Day 49 - Good Morning Vietnam

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I spent a few days hanging out in Vientiane the capital of Laos. There really wasn't all that much to do there. The capital city only has a population of about 200,000 people. So I spent the two days i had there checking out the few tourist attraction that were there. I first went to Vientiane Arc du triupht. The cement used to construct the arc was donated by the USA and was suppose to be used to build a new airport. But for some reason the Laos people decided to build a great big cement arc. After that I took a trip to the national museum. Again this was a very small building that was kind of smelly, it was full of mostly pictures with some older artifacts Majority of the museum was bashing the USA for all the innocent people that were killed during the 9 years the American were bombing in Laos. The caption on the pictures would all say here is the Imperialistic USA and there puppets planning attacks on the Laos people.

So after two days of relaxing in Vientiane I decided to take the 50 min flight to Vietnam instead of the 24 hour bus ride. The International airport was quiet funny. It was a little bigger then a hockey arena with the international terminal having 3 gates, handling six flights in a day. Our plane arrived about 40 minutes early and it literally parked in the middle of the tarmac. So they made the announcement that the plane arrived and asked us to board. So we walked out the gate down a flight of stair and onto the airplane. Once everyone was on board the doors closed and we took off 25 minutes early. It was quite different compared to every other airport I have been to in my life. This relaxed go with the flow mentality at the airport really describes the mentality of Laos as a country.

I landed in Hanoi Vietnam and took a 45 minute cab ride from the airport into to the old quarter of the downtown section. Again words and picture can't describe this capital city. You have to walk the streets hear the noises and smelly the disgusting smells. The street are filled with thousands of motorbikes, they estimate that on the streets of Hanoi there are over 3 million motor bikes. Crossing the street hear is quite the experience on it's own. There are very few traffic lights and always a constant flow of traffic. So more or less you just slowly cross the street allowing the motorbikes to swerve around you. Once you start you have to commit because if you stop you pretty much are going to get hit. It was a little nerve racking at first but what I do now is, I don't even look at on coming traffic, and just slowly walk across.

I now only have one month left till I come home so lately I have this urge to get so much in in one day because if i don't I feel I am going to run out of time. Hanoi is filled with so much to do that I honestly haven't stopped to relax since I got here. The first morning I got up nice and early and headed out to the ethnology museum. This museum outlined the history of the northern Vietnamese people over the last 500-600 hundred years. They had lots of display and artifacts. Outside the museum they had a houses built like they would have looked in the past. As I entered a few of them to check them out I noticed that there were museum workers sleeping in the makeshift beds. All of these supposedly historic houses on display were full of either Vietnamese sleeping or some were full with people eating food. After the museum I headed on a motorbike back to the old quarter.

In the next day and a half in Hanoi I visited the Hanoi Hilton which was a prison which held political prisoners during the Vietnam war. The cell were very small, and there were different torturing machines on display. They even had a guillotine that they used to kill prisoners who were given the death penalty. After the Hanoi Hilton I headed to the Memorial house which is a house which has been set up to display how a typical Vietnamese family would live in the early 20th century. The land has always been extremely expensive in Vietnam so the houses and very narrow rectangles that are four stories high. After the memorial house I headed down to the heart of the city the Hoan Kiem Lake. The lake has a small island which you can get to via a small bridge. The island has a neat little temple and a huge body of a turtle. That night I had tried to get tickets to the water puppet show, which is a traditional Vietnam cultural event but they were sold out. So I sat down by the lake and ended up having random conversation with Vietnamese people.

The next day I was up nice and early and spent the morning cruising around the market. That afternoon I walked down to the Canadian embassy and signed my name in the big registry to keep my mother happy. After that I went on a tour of the grand palace and of the Ho Chi Minh museum. Ho Chi Minh was the king of northern Vietnam for many years. He is considered a true Vietnamese hero, he started the invasion on the south. The museum depicted his life using object and pictures in modern art displays. Some of the artifacts were kind of funny, they had lots of personal items, like hair brushes and shoes, and different kind of clothes that he once used. He died in 1969 just before the end of the Vietnam war.

That night I went to a water puppets show, this is one of Vietnam's more traditional culture events. What it i is there is a pool of water with a screen near the back and the puppeteers hide behind the screen and have these puppets on the end of long sticks. They act out different scene and legends from there past to present. The show was accompanied with some really cool Vietnamese folk music.

After two busy days in the capital I headed out on a tour to a place called halong bay. Halong bay is a national park in northern Vietnam only about 4 hours away from the china boarder. Halong bay consists of about 3000 islands of all different sizes. Legends say that a dragon flew over the land and his tail dragging below carved out all the little islands. The trip was three days and started out with a 3 hour cruise through some of the different areas of the park. We then stopped and spent an hour walking through some caves. These caves were huge the biggest one was about the size of half a football field. After the caves we stopped by at a beach for a quick swim then we anchored the boat for the night. The next morning we were up nice and early and did some kayaking through some caves and ended up in a little cove that was full of brown jelly fish. After the kayaking we cruised to a beach and had a seafood BBQ and then headed out to an island. The second night we spent in a hotel on an island called Cat Bam. It was a Saturday night and the island was full of Vietnamese tourist. That night they had a really cool show in the center of the city. It was a range of Vietnamese folk songs, different Vietnamese dances and then in the end they picked up the pace with some more Vietnamese pop kind of music. The last day we boarded the boat and cruised back 4 hours through the park to catch the bus. The food on this trip was absolutely amazing, every meal had like 5 or 6 different sea food dishes. The secenery was also quite breath taking.

After the cruise I spent one more night back in Hanoi and was ready to head out. I had first booked myself a train ticket but since I only booked it the day before the only sleeper left was a middle hard sleeper on the milk run train which would have been a 18 hour trip. And the worst part is there are no seats, all you have on the train is a little wooden bunk. The night before I was suppose to leave I had nightmare about being on the train for that long. So in the morning I quickly got a refund for the train ticket and quickly booked a seat on a flight. The train would have cost me 25 dollars where the flight was only 50. So instead of 18 hours on the train I spent 45 minutes on a plane and made it to Hoi An one day early.

Hoi An is a small touristy town which is known for it's tailor shops. I am going to spend three or four day here probably get a few suits and shirt made and then head on to the next stop on my trip to southern Vietnam.

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Photos

Hanoi Hilton
Prison that politcal prisners were held in during Veitnam war

Comments

[crys]

long time no see
hi jos... id' like to know the thought behind the giant cement arc instead of an air strip. thought that was interesting. i think it's great you're connecting with the canadian embassy. good idea getting some suits made, i heard that's what travellers do when they go to instanbul, they load up on clothes and shoes and whatnot, probably a great way to get quality clothing (hopefully not coming out of a sweat shop thou) - good luck on your next adventure and enjoy. look forward to hearing about this next round.