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Published: November 18th 2008
Chau Doc
Setting off from Tinh Bien, the land border crossing between Cambodia & Vietnam we are driven for an hour by bus to the town of Chau Doc on the banks of the Mekong river. The drive is through many fishing villages, some with Chinese nets as in Kochin in Kerala. The landscape is beautifully green interspersed with palm trees, rice fields, lotus covered water pools/ponds, eucalyptus trees & banana trees all over. The houses that line the edge of the road are in pretty poor condition though. Built on stilts over the edge of the delta floods they are mainly wood or corrugated tin and many look as if they could collapse at any moment.
We settle into our lovely hotel - Trung Nguyen (not sure what it stands for) - which is near the town square & within walking distance to the river. We get a great room with balcony overlooking the market square where the street food stalls are setting up. As it’s getting late (5pm - we could have got here for 4pm if we hadn’t wasted time this morning thanks to our tour leader), we rush off for a river boat trip to
observe the local life style of the boat people & fishing community. It’s amazing how whole families live on the river either in a small junk (a bit like Hong Kong really) or in flimsy huts on stilts on the river. A fascinating experience was seeing the fish farms literally under the floors of the floating houses on the river - catfish, bass etc all for $4 a kg - what value!
We walk around the town checking out the local eateries when the heavens open after a quiet day - it’s deluge time - but only for about an hour. After our (never to be repeated) experience of going for food with the tour leader, we find a lovely restaurant called Lam Hu‘ng Ky (try guessing what that means in English without being rude!!). We have a fabulous catfish soup - freshly made & beef with Chinese broccoli & rice washed down nicely with 2 Saigon Green beers for 90,000 Dong (the local currency) - and wonder if we‘ve gone OTT until we remember there is 17,000 dong to a dollar so we’ve only spent £3! As usual we are the only foreigners in the place & a
real novelty but they seem to be very polite & accommodating. Something we note is how much the Vietnamese people smile.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
We set off early for the 8 hour drive to Ho Chi Minh City (ex Saigon - once the capital of South Vietnam). After a while we hop on a ferry across the Mekong to help shorten the journey time. Much of the road system is in much better shape than in Cambodia - partly thanks to the US who built this to fight the war - however, significant parts are also in such bad shape with huge potholes that one could be forgiven for thinking one was on a buggy drive across the face of the moon with it’s craters. We also note that many of the towns and villages we pass through are in much better condition as we head north - houses are brick built and well decorated and maintained, even in remoter rural areas.
True to form we stop for lunch at about 12.30 at a very expensive & touristy place - prices are all in dollars (a bad sign). We go outside & find a lovely
local looking place next door & are shortly joined by another 7 people from the group who are indignant at the cost of things & were not willing to be ripped off. Good on them. We had the most awesome Beef Pho ( pronounced phoar), which is noodles with fresh beef in a soup with greens - delish (Pho has the phoar factor by a mile!!).
We enter Saigon - the land of a million scooters all travelling at once in all directions (literally). Till now we had noticed very few cars in Vietnam (there are more lorries & vans); about 1 car to 200 scooters However, in Saigon the ratio shortens to 1: 100. Saigon is like a lot of cities in the developing world; nothing spectacular, a mix of new high rise & old decaying buildings. The French influence is not very evident at all and the electric wiring on the buildings would compete with the worst in Nepal & Rio’s Favela’s. There are many signs of the modern world here - brand name electrical shops, big department stores, mobile shops & off course scooter shops by the score - Suzuki & Yamaha. These all co exist
with small general stores, scooter repair shops etc. The pavements have a plethora of sellers hawking everything from a variety of home foods, to fruit, to shoe shine, to sun glasses & books (mainly travel & LP’s guide to Vietnamese) from the back of bicycles/scooters. Given that the country is supposed to be poor we are amazed at the fact that everyone seems to have a scooter/motor bike as the shop price appears to be about £1000 which is a lot here. So they are either getting a very good long term repayment deal or they are much better off than we give them credit for?!
We are informed that many of the bikes are cheap ones from China.
An impressive sight is the lines of young women on cycles dressed for work or college in the traditional long dress with side slashes cut to the hips over trousers (in silk or cotton with embroidery); it’s a very elegant look.
