I got up early so that I could go and be remeasured for the clothes I was having made, then I went for breakfast. After that I ran to check my email. Good thing as there were problems in my Hunger Mission that I had to attend to. The computers sure are slow here!

I got back to the group a little late and I had missed 2 options Namji had given the group for today's activities. We were supposed to go to the Mausoleum and the Citadel. That would end about noon and the rest of the day would be free. The new offer was to go to the DMZ and The Ho Chi Minh Trail. When I heard that I jumped at the offer. I would rather do a real activity than visit more historic buildings. I like seeing parts of history but I wanted to get out there too. I knew the first trip involved lots of steps, harsh sun and no air-conditioning. My upper thighs were still hurting from the Marble Mountains. It turned out that Namji Jerry (former Professor at Stanford and currently at the University of Minnesota), Charlene and I were the only 4 who wanted to go. We split the cost of the air-conditioned van which was $25. I ran to the room to get tennis shoes and insect repellent, which I didn't use. I had packed my suitcase nice and neat last night. I tore into it and flung things every which way. I went back to the lobby and we were off. Binh had tried to discourage us to go telling us it was going to take 12 hours. That didn't stop us. We left at 10:00 am. and we got back at 8:00 pm. We stopped so many places and did things we couldn't with the group in a big bus. Many times we had the driver turn around and go back to something we wanted to photograph. He drove past a totally different landscape in a different part of the country.

We had the driver turn around and take us to a river we wanted to photograph just at the end of the bridge. Later we learned that it was the 17th parallel, which divided North and South Vietnam.

Half an hour later the driver took us to what we had requested as someplace to get a drink. It was beautiful! It was in a grove of trees and bamboo overlooking the ocean. We had our drinks and Charlene lounged in a hammock. The ladies went to the restroom. It turned out that building was a museum. I had gone to the van because I was a little shook up. Under the trees I had been photographing the children and the women. They enjoyed it because I could show them the picture right there. One little boy was a trip. He went and got his sunglasses so he could pose for me. He then brought the baby for me to hold and he took my picture with her. After that I ran to the van to get a bag of airheads to hand out. I had just enough to give one to each of them. Just then a bunch more kids came running up. I was going to go get another bag I had but Namji told me "No". At that point the grand mother started asking me to buy some of her candy. She kept saying it was for the baby. We left real quickly. A little girl followed me saying "You buy water from me later?" I said "OK".

After Namji, Charlene and Jerry finished using the bathroom I walked over to look at the garden. We returned to the van but our driver wasn't there. His name was Nam. Namji went to go get him calling "Mr. Nam". He came back saying, "You are not going to see the tunnels?" Here we were at a huge historic place and we were going to leave!

We then went to a ticket booth and bought our admission rickets. I bought a small book about the tunnels and some unreal black and white postcards of all of the Vietnamese soldiers. I could see that there was a totally other side of the war. In my little book it talked about everything deserving the right to live. It talked about America as terrorists. That was so shocking knowing how we look at and think of terrorists.

I will now list some facts about the tunnels. These tunnels go down as deep as a quarter of an American football field. They were dug by hand in just 20 days. The usual number of people in there was 350 but at peak times it held 600 people. The tunnels were dug in such a way as to give individual family areas that were smaller than the Hanoi Hilton cells! This was done to preserve the family units. There are 3 levels going down. First were the living units. Second was the way out and third was the meeting areas.

After the entrance tunnels they got shorter and I had to walk bent over. It also got narrower. The living areas were so small! They had makeshift hospital where they took care of the ill, injured or wounded and where babies were born. There were 17 births there. In the meeting area they watched movies, had singing performances and shared information. At one point there was what looked to be concrete carved with initials, words and symbols. They had a well that still had water in it. I had a hard time walking bent over and the steps down were so steep. I have such trouble going down but I developed a system. I put my left butt against the wall and my right hand on the other side. I slid my left foot down and then finally stepped down with the right. It worked but I got awfully dirty. We made our way down and out to the ocean.

After we exited I looked back at the entrance and I couldn't see where we had come out. It was that well camouflaged. It was sweltering inside. I would have thought it would be cooler so far down under but it wasn't.

