Phu My, Vietnam
(Pronounced foo me)

 
We were up early to watch the sail into Phu My. The air was hazy and both the port area and the vessels provided a study in contrasts. This barge appeared to be taking on water. We'd been to Vietnam in our 2012 cruise, too.

 
We walked away from the port and the crush of drivers who wanted to charge too much for a few hours of work.
Local merchants ran various businesses along the road from tents and trucks.

 
Various cab drivers stopped to make us an offer, but we kept walking...

 
A herd of goats seemed to be on their own...

 
After a little more walking, we finally negotiated a good price with a guy in a regular car--not a marked taxi. Dean had a list of places and things that we wanted to see.

From the car: huge piles of garbage dwarfed nearby multistory buildings. Where is Wall-E when you need him?

A traffic circle...

 
First stop was the beach of Vung Tau. Here we look in both directions.
We headed toward the Christ the Redeemer Staue atop the hill...

 
Ghost crabs had created lacy trails of sand.

Auger shells were common in some places along the beach. We collected a few.

 
Fishing for bait at the beach.

This was a Monday morning and the beach was filled with families.

 
At the back of the beach and across the street...

 
Rinsing off the sand.

 
Walking on the sidewalk next to the beach was a much quicker way back to our driver.

 
Our transportation for the day. Our driver was Mr. Hau.

 
Our next stop was a Christ, the Redeemer statue, not nearly as large as the one we saw in Rio, but still impressive.

The obligatory village sign near the Christ the Redeemer statue.

 
There were many steps just to get to the bottom of the statue.

An extensive pebble mosaic of Jesus as a shepherd is marred by tone-deaf placement of trash cans.

 
There were various religious statues along the stairs to provide a place to rest on your way up.

 
811 steps to the base of the statue. There was a nice view from here.

 
The large cannons at the base of a statue of Jesus and near several elaborate groupings of religious statues seemed out of place. This was a fortification hill long before the statue was built.

 
Okay, we shed our hats and shoes to go up into the statue.

 
I continued to count the stairs, which were not numbered up in the statute: 149 more stairs for a total of 960 from the bottom.
There was not much space out on each of the shoulders of the statue.

 
Looking out toward the end of the peninsula.

Looking back toward the city and the beach...

Looking behind the statue: a long ridge with a mansion at the other knob.

 
From our perch: There were spikes set into the outspread arms to keep people from climbing out there, but someone had written a message beyond the spikes anyway. A look back up to the face.

 
We headed back down. At the top there was barely room to pass and we feared for the safety of people carrying their small children.

 
Our belongings were waiting for us at the base of the statue.

 
These women were praying--the one one the left was wailing or chanting.

 
The signs were quite detailed...

We continue our Vietnam adventure on the next page....