Our hotel Dai Hoang Kim, is in the Pham Ngu Lao area which is the Siagon equivalent of Khao San Rd (the touristy area of Bangkok - more of which to follow in a future blog)! It’s pretty
central & close to most of the city attractions. A few of the really touristy among the group are desperate to do an hours cycle rickshaw around the city. As it’s late & getting dark we decline - just as well as the heavens open as they are about to set off & we are not sure they saw a lot tucked in under their waterproof covers.
Later we go to dinner with the group after a farewell drink with Annika & Patrique. The dinner is at the local night market where all the eateries lay out their stalls - we join them primarily to say farewell to Linda from the Netherlands & Julie from Canada, who fly home tomorrow. We welcome Gustaff & Leaf from Belgium who join the group. The meal is enjoyable - C having fried noodles with beef & M settles for rice, veg & seafood.
Next morning we decide to have a lazy morning & send off the Cambodia blog and miss the Cu Chi tunnels - a site 90 kms away which show how the Viet Cong fighters hid in a labyrinth of underground tunnels to outfox the Americans during the war.
We’ve heard they are tiny, claustrophobic, hot, humid & dirty - so we’re not sure about the fascination with them for a visit! Instead, we have a late breakfast at a lovely place called Sozo - a bakery/light lunch café dedicated to supporting & employing underprivileged local people. They have created a great brand with a lot of merchandising including T shirts which we tried to get but their largest would just about fit C. M had no chance!
They did however do a scrumptious carrot cake & banana muffin - not very Vietnamese we know but what the hell, a treat now and again is ok! We are impressed with the number of Cafes or Restaurants who provide either community development opportunities from their profits or support young abandoned/street children or disabled people - a good model for the UK perhaps (we think maybe Jamie got his idea for 15 from here or elsewhere in Indochina where such practices are common)
It’s off to see the sights of the city by foot. First stop, the Reunification Palace. Built in the mid 60’s as the Presidential palace for independent South Vietnam, it is allegedly the same (war map room
and all) as it was on the day the North Vietnamese dramatically entered the compound on the 30th April 1975 by tanks breaking down the perimeter fence. South Vietnam surrendered & the country was unified. However, the Capital is still Hanoi & government has never been administered from here since the fall of Saigon. It’s like any government building with conference, dignitary & debating chambers - slightly sumptuous & on four levels. The grounds are beautifully maintained & they house 2 tanks & one shot down US plane from the Vietnam war.
Next it’s the Notre Dame Church which is more Romanesque & doesn’t look like the real deal in Paris. It’s closed for much of the afternoon so we can’t go in. So it’s off across the wooded central park to the War Remnants Museum which is all together much more interesting, if harrowing.
The Americans actually got involved in Vietnam as early as 1954 which we hadn’t realised though the first troops came in 1965. As well as a lot of captured US heavy artillery & planes from the war the Museum has a lot of dramatic, inspirational & moving photographs by various foreign journalists during
the period. It depicts the horrors of war in all it’s brutality. Even allowing for some local bias (one doesn’t see much of what the Viet Cong did to the Americans or South Vietnamese), the US actions seem indefensible with the use of chemical weapons (which even effected their own troops & their families) including dioxins - agent orange, & Napalm. The pictures of children born since the war with severe physical deformities is heart wrenching.
The reported statistics are that the US spent $165 billion on the war, the impact on the economy was twice as much (this was 30 years ago - so in today’s money - wow; it would solve the financial crisis & the automobile industries woes as well!), 60,000 US personnel lost their lives compared to 225,000 south Vietnamese & 1 million north Vietnamese. And to think that all this madness could have been avoided had Harry Truman the then US President replied to 3 letters from Ho Chi Minh asking the US for aid. This would have established the US as a strategic partner & the war wouldn’t have occurred!! Interestingly, despite the captured US heavy artillery on show in many places, people
rarely mention the war here.
Looking at Vietnam today with it’s communist government & central control but capitalist free market economy one can only wonder at the sheer & utter waste of so much human life & billions of dollars of tax payers money. What is news to us is the part played by Australia, NZ, Korea, & the Philippines who all supported the war with personnel. The exhibition also shows images of the way people were treated in South Vietnam by their own ruler Ngo Dinh Diem who was propped up by the US & eventually assassinated by his own soldiers for his brutality towards his people. He clearly was a role model for Pol Pot, as were the US who kept suspected communist sympathisers in cages similar to cells used by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia - with the full range of torture tactics. It makes us wonder about the truth in Iraq & Afghanistan & Guantanamo bay!
