North and south in the Nam

Asia » Vietnam
July 12th 2009

Published: July 28th 2009

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Convict

Senior resident in Hoi An

She just stood there while we took the photo and then went on her way

Our next stop on the south east Asian leg was Vietnam! We arrived into the capital city, Hanoi. Our experiences here were less than positive with the locals. It seemed that the term "keeping your wits about you" developed here and we tried to avoid being taken advantage of on more than one ocassion. We also found it slightly more challenging to get a taste for the local food than in some other countries. In fact, on our first night we ate pizza, a cardinal sin for those trying to get into the cultural and culinary nuances of each of our many ports of call! We had heard so many great things about the country so we didn't let our initial impressions besmirch the rest of Vietnam. Onward Christian soldiers! South to Hue on an interesting bus journey. Our seats were a strange sort of double bed designed for petite Asian people and not for us Western giants

Like so many countries that we've been to, Vietnam was hot and took some getting used to. We hopped on a bus and boat trip through the major temples and sites in Hue, Vietnam's imperial capital for over a century. Some of

Hanoi

Temple on the lake in the centre of the city

us found it interesting, some of us found it less so but all of us struggled with the heat. We were lucky to be in a great tour group and once again we met some very interesting people. Nidia, a bubbly senior, was a Columbian exile living in Paris where she found asylum after her husband and brother were killed during a big political upheaval. She happened to be in Vietnam for a lawyer's conference and we were lucky enough to cross paths. One of the many interesting jobs she had was a legal advisor for a Cuban newspaper operating out of Columbia. She was one of those people that everyone thought was great and Vicki was heard to remark "Ah she's a pet!" more than once. Everyone was helping her up and down the various temple's countless steep steps and she really added to the experience

After Hue, we took the bus to Hoi An with Nidia and this was a town we both really enjoyed. The streets in the old colonial town were French in every sense of the word and, with the exception of the people walking around with straw hats on, it seemed like we

Vicki & the temple

Hanoi once more

were in Europe rather than Asia. We had a great time strolling through the streets, browsing in shop after shop and sampling the local streets vendor's culinary delights. Under advisement, Conor went to a barber's and got a shave. This was one of the strangest and best experiences of the trip. The barber, with an impressive gut hanging out over his trousers, began with the traditional shave using a cut throat razor (with a new blade!) and when he was finished we assumed we were done...not so! He started shaving the forehead, temple and nose area before moving on to snipping some stray nose hairs. He then donned a head torch and sat down beside the "patient". With the tools of a dentist and the steady hand of a surgeon he proceeded to clean out Conor's ears but not before taking a good long look in his lug holes and voicing his disgust with a clearly audible "tut-tut". Next came the floor polisher! We can't explain it any other way. It was as if he just took off the sand paper and applied it to Conor's head, neck and shoulders and with devastating effect. After slicking back Conor's hair his

Get back to work!

Electrical fire just around the corner from our hotel

patient emerged a new man and leapt out of the operating chair looking like an Italian mobster and with the hearing capabilities of a bat!

The following day we rented a scooter and went down to the beach. Unfortunately, like so much of south east Asia, littering is a concept lost on the locals. On the beach, along with so many towns and cities throughout the developing world, rubbish is everywhere. Swimming wasn't really an option!

From Hoi An, we went to the seaside town of Nha Trang. We were dropped off the bus a good stretch from our accommodation at 5 a.m. so with it being early we decided to walk along the beach's promenade to the town centre. There were thousands of people of all ages doing, what we can only assume was their morning exercises by the beach. With the odd shaking of the wrists, kicking out a leg or two, strange hip movements, rolling a neck, hopping about or swimming with a life jacket on, we were surprised to be getting as many strange looks as we were giving. It was a great spectacle and had it not been for our back packs we

