Thursday, October 02, 2008

I'm Back -- for Good This Time...

...that is until my next foreign adventure. I got home Monday afternoon, in the 38th hour of September 29th (thanks to the International Dateline), and I'm just now ready to rejoin the land of the living. I still have some jet lag and I'm sleeping some very odd hours, but I think I have recovered enough to act -- if not actually be -- cogent.

My trip was terrific, the chance of a lifetime, really. I traveled for three weeks in Vietnam with my friend Minh, who is a native Vietnamese and who, naturally, speaks the language fluently. And there's nothing like seeing a country with someone who is a native of that country. I learned 100 times more about Vietnam's history and culture in three weeks than I learned in the whole 10 months and 23 days (but who's counting) that I spent there in 1968.

We flew into Hanoi for Minh's brother's wedding, we spent two days at Ha Long Bay and finally took a series of three passenger trains south -- first to Hue, then to Nha Trang, and finally to Saigon. While we were in Saigon, we took overnight trips to the beach resort of Vung Tau and to the Mekong Delta, as well as a day trip to Tay Ninh with a stopover at the Tunnels of Cu Chi exhibit -- which I ended up calling "Cong World" (as in Disney World).

I have a lot of pictures and travel stories, which I will be posting on my Vietnam website. It'll take me a while to sort through them and pick out the best ones, but I'll let everyone know when it's available.

While the trip was terrific, it's great to be back. So much has happened in my absence, and I never saw a single news show or read a newspaper while I was gone, so now I'm trying to catch up.

5 Comments:

mrln said...

Welcome back, Farns! Whilst you were gone, Grampaw chose a category 5 Bimbo as his running mate (That's how Bill Mahr described her...Make sure you catch the SNL parody with Tina Fey the first one..); Henry Paulson tried to stage an old fashioned Western-style hold up of the entire country, and lipstick on pigs is all the rage.

I bet you never suspected you'd be returning to a third world country.... I've put in a request to be paid in euros..

Oh, and did you know that the economic wheels are coming off because those damn MINORITIES bought houses they couldn't afford? Ask Rush...he's got the inside scoop...

Hey, here's a Republican quiz for you:
Why is the US economy on the verge of a complete meltdown?
A. Too much gov't Regulation of markets
B. Over regulation by gov't of markets
C. Not enough deregulation by gov't of markets.

I know it's hard, but TRY!If you pass, I have some mortgage backed securities to sell you....

jae said...

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

You watching the VP Debate....? Hubby and I are playing Palin Bingo courtesy of PFAW.....I have 7 boxes marked and he's got a one point lead.

I am so happy you're back....

TDP said...

So glad your trip was great. Friends tell me that Vietnam is a beautiful country.

Missed your insights and am very glad you're back!

A faithful reader.

Farnsworth68 said...

Thanks, ladies. It's good to know that I was missed by my constant readers.
Vietnam is a beautiful country, despite the fact that it is nominally "communist" -- but it's pretty difficult to swallow that it's actually Communist with all those giant advertising billboards and, get this, a stock market!

Anonymous said...

Good to see you're back safe and sound. Welcome home
Anthony Pitman