Sai Gon: 2 weeks before Lunar New Year

We wanted to try how comfortable the new Airbus 380 was offering, and it was not disappointed. The flight couldn't be smoother. The seats were pretty comfy and there was plenty of spaces all around. Korea Air was known to have great service, and it proved the point.




We landed at Tan Son Nhat around noon Jan 18 2013, a couple of weeks before our Lunar New Year. The whole clan was there waiting for us. My nephew had a decent car to take us home. My wife's other nephews was responsible for our luggage.


The weather was pleasantly cool in the low 70s during the day. It wasn't bad at all. Traffic at this time of the year was great as well. A third or more of Sai Gon's population had gone home to their New Year celebration already so not much of traffic going on.










I didn't have much of jet-lag or time zone differences dilemma, but my wife did. I could easily ease into the new time without much problems.









The very next day, early in the morning, I had my nephew take us to Can Tho, about 2.5 hour drive from Sai Gon. Before we got there, we loved to stop by a few towns along the way.








Our first stop was My Tho. I had had a lots of memory to this little town. Beside, My Tho was well know for Hu Tiu My Tho, a special type of rice noodles born from this area decades ago. We always stop here for it every time we pass by, no excuses, and no exception.








Soon after we finished our "noodles for breakfast", we headed straight to Can Tho. This town has grown so much in the last few years. There are so many building, so much constructions and so many people. Since we no longer had to wait for ferries to get here, time has been cut in less than half.









We got to Can Tho around 1:30 pm. There was almost no traffic at all. Business here and like most of business in Viet Nam were all shut down for lunch break. Only restaurants were open.







Our hotel was right in front of the largest river in Viet Nam, Hau Giang river. We picked the fourth floor facing the most busy port in Can Tho. Traffic on the water seemed to be busier than on roads.






The city offers some attractions at night but not a whole lot. There are not too many places to go beside having dinners at some nice diners along the main street of Ben Ninh Kieu. The most attractive place to spend a couple of hours at night is the floating restaurant right in front of our hotel. They offer average dishes for a reasonable price while the boat cruise along the river banks. They also have live band and music with real low level wash-out singers for entertainment. It won't take long before they are heading back a shore. By 9:30 -10 o'clock, the city is deep into its sleep.



Early next morning, we were heading to the Cai Rang floating market. It's basically a market on the river. It's unique and strange, and it also brings all the ooh and aah to the tourists, who had never seen one before.





They mostly sold fresh fruits from the local farms. Every now and then, I would see a small boat that sell food like a water food truck. They offer fresh home made meals and drinks, from coffee to soda to fresh young coconuts. Different boats sell different foods. The way they maneuvered their boats and prepared your foods on the bumping waves were fascinating and amazing.





oon after the sun came up, the floating market slowed down tremendously. We left it and headed to one of those Resorts of Nature which have been popping up all over the country to attract more tourists.

This resort was built right on this river bank about 30 minute on a high speed boat from Ben Ninh Kieu. Admission cost about $5.00 per person.



Soon after we passed the gate, we knew it was a huge disappointment. This half-baked resort was in desperate need to either shutting down for good or adding huge amount of capital to build it right. It was completed in such a half-ass job that no visitors wanted to spend more than 15 minutes of a quick look around, let alone coming back. We left the place in disgust in less than 30 minutes. There were nothing in there to see but a few animals and fruit trees.



We went back to Sai Gon the next day to be ready for our 7 day trip to China we had booked before coming down here. We had about 30 hours to get ready.





Huge Jackfruits at the Nature Resort.

 Variety of fresh exotic fruits offered at the floating market.

Tourist boats were available in all different sizes and luxury levels.

Rest table at one of the many ponds inside Can Tho Nature Resort.

Lunar New Year 2013: The Year of the Snake

We had spent a few months to prepare for a long 45 day trip thru 4 countries, Viet Nam, China, Campuchea, and Korea in the Spring of 2013. I started my planning in early October of 2012. The main part was to spend our Lunar New Year in Viet Nam, and the rest of the time, we'd be visiting other neighbor countries.

I found out that there were plenty of Vietnamese students either studying or working in Korea, specially in or near Seoul. How would I be able to find them? I asked Dr. Google.



