We continued our whirlwind tour of SE Asia flying north-east from Vientiane to Hanoi. We thought our luck was in as we got processed first in the visa queue which was an unnecessarily complicated 'go to this window', 'go to that window' type affair and headed out to meet our hotel pickup (hey for $6 why wouldn't you). Then we got to the hotel and the lovely staff asked how we were, gave us some drinks and then told us they had no rooms as the boss had decided to do some DIY that day and had subsequently caused a power outage in all the rooms on the floor we had been assigned to.
Thankfully we were migrated only 2 doors down to a hotel that looked exactly the same and we went straight out to check out the old quarter of Hanoi. The city centre is old style with side-street warrens and lakes, palaces etc. featuring as the navigational markers. Sadly though it is overrun by the moped/scooter and it's beep-beep accessory. They drive them on the roads, pavements etc. and I even saw one being winched into an apartment (for safe keeping I assume). It's fun at first but the constant sharp noises in your ear and stress of watching out really grates over time.
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| Zoom, zoom, zoom |
We checked out the Hanoi Hilton (where the American POWs were imprisoned during the war - it's not actually a hotel!), Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, the One Pillar Pagoda (amazing!), some more temples and strolled by the river as well as browsing through the never-ending market stalls. The people were friendly and also not too pushy which was good and the odd monsoon type rain shower made for some fun dashes.
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| Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum |
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| Presidential Palace |
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| The 'famous' One Pillar Pagoda |
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| Communist architecture |
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| Some temple |
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| The Hanoi Hilton - luxury accommodation! |
From Hanoi we took a 3 day trip to Halong Bay which is a scenic karst landscape similar to those we'd seen in Khao Sok, Thailand and Yangshuo, China. The main difference here is that this one is mostly covered by the sea and a lot more developed for tourism. You get out there on a 'junk boat style' cruiser but it's a real farm animal operation. There are at least 100 boats doing the same thing, you are marched through lacquer furniture stores, pottery stores, pearl farms, fish farms (which put me off eating fish in Asia), caves that have rocks that look like stuff etc.
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| Many, many boats |
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| Our home, the Oriental Sails |
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| In the Amazing Cave |
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| What's that?! |
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| Overlooking Halong Bay |
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| Karst scenery |
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| Traditional fishing village |
I would run many a mile from this place were it not for the 2 hours that we spent with just 6 people kayaking through the bay. It was magical and like something you'd see in a movie. You kayak through the karst landscape, go into sea caves and occasionally come out into partial lagoons (at low tide) that are surrounded by sheer limestone cliffs. It was completely silent and the sound of your paddle filled the space every time you dipped it in the water. By the end though we were so happy to get off that boat and be in control of our lives again.
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| Paddling away in Halong Bay |
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| The Sound of Silence |
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| Ssssh! |
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| Through the epiglottis cave |
From Hanoi we made our way south to the sleepy seaside town of Hoi An which Claire's friends had told us great things about. They were spot on and it was a welcome relief from the manic nature of Hanoi. Unfortunately it rained for most of our time here but this did help to support our shopping activities.
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| Hoi An street scene |
Hoi An is some type of tailors retreat as every second shop in the place works with the cloth (and they brought their shoemaker side-kicks with them but we didn't even make it that far). Claire quite enjoyed this and was really delighted when she found a young designer who loved to model her stuff on what Kate Middleton had on 'in the magazines'. I was delighted to be out of the rain (see video) and they became fast friends trying on this and that and discussing how it might be tailored better. Thankfully we didn't all get washed away as the river burst it's banks after this shower and made it as far as the street before our one.
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| Claire & her tailor friend |
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| A town submerged |
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| Still using the trusty moped to get around though! |
We also went to the most popular tailor in town for some business wear for Claire (a real volume operation). I just wanted my favourite travel pants fixed but walked out with a copied new pair and tailored shirt. Claire got some business attire for our return to the real world. On our last day there we found the beautiful beach (as it wasn't raining) and we loved seeing the countryside on our bicycles. What a shame, we'd definitely come back here.
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| Just chillin' |
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| Traditional Vietnamese fishing boats |
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| Beautiful Vietnamese coastline |
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| After the flood waters have receded... |
Our last stop in Vietnam was the cruelly named Ho Chi Minh city or Saigon as many of the locals prefer to call it. This city was very different with much wider streets and less old world charm. However this meant that the pavement was actually mainly for pedestrians which was nice. We wandered around, watching the locals enjoy early morning and late evening park life as well as taking in the markets and the James Bond bad guy style palace.
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| Crazy moped traffic |
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| Democratic government HQ |
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| Mr. Bond, I've been expecting you! |
This was the US HQ for the Vietnam war (which they call the American war) and is full of relics like colour coded telephones and old radio transmission equipment in basements. It reminded me of being in a computer game (like Halflife) and I kept expecting to see a mutated something or other to jump out at me. We also watched some North Vietnamese propaganda movies which made for an interesting war context.
We also took a day trip to the Cu-Chi tunnels which was an area close to Saigon where fighters for the North lived in underground tunnels for around 20 years to hide from the superior American firepower and fight a guerrilla war against them. We saw all kinds of ingenious ways of killing both American soldiers and the dogs that they tried to use to sniff out these fighters.
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| Tiny hidey hole |
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| Booby trap with poison bamboo spikes at the bottom |
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| Booby trap with a nasty ending for the men! |
How people moved in these tunnels, let alone lived in them is beyond comprehension and was a real insight into what human beings can endure. The photograph below shows a tunnel that we crawled through for about 100 meters to experience what it was like. This tunnel was increased to over twice the size of the originals to allow tourists to get into them.
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| Scooching along a tourist sized tunnel |
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| The real thing is much smaller |
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| Captured U.S Army tank |
One last thing worthy of mention was the guide we had on the day. He provided hilarious entertainment on the long journey to the tunnels. He told us about how he hated living with his parents as his Mom was getting on him about the earrings that he'd just got. She thought he was a ladyboy and he was like 'No Mom it's just the fashion'. Then he went on to tell us about Christina Aguilera - he didn't like westerners until he saw the video 'Genie in a Bottle' and that changed his life - and he showed us the tattoo of a genie it inspired. Then he went on a rant about how a good wage in Vietnam is about $15 - $20 per day and petrol is over $1 a litre. Then he told us how hungover he was. Then he fell asleep. This man was living the dream.
Our next stop was supposed to be Cambodia but our primary reason for visiting was Angkor Wat and with 2 weeks left we were completely templed out. So we decided to return to Bangkok, a city we'd missed because of the floods and plan our final holiday moments from there.
