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Published: October 25th 2006
Lao Cai - Hanoi - Cat Ba Island - Ninh Binh - Hanoi Within minutes of entering Vietnam we had a Vietnamese friend. We met him as we were crossing the border from China & went on to spend the next few hours in a train station waiting room getting to know each other & eating noodles together. By the time the train had left for Hanoi we had another Vietnamese friend who we talked to on & off for the rest of the 10 or so hour journey. One day in Vietnam & we'd already spent more time talking to locals than we had in the entire previous seven weeks put together in China.
Xin Chao & welcome to Vietnam.
Despite years of war & colonialism Vietnam remains a remarkably friendly & welcoming country. The Chinese, Japanese, French & Americans all invaded, but eventually all lost. The French may not have been popular while they were here, but they left behind an Asian culture that eats baguettes, drinks in cafes & sometimes lives in beautiful colonial houses. The Americans may have lost the war, but they left behind.. well not a lot. Just lots of bombs, scars,
agent orange & jeeps. Today however, Americans are generally welcomed with open arms, perhaps because their US dollars are helping take Vietnam into the 21st century.
It's my third time here & Kylie's second, so we had a good idea of what to expect. Some say it's a friendly, cheap & easy country to travel in. Others find it expensive, aggresive & life a daily battle against being ripped off. I think the experience will be whatever you decide to make it.
The first day was a long one; following directly on from the twelve hour sleeper bus from Kunming, China, was ten hours on the train to the capital, Hanoi. The easiest way to describe the journey would be to compare it to ten hours in a slowly moving sauna with bars on the windows. The train was delayed, it was often packed (three and a half people on a two seat bench), & it was unbearably hot. Trains apparently travel at a painfully slow average speed of just 45kph (28mph), so with the only air con being the windows, the breeze just wasn't happening. As for the bars - well kids like to throw rocks at
trains so there's a wire mesh & bars there to keep you safe. Despite the agony of the heat & speed, the people were as friendly as you could ask for, sharing conversation & food, including very juicy fresh pineapples. The scenery was lush, once again we were back in the tropics - deep green rice paddies, tropical vegetation and for most of the journey we hugged the banks of the Red River.
We like Hanoi a lot. We stayed in the old quarter, an area originally composed of 36 small interwoven streets that has lasted since the thirteenth century. In each street you would find a different trade, and in many you still do today. The area has grown to over 50 streets & these days you will find everything from 'funeray accessory street' to 'motorbike seat cover street' In each street almost every shop would sell the exact same things, which seems a strange concept but seems to work. If you were to rename the streets today then it's true that many would be 'souvenir street' however in marked contrast to the just about every 'old' place we found in China, much of what remains here is
still the genuine article. The whole area is a maze of normal Vietnamese people, living, working, shopping & eating, largely uninterested in the tourists that pass them by. Everytime you step out of the hotel onto the street you know you are likely to discover something new. It's a huge maze that never ceases to entertain or surprise.
Hanoi's old streets are also full of interesting places to eat & drink. On every corner are impromtu noodle, rice & snack stalls where locals gather on mini plastic chairs. It seems that anyone can set up a stall on the street or even in their house. At various times of the day, someone's front room may be a noodle shop, spring roll joint or tea shop. By night they clear the decks & sleep on mats on the floor or on a low built bed. There's also inumerable cafe's, a reminder that not so long ago the French were here. Most cafe's serve an assortment of drinks, including strong Vietnamese coffee & a range of fresh juices.
You can't stay long in Vietnam without discovering Bia Hoi, the legendary beer found throughout the country, although more prominently in the
north. The beer is brewed daily & sold on the street, from the barrel at an insanely low price (from around 20 NZ cents/6.5 UK pence a glass). The beer tastes good, and there's nothing better than unwinding after a hard day's sightseeing with what could be the cheapest beer in the world. It's also a good way to meet a few locals -often young people wanting to work on their English skills. In parts of Hanoi you could be forgiven for thinking that Bia Hoi was just another product of the Coca Cola empire as they've clearly tried to move in on the act with big sponsorship in touristy areas, but fortunately you don't need too walk far to find the real thing.
