Vietnam
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Information about Vietnam
(10.11.03)
If you thought Cambodia sounded dull then get ready for adventure. It's really long because it includes all four weeks of fun!
The Mekong Delta
We arrived in Vietnam at Chau Doc on a boat from Phnom Penh. We spent two days floating around the Mekong Delta. We saw floating villages, fish farms, a crocodile farm, incense factory and a rice factory. It was fascinating to see. The fish farms were just houses floating on the delta with nets under them. They fed the fish until they were big enough and then they harvested them and sold them to the US. They export tons and tons of fish every year. At the rice factory I learned that Vietnam exported 7 metric tons of rice last year. That is a lot of rice. I have also been eating rice non-stop. So much for not liking it. After floating on the Mekong for 2 days we ventured up to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Saigon
We didn't spend much time in Saigon because there really isn't that much to do. We did gain another person though! One of the Taiwanese girls that Chantelle taught with flew over and is doing Vietnam with us. She is flying back though before we go to China. So in Saigon we went to the war remnants museum which showed the war crimes attributed to the US. Lots of pictures of the after effects of Agent Orange and Napalm. It was really sad but also interesting. After this we went to the Reunification Palace. This place was a riot. Let me start by saying that we had split up from Chantelle at this point. She wanted to go to the art museum and Katie and I didn't. Katie and I were hanging out with two German girls who we'd been traveling with since Phnom Pehn. So we walk into this "palace" that was built in the mid sixties. It was the ugliest palace I have ever seen. It looked like an office building on the outside. Inside they just showed us ugly room after ugly room. Just when you thought it couldn't get uglier and more communist looking, it did. Even the Germans though it was hysterical. We went in the underground bunker and it had banks of black phones and maps covering the walls. The room for entertaining had corduroy upholstered rocking chairs. I just can't explain how ugly and inelegant the place was so you will have to look at my pictures.
Mui Ne
Next we caught a bus to a tiny beach resort town of Mui Ne. There was nothing notable about this except we saw HUGE jellyfish (no stings though) and said goodbye to our German friends.
Dalat and the Central Highlands
Now this is where the adventure begins. After Mui Ne we caught a bus that took us up into the mountains of Vietnam. The drive was absolutely gorgeous and the air was much cooler. The actual town of Dalat wasn't all that spectacular. When we got there we rented a jeep, a driver and a guide to take us all around the Central Highlands there. It was great! We were in this ancient army jeep just the four of us and the two Vietnamese and bumped along the roads. We saw HUGE waterfalls and loads of animals. We could just tell our driver to stop and we could take pictures. We ended up for the night at the bottom of one of the mountains next to a lake. We stayed in a longhouse and had to climb up a
log to get inside. The driver and guide slept with us. They took us around the village and we ended up in someone else's longhouse at a party drinking locally brewed wine. It turned out they were having a party because someone had died and they invited us in. It
was weird but really cool. Then we went and ate dinner with our guide and spent the evening playing UNO with them and drinking Vietnamese moonshine. It was fantastic. The next morning we hiked into another set of gorgeous waterfalls. We had to cross a large swollen river and walk on very slippery rocks. On the way back I slipped on one of the mossy logs and fell in. I was lucky enough to grab onto the log with both arms. Within 30 seconds the guide had jumped in to save me but the current was just too strong and it was all we could do to just hang on and not be swept over another waterfall. Finally after several minutes some village people came to our aid and yanked me and the
guide out of the water. I was perfectly fine except for heaps of bruises up the undersides of my arms and massive one on the inside of my leg. My camera, passport and journal were not so lucky though. All will have to be replaced. So that was the end of my hiking for the day. The other three hiked some more but I hung out with the driver and tried to dry out.
Nha Trang
The jeep dropped us off in Nha Trang which is another beach town. This one is the most popular one in all of Vietnam thus the most touristy. Some fellow travelers had told us the take a boat cruise around the islands. So the next morning this is what we did. We got on a boat with 20 or so other people. The guide was crazy guy named Funky Monkey. We spent the morning snorkeling and seeing all kinds of cool fish, squid and more jellyfish but this time not as big. At lunch time they rolled out the all-you-can-eat seafood
lunch. There were prawns and squid and tuna and all kinds of other fish. It was great! After lunch there was a floating bar in the water. The bar only served red wine and if you said "no" they poured it in your mouth. It was really fun but you wouldn't believe the
number of times you say "no" without even thinking about it. The Funky Monkey guy almost drowned me trying to pour it in my mouth. Good thing my bathing suit is already red. After the floating bar we spent a while floating in our rings and diving off the top of the boat into the water. Then everyone piled onto the boat except me, Chantelle and Funky Monkey. They attached one ring to the back of the boat and all three of us held on and the dragged us all the way to the next island. It was some of the most fun I've had. Granted I barely made it with my swim suit bottoms still on, but it was great. Then the rest of afternoon we spent playing volleyball on the beach until it was time to cruise back to our hotel.
Hoi An
We left the next morning for Hoi An. A tiny town close to Danang. It was miserable. We were on a non air con bus for 13 hours packed in like sardines. All these local ladies were staring at me and rubbing my arms and inspecting my "white" skin. I was so relieved when we finally arrived. I ate dinner and went straight to bed. The actual town was much better though. We all had clothes made. I had a gorgeous black silk skirt made and a white fitted silk top to go with it. I got several other things too and spent less than $30. And all the clothes are cut to fit only me so that means no one can borrow them! Downside, I have to keep eating rice so I don't get fatter.