 I connected to some of them thru some of the Vietnamese forums which they used to communicate with one another, but mostly to sell their unused stuffs or to ask for help with their own issues. I posted a private-tour-guide-wanted-ads all over the place. I gave them a rough time frame, and what type of tour guides we were looking for, and what we wanted to do and where we wanted to spend time on. After a few days, there were plenty of responses.


It took me about 3 weeks to screen out our potential guide via emails and phone calls directly between Korea and our home in the U.S.



We found a young man who had spent over 6 years studying and working in Korea. He spoke Korean fluently, and knew Seoul real well. He promised that if I was serious about the trip, and if I confirmed about the dates and times, he'd take those days off for vacation. He would have some free trips paid by us and he would earn some money doing that job as well. The wheels started to roll.






After securing a tour guide for our Korea trip, I turned around and prepared for our China trip. Since we were not comfortable in dealing directly with the Politburo regime in China, we looked for a complete tour package sold in Viet Nam leaving from Sai Gon. It was easy. We got this done in the matter of days. They had an office located in Orange County, California. We would book and pay for the trip here with US currency, then joined them in Viet Nam.



Time flied so the 4 months passed by so quick. It was time to pack.

Our first stop was Los Angeles, California. We hadn't been back to our neighborhood in a while. Things seemed to change quite a bit. It's felt suffocated, with too much traffic, and too many people. We had 3 days to visit friends and relatives, and to refresh after 6 hour flights across the country. We still had another 18 hour flights before we landed at Tan Son Nhat airport.

 Manhattan Beach, California.

Western Europe Trip Completion

I didn't know how tired I was until we hit the A1 freeway heading to Rome. I wasted quite sometimes to get the correct direction using only sign language. The guy was really helpful even though neither of us understood the other ... :-)

It was about 2 hours and 30 minutes of fast driving to get to Rome. We stopped at a gas station lying right next to the freeway to fill up the gas tank and grab some snacks and drinks.

Gas was very expensive here during our stay. Before we left home gas price hit $3.50 a gallon in the U.S, but it cost 2.2 Euro a liter of gas here. That's equal to about $11.00 a gallon. It's no wonder why I couldn't find a car bigger than a matchbox here. During our 3 hour drive to Rome, there wasn't a single S.U.V or a pick-up truck on the road. All the vehicles here were the teeny tiny 2 to 4 cylinders that's so weak, they couldn't carry much.

After getting closer to Rome, I wasted more than an hour to drive around and around trying to get to the airport with the hope to get the replacement for our broken GPS. It was right there insight, but there wasn't any access to get off the freeway. Soon we got off the freeway, we hit a bunch of roundabouts which brought us right back to the other side of the freeway AGAIN. I did this 4-5 times at least.

In the mean time, the toll kept mounting. The people at those tollbooth offered no help. We found a cop car with a couple of them in it but after 10 minutes, it got us to nowhere. Talk about frustrations.

We finally found a car with bunch of people with their luggage spilling all over their roof. I followed it no matter even I had to weaved in and out of the traffic. And voila, it was exactly what we anticipated. It lead us to the airport terminals.

We didn't get our replacement because they had none. The people spoke English alright but they offered no apologize neither giving a crap that what we wanted to do. I had enough so I return the car right there for 1 day less of charge.

We called a cab to take us to our hotel which was so closed by, less than a couple miles. The hotel we stayed for 1 night there wasn't so great either. It was small, dirty, and very noisy because all of the tourist attractions were surrounding it. We took a shower, grabbed some dinners then hit the bed. We still had sometimes during tomorrow morning before heading home anyways.






View from our hotel in Focene on the last day in Rome. Mediterranean Sea is in the background.

Pompeii: The Burial City

It took us a little over an hour drive from Amalfi Coast to Pompeii on the very empty highways. The traffic all seemed to head in the opposite directions. From a long distance, we could see mount Vesuvius.



The town is quite modern with lots of new roads and constructions. Soon after entering the outskirt of the city, our rental GPS froze. No matter how many times I tried to reset it, it wouldn't come back again.

I hoped this wasn't the curse from this ancient burial site. I was worried beyond belief but I couldn't show it so I put on a poker face to calm my wife's nerve.







How the heck we were going to figure out the direction from this point on. The traffic system here isn't anything like ours in the U.S, with all the unfamiliar names and numbers ... oh gosh!