The oldest university in Vietnam is Hanoi's Temple of Literature. Dating back almost a thousand years, this is a beautiful old wooden building full of fascinating historical relics. However our time at the temple will forever be remembered for the floods that came while we were there. When we began the walk to the temple it was a stunning sunny day - clear blue skies & intense dry heat. As we got closer there was
a hint of dark cloud on the horizon. As we approached the temple, so did the clouds. We arrived around the same time & within ten or so minutes the sky was black & the rains came.
With no idea whether the rain would last minutes, hours or days, we continued looking around the temple, umbrellas at the ready everytime we had to venture from one building to another. The rains grew harder so we took the opportunity to enjoy a traditional Vietnamese musical performance. By the time it was over the rain was worse still & the outdoor courtyards were starting to look like they were flooding. Being a thousand odd year old place we weren't too concerned & it was great fun making our way back to the entrance through the water that was now a good few inches deep. As we approached the road a toad swam by, better that than the dead rat that someone else told us they saw.
At the road things didn't look so good; it was flooded. The rain was still falling & there was still no end in sight so we decided to walk on in the vague hope
of finding a taxi. But soon it was apparent that a taxi may be hard to find. As I began to cross the road the water covered my feet, then my ankles, my shins & finally my knees. Motorbikes & cars were still trying to pass, but for most it wasn't easy. It's hard to comprehend how quickly the water became so deep - it makes you appreciate how vulnerable place are that suffer from devestating floods on a regular basis. It was the kind of scene you see on the news, but never expect to find yourself walking through.
I've no idea how long it took for the floodwater to clear. The rain eventually stopped, luckily after hours rather than days. Later that afternoon when the sun was gloriously shining from a once again beautiful blue sky we passed another flooded area. It was surreal wading through the water in amazing sunlight, hard to imagine how so much water could ever have appeared there.
Ho Chi Minh is seen by most Vietnamese (certainly in the north) as the father of the country. Although he died before the end of the US led war, he is seen as
the man who freed Vietnam from France's colonial rule & who began the campaign that finally saw off the US. He is affectionately known as 'Uncle Ho' & unlike Mao in China, he left behind a moderately happy legacy rather than one of famine, purges & inter family betrayal. Like Mao however, his body lays in a mausoleum open for all to see. He'd asked for a simple cremation when he died, so to see him there, surrounded by such theatrics is quite sad. Once a year he's sent off to Russia for retouching, and just like Mao he no doubt comes back looking more & more like a Madame Tussauds dummy each time.
A visit to Hanoi isn't really complete without a trip to the Water Puppet Theatre. As the name sugests, this is a puppet show with a difference -the performance happens on a stage that consists of water. It's believed that the idea was developed by northern farmers in rice fields, creating entertainment for themselves when the fields were flooded. The puppeteers are hidden behind a screen as the puppets act out the performances on the surface of the water. The show includes extremely lifelike fish,
fireworks & fire breathing dragons, and although it's all performed in Vietnamese it's fairly easy to follow.
Being in Vietnam means seeing a whole new selection of TV. No matter how fancy or grubby the hotel, there's almost always a tv in the room here. Somehow the quality of the hotel has little influence on the range of channels available. Some have just Vietnamese, but many have cable with programmes reaching us from far & wide. One day it's Rockstar Supernova from the States, another Home & Away from Australia. Then there's MTV from Thailand, Malaysia or Singapore & copious amounts of football from the likes of Man Utd TV. We've stumbled upon some pretty random shows from around the world, but perhaps the most bizarre sight on Vietnamese tv so far was that of Kylie's Uncle Peter with his beloved NZ Rugby League team just before a match in Australia (for those that don't know, Uncle Peter is an NZ celebrity, more commonly known as The Mad Butcher). You don't really expect to see your uncle on tv in Asia. We haven't watched a lot of actual Vietnamese tv as our language skills don't stretch far beyond a
few numbers & pleasantries (Kylie can ask for '1 beer please'), but we have stumbled upon the Vietnamese versions of Who Wants to be a Millionaire & Deal Or No Deal. The prize money starts from a staggering 3 or so pence.
