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Published: February 24th 2012
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Hello Everyone,
This blog may be a bit more reflective than informative so I’ll get the info out first and if you want to stop reading you certainly can.
After Hue we moved onto Hoi An. It was a really lovely town, very clean with lots of restaurants and shops. The whole river area was lit up by coloured paper lanterns at night – very beautiful. The main attraction in Hoi An are the tailors. Tailor shops line every street and can make you custom clothes in 1 day. Matt and I got sucked in of course. I got 2 dresses, a pair of linen shorts, and a fall coat made. Matt got 2 button up shirts and a long winter coat. We were both very pleasantly surprised with our purchases!
From Hoi An we moved to Nha Trang, Vietnam’s beach town. The beach is an amazing stretch of white sand, unfortunately it was cloudy and rainy the whole time so we didn’t get to use it. We were Nha Trang for 4 days to do our PADI scuba certification. The first two days were spent in a pool and the last two on a boat. The visibility
was very poor, about 1-2m, it is usually 20m. Matt and I still loved it though because we saw Nemo fish, crabs, shrimp, dwarf lion fish, scar from Finding Nemo, anemones, and numerous other fish species. It was really incredible and I’m sure once we get good visibility our minds will be completely blown.
We took the night train to Ho Chi Minh City and spent the day there before flying into Siem Reap, Cambodia. In HCMC we went to the Reunification Palace, the sight where North Vietnamese forces liberated the South and to the War Remnants Museum. The museum was very interesting but overwhelming. It consisted of pictures taken during and after the Vietnam War. There was absolutely no censorship. There were numerous pictures of dead Vietnamese, including two bodies that were completely black ash from a bomb. There were pictures of American soldiers torturing prisoners, of disfigurements caused by both phosphorous and napalm bombs as well as Agent Orange. The pictures of the birth defects were down right grotesque! They were very hard to see. It was interesting to see the Vietnam War portrayed from the Vietnamese side. The American side is what we’re used to and
usually that involves glorifying the soldiers that fought it.
END INFORMATIVE BEGINNING OF REFLECTIVE
Prior to starting this trip I was the most excited for Vietnam. I loved the food, it looked gorgeous, and it had an interesting history. Both Northern Thailand and Laos were full of culture, the people were friendly, and you could really appreciate how the people there traditionally lived. Vietnam is a whole other beast entirely.
The tourist route consist of relatively large cities, no small quaint village here. We didn’t stray too far off the beaten path so maybe we missed the traditional villages but we did see smaller centers on our DMZ tour and there was nothing Asian about them, they where just concrete buildings. Now Matt and I don’t really like big cities so of course we weren’t as happy in Vietnam whereas city people probably love it.
The food wasn’t as good as Vietnamese good back home! We found one place with amazing Pho in Hoi An but that was it. The Vietnamese noodle bowls which I always order in Saskatoon where hard to find and not very good at all.
The other really interesting thing was
the lack of traditional culture. Again, we were in big cities but big cities in Thailand and Laos possessed infinitely more culture than Vietnam. A huge thing that was missing was religion. Thailand and Laos are Buddhist countries and Wats and monks are everywhere. Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism are all present in Vietnam but not noticeable.
Basically Vietnam is way more modernized than Laos and striving to be more Westernized than both Thailand and Laos, or so that’s how we felt. We are glad we went to Vietnam but definitely don’t feel the need to go back. It was chaotic and stressful more than anything. I’ve read lots of places that Vietnamese people are incredibly friendly, and we definitely experienced that, but more often than not the friendliness had a motive behind it – they wanted your money. This is true of people in Thailand and Laos as well but it wasn’t so predominate.
All of the above is just our opinion and we certainly wouldn’t discourage anyone from going to Vietnam we would just recommend that they visit Northern Thailand and Laos too.
We just finished touring Angkor Wat today and are off to Phnom Penh
tomorrow but that’s a whole other blog!
Rae
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