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Published: August 28th 2006
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Hi All!!
How are you doing!! It's been a month since our last update, and quite a hectic one it's been. Accompanied by the wonderful Robyne (Daniel's mum), we have covered Vietnam bottom to top, and I can tell you we have made the most of it alright. A beautiful country with beautiful people who (in contrast to the Cambodians) have moved on from the atrocities of their war torn past, and are happily going about their day to day lives. In the countryside this involves lots of rice, growing vegetables and fattening up cows, chickens, pigs, and yes, dogs (more about that later) - life here doesn't seem to have changed much in the last millenium or so, with women wearing pointy straw hats going back and forth on their cycles, people working the fields and kids minding the waterbuffaloes - with which Robyne has developed a great fascination. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Robyne was Vietnamese in a prior life - she has fit right into the lifestyle, wearing her Vietnamese hat, drinking Vietnamese tea, eating Vietnamese noodles with Vietnamese chopsticks, not to forget the many friends she's made along the way.
Citylife is very
Hoi An
The streets of Hoi An, when lucky enough to catch a shot without 15 scooters buzzing past... hectic (luckily there's only two major ones, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Hanoi (where we are now). There is noise everywhere, people whizzing past on their scooters whilst leaning on their horns, markets going on from daybreak to midnight, and music blaring in the park for the daily aerobics class that 100's of people (up into their 80's) attend.
Arriving from Cambodia in Ho Chi Minh City was a pleasant surprise. Lots of hustle and bustle, and the city seems to go on with or without the tourist industry. A definite feeling of “back to civilisation”, with lots of french-colonial architecture and lots of smiley people. And hot showers!!! It was here that we met up with Robyne, and pretty much got straight into the first couple of day trips. Over the past month we have done so much it is hard to describe everything without boring you to bits, but some of the definite highlights were the following:
The Cuchi tunnels: an underground network used by Charlie (the Vietcong) in the American War. It is unbelievable how these (admittedly, small) people lived in such cramped conditions. We went into a tunnel; this particular one had been
Red Bridge Cooking School
The three musketeers, cooking up a storm. enlarged for touristic purposes, and still gave us instant claustrophobia. We had to squat down and shuffle with our heads between our knees, centimeter by centimeter, for 50 meters. And it was DARK - so dark that we weren’t sure whether we had taken a wrong turn, or maybe were heading straight down into the centre of the earth or what. Biting back a few panic attacks, we finally saw a small glimpse of daylight, and luckily found our tourguide (who wisely hadn’t come down with us) smiling from a hole in the ground. Phew, we didn’t get buried alive after all… It did cross my mind a few times, I have to admit. Once the adrenaline had dissipated, there was more excitement on offer: we could shoot an M16, or maybe an AK47, and if that didn’t do it for us, someone offered to take us into the mountains, buy a cow, and shoot it with a rocket launcher (which would set us back USD200, however there were stories of a guy who missed, took his cow to the markets and made his money back. Serious).
Next stop: Dalat, in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. We pretty much spent all
Na Trangh
A barber/earcleaner, contemplating life whilst sitting in his 'shop'. our time here on two wheels, scooting away from waterfall to mountain pass, from clear blue lakes to cloudless views across Vietnam to the ocean. The countryside/scenery, not just here but in all of Vietnam, is so pretty that no matter where you are, it is always a pleasure just having a look around and taking it all in. Dalat was pretty chilly - everyone was wrapped up in (home-knit) scarves, beanies, jumpers, boots and for the first time in months we could snuggle up in blankets and sleeping bags… Hmmmmm.
From the highlands of Dalat to the central coast of Na Trangh. A few days of R&R, a bit of beach, a touch of snorkelling - it was nice just to hang for a while. Further up the coast was Hoi An, another french colonial town. Very pretty, a World Heritage site, with old houses in pastel yellows and blues. In a way so European, but with theVietnamese people filling the streets, it made for a great mix of cultures. This is where everyone has clothes and shoes tailormade, and, as in the rest of the country, great shopping on offer!!