We’d recommend that Obama visits the museum as an education to move the US away from it’s gung ho political mentality which it seems to exercise with impunity despite the views of the world, the UN & anybody
else for that matter. The truth here is that the UN at the highest level accused the US time & again of genocide, terrorism, breaking international law, inhumanity etc, years before they eventually conceded defeat. They lost to a people who were smarter & with a lot less military might - a lesson for us all today. (C speaking here - as a child when all this was happening, I was horrified to see the reality. Why there hasn’t been a war crimes tribunal against the USA for genocide I don’t understand.)
Nha Trang
We get the bus to the station to catch the overnight Blue Train (Express - soft sleeper) from Saigon to Nha Trang a sea side town which is allegedly good for snorkelling & diving. The train leaves at 8.45 pm. We share a compartment with Sarah (and learn a lot about Canadian history) & Tekla, a Hungarian from Switzerland. The berths & compartments are very comfortable and the toilet is as good as you‘d find in a 3 star hotel. We also meet two women from Cape Town, SA who have joined the group - Cornelia & Berendine, & Jeff from the US -
it’s evident from all he says that he’s an avid/passionate Obama devotee. The overnight journey is good & we arrive at Nha Trang station at 5.10 am, hop onto the bus to the Hotel - Vien Dong - by the beach, & with a swimming pool for a couple of days R&R.
We find a nice spot for tea & decide to check out the snorkelling places & go to the beach. As luck will have it while it’s been hot since 7 am, when we get to the beach at about 10.30, which is deserted unlike Sihanoukville in Cambodia, it’s clouding over & threatens to rain, which it does an hour later.
Waking up on US election day morning, the TV is entirely focussed on the election. A quick rant from M on the US presidential election! The TV - CNN & BBC World news, has given it wall to wall coverage way beyond the boundaries of boredom & tedium. Some one needs to start a campaign to change the rules of engagement so that the US primaries & election are all concluded in 4 to 6 weeks max. One feels that the circus has gone on
for nearly 2 years & what a waste of money - the funds could pay for a National Health service for the US working class or have solved some of the Credit crisis problems of repossessions as people would have money to pay their mortgages rather that give to the political parties. When all is said & done - M firmly believes that Obama will not be the black Messiah he is being painted out to be sadly not only in the US but in various parts of the world with deep rooted problems of their own - such as Kenya, the Middle East etc. He is almost being set up to fail as the expectations of people are so ridiculously unrealistic - some of the American rhetoric is amazingly naïve as are some expectations from around the world. He’ll need all the help he can get & a lot of guts to change the American psyche. Note: Since this was written Obama has become president elect & suddenly the folks are beginning to realise that he can’t meet the world’s expectations of him - maybe a clever ploy to manage expectations before he takes office in January’09.
Nha
Trang is supposed to be Vietnams main resort town. To us it’s a very soulless and non descript place. All the buildings are modern, the beach is long and has coarse sand but no beach shacks or life - though we are here in the slow season. Even the market is devoid of life and unusually quite dirty. There are some sights to see nearby - a large Buddha overlooking the town and some Cham temples but we’ve seen so many Buddha’s we can’t quite get the enthusiasm for the walk and we’ll see some, reportedly bigger and better, temples near Hoi An in a couple of days. So instead we take ourselves off for a snorkelling trip with Emily and Sarah. The best snorkelling is at Hon Mun - an island 45 mins away and despite the relatively poor weather - we’ve never snorkelled in a rainstorm before - we see some nice fish and corals and have a relaxing morning finished off with a couple of hours by the pool - cowering under the umbrellas’ when the rain starts again!
Hoi An
We have another overnight train to Hoi An but boy what a difference. This
train is grimsville. Patched up seats, sheets others have used and very cramped. It is also an incredibly jolty journey so C gets very little sleep as she fights to stay on her upper bunk. We arrive at Danang in the early hours and take a bus from there to Hoi An. Danang looks like a pretty wealthy city; modern & well planned, the buildings are generally new & stylish, gated & built on 2 or 3 levels on the edge of town though with a host of high rise buildings in the centre. There is also a rapidly developing area along the coast with high end tourist resorts, golf courses & classy hotels under construction.