I called Hertz, the car rental company, and to my dismay, I only had 2 options:
- One, I had to go back to the original branch where I had picked up the car, an hour of driving away to trade for a new one at no cost. And worse yet, I didn't have a slightest idea of how to get there from my current location.
- Two, the closest branch I could get a replacement was very closed to Rome, almost 3 hour of driving from here. It's our final destination before heading for home. But first we had to get to the hotel that I had booked in the coastal town of Focene near Fiumicino Airport.



All my driving life in the U.S, for some reasons, I've just hated Tomtom GPSs. The designs are bulky. The maps are undefined. And after this, it would surely make me hate it even more. I had anticipated some kinda problems ahead of time, but never thought it was going to be ... dead like this. Some hiccups and minor issues, yes but not this completely K.I.A (killed in action), damn.





I spent more than 30 minutes driving around the town center trying to figure out on how to get to the ruins without the mean of communications. Nobody spoke English here and I spoke no Italian. With my limited Spanish, I had to make do. We found a small restaurant which was not too far from the site's ticket counters. I parked my rental nearby and we went inside to order some lunch. I did fed the parking meter some coins. It was expensive to park anywhere in the continent of Europe.



With all kind of problems we had to deal with so far today, I had never expected this. After we finished our meals and on the way back to our car, a parking officer was writing me a ticket for 6 minutes over! What the hell!

I got so pissed but I determined not to let these things bother me. So we marched on to start our Pompeii exploration.






The ruin which they allow visitors is no more than a couple square miles. All of the houses, the buildings and the community constructions were so intact that they didn't look like they were built over two thousand years ago.












According to the historians, the people and buildings of Pompeii were covered in up to twelve different layers of volcanic ashes produced by Mount Vesuvius eruption, in total 25 meters deep, which rained down continuously for about 6 long hours.

At one site, we found it said in English that Pompeii town and its people were eradicated by this event on November 23rd 79 AD, almost two thousand years ago.




The whole area was eerily silent and that made the hair on the back of my head stood up and goosebumps popped up all over my body.










The objects buried beneath Pompeii were well-preserved for almost two thousand years. The lack of air and moisture allowed for the objects to remain underground with little to no deterioration. All the kitchen utensils were hung nicely at one of the house make it looks like time had frozen still.









You can see houses from modest to majestic; see Roman shops, baths and brothels; or the Latin words that are still visible on some of the walls. There was even a few color maps on a wall of which looks like a town official building.





It may takes days if not weeks to visit all the sites, which we didn't have. From the amphitheater side looking back into the town, we can see vividly how at one time, the inhabitants of Pompeii thrived. Their houses and building said a lot about their richness and advanced skills.

What surprised me the most were the sexual content of many paintings which were all over the place. They were in many places surrounded by their common residential complex. Even many recovered household items had a sexual theme. There were at least a couple of brothels in such a small establishment.

It was almost 3 in the afternoon. We had to drive back to Rome before sunset. I got to give a bit of extra time just in case we got lost without the GPS. I found a paper map from a local souvenir shop. It was time to leave.

Amalfi Coast: An Outstanding Mediterranean Landscape

We left Sorrento around 9 o'clock in the morning, enough time to catch the spectacular image of Amalfi Coast.











Stretching along the southern side of Italy's Sorrentine Peninsula, the Amalfi coast dazzles with its mysterious grottos, craggy cliffs and shimmering bays.








The Amalfi Coast is a pleasurable and fascinating combination of great beauty and gripping drama: coastal mountains plunge into the sea in a stunning vertical scene of precipitous crags, picturesque towns and lush forests.










Like the rest of the region, the Amalfi Coast lies in a Mediterranean climate. It was hot and humid during our stay in late July.









It's located on the relatively steep southern shore of the Sorrentine Peninsula. Beside rocky hills, there's little room for rural and agricultural territories.








The only land route to the Amalfi Coast is the 25 miles long Strada Statale 163 which runs along the coastline from the town of Vietri sul Mare in the east to Positano in the west. In some area along the coast, the street is so narrow with steep curves. This made it so hard to maneuver, especially with this small manual transmission engine of our rental.







The Amalfi Coast is known for its production of limoncello liqueur as the area is a known cultivator of lemons, known as sfusato amalfitano in Italian, which are sold all over along the hillsides looking down the near vertical, rock exposure cliff at the edge of the sea.







