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Published: September 16th 2012
Day 81 Wednesday 5
th September to Day 91 Saturday 15
th September 2012.
Vietnam – A kaleidoscope of nature, people and history.
Busy cities, crazy traffic, street hawkers, bumpy roads, chaotic markets, war history, cheap hotels, amazing landscapes, luxury resorts with impressive beaches and infinity pools. Vietnam has it all to offer.
After a massive 36 hours of travelling from Hong Kong to Hanoi, we all slept amazingly well as expected. This is normally the case after travelling on overnight trains or buses and after breakfast we quickly got out of the hotel and stepped into the chaos that is Hanoi to explore another foreign city.
Staying alive during this trip is of upmost importance to us. Weaving a path through millions of motorbikes as we cross the road ensured we had to keep our wits about us. To prevent turning into a bug on a windscreen we followed some simple tips thanks to Lonely Planet. Most foreigners try and run across the road, but the tip is to play it cool and cross the road slowly, very slowly. This gave the riders plenty of time to 1. Spot Team Free and 2. Manoeuvre around Team Free without
hitting us. Yep, it worked. They don’t stop or even slow down, but they do try to avoid hitting us. The first time you step off the curb is a massive ‘leap of faith’. On many occasions I could feel little Hunters grip firm up. Over time, even Hunter became more confident. Harrison wasn’t too keen, but Jackson thought it was a bit of a thrill (most of the time).
Walking around compact cities has always been the best way to take in what these vibrant cities have to offer. The number of ‘self-employed entrepreneurs’ is a way of life in this part of the world. You name it, you can get it. Shop after shop selling food, drinks, clothing, bags, electronics, flowers, tours, and the list goes on.
We went to see the famous ‘Water Puppets’ and we thought we would splurge on the more expensive VIP tickets for $5.00 each instead of the standard $3.00 tickets. Yes, dollars. It’s amazing how the Vietnam still talk in $US 40 years after the Vietnam War and then quickly convert to Vietnam Dong. Well, the boys were bored and the only benefit was getting out of the heat for
60 long minutes. Parts of the show were OK, even quite funny, but with a bit more effort, it could be quite an impressive show. It has been going for years and this type of ‘art’ in Vietnam has been performed even longer, so they are probably against any changes to the program. $25.00 later we continued to explore the city some more.
It’s funny dealing in Vietnamese Dong (VD). Taking 6,000,000.00 VD out at the ATM is common. ($300.00) A coffee cost 50,000.00 VD and most meals would cost us a total of 500,000.00-600,000.00 VD. You find yourself expecting 1,000.00 VD in change and then realise it’s only 5 cents and you can easily look quite stupid or even worse, greedy!!! 20,000.00 VD equals $1.00.
Hanoi’s Old Quarter sits at the northern end of Hoan Kiem Lake and it only takes around 35 minutes to walk around. If it was in China it would have hundreds of motorised boats, paddle boats, canoes and any other floating devices that could be hired out to make some quick money. It was refreshing to see that this is not the case here in Hanoi and the lake is the same
as it has been for hundreds of years. The French influence is still evident with the number of baguettes being sold on the side of the street and even a large number of ‘French patisseries’.
We organised our train tickets south and a day trip to Ha Long Bay. It’s always good to know that we have train tickets to our next destination, as there aren’t too many options when ‘overlanding’ and without ‘Jeff’, so we need to secure transport as quickly as we can when arriving into a new town or city. (For those new to our blog, Jeff was the name we gave to our Volvo in Europe a few months ago – We still talk about him over dinner and wonder where he is right now)
Ha Long bay was a massive day out, but well worth it. With a 4½ hour bus ride out and 4½ hours back only left us with 5 hours actually at Ha Long Bay. We saved about $600 by choosing a ‘day cruise’ over an ‘overnight stay cruise’. This was a good decision. Yes, Ha Long Bay is impressive, but having already spent 4 days in Yangshuo, China, we
have now seen plenty of Karst Mountains up close and being Australian, we have been on plenty of boats, ferries, cruises etc. The day cruise for only $34 per head included transfers (9 hours’ worth), a 5 hour cruise with a great Vietnamese lunch and a visit to one of the 1,969 islands to explore the massive limestone cave, similar to the Jenolon Caves in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. We also slowly cruised past a ‘floating fishing village’ that is home to about 20-25 families and even has a primary school. Once you reach high school, students are required to go to the mainland about 10km away by boat.