We hiked up the trail to the place we had lounged drinking our soda earlier. I was busy digging dirt out from under my fingernails. Now I know why the girl followed me asking me to buy soda from her later because there she and the other children were hawking there refreshments. We quickly made our way to the van and left.

Later in the van I ran my hand over my hair and it was caked with mud where I kept bumping my head. The driver wanted to take us back to Hue but we let him know we wanted to go to The Ho Chi Minh Trail.

We wanted to eat but we had to go a ways to find a place. It was clean. The young woman ran to get a cloth tablecloth for our table. Namji went to go get our driver. We wanted to make sure he ate too. He came in but he sat at the table next to us. We insisted he join us at our table. We ordered family style. The food was delicious. We had something Namji told us about. It was called spinach with garlic (so good!), beef and onion with lemon grass, spring rolls, fried shrimp, fish with tomato sauce and rice. I ate until I couldn't eat any more. I had the coldest coke I had since we'd been here. It was actually slushy. The food is so good here! Just before we had the meal they gave us cloths to clean our hands with. Mine was pretty dirty. I saw Namji clean her arms and thought I would do the same. I ran the cloth over my arm and elbow and the cloth was totally brown black. I turned it over and did the other arm and the same thing. I was filthy!

We traveled on and the landscape changed again. There were lush green mountains and rivers. It was so pretty! All this in an air-conditioned van!

Jerry said we were close to the Laos boarder. We finally made it to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There was a very nice brand new bridge going over the river. On the other side was a monument dedicated to the Vietnamese soldiers. This is the new road Chuck Searcy told us about that they haven't gotten too far and already cleared 60,000 un-detonated bombs. The houses along the road were much nicer than most we saw on the way there. They were neat and well maintained. They had family pigs, goats and I am sure other animals.

We had a great time talking about cultures and our world travels. Charlotte is from New Mexico and is staying on in Thailand and Cambodia on her own. Jerry is married to a Thai woman, taught at Stanford, lived on the Big Island and now lives in Minnesota. Namji is the Program Director of the East West Center at the University of Hawaii. She is a Korean American married to a haole. She has two children and is I would guess in her 30s. She lived in Thailand for 2 years. Our conversations were lively and interesting. We talked about the Hawaii Department of Education and how narrow-minded they are. I asked Namji if we could be repeat participants and she said maybe in 6 years or so. Jerry informed me that we will be East West Alumni and we will be invited to their conferences. The next one will be in 2006 and it will be in Vietnam.

We all agreed that the trip was well worth in and Namji is going to include it in next
year's agenda.

I asked her if we would see any elephants in Thailand. She said probably. She had checked into us riding elephants but everything she could find was so commercial and just touristy. I have ridden a camel in Mongolia and wanted to add an elephant to my list. Oh well!

All in all our day trip took us 10 hours but we figure the group could do it in 6. When we got back we each tipped the driver $5 and I also gave him a Hawaiian tee shirt.

I went back to the room and dropped my heavy backpack. I called the tailor to make sure my clothing was done and it was ready.

I left and went to the ATM just to the side of the hotel. Some young girls beat me to the booth. A rickshaw driver starting hitting on me. He wanted to know if I had children, if I was married, where was my husband and if I wanted to go someplace with him. I was a little worried getting money right in front of the guy. The ATM asked me if wanted English but then it asked me how much dong I wanted. I knew I needed $250 but I had no clue how much dong that was. I picked the highest amount and still didn't know how much I had. It turned out it was 2 million dong but the bill was 4 million dong. I put the rest on my credit card because I didn't want to go back by the rickshaw driver. I got such beautiful things all tailored to fit me perfectly and I also got lots of nice things for my daughters and grand daughter.

I went by the open-air bar by the river. Jerry and Namji were there. We had drinks and the bridge over the river was so trippy. It changes color each minute and does 7 colors. Later it did 3 colors at once! As we unwound other teachers came along and showed what they had bought. Libby (who I like very much) stopped by and said she had a great day. After the morning excursion she took a well- needed nap, swam, had a massage and read a book. She said she felt much better. I could have used that but I wouldn't trade my day for anything!