Gordon (Engineering, 1996) and Esther Longerbeam recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by taking their entire family on a ten day cruise to Alaska. The group included their four children and spouses and four grandchildren, fourteen in all. Their ship left from San Francisco and visited Victoria, BC; Sitka, Juneau, Tracy Arm and Ketchikan; and returned to San Francisco on August 16th.  No flights required - wonderful.  They were also blessed with wonderful weather including unthinkably warm weather in Alaska (80 degrees plus), and no rain.  They recommend traveling by cruise with your grandchildren to everyone.

Harry (Environmental Protection Department, 2001) and Linda (Nidever-) (Energy & Environmental Directorate, 2003) Galles just completed a three week trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. It was both an interesting and enjoyable experience. They were in a small group of ten and had a wonderful young man as a guide for the entire trip. They had lots of free time and could wander where ever they wanted as long as there was no danger from old ordnance. They felt safe where ever they went.  They stayed in 5 star hotels, traveled by motor bus and in new well maintained airbuses. The food was excellent and varied from north to south.

The Vietnamese blame the American Government for the war, not individual Americans and they were very gracious and welcoming to them everywhere they went. They went to several museums, memorials, and tourist spots where the "Vietnamese" side of the "American" war is told - not very flattering to us but not over done either. They still struggle with many victims of Agent Orange and people with missing limbs due to unexploded ordnance that is prevalent in many areas of the country. 

After the war ended, the government went on a commune and re-education kick following the path other communist countries have taken. They quickly discovered that approach did not work (they rapidly went from exporting food to not being able to feed their own people) and have since converted to a "communist" free enterprise society.

The people who were on the side of the US, as well as intellectuals and the well-to-do, paid a price after the war. They lost everything, were sent to communes in the country and treated poorly during the initial post war period. Things seem to be healing for them now and the society is much more open than they expected. The young people don’t remember or care about the war - they are forward looking.

Vietnam is much more open than China when they visited there in 2001. The Vietnamese people are tough and very industrious. The economy is expanding and people’s lives are improving. They have 3000 years of recorded history, much of which involved fighting invaders including the Chinese, the Japanese and the French. The French made a significant contribution to both Vietnamese architecture and cooking - Vietnamese pastries are wonderful and the food is very flavorful and varied. French architectural influence is visible in all the major cities they visited - Hanoi, Hue, Da Nang, Saigon and Can Tho and in many smaller locations throughout the country. There are local open air markets in every town and village, as well as floating markets in the Mekong Delta, where they sell everything under the sun. The Vietnamese buy meat, fish, fruits and vegetables fresh daily due to the limited refrigeration in many areas.

They are also quite "Westernized" in the cities in terms of consumer goods and they even celebrate Valentines Day in a big way. Few people have cars but nearly every one in the cities seems to have a motor bike. Bicycles are also common but are more prevalent in the county side. Internet cafes are everywhere but few have their own computers. The government is trying to figure out how to cope with the coming impact of computers on information availability in the country.

Everyone seems to have a cell phone. Family size is limited to 2 children (there are significant financial penalties if a couple has more than two) as the population has exploded to 82 million people. You see families of four riding on a single motor bike everywhere as that is the main form of transportation.

The Galles' started their tour in the north in Hanoi (4 million people) which is more conservative than the south. The country is relatively flat here as it is the Red River delta area. They took a day’s excursion to Ha Long Bay, which has many islands of limestone which contain beautiful cliffs and hidden grottos, and caves. It looks a little like the Lee River area in China.

People in Vietnam have relatively low incomes but are always nicely dressed and seem to have enough to eat. They saw few homeless people. It is clear that people who live in the country are "behind" the city folks in terms of "things" and they work very hard. They work the fields by hand and with water buffalo, no tractors.

They stopped in the center of the country in Hue (600,000 people) where they saw a lot of the history of the county in palaces, tombs and other edifices built by various kings over time. There is more jungle and it is more mountainous here and it is much more rural. They took a trip up the Perfume River, stopping at several old cultural sites. They then drove to Da Nang where we visited "China Beach" along with many other beautiful places such as the town of Hoi An. They also walked through a nearby village and met the children and some adults.

They then went to tour the Mekong Delta and explore river life, including floating markets, emanating from the river port city of Can Tho. They transport everything on the river in the Mekong Delta. People in the south have more food available and they are not as slender as their northern counterparts. They are also more sophisticated (in the western sense) probably due to their exposure to the Americans during the war and the trade that goes through the south. They are the largest exporter of rice in Southeast Asia.

They then returned to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and spent several days exploring there. One very interesting trip was a visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels outside side of Saigon. They were started in the 1940s to sabotage the French. They are marvels of engineering and are several stories deep. They developed ways to cook and hide the smoke, provide ventilation, etc. During the American war, 16,000 combatants lived there and would launch attacks from inside American held territory via the tunnel system.

The dream of every Vietnamese person they met seemed to be to "go to America". They believe this is due to two main reasons: one - they know many people who have done so and appear wealthy by comparison to the average person in the country - they send money back and when they visit they appear to be wealthy the way they spend and do things; and second - we are free - there everyone is watched by someone. If they want to invite a non- Vietnamese to their home they must get permission before they do so and report on what happened during the visit. If a Vietnamese stays more than 2 days, they must report it. The major question in Vietnam is what is going to happen when the Vietnam leadership dies. They are all very old and very conservative. Eventually, new leadership may take the country in a new direction that is more forward looking.