In Hoi An we check into the very nice Vinh Hung 3 hotel (pretty plush with a pool) and decide to go for a walk; it’s brilliant. This is what we’d imagined Vietnam to be. The old town is a UNESCO Heritage site (since 1999) but it’s charm is more then just the attractive buildings. The Chinese influence is very apparent in the architecture - single or 2 storey buildings painted a burnished yellowy colour, pan tiled roofs with dragon eaves, many wooden
houses maintained as they were when built 200 years ago, and (possibly a French influence) wooden shutters. It’s famous as a place to get clothes & shoes made to measure - there are over 200 tailors shops in town (Sarah & Louise would love it) - and many of our fellow travellers do so. For us though it’s all about the market. As we wander in the early morning it’s full of life and chatter - oh, and motorbikes & bicycles! People here will drive through the most improbably small spaces. It’s a riverside town and only 4km from the coast so there’s a good fish market too - though the scrummage there is like a WI jumble sale.
Hoi An is also known as a culinary centre with local specialities of fried wonton, white rose (a small steamed dumpling stuffed with shrimp) and Cao Lau (pork and noodles with greens in broth). All are scrumptious and we have them several times! At an average cost less than $2 each for a plateful we’re in heaven. Dinner by the river overlooking the old city is a treat.
The town has many temples and meeting halls for the different
communities that have established here - Cantonese, Fujian Chinese, and at the end of town the Japanese covered bridge is beautiful; dating from 1593 it has a roof for shelter and a small temple inside. About an hour’s drive out of town is the My Son (meaning beautiful mountain) Cham temple complex dating back to the 4th century. It is full of brick built temples that remind us of those we saw near Inle Lake in Myanmar. Unfortunately they were extensively damaged during the Vietnam war but the few intact remains are impressive. The Cham were Hindus originally and the Indian influence in the designs (images of Vishnu, Shiva & Brahma) on the temples is evident. Coming back we take a boat trip and see some local guys casting their fishing nets - though it turns out to be a tourist show - they want cash for the pics we all took! Hey ho. There isn’t as much life along the riverside as other places we’ve seen but it’s was a pleasant way to see more of the countryside.
Hue
From Hoi An we take a bus to Hue up the coast stopping on the way at Marble
mountain, which you can walk up for great views and to see pagodas built into the mountainside. A whole community lives in the village below making massive carvings from the mountains marble - of various colours, some quite exquisite. We watch a team carving & refining & polishing the statues (it reminds us of the dentist as the finishing & polishing are carried out with electric drills & water).
The journey north is done in torrential rain & we climb up a high mountain in the mist so poor visibility means we miss the chance to see a once US base here & the shore line between Danang & Hoi An. The countryside is very lush green & tropical & as we get nearer to Hue has more paddy field. The villages & towns are a lot less developed - more a collection of shanty towns - which is surprising as we haven‘t seen this since the border with Cambodia.
As we wind our way towards Hue we notice the huge number of burial grounds with some amazing tomb stones; traditional old ones with ornate structures distinctly Chinese in style, and many war memorials for those who died
in the American war. We also pass a local funeral which is very colourful - it looks at first like a rally with people in the two leading trucks with drums & musical instruments. The casket (finished in lacquer & good will signs in gold) is covered in a white veil & the pall bearers are all dressed in white traditional Vietnamese clothes. We also notice a number of churches along the way in & in the city which is a surprise given the communist & religious history of the country
Hue, is a bustling city by the Perfume river and also the birthplace of Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen Tat Thanh to give him his real name!). It’s attractions include the Citadel - which has the Forbidden Purple City within it - the place for the old King & his concubines only - similar to the Forbidden city in Beijing. It feels more authentic though as it hasn‘t been restored to the same extent - much of it was demolished thanks to the US bombardment of the area during the war. On the outskirts are various pagodas and tombs of rulers long gone but who’s legacy has meant that
people like us can provide some income by visiting the sites! In fact, we don’t. We feel a bit “relic-ed” out and the constant rain didn’t help either - we were going to go on motorbike. We hope to get the pics of what we missed from Sarah from Canada.