Most people who've travelled in Vietnam will know all about the 'Open Tour' bus system. Some years back some cunning entrepreneur decided to start running backpacker busses up & down the country. There's only one main road & only a handful of stops that most people are interested in, so it wouldn't have taken much to set it all up. When it all began it made life very easy; no more hassle of buying tickets at railway stations or travelling with locals on a crowded bus. In fact it was so easy, that you could travel the whole length of the country without ever having to sit next to anyone but another backpacker. It's also a convenient way of keeping all the travellers together so that they can be herded in to the preferred hotels, cafes & shops of the bus company management. Today this is by far the cheapest way to travel through the country &
in what at first seems a rather bizarre turn of events, it's now far cheaper to travel on the flash tourist bus than it is to travel on the crowded & dirty old local busses. We don't like tours; we don't like conforming; we certainly don't like being told where we should stop, shop or sleep so we vowed to avoid them as much as possible.
As well as these 'tours' up & down the country there's also tours to all the local sights around the towns & cities. From Hanoi we wanted to travel east to Halong Bay & Cat Ba Island, an area just a few hours away by bus & boat. Sadly if you don't want to do a tour no one really wants to help you as they make it their business to direct people away from public transport & onto the tours. Finally we found someone who would sell us the just the backbone of the tour - bus/boat/1 night hotel rather than the whole there/back/hotel/meal plan blah blah blah option. Almost no one understood that we wanted to stay more than the normal '2 night package' & even more controversial, that we wanted
to travel on to a different town than that on the standard trail afterwards. Add to the equation the complication that there's a local price & foreigner price; It's actually official goverment policy that we should pay more - sometimes double, sometimes triple, sometimes whatever they can get away with.
I'm always a little intrigued by what other people have in their backpacks. We know that ours are probably just a little on the large side (currently just over 20kg), but even though we keep sending things home (we're up to 10 boxes I think), they just don't get any lighter. We've ditched a few things that were deemed unnecessary, and I know I could do with a few less clothes. There seems to be a lot of people travelling with almost no luggage at all - their backpacks are tiny, yet the very same people also seem to always have giant walking boots, hats, cameras & jumpers. I've no idea how they fit it all in. Personally I think you can cover most of South East Asia with a couple of tshirts, a couple of pairs of shorts, maybe one warmish set of clothes & a pair of
flip flops. But then I would say that even though I thought I'd broken my toe a few weeks ago as my flip flops tripped me up.
What often amazes me most is people with random things like guitars; they must be such a burden when you're fighting to get on a train, squeezing onto a bus or hopping in a cramped tuk tuk. Much as I love my music I often wonder why people who play guitar always assume that everyone else wants to hear them play? There's a time & place for such things & sometimes it's just not appropriate.
Soon after we got on the minibus heading for Cat Ba Island, someone sat next to me with a drum, (a type of 'bodhran' I think, drum enthusiasts). I wasn't sure if he was planning to play it or not, but my initial reaction was along the lines of WHY? Firstly, why travel with a drum? Secondly why did you have to sit next to me? Not long after we set off he did indeed begin beating out a rhythm - to him it probably sounded fantastic, but to anyone else it was an annoying tap
tap, rattle rattle & drum drum. I'm not anti drums, my brother is an exceptional drummer, but why anyone in their right mind would think that it's a good idea to travel with a drum & then inflict it upon people trapped together in a bus is beyond me. Luckily the journey wasn't too long, and as it happens we got talking after awhile. It turned out he was a moderately decent & vaguely normal European bloke. Funnily enough we later learnt a whole new version of his life story from his ex travelling companion. Apparently he uses the drum to help make decisions.
As well as drumming man we've also come across Russians travelling with a giant ghetto blaster & an American with a banjo. As we're supposedly such seasoned travellers, a few people have asked what we consider to be 'essential' items for the backpack. To be honest I can rarely think of much beyond the obvious. Things like plastic bags (for leaking toiletries & dirty washing), string (washing line), anti fungal cream (still using it) & tiger balm are some of the things that we can't do without. Umbrellas have been pretty useful, as has the
travel kettle. There's a few things we've given up on along the way - a trolley for the backpack (used in China but left there too). If there's anything you really really need, it's things like patience, sense of humour & preferably a fairly plump backside for rough bus & train journeys.