Hue

Imperial capital of Vietnam

would have stopped to capture the moment for posterity. After we got ourselves settled we took a boat trip out to the nearby islands for the day and it seemed like we were the only tourists on the boat. While we were snorkling nearby with third grade gear many of the locals hopped in with life rings and vests or for one group, what looked like an over-sized floating tea cup. After seeing them in aquatic action we weren't surprised to hear the large number of water related fatalities since the beginning of the year. The fact that they had everyone back in the water while they fed us some tonic/wine concoction might add to the concern. After a tradition meal they broke out the karaoke and from here things got rowdy! After Conor's rendition of Wild Rover the locals nearly came to blows over who could sing what next. One little girl, who couldn't have been older than 3 took the mic and gave it her all to everyone's delight. The mic had to be wrestled out of her hand so the next enthusiastic bean could have a go

The following day we went scuba diving and with

Pagoda in Hue

Honduras being a distant memory we weren't sure how we would fare with our first dive in 8 months. The cost of two dives was a paltry $36, which included a lovely lunch - a price unheard of for a dive anywhere else. From start to finish we had to do nothing for ourselves on our dive trip. The unemployment rate is relatively low in Vietnam but this is not a fair reflection of the situation because 5 people seem to be doing the job one person could do on his own. They're a grafting bunch and they seem to love to work. The dive itself was a lot of fun and although there wasn't an abundance of sea life but we had a great guide who knew a lot about a lot

Our final stop in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon although it's still referred to as Saigon among all Vietnamese. We arrived on another night bus in the wee hours of the morning with a sense of doom as our first encounter was with an American tourist who's camera had just been robbed. He was waiting by the road side in case

One of Hue's many temples

they returned so that he could, as he put it, "tackle them"

Our first major activity was a trip to the city's war museum. A little biased to say the least but we see that Communist propaganda is still alive and well. There were a number of war crafts in and around the museum, some with bullet holes in them and others that look like they're still fit to fly. In the museum itself there were a number of very graphic images portraying what the U.S. did in terms of treatment of small villages and suspected enemies but in speaking with the Vietnamese there genuinely does not appear to be any bad blood between the two nations

The next day we went to the famous Cu Chi tunnels, a stretch of tunnels varying in sizes, dug out and lived in by the Vietcong for over ten years at a combined distance of 250km. Our guide, a former south Vietnamese soldier fighting alongside the U.S. in the war, was an intense, animated but informed character who had a wealth of knowledge about all of the different sites he took us to. He showed us a number of tricks

Temple ceiling

A Vietnamese attempt at the Sistine chapel

employed by the Vietcong such as booby traps and sniper holes. Every few yards we would come across a crater left by a B-52 bomber which gave some vague sense of what the Communists were up against. When we got to one section of the tunnel, our guide directed us in. It was about 4 foot hight and 3 foot wide and some had more difficulty than others in making their way through it. The taller among us struggled. This stretch of tunnel was only 110 metres but at that the heat, darkness and confined surroundings really got to us. It is amazing how they lived in these tunnels for over ten years! At the end of the tour we were brought to a firing range. It was run by the army and if you wanted to shoot any one of a variety of automatic deathbringers the soldiers would fill the gun cartridges and you can fire away. Very strange and expensive set up and not one for us but yet another memorable experience.
With the Vietnam being synonymous with the war, it was a topic that constantly came up on the tours that we took and in discussion. The

Monk mobile

The car a monk got out of before dousing himself in petrol and setting himself on fire in protest

attitude of the people is quite interesting and the war's sites are very much a public spectacle today

On our last night in Vietnam we were haggling our way around the market and getting chased by local vendors trying to sell their crafts. Vicki came back to the hotel with more bags than she could carry having only spent the equivalent of €11. That same evening we ate a large red snapper fish between us while chatting to a middle aged Westerner and his young Vietnamese bride along with an overweight friend of theirs with a poor dye job. We were amazed at the couple's lack of ability to communicate, her disgust towards him and how normal the whole situation seemed. It was an interesting night but we managed to slip away when they started arguing over the food bill

Vietnam is a country on the rise and the government is finding it difficult to maintain it's hold. We had a great time and the further south we moved the more we seemed to enjoy it. Having spoken to other tourists, this seems to be the general feeling toward the country. Of all the countries we have been