Day 97-99: Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is surprisingly not very different from other metropolises around the world. The main difference is the labyrinth of alleyways that exist within the square block in which we are staying. When we booked the hotel, we booked a hotel close to where the bus drops us off. Trip Advisor indicated that the hotel could be hard to find. The instructions said: find the small blue sign that says 219, turn into the alley and then go straight, straight, right, and left. I’m so glad we found it! It is if an entire secret world exists just in the alleyways here. People’s homes, hotels, restaurants, shops, and hairdressers all lay next to narrow stone lanes filled with zipping scooters. It’s pretty amazing. I’m surprised James Bond or Jason Bourne haven’t had some sort of chase scene in these alleys.

The rest of the city is just alright. It’s much greener and has a much more relaxed vibe than Hanoi. We spend most of the day going to the Indian embassy so that Pallavi could get an Indian visa. That gave us a chance to walk right by the Reunification Palace, complete with the tank that ended the Vietnam conflict proudly parked in the lawn, and to go to the War Remnants Museum. The War Remnants Museum contains photos, artifacts, and exhibits focused on the American-Vietnam conflict. I particularly wanted to see this museum especially because I had heard that it is pretty graphic and relatively anti-American in sentiment.

The museum was incredibly powerful. Again, everything I learned about the Vietnam conflict, I learned from pop culture, primarily Forest Gump. Propaganda or not, the facts remain that we still dropped TONS of Agent Orange and committed massacres against the Vietnamese people. How horrible.  I’m really glad that we went and would highly recommend it to people.

The rest of the day we just took it easy, checked off our eating and shopping list from Vietnam, and just planned for the rest of our trip! We have to ‘kill’ a week before Pallavi’s visa comes back and then high-tail it over to Cambodia for a fast finish to our Southeast Asian adventure. 

Day 96: Transit to Ho Chi Minh

Technically, this journey started on Day 95. We need to get to Ho Chi Minh as our next stop. How far away is the it? Only a 24 hour bus ride! 24 hours. On a bus. Why oh why oh why!!!!! Nobody should have to be on a bus that long. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad; however, I can understand now why people say the roads in Vietnam are horrible.

As both of us attempted to sleep in our otherwise decently comfortable bus, the bus only drove on bad broken roads with tons of traffic. Slam brake, insert horn, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, bad gear shift, repeat. No continuous unbroken sleep for these two passengers. Apparently the roads from Hanoi in the north are good as are the roads from Ho Chi Minh in the south. The roads in the middle are crap!

We had to change buses after 12 hours, so we had a chance to get out and stretch our legs. Then frankly, we slept, listened to podcasts, or read for the rest of the journey. Thankfully our hotel in Ho Chi Minh was only a 3 minute walk away. With all of that sleep and travelling, it was only logical that we just wanted to keep sleeping!

Tomorrow, early morning for another embassy trip,

Day 94-95: Hoi An

Hoi An is such a lovely little artsy town just south of Hue. These long bus journeys really put things in perspective when you get excited about the 'short' the five hour bu ride. Hoi An is meant to be the seat of the Indian-influenced Chan empire. What did I see? Chinese influenced Vietnam everywhere! Ancient Chinese tea houses. Ancient Chinese Chinese trade houses. Ancient Japanese bridge (just to make sure the Japanese could connect with the Chinese in town). And tons and tons and tons of silk Chinese lanterns everywhere.

We enjoyed our lovely guesthouse, chilled inside during the daytime, and caught up on some movies, only venturing out on our bicycles towards the town at night. We didn't miss out on anything. Night is when the city picks up! It's absolutely lovely. The entire town is lit up by said Chinese lanterns everywhere. The whole town is filled with handmade boutiques. Beautiful embroidered paintings. Silk lanterns. Leather work. You name it, they have it.

We discovered later that you can have a custom made pair of leather ankle boots made for you for just $62 AUD. That is ridiculous! If only we had more time here (we need to get to get Ho Chi Minh City so we can get some visas processed), we definitely would have had boots made for ourselves!

As we rambled down the streets, we came to the river, where people were selling paper Chinese lanterns with a lit candle that you could lay in the water. Perfect place to just sit and people watch.

We then found what Anthony Bourdain claims to be the best bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwich) in Vietnam. Normally, I don't got for these celebrity chef picks, but we do love Vietnamese sandwiches, there wasn't a long line, and it didn't cost us an arm and a let. Were they the best in Vietnam? I don't think so, but I'm not an expert. Were they pretty darn good? You know it! We even took some for our bus ride to Ho Chi Minh. Have bahn mi, will travel.

