Advertisement
Hoi An Architecture
Many of the buildings in Hoi An were built between the 16th and 19th centuries. The look of Hoi An is totally unique in Vietnam. In an attempt to not be too repetitive with my blogs I'm going to keep this one rather brief. As I've already "blogged" many of the places I'm now revisiting, I don't see a tremendous need to repeat tales of history and geography in Central Vietnam. That doesn't mean, however, that the last few weeks have been short of any fun and excitement. I think quite the contrary. Since I last updated this site, Dad and I have been working our way north toward our eventual final destination of Hanoi. There's only 11 days of our trip left and man has time moved by fast. It seriously seems like yesterday that we were wandering around Saigon while I watched Dad's bewildered reaction to the motorbike insanity that consumes the city. It's been a great trip so far and I'm sad to see it winding down. In the following paragraph I've detailed a rather brief itinerary of our recent travels. Most of the places I had visited before, several spots we both visited for the first time. Either way, it's been great fun.
So...after leaving Saigon (Ho Chi Miny City), we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia. As I mentioned on
A Totally New Look
Dad sporting his new, finely tailored black silk pajamas. many occasions before, it's the home of Angkor Wat and is truly a sight to behold. We spent 3 days at a really beautiful sort of colonial, sort of "Explorer's Club" type hotel. After the brief side-trip to Cambodia we were back to Vietnam. After staying another night in Saigon we took a short flight toDalat . Often referred to as the "Le Petite Paris" of SE Asia, it's high elevation allowed us to escape the intense heat of the South for a few days. We went hiking, rode motorcycles, and generally explored the beautiful southern-end of the Central Highlands. FromDalat we rode bicycles 90km to Nha Trang on the coast. Spending only one night in Nha Trang, we took a short flight to Danang, where we were whisked off to the ancient town of Hoi An. One of my favorite spots in all of Vietnam, Hoi An boasts incredible architecture, unique cuisine, and awesome custom tailors. Dad and I had pajamas, suits, tuxedos, shirts, shorts, and just about everything else made while inHoi An, I've even attached a photo of Dad in his new pajamas. From Hoi An we took a bus to Hue where we are currently residing.
Old Church Dalat
An old French-colonial church in Dalat, built in the late 19th century. The first day we did an all day tour of the "DMZ", the former demilitarizedzone , separating the North and South of Vietnam during the war. Surrounding the DMZ in all directions are numerous destroyed buildings and former locations where some serious fighting took place. I hired a former South-Vietnamese army officer to give us a tour of the area. Much to our dismay we were taken back into a different section of underground tunnels near the DMZ, but luckily these ones were a bit larger than those at Cu Chi. You can see from the photo that we could actually stand up and walk, instead of crawling through the tunnels. Since we've been in Hue, the weather has actually turned a bit sour but has actually been a welcome relief from the heat. Even though we've seen rain each of the last 3 days, the temperature hovers in the mid-70's to low-80's which makes the air pleasant almost anytime of the day. Since arriving in Hue we've been staying at a hotel in the former French-colonial governor's mansion. Designed and decorated in art-deco style architecture and decor, after renovation and additions the place was converted into the La Residence
Ho Chi Minh History Museum
One of the numerous museums paying tribute to Uncle Ho in Saigon. Hotel & Spa. If anyone ever visits Hue, I certainly recommend it as the place to stay. Later tonight we take a short flight to Hanoi and tomorrow we're on the overnight train toSapa. After several days exploring Sapa it's back to Hanoi, off to Halong Bay, then back for our final few days at the Sofitel Metropole Hanoi. On May 12th I'm off to New Delhi, India and Dad's off to Hong Kong on his way back to San Francisco.
As before I've uploaded some photos of our recent travels. For those of you paying close attention, the one of Dad in the black pajamas is perhaps my best photo yet.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 16; qc: 90; dbt: 0.0947s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
