Today was about golf...

... every trip, I try to sneak in a little surprise for Sonja. This trip, I had scheduled a round of golf at Tam Dao Golf Resort about two hours outside of Hanoi. She had no idea why I was controlling her dress this morning until I finally pulled her golf glove out of my suitcase and said "you might want to wear this today". Those looks on her face of confusion and then recognition are priceless.

But the surprise was only beginning. The ride out to the course was through the Vietnam countryside and the fascinating rice paddies with water buffalo. We saw a completely different look to this beautiful country. And then getting to the course, another great look on her face when she found out we had caddies! Sonja has caddied for me several times, but this was her first time and she quickly found out how much fun that can be.

We had two wonderful young ladies, Yan and Ha, caddying for us. Neither of them spoke much English but we communicated all day with pigeon English, pigeon Vietnamese, many hand gestures and a lot of smiles and laughter. We both golf horribly but neither of us cared as we had such a great time with Yan and Ha.

At the end of the round, we shocked them by insisting that they have lunch with us. We were able learn that they had never socialized with golfers before and each of them had worked at the course for over 4 years. We treated them to lunch, they were fascinated by our camera and we let them take many pictures both on the course and at lunch. We learned they both came from families of rice farmers and they were the only members of their families that did not farm. They taught us some phrases in Vietnamese and we taught them how to "fist bump" when you hit a good shot. All in all, a great time.

Ha kept asking us to come to her house and let her cook for us and if we didn't have a driver waiting for us in the parking lot, I have no doubt we would have joined her and her family for dinner. We have made a couple of good friends in Vietnam.

Tomorrow, we're up early again and heading to Halong Bay where we'll spend the night on a junk (boat) cruising the World Heritage Sight. I won't be taking my laptop with me so there will be no post tomorrow, but will upload pics when we return.

Good night all...