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Published: August 28th 2010
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Hoi An
Ancient City Riverside This blog has been brought to you by the letter H
Hello Again. This is going to be the last blog about South East Asia. We've been in Japan for almost a week now and I haven't had a chance to catch up until now. Before I get to the end of Vietnam, let me fill you in on how I suddenly have way too much time to catch up with blogging now. We've just arrived in Hiroshima today and it is the last weekend for school holidays in Japan and every hotel, guesthouse and hostel is completely full. The only thing we can do is spend the night in a totally bizzarre internet cafe. It is 24 hours and we all have a private cubicle with a computer and a bed. There are free movies, books and games. We also get dinner and all we want free drinks, soups and ice cream. We can even take a shower tomorrow morning. The only catch is that we are trapped here all night and cannot leave without losing our rooms. It's like being incarcerated in the most comfortable prison in the word.
So anyways...back to Vietnam. Yumi and I didn't
have a whole lotta time left so we could only really choose one stop along the coast between Saigon and the capital city of Hanoi. We decided on Hoi An because it looked to be just about half way there. The bus to Hoi An from Ho Chi Minh was nearly 24 hours, although it was a lot more comforable than buses in other countries. Vietnam has these massive sleeper buses where with some clever design they can fit a lot of people on board and everyone can recline and sleep. I usually have problems sleeping on buses but this time around was no problem. We arrived the next morning feeling nicely rested for once.
Hoi An is a lot more laid back than the big cities. The traffic is still a little hectic but it is possible to walk around without worrying about bringing your travel insurance information with you. Hoi An has two really amazing things going for it. Firstly is what is referred to as the ancient city. This is a well preserved part of town which doesn't seem to have changed much at all over the last 500 years or so. There are some really
cool old buildings with shops and restaurants, as well as a nice waterfront with tons of street stalls. The main highlight is the Japanese Covered Bridge built in the 16th century. The second great thing about Hoi An is the beach. The beach is about 4km from town and we went there both days we stayed in that town. It is very easy to rent a bycycle and take the relaxing trip to the beach. The beach is your typical beautiful white sand and blue water. What made this beach so great was how big it was. Not only long but really wide as well. The ratio of people to beach space was very favorable.
We left Hoi An after 2 nights and spent a day and a night in Danang which is a fairly big city an hour to the north. That was a bit of a waste of time because there is not a whole lot memorable I have to write about Danang. Another overnight sleeper bus ride later and we got into Hanoi a solid week before we had to fly to Okinawa. Yumi had her cash stolen out of her bag on the sleeper bus
Gothic Cathedral In Hanoi
With a vegetable vendor walking by so we arrived not in the greatest of moods. We soon learned that Hanoi is probably the most stressful place to walk down the street in the entire world. The traffic and motorcyclists here make Saigon out to be a walk in the park. The old city, where all the hotels are based, is a 24 hours a day maze of pure chaos. I can't imagine that anyone can live here without going insane. There are no seperation at all between killer traffic, and the shops and vendors on the streets. All the roads look equally dangerous and it is tough to find landmarks so finding your way around takes a lot of concentration. Interspersed throughout the Chaos are plenty of really great local coffee shops, restaurants and other local stores. Hanoi is a lot less Americanized than Saigon for obvious reasons.
On the second day there we went and checked out the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex. There is a pretty cool museum there on Vietnamese history which is more abstract art gallery than a historical chronicle of the country. Some good stuff in there but at times it gets a bit vague. The big draw of that
area is going to see the man, Ho Chi Minh, himself. His body has been maintained in a glass coffin and our morbid curiosity drew us to have a look. Unfortunatly this was closed on that day for some unknown reason which may or may not have something to do with zombies.
Not wanting to spend the entire time in the sweaty confusion of Hanoi, we booked an overnight junk boat tour of the incredible Halong Bay. This is probably the best thing we've done on the entire trip. The tour started early with a three hour bus ride to the bay. Halong bay is huge, more than 300km squared, and is filled with thousands of limestone islands sticking vertically out of the water. We boarded a large junk boat with classy hotel style rooms and a nice dining room with plenty of area above deck to see the sights. Our room was quite a bit nicer than a lot of the dry land hotels we've been staying in the last few months. The tour also included all meals, which usually means pretty terrible food, but in this case means delicious five or six course meals of fresh seafood.
After checking into the boat and having 5 course lunch we took a trip to a huge cave on one of the islands. After we went to another island with a decent beach and a really amazing hike up some steep steps to a lookout point over one of the more scenic parts of the bay. After we returned to the boat for more swimming off the back of the boat and for those with true grit, jumping of the 3rd level into the bay. Dinner was another freshly caught seafood feast followed by a glass of cognac out on the roof while stargazing. Waking up the next morning and looking out the window at Halong Bay from a junk boat was worth the price of the trip by itself. Day two was more of the same, breakfast buffet, swimming and some sea kayaking. I don't imagine kayaking could be any better than that anywhere else in the world.
I know it sounds like I'm rubbing it in but this trip really was this good.
Anyways, back to Hanoi to wrap up our time in Vietnam. We stayed in a nice hotel for the last few days to
take full advantage of being in an inexpensive country before going to Japan. At the start of the trip it seemed like we had so much time but I cannot believe how quickly that time passed. We are both in agreement that we need to head back to the region as there is way too much that we missed out on the first time around. Yumi was a lot sadder than me though as she is going back to her home country but I get to continue travelling. Nyah Nyah. South East Asia is done but the blog shall live on in Japan.
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Mel
non-member comment
You suck
I hate you Brian, I hate you so so much! Insane jealousy aside, your adventures with Yumi in SE Asia were day-dream inspiring. Hope you're enjoying Japan and come back to Canada sometime in this lifetime. At this point, you're just our long-lost friend, who new friends probably think is collective hallucination. Josh hopes you didn't wake up in a bathtub full of ice while in Asia. But if you did, your kidney was delicious.