Central and Southern Vietnam

Hue

We started our one month adventure of Vietnam halfway down the country in the ancient capital of Hue. Immediately the change in countries was apparent, the sounds of horns and hoarkers was continuous, touts selling hashish and motorbike rentals were at every storefront, and there were tourists everywhere.

Hoi An

Hoi An was a crossroad of economic-cultural flows in Vietnam and Southeast Asia from the end of the 16th century to the early 19th century. It was also the gate through which Buddhism and Christianity were introduced into Vietnam in the 17th century. Now it is full of clothing, lantern and art shops. Some tailors claim to have a perfectly fitted suit complete in 4 hours!

We wandered the street and window-shopped knowing full well that we had no room in our bags to carry MORE new clothes. But one jacket on display caught our eyes and thus began our 3 day shopping frenzy. We had no idea what exactly we wanted to buy. But the options were endless, stacks of fashion books, reels of textured and patterned materials, choices of collar styles, button sizes and hemlines to worry about. Add the remarks from the pushy tailors to buy more and more articles and you can understand why we were exhausted from shopping. It took 3 return visits to get the clothes to fit perfectly. During those visits we escaped the heat by sneaking into a hotel pool (thanks Emma and Amy!) and relaxed under a thatched room umbrella on our favorite beach in Vietnam, Cua Dai. We bid our 10kg package farewell, and hope the shipping Gods are good to us, the package is due to arrive in Canada by boat in 4 months.

Nga Trang

During our night bus to Nga Trang we were entertained by 2 drunk Vietnamese men that believed that if they crouched low enough in the back seat, no one would notice that they were smoking. But with the air-conditioning on, the smoke circulated quickly, and had all the tourists turning their heads to see who the culprit was. The man was scolded by the driver, but he just laughed and fell asleep.

Nga Trang is considered the SCUBA capital of Vietnam, I assumed incorrectly that the snorkeling would be as reputable, and comments from the tour operators made the day trip sound promising. Unfortunately we only saw dead coral, floating garbage, and the feet of tourists sitting in their rubber tubes. It was still a great day on the water as we floated above the pools of air bubbles that the divers created, jumped off the top of the boat and ended off with a great Italian meal.

Dalat

After realizing we were pick-pocketed and Mei Ling's new camera was stolen, we had to board a 7 hour bus to Dalat. Dalat is situated up in the mountains, where the people are wearing polar fleece jackets and wool mittens at 9'C! We booked a day of abseiling and waited 3 days for the rain to stop. It didn't. It rained so much the walls of our hotel room were wet, all our clothes felt damp, and the streets were like rivers. But the local police kept us occupied (and aggravated) as we tried to get a police report issued for the incident. All the police officers were unfriendly and unhelpful; in the end I got my hand-written report translated into Vietnamese and signed by the sheriff and this was considered an 'official' document. Whether or not it's official-ness is legit is entirely up to my insurance company.

Saigon

There was only so much rain we could handle. Small Vietnamese people on motorbikes with conical hats and plastic ponchos blowing in the wind provided limited entertainment, so we boarded a bus to Saigon. The backpacker zone in Saigon is a frenzy of shinny hotels that extend into the sky. Tour operators were selling dozens of package tours and open-bus tickets extending the 1650 km to Hanoi for only $25 USD. The rain continued as we dodged in and out of temples, discovered that we could not fit in the largest women's shoe size available and immersed ourselves (or at least tried to) into the history of the Vietnam War.

After Saigon we had 2 choices: fly up to the north or take a 35 hour train that was frequently delayed. The choice was easy, we would take a 3 hour plane ride up to Hai Phong.

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