You are sunlight and I moon. Joined by the gods of fortune, midnight and high noon, sharing the sky. We have been blessed you and I.
I can’t help it, I have no control. If there is anything throughout my day that reminds me of a musical I will have songs from that musical running through my head for days sometimes weeks on end. Ofer finds it hilarious that every so often throughout our day I will burst out a line of a song as if I am living my own little Musical. He has come to learn that a lot of the factoids I know come directly from the musicals I have been in.

Naming each president in chronological order brought to me by: Assassins. I know of the baseball player Shoeless Joe thanks to: Damn Yankees. I learned the word abominable and how to yell it very quickly thanks to the Music Man.

As upbeat and happy as most musicals are, Miss Saigon is an exception. It tells the story of a doomed relationship between an American soldier and a local Vietnamese girl drawn together then apart by the Vietnam War. In addition to many carefree and deeply romantic songs the musical highlights the traumas and mental, emotional, cultural and human destruction of the war. As Ofer and I arrived into Ho Chi Minh City (formerly, and still known to many as Saigon), the songs and emotions of the musical filled my head.

Ofer and I talked about how hard it was to wrap our heads around the fact that we were vacationing in a country that had been a place of such destruction. This was the war that had been rallied against, this was the war that I had seen some of the most graphic photos and videos from, this was the war that 8 million war veterans from the US alone had to move on from. And now here we were visiting as if it had never happened. We wondered, “Would we be welcomed?”, “Should we say that we are from Canada instead of the US to be safe?”, “Would we see traces of the war?”. We were very interested to see how the Vietnam War, called the ‘American War’ there is looked at now from the Vietnamese perspective.

We had an interesting hotel in Saigon. It was right on a main street in the middle of the city with coffee shops, ice cream parlors, bars and restaurants. The hotel looked nice but when we got up to our room we noticed that something major was missing; a window. Details. Unfortunately we didn’t have any natural light to know what time of day or night it was but as a silver lining it was like we were sleeping in a room with the most incredible blackout shades. Ofer and I are getting better and better at finding the silver lining.

We only had two nights in Saigon so we had set up a full day tour. We happened to have a fantastic tour guide who was absolutely hilarious. he was easily the best tour guide we have ever had and he was only 20 years old and doing tours for under a month believe it or not.

The first place we were brought to as a group was to one of the most impactful places I have ever been: The War Remnants Museum. The museum was two stories filled with black and white pictures, maps, newspaper articles, posters and even vats containing human remains. There I saw some of the most horrendous things I had ever seen, read or heard aside from The Holocaust Memorial in Israel.

Some things were from the perspective of the Vietnamese, some from Americans and others from countries around the world. Ofer and I slowly walked separately around both of the levels, taking our time to read newspaper clippings, look at before and after pictures and read articles from authors from around the world. Most of the pictures on the bottom floor were incredibly graphic and I found it difficult to accept that these were real people and that this had all really happened.

Outside of the museum was a building were US military tanks, helicopters and jets on display.

There was also an area where we could view a replication of a ‘tiger cage’. These are various sized barbed wire cages. Supposedly two to seven prisoners, depending on the size of the cage, would be stuffed inside and left outside. The conditions were so cramped that no one inside would be able to stretch out at all, they would be stooped in together for who knows how long. 



It was quite a site to see. What a world. Aside from any opinions and judgement about this particular war, it was impossible not to be repulsed, enraged and ashamed with what human beings can do to each other...for any reason. At any given day in any given decade each nation chooses who is the enemy. It could be the Japanese, the Germans, the Vietnamese, the North Koreans, the Afghanistans. We bomb them, they bomb us, we kill their civilians, they kill ours. We are terrorized by fear and they experience the same fear. Then just a little bit more than thirty years later our children can attended high end resorts as if it had never happened.

We didn’t quite know how to wrap our heads around it. Neither of us believe that America is flawed through and through or that we are as consistently virtuous as some of us Americans would want to believe. Every country is plagued with people who take religion, politics, power and beliefs too far. Where do we draw the line? Who are we choosing to be the evil ‘other’? Should we do it based on nationality, religion, caste, sexuality, disability, race, sex, skin color, age or political affiliation? What a waste of the world to spend time hating each other, and even believing that there is such a thing as ‘other’. There must be a better way.

