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Published: October 8th 2008
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Halong Bay Views
We climbed up a long series of steps to a viewing area on one of the islands to find this amazing view. Afterward we went for a swim at the beach below. We just returned from a week in northern Vietnam…and an interesting week it was. Vietnam has some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve ever seen. In contrast, Hanoi is a crowded city, teeming with tourist hawkers eager to take advantage of us. We often dared not stop to look at a map or even to discuss where to go, lest the nearest rickshaw (they call it “cyclo”) drivers move in for the attack. Our first day we turned around to see Westen with a pointed rice hat on his head, saddled with a yoke on his shoulder dangling two baskets holding pineapples. The very clever vendors have learned a second line of work in the photo-op business! If you can’t sell them something, get them to pay for a photo using your props! Westen learned to keep walking.
The highlight of our trip was a three-day, two-night cruise on
Halong Bay, a three-hour car ride from Hanoi. The bay has nearly 2,000 small limestone islands which jut out of the water like mountain peaks. We had the strange feeling that we were sailing among the mountain tops. Around every corner was another stunning view. Many of the islands have caves
Westen on the deck
Here's a glimpse of the views from the deck of the boat. Quite surreal. which we were able to explore on kayak. At one point we kayaked through a cave into an inner lake and then through a second cave to yet another lake. During high tide there’s no way to get out!
While on the bay we visited two different
floating fishing villages. In the larger of the two 600 people live in the series of floating houses. Their families have lived there for over 400 years. They don’t have to pay to put a house there or pay taxes, but the do need to be able to support themselves by fishing. Larger boats come out from the mainland daily to buy/trade the seafood and to sell/trade produce, rice and fresh water. While we there were fortunate enough to eat lots of this freshly caught fish, crabs and the biggest king prawns we’ve ever seen.
Our last day on Halong we climbed into an enormous cave on foot. Aptly named
Surprise Cave (Sung Sot Cave) by French explorers in 1901, the cave has three enormous grottos to explore. The caverns are lit up with all sorts of funky-colored lights, highlighting a huge range of stalactites and stalagmites. Other than a couple
Anika getting ready to go kayaking
Here's Anika about to climb over the railing to start our kayaking adventure. Yes, they did have lifevests! of short tunnels, it was a good place for the claustrophobic spelunker
(there are a couple in our family). The boat we cruised on - a replica of an old junk boat, but really a great floating hotel - was really special. We felt very luck to have this experience. It was in sharp contrast to the less-than-luxury hotels we stayed in in Hanoi. We moved hotels after getting some rather fishy excuses about why we weren’t getting the room we were promised. Oh, and the rather large cockroach Serge killed in his and Westen’s room didn’t help the cause. He threw it out in the hall after he squashed it, but it still managed to get away. So we moved to a slight step up - complete with fuzzy slippers, iron-burns in the carpet and a toilet sealed with a “hygenical condition” banner! No, we don’t really have a good hotel recommendation in Hanoi if anyone’s looking!
We took a day trip from Hanoi to
Hoa Lu, the ancient capital of Vietnam, and
Tam Coc, an area called the Halong Bay on land. In Hoa Lu we visited two temples built to honor the first two emperors
She sells sea shells
This beautiful girl sells sea shells from her row boat to the tourist boats on Halong Bay. We bought water every morning from one of her friend's boats. of Vietnam. In Tam Coc we were rowed down a river in small boats through rice paddies and limestone peaks. The scenery was spectacular. Unfortunately, on second half of the trip we were harassed so much to buy embroidery work and refreshments, that it was difficult to enjoy the views. Westen found a lot of humor in the fact that the woman on his and Serge’s boat kept trying to sell them doilies! We walked away with four rice hats, three table cloths, several drinks and lots of great pictures.
We also visited the infamous
“Hanoi Hilton” where John McCain was among the American POWs. Unknown to us, this was actually a French-built prison, used to hold Vietnamese prisoners. Most of the museum focuses on the atrocities inflicted by the French during their years of controlling Vietnam. A couple of small rooms focus on the American prisoners held during the “American War”, as it is called in Vietnam. Most of the material focuses on holiday celebrations held by the Americans, such as cooking a Thanksgiving Day turkey and decorating for Christmas. There might have been a bit of bias in the presentation but it was interesting nonetheless.
We
Is she a giant?
Anika is picking up a TINY little boat out in the bay! Good trick, Anika. were thrilled, and even a bit surprised, that we all survived the crazy,
scooter-filled streets of Hanoi. The mornings weren’t so bad, but once late afternoon arrived the hornet’s net began. The biggest contrast to the insane Shanghai traffic we’ve become accustomed to it that there are very few cars in Hanoi. But they make up for it in motorcycle and scooter traffic. It was like an army of ravenous ants marching to a picnic. There were actually times that we had to walk up the street a block or two because it was hopeless to cross where we were. We adopted a strategy that seemed to work:
grab Anika’s hand, stick together, move slowly, slowly allowing the scooters to weave around us. Then we would
dance in victory at the other side of the street.
And the food? Well this is the first trip we’ve taken where Westen didn’t end up sick. The seafood was really quite amazing, and we all loved the local spring rolls. We found a couple of great European restaurants in Hanoi (Belgian and French). But the most entertaining meal we had was at the Highway 4 Restaurant in Hanoi. This Vietnamese spot had
Face rock...
Notice the profile of a man's face, complete with eyelashes? so many amusing things on the menu that we actually wrote some of them down. Here are a few: pigeon, roasted sparrow, pig stomach, catfish stomach, horse-served rare, dog-roasted, cricket roasted in pig fat, and locusts.
YUM! I have to say we all appreciate living in Shanghai after spending some time in Hanoi. We met a Canadian man there that had just moved there with his family. They were more suited to the task than us after having lived in Ethiopia and Nepal. We were happy to come back to our perceived safe little ex-pat bubble here in Shanghai.
It’s all a matter of perspective!
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Deb
non-member comment
Amazing...
Wow Sally! Great blog and pics of yet another amazing journey...thanks so much for sharing!