January 2, 2009 Travel from Saigon to Khe Sanh

To left is a picture with Rosemary, Sabina, Phi, Maddy, Nancy and Kevin. Dinner at our hotel in Khe Sanh. In this picture is Thuy (Chicago), Marielle & Helmut.

We had these small tangerines daily - often as desert but also for lunch and snacks. So sweet.

Scenes from dinner at our hotel in Khe Sanh. Notice the waitresses wearing their jackets. It was cold and damp in the hotel.

The bathroom - toilet on the right and shower on the left!

Our bedroom. These were the hardest mattresses we had EVER seen. If you plopped down too hard you were likely to end up with a concussion!

TH and Tam registering for us at the hotel in Khe Sanh.

Paul and Teresa - tired!

One of the bedrooms at the home for the blind. Straw mats on wood slats.

Incense that the blind pack and sell.

Warren at the home for the blind.

Traveling from Hue to Khe Sanh - so rainy and everything so flooded.

One of the vans and the bus.

Maddy and one of the vans.

Pierre, TH and Mong Hang getting ready to get on the bus.

Rad & Teresa getting ready to get on the bus in the airport in Hue.

Huong, Harriet, Teresa, Thuy Chicago & Phi

Harriet, Teresa, Thuy Chicago and Huong ready to head out in the rain.

Teresa, Tracy, Thuy Chicago and Kevin

Huong and luggage.







Tam and luggage.

Gathering luggage at the airport in Hue.

On the bus to the terminal after our arrival in Hue.

View from the plane. No, this is not the ocean. It is flooded rice fields.

Getting closer to Hue - it is easy to see the flooding - they have had so much rain.

Taking off from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Then there is the humongous screen TV.

This green thing is a mat on the floor. When you walk on it the stuff inside moves around in relationship to where you are standing.

The domestic terminal at the airport in HCMC is really quite nice.

The team and our luggage. Thuy's is the polka dot bag - easy to spot!

The flight attendants on Vietnam airlines wear traditional dress.

Sabina, Marcia & Warren and luggage at the airport in Hue. The bus is the one we have used for the last week.

Unloading at the airport.

I don't know how she stays on the bike, much less keeps her shoes on!

"TELL ME AND I WILL FORGET. SHOW ME AND I MAY REMEMBER. INVOLVE ME AND I WILL UNDERSTAND." The quote on a sign outside of a school.

Bicycles and helmets

Getting ready for Tet.

Teresa

Nancy, Huong and Phi and lots of stuff

Getting all of our stuff together in the hotel lobby and then waiting for our bus.

Sights in the market.

Warren buying shirts and material for a suit.














Breakfast at the hotel.

Our Hotel Room in Saigon at the Lan Lan Hotel. Huge!

Thuy Chicago shopping for rain gear.

Warren shopping at the market.

Harriet shopping in the market.

View from our hotel in Saigon.

On January 2 we traveled to Khe Sanh. We left Saigon and flew to Hue - a one hour flight. Then we drove another 3 and a half hours to Hke Sanh where we are staying at the Thai Ninh Hotel. We are in the DMZ - Demilitarized Zone. The weather is cool (60's). I know that is warm compared to Chicago but it feels quite cold after the almost 90 degree temperatures in the Mekong Delta last week. And it is foggy, overcast and rainy. Before leaving Saigon, we walked around the market and did some shopping. Warren ordered a suit and shirt to be made for a total price of about $140 US dollars. We got rain gear - not that we do not have any but we did not bring it. A decent light weight rain jacket was $8.

Although we had sent a van up with the dental machines and some equipment, we still had a lot to bring on the airplane. We were limited to 40 kg each but, luckily, the airlines let us do a group check in (so our bags were weighed in total) and we did not have to pay any extra money. We are carrying toothbrushes and toothpaste donated by Colgate as well as antibiotics to leave at the orphanage we will go to. And, of course, toys to give to the kids seen by the Dental Group. Marcia made red tags for all of our luggage - with our names on one side and JFC/GCSF on the other. Everyone took two bags to check - did not matter if it belonged to you or not. Our goal was to get everything on the plane. Again - teamwork.

When we got to Hue - just about a 1 hour flight or so - we collected all of our luggage and got on a bus for a 4 hour drive to Khe Sanh. You can see from the pictures that it was really wet. Rainy, ground flooded, rice fields flooded, dirts roads muddy with huge ruts. We first stopped, however, at the building where Tam has his office. It is also a home for the blind. We were able to see their rooms, talk to a couple of the residents - and use the bathroom. The halls were very dark with no lights. Think about it. We used flashlights.

When we arrived in Khe Sanh we found a new hotel but no heat and the hardest beds we had ever seen or felt. Dinner was in the hotel dining room on the ground floor. It was cold there too. The waitresses wore their jackets all evening.

So a day that was spent traveling by bus, plane, bus, bus - and everyone is still smiling and joking and excited about tomorrow. What an amazing group of people!