The area also offers a generous selection of restaurants, bars, boutiques, boat trips ... and just about anything that you can spend money on.








From the coastline heading to Amalfi looking back at Sorrento.

We hit the traffic along the way. During the summer months, this coastal areas are swarmed with tourists. Hotel is hard to find. And the price of everything is higher.

We passed by this beautiful but empty church along the way. I guess this is the Church of Santa Maria Assunta but not very sure.

 There was only a handful of visitors included the two of us.









We turned around using the highway heading north. Our next stop will be the most fascinating and full of mystery: Pompeii, before a long drive back to Rome.

Sorrento: A gorgeous coast town in Southern Italy

Soon after our ferry stopped and tied up at the port, we got our rental and headed to Sorrento about an hours drive away.



But first thing first, Naples is famous for its best taste pizzas in Italy. And one of my favorite bombshell actress from my teen age, Sophia Loren were born here. We located the famous Di Matteo pizzeria in the historic district of Naples, where the picture of Bill Clinton wolfing down a large slice of pizza hung on the wall. To our dismay, the pizzas here weren't as good as we expected, too little sauce and too little meat, but the bread was great.

Lucky for us, we had enough time to get to our hotel before night fall. To our surprise, the 4 star hotel I booked blindly online is so beautiful with the best views in the world for a very good price, 135 US dollars a night breakfast included.

Our room even has a balcony facing the Tyrrhenian Sea, with a breath-taking view of the coastal town and the quiet sea. There is even a small choice of Vespas for rent at our hotel. This hotel is a mere 3 miles to the town center. It was late so we accepted the courtesy drive to the town from our hotel driver at no cost. WOW, what a nice gesture!





 Sorrento is livelier at night to our excitement even though we were really tired. We got to the busy town square without much money in our pockets. Like many large countries in Europe, Italian accepts Euro. Even though Sorrento is a small town with a population of less than 20 thousand souls, it's a famous vacation destination in Italy so they have everything there. There are quite many money exchange kiosks with aggressive rates.




Restaurants and shops were fully alive at sunset. The whole area is about a tad bigger than a square mile. There were artists performing at all corners, from music instrument players to singers. The most common type of artists we found here were the living statues. Every now and then we heard a scream from a startled tourist by their sudden moves. Otherwise, it's all smooth with light music.






Via Cesareo is the main shopping street in Sorrento. The best place to start a walk down the street is where it intersects with the Plaza Tasso. The street narrows to a group of small shops and stalls selling many different type of products. Lemon products, walnuts, olive oil and a wide selection of candies are just a few items offered. There are also some local crafts available such as embroidery and wooden intarsias. These were the most dominant items that sold here. A few jewelry shops were popped up here and there to mix in with clothing stores that offer the latest trend.










There is a small food court right in the middle of all the shops with many outdoor seating restaurants. Most of them are Italian food, from sea food to pizza and pasta to handmade ice-creams. All were beautifully decorated. All had tables set up with candle lights and fresh flowers. Surprisingly, their prices weren't too expensive for a tourist town.









As always, my wife had her no-nonsense, foul-proof ham and pineapple pizza. She didn't expect much and in return, no disappointment.

  
Here, I tried the famous Italian Seafood Risotto. What a disappointment!
 

To our Asian rice eaters, the European don't know how to cook their rice. They are always under-cooked to our liking. The same happened here. This dish was filled with seafood like squids, crabs, shrimps, clamps, and fish, but the rice was half cooked, almost like uncooked rice so it was too bad for my taste. I ended up order something else to fill my hunger.

This church was in a dire need for a major repair. I didn't have a chance to catch its name. It's quite very small to compare with others in the area, and not much to show for.

We caught this spectacular view in the early morning with fog surrounding the island on a dead calm sea. It was so quiet and peaceful.






 




From our balcony toward the sea and Capri Island in the back ground.













On our left was the coastal town of Sorrento.

A little bit later, the sun came up and burned all the fog.

These small veapas (scooters) were for rent by the same hotel we stayed in Sorrento.

Our hotel viewed from below ... we were on our way to Almafi Coast.








To me, Sorrento is one of the best small towns in Western Europe. It's quite a distance from Rome to the southern end of Italy. From here one can reach to Pompei and/or Almafi Coast within an hour driving distance.