Bright lights, big city
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- November
- 9
We touched down in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City last night. (Both names are commonly used; I’ll talk more about that in a future blog post.)
We could immediately see the city is a booming metropolis, with blazing lights on jammed highways visible from the air – an inconceivable sight during the Vietnam War 40 years ago. My father was also bemused to see the remains of the fortified U-shaped walls that once protected American military aircraft, now standing vacant in the grassy field beside the runway.
Check back tomorrow to view photos and videos from our trip to an orphanage with Son Michael Pham, the Seattle Rotary Club member who led Ed Frank’s group from Rockland here last year. Pham’s group this year includes a Vietnamese British woman who was one of the last babies airlifted out in 1975 and has returned to search for her birth mother, and a recent college graduate who will spend the next two months volunteering here. The groups will merge Sunday night for dinner, when the Rockland Rotarians arrive in Ho Chi Minh City.
glad to see you’ve touched down. i look forward to tomorrow’s posts. it seems as though you will have a busy (and very interesting!) day. good luck!
What an amazing idea! This is such a fascinating and also heartwarming trip!
Excellent job!