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Published: June 22nd 2006
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Jackie and I left Hanoi early in the morning to get to Halong Bay. We had signed up for a 3 day, 2 night tour through our guest house and had a 3-hour bus ride to the coast. In a similar fashion to Chinese tours, we stopped at a souvenir shop on the way where they charged outrageous amounts for water and ugly trinkets. The heat didn’t let up as we got closer to the coast either; Just seemed to get hotter.
Perhaps it was coincidence or just a lack of tours to go on, but we ended up on the same tour with a mother and son (university aged) from the San Francisco area that we had met the day before at Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. Another coincidence…the mother’s best friend is married to one of my old bosses from Colorado. It’s a strange and small world sometimes.
We were ushered onto a small boat where we would spend the night. The tour included passage through a variety of islands in the bay, a night on the boat (without A/C), swimming at a few beaches and from the boat, then sea kayaking and a trek on the second
day.
The trip was fun and we were with a good group of people. The scenery reminds me of the area around Yangshuo in China, but surrounded by water. The islands seem very similar to the Chinese karsts and I’m sure that my father could show that they are from the same or similar geological formation, but all I know is that they were beautiful.
From Halong Bay, we headed back to Hanoi for the afternoon, before catching an over-night train to Hue. So, far, I think both Jackie and I like Hue the best of anywhere we’ve been. While we were still hassled for moto and cyclo rides, it seemed less than other places we’ve been. The city just seems more layed-back and relaxed.
We spent most of our first day in Hue relaxing, but the next day we walked to the Citadel. The Citadel is the Vietnamese version of the Forbidden City and it seemed nearly as vast because most of it is gone. Unlike Beijing, the Hue forbidden city is mostly ruins, some from time, most from the war and the ’68 Tet Offensive. The U.S. shelled the Citadel and the rest of Hue
in an attempt to win back the area from the North Vietnamese Army. It was interesting to walk around the area and see walls that obviously had not been repaired since the war and seeing bullet and shell holes in the wall.
I think the biggest surprise I’ve had in Vietnam is how dry and dusty it is, at least at this time of year. I knew that monsoon season had passed, but this is a really dry country. We rented a motorbike on our second full day in Hue and rode around the country side, visiting several of the Nguyen-dynasty tombs and some other sites including the Imperial arena, where elephants would fight tigers to the death. We returned for lunch covered in dust.
In the afternoon, we rode north to Thuan An Beach and spent a while in the water. Unfortunately, the swimming wasn’t very good. We were buoyed in to a specific area and I could walk all the way out to the buoys without water reaching my neck.
The next day, we headed south on a 5-hour bus ride to Hoi An. There are many attractions around Hoi An, which is just south
of Da Nang (where I think we passed the old American Airbase that was there. Still some buildings in a big, fenced off area that looked like hangers). We passed places like China Beach along the way to Hoi An too.
However, the main attraction in Hoi An is its tailors. It’s the place to get clothes made in Vietnam. For those who know Jackie, you will know that she loves to shop and I don’t mind a bit of it myself, so we did end up having some things made (me: one pair of pants and some sandals; Jackie: two tops, a skirt and some pants and also some sandals). Total cost was less than $50.
There was a problem though…Jackie hated the town and I didn’t much like it either. We were constantly hassled by people of all ages trying to get our business for things we mostly didn’t want. It was pretty constant and we both were at our wit’s end until we started to turn things into a game. Jackie called her game “Hello Tourrette’s.” Anytime someone said “Hey…Hello,” Jackie would respond with the first thing that popped into her head. Nothing good came
from that, but we had fun. Me, I just tried selling things back to them at outrageous mark-ups and a nice sales pitch. I tried selling my watch for 3,000,000 dong (around $200) but had no takers.
However, Jackie did buy some necklaces from a young female entrepreneur, who’s main sales pitch was “Come on man,” and “If you like, you buy. If you don’t like, you buy tomorrow.” That didn’t stop Jackie from bargaining hard, but kept her laughing through the whole thing, at least until the girl’s 2 friends started in and got a bit miffed when she wouldn’t buy anything from them.
We had more than enough after a few days and didn’t spend any time looking at the local sights (so no pics) and caught a train from Da Nang to Nha Trang, where we are now. This is a beach resort town with plenty of scuba centers and nice beaches, but Jackie’s a bit sick so people trying to sell to us or give us lifts on their moto’s are really fraying her nerves, which a fraying mine as well. However, we plan to rent bicycles tomorrow and ride around a bit to
see some Cham ruins and maybe visit a hot spring.
From here we’ll be heading to Dalat (about the only place in the Central Highlands we’ll hit since transport into that area is either too “local” (10-20 hour bus ride depending on how often it stops) or too expensive for flights or private cars. It’s unfortunate because I really wanted to see a bit of that area and get off the tourist trail for a week or so, but it’s too early to try that with Jackie. She’s not quite acclimatized yet and I’m not sure I’m ready for a 20-hour, non-air conditioned bus ride.
So, till next time…hope everyone is doing well.
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