Vietnam

Entering Vietnam we were a bit apprehensive about what we would find. According to the guide book it was more expensive than the other SE Asia countries and fellow travelers had shared stories of constant hassling of people trying to sell things and outrageous “tourist prices”. So we were quite happy to find that it was easy for us to easily spend on average $30/day and we managed for the most part to bargain down outrageous tourist prices to reasonable tourist prices. We also found it quite easy to go our own way and not be limited to tourist transportation and tours, which was another thing we weren't sure would be possible. 

The boat ride from the Cambodia/Vietnam border to Chau Doc offered many glimpses of life on the river.

Finally leaving the border crossing holding pen/floating restaurant:

I loved the eyes on the boats!

And yin yang rudders:

We started in Chau Doc, a small town in the Mekong Delta. Having discovered the Happycow website (directory of vegetarian restaurants), we finally knew the word for vegetarian food and could find the vegetarian food stall at the local market and eat the cheap and yummy noodle soup that is such a staple of Vietnamese life. Faux meat is quite a business it seems, and the vegetarian restaurants that we found often had beef, chicken, and fish substitutes that were tasty once we got used to them.

Our first day we rented bikes and headed out to explore. We tackled Sam Mountain but the heat and too small bike were too much for me, and Machiel, biking ahead, decided the view at the top wasn't worth the climb all the way to the top. After a snack and rest in the shade, we headed back down to explore along the canals.

A temple at the base of the mountain:

Mountain in the background:

View from nearly the top:

Feeding the fish at a fish farm:

Mystery palm fruit that we got to try for free. Not sweet.

Colorful temple:

View from our hotel looking down on the edges of the market:

 

Bottle cap checkers/chess?

One of my favorite moments in Vietnam. As we were wandering through the market, we were suddenly surrounded by intense excitement. People came running and everyone was looking up at the sky at the illuminated exhaust trail of an airplane. Do they not often see airplanes or was it unusual because the trail was visible? In any event the excitement was amazing to behold and then just as suddenly as it had begun, the trail was gone and the market returned to normal.

In the evening we walked around town in search of the bus station to investigate transportation possibilities for moving onward. Unfortunately, the bus station was not where the map showed it and we received many blank looks and smiles when we tried asking in both English and French. We learned we'd need to keep our guide book language section handy!

Cool motorbike baby seat:

The next day we rented bikes again, went back out and found the bus station did actually exist (just a bit further down the road than we'd ventured). We also found out that the price difference between the private bus company that departed from in town and the buses out at the station was not worth the trek out to the station. Then we biked back and took the public ferry across to an island which has a large population of Cham muslims. It was a lovely bike ride though the path was quite bumpy at times and we had to return the same way having not been able to find a loop road.

Being dropped off at school:

Waiting for the ferry, live crabs in a motorbike tank:

Old mosque:

Sausages:

Interesting wooden houses with elaborate porches:

Above picture is men loading rice onto a boat.

More loading rice into boats (60kilogram bags):

Backyard fishnet lowered and raised by a foot powered (pedals) winch:

Very scary looking bridge that we luckily didn't have to cross:

They insisted we ride over the drying rice after we tried walking our bikes around it:

A case of being in the right place at the right time. Just as I passed this boat, they let the ducks out that they were transporting:

Spirit house:

Vegetable seller:

Another method for drying rice:

mobile rice mill:

Another exciting moment. The motorbike carrying bags of crabs was pushed over by the truck, dislodging one of the bags and letting loose all the crabs. Everyone (including me when I wasn't taking pictures) pitched in to gather up the crabs though a few got squished by the departing truck.

Lotus seed snack:

Sugar palm fruit. This one was sweet!

The next day we took a bus to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. We were prepared for complete chaos and roads terrifying to cross, but found the “just start walking slowly and keep going” approach to street crossing quite fun actually. Standing at the city bus stop and looking totally puzzled while trying to read the signs and guidebook also proved to be quite an effective strategy for encouraging even motorbike taxi drivers to tell us what bus to take to get to our desired destination. So we found navigating the city quite manageable and again found a great (and amazingly cheap) veggie restaurant to eat at. Unfortunately the hotel we'd called in a reservation to the night before, failed to honor the reservation so we grumpily ended up at a different and more expensive hotel than planned. The next day we walked around the city and wore our feet out once again. We also visited the train station and figured out the system for buying tickets – much smoother than waiting in ticket “lines” in India! 

