Night at Aspara Restuarant

This night was a very special night we spent having dinner at Aspara Restaurant in DaNang. Traditional dancing and plenty of liquid refreshment. www.humanitariantours.com Our little group drew so close together in such a short time and it was so sad to say goodbye to all of our new friends. I was flying off to Ha Noi to get a briefing from the JPAC commander Major Jay Rutter. This is in relation to the POW/MIA recovery mission taking place in Vietnam. I was not able to visit an operational site but had a very in depth briefing from the major and saw all the intricate work being done to recover the remains of our missing troops. Some say this is too much money being spent on someone who's already dead and never coming home, and not enough being spent on Agent Orange and Land Mine Recovery. A delicate balance needs to be found but if it was my brother or father I would most certainly be in favor of all measures to find, locate and repatriate their remains. The Vietnamese also do this for their missing and it is sadly in the 10s of thousands that are missing and unaccounted for. The remainder of the clinic group went to Hoi An for a few days and the headed off to Hue City and the Citadel for site seeing. I joined back up with the tour in Hue after a wonderful visit in Ha Noi and seeing some of the sites most note worthy being the famous "Hanoi Hilton" Hoa Loa Prison. Most of the POW's were at one time or another interned there in that grisly place.

Dental Outreach Crew

This picture was taken the last day of the clinic, after clean up was done out at the Hoa Lien school site. Sadly not all the members were present for the picture but you get and idea of the diversity of the group. We all had such a great time and made wonderful friendships along the way. Long live the Tres Amigos!!!! This was taken at the EMW dental clinic site on Tran Binh Trong St. in DaNang. Missing are Kim's Dad Andy, Nurse Hien, Dr. Hoa and Nurse Truc and don't forget Tom Han our trusted guide and translator who saved our "Weenie Butts" more times than I could count.

My recent trips to Vietnam

Having recently, November 2004 and September 2005 returned from visits to Vietnam I feel compelled to start this blog to act as a journal and a recollection of my visits. Not to include my almost 1 year "visit" sponsored by my Uncle Sam back in 1971. I have always had a yearning to return to Vietnam at some point in time and reaquaint myself with the people and culture of this beautiful and fascinating country. Having spent very little time in any of the major cities on my 1st visit I was consumed with the people and customs I was confronted with upon my 1st return trip in 2004. I had found a website sponsored by a volunteer organization where you could aid a Dental outreach in DaNang Vietnam. I was hooked, not wanting to return on a veterans tour as I felt no need for healing in that way I contacted Kim at Global Humanitarian Tours and signed up. With much apprehension I proceeded to navigate through the myriad of forms and insurances necessary to visit "The Nam". I almost missed my connection in LA for my flight to Bangkok and was having fits and not being able to sleep was a walking zombie by the time I hit the airport outside oh Bangkok. Our hotel was connected by a skyway and I had no trouble getting to it but alas my bags did not make the voyage with me. Always and I mean this in the worst possible way, when they say"don't worry"....That's when you really need to start worrying. It took me no less than 3 days to retrieve my bags after reaching DaNang. More about that later. We checked in and had a few fitful winks of sleep and got together in the lobby of the hotel the next morning to coordinate our adventure. The people of Thailand were very beautiful and exotic and very helpful. Except the guys with automatic weapons at customs. Having never met our fearless leader Kim or any of the other members of the Dental Outreach team we started the slow process of warming up to each other. Kim who had had some experience in Tibet and I think India up to this point had been to Vietnam for a few days on a return trip from Tibet to acquaint herself with Nam. The one other member of our team was Tom Han an ex pat Viet Kieu of Chinese persuasion who was coerced into returning by his wonderful and beautiful companion Donna,who is a dentist outside of LA. , and I were the only personnel on the trip who had been to Nam. Tom having left at the tender age of 10 years old at the bequest of the Vietnamese government along with a lot of the Chinese Vietnamese merchant class, an erstwhile peaceful disaspora.