It was a long travel day. Bob & Phuong picked us up early at the Tam Coc for our flight out of Hanoi to central Vietnam. They had allowed plenty of time for the drive to the airport in case traffic was bad. No worries, we arrived in Hanoi with plenty of time, so Bob took us to the city’s newest shopping mall. He was quite proud of the mall and deservedly so as it is huge and very modern with lots of luxury shops, Prada, Chanel, etc. Quite a change from the shopping options in Hanoi’s Old City.
All of our guides have been very smart and interesting people with unique personalities. We’ve been with Bob and Phuong for more time than most as we had a lot of long drive travel days with them. Bob is definitely a product of North Vietnam, he grew up on the post war ideology and has a positive opinion of the government, although he acknowledges that things have improved since the country was reopened in the early 1990’s by President Bill Clinton and has become slightly more capitalist. He is obsessed with his kids getting ahead and acquiring wealth.
We bid goodbye to the boys and settled into a few hours wait at the airport for our flight and enjoyed fine dining at the onsite Burger King. Surprisingly, most of the other diners looked to be Asian.
While there we received a WhatsApp message from the Tam Coc Garden staff with a copy of the recipe for their fantastic Chocolate Biscuits. Mary had requested the recipe a few days earlier but did not expect to receive it. Very nice!
We flew into Phu Bai Airport just south of the central city of Hue, the historic capital of Vietnam. The airport is a former U.S. Army & Marine Corp base from the Vietnam War era. One of our friends from the Villages, Sarge Means, was based at Phu Bai during one of his war time tours.
On arrival we were met by our new guide Peter (his real name) and driver ‘Vu’ who took us to the Senna Hue Hotel, our lodging for the next few evenings. The hotel is nice but larger and more modern than the venues where we normally stay.
After dinner at the hotel restaurant, we stopped by their bar, ‘Beer & Barrel’, which is under cover and overlooking a main street – great for people watching. Just across the street was an interesting business advertising themselves as providing laundry, scooter rental, & taxi service in addition to a food takeaway specializing in papaya salad. Busy place!
D&M