We decide to take a rickshaw ride back from visiting the Citadel - great fun, and our driver - who was very persistent in persuading us we did want the ride! - provides a tour guide commentary as we go. The driving style of the Vietnamese is very similar to China; the assumption is that you will give way! So they pull out in front of each other regardless, it seems to us, with lots of horns just to let you know they’re there. Motorbikes drive up pavements & the wrong way up one way systems. And the trick to crossing the road as a pedestrian is just to walk - slowly and steadily; they will miss you! We notice that most women drivers (and some men) wear masks on their faces - also when cycling & walking - we’re not sure if this is sun protection - there
is the same obsession here with fair skin, or if it’s an anti-pollution measure.
The highlight for C in Hue is a banana pancake coated in chocolate sauce (with a side dish of chocolate sauce!) at the Mandarin Café - mega lush! Mr Cu who owns the café is also a professional photographer & his amazing pictures are or sale & displayed on the café walls which depict everyday life of local fishermen & people. So M likes it too. Clearly Vietnam is a photographer’s paradise.!
It rains pretty much constantly so we use the time stuck in the hotel to catch up with the blog & master face book!!! (A bonus of Vietnamese hotels is the free Internet in our hotels). More seriously though, the rain is causing a number of problems in Vietnam - 40,000 have been evacuated from Hanoi due to flooding and a number have been killed. This is our next stop so we are slightly concerned at what we’ll find.
Ha Long Bay
We catch a 4 pm train to Hanoi on our way to Ha Long bay - Guilin on Sea as it’s pretty accurately called. The train is a
better standard than our last journey, quality wise - though still not as good as the first journey. We watch the countryside roll by, eat our take away dinner from the Mandarin Café, and then it’s time for bed.
We are awoken at 5.30 am to the sound of “Arriving in 15 minutes”. Slowing, making our way into Ha Noi station - it’s surprising how dry the city is given that it was flooded only a few days ago & up to 80 people died. The sun is coming out & this is good news as the prospect of Ha Long Bay in the rain doesn’t bear thinking about. We are eventually met at the station by our bus driver & taken to the hotel where we will be staying on our return. This helps us to dump our big bags & travel with day packs only. We grab a quick sandwich or two from a street seller - omelettes with pork pate - yummy & a lot cheaper than the hotel we’re taken to for breakfast - then it’s off for the 4 hour journey to Ha Long Bay. Driving out in the rush hour we notice the
mass of folks on scooters coming to work. Ha Noi seems infinitely more crowded than Saigon - this may be to do with the fact that the streets here are much narrower than those in Saigon. There are however more cars, vans, trucks & buses here than anywhere else we’ve seen in Viet Nam.
The drive out takes us over a bridge spanning the Red River, and a short distance away we can see a lovely bridge with only scooters on it with commuters driving to work - they look like a community of ants moving quickly in their thousands for miles. What is noticeable is the huge amount of construction work being undertaken. We hit the motorway out of town which is a toll road so the road is in good nick & the journey pretty smooth. The countryside is green and varied with scenes of peasants in conical hats tending their paddy or vegetable fields, women on the motorway roadside selling fresh bread rolls (similar to French baguettes but softer & delicious), people looking after water buffalo or their “herd” of ducks. (Odd - despite the number of ducks we never see them mentioned on a menu.
We have seen a few Chinese roast duck places but not enough to warrant the number of farms we have seen all around). The road users have their bikes carrying anything from fresh pig carcasses (cleaned), chickens in cages to be slaughtered, to sacks of potatoes & other produce for the market.
As we get nearer to our destination the character of the landscape changes to one of Karsts in the distance - like Guilin in China. We arrive at Ha Long Bay harbour at 11.30 am & have to await our Junk (Chinese style boat) for the 4 hour trip around the bay with a seafood lunch provided. The Harbour is full with about 250 junks and a million tourists it seems, all waiting to take a short trip or a 2 or 3 day trip (they stay aboard for the night). It’s a bit artificial & runs the risk of spoiling the atmosphere of what is a beautiful natural wonder.
