Blogs from Northeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 16

After our brief but very good experience in Hanoi, our trip went further east to the Unesco protected area, Halong Bay. We joined a daytrip from Hanoi as our transfer between the two destinations. First stop on the tour was a small production facility called Chan Chien My. It is a special place, because people working here, was born with different disabilities as a consequence of the American military’s operation “Agent Orange”. The Americans somehow got the “brilliant” idea of spreading out poison to make the leaves fall off the trees, in order to better see the enemy. Unfortunately it had some bad side effects. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese have been born with a disability as a consequence of “Agent Orange”. If this number is correct we don’t know. The Vietnamese are pretty good at ... read more

2 days in Hanoi is only just enough to scratch the surface of this vibrant city. As soon as you hit the street, you encounter a mixture of noise, new (exotic) scents and a big crowd of people (and scooters). By first impression, Hanoi is chaotic and a place you hope to escape alive as fast as possible. However, after a little while it won our hearts and we somewhat fell in a little love with this Capital city of Vietnam. On day 1, we spent a lot of time walking around in the old part of the city. You quickly move up the learning curve and find out to survive in the traffic. Even if it looks impossible to cross the streets in between the scooters, taxis, bicycles and rickshaws, we somehow managed to. This ... read more

As we know by now me and boats are not a marriage made in heaven so i'm somewhat relieved that our little tour of Halong Bay gets cancelled two days in a row thanks to an ENORMOUS TYPHOON. I'm happy to wait it out i'd much rather do kayaking and sunbathing in er sunshine! than be dragged round a grey swilling bay on a rocky boat with a bunch of green faced tourists. Finally on the tuesday the storm has passed and we take our bus transfer down to Halong City harbour and then our boat. Our guide on the bus takes care of formalities and asks who amongst us are “monks” “Yeeees!“ says a wiry 32 year old Thinh – our tour guide … “not eating the pork or the chicken..” Oh he means Vegetarian! ... read more

After a 7 hour bus ride from Ha Giang in the north of Vietnam, we have finally arrived in Hanoi Charming Hotel in Hanoi. What a ride. The cost was only EUR 6,- pr. person. Rather cheap in our view. Included in the price we got a little local charm by a tied up pig in the luggage compartment, passengers getting motion sickness and constantly threw up (we don’t really think they are used to drive) and a driver who must be a huge favorite to win next year edition of Paris Dakar. Well, we also survived this part of the trip, and we are now quite optimistic regarding our future survival chances. The mountainous northern Vietnam is now a (well)finished chapter. To briefly summarize our experiences the headlines must be a trilogy ... read more

Day 27 We arrived quite late last night so after a quick bite to eat we checked into Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. We woke up feeling refreshed after a decent nights sleep and went on a free walking tour of the city to get our bearings. Hanoi seemed very like China in that it was noisy with lots of street vendors but the roads here seemed even more chaotic with hundreds of motorbikes. We quickly learned that to cross a road you just had to walk out and they would swerve around you because red lights did not mean anything! After quite a stressful walk through the streets around the Old Quarter we headed to '24 hour food street' which was recommended to us for its local specialities! We sat on small plastic chairs around little tables ... read more