Susan, Teddy and Cindy departed early this morning for the lovely, mysterious, and peaceful Ha Long Bay. Unfortunately I couldn’t make this leg of the trip because I was asked to fly to Saigon (oops, Ho Chi Minh City) to participate in a teaching program. Anthony Demaria and Charlie Shaeffer would give talks and I would follow with a live demonstration angioplasty/stent case.
While waiting in the hotel lobby for my ride to the airport, a Vietnamese woman in western dress sitting nearby asked me if I was enjoying my book. Every time I return to Vietnam I try to shore up my faltering language skills by reading Vietnamese fiction. Right now I’m laboring over a collection of short stories by Bao Ninh, a Northern Vietnamese war veteran from Hanoi whose characters and stories focus on the human impact of the war. We talked a bit about the writer and she told me that he was a close friend. She even offered to introduce me to him when I return to Hanoi. It turns out that she’s a published author as well. Although sightseeing can be educational and enjoyable, meeting and speaking with people is, for me, the best part of travelling and is a large part of why I find these medical trips so stimulating.
We arrived in HCMC in the late afternoon, fortunately before rush hour. Traffic was still difficult though and was made worse by all the road construction and sewage revamping. Despite the congestion, noise, and pollution, it still felt familiar and comfortable to be back in Saigon. The route from the airport to the hotel district took me by two places that we lived, the cathedral where my family had our secret rendezvous on the morning of our departure, the park that my friends and I used as a soccer field, the post office where my friends and I used to go to look for foreign stamps, etc… In fact from my 9th floor hotel room, I can see my mother's old law office and boys playing basketball in my old schoolyard.
The conference will be in the morning so I have the evening free to see some relatives and wander.
