Thinking About A Trip to Vietnam Next Winter

[RSteve]

Before I'm too old to make that kind of trip, I'd like to retrace my steps. I'll use a guided tour service. I really don't have either the desire or balls to travel extemporaneously anymore. I want things planned with a tour guide. I knew many Vietnamese nationals during my tour in '68-'69, but I don't know how to contact them and I assume that most have died. Besides, even if I could contact someone I knew, who wants an 80-year-old tour guide? One of my friends is a former Marine who did two tours up north. I'm going to try to talk him into going with me. I don't expect a "yes" as he spent a lot of time recovering from wounds, but maybe he's also curious. The guy I'd have really preferred as a travel partner, also Army, wouldn't go without his wife, plus he related that he's starting to have memory issues.
I know my late sister's husband would go with me in a heartbeat. He's former Air Force Reserve, no combat duty, and 85 years old, but he travels alone constantly.

 

[Blackhorse]

How many immunizations would you need to re-do? Maybe not all if you can show you’re up to date.

I think current recommendations for Vietnam include the following vaccinations for: hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, meningitis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis), chickenpox, shingles, pneumonia and influenza.

Hmmm. I kinda thought Yellow Fever would be in there too.

And avoid buying any streetside rat on a stick. Highly suspect.

 

[Ranger107]

Have friends who have made the trip. They say it's pretty nice now. Personally I have no desire to ever set foot in the country again.

 

[ftrplt]

I do remember returning from missions "Up North" and sight-seeing along the North and South Vietnam coasts! Beautiful diamond-blue water and white sand beaches!! never considered vacationing there though. FTRPLT

 

[RSteve]

And avoid buying any streetside rat on a stick. Highly suspect.

If I only knew in 1969. Three weeks with the fear of farting. Yum, spring rolls from a roadside stand; such sweet meat. It must have been river rat, not the harvested rat from the rice fields.

 

[Blackhorse]

Ha! Regardless of source…it’s the processing and storing and cooking that produces such festive reactions. I was a Clinical Specialist on the Can Tho Army Airfield and one of our jobs was doing cultures on downtown bar glasses, ice, food, etc. but it did not include street vendors. I’ll bet we would have discovered some pretty exotic cultures if it did.

BTW: one of our other major responsibilities was managing health records and giving shots to the bar girls. See! It’s not ALL boring work. 54 bars! 10 - 20 girls working in each one. It’s what the term “bevy” is used to describe. Quite the experience. Managing a heroin withdrawal ward during the day…giving shots to hookers at night. Every two weeks we’d do a MEDCAP mission off base. Out in the jungle at ARVN training camps treating dependents of the soldiers (access via dugout canoe by river)…or to a Budist or Catholic Orphanage to work with the kids. And of course there was the ER and ambulance duty…weaving in and out of a sea of motor bikes, .45 strapped to your hip. After that year I was never quite the same.

 

[RSteve]

Just think....of the bar girls and hookers who are still alive, most must be in their 70s and in different occupations. I wouldn't mind spending a couple of months in Vung Tau. Maybe I could connect with a hot 60 something Vietnamese woman.

 

[Blackhorse]

Nope…for me…forever young.

 

[RSteve]

"or to a Buddhist or Catholic Orphanage to work with the kids. " I frequently visited a Catholic orphanage. Knowing what kind of lives most of the mixed race kids would live made me want to take them all home with me. A guy with whom I was stationed volunteered for a second tour just so he could get back to Vietnam to make arrangements for his girlfriend and their infant child to meet with his parents in Manila and go with them to the States.

 

[Tbradsim]

Nope not ever, made my sign of the cross in the early sixties, Cajuns make the sign of the cross when never is the thing, jungles no more!

 

[D.L.Ruth]

I'm not sure I would ever want to take a vacation back to Iraq. But, I hope you get the chance to take the trip and enjoy it

 

[Blackhorse]

How about if I went and stayed in a Ritz Carlton on Maui and PRETENDED it was an ex war zone?

 

[Ranger107]

So many great places to see. Why go back to a place with so many sad memories? Not for me. I'll be joining Blackhorse in Hawaii.

 

[Blackhorse]

I’ve booked an ocean front suite in your name.

 

[D.L.Ruth]

So many great places to see. Why go back to a place with so many sad memories? Not for me. I'll be joining Blackhorse in Hawaii.

Count me in as well... you're paying right?

 

[RSteve]

So many great places to see. Why go back to a place with so many sad memories?

I have issues to resolve. Maybe, just maybe, seeing Vietnam as it is today, will clear some of those sad memories. I have to try.