On the Mississippi, North of Vicksburg

March 5, 2026, Thursday--What a busy few days.  We have enjoyed our visit to the countryside of Tennessee, a visit and overnight in Memphis, and now aboard the American Splendor, moving at a quick rate down the Mississippi.

Our visit to Tullahoma with friends Marty and Corabel was a grand time.  Marty has a long family history in mid-Tennesssee.  He has a 1100 acre farm, among other properties, that we explored with him and Corabel.  It's set in rolling hills, trees just beginning to bud, though an invasive Bradford pear was in flower, (Marty says he will hurry to remove the growing trees from his farm).  We had a fun lunch of Granny's old-time Southern food for lunch at Miss Mary Bobo's in Lynchburg where the Jack Daniels distillery is based.  Lunch is served family-style with Ms. Emily as mother directing the chatty and sometimes gossipy local conversation.  Batter-fried chicken, steamed green beans, batter-fried okra, sweet potatoes, and other home-style were on the table for 14 followed by chocolate puddin' pie for dessert.  Most of them were heavy and deep-fried-- a treat that we enjoyed, but it is a fairly heavy cuisine.

At Marty and Corabel's we enjoyed venison steaks served with a green salad and a light spaghetti with fresh sautéed tomatoes and garlic sauce. 

The next morning we got in the car for the long drive to Memphis.  It's about five hours, more with stops, through beautiful country.  We stopped for shopping in Pulaski.  We visited the Tennessee River Museum in Savannah, and arrived at Graceland stiff from driving, but regretting to say good-bye to good friends.

(John is writing this as we move down the river.  We just passed a tug pushing 18 huge barge containers heading upstream.)

The highlight at Graceland was an hour talk with Doris Kerns Goodwin, a close aide to Lyndon Johnson and a presidential historian at Harvard and well known TV commentator, on presidential excellence.  She places Lincoln at the top of her list.  None of our recent presidents make it.  TR comes up as does FDR and LBJ.  We were blown over with the excellence of the discussion.

We learned the role of Sun Studio and Stax Records in rock and roll development and the interaction of the music of Black performers with Whites.

Then we boarded the boat.  Our first stop, this morning, was the first black town in the country, Mound Bayou.  It's named that way because there was no railroad station and the Black passengers said to the conductor to let them off at the bayou near the old Indian mound!  It was founded in 1888 by formerly enslaved cousins.

We learned an immense amount about Black history, the effects of segregation on development and how revitalization is planned for this mostly derelict old town that was once huge but now only as about 1500 residents.

Tomorrow we spend a whole day in Vicksburg.

The Grand Ole Opry: A Stellar Performance

Tullahoma, Tennessee, March 2, 2026--100 Years of the Grand Ole Opry and we get tickets, along with a full house audience of 4000.  It was fortuitous, and out of the ordinary.  GOO normally puts on a variety show of country music twice a week.  This past Saturday it was not only a celebratory concert of country, gospel and blues music but a special show celebrating the 25th anniversary of the George Clooney movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" which featured a movie score of country music.  GOO got musicians to sing every song in the movie, including the actors who sang as well as acted.  What a show!  Of course, they have had 100 years of practice broadcasting, still, on an AM radio station WSM,

We knew many of the stars, even though we had not been country music followers.  Emmylou Harris, Allison Krauss, and many others.   Each of them doing a song from the show.  A robust, successful beautifully done standing ovation concert.

What followed was a discussion with three of the movie actors and singers who talked about the movie production 25 years ago and how it significantly enhanced their careers.

Of course, this meant a web search for the movie, which hosts Corabel and Marty found...a movie in their living room that led to a pyjama party with popcorn and good wines.

We enjoyed Nashville immensely, though the Parthenon was only seen from a distance.  The Centennial Park was so crowded there was no parking to be found.  Still, it's a lovely building.  We also enjoyed a stroll through part  of Vanderbilt Universities campus. We had lunch, late, at Brown's Diner, and then to the Opry.  Opryland, hotels and shopping centers surround the huge concert hall. Crowded and enormous, with crowds of people dressed in style for the performance.  Peter tried his movements before the show.