We set off & are provided immediately with plates of prawns, calamari, rice, vegetables, crab, spring rolls, baked fish with ginger & water melon (all delish) which we shared with Noukla & Shelley. We had to
buy our own drinks & we succumbed to 2 cans of beers - Halida - which were the most expensive we’ve had at $2 dollars each - hey, what the heck - we need a treat sometimes. We did however have to interrupt our meal to get a host of pictures as the scenery we were sailing into was quite breathtaking. The Bay is a UNESCO Heritage site (& rightly so) with over 3,000 mountain islands jutting up out of the sea, sculptured by water & the wind. The sea is emerald green but seems contaminated by the number of vessels sailing around in it.
Unfortunately, our cruise is shortened as we are taken to a small bay which is the entry to 3 large caves, the first of which is illuminated with coloured lights. It’s ok but not as impressive as the ones we saw in Guilin, China.
Ha Long town itself has little to commend it. It’s full of hotels & even the night market has nothing but tacky curios for tourists, & the prices in the eateries reflect it‘s tourist status. It’s the only place in Vietnam where the dollar is king, not the dong. We
do however, find a local eatery further near the town with realistic prices & C has a great beef & vegetable noodle - though M’s chicken fried rice is a disaster.
Ha Noi
After breakfast at the Ha Long Bay hotel - which overlooks the bay, we hop on the bus for our trip back to Ha Noi. We get here at 11.30 and after checking in at the Anh Hotel which has lovely rooms and is close to West Lake & 20 mins walk from the centre of the city, we are taken on a walking tour (aka a route march!) by Cat to the lake (Hoan Kiem) in the old quarter of the city. The old quarter is a maze of streets packed with narrow but deep stalls selling just about every type of stuff imaginable; it’s like Woolworths on speed! We get some lunch at a local eatery - yet more beef pho, plus pork ribs with rice & veg (for a change!), then wander around a bit visiting the Ngoc Son (Jade Mountain)Temple on the lake (dedicated to Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism!).
Relying on LP’s assertion that there is a speciality food street
near our hotel we head there for supper; it’s too much of a speciality area though - all sorts of snails, clams and seafood and you have to know what you want (and how to say it) to order - no menu’s. So instead we try a small place opposite the hotel and have - yep, more beef pho after a few cans of Hanoi beer chilled in the fridge in our hotel room! Good & cheap.
We like Hanoi. It’s a ramshackle & rambling sort of place; streets and pavements are packed with people, motorbikes (parked or driving on the pavement to avoid the traffic on the road, so we end up having to walk on the road!) and goods for sale. There are loads of fruit sellers with oranges, guava, custard apple, apple pears, pineapple, dragon fruit, oranges (green, normal & mini size Satsuma style) and pomelo - which seem to grow everywhere here. Buildings above ground floor level show a blend of Vietnamese and French - quite often crumbling but with great character. And it feels like Vietnam in a way that Saigon didn’t.
The city has quite a few attractions though we focus on the
Mausoleum Complex of Ho Chi Minh and Presidential Palace grounds in which he lived. He gets our vote as a man of principles & of the people as he chose not to live in the Palace after independence but instead lived in a very simple stilt house in the grounds, leaving the Palace for the people. We were also surprised to learn that Ho Chi Minh actually died in 1969 before the war was over so he never got to see a unified Vietnam. The buildings around the Palace which are mainly official buildings, are wonderfully impressive with a combination of Vietnamese architecture and French and shows Hanoi as a sophisticated city. Unfortunately we aren’t allowed to take any photo’s in this area which is a shame as it’s now occupied by government offices and the army - who’s presence is in abundance. We do get a bonus though. Normally, the Mausoleum is closed from October to December when Uncle Ho’s (as Ho Chi Minh is affectionately known locally) embalmed body is sent to Russia for a touch up. Our luck’s in though; for some reason he’s here so we join the orderly queues (very much like the visit to
Chairman Mao’s tomb) to file past and pay our respects. No photographs allowed as usual.
We also visit the One Pillar Pagoda, built in the 11th century and designed to look like a lotus blossom and the Temple of Literature, also 11th century, dedicated to Confucius, which was established as a University for mandarins. It has huge stone pillars set upon stone tortoises engraved with the names of those who graduated in the 1400’s and lovely architecture. It’s an impressive complex with many art students taking time out to practice their drawing skills. We are lucky to get to see some traditional music being performed with classical musical instruments - obviously with the obligatory CD on sale.