The boat trip through Halong Bay to Cat Ba Island is through some of the most famous scenery in Vietnam. Hundreds of limestone pillars emerge from the water, creating a stunning scene reminiscent of Yangshuo (China), but at sea. Caves have been discovered inside some of the small mountains, and as with almost every other cave I've seen, be it in Africa or Asia, they are lit up with psychedelic multicoloured lights. The area is all quite beautiful, but to be honest we were really just there for the beach. After 7 weeks of China we needed a rest. There's a lot of hotels on the island & in season the place is apparently bursting with Vietnamese tourists in search of karaoke & 'special' massages. We expected the worst, but were pleasantly surprised to find there were only a handful of 'pleasure girls' on offer & that
karaoke was well out of earshot.
Our fifth floor hotel room had a balcony overlooking the sea & hundreds of fishing boats. The only trouble was the climb - lifts are a rare treat. There's three beaches nearby, all within walking distance, so we did the decent thing & spent as much time as possible doing nothing at all but laze around on sand & in sea. Lush clear blue water; endless sunshine; good food. Perfect.
If you've been to Asia you are probably aware that a lot of Asian women (other than perhaps Thai girls looking for Western guys) don't like to be in the sun. In one of the world's great ironies, while we expose our bodies & sun ourselves trying to get darker, they cover up & apply whitening cream to try & get lighter. Something's cleary not right there. I have seen many Vietnamese on beaches, but generally only at sunset & sunrise. The rest of the day they are tucked away in the shade or fully clothed. In Vietnam many women completely cover their bodies, wearing full length gloves covering their arms & with scarves on their faces to cover all but a
small slit where their eyes gaze through.
From Cat Ba Island we took the local bus/boat/bus to Haiphong & then jumped on another local bus to Ninh Binh, just an hour or two south. The 'tourist' bus doesn't have this is a recommended stop, in fact the guidebook skips almost the whole of the northern half of Vietnam - half a country lost just like that. Ninh Binh is a fabulous place. There's nothing much to do in the town itself, and there's almost nowhere decent to eat, but the place where we stayed was remarkably friendly & the scenery surrounding the town is amazing.
We were met by a new friend in Ninh Binh (ex travelling companion of drumming man) which livened up our time a little too. Hearing the other side of the drummer's story was great (no names here, but K we are with you all the way!).
There's a couple of main sights around Ninh Binh, although there's really not that many people there to see them. As soon as you leave town it's paddy fields, rivers, villages, farmland & yet more staggering limestone pillars - yes the area here known as Tam
Coc is Halong Bay on land. We took a couple of boat trips out to explore the area; The local people row their boats with their feet - seems a strange concept; it should be almost impossible, but it works.
Dotted around the countryside there's also a few interesting temples. Part of the area, Hou Lu, was even briefly the capital of Vietnam. In one beautiful 1000 year old wooden temple the girls had a run in with some guy who appeared to be the keeper there. His greeting consisted of a lingering sniff of the cheeks.... Very bizarre & just a little disturbing.
I think the Vietnamese are opportunists, and they've learnt a lot about making money from the west. I've met a lot of people who've come to Vietnam after more 'relaxed' places like Cambodia & Laos, who have felt that everyone in Vietnam was trying to rip them off or hassle them. People will try to rip you off here - it's happened to us with all kinds of things; people want to charge us extra to take out bags on the bus, they'll double the price of drinks if they think they can get
away with it, the cost of internet has suddenly risen by about 400%.... but when you are nice & laugh about it they almost always smile & charge what they know it should be. When you come from China I think you see things quite differently. After having numerous taxi drivers refuse to take us, after being lied to about busses not existing, having people in shops ignore us when we want to buy things it's great that everyone wants to take us somewhere or sell us something.
Cuc Phuong National Park is also near Ninh Binh - the park is nice enough, but when you go expecting to see monkeys, bears & leopards, but leave having seen only insects & a few small lizards it's bound to be disappointing. There were some great monkeys but they were caged - apparently 'saved' from hunters who sell them for eating.
Guide for day one of the sights was local legend Truong. He is as cool as they come - you can't beat cruising around in a ten year old Lada with 'Romantic Guitar' instrumental cover versions blaring from the stereo.
