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After our adventures in Hanoi, we haded south to the outskirts of Ninh Binh. We had an amazing time biking, going on long walks, and even on a boat ride through caves and around mountains! Dad, Anne, and I got rowed around by an old lady that could probably be our grandma. She was very concerned about where our mom was. Ninh Binh was a beautiful place to spend Anne and my birthdays! All of us (minus dad) got a hair wash and massage -- it was very relaxing. Dad also had his first smoothie bowl and was instantly hooked.
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Dear Jane and Anne - happiest of belated birthday wishes! I did write via your folks but with the dateline in between I'm not sure whose birthday the message landed on! I look forward to hearing about Dien Bien Phu. I was 5 years old when the French were defeated there by the Viet Minh. But I heard it referred to many times in the years that followed. ~ Sending love! Buffy
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday Jane and Anne! The scenery looks really incredible and very dramatic. Do you know how those landforms were made? The caves also look really neat. Great job on the pivot due to flooding!
ReplyDeleteThanks for these stories and all this beautiful scenery. I am soooo glad you all got north of the typhoon that did so much damage.
ReplyDeleteYour Vietnam, of course, is not the Vietnam I spent years demonstrating about, and then trying to make sure I didn't get killed in--America's involvement in that war was as fraught with mistakes as the later Iraq war, and I didn't want to die for a made-up cause. Eventually, they took all the birthdays and put them in a lottery--mine was number 278, so I was very not likely to be drafted.
My mother, on the other hand, worked for USAID in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), and resigned when, as she put it, "I would get a hospital or a school built and the next day it would be blown up."
It's good that the Vietnamese have forgiven us for all we did to their culture and people, and that you can enjoy yourselves in that beautiful country.