I will never forget the sites I saw that day and the things I read. In some ways I felt ashamed to be American...larger than that, in some ways I felt ashamed to be apart of the human race. It is hard to believe with all of the brilliant minds on this planet for so many centuries that we still resort to name calling and throwing stones. That despite how complex the world is, that we haven’t somehow gotten the point that we need to work together and that we should be just as concerned with our neighbor’s well being as we are of our own. Shouldn’t our leaders be the ones to create a solution for peace and a world that moves in one direction together instead of finding reasons to be against each other.

I know I sound like a Polly Anna but we all need and desire the same basic things; food, water, shelter, education, freedom, love and empathy to name a few. I’m sure every generation has wondered what is worse, bringing children into the world the way it is or not bringing in new life to help change it. I would like to think that we would be able to find a way to turn this chaos around. What could be the outcome? A world that acknowledges the beautiful differences of people, a world that can support each person’s growth without having to take it away from someone else, maybe even a world that can environmentally begin to be healed.

(Shayna will now step off her soapbox)

Back on the tour bus, our guide was fantastic and really knew how to talk to our entire group in a way that acknowledged the way any of us might have been feeling after seeing the museum. He was able to lighten the mood and keep us moving to different sites without in any way belittling the experiences we all just had from our different perspectives.


He took us to the ‘must see’ locations along with some local food and local shopping centers. The streets of Saigon were completely packed with motorcyclists. It was like thick swarms of bees that knew how to change direction together nearly missing each other and moving as if it was one animal. We noticed up above the streets were hundreds of bound electrical wires. It was a complete mess. Ofer mentioned how his Grandfather worked for the electrical company in Israel. He started out digging ditches and installing poles and wires and moved on to be in one of the head positions in the company. As we saw the chaotic bundles of crisscrossed wires Ofer said that he was glad his Grandfather never saw this, that he would have had a heart attack.

We then visited the Reunification Palace which was the South Vietnam’s Presidential Palace. It is a five story restored building that still has a lot of the decor from April 30th 1975 the day it was invaded and Saigon fell to Northern Vietnam powers. We were able to see the President’s room, his fallout shelter in the basement, his meeting rooms, the formal lecture rooms, the helipad off of his hidden movie theater and even his dance floor on the top floor of the building.

Most rooms still had office equipment including radios, desks, maps and vintage phone supposedly left as they were after the take over. We felt like we had stepped back into the 70‘s. We noticed that the library had a good 1/4 of the bookshelves empty. Our guide informed us that when the North Vietnamese invaded the Palace they supposedly burned all books and papers that spoke in opposition to their beliefs.

We also visited the Notre Dame Cathedra and the Dong Khoi (Post Office), both of which were absolutely gorgeous. We also spent some time in the Phung Son Tu Pagoda. It was a beautiful site and reminded us both of China.


There Ofer wrote the name of his recently deceased Grandfather on a prayer slip and attached it to an incense spiral. The spiral allows for a larger piece of incense that will burn longer. After being lit the coils are hung from the ceiling so there is more room in the temple for worshippers.


We were taken to the Ben Thanh Market that is an incredibly large market with hundreds of small stalls filled to the brim with fruits, vegetables, kitchen wares, cosmetics, clothing, dried fish, candy, fabric and more for as far as we could see. The market is used to sell goods in bulk to shop owners around the city. We definitely felt like we stuck out like a sore thumb, but it was fascinating to see the daily lives of these stall owners.

I felt like I was in the mass warehouse for Staples, Costco, Joanne’s Fabric and Claire’s. I kept thinking that my sister would cry in pure joy if she had been able to see the rows and rows of incredibly cheap but elaborate fabric. It was like getting lost in a Willy Wonka world of smells. A few steps of pure sweetness as fresh candy and fruit wafted over, then we would be almost knocked over by the overwhelming smell of dried, aged fish. I didn’t know I could go back and forth from hungry to disgusted so quickly. After getting lost for a good 20 minutes made it out alive and without purchasing anything. We are getting better and better at that!