We sadly didn't get to the beach that is just 2 kms away; we'll just have to make up for it in south Vietnam.

Day 91-93: Hue

I don't know what kind of travelers are in Vietnam, but after some of the transportation that Pallavi and I have taken, I'd say they are transportation pansies! We have had it with travelling through mountains. If we even hear 'mountain road,' we are looking for an alternative. That's why we didn't go and see the hill tribes in Vietnam. No more mountain roads! Well, that and overnight buses. I don't know why we are doing it to ourselves. Neither of us ever sleeps very well. We arrive at odd times in the morning. We end up spending the whole next day sleeping at wherever we are. Oh, and we are super crabby. You can only imagine the pleasantries or cold shouldered silence that occur after repetitive crabby, can't find the accommodation, why is it so far of a walk, where the hell is my coffee, god that bus was awful experiences. 

You can then understand our hesitation when, after lots of research and deciding to book our 15 hour bus to Hue, we saw all of the reviews about transportation by road, and specifically, transportation by the bus we had booked. If they were newspaper headlines, they'd read like this: "Danger ahead!" "Bus overcrowds and overbooks." "Don't say I didn't tell you so." "Never travel by road in Vietnam." And so on. 

I'd like to say that these people have no idea what they are talking about! We slept on the bus. Slept! For more than an hour. The bus had two drivers, so they weren't driving all night. The road was flat as a pancake and with minimum curves or traffic. The bus was a bit overcrowded, but nothing like we've seen. These people are backpacking pansies! 

We arrived in Hue (pronounced ha-weigh), dare I say, bright eyed and bushy tailed! We made it to our accommodation, run by this incredibly lovely limited-English speaking Vietnamese woman. We had made it south of the DMZ and we could tell! Finally, a friendly Vietnam. Everybody here was so incredibly helpful. Bicycle rickshaw drivers all helped us find our accommodation. They smile even when you say 'no thank you.' It almost makes you want to just buy from them anyway! 

Hue is a lovely town. It is a historic city with a 200 year old fortress square in the middle of it. 200 years ago, the Nguyen emperors decided they were going to make this their seat of power and build a kick ass fort. So they did. They build moat after moat after moat. Lake after lake after man-made lake. Then they build a palace with lots of layers and, to make it even better, called it 'The Forbidden Purple City.' If I was going to declare myself empress of Sarahtavia, I think I shall copy their style. I obviously have to also have a forbidden area. I guess 'No non-Empress Sarahs allowed' isn't cool enough. Only I've gotta top it off with some sort of nasty creature with a gentle soul in the moat. 

Unfortunately, in the American-Vietnam conflict, this place gotta pretty badly destroyed. Only 10 of the 60 original buildings have been restored. If the restoration is any indication, you can only imagine how amazing this place actually was. Pallavi couldn't stop taking pictures. To give you a feel for the scale, the place is 2 square kilometers big. It looks like nothing we've ever seen. 

To top it off, the people then use the palace grounds as their own personal park. Kites and roller blade rentals, hacky-sack players, and badminton and cricket matches replace tourists and photographers. Every water body has some sort of fisherman on it. Then you pass over the Perfume River, with its gorgeous mountain backdrop, and you just want to sit and lose yourself in the view for just a moment. 

This city is more our speed. We found the local coffee place where they serve the coffee to you in a cup over a tealight so you can heat it to your preference. We tried all sorts of new and interesting versions of rice noodles (did you know you could fry them like a pancake or turn them into a dumpling)? Well, you can! It was an absolutely lovely, easy, captivating, and amazing city. 

Day 89-90: Halong Bay

Halong Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site in Vietnam's northeast. It includes 1600 islands and islets, making it a sea maze of limestone pillars (called Karst). Thailand also has similar karst areas, but because of monsoon and our visa timeline, we hadn't gotten a chance to see them. Halong Bay is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places to visit in Vietnam.

We priced out doing it on our own versus going with the many popular two day, one night boat tours, and decided to go ahead and just book a tour. We booked with Golden Bay Cruises. There are many tours you can take, and we had been told you get what you pay for. We paid for the higher-end budget cruise. I know we get what we pay for but I thought a higher-end budget cruise would at least pick us up in a slightly more comfortable shuttle for our 5 hour drive up to Halong Bay.