Enroute to Saigon:

Mystery food we didn't try:

Saigon:

Plastic shuttlecock/ hackeysack popular in Vietnam too:

Reunification Palace (built in 1966 as S. Vietnam's presidential palace):

Sunday in the park:

Notre Dame Cathedral:

Post office:

Jade Emperor Pagoda:

Opera House:

Famous hotel during French colonization:

After a day and a half in Saigon, we boarded the morning train and found our seats in the hard seat class. The seats were hard, but our foam mats helped out. It was wonderful to be the only foreigners and we had some nice interactions with our fellow travelers. The man sitting across the aisle from us tried quite hard to communicate and eventually a system of him writing down something in Vietnamese, a woman in the section behind him translating and writing it in English and us writing out an answer in English produced satisfactory results. At least he stopped writing questions after a bit. The two women sitting directly opposite us were busy nearly the entire trip folding little pieces of paper to make a paper vase. A while into the ride I started helping out and then the man across the aisle also pitched in. I think he, like me, was hoping we'd manage to see the final result. However, after a few hours of folding it was clear that wasn't going to happen and we both stopped. We saw quite a few kingfishers and some other birds as well. Round about 1:00 people put down grass mats and newspapers and stretched out all over the floor and benches for a nap. The food vendors even suspended roaming the train and selling for a few hours.

In some towns many houses had these nativity scenes in their front yards:

We arrived in Thap Cham after 6 1/2 hours on the train and walked out to the main street in search of a bus to take us to the next town over, Phan Rang. Unfortunately the directions I'd gotten off the internet led us to believe there was only one round about in town and we got off the bus at what turned out to be the first roundabout and not the one referred to in the directions. After a bit of wandering around the hotel scarce town, we did manage to find the hotel we'd found recommended on the internet. But then we had to find food and Happy Cow didn't have any listings. So another long wander ensued and finally hand drawn pictures of a chicken, fish, cow and pig crossed out with x's got us a meal that was mostly vegetarian (the rice seemed to be flavored with chicken broth).

The next day we rented bikes (even smaller than usual) and biked back up to Thap Cham to visit the Cham ruins there. This was quite interesting as the Cham people were often competing with the Khmer and at various times controlled Anchor Wat. There also was a lovely photo exhibit showing current Cham traditions as there is quite a sizable population in the region.

More drying rice:

An incredible lolly pop sculptor. I was sorry I didn't buy a lolly myself:

Found a veggie restaurant between the two towns:

Nuns dry their rice too:

Funky modern buildings throughout Vietnam:

Grape growing country:

I enjoyed all the different bike riding techniques I saw practiced here. Back seat pedals, front seat steers:

Back seat riding (is it because the bikes are too small for them too?):

My hand after a trip to the market (the sellers enjoyed writing the prices there):

Shared pedaling:

The following day we took the local bus out to the beach in search of bamboo basket boats (coracles). Luckily we didn't go the shortest way from the bus to the beach and found ourselves at a little fishing village with tons of interesting boats. The beach was shockingly dirty though, serving as the village toilet and trash dump.

It was a long, hot walk home and while we didn't find food for lunch, a fresh coconut stop fortified us and we found food back in town (having finally found a veggie restaurant that our hotel manager told us about but we'd somehow missed the previous night).

Girls who confirmed we were walking the right way. They were thrilled when I asked to take their picture but immediately removed their colorful face masks which was what I really wanted a photo of. They didn't want a photo taken of them wearing them:

Incense sticks burning on the side of the truck:

The face masks:

Four days before Christmas:

I saw many examples of toddlers, and even infants, on the front seat of bikes:

At 6:00pm we headed to the bus stop with our bags and journeyed back to the train station to catch the night train up to Da Nang. Once again the train company had an accurate description of the class conditions and the hard sleeper was indeed hard. Our compartment of 6 berths was full but quiet and we managed to sleep quite well, arriving in Da Nang at 9:00am.