Hanoi has a great choice of meals. We ate Japanese, Chinese and Italian. I don’t think we have been to one city that doesn’t have at least one Italian restaurant serving pizza and pasta. When traveling with 3 ‘Aussie’ kids, we try and mix up the local cuisine with some western meals every now and again to let the boys have some ‘normality’ while on the road for so long through so many countries!!! And of course we ate plenty of Vietnamese. We didn’t know until 10 days
ago that Spring Rolls are actually Vietnamese.
The overnight trip to Da Nang was our first Vietnamese train. The Chinese trains made the Russian trains look 1
st class, now the Vietnam trains make the Chinese trains look 1
st Class. This is the first time we have used our ‘youth hostel sleeping bag sheets’ on top of the sheets supplied. The carriages were dirty, the cabins were dirty, the beds were dirty and the toilets as expected were dirty, but this is what travelling is all about. It’s amazing how quickly we can adapt to adverse conditions. By the time we got off 18 hours later, we really didn’t notice the conditions we were living in and it certainly makes the hotels we stay in even more luxurious.
We arrived in Da Nang at around 12:30pm after some amazing views that morning coming down the east coast on the Reunification Express (the name of the train that runs north south in Vietnam) and easily found a taxi to Hoi An about 30 minutes south. Hoi An is one of those ‘must visit’ towns in Vietnam. The town especially comes to life when the sun goes down. Classic Vietnamese lanterns
light up the main streets, bridges, restaurants and shops. This makes for quite an amazing sight. For $1.00 you can buy a floating lantern and put it on the river. We chose not to part take in this type of activity because from previous experience it seems to add to the pollution of a beautiful country and we do not want it to look like China. In Vietnam there are a lot of children selling handicrafts, food, drinks etc. whilst all the money seems to go to the ringleader. Hopefully once more people are aware of this practice and choose not to encourage this, it will be greatly reduced. Vietnam is very clean compared to most cities we visited in China. Even though the majority of Vietnam are very poor, they can still manage to keep it relatively clean. The two other noticeable differences are the smaller number of smokers and the fact that no one spits, makes Vietnam more enjoyable as a traveller compared to China. Let’s hope that Vietnam can remain this way as they develop over the next few years.
The hotel we stayed at had impressive views on tripadvisor.com and we weren’t let down. The
rooms were also quite impressive. Upon arrival we received cool towels, cold drinks and some fresh fruits as a welcome. Obviously they know the old saying ‘First impressions are lasting impressions’.
Being a quiet town, we felt very conformable to use 4 of the hotels bikes to ride around Hoi An. After Hanoi, Hoi An is a walk in the park. With Hunter on the back with me, we explored a lot more of the town in a lot less time than if we had walked around. We also had a photo taken by quite a few other tourists, mainly Chinese as usual.
2 Days later we moved north to Da Nang and found a well-priced resort right on the beach. Da Nang’s main beach is called ‘China Beach’, made famous in the US television series of the same name. The 30km stretch of white sand is where American soldiers would go for R&R during the Vietnam War. The water here is somewhat an uncomfortable 25+ degrees. But after a while, it does become refreshing. Jackson, Harrison and I hired a surf ski/kayak for $5.00 for a whole hour. We caught a few waves too. Jackson and Harrison
both think it’s more fun to go sidewards and deal with the consequences!!!
