an endorsement had the still-Communist government’s officials been around.<\/p>\n

The last stop was a famous pagoda \u2014 the brothers are Buddhists \u2014 that was a particularly busy place this day because it had something to do with fertility,\u00a0so\u00a0most of the occupants were women who wanted to make sure the stars were aligned and the gods were \"Ho<\/a>smiling.\u00a0We stayed there longer than expected (nothing to do with fertility), watching people light incense and pray while getting an elaborate explanation of everything in and outside the temple, including a 70-year-old turtle in a cage that would have infuriated \"Ho<\/a>animal rights people in North America.<\/p>\n

Since we were paying them by the hour, we could only surmise why the last stop took so long. The price was 300,000 dong per hour (Vietnamese currency), per person, which isn\u2019t nearly as much as it looks. For an hour and a half, that was almost a million dong.<\/p>\n

Or $45.<\/p>\n

All things considered, it was money well spent. The brothers Huynh were delightful, polite and trustworthy. We\u2019d probably have paid that just for the scooter ride \u2014 or to get across the street without being run over!<\/p>\n

\n

In the news…<\/strong><\/em><\/u><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Four new shuttle buses dedicated to cruiser passengers in Port of Galveston
\n\u2022\u00a0Arrival of Anthem of the Seas kicks off cruise season in Puerto Rico
\n\u2022\u00a0TUI Cruises to send new Mein Schiff 6 to U.S. and Canada\u00a0in 2017<\/p>\n


\nToday at\u00a0<\/span>portsandbows.com<\/span><\/a>:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/em>Scenic going deep into Southeast Asia<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nNorwegian Spirit
\n<\/a>14 nights
\nApril 23, 2016
\nPort Canaveral<\/a> (return): St. Thomas<\/a>, St. Maarten<\/a>, Funchal<\/a>, Barcelona
\n<\/a>Inside: $829
\nCost per day: $59<\/strong><\/span>
\nwww.ncl.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going on cruises has led us to do things in life that are out of character. One was during an Alaska cruise with Princess\u2026being afraid of heights and then taking a helicopter onto North America\u2019s tallest mountain, Denali. The most recent was after a river cruise with AmaWaterways\u2026taking a scooter rider with two complete strangers… Continue reading Scooting Around Ho Chi Minh City<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,25,31,36,15],"tags":[157,1290,2078,912,72,819,35,41,126,723,26,27,957,2079,2114,148],"class_list":["post-26239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-people","category-ports","category-reviews","category-stories","tag-alaska-cruises","tag-amawaterways","tag-asia-river-cruises","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruise-news","tag-cruises","tag-ho-chi-minh-city","tag-norwegian","tag-norwegian-spirit","tag-phil-reimer","tag-ports-and-bows","tag-princess-cruises","tag-saigon","tag-southeast-asia","tag-transatlantic-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}