Once again, however, this wasn't our end destination and it took us a bit of searching to find the bus to Hoi An (though this time the searching was our own fault as we didn't trust the directions we'd received from a hotel concierge but which turned out to be exactly correct).

I studied street crossing techniques as I waited for Machiel who went off in search of the bus station:

We boarded the bus and expected the ticket collector/bus manager to come and sell us tickets. However, he didn't start selling tickets to the passengers for quite a while and when he finally began it was erratic (approaching people one at a time and roaming throughout the bus instead of passing through the bus in one direction). We found this behavior rather suspicious. We were sitting in the very back of the bus and he also managed to stand in exactly such a way so that we couldn't see how much money people were paying him. So we asked a young man sitting in front of us how much the ticket would cost and some discussion and glances at us ensued with the ticket collector and several passengers. Eventually the young man shrugged his shoulders at us and said the price depended on the ticket seller. Things were officially suspicious at this point so we started working out on our own what we thought a fair price would be based on our previous bus rides. At one point the ticket collector was busy helping a passenger disembark and the young man turned and whispered to us “12, no 20”. The bus reached Hoi An and the ticket collector still hadn't approached us. He and all the passengers got off the bus, so we started to head out of the bus as well. Suddenly the ticket collector hopped back on and demanded 100,000 dong for the trip. We knew this was an outrageous price and tried politely bargaining down to 40,000 which was the price we'd estimated as being reasonable. However, he found this unacceptable but instead of arguing about it, he just got off the bus and continued helping passengers collect their stored baggage. Not having 40,000 exact change, we just handed his assistant 30,000 and walked away. No one chased after us, so it seemed that was after all a reasonable price.

Hoi An is a lovely UNESCO World Heritage town and in some ways similar to Luang Prabang. We didn't do the normal tourist thing of having custom made clothes made at one of the many tailor shops but we did wander the town and found some yummy food both at restaurants catering to tourists and local vegetarian simple eateries.

She's making a shoe to earn extra income in addition to what she sells at the market:

As usual we rented bikes and headed out to explore the nearby villages. We'd read there were some boat building yards in the area so finding them was our primary mission. We went to the local ferry and got on, but when the ticket collector told us it would cost 50,000 (and we already knew from having asked at a restaurant that it only cost 5,000) we took our bikes, got off and got on another ferry that was also waiting to depart. The ticket collector on this ferry didn't approach us until he was selling tickets to everyone and though he asked for 10,000, he didn't argue when we gave him 5,000 (it seemed everyone else was paying 2,000 each). We quickly found the boat yards which were quite fun to poke around. Biking around the island was yet another visually rich expedition.

Students boarding ferry and wearing face masks (protection from sun and pollution/dust):

Weaving the round basket boats:

Me trying to figure it out (I'm still a bit puzzled):

Dyed grass drying in preparation for mat weaving:

War memorial? graveyard:

Rice planting (here they broadcast the rice instead of transplanting)

Mat weaving:

Winch to raise and lower fish net:

Drying newly made chopsticks:

Back on the mainland:

 On Christmas day, we rented bikes and headed out to the beach, discovering more fun boats along the way. We managed to sit on the beach for a few hours before heading back to town with a detour through some neighborhoods along the way.

Hardhat sighting:

Where we ate most of our meals in Hoi An - local veggie restaurant (we were the only tourists there):

Christmas Eve:

Getting back to Da Nang was again an adventure on the local bus. I was worried about getting the same ticket collector and it was a relief to find a woman when we boarded the bus. However, after a few stops the woman got off and the same ticket collector from our ride to Hoi An got on. Luckily this time we were sitting in the middle of the bus so he was unable to hide from us how much other passengers were paying him - 10,000 (though he tried). Once again he didn't approach us to sell us tickets but as we were getting off before the last stop, he eventually had to. We just gave him the 20,000 and while he made some grumbles, he didn't make a fuss about it.