Both nights we were in Saigon we had dinner on the street and watched the locals mix with the tourists. Men carted squid hanging from a piece of wood attached to their bicycles and would cook them up on the bike’s stove when they were ordered. Women and children walked the streets with stacks of books reaching far above their heads. Mothers carried babies and walked with small sleepy children as they tried to sell decks of cars, cigarettes and tissues. One mother in particular came over with a baby on her hip trying to sell cigarettes, tissues, and decks of cards. I saw the way her son was looking at the pizza I had ordered and offered the child a piece. The mother took it immediately and handed it to the child who inhaled it as quickly as he could.


I wonder if I will ever fully intellectually and emotionally process my experiences in Vietnam. Most of all it taught me how much I don’t know about the world, about history, about politics. I was angered, ashamed and determined to learn more and teach our children about the complexity of the world.

Ofer and I have had many conversations about the choice to either protect school aged children or introduce them to the harsh realities of the world. After being in so many of the countries we had visited including Vietnam my opinion had changed. A childhood free of adult worries is crucial, I believe, to the development of a child’s ability to see the world with a feeling of limitless possibility. However, as a child reaches and continues through the early years of school, I believe it is a injustice not to, in a constructive and safe manner, teach children that the the day to day life that we are enjoying is not the reality of most people on Earth. That there are a lot of things in the world that are driven by hate and greed but that if they seek to understand this complexity they could be the ones to help change it.

I want our children to grow up with a sense of compassion, curiosity, openness, love and the belief that they, along with anyone who is working toward improving the quality of life for everyone on the planet including improving the planet itself, have the ability to impact the direction of the world. Over all other memories and thoughts from our time iin Vietnam, these were the ones that charged through my head as we flew to our next destination.

One year before Ofer and I were living in our own respective homes in California. We had just been dating for a few months but decided to throw a joint party to celebrate my 28th birthday and his housewarming. It was a fantastic party complete with an in-demand DJ, delicious food and incredibly warm friends.

If you had told us then that a year later we would be engaged, planning our wedding, traveling for 19 months around the world and currently in Vietnam I would have told you to check yourself into a mental institution.

Ofer had found us an incredible resort in Hoi An to celebrate my birthday. Hoi An is a resort town in the south-central coast of Vietnam. Hoi An used to be an international port city but this has since been moved to De Nang. This area is known for its winding streets and Chinese-style shops that have been incredibly protected unlike most places in Vietnam. From the Old City areas it was impossible to see any high rises or modern buildings, it really made us feel like we were seeing Hoi An for what it has looked like for centuries.


The rainy season was still hanging on while we were there and I was still getting healthy so we spent a good amount of time indoors reading and writing. The hotel had 2 restaurants, a huge pool with a view of the beach, a bar with a pool table, darts and a live band and a grand room in the center of the hotel to sit and relax with a drink.

Ofer and I would spend our evenings in the bar with glasses of tea listening to the live house-band. They had great playlists and Ofer and I held each other and sang along to our favorite songs saying, “OOOh we should play THIS at the wedding”, to almost every song. We also learned that no matter how much you practice and think that you have mastered darts you always throw a really bad dart which slams into the brick wall (that is if you are lucky enough to miss the men playing pool).

When the weather would clear Ofer and I would lay by the pool, take a dip, take a nap and order some pizza. Do you hate us yet? I, along with a lot of other people I have talked to have a level of guilt when laying around for days like a bum. I keep thinking, “What should I be working on?”, “How am I contributing to the world?”, “What am I going to do when we get home to California?”. I would ask Ofer what was on his mind and he would reply, “Nothing”. Sometimes I wish I were male.

The conclusion I have come to is that it would be a shame if I spent the moments of this trip when I was able to relax trying to be overly productive. There have been and there will continue to be places on this trip that in no way promote serenity, so when I can have it I should soak it up. Being a perpetual tourist is hard work. Riding in dirty, dangerous busses and taxis, walking around in the sweltering heat. Not being able to speak the local language, never knowing what we were going to be able to find to eat and if it was going to get us sick or not. When we found a place like the Swiss-Bel Hotel Golden Sand Resort and Spa we decided to forget we were tourists and take some time to completely zone out. Hoi An became our Thinking Free Zone, we were quite good at it.

Vietnam truly looked the way it has been portrayed in movies. Tropical marshes and greenery covered the land outside the city. The familiarity of the scenery reminded me that we were in the country that our own country had been fighting in when my parents were my age. I could easily picture choppers and tanks moving through the vegetation by the side of the road. This stark reminder of a dark past was going to show itself even more once we got to Saigon.

