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Published: September 30th 2009
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Hoi An
Hoi An was the city we flew into to start our travel in Vietnam. It is a busy city in the north of Vietnam and it has more motor scooters than I have ever seen in my life. The city itself is not spectacular. Their were some museums and a large lake to see. We went to one museum which was kind of a modern art mixed with history
Ha Long
Ha Long Bay is a beautiful bay off the coast of northern Vietnam. It was about a four hour van ride to the dock and the drive was well worth it. Jenna and I signed up for a three day two night deal. We spent one night on the boat and one night on an island called Cat Ba. It was really nice on the boat the first day. We had lunch and then cruised through the bay for about an hour. Ha Long Bay has over 1500 islands, obviously we couldn't see them all but we did get a nice ride through the bay to get an idea. Our first stop on the tour was an island that had a
massive cave inside of it. It was a nice get away from the heat of the day and the cave was huge. Jenna kept saying it was like being on the moon and it really was. The inside of the cave was set for tourist, with side walks and trash cans everywhere. There were also colored lights in the cave that gave it a really cool look. The cave was beautiful. After we walked through the cave we went to a floating barge that was piled high with kayaks. Jenna and I then got about an hour to paddle around the bay by ourselves. It was so peaceful being in the middle of all these islands. The weather was really nice for our cruise but the sun also made the water really hot. So as we were paddling around in the kayak we would get really hot and splash water on ourselves to cool off. Well the water was about 80 degrees and didn't do anything besides make you sticky. After the kayaking we got back on the boat and got to have some fun. They parked the boat for the night an we all got to go swimming. Swimming
in the ocean when your on a boat means one thing, jumping off the highest part of the boat into the water. It was awesome, I think I jumped off the boat about ten times before they made us stay on for the night. Jenna got a couple great pictures of me jumping off. Even though we were in a bay there was a definite current in the water. This made it tricky when you jumped off, because when you came back to the surface you were about 3-5 feet farther from the boat then where you went in.
Hue
We didn't stay to long in Hue because we were excited to go to Hanoi. In Hue we rented a motor bike and went to go see tourist sites including the purple palace and one of the emperor tombs. Most of the sites in hue were completely destroyed from the Vietnam war, so there wasn't to much to look at except an ancient city in shambles.
Hoi An
Hanoi is the place to get your custom made clothing dreams come true. This town was a really nice change to the other
cities we visited before. Hanoi is a quiet town filled with tailors and restaurants along a river. The area along the river was beautiful especially at night. All the restaurants were small family owned places lined up along the river. Hanoi was one place that we found a great hotel. We had a huge room with two double beds, A/C, hot shower and a bathtub with a pool for ten bucks. Our plan in Hanoi was simple buy lots of custom made clothes and eat food. We also took a cooking class and learned how to make a banana leaf fish and hot pot which is like a Vietnamese version of fondue. We accomplished both of those things and are now proud owners of our first set of tailor made garments.
Na Trang
Na trang was an awesome beach town with a crazy party night life. This town was a great stop on the trip through Vietnam, however unfortunately it poured down rain for about 5 days in a row. The rain started when we were in Hanoi and continued non stop until about 3 days after we were in Na Trang. I have never seen
rain like this before it was amazing the streets were all completely flooded. There was a huge long beach with a beautiful view of an island that was a bout a mile off shore. There was one major road that ran parallel to the beach. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of Miami. Jenna and I got to have some fun here we basically hung out on the beach, partied on the beach and got to go to a day spa with a mud bath. There were tons of restaurants and the city was fairly modern. We had a great time swimming on the beach and hanging out with other travelers at night. There were so many places to go at night it was a big change from the other cities we had been to in Vietnam. The spa was a great stop for our last day in Na trang. We rode rented bikes about three km's from the hotel to a spa that was at the foot of some small mountains. We paid five dollars and we were allowed to do a mud bath, mineral bath, mineral waterfall, a hot and a cold mineral swimming pool and a
cool mineral jacuzzi. It was really nice and relaxing. The spa was huge and we could have easily spent all day but we only had time for about four hours of it.
Ho Chi Minh City
Ho Chi Minh was our last stop in Vietnam and it was a quick one day trip. We arrived at about 6:30 am via all night bus from Na trang. Some how we had the energy to do a fair amount of sight seeing in the city. Ho Chi Minh is a very populated city that is pretty modern. There were a lot of landmarks to visit and we got to tour a Vietnam war remnence museum, which was truly devastating. Of course the entire museum was from the Vietnamese standpoint and they are all still pretty angry at the U.S. There were hundreds of pictures of the devastation that the war caused including all the people that were affected by agent orange. We also went to the "White House" of Vietnam were the President still uses some of its chambers.
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