Which leads us to Glen Medeiros. I don't
suppose many people remember Glen, the one hit wonder from 1988. I hadn't heard his huge number one hit 'Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You' once in the past 16 years. Until now; we hear it almost daily. I don't know what it is about music in Asia, but they love the boy bands & they love the ballads. Boyzone, Westlife, 911, Five, Backstreet Boys. Love 'em. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Lionel Ritchie, Glen Medeiros... can't get enough of them. Another favourite is Boney M - I've heard more from these late seventies disco divas in Vietnam than I'd previously heard in my entire life.
Talking of romance, few in NZ may remember the time when Kylie & I got together, it was a messy night at Radioactive's 25th birthday party in Wellington (celebrated with The Brunettes & a never ending set from The Phoenix Foundation). For our anniversary we planned as flash a dinner as you can find in Ninh Binh. As I said, it's not famous for it's food, but we picked a place that looked suitably expensive. Kylie ordered lobster & rice I ordered asparagus & a tofu dish. Kylie's lobster turned out to be
a solitary shrimp & my 'asparagus' was actually a plate piled high with plain boiled bamboo shoots. The rice & tofu never came. The romantic night just got better & better; back at our hotel a local guy kept plying us all with free shots of the local rice wine. That along with the leftovers of some kiwi vodka & one too many local beers made for a particularly messy occasion.
Rather than continue south as planned we travelled from Ninh Binh back north to Hanoi. I'm not entirely sure why, just something about the lure of Hanoi. Food, shopping, the old streets, the lake. Hanoi's changing, just like everywhere else we seem to end up. The old streets are already bursting with motorbikes, it's hard to know how they will cope as the population expands & gets richer. Sadly progress is seen through blinkered western focused eyes; people supposedly need cars & shopping centres. It's tragic to think that some day the old shops will gradually fade away as more & more people migrate to convenient supermarkets instead.
We had haircuts in Hanoi. You may wonder why on earth I am telling you this, but to us
it was quite a big deal. Kylie had her hair cut for the second time this year, quite an achievement (& another radical new style). For me it was only the second time in over 10 years that anyone other than myself has cut my hair. Rather than have it cut on the street we opted for a rather flash (but very cheap) salon. The process began with a head & neck massage, including an deep inner ear session, followed by a hair wash. The last time anyone washed my hair for me was about 1976 when my mother used to wash it, so it was quite a unique experience. Obviously, washing & cutting my hair doesn't take so long, & Kylie was still mid massage by the time I was finished. Fortunately, although the hairdresses had pretty limited English, we don't think we ended up looking too bad.
Thinking we'd finally finished with Hanoi we finally set off south by train on a 14 hour journey to former capital Hue, around halfway through the country. The cost was at least double that of the tourist bus, but at least we got to enjoy the relative comfort of a
train - the ability to get up & walk around, toilets, and in a marked contrast to the previous train experience, air con & reclining seats. Something we will perhaps never get used to in Vietnam is the absolute pleasure of getting onto the train without the ridiculous pusing & shoving that's always involved in China.
Some things don't change though, as we left Hanoi Kylie managed to attract the usual train weirdo. Which is where we will leave you today.
I've finally found an easy way to make photos easier to upload onto here - it was taking forever before so I wasn't doing many. If you scroll down there should be a few more below. Although there's now a lot more, the quality isn't so good. I guess you can't have it all.... This episode is dedicated to our nephew Thomas - the new addition to the whanau Wellington - Sydney - Bangkok - Khao Lak - Chaweng (Koh Samui) - Lamai (Koh Samui) - Bangkok - Macau - Guangzhou - Yangshuo - Guangzhou - Zhengzhou- Guangzhou - Shanghai - Huang Shan - Shao Lin - Beijing - Xi'an - Chengdu - Leshan - Kanding - Tagong - Litang - Xiang Cheng - Zhongdian - Lijiang - Kunming - Hekou/Lao Cai - Hanoi - Cat Ba Island - Ninh Binh - Hanoi
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lynn
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hog tied
oh my god. my flatmate and I were just looking at the hog on the bike and wondering if it was already dead because you can't see any blood on it from this photo. Sorry to be so fascinated with it, Tim, but do you know?