The overnight train from Da Nang to Phan Thiet was our last train in Vietnam and possibly our last train for our entire trip. Cambodia does not have a train network and we are most likely to catch express buses in both Thailand and Malaysia. Knowing this, we made the most of what have been some memorable days, nights and sights aboard many trains since our first from St Petersburg to Moscow. Noodles will never taste the same, nor will doing number ones and number two’s in a hole while rocking side to side at 80-90 km/hour. Once again it’s a whole lot easier as a male when it comes to the experience of Asian toilets traveling at any speed.
We promised ourselves that we would stay in one high 4 star or 5 star resort in Vietnam. We found the Mia Resort at Mui Ne on the coast to be one of the best priced resorts with the best reviews. Yep, Team Free were impressed. The service, the location, the pool, the beach, the food, the cheap beer, the bungalows and of course the
impressive bathrooms. (See photos attached) Even though it rained on and off, we had a very relaxing 2 days by the pool, in the surf with no sightseeing at all.
Kite surfing is huge in this part of Vietnam and I had a 2 day course booked, but unfortunately there wasn’t enough wind so I managed to have a surf instead. (The waves were just big enough on a 9 footer). Mia Resort is owned by 3 Aussies and the GM is an Aussie. This just lifts the standard enough to make it truly an impressive stay for westerners and Asian visitors alike.
The hotel organised a bus to collect us after 2 very relaxing days living in bungalows by the beach to Ho Chi Minh, the capital of Vietnam. Yep, as expected back to traffic, noise, hawkers, shops, heat and markets. The boys saw stuff that you can only see in places like this. The most graphic sights were at the local street food markets where frogs were having their heads cut off, skinned whilst still ‘alive’ and jumping around. I’m not a biologist, so I couldn’t really explain to the boys how this was possible. You
could still see them (the frogs) breathing!!!! I was hesitant to put this photo up, but this is what we saw, and we want the boys to remember what they saw. So for those reading this blog, it’s your choice to view the photo (photo #111) further into this blog. They also saw many other ‘food groups’ that Melissa and I couldn’t really categorise!!! Even though you expect to see these kinds of things, Melissa couldn’t watch the frogs. Hunter was intrigued as most 7 year old boys would be.
However, this was only the beginning!! The War Remnants Museum truly gave the boys a somewhat one sided view of the Vietnam War, very one sided indeed. The graphic photos, the ongoing impact of Agent Orange and the hardware on display certainly opened their eyes to the ugly side of war. Up until now, ‘Hollywood’ war movies that they have seen have only glorified such events. Having seen plenty of deformed beggars across Mongolia, China and even parts of Russia, they didn’t seem too shocked with what they saw and they had more questions than I had answers. The truly devastating effects and ongoing suffering still today is quite
an eye opener. A must see museum for anyone who believes war solves any type of conflict. On a lighter note, there was a large amount (outside) of U.S military aircraft, tanks and helicopters, which the boys enjoyed.
Day 91 saw us leave Vietnam on the Mekong Express Bus. The drive to the Vietnam border took 3 hours with an uneventful border crossing. We didn’t even need to remove our luggage from the bus. Not sure how many drug dealers use the Mekong Express???? The remaining 3 hours to Phnom Penh was also uneventful (this is always a good thing). Plenty of rice fields on either side of the road for most of the ride was the norm. The highlight was crossing the famous Mekong River, the largest river in South East Asia; even though we couldn’t see much with two large trucks either side of our bus. The other interesting fact is you also immediately notice that Cambodia is very much poorer and dirtier than Vietnam, but the people seem just as happy and even happier for us to spend our money with them on food, drinks or anything else.
Thank you Vietnam for a wonderful 10
days. The people, food, taxi rides, trains (and toilets) beaches, resorts and traffic will always be part of Team Free’s dinner conversations for many years to come. This is one place we will hopefully come back to.
Next stop – Cambodia………..
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Jeanne
non-member comment
Wauw!!
Team Free, It looks like you are still living the life to the max. Im jealous!! keep up the good work and enjoy! Jeanne