Category: Vietnam 2017

An Atypical Day

October 31. Yesterday evening, drinks with Chet in the Executive Lounge and then very excellent dinner at hotel’s Vietnamese restaurant (Nancy was not feeling well). Carol and I walked to the Bihn Mihn Jazz Club near the opera house to listen to some jazz.

.Fabulous day today with a guide whom we requested to organize a program for us that tourists would not typically experience  Unfortunately, Nancy was not feeling well, so it was just Chet, Carol and me.

We started out driving to Hien Van village, where we visited the Phat Tich pagoda, which is off the beaten track and we found much more attractive, interesting and less congested than the pagoda we’d seen in Hue.

Besides the pagoda, we saw people, including a fortune teller doing his work.

Adjacent to the pagoda is the A Di Da great sculpture of Buddha.

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From the pagoda and Buddha, we continued to the marvelous old house owned by our guide’s artist friend, Mr. Mai, who, very unfortunately is suffering from ALS and could not be there.  We saw a number of his excellent paintings, which had the feel of old masters.

We were hosted by the painter’s 84 year old mother, Mrs Bich, herself a painter who did wonderful portraits on silk

Perhaps the best part of the visit, though, was seeing the lovely house, done in traditional Vietnamese style, and loaded with antique sculptures dating back to the 10th century.

After returning to our hotel for an excellent lunch, we drove to the gallery of Our guide’s friend, the minimalist painter, Thiet Cuong.  While he was not there, Chet, Carol and I loved his work, both his ceramics and his paintings.  We are going back to the gallery tomorrow and it’s highly likely that we will not emerge unscathed.  Here are some examples.

We returned to the hotel to relax, then had drinks in the Executive Lounge and then dinner in a  hotel restaurant at which a jazz singer was performing.

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