We spent one very rainy day in Da Nang to buy train tickets and visit the Cham museum.

The next day we walked through the quiet and dark streets at 6am to catch the train to Hue. This short ride of 4 hours was, according to the guide book, the most striking stretch of railline in Vietnam and while it was pretty, it wasn't stunning. Though the gray weather and flooded muddy – not yet green- rice fields may have also meant that we didn't see it at its best.

At one of the stops, people snuck in through the windows of the train (on the non-platform side of the train)and others rode ontop of the train and inbetween cars. They were all jewelry and statue vendors though they didn't seem to do much selling while the train was going so I'm not sure if they were using the merchandise as a cover in case they got caught riding.

Dried squid sellers got in a fight which provided entertainment while we waited for a long 20 min. at this stop.

Heating up the squid:

Hue was a nice city of wide tree lined streets. 

Female construction workers tying the rebar:

MSG section of the supermarket:

Flour made from cassava root (I think):

I decided to pay the bucks and go on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone while Machiel took a day off and researched New Zealand. After 8 hours of being driven around on a bus with a tour guide that took quite a lot of effort to only partially understand, I was sorry I hadn't stayed in Hue for the day as well. It was interesting though to get to approach the Laos border and see some familiar sights such as kids carrying basket backpacks and wearing similar skirts as the Laotian women wore. Visiting some tunnels where Vietnamese lived during the war was also interesting.

Where the Vinh Moc tunnels emerged (one of the entrance/exits):

Hien Luong Bridge (the bridge was at one point painted two different colors to designate the boundary between North and South Vietnam:

Monument for soldiers missing in action:

Khe Sanh Combat Base which has now been turned into a coffee plantation:

Dakrong Bridge and looking down what is now highway and what used to be the Ho Chi Minh trail:

The "Rockpile" - American's had a base at the top of the mountain (helicoptered in supplies and men) to try and monitor activity on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They also eliminated all vegetation in the area with Agent Orange:

Back in Hue:

Views of the Imperial Palace from outside the citadel. Hue was the political capital of Vietnam from 1802-1945 under the Nguyen emperors.

The following day we took a 12 hour train ride up to Ninh Binh. Again we were in the hard seat class and it was a long day. However, there were some pretty views and the hotel where we'd reserved a room did have a room for us when we knocked on their door after midnight.

Ninh Binh was a very dusty and honky town with the highway passing right through it. The mountains between Hoi An and Hue really divide the country's climate into two different zones. The north was considerably cooler and greyer with misty rain. We took a day to recover from our long train ride and just did some wandering around town. The following day, we rented bikes (they fit us this time) and headed out to the nearby region of karst mountains amid rice fields. We debated whether we should take the 2 hour boat ride that most tourists take on the rivers weaving through the area, but decided the views we had from exploring small roads on the bike were just as good. Though I must admit I did regret our decision in the end, being left with not knowing what the boat tour views were.

Rowing with the feet. Impressive!

Rice plants nearly ready for transplanting:

We spent New Years Eve watching Harry Potter and Star Trek on HBO in our hotel room and New Years Day was another lazy rainy grey day. At this point we had officially slowed down in our traveling . We finally mustered the energy to move on and headed by bus on to Haiphong. Having looked at Google maps ahead of time, we had no trouble walking from the bus stop to the ferry terminal to catch a boat to Cat Ba island near Halong Bay. However, we somehow had lost our edge for avoiding outrageous tourist prices and we ended up buying 200,000 dong ferry tickets even though we knew it was supposed to be 80,000. The women heading up the ticket scam were just too persistent, all the other tourists were going along with it, and we didn't see an alternative. It wasn't until we were on the boat and saw that one could buy the tickets on the boat that we knew for sure we'd been scammed. We were mostly annoyed with ourselves for not trusting our instincts.

En route to the ferry terminal:

So many different kinds of snails for sale:

Views from the ferry:

Cat Ba town where we stayed:

View from our hotel room:

Our first day on Cat Ba we spent biking up and down sizeable hills to the National Park. Unfortunately the more direct road was closed as it had been damaged when a bomb was found in the mountains and detonated.