One night we decided to venture into the Old City which was about a ten minute drive from the Resort. The old city was beautiful. Once brightly colored attached shops were now fading and covered with flowers and vines. It was a walking street, no cars were allowed however bikes and motorcycles still whizzed by every now and then. There were cute little local restaurants and coffee shops where we would sit whenever the rain would unexpectedly start up again.

Almost every shop we passed was a clothing store. We have since read that there are over 400 of these shops speckled throughout the Old City. When we investigated further we saw that each place had one to dozens of tailors. It is customary to go into a shop, either pick out something you like hanging on the walls, in the magazines they provide or bring in an example of a particular item you want made and they tailor it to your body. Tailoring in the US to an existing garment is expensive, but having one made from scratch is something I had never even considered having done for me. But in Vietnam the prices were incredibly cheap. For instance, a dress that would cost over $50.00 in the states was about $15.00 here and a winter peacoat that would go for about $250 in the states was only $40. Also, the turn around was shockingly fast. These ladies were able to create a a simple dress in less than 24 hours and a more complicated dress or suit was just a little more time than that.

But Ofer and I had learned by this point in the trip that purchasing things is really more of a hassle than anything else. Shipping home to the US is every expensive, we were never quite sure if the packages would ever arrive and we certainly didn’t have room in our suitcases. But when we saw the work that some if the more upscale shops did and they prices they charged for them we couldn’t resist.

It was such fun choosing a design, looking at hundreds of different fabrics and trying the garment at different times through its creation. The women who worked in these shops were so sweet. It was fun trying to mime certain concepts when the language barrier was so strong. Ofer and I both knew that it was a crap shoot, either the garments would be great or we will be spending money on mostly the experience of it all.

I ended up getting 3 dresses and a winter coat and Ofer got 2 shirts and a full suit, which I must say is the best suit I have ever seen him in. So much for not shopping.

The experience was such great fun. I have a greater appreciation for tailors and designers, it certainly isn’t anything that I would be able to do. It also really made us realize how much BS there is in the US and other countries. I had a dress made out of pure silk and delicate lace for our Rehearsal Dinner before the wedding that fits like a dream.

If I had wanted to buy this in the US it would have been incredibly expensive and I wouldn’t even begin to guess how much it would cost to have it tailor made. Whenever I have had things tailored in the states (which has been rare) it has been so expensive and time consuming.

The tailors make you feel like you are inconveniencing them and that you are asking for the impossible to be done. And you want it done in a week? Are you nuts?? In Vietnam they tell you yes to everything and at least at the higher end shop that we were in we truly saw that the only limits on what we could have created were due to our imaginations.

Ofer wouldn’t tell me what he had planned for my birthday. But after spending almost a full day walking around the Old City Ofer told me to change into a dress and get ready for a night of romance. He had planned with the Resort to have a 4 course dinner set up on the beach but unfortunately due to the rain they needed to modify the plan. Instead we walked to the hotel restaurant and were walked outside to a private area still covered overlooking the beach. Our table was beautiful and they had arranged flowers and candles in the shape of a heart right in front of us. I was so touched. Ofer has never disappointed when it comes to celebrating special events. Next the staff came out with a huge bouquet of flowers for me. I felt like we were back in Hawaii at our engagement.

We spent at least 4 hours enjoying our dinner of lamb, soup and Caprese salad with heart shaped mozzarella. I don’t know if it was because it was my birthday or because the scene reminded us of our engagement but Ofer and I talked and talked about how grateful we are to have found each other. We reminisced about the early days of dating, about sweet and funny experiences of our trip so far and dreamed about what was to come in the decades ahead. I think I cried tears of complete joy about a dozen times during that meal.

Hoi An was the perfect destination to celebrate my birthday and to take some time to acknowledge and appreciate how lucky we are for everything in our lives. Ofer and I would love to come back some day to Hoi An, but for now this was the last beach town we were going to be in until we get to Australia. We ended our night looking into each other’s eyes and wondering where we were going to be a year from today. We know that we will be husband and wife but would we still be traveling as is planned, would we be back home, will I be pregnant. I guess only time will tell.

After laying in bed in Hanoi for two full days feeling completely sick I was eager to get on the plane for Hoi An, a resort town in the south-central coast of Vietnam. It was a beautiful day and it was going to be a very quick flight to what we had been told was paradise.

The afternoon flight started out fine and I sat wrapped in a blanket with my head on Ofer’s shoulder. About 30 minutes into the hour long flight the sky got very very dark and the plane started bouncing through the clouds. By this time we had been on 30-some flights since the beginning of this trip and I was getting better at flying in turbulence. I looked out the window and logically recited to myself, it is turbulent because we are going through a cloud, once we are out, it will smooth out again.

But the clouds didn’t let up. The ride got extremely rough and the pilots told everyone including the flight attendants to take our seats. As the plane was being thrown around through the clouds we were also being completely pummeled by rain. Of course I have flown in the rain and snow tens of times in my life but they were nothing like this. There was so much rain we could hardly see out the windows at all. And when we could see all there was were more dark clouds.

Any passengers who stood up to go to the restroom, or get something from the overhead compartment were promptly and sternly told to sit down over the intercom by the flight attendants, this was not a good sign. The entire plane was scared. People were getting physically sick and shrieking when the plane took a few nasty drops and banked quickly from side to side. Ofer and I were holding hands and my entire body was completely tense.

Ofer, knowing me very very well, put his forehead on mine and looked into my eyes the whole time. He would give me reassuring kisses and tell me everything was going to be fine.

The pilot announced for the flight attendants to stay seated for landing. Landing??? The ground was nowhere in sight! We watched as the televisions in our seat backs showed our elevation. According to the readings we were nearing the ground although all we could see were sheets of rain and clouds. Even at 50 meters from the ground we couldn’t see anything, we all just held our breath as the plane tipped from side to side.



At about 2 meters from the ground the plane was suddenly thrust back up into the sky, as if we were taking off for the second time. The engines roared louder than the cries of the passengers around us. I felt like we were in the exact scenes that we all have seen on TV and in movies of planes fighting and losing battles to the weather. If anyone on the flight wasn’t scared before, they were scared now...including Ofer. The plane made a large circle and after about 15 more harrowing minutes we landed safely on the ground. Everyone on the plane clapped and took deep sighs of relief.



So much for a quick flight to paradise.

Paradise was drenched. We all deplaned onto the tarmac in our sun dresses and flip flops just to be pounded by the rain and wind as we ran to the terminal entrance. Ofer and I were so happy to be alive, we didn’t care at all to be getting soaked, or that it was going to take forever to get our bags or a cab. We later discussed the flight and Ofer told me that this was the first time on the trip that he thought to himself, “We could be at home in San Francisco, safe...we are asking for trouble taking all of these flights and visiting places off the beaten path.” Once we were on the ground we knew that it was fear that was talking. Accidents can happen anywhere, we could get in car accidents, get hit by a bus, caught in a fire, or suffer a brain aneurism in the ‘safety’ of our own town. We always do our best to take flights with well known airlines, we always book hotels through international sites, we are cautious of the taxis we get in, we have never eaten food off the street or drank the water in a country we didn’t believe it would be safe. That is pretty much all the control we can have and we are happy with it.

Once we had our luggage in the taxi Ofer and I relaxed for the journey to the resort. Apparently it was too soon to relax. The roads to the hotel were completely washed out due to the rain. We were so fortunate to have gotten a very responsible and attentive driver, which we were both incredibly grateful for. The day was still dark and it was hard to see due to the rain, not to mention that there were very few streetlights, and the ones that were there were not turned on.

It was impossible to see the lines on the road and the rain was so thick we couldn’t see a car until it was very close. To make matters worse there was a huge number of bicyclists and motorcyclists on the roads fighting the weather and unfortunately and very few had reflectors or light turned on. We had a couple of very close calls with cars and bicycles that were driving on the wrong side of the road.

We safely got to the hotel and expressed our extreme appreciation to our driver for being so careful. Ofer and I felt like we had traveled through the pits of hell in order to earn our spot in paradise. The resort had a gorgeous pool, a view of the ocean, champagne during check-in, two restaurants and a bar with live music. We both were very satisfied to stay indoors and out of the rain. We settled in and relaxed thankful to be safe and in such a beautiful place for the weekend of my 29th birthday.