We departed Nashville yesterday for Tullahoma and Shelbyville where Marty's family has long-time roots.  We are staying in a French style home with a magnificent patio where we enjoyed dinner last night, outside--on March 1, no less, with temperatures of 70F/22C.  Lots of roast veggies, good roast on the BBQ and risotto.  Good wines, including a 1999 Chateauneuf du Pape.  The fire blazed away and kept away the chill away as the temperature cooled under the full moon and stars, not so strongly affected by light pollution since we are out in the country. 

Today we are off to expore Marty and Corabel's farm and then tomorrow to Memphis.  Learning to farm today, how to wiggle llike Elvis tomorrow.

Of course GOO recognized our collecitve talents

 

Nashville, the Mississippi and New Orleans

 It's been a while, but we are off again.  This time for a couple of weeks exploring Tennessee, the Mississippi and New Orleans.  Nashville is totally new to us, though we have visited New Orleans many times.   

Nashville has an aura unique to itself.  We had dinner at Martin's BBQ near our hotel, the Hyatt Place, pleasant and close to the action.  The meal was fun, in part because of the company with friends Jane and Peter, with whom we have traveled many times.  But the BBQ, disappointing.  We found it dry.  But the atmosphere of loud music, and kitschy decoration made up for it.  John had a pulled pork platter and a local IPA, Ben enjoyed a beef bristet sandwich.  Jane and Peter had huge plates of ribs, which we all shared. The sign of course indicates the average age of the participants!

From there we talked about going to the hotel for a listen to a local singer in the bar, but John, Jane and Ben decided they wanted to see Broadway.  Let's say the lights on Broadway in Nashville are brilliant.  We watched hustlers sellling hot dogs, we walked down the street, crowded with country-music style dressers.  Although the temperature was a mild 50F/10C, the birds were out in their miniskirts and boots, many quite fully chested with deep cleavages.  We encountered one group, probablty sororitiy sisters at the Bon Jovi Bar, practicing their dance routine with the help of the disc jockey.  The old Grand Ol Opry theater, the Ryman Theater, is in the background (the Opry no longer performs there.  Seeing that is tonight's experience, February 28.)  

 

Today we join old friends for a tour of Nashville.  Marty is a chum of Ben's from college, and his wife Corabel is a writer.  Marty is an architect.  We expect a lot of the local scene.

Islands in the sea, and a resort town

 Washington,  Tuesday, January 28, 2025--Our last few days in Southeast Asia were spent on the beautiful island of Phuket in Thailand and nearby waters where we spent a day at sea.

First, we were visiting dear friends, Patricia and Teddy.  John has known Patricia since university days and we met Teddy a few years ago after both of their spouses passed away.  They were all four very good friends.  Patricia and Teddy have since married, with great memories of their late lost spouses.

Phuket is growing.  It is a huge resort island, with beautiful beaches, fashionable gated communities, excellent restaurants and a history of mining that brought in various immigrant groups.  It suffers from crowded roads, backed-up traffic and the sense of strip mall along its main 402 Highway.  But, it does have beautiful sunsets overlooking the Andaman Sea, excellent food, particularly the fruits and vegetables.  Pineapple here is magnificent.  Papayas grow on trees everywhere.  The province is a garden!  It doesn't even grow rice.

That said, the island's history is unique.  Tin mining took over about 150 years ago leaving the main town of Phuket with mansions built by tin barons.  We visited one such mansion, a local Sino-Portuguese style building still owned by its original family built in 1902.  It's now used as a museum and wedding site,  It is a quiet oasis from the traffic the nearby town and very beautiful.  The Sino-Portuguese moniker is given to most buildings that date from the era before World War I, even though they are barely of Portuguese design.

The other magnificent trip was a day long venture to the karst islands that abound near Phuket.  These are covered with vegetation and the rock formations are magnificent,  more impressive than our visit to the equivalent islands in Halong Bay off Vietnam.  We had the boat to ourselves, and sat watching the islands as we ventured on to a local beach.  The yacht provided a zodiac rubber boat for us to get ashore, walk the beach and find coral for John's bathroom collection--a tiny piece found among shore shells.