The following day we signed up for a boat/kayaking tour of the Lan Hai Bay surrounding Cat Ba Island. I was suffering again from not knowing if I was getting to see the best views, wondering if Halong Bay was more spectacular than Lan Hai, but it was a beautiful day. The weather was grey and cool, so we were happy to only do a few hours of kayaking. And Machiel found kayaking in the plastic “bathtub” which he wouldn't even call a kayak frustrating so he was also ok with just a few hours. This area is full of clam farming and we witnessed various aspects of this work.

Most of the farms had dogs. General store rowed around from house to house:

Making holes to plant the baby clams in:

We then headed to Hanoi by bus, boat to Haiphong and then bus. As it was one company running the whole trip, the transfers were all easy and quick. Finding a reasonable hotel room in Hanoi took some time so while we'd expected to have a day and a half day of sightseeing, it turned into one day. Here it was so cold (a damp cold) that we were glad to have kept our long underwear in our packs. We spent a day walking all around Hanoi. While rush hour was a bit mad with streets jammed with motorbikes that even took to the sidewalks to try and move forward toward their destinations, Hanoi was a charismatic city and we were sorry to only have one day to explore. Even though we'd been to many markets we still managed to see new things in the Old Quarter market area of Hanoi.

Face masks are even larger here:

Many people wore these "explorer" hats - including school girls:

Stone templates recording the success of individuals at the university within the Temple of Literature:

Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (he just wanted to be cremated with his ashes strewn across north and south Vietnam):

Where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked before building his stilt house next door:

His stilt house that he had built without a toilet to be as authentic as possible in relationship to the stilt houses of the farmers. He lived here throughout the war:

Painting and glueing on fake leaves to make the bamboo poles look like live bamboo:

Serious transporting cage on the back of bike::

Older men wear American baseball caps, French berets and Russian fur/earflap hats here:

We had an early start, again experiencing the dark quiet streets of predawn as we walked to the airport shuttle. A fun coincidence was meeting a couple I'd played ultimate frisbee with in Amsterdam, who were also on their way to the airport. The flight to Bangkok was smooth and we enjoyed using the one week old airport train link into the city. We met up with Machiel's brother and family there and enjoyed spending some days with them. I also attended the Search job fair for teaching positions in international schools. It was a bit of a bummer to spend so much time at the job fair while Machiel continued exploring Bangkok, but after the fair was over (and I had a job offer to consider) we had one more day. By this time Machiel's oldest brother and partner had also arrived in Bangkok, so we spent the day with them and visited Wat Pho and Wat Arun together which were the perfect final temple experiences for our time in SE Asia.

Sunrise in Bangkok:

Mystery vegetable:

Epitome of Thai politeness. The sign apologizes for the inconvenience of having to walk around the barrier:

Around the corner from our hotel which was in the midst of the auto part district and among some fun narrow streets and alleyways:

Taking the river taxi was a fun way to get around the city! The boat hand did some fun whistling to communicate with the driver during the quick pick-up and drop-offs of passengers:

View of Wat Arun from the river:

Wat Pho:

The scaffolding was being painted before erecting it on the outside of the temple for renovation work:

Wat Arun - decorated with porcelain that was originally balast in Chinese merchant ships:

It was sad to leave Asia. I will miss the intrigue of walking down a street and seeing so many new (for me) sights! I'm sorry we didn't have the opportunity to meet and talk with more Thai, Lao, Cambodian and Vietnamese people to gain greater insight into these rich cultures.

The flight to New Zealand (via Kuala Lumpur) took 14 hours. We managed to sleep a bit but it was a long flight! Luckily I'm used to wearing the same clothes everyday as my bag didn't arrive until 3 days later.
It is already apparent (after just a few days) that it will be difficult leaving this incredibly beautiful place when our 3 months are finished.

First sights of New Zealand:

Auckland:

Waiheke Island:

Picnic with Machiel's friend (and family) whom we are staying with on Waiheke Island: