no money left means go home

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The final leg of my trip... northern Vietnam.

Hue... the historic city. Not the most interesting for me though. We took a city tour and it happened to be quite interesting in terms of the events that happened. The first stop was the citadel, however about 30mins into the tour, we lost our tour group and decided to just go back to the bus so we still catch the rest of the tour. The next stop was the conical hat village. Apparently, it's a conical hat store. Oh the ways they try to sell us foreigners souvenirs! The next three sites were tombs of various rulers in Vietnam. However, all of these sites required an entrance ticket which the sign said is 35,000 dong (1 USD = 16000 VND) however, foreigner pricing is 55,000. There seems to be a lot of two-tiered pricing for many things here, including transportation. We visited two of the three tombs which were quite unique. One of the rulers spent all the government money on building his tomb taking 9 years to construct and contains intricate mosaics made from porcelain, glass, ceramics and other fine materials. The architecture was pretty outstanding but the people of Vietnam suffered the most under his regime. The other tomb was less of a 'shrine' and more of a retreat centre with serene lakes and plenty of greenery. We finished the city tour with another pagoda (I'm just about sick of temples, palaces, and pagodas now...) and an uneventful boat ride back to town.

So after the city tour in Hue (which was when I realized that organized tours are not for me...) we woke up at 5am the next morning to catch our tour to the DMZ, located about 160km north of Hue. It's the site of the American War (they call it that b/c in Vietnam, there have been many wars...) and where the fighting was the most fierce. Most of the military remains have been removed but some remained at the Khe Sahn Combat Base which displayed a few vehicles, aircraft, and also pictures of the war. There was also a rockpile, basically exactly as it sounds... a pile of rocks, where American scouts veered into the distance. We spent most of the day on the bus but the ride was very scenic and like Hoi An, made me appreciate Vietnam. Mountains all around, but not like the massive majestic mountains of Canada, nor the smooth, beautiful, rolling mountains in Korea, but a jagged forested sight that seems to be... Vietnam. Our other major stop was the Vinh Moc tunnels, a massive tunnel system that was not used for military infiltration, but rather villages! The people of Vinh Moc were forced to dig tunnels b/c of the repeated bombings in their villages and thus exists an intricate tunnel system at depths of 12, 15, and 23 metres below the ground. The tunnel paths are no taller than 1.6-1.9 metres so most of the way, I had to duck and rub my back afterwards for being hunched over. People lived down there for 5 years, sometimes not surfacing for upto 10 days, and 17 babies were born in the tunnels! It was quite fascinating because these tunnels expand out to many other tunnel systems via trenches and it really showed to me how the Vietnamese people of this community persevered through the war.

After the DMZ tour, we waited in Dong Ha to catch our night bus to Ninh Binh. The bus actually passed by us and if it wasn't for the restaurant owner who noticed that we were still there, we'd have been stuck in a very lonely town. We arrived in Ninh Binh at 5 in the morning and after a short nap, rented some bicycles and headed out to see the Tam Coc caves and rice paddies. The map I got from the hotel was nice but definitely not to scale and I think I ended up in someone's backyard several times until they pointed me in the right direction. 10km later, we arrived in Tam Coc and hired a small rowboat that took us on a tour of the limestone towers and rice paddies, a beautiful and tranquil sight. Our rower, not only rowed with her arms, but also with her feet! It was a really unique sight, as if she was treading water, egg-beater style.

The next morning, we woke up to catch our 4am bus (yes, all our transits have been at very early or odd hours!) to Hanoi, but it never came... fortunately, we were headed to Halong Bay and there happened to be a minibus that in that direction so by 7am we were on our way on the most uncomfortable ride of the trip so far. Up to now, we've travelled via coach bus, minibus, tuk-tuk, cyclo, moto, taxi, bicycle, rowboat, ferry, dragonboat... lots of interesting transportation modes.

We arrived in Halong Bay and based ourselves in Cat Ba Island. Our first day on the island was spent trekking through Cat Ba National Park. It was a 4 hour hike through a variety of terrain such as marked trails, jungle-like grass and even sharp limestone rocks to the summit. Quite a technical hike but tons of fun and the views from the summit were stunning. Headed down to Viet Hai, a small minority village in the valley of the park consisting of about 150 people where we had a nice lunch and then made our way to the ferry dock. Along the walk, a dog followed us for a good kilometre or so... neither of us had our rabies vaccine so there was a slight worry but it seemed to keep its distance and wasn't foaming at the mouth. The boat ride back to Cat Ba town through Lan Ha Bay was also a great sight. Tons of limestone islands jutting out of the ocean and the next day during our tour of Halong Bay, even bigger limestone towers were scattered in the ocean. The cave systems were also spectacular with stalactites of all different sorts. It's definitely Vietnam's natural wonder and probably my favourite part of the trip. Now I only wonder how people actually free climb these rocks...

Hanoi, the last stop. Just about sick of long bus rides by now. After we checked-in, went to see a water puppet show. Basically, puppeteers hide behind a bamboo curtain and control puppets of all sorts that literally look like they're dancing on water. There were about 20 scenes in the show that depicted Vietnamese tradition and culture... things like fishing, children playing on water, boat racing, tet festival, etc... It was just amazing how agile and versatile these puppets were moving and they put on a very exciting show, complete with traditional music performed by the accompanied musicians.

Sunday. Even more tired of doing anything by now, so spent the day relaxing in the Old Quarter of Hanoi before heading to the airport. Met a bunch of other NTU exchange students who were also travelling during reading week and heading back to Singapore for the night flight. Arrived home at 2AM and now just finishing this entry as I wait for laundry to finish. I'll be posting a more reflective debrief later in the week, but until then, I have a midterm on Wednesday to study for.

It's been a great trip! Good night!

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