We decide not to visit Hoa Lo prison museum - aka the “Hanoi Hilton” from the war - as we read that it has largely been redeveloped as offices. Shelley from our group with a passionate interest in the war & communist country history, goes and reports back. Apparently the exhibits show mainly things from the French independence war and leisure articles (painting, games etc) used by American POW’s. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t showcase their own
tools of torture.
Another highlight is the Thang Long Water Puppet theatre where we are entertained for an hour by puppets that perform on and in water depicting local life and customs. Apparently this art form was developed hundreds of years ago during the wet season while the farmers waited to cultivate the land. It’s colourful, fun and quite funny even if we can’t understand what the narrators are saying. Well worth the 60,000 Dong (under 4 $) per person.
Tomorrow we leave for Laos and say goodbye to 8 of our group and welcome 4 new members, so tonight we all go out for a meal at a fancy place (Cyclo’s) in the old quarter. Sounds fun - you sit in rickshaws! Except we don’t - as a big group we’re seated at a long table. We have a quick look at the menu, lift our jaws off the floor at the prices (as do many of the group), use the loo’s and say our goodbye’s!!! Normally, a meal for $10 each would sound a good deal but not in Vietnam; we have a great meal (various vegetables stuffed with minced pork, vegetables, rice and beef fried
noodles) and a beer for less than $6 total for 2.
A positive addition to our group is another tour leader (she works for GAP in China but is moving to the Indochina tours) called Mil for Millicent. She is from Chicago & married to a Nepalese guy & lived in Nepal for 4 years. She is fun & very enthusiastic & as time goes on it’s amazing the transformation in Cat’s performance - she starts to do her job at last. Something we will definitely mention to GAP in our feedback. (She is definitely the worst tour leader in M’s years of travel with many trip leaders).
It’s going to be a very early start - 5.30 am, so it’s packed breakfast bags at dawn & then a 15 hour drive - with some “happy room” (toilet) stops along the way. We will be crossing the border into Laos - reportedly the most chilled out country on the planet ………….see you there!
General Observations on Viet Nam
Food in many restaurants is limited to rice or noodles - plain, fried or in soup with vegetables, chicken, shrimp, squid, beef or pork. To make things
spicy you add chilli in vinegar or red chilli sliced up. And for extra vim add a drop of the locally made fish sauce - pungent beyond belief! However, local speciality foods include some very interesting fayre; fried frogs, crickets, snails, large cockles, Vietnamese lobsters (smaller in size than the those we get in the west) & grubs. Snake head soup was big in Saigon too. We haven’t, however, seen any fried tarantulas, or dog meat being served which are local specialities. Coffee is served strong, thick and with condensed milk and Vietnamese tea is like Chinese green tea but with a more flowery flavour. We mainly drink Lipton’s though! There is also lots of fresh fruit which is great - we definitely get our 5 portions a day.
The countries economic growth has been running at 8% per annum for the last decade & the expectations are that this will be 6.5% in 2009 despite the global financial crisis. Whilst there is a communist government in power with many rules etc - the prevailing pasttime by locals is to find ways by which to overcome & get around these to achieve wealth.
Cars here are mainly Japanese
- Toyota lead the way as in most of the world, with Honda, Hyundai, Isuzu following. In Ha Noi there are some BMWs & Mercedes.
We notice a number of propaganda posters by the government in North Vietnam. In Hoi An we noticed information being broadcast via huge mega phone on top of the electric posts. There also a number of HIV/AIDS posters around.
Many of the modern buildings in North Vietnam have very narrow frontages though quite deep and with several storeys, made of brick with a plaster render. They’re often gated, painted in lively colours (yellow, blue, green, pink etc) & the doors & windows are of quite ornate woodwork.
Massage seems to be big business here as in Thailand & Cambodia - it’s however, controlled by the government as they want to clean up the risqué reputation attached to some of these establishments.
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david phillips
non-member comment
Ho Chi Minh
Just been reading your blog as we were in Vietnam earlier this year and notice you say that Ho Chi Minh was born in Hue. He wasn't. He was born in 1890 in Hoàng Trù Village, his mother's hometown. From 1895, he grew up in his paternal hometown of Kim Liên Village, NghÇ An Province. I believe he moved south to Hue when he was 10 as his father worked for the French.