Further up north, in Hue, we
The Perfume River
A Vietnamese lady paddling away on the perfume river (no, it didn't quite smell of perfume, as you can see from the colour of the water..) cycled around the old town (another World Heritage site). We did our best dutchifying Robyne, who was a bit wobbly and left her training wheels in Australia. She definitely got there in the end, using random walls for breaks. For once I guess it was all about the destination, not the journey… To celebrate Robyne’s 60th birthday, we hired a private boat to go down the Perfume River, checking out tombs and temples along the way. In the evening we had our poshest meal yet (i.e. something over the standard 2 dollars a meal!!), with all the trimmings, including a surprise birthday cake. Those of you who know Robyne will understand that this was possibly the highlight of her entire Vietnam trip!
The next day we got dropped off in Ninh Binh at 4am, and managed to find ourselves a semi-decent guesthouse in the dark. From here we did a fantastic jungle trek and checked out the endangered primates rescue centre, with monkeys who looked like they wore grey berets and red pants. One of them even had a blue beard and matching pubes (schaamharen!).
The last week or so have been taken up by a couple of
Coc Phuong National Park
The jungle just as it should be - rainy, misty and spooky... 2 and 3 day long trips, one to Halong Bay (the highlight of Vietnam) and Sapa (my personal highlight of Vietnam). I won’t go into much detail, but we spent most of the Halong Bay trip on the water, and most of the Sapa trip trekking in the mountains. Most of the pix below are of these trips, and as always will give you a much better idea. Having said that, the pix don’t really do any of it justice. It is just unbelievable to be skipping around in mountains covered in rice paddies, accompanied by kids from the hill tribes (who of course are trying flogg their goods, but are so cute and good humoured that you can’t help buying. They are particularly interested in family and friends back home, so all of you have come up in many conversations, and when you start wondering why the hell they care so much it all becomes clear when they make you buy something for each and everyone person that you've mentioned. Too clever for me, they are!!).
Vietnam has definitely won me over and if these silly people would stop eating dogs it would be the perfect country. All
over the place we’ve seen millions of puppies, bitches with their nipples touching the floor from having fed too many pups, and fattened up dogs lying around because they can’t stand up anymore. Only halfway through the trip did we realise they raise dogs like they raise chickens and pigs - it’s all barbeque material. We haven’t actually seen any restaurants where dogs are caged up out the front and people can take their pick, but we know they are here… We’re off to China tomorrow, and with the Chinese known to eat anything and everything alive, we are looking out for the next atrocity to appear on a menu!! And since we won’t be able to read chinese and will have to go with the point-a-finger-at-any-random-dish method, chances are we’ll be stuffing ourselves on goat’s willy, worm, cockroach or turtle sooner or later. We’ve been warned that people are likely to start pointing fingers and hysterically laugh at us when we turn up in China. I can feel a good adventure coming up: CHINA, HERE WE COME!!!!
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Herbert en Marieke
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Greetings from Emmen
Ha die Kris en Daniel... Weet dat het aardiger is om dit in het engels te doen, maar ben er niet zo'n ster in om foutloos engels te schrijven (typen) Wat zijn jullie met een grandioos gave reis bezig zeg!!!!! We lezen iedere keer jullie verhalen, en de foto's zijn prachtig!! Hoe lang gaan jullie nog verder hiermee? En welke landen zijn jullie nog van plan te bezoeken? Hier alles goed. We genieten van onze kleine Anne, die inmiddels drie weken is en al geregeld flink van zich laat horen, vooral nu ze last heeft van darm krampjes, maar verder gaat het super, wel wennen hoor dat je ineens met z'n 3en bent. Nou goed. We hopen dat jullie ons op de hoogte houden van die fantastische reis...Geniet er nog van. Liefs van ons, Herbert en Marieke...oh en Anne natuurlijk