13 March 2026 – Friday – Surgery ends – time for some fun

Since we finished out mission surgery on Thursday instead of the usual Friday, our hosts decided to take us on a trip out of Hanoi to see some countryside attractions. We were picked up at 9 am by a big  comfortable tour bus. Hanoi traffic is always congested so we took almost an hour to get past city limits.  Highways are pretty open but there are trucks and motorcycles everywhere in smaller numbers than city streets. 
Our first stop was a pagoda temple that was originally built in the 11th century. It had fallen into disrepair but was rebuilt in the early 1900s. It is considered a peaceful sacred spot. Since the day began sunny and warm, several of our group were wearing sleeveless tops or shorts. Shoulders and knees cannot be visible at the temple. The temple guardians supplied long grey robes that covered the “offending” parts. 
We wandered in and out of various temple buildings where shoes must be removed. There were many huge statues of warriors and Buddhas. We climbed up and down huge stone steps. The pagoda is set into a mountain. We didn’t climb to the top. 

After a group photo on the steps leading to the pagoda, we returned to our bus to travel to our lunch destination. NINH BINH We reached the town as we wound through streets packed with all sorts of vehicles and pedestrians. We parked at a covered spot and were brought to an elevator to go up one floor to a dining room that was set with a wide selection of dishes on each table. Not everything was recognizable but it was all meat dishes with rice with spicy sauce on the side. There was more than enough food for each table. 

After lunch we walked down the street to reach our river trip. We were outfitted with life jackets and sent out on row boat two passengers each. The river was surrounded by rice fields and high canyon walls. Our boat people rowed our little flat bottom metal boats mostly with their feet. The rowers were men and women of various ages. They seemed quite at ease rowing with their feet. We traveled through three caves along the river. Apparently there are bats in the caves but we never saw any. We did see ducks and mountain goats on the cliffs  as we went along the water. Our boatman didn’t speak English but he did know the word “tip”. He also tried to sell us some little pictures of local scenes. Apparently they work about one trip each day. 

Our bus driver picked us up near the boat dock. He seemed to be having an issue about driving back but we had no clue since all discussion was in Vietnamese with some shouting. Once we returned to the hotel I found out that the bus cannot come into Hanoi before 7pm. We arrived at the hotel at 7:45. We are all leaving tomorrow for various places. It’s been a good week and easy in comparison to most missions. It’s so nice to be back in Vietnam. 

Tomorrow Kris and I fly to DaNang.