We ate astoundingly good food.  Thai food is truly more interesting than Vietnamese.  Thai food, though, does not have to be red chili pepper hot.  Most of what we had was spicy, but not mouth-burning.  It ranged from coconut milk curries to appetizers served in lotus leaves.  

Sunset at the Pavilions Resort overlooking the Andaman Sea

 

  

We ate several luscious dinners at home with Patricia and Teddy.  One night they invited Patricia's friend from her NYC days, Tara.   Tara is mostly retired from a high finance positions to Phuket after working much of her career in Singapore. Tara brought a friend, Louise, who was visiting after a trip to Singapore on her way back with her husband (who was in Bangkok) to their home in Vancouver.  We had a rousing good time, each of us talking about our lives, loves and careers surrounded by excellent food and wine.

Our last meal in Phuket was lunch at a fine Italian restaurant, Napolitana, serving pizza with bufola mozzarella and various rich pasta dishes, with guidance from the chef himself.

Tunnels, Puppets and Goodbyes

Phuket, Thailand, Wednesday, January 22, 2025--Vietnam was an interesting, positive and negative experience.   The country is moving quickly into the advanced world, car, scooters, electricity, commerce, and fashion.  At the same time, it is still visibly a communist country with very evident government buildings and police.  We understand there are approximately 1,200,000 police in a country of 100,000,000.  At the same time, too, the people are friendly, there is no evidence of beggars, homeless, or unemployed, though many are underemployed selling small goods.  The food is fine, though not the most interesting cuisine in the world.  And history from the last hundred years is everywhere--celebrating the 95th anniversary of the founding of the communist party to museums painting the histories of war against occupying Chinese and French, and the Americans from 1950 to 1975--from when we began supporting the French in their reoccupation of their colony when the Japanese left in defeat from the republic nominally established by Ho Chi Minh in 1945.

Our last full day in Vietnam was very full.  We ventured out to the Cu Chi tunnels, a  two and a half hour bus ride through typically traffic-clogged streets and highways northwest of Saigon, in part of the 100s of kilometers of underground tunnels built by the Viet Cong to destroy the South Vietnamese government and drive the French out.  They are magnificent in their horror and their effectiveness. 

Traps that mutilated opposing individual soldiers, tunnel entrances perhaps 15 inches square, and the tunnels themselves, often so tight that visitors are not recommended inside if they are over the age of 60.  John ventured into an entrance and did not proceeed.

What is quite fascinating is the presentations in museums are accurate in what they say.  What they don't explain is the American view of what was considered a dangerous country likely to fall under the control of China.  This of course was not what was really happening but certainly that was a reason given by the American government for its deep involvement.  Sad.

The tunnels are frightening in their extent and how they were virtually invisible to American and ARVN soldiers.  Their entrances are tiny.  Their air supply comes from false termite mounds that have air holes in them leading down.  They existed even under American bases.

Later in the afternoon on our return to Ho Chi Minh City, we dressed for dinner and for a show.  The show was by a troupe of water puppeteers who presented Vietnamese live with water puppets active in a huge pool of water.  

We finished the day with a big dinner to celebrate the end of the tour and much in the way of goodbyes among a group that got on very well.  A good trip.  Odyssey and Chung did a good job for us.

A Couple of Busy Days in Ho Chi Minh City

Saigon, Sunday, January 19, 2025--We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City by bus yesterday, with a fairly lengthy barge trip visiting an agricultural island along the way.  Ho Chi Minh City is also called Saigon regularly, though Uncle Ho is widely seen.

The boat trip broke up the three-hour trip north from Can Tho (pronounced Gan-taw), getting us out of the bus as it was likely to be stuck in the country's horrendous traffic.  We joined the low-slung barge in Vinh Long, stopped at an agricultural island and then debarked at My Tho to continue the bus ride into the city.

The tourist barges stop at islands along the Mekong to introduce the passengers to Vietnamese rural life.  The island we visited is famous for pythons, which are used to make various alternative medicine balms, and rice crackers, among other products.  We were warned that the islands are home to several types of venomous snakes but the only one we saw was a caged python asleep--much smaller than a Floridian Burmese.  There are cobras.

We did, however, have snake brandy, made from de-venomed and eviscerated snakes.  We'd had snake brandy before in France.  This batch, without the snake in the serving bottle, but visible in jars of product, was reminiscent of cheap whiskey.

