Vietnam - Tailors, Sleeping buses, and Junks

After leaving Da Lat Jodie and I took another bus through the mountains to a town on the coast called Nha Trang. The bus ride was a bit scary because we were traveling on some of the narrowest, windiest roads I have ever seen. Luckily I didn't lose my lunch even though at times I thought I might. The scenery was spectacular as we descended through the rugged mountains down to the lowlands filled with unbelievably green rice fields. We have discovered that when we ask how long it will take to get somewhere by bus, we need to add on about 30% to get the actual arrival time. When we arrived in Nha Trang it had started to rain so we let one of the 10 hotel touts waiting outside the bus take us to a nearby hotel. This seems how many of the hotels off of the main drag find their guests. It worked out well for us because we didn't have to wander around aimlessly looking for a place, and we got a good price up front. Nha Trang was a pleasant town, but its main attraction was the beach which wasn't very enjoyable with the rain. Instead we spent the day hanging out in cafes, reading and eating. We found a good Indian food place that we really enjoyed. Even though the food in Vietnam has been very tasty, we have found that you can only have so much pho (noodle soup) so we like to mix it up a bit. The next day we woke up and found the rain had not let up so we decided to get on to our next destination and schedule our night bus to Hoi An.

There are two different types of tourist buses in Vietnam. The standard type bus with regular seats and the ever so enjoyable sleeping bus.

The sleeping buses consist of two levels of seats one on top of the other. When sitting in the seats your legs are straight out and under the back of the person sitting in front of you. The seats recline pretty far, but not all the way flat because of the feet of the person behind you. The very worst of the seats are in the back of the bus, where there are 5 seats side by side so you are laying very close to a possible stranger. Since we got our tickets kind of late, we ended up with the seats in the back. Luckily one of us had an outside seat (Jodie graciously insisted that I take it, so I didn't have to snuggle up with any strangers). On the other side of Jodie an unlucky girl traveling alone got sandwiched between two couples. I am thankful that there were only two guys in the back, I can't imagine how cramped it would have been with five Eli's back there. Thanks to some Dramamine, Tylenol pm, and our trusty earplugs we managed to get some sleep in between the spine jarring pot holes. We awoke dazed and sleepy eyed in quiet Hoi An. It proved to be one of our favorite places so far. The town has a very old feel to it, narrow streets lined by old buildings with faded yellow paint contrasted by dark shuttered windows.

Due to the smaller population, there were also far fewer motorbikes than we were used to. A quaint river runs through the center of town with a very picturesque pedestrian bridge crossing its still waters.

Hoi An is famously home to hundreds of high quality, inexpensive tailor shops where one can get any article of clothing custom made to your liking. Every other business has jackets, suits, dresses and pants displayed in the store front behind which hundreds of bolts of every color and style of material you can think of. Originally we were only planning on maybe each getting a couple of articles, but one thing led to another and we ended up getting jackets, some dresses for Jodie, a few shirts for me and some nice pants. After taking our measurements in the morning, our clothes were available that evening, and for CHEAP! We had a ball shopping, and I don't even like shopping.

The food was also delicious with Hoi An having some unique local fare, like cao lau which are doughy flat noodles, and a rice and shrimp dumpling called white rose. In between eating and shopping we managed to squeeze in some sight seeing by renting a motorbike (finally!) and checking out the local beach. It was very nice and for the most part empty, although as we travel further and further from the equator we are definitely noticing the water temperature dropping. We also rented some bikes to try and find a local temple that Jodie's Dad had recommended to us, but after about half an hour we found ourselves lost on a path in the middle of a bunch of rice fields as the sun was starting to set.

It was beautiful. We took in the picturesque Vietnamese scenery of the women in the conical hats working the rice fields for a few minutes before deciding to head back before dark. I was glad to get lost.

After three days in Hoi An, we decided to move on even though we loved the city so much. Our next destination was Danang, a larger city about 2 hours up the coast from Hoi An. We mainly wanted to stop to see the famous "China Beach" where all of the US soldiers headed to relax during the war. I had never seen a beach so close to a large city so deserted. The beach stretched for miles and we maybe saw half a dozen other white people (and not many more locals) in our four hours there. It was great. Some of the locals guys that were there really liked Jodie. They blew kisses, whistled, and asked her to take a picture with them. She was flattered but a bit embarrassed by the attention. Secretly I wanted to punch their faces in, just kidding. We found a local beachside cafe where we drank a bucket of Saigon Beer, munched on peanuts and watched the waves crash on the beach. We also sampled some fresh mussels and crab grilled right on the beach, it was delicious! One other order of business we needed to take care of was the extra stuff we had been accumulating along our way. With our newly added clothes, our backpacks were over stuffed and we had to ditch some weight so we bucked up and shipped some stuff home. After about 30 minutes at the post office (we had to inventory everything in the box) we paid our $50 to ship the 22 pounds home via sea mail. We thought it would cost more so we were happy to pay only $50. We thought about the airmail option, but it was three times as much, and we weren't in a big hurry to get the box home. And good thing too, because sea mail takes THREE MONTHS to ship. I was pretty sure I could swim across the pacific and beat the package home. After saying a quick prayer for a safe journey for our box to get home, we wondered if we would ever see our package again. I guess we will have to wait and see. We didn't stay in Danang very long as we wanted to spend some more time in our next destination in the old imperial capital of Hue.

Hue was old Vietnam in all its glory. A large walled citadel in the center of the city looked like a fortress from the middle ages.

Inside the citadel was another walled complex surrounded by a moat where the emperors ruled during the 19th century. One morning we explored the countless old Chinese style buildings and temples that filled the square mile complex. It was easy for us to imagine what it was like living there two hundred years ago. The next day we joined a tour of the sites around Hue, which included a 500 year old pagoda, an incense making village and two impressive emperor's tombs. The tombs were amazing and very large, each complex covering dozens of acres. They both had beautiful lakes and pagodas surrounding the tombs, which made for a very picturesque and peaceful atmosphere. I wish we could have spent more time soaking up the tranquility but the tour was quite rushed. We ended the tour with a quick boat ride down the Perfume River aboard a dragon boat which was kind of like an Asian covered pontoon boat. After this busy day of sightseeing we rushed to make our overnight sleeping bus on time which thankfully we did. This bus ride was 14 more hours of short Tylenol pm induced naps interrupted by lots of bone jarring bumps and incessant honking. Jodie joked to me that she thought she had a concussion from a few of the bumps. I'm not sure if I would call it sleep, but we got to our next destination safely so it could have been worse.

We arrived to sharp braking and the constant orchestra of horns which could only mean Hanoi. Although roughly the same size, Hanoi had a different feel from Saigon. It felt older (1000 years old in 2010 to be exact), but equally as busy. Saigon seemed to have very wide streets with rivers of motorbikes to dodge, where Hanoi had lively narrow streets lined by old buildings and crammed with cyclos, food stalls and motorbikes. We stayed in the old district, not too far from a very scenic lake lined by benches and a walking path. We had been given a contact to look up, Thuy Van, through Jodie's Dad. She was one of his students that had come to Arizona from Hanoi as an exchange student a few years back. Thuy Van married a guy from Sierra Vista, named Ramon. When they heard that we were in town, they immediately invited us out to show us around. On Friday, Thuy Van was busy getting ready for the upcoming Tet Holiday, so Ramon took us to a restaurant that served Mexican food, and it was actually quite tasty. We realized how much we had missed guacamