March 21st, 2024 Day 23 of 24 Phu My, Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon)

Today was our last port of this journey for us. I guess technically we do have one more stop, but we get off there and then we are on our own for excursions, and food, and laundry…Yuck reality. But for today, it was an early morning. We met our excursion group at 7:00am this morning in the Main Stage. We were off for a tour today called A Taste of Vietnamese Cooking. We had a ninety minute bus ride from Phu My to Saigon. Saigon is also called Ho Chi Minh City. Our tour guide told us the Vietnamese prefer to call it Saigon so I will call it that out of respect for their wishes. Along the way he told us about Vietnamese history and about his family. He spent a great deal of time talking about how they eat dog and cat and how it is best to consume it, with rice wine, but it made me a little uncomfortable. In fact he had a very heavy accent and for the first 10 minutes of the conversation I thought he was talking about duck..but I was incorrect. I respect that they are from a different culture and you have to do what you need to, to survive. I also had the opportunity to get some crocheting done on our travels. When we arrive in Saigon we met our guides from the Saigon Culinary Art Center. She took us around the market and introduced us to local fruits, vegetables, meat, seafood, coffee, and spices. It was interesting to see how they barter for products everyday to feed their families and for their businesses. They don’t keep much day to day, they shop every day for what they need. After we toured the market we headed to the Culinary Center for cooking class. We prepared a pork chop with marinade, a fresh salad with home made dressing, spring rolls, and two dipping sauces. All the food prep was done for us, we only got to add the ingredients together and follow along with our instructor. Next, all the food we prepared was cooked and we got to eat what we made. Everything was delicious and Megan and I were excited to actually be cooking today. Even if it was with about 50 people. We love to cook and it was a lot of fun. Our crew member and friend Dali from the Shore Excursion Department was there with us and we got to catch up and spend some time with him. After we left the Center we had some free time and a passenger had requested our guide to stop at a local embroidery shop. The work these artisans create is phenomenal. the highlights and shadows creates by using different colors of embroidery floss was the most impressive I have ever seen. Huge pieces that hang on the wall all the way down to handkerchiefs with a small flower on them. Megan and I selected a framed Orchid piece that reminded us of Hawaii and it will be a wonderful souvenir for us to remember Vietnam by. I can’t wait to hang it when I get home. We then had a ninety minute bus ride back to the ship. Megan and I both had the opportunity to take a bit of a nap on the way back. There was some locals selling stuff at the pier when we returned that weren’t there when we left this morning. We picked up some Vietnamese coffee because we were excited to try it. Megan did a report on it for her agricultural class while doing her studies here on board. We heard it is pretty strong. I think we will wait to try it until we get home. We got back to our cabins and sent out our last bag of laundry, did some packing, showered and then Megan read and I wrote my blog. We are in the home stretch of our time on the Zuiderdam. Tonight we had dinner with our friends Brad and Dale from the 2020 world cruise. They live in Tahoe and Florida both and are huge Disney fans like we are. We went to the Canaletto for some Italian food tonight. We had only been there once this trip and it was fun to get to go a second time. We will have our last dinner with Gail and Marty tomorrow. We were so glad to have gotten to spend as much time with them as we did. Tonight we will set our clocks ahead one hour so we are on Singapore time. That will make my 5:30am wake up now 4:30am. I may need a nap tomorrow. We’re snuggled in for tonight and we hope for a fast night of amazing sleep. Hugs!!