Better was the coconut candy and the rice crackers, made by cooking rice grains in hot oil and then combining with other fruits and nuts like peanuts, to make the crackers.  They all tasted fine.  

We walked around the island seeing home-stay facilities for tourists, most of which are closed due to Covid.  The atmosphere was pleasant, if very warm and very, very humid.

Back on the boat it was lunch time:  Elephant fish in rice wrappers, spring rolls, pho, rice, huge shrimp though they had minimal meat, and coconut ice cream. The elephant fish was delectable, very soft and very much like a filet of branzino in consistency, though a bit more piquant in taste.

To Saigon, and the traffic.  Though we made good time, getting across the city can take hours.  No stop signs other than a few lights, constantly merging cars, trucks and millions of ubiquitous scooters buzzing about like flies, make for a driving experience John has no desire to try.

Saigon, just the second largest city in the country (Hanoi expanded its geographical boundaries because, after unification, Saigon seemed to be taking over the demographic top spot), is vibrant, cosmopolitan, bustling and surprisingly clean.  Very little trash compared to the capital.  The folk are much better dressed, though many of the younger ones were dressed in their best ao-dais for Tet photography.

Last night we attended an early evening acrobatic performance at the Opera House, with much jumping, posing, body contortions, ball and pole tossing, Asian-movie style, but beautifully done in a charming balletic fashion with men and women presenting, in acrobatics the lifestyles in the city and country.  Very pleasant way to spend an evening.  The A-O Show.  Dinner: a couple of banh-mihs--baguette sandwiches.

Today we ventured out to the national monuments.  Mobbed with tourists either from cruises or individuals and locals celebrating Tet.  The Presidential Palace is a standard 1960s Brutalist block with a little style variation save some indication of bamboo columns in concrete, and a huge bunker and bedroom for the president.  The palace was bombed in the war, by a spy posing as a South Vietnamese airman.

The second visit, to the War Remnant Museum, was heavy.  Lots of pictures on the history of the war, including John Foster Dulles and other 1950s style anti-Communists who feared another Korea or China, a domino, so to speak.  The information presented was mostly fair, the pictures awful but not disputable, and the US does not come across at all well.  As youth in that generation, Ben and John tended to accept the verdict.  Sorrowful of its happening and the damage it did to the countries.  Many suffered.  We both rang the bell for peace.

Finally for the day, we visited a local pagoda, where the prayerful were present and many candles lighted.  Pictures were not permitted inside the formerly Taoist, now Buddhist, temple.  In accordance with Taoist doctrine, one of the deities was in heaven and the other was in hell.  There were fine carvings above the altars, however.

Tomorrow our last full day in Vietnam and a visit to the VC tunnels.

Can Tho on Foot and Water

Saigon, Sunday, January 19, 2025--On Friday morning in Can Tho along the Mekong, Ben started with a walking tour across the pedestrian bridge to downtown Can Tho.  The bridge has huge lotus leaf sculptures where one can get shade from the heat in the parks.  The city is well decorated for Tet, the Lunar New Year which starts this year on January 22nd.  

The signature flower here for the New Year is the apricot blossom which are just starting to bloom.  We learned that you need to remove all the leaves to make it flower in time for the celebration.  

We walked to the Khmer Buddhist monastery where we were greeted and given a tour by the abbot.  He is fluent in English (as well as three or four other languages.)  Aside from the monks, the monastery provides housing for a small number of male out-of- town students registered in the various post-secondary schools around Can Tho.  The competition for this accommodation is great, but the abbot said that the students who are given free will had to comply with the monastical rules including curfew at 10pm.  In line with this free will, the students are not pressured to become monks.

Later came a boat for a tour of the floating fruit market.  The vendors in smaller boats pulled up to ours to sell coconuts, pineapple, melon, and rambutan.  Although Chung, our guide, noted that fewer vendors have been coming in the last decade or so, our group drank coconut juice out of the coconut which was artfully opened by the vendor.

John, who was not feeling well, was not part of this afternoon.  We had traveled by plane first from Hué to Saigon and by bus to Can Tho, the largest city in the delta region.