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Published: September 15th 2007
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Sunset in Hoi An
Talk about vivid colors... Nha Trang was a fun and relaxing stop on our way north to Hoi An. The 11 1/2 hour bus ride up to Hoi An proved to be the most miserable thus far. First off, the air-conditioning truly sucked, second the seats were designed for more compact cargo and third the bus was packed! Oh yeah and we thought that we may die at any moment. Well what would you think when your bus is flying down a narrow mountain road passing semis on blind corners? Not to mention the fact that we saw a few ambulances pass by...this was the last thing we wanted to see and put us on edge. At least we knew there was a hospital nearby. After hours of being in standby (not sleeping, not awake, just existing) we finally arrived.
When we stepped off the bus our wonderful fans came out to greet us....or should we say we were intantly mobbed by motorcycle drivers. Apparently, in Hoi An this business is pretty cutthroat. We had just sat down to eat some breakfast when two drivers started arguing with each other right in front of our table. Then an all out UFC match broke out...first
Old Town Hoi An
Caitlin and Russ the clinch, then the superman knee, then....WHAT!!! A BRICK!!! One of them grabbed a fricking brick laying on the street nearby and was going to throw it at the other's head...we happened to be inside the octagon and quickly jumped up since a brick in the face didn't sound like an appetizing breakfast...it was all pretty surreal at 6 in the morning with no sleep. Luckily the brick to the head was only a grazing shot. After the situation was broken up we found out they were arguing over customers....not us though. The brick seemed like a slight overreaction to us, but maybe we didn't get the full story.
While in Hoi An we were reminded that Vietnam was a communist country. How so you ask? Well, who else would blare music from a loudspeaker in the center of town which sounds like it came straight from the history channel's soviet documentary AT 7:30 ON A SATURDAY FRICKIN' MORNING!!!!!! After this brutal awakening, we soon realized there wasn't a whole lot to do in this town so we rented some motor scooters and drove up to Da Nang to see China Beach. This is where the US military went
China Beach
A day relaxing in Da Nang to relax during the war. We chilled out on the beach for a while before getting lost around the city trying to drop our friend Caitlin off at the airport. We have concluded that Vietnam is the major leagues of the scooting circuit while Bali is just the farm league. By the way, we are also now certified on balancing multiple pieces of luggage and people on a moped...moving on. On our way back we must have timed it perfect with the release of every school in the vicinity because there were seriously hundreds of teenagers riding bikes on the road. It was like playing Blue Angels on mopeds. After this dog fight Jester and Merlin decided to turn in their wings for the rest of Vietnam.
Our next stop was the former capital of Vietnam, Hue. The first day in Hue was a blurry, achy mess. We had gotten dehydrated from not drinking enough water on our motorscooter adventure the day before and pretty much spent the entire day popping Ibuprofen, drinking water and watching HBO...yes, that's right we had satellite TV in our room. The first day where we were actually functioning as human beings we toured
Circus Act
and for our next trick...we will make Ryan's helmet look cool. the De-Militarized Zone. This is the area which separated North and South Vietnam and was the site of many conflicts during the Vietnam War. Some of the highlights were The Rockpile, Khe Sanh Combat Base, The Ho Chi Minh Trail, The Ben Hai River and the Vinh Moc Tunnels. The tour was pretty cool, but I think it was more so for us because of the US's role in it. The Rockpile was the site of a USMC base used to control the entire DMZ during the war. It was located on top of a huge mountain near the border and everything had to be airlifted to the soldiers as there were no roads up the mountain. Khe Sanh Combat Base was a base used by the US Special Forces to control the supply lines of the NVA (North Vietnamese Army). It was also the site of a large battle, which in retrospect, was used by the NVA to divert our attention while they positioned troops further south for the Tet Offensive. The Ho Chi Minh trail was the supply line used by the NVA and the Ben Hai River was the former border (17th Parallel). It was funny because
Looking into South Vietnam
A view across the Ben Hai river what do you think the first thing we saw when we were on the northern bank of the river? Loudspeakers used to distribute the propaganda...haha Finally, the best part of the tour were the Vinh Moch tunnels. These tunnels were dug by hand by villagers in North Vietnam. There were 2.5km of them ranging from 30-90 ft underground. They were a little bigger than the tunnels we visited in Cu Chi and were the real thing...not reproductions. It was crazy to think a whole community (300 people) went underground. They had underground wells for drinking water, a maternity ward for the babies that were born in the tunnels, kitchens, bomb shelters, etc. To keep the complex camouflaged they tunneled to the beach so they could dump the excavated dirt into ocean, therefore the American GIs would never see it. It was very claustrophobic for Russ because we walked about 500 meters underground and even though they were "bigger" tunnels they were still only about 4-5 ft tall and 2 1/2 ft wide. This was just a really cool experience.
One of the other sights we went to in Hue was the Imperial City of the Emperor. We once again
The Rockpile
Location of former USMC base felt like Indiana Jones in a few areas since we had to walk through ancient ruins, cross rickety bridges and then correctly spell out the emperor's name, Nguyen, in the Vietnamese characters etched into the cobblestones along the path. Luckily, we were able to do this correctly and did not fall into the bottomless pit of death. After making it out alive we decided to just hop on a bus to Hanoi (a 13 hour ride) because we wanted as much time as possible to check out Halong Bay...you will see why on our next post.
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Kimberly
non-member comment
Sweet
Glad you guys are truckin along, Russ is too big for their country though! Ha ha! "Hey, look at the tall guy!"