We're not in Kansas anymore!

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Wow. Vietnam is someplace else! We arrived in Hanoi about a week ago and have been busy, busy in the North since we arrived.

Our first Vietnamese experience was one with our taxi drive into the city. We've heard so much about scams here, and we almost got nailed right away. We had agreed with our taxi to pay 250,000 VND (about $18 Cdn) to get to our guesthouse, but a few kilometres from the airport, he pulled over near a highway booth and said that we had to pay a toll. We were very confused on what the toll was, but he kept on saying 300,000 VND. We resisted and argued that we had agreed on a price already. During this time, some more taxis pulled over, so this must be a regular thing. Eventually, he got tired of arguing and we kept going. When he got to the booth, turns out there was no toll and we just drove right through! We thought for sure that after that he was going to take us to a different guesthouse (we've heard that this is also common practice for taxis), but he took us to the right one so there were no more problems.

Once we got checked into our guesthouse, it was after 9pm so we went out to grab a quick dinner. We ended up eating at a street kitchen, which was crowded with locals. It had a bunch of low tables with little plastic kiddie stools to sit on. They cooked the food in a makeshift kitchen set up on the road nearby. The food was good, but the place was filthy as it is common in Vietnam to just throw your garbage on the ground (there are clean-up crews that come around at night to sweep up). As we were leaving, we saw a woman collecting the chicken bones from off of the ground (for soup?). Very different.

When we got back to our guesthouse, we made a quick decision to go to Halong Bay the next day since the weather was going to be good for the next few days. We stayed up with the manager of our guesthouse until 12:30 going through the tours and also booking some of our upcoming train tickets. Then we were up early the next day to meet our tour group and head to Halong Bay.

Greg and I were the first to be picked up and we got to be driven around the Old Quarter in Hanoi to pick up the other people. This was quite an experience! Driving in Vietnam is like nothing I've ever seen. I could write an entire entry on it! There are almost no stop lights or stop signs. At intersections, traffic comes from all directions and somehow works. In the Old Quarter, the streets are very narrow, which adds to the mayhem. There are also very few sidewalks, so not only is the road used by the motorbikes, bicycles, samlors (bike driven rickshaws), cars, trucks, and buses, but it is also a free-for-all for pedestrians. Cars and motorbikes swerve every which way dodging all the obstacles, all the while laying on the horn. The horn here is used to say "Here I am" and people constantly honk their horns when approaching intersections, passing, approaching blind corners, or coming up behind a slower vehicle. We were given the ride of our life through the Old Quarter, and this was only the beginning of the experience.

Once we picked up the rest of the group, we headed out of the city towards Halong Bay. Along this journey we learned that it is acceptable to pass even when there is oncoming traffic (as long as you honk your horn, of course); the oncoming traffic is expected to swerve out of the way. Also, it is acceptable to pass vehicles that are already passing other vehicles (why not?). We noticed that brakes are used as a last resort only, and that preference is given to swerving onto the shoulder or coming within inches of other vehicles / motorbikes rather than slowing down. Also, people carry huge loads on their motorbikes. One of the craziest we've seen was a couple of large hogs strapped over the seat. Somtimes there are also 3 or 4 people on a bike. It has been a pretty crazy experience for us. Having said all that though, Vietnamese drivers must have a very high awareness of their surroundings in order to drive the way that they do. We've seen relatively few accidents considering. I think driving like this for the Vietnamese must be like us walking in a crowd - just at a much faster pace! Speaking of walking - crossing the street is a whole other experience! I wish I could adequately describe what its like to cross a road with motorbikes and cars whizzing along. It takes an awful lot of effort to turn off the part of my brain that says "don't walk out into traffic" - because if you don't, you'll never get across the road.

Oh, one more thing about the motorbikes. I noticed right away that the majority of drivers wear helmets, which is not the norm (as far as we've seen) in Asia. Apparently a law was passed about a year ago to enforce helmet usage in order to cut down on accident fatalities. The Vietnamese have been good at adopting the practice although some have some different interpretations of what an adequate helmet is. We've seen people wearing bicycle helmets, as well as construction helmets. Also, many do not do up the chin strap, so a lot of help that'll do!