We were 22 squished foreigners on the shuttle. No sooner did we get on the shuttle bus than I heard this American on the phone, saying "No, I just left it in the lobby while we went to breakfast and when I came back, it was gone. Please find whatever shuttle picked it up and took it to Halong Bay. I will give $50 to the person that finds my bag." He continues on and on and on for at least an hour into the squished up, cramped journey. After an hour, we met our Vietnamese tour guide who apologized for picking us up late. No apology from my countryman to the bus for making us late, since it was because of his bag that we all got late! We then had to do our introductions. We were all way too tired at 9:30 a.m. and too uncomfortable to really be that social and outgoing.

Finally, we made it to this crazy busy port filled with tourists. We board a small skip to take us towards our boat. It starts taking us to the one marked Golden Bay, until, suddenly, it turned. Wait! That's not Golden Bay. That's Halong Dragon Cruises. Yup. That's right. All of us booked with Golden Bay and got onboard Halong Dragon Cruises. Good thing it turned out alright.

We immediately segregated into our natural groups. We ended up with the slightly older Britishers & Kiwis that were the life of the party (in our heads). Then there were the college students, the Austrian game-playing loners, and the annoying Americans. The only time things went against the natural order was meal time, when all of the vegetarians had to sit segregated from the rest of us. Two Britishers from 'our group' ended up at that table (and one of them had faked being vegetarian just cause she was a bit afraid of getting sick from eating meat on the boat) and they got stuck with the annoying Americans. The annoying Americans ate nothing but fruit or something, so they told us. I'm so ashamed of my people!

The food was really good. It just kept coming and coming. Taro french fries, deep fried yummy Vietnamese chicken bites, spring rolls, tofu, fresh fish, fresh fruit, and more. Then came the keg of beer that we drank through in our attempt to keep up with the party boat. Seriously, there was a party cruise that was being sold for $100 per person. However, beer costs $0.30 here. How many beers would you have to drink to make up that cost difference? 300 is the amount we calculated. Not worth it.

We spent our keg of beer telling riddles and tongue twisters. We learned that East Londoners can't say the 'Betty Botter had some butter' tongue twister, as they can't pronounce their 't's properly.

The scenery really was beautiful. The boat slowly made it's way towards Cat Ba Island. As it carved it's path through the mist and the cloud, the karst scenery emerged like ghosts. We passed tons of small local fishing vessels and floating villages. It was absolutely beautiful.

The water was not! This area has had way too many tourists, in my opinion. There are at least 10 boats docked near Cat Ba island. That doesn't include the 6+ ferries per day, plus all of the other day trip cruises. We had a chance to get into the water and to go swimming. The water felt great. Nice and warm, but it was really mucky. We all just figured that it was just dirty water like you have in a lake. Pallavi had climbed out of the water to get her water camera, and when she came back in, she broke the news to us: there was black something all over my body when I got out of the water. That's right. Some sort of oil or dirt or whatever had covered our entire bodies. It was absolutely disgusting!

Once we finally cleaned up, disinfected our entire selves, we learned how to make spring rolls and came back in an even more crowded and cramped shuttle bus. We barely made it back to Hanoi in time for us to catch our overnight sleeper to Hue (pronounced hu-whey), but we finally made it!

I swear we must have fallen asleep as soon as the bus started moving. We are ready to be done with northern Vietnam. Next stop: Hue.

Day 88: Hanoi & Ho Chi Minh

When Ho Chi Minh died, his people did unto him as they had done to his fellow Communists Stalin and Lenin before him: they embalmed him and put his body on display in his mausoleum. It's basically modern mummification. What is there not to be fascinated by? I may be a while before I make it to Russia to see Stalin or Lenin, so I thought it'd be interesting to see Ho Chi Minh.

The catch is that his mausoleum is only open from 7:30 a.m. until 10:15 a.m. I had also read that there usually is a long line, but that it moves fast. I got up early and got ready to go, but when it came time for Pallavi to get up, she decided that it wasn't worth it just to see only Ho Chi Minh. Off I went by my lonesome. As I walked, I realized that Hanoi is a morning city. Everything seems to be alive and buzzing with interesting things in the a.m. That I was out by 8:30 a.m. meant I was a bit late. I walked past the Army Museum, past the Hanoi citadel, until I finally arrived at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. I came at it from the front, took some pictures, saw the line, and went to go and find the back of it.

I swear the line was a minimum of 1 km long. It snaked around in various forms of being covered by wood, covered by tents, and uncovered. That's alright. I had my sun umbrella for the uncovered bits. I went ahead and got in it, passed security, and stood in the throng of Vietnamese people. I figured it would take 30 minutes to an hour.

I hadn't factored in the rain.

