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A Giant Chicken???
The story goes: Girl meets Boy, they fall in love, they get lost in the woods, the town gets a giant chicken to commemorate the lost lovers ... makes perfect sense to me?!? Dalat, Vietnam We love Vietnam!!!
After a not so favorable run in with Cambodia, we were feeling a bit weary of Vietnam because we haven't really heard anything good about it from other travellers ... but we love this country!!! Little kids are the most friendly, always calling out to say hello! The people have gotten a rap for being mean, but our experience is turning out to be the exact opposite!! Some of the older folks are a little standoffish, but we're thinking it's just because they've seen so much ugliness in their lifetimes and that they're just more reserved when it comes to foreigners.
We were in Saigon for Trevor's birthday and spent the day at a waterpark. It wasn't quite West Edmonton Mall, but it was big (enough) and clean and we still had fun! Trevor's hair is earning him a bit of attention ... apparentlly they don't see many white boys with afros in these parts!! At one restuarant a waitress exclaimed "Hey! What happened to your hair??!!" Saigon has a population of about 7 Million ... and there are 3 million motorcycles in the city!!! The term "traffic jam" has a whole new meaning for us!!!
Village Girls
Dalat, Vietnam Our plan was to take a trip into the Mekong Delta, supposedlly one of the best things to do in Vietnam, but after we'd already paid Kristena got sick and we weren't able to go. Instead, we spent most of our time in Saigon watching HBO... you wouldn't believe the appreciation we've developed for cable TV after 7 months! We did manage to make it to the War Remenants Museum though, and what an eye opening experience. The Vietnam-American War was before our time, so our knowledge is lacking and it was a good opportunity to learn some history before we started travelling in the country.
After Saigon, we headed north to the town of Mui Ne, aka: Beach Town!!! Beach time has been alot of fun here ... the ocean is angry and the waves are awesome! Mui Ne is the "action" capital for Vietnam, people come especially for the kitesurfing. It's quite expensive though, so we opted out. The experience of getting there was a bit trying though and we did get a glimpse of why other travellers say Vietnam can be a gong show. To avoid paying commission at a travel agency, we headed to the
Vietnamese Countryside
On the drive from Mui Ne to Dalat bus station for tickets, and did our best to find an air conditioned bus with personal seats (sounds a bit pompous we know, but really with the heat it's UNBEARABLE to travel without!). We succeeded with the air conditioning ... but soon found ourselves cramped into one of the sausage vans from Cambodia! It wasn't quite as bad as in Cambodia, but it wasn't very pleasant. We arrived in the connector town to Mui Ne and thought getting a bus for the remaining 20 Km would be a breeze ... and that's where the fun began! Outside of the touristy areas, Vietnamese people are aware that travellers don't have many options. The game is called EXTORTION and there isn't much we could do about it! Foreigners often pay 4 or 5 times more than locals pay, and in this case we were also forced to pay extra for our bags. It was unbelievably aggitating, but we didn't have any bargaining power and when we defied the driver, he was more than happy to refund our money, to which we found ourselves sitting in the parking lot, going nowhere. We ended up having to pay for the stupid bags. After that
Cowboy Buddha!
Dalat, Vietnam experience, we've given into travel agencies and are happy to pay a dollar or two in commission ... if it means we get our own seats and will be dropped off at our expected destination!!!
From the coast we headed to the highlands to the city of Dalat. We were still travelling with Nannet and met up with a French Canadian named Sach, and the four of us rented a car for a day of sightseeing. We ended up finding ourselves in some interesting situations by following Sach! The first was an afternoon with an eccentric Vietnamese/French poet and the second was encounter with the so called "Crazy Monk". He's called the Crazy Monk because he is moody and unpredictable. Some days he welcomes visitors, other days he slams the door and that's that. Meeting him was an experience ... the four of us were interrogated as to why we had come (we went because we'd heard he was also an artist) and if we knew anything about Buddism. We must have come on a good day though, because he allowed us to come in, but phewf, what an intense few minutes!!!
Our last stop was Nha Trang.
Have you Ever Seen Traffic Like This????
It was unbelievable! Traffic is like this all day, every day in Saigon! Actually, we just went there to catch the sleeper bus to Hoi An (11 hours up the coast), but discovered the beach was even cooler than Mui Ne so we hung out for a few days. Now we're in Hoi An, but have a 23 hour bus ride to North Vietnam tommorrow. Long haul bus travel is done by the "sleeper bus" ... which is a great idea in theory but is lacking in reality! It's a bit like stuffing Shaquille O'Neill into an Austin Mini. A little bit of Ativan goes a loooong way though, and we are more than happy to knock ourselves out for the journey!
That's it so far for Vietnam! We really are loving this country and are thinking about extending our visa's to stay for an extra few weeks!
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