Travel report #18
Vietnam - Sapa, Hanoi, Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Saigon and Mekong
Wednesday April 25, 2001
(Walking from China into Vietnam, with our English friend)
Entering in Lao Cai from China, we took the first bus for Sapa, a small mountain village that should be fantastic. The ride up was very steep!
Thursday April 26, 2001
Sapa is supposed to be fantastic. But mainly due to its splendid setting in the mountainside, and with thick fog giving a maximum of 50 meters sight, we could hardly enjoy it. The local people were very nice, specially the minority tribe that wore their traditional clothes.
But, as we are short on time, we had move on and left for Hanoi. Bus and the night train.
Vietnam is not that different from China. The main difference for us back packers was the amount of others like us, making it possible to have an english menu available all the time, and always someone that spoke english around!
Friday April 27, 2001
Arrived early in Hanoi, 5am. Very warm! Took a taxi into the old town and found a nice, cheap hotel. A facinating city! Very nice with its narrow streets and French style houses.
Too many motorbikes, and all of them all too eager to use their horn. Very noisy! And crazy, nobody wears helmets and a lot drive like maniacs. We were to see to many accidents...
Nice lake inside the city, but a bit to many postcard salesmen... Went to see Water Puppet show in the evening, facinating!
Our impression Hanoi is not the best, we might start to bee a bit too critical after months of travel...
Saturday April 28, 2001
We had signed up for a 2 day tour into Halong Bay, with Queens Cafe. It started early with a 5 hour bus ride.
Got to see lots of Vietnameese rice fields, they have grave yeards speard out all over the place. Lots of 10 year old boys were out with the family bull :-)
After lunch we started on the boat ride. Halong Bay is very facinating. With almost 2000 small islands, many of them small but high. Small mountains popping up from the ocean everywhere!!
Fantastic boat ride!
We stopped at one of the islands where we got to walk through a cave. Enourmous cave, very nice.
Got to know some fellow travellers on the tour, Staffan from Sweeden and Karin from France, and also to "locals" from Hanoi, teachers at the international school there,
a French and an American woman.
Arrived in Cat Ba city on Cat Ba island where we, eventually, got a hotel room. Had a nice drink with our new friends in the evening. Learned a lot about Vietnam from the "local" women.
Sunday April 29, 2001
Another nice breakfast. Vietnam is very good at making french bread, a relief after not having proper bread in all of China.
Took the boat back to where we started, again a fantastic boat ride in between the small islands. Arrived back in Hanoi late in the afternoon.
More children working here in Vietnam, hardly found that in China. Here, many children sell postcards, work as shoe polishers etc. More similar to Bolivia and Peru.
Monday April 30, 2001
Had planned to visit the Ho Chi Minh tomb, but we could not get out of bed in time... Got to see it from the outside :-)
This day, April 30, is a national holliday to celebrate "liberty", but we did not see any celebrations...
Another night train, heading for Hue!
Tuesday May 1, 2001
Very nice train, we slept well, but they were a bit too "nice" and played loud and terrible music from 5am!
Hue used to be the capital of Vietnam. As in Beijing, they also have a Forbidden City. Not as splenderous as in Beijing, and also not that much to see as it has been wrecked by war several times.
But absolutely worth visiting.
We rode bikes around the city, very relaxed place.
Got to know a restaurant lady named Thu, she is a very special woman!
We ordered very good pancakes and she could show us thousands of recomendations from fellow Norwegians that had used her moto-guide service. We did not dare to say no :-)
Wednesday May 2, 2001
Off we went on Thu wheels, four tourists, two danish girls with two of Thu's brothers as drivers and guides, and the two of us on a third moto.
Got to see lots of places we would not dream of visiting. Narrow paths out in the country side, eventually reaching a nice Japaneese covered bridge,
later a pagoda, some Buddha temples and statues and the big Tu Duc's tomb. Got to see a lot of interesting places and sights, and had a great time crusing around on a moto!!
Thursday May 3, 2001
On the road again. Bus to Hoi An. Crazy driving, using the horn all the time to try to wave off all the moto drivers. Unbeliveable!
The bus was old, and we had a couple stops in the middle of nowhere. At one of them we waited outside the bus and a 10 year old boy came over, smiling,
then taking his sandals off and counting his toes. He had 12!! 6 toes, all looked perfect and fine, on each foot.
We later learned that this probably comes from the Agent Orange poison that the US forces used to try get the Communists out of the jungle...
The bus had a copule of planned stops at tourist sights, but not much worth seeing... We arrived in Hoi An early in the afternoon.
Hoi An is a very nice, small city.
The atmosphere reminds a bit about Lijiang, very layed back with a nice old town.
Friday May 4, 2001
Rented a moto-bike again, this time all on our own. Headed for My Son, an old temple ruin out in the jungle.
It took us almost 2 hours to get there, and with the heat and sun here, we got some sun burned necks and arms...
My Son is a very facinating ruin. Reminded about Mexico and South America where we got to see similar ruins. Here big temples build by bricks and full of decorations all over.
Very nice!!
Parts of the ride was along the main Vietnam high way from Hanoi to Saigon. Trafic was crazy, we had no helmets, but we made it :-)
Saturday May 5, 2001
Vietnam is very nice, but we were running out of time. Again we had to move on, got on an early bus heading for Nha Trang.
The roads in Vietnam are of poor condition, mostly paved ok, but no help when it is full of holes... The further south we got, the better was the roads though.
We did not stay for long in Tha Trang, only for a quick meal before we contiuned on the night bus for Saigon.
Sunday May 6, 2001
We arrived in Saigon early in the morning after almost 24 hours in buses on poor, but gradually improving roads. The last part was actually quite good.
Saigon not that different from Hanoi, only a bit warmer and we felt without the charm of Hanoi but just as noisy. Meaning we did not at all get a good impression of this place...
Visited the Reunification Palace, where the South Vietnam President lived before the North took the whole contry. A free guide gave us a lot of funny propaganda information...
Later we went to the War remmenant museum, a terrifying place. We got a very one sided story, and it was not very nice.
They had lots of photoes showing all the terrible acts commited by the US forces. Specially the use of the Agent Orange poison that still haunts this country.
The 12 toes boy we met was well off compared to others they had photoes of.
Monday May 7, 2001
Had to wait a day in order to get our visa to Cambodia. A relaxing day, walking around the streets of Saigon. A lot of poverty can be seen along the streets.
Tuesday-Wednesday May 8-9, 2001
Early start as we had signed up for a 3 day tour of the Mekong delta that would end in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A very nice tour. Partly bus, but mostly in boats.
We got to see several floating markets, rice fields, rice mountains, rice boats, rice factories, ...
(A lot of local people were swimming and washing in the river)
The Mekong delta is the main production area for rice to Vietnam.
We learned a lot (the only place in the world they sell and use natural rice is in europe!) and got to see Vietnam from the inside.
We had a bike ride and a ride in a small rowing boat. We got to see fantastic sun sets and the moon as nice as it came up an hour later.
And some of the most stunning thunderstorms! Not far away, but far enough that we were dry, we could see a huge cloud that were like an enoumous light bulb.
It flashed for hours!
We also visited a Muslim community and got to see the level of the year 2000 flood they had that was terrible.
(The teacher at the muslim school was a shight himself, fairly laid back :-)
Everywhere along the river small children were waving and smiling at us. We waved back and felt like kings :-)
Thursday May 10, 2001
After more tours in the morning we headed for the Cambodia border about 10am. Only a small part of the group were going this way, the rest returned to Saigon.
A long, but nice boat ride brought us to the border where we started the longest border crossing excercise so far...