Anyway, back to our tour. We reached Halong Bay in one piece just before lunch. We were taken out to our boat, which turned out to be really, really nice! There were 12 people on our tour and 5 crew members on the boat, plus our guide. The rooms were a decent size and all had ensuites. There was also a nice sitting area with lounge chairs. It was much nicer than I was expecting, especially since we had booked the cheaper "Superior" tour instead of the "Deluxe" tour. We had heard that it was good to pay a bit more for the Halong Bay tours because you will get a lot more for your money than the cheap ones. We spent just over $100 US per person for 3 days and 2 nights with all meals, as compared to some of the cheap ones that can be under $50 US and we were definitely glad. ** For anyone who is wondering, we booked with ODC Travel and would recommend them **

While we were eating our lunch, we headed out into the Bay. It was a shock to see the number of similar tour boats heading out - hundreds!! We heard that there are 2000 tour boats in the area. Although there were a lot of boats, it didn't spoil the view. The islands were gorgeous! After lunch, we went to "Surprising Cave", which was nice enough, but we're getting a little caved out. Plus, the cave is the most common spot for visitors so it was packed with people. That was enough to spoil it for me. Next, we went to a very small floating village (think of the movie "Waterworld") where some fisherpeople live. Then we went to Tipot Island where we climbed up to a view point and had a great look at all of the boats in the Bay as well as the sunset. The evening was pretty quiet - just dinner and some chatting before bed. The whole time that we were on the boat, women would row up to us in woven bamboo rowboats and try to sell us snacks. It was really bizarre!

The next day, we transferred to a smaller boat in order to head deeper out into the islands. We went to Cat Ba Island and did a walk out to a little village for lunch. The walk was a bit disappointing as it was along a road and had been described as a "trek" in the tour description (my only complaint about the tour). In the afternoon, we did some kayaking. This was nice, but since we were right down at water level, we could also see the garbage in the water, as well as oil on top. Greg went for a swim after and was disgusted after when he found brown streaks on his body. I'm sure the state of the water is a result of all of the tourism and the number of people that live on the water in the Bay (several thousand people). The environment is not something that the people here can afford to be concerned about yet. Then we headed to the main city on Cat Ba Island for the night. Along the way, we passed through a massive floating village with over 1000 people. It was really crazy to see this type of lifestyle. It seemed like all of the families had dogs - so normal, but also so far out - I can't imagine what it must be like!

The next day, we headed back to the mainland and then drove back to Hanoi. That night, we caught the night train out to Lao Cai and then took a shuttle bus to Sapa (in Northern Vietnam). We noticed a difference right away in the temperature as Sapa is at a fairly high altitude - time to get out our jackets again! After settling into our hotel and having breakfast, we headed out to walk around town. It was radically different - but in a whole other way than Hanoi. There are a lot of minority people living in the highlands of Vietnam around Sapa. Although there has been a push for them to integrate more into the rest of the Vietnamese society, they have resisted and retain their traditional lifestyles. This includes the simple farming and housing, as well as their style of dress. In Sapa, women come from all around to try to sell things to the tourists. The Black Hmong group is particularly common. I loved their clothes. So different and beautiful. It was also nice to see that they weren't just "dressing up" for the tourists - the women typically dress this way. As we walked around, the women (and children, too) would engage us in conversations. They always started the same: "Where you from?...What is your name?...How old are you?... Very young, very young" Later on, they would try to sell things to you. "You buy from me." If you had already bought what they were selling from someone else, they would say "But you no buy from me... not fair...now you buy from me." It may sound like it was really annoying, but somehow they were charming and I'm sure that every tourist to Sapa has bought several things from them. Aside from the Black Hmong, we also saw the Red Dao women there. They also wore very distinctive, beautiful clothing and were high pressure sales women. When we were walking down the street and looked at some of their things, some of the women started to dress me up. At one point, 4 women were tugging a hat on my head! We loved the whole experience.

The next day, we took a day trip out to the Bac Ha market, which is almost a 4 hour drive away (only about 120 km, but through windy dirt roads). The market is mostly for the Flower Hmong people, but draws a lot of tourists who come to see them and look for souvenirs. Once again, we loved looking at the women's clothing. The Flower Hmong wear very bright, multi-coloured skirts and shirts. Looking around the market was like viewing a thousand different rainbows. It was absolutely incredible! We were disappointed that on our tour we only had 2 hours at the market (I could have easily spent another 2 - which is what we had thought we were going to have) and during that time we were also supposed to eat lunch. We ended up getting some fried rice "to go" - rice in a plastic bag with chopsticks! Although it was a long and tiring drive to and from the market, it was worth it to see the Flower Hmong.

This entry is getting a bit long and we're running out of room for pictures so I'll save the rest of our Sapa adventure to next time.

We are now in Hue and heading South through rainy weather. We won't complain too much though because we hear that some parts of Canada have had some good snow.

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