Hue
This is the town that sits near the 17th parallel. War buffs can stop skimming now. We took a tour of the whole DMZ area. We went to the 17th parallel and saw the river that essentially runs along it and was the unofficial marker for the DMZ. We went to the Vinh Moc tunnels. These were tunnels 23 meters underground. They housed hundreds of civilians during the war. I couldn't so many people could live in such a small confined space for so many months on end. I had to crouch down to walk and only occasionally could I stand completely upright. After this we went to see the Ho Chi Minh trail which is a paved national highway now so it wasn't very spectacular. We also saw army bases, bombed buildings and war memorials galore. It was interesting but I couldn't understand my guide's English very well and I didn't remember everything from sophomore year history.
Hanoi
After Hue we go on an all-night bus to Hanoi. It wasn't terrible. We got in at 8 and slept until 12. Then we went to the Ho Chi Minh (HCM) mausoleum. Unfortunately, they have sent his preserved remains to Russia earlier that morning to be buffed up for years and years of tourist viewings. So we went to the HCM museum instead. This was the most bizarre place I have been yet. It was more like a modern art museum than a place informing you about HCM's life. It was just too weird.
Ha Long Bay
I LOVE Ha Long Bay! You all should pack you bags and go. It is a national park area on the northeast coast. We got a bus from Hanoi and then hopped on a boat and spent 3 days cruising around the bay. There are huge uninhabited mountains jutting out from the sea. It was so scenic. We saw inside a huge cave and climbed one of the mountains. When I say climbed I don't mean leisurely walked. We had to sludge through mud and hoist ourselves up boulders. Pull ourselves up bu tree branches and try to keep up with our guide who, in sandals, was bounding up the thing like a mountain goat. We finally reached the top after 1.5 hours of hard hard work. We were drenched in sweat and covered in mud. Chantelle could wring sweat out of her shirt and Katie could feel her heart beating in her ears. But it was fun and the view was incredible. The climb down, or should I say slide down was equally hard but we managed with nothing broken and no blood. The only downside to the whole Ha Long Bay experience was that our boat was infested with roaches. Most of you know of my problem with roaches. When they came out at night and were crawling on our dinner table I quit eating and went below deck to my room. I inspected every inch of my room to insure there were none and I
didn't move for the rest of the night. Thankfully Katie waited until several days later to inform me that while I was in the shower one crawled across my bed and that she found one in her bed!
Sapa
The afternoon we got back from Ha Long Bay we went to Sapa. This is the mountainous region in the north west of Vietnam. I slept between two Belgian boys and didn't even think to ask their names until the next morning. This was on the train of course and I was in the middle bunk of the all-night train. Their friend was in another compartment and so the 7 of us decided to trek together for the next 4 days. When we got to Sapa we stayed in the cutest hotel on the side of a mountain. That afternoon we went to the tallest mountain in town and climbed up it. It think this was one of my favorite days of the whole trip so far. The mountain also doubled as a botanical garden and there were orchids everywhere. There was also a cultural festival going on and so we got to go to a dance. The show was about an hour long and the girls were amazing. The last dance they did was dance between moving bamboo sticks and then they asked people in the audience to try. They picked me and y'all would be so proud. I did great and I didn't fall once! I have found my calling in life, bamboo dancing. That night we ran into the guy who organized our trek for us and he invited us to a birthday party. It was the four of us girls (we lost the Belgians by this point) about 20 local boys and a bottle of vodka being passed around. They took us to Vietnamese karaoke and the only song we knew was happy birthday. An hour was about all we could take but it was really fun and it turned out all the people there were trekking guides so all the local guides we saw over the next three days remembered us. It was hilarious. The next morning we headed out for a 3 day trek. The first day was fairly uneventful. It took us quite a while to walk out of town and down the
mountain into the valley. Unfortunately Ava, the Taiwanese girl, had to leave to go back to Taiwan after the first day so she left us. But Chantelle, Katie and I still had the three Belgians who turned out to be a riot. We had so much fun with them. We spent the first night in a home stay. This was basically in the attic of someone's log house. Our guide was an amazing cook and it is a good thing we hiked 12k everyday other wise I would have gained 10lbs! We stayed up late chatting and playing cards with the Belgians and drinking rice wine. The next morning we set out after a breakfast of banana pancakes with chocolate flavored sweetened condensed milk on top. YUM! This day was brutal. Being hot and sweaty in Ha Long Bay didn't even compare to the exhaustion that was this day. We hiked about 12k. We went straight up a mountain, down the side, along the river a ways, then back up another mountain, all the way down into the valley and along the river to our home stay. By the time we got there, we collapsed from exhaustion. Katie looked like she had just jumped in a swimming pool. Chantelle smelled like a teenage boy who has yet to discover deodorant and I was in desperate need of a shower as well. We grabbed our swimsuits, shampoo and the Belgians and walked to the river and swam and bathed. It was so refreshing. We stayed until dinner and then had a repeat of the night
before: good food, cards and rice wine. The next day was an equally brutal hike. By lunch time we had had enough and 4 of us took the easier main road to the top of the mountain, while 2 of the Belgians decided to be adventurous and climb the side of the mountain the shorter, harder way. At the top a jeep was waiting for us and took us back into town where we went to our guide's house and showered and hopped a bus to the train station for another all night train. When we got back to Hanoi we waited a couple of hours for the bus to China. It only dropped us in Long San so we had to walk the rest of the way to China. So after 4 days of trekking and a hike into China today is a very welcome rest day!
So I'm in China now and will send out my adventures in more than one part so you won't have to read as much as you did this time. Hope everyone is doing well.