I may have been under cover, but that mattered not! People under the covering still opened their umbrellas to prevent water from dripping in on the sides. They didn't factor in that their umbrella then dripped on the people on the inside. However, the guards managing the lines don't let people in or they don't let the line move (cause of the uncovered bits, which option it is, I'm not sure), and the line stood still. The first rain passed after 15 minutes, and, relatively dry, the line moved. Perfect. I had started to look for an escape, only to realize that once you are in this line, there isn't really any escape. The line continued moving. By this point, it's been an hour, but I'm coming around the very last turn. Of course it was time for it to rain again. Only this time, my tent covering didn't save me. Swamp in my shoes! Soaking wet pants. Good thing I put a plastic bag around my stuff and had my poor abused sun umbrella to protect me.

It's at this point I realized that the Vietnamese are line cutters. So many people with ponchos started to cut the line. After watching 50 people cut, I decided it's my turn. I haven't been waiting in this line for an hour and a half only to let these people wait for less time than me!

Finally, 30 minutes later, I made it to the mausoleum for my 90 seconds with Ho Chi Minh. Impressions? He looks just like he does on the money. Except dead and not smiling. Other than that, it's pretty amazing how they've been able to preserve his body. Every finger nail and every piece of hair is kept in perfect place. Was it worth the 90 minute wait? Maybe not. But the experience definitely was.

Went back to the hotel and used the blow dryer on my shoes. After changing hotels, we explored a bit more around the city and started to arrange our next few days. Along the way, I made Pallavi stop so I could try 'egg coffee.' That's right - it's coffee with egg in it. It was like egg nog meets coffee. It was SO good. I really think Vietnamese coffee may be my favourite coffee in the world. It's so thick. It's so creamy. It's so deceptively strong. I loved it!

All things sorted, tomorrow we head for Halong Bay in the north. 

Day 87: Hanoi Old Quarter & Hoa Lo Prison

Hanoi is a captivating city, but I found it a bit too chaotic and slightly oppressive for my taste. The older people in Hanoi behave like how my mother describes Moscovites' behavior: hardened. These are a people who, for whatever your opinion of them, have toughed it out through a lot and they don't give a s*&t. We didn't get this attitude at all from people under 35 though. People under 35 are nice and lovely. After coming from Laos, where we swear some of the nicest people on earth live, this hardened f-off attitude if you don't buy something from me attitude came as a culture shock!

The city really is quite vibrant though. Hanoi's main pulse beats in its Old Quarter. The Old Quarter is lined with 36 different streets. Each street is named Hang <insert shop type name here>. One street for silk. One street for sweets. One street for metalwork. You name it. The lanes are quite narrow and filled with scooters everywhere. I had read that it isn't pedestrian friendly and you just need to embrace the chaos. I'd embrace the chaos more if I could figure out how the hell to cross the street. I asked Pallavi what city is more chaotic: Hanoi or Old Delhi? We both agreed that Hanoi is way more chaotic, and that's saying something!

Also, unlike in other cities, it feels like the villagers don't leave the village at home when they come into the city. They walk along carrying a long bamboo pole with two large woven baskets hanging from either end. They carry this pole on one shoulder, baskets filled with various sort of produce, wearing that typical conical Vietnamese hat, and walk from restaurant to restaurant to sell their wares. Normally, you don't see villagers like this in a capital city.

The people in Hanoi also seem to really relax when they sit down at various stalls, literally on small stools on the sidewalk, to have food or a smoke. It's refreshing to watch people not rush through a meal. They also smoke their own version of a shisha meets bong meets pipe sort of thing. Apparently, it's good to smoke any time of day, at any occasion, or any meal.

We spent the day exploring the Old Quarter & decided to head towards Hoa Lo Prison. Hoa Lo Prison held John McCain and other American POWs. They called it the Hanoi Hilton. I love a good prison. I realized I've gone to quite a few. The French built this particular prison in the early 19th century, and the prison itself focuses mostly on Vietnamese communist freedom comrades and their various prison conditions, torture, and escapes up until Vietnamese Independence in the 1950s. My personal favourite prison escape story occurs when 4 women managed to dress up as visitors and leave during visiting hours. The museum had only a very small section dedicated to American POWs. It has been a while since I saw foreign propaganda (I see American propoganda all of the time!) The Vietnamese story is that the American POWs had it pretty great. The museum displays videos of the American POWs playing basketball, smoking traditional Vietnamese pipes, and playing cards. Obviously we immediately looked up the other American side of the story when we got back and read all about them blinking 'torture' in a certain sort of 'morse-like code.' Was it the most interesting prison I've ever seen? Not in terms of set-up, but definitely in terms of questionable historical interpretation.

Hanoi certainly is different. Let's see what else the city has in store for us.