From Saigon, they flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia. This area of Cambodia is very flat and it is surrounded by "jungle". The jungle here is not the lush tropical type but it is heavily wooded with large vines everywhere.  Siem Reap is not large, only 120,000 inhabitants, but it is experiencing a tourist explosion.  Five years ago, there were 2 hotels there. Today there are 85. The hotels are beautiful 5 star class but some stand empty because they were built by wealthy Cambodians who did not have a marketing plan nor did they make the connections ahead of time to provide sources of tourists to stay in their hotels. The tourist season in Cambodia, and also in Vietnam, is only 6 months long because few people visit during the rainy season.

The population of Cambodia is small, only 12 million. This is due to the ruthless Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot who instituted what we know as the killing fields when 2 to 3 million Cambodians were slaughtered. People who wore glasses were killed because they could read, educated people were killed because they were educated and so on. As a result, today 60% of the population is under 30 years old. The Vietnamese came and eventually pushed the Khmer Rouge out after their war with the U.S., but they then stayed 10 years. As a result, there is no love lost between the two peoples. Cambodia was a Communist country but it is now a "democracy". However, only the name was changed - the same people are in charge. Cambodians are poorer than Vietnamese on average although there are some very wealthy Cambodians as well. There are few cars, not as many motor bikes as Vietnam and a lot of bicycles.

Siem Reap is the gateway to numerous historical treasures dating from the 12th century. The most famous is Angkor Wat with its 5 towers more than 180 ft high. Angkor Thom was a capital city of one million people in the 12th century. It contains the stunning Bayon Temple with its 54 towers, large stone faces and intricate carvings. Ta Prohm is a Buddhist shrine containing more than 100 temples that struggle to keep the jungle at bay. There are many temples and ruins in the area dating as far back as the first century. The tourist route focuses on the 12th century as it was perhaps the most prolific period and the structures are more well preserved.

Artifact theft is a major problem and the more spectacular ruins have lots of security and are closed at 6pm. Visitors are required to obtain and wear picture badges while on these sites. The war also left its mark as bullet marks can be seen on the walls of many ruins.

The Tonle Sap Lake lies to the south of Siem Reap. It is an interesting phenomenon because, in the monsoon season, the Mekong River flows so strongly that it backs up near Phnom Penh into the lake, increasing the lake size by a factor of 3 to about 45 by 90 KM. In the dry season the lake water flows back to the Mekong River and out to sea through the Mekong Delta. Fishing villages on the lake are floating - all house boats. As the water rises and falls the house boats are towed to new locations to be near shore while remaining afloat. Schools, play yards and stores are also floating. People have floating pig pens and chicken coops with their homes. They also have TVs and lights but these are run by car batteries which they must bring to a charging station (boat with generators) every few days.

The cultures in this area of the world are varied and interesting, and though they have "borrowed" from each other over time due to  "occupation", trade and other interactions, they are each separate and unique. From a religion standpoint, Cambodia is 95 % Buddhist and Vietnam is predominantly Buddhist but also embraces Confucianism, Daoism, animism and Catholicism. There are small shrines everywhere, including on river craft, in Vietnam and they burn incense and make food offerings to their gods regularly. They found the people to be friendly and open wherever they went.

Frank Rainer (ME, NIF, 2003) and his wife recently returned from an 11-week journey to New Zealand, Antarctica and Australia. The primary emphasis was on visiting the historical huts used by the explorers a century ago around the Ross Ice Shelf region of Antarctica. This region gets about 600 tourists a year as compared to about 25,000 to the Antarctic Peninsula via South America. Fellow tourists included the Norwegian grand daughter of the first explorer (Borchgrevink) to winter over in Antarctica in 1899. It was an emotional experience for her to visit his still-standing winter home there. They came to the rescue of the US McMurdo and New Zealand Scott Bases when our Russian ice breaker assisted another Russian ice breaker for 36 hours to clear an icy path for a supply ship and fuel tanker. They were running desperately low on chocolate bars and fuel oil. Their ship set a world record (other than perhaps a nuclear sub under the ice) in traveling by ship further south (78° 41.03' S latitude) than any other vessel has ever gone. This beat Amundsen's record by about 180 feet when he started at this same spot in 1911 on the first trip to the South Pole. One nut on our ship took a record swim here as well (not Frank). There is life after NIF as the Rainers have traveled to over 60 countries in the past three years (over 200 total countries and territories), revisiting every continent for at least the third time.

May’s Retiree luncheon will be at noon on Wednesday May 17th at the Elks Lodge in Livermore, 940 Larkspur Drive. (Reservations: www.llnlretirees.org). Our speaker will be Alan Mode and his title is: "Hello? Hello? Anyone there?" -  Communicating after "the big one."

The Travel Group meeting is Tuesday, May 23rd at 2:00 p.m. in the Community Room of the Livermore Police building, 1110 South Livermore Avenue. Larry Moon will talk on the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica Peninsula. This represents a change from the published schedule.

Please send any news or input (please include the date and department from which you retired) to Jane or Gus Olson. E-Mail: Jane@LLNLRetirees.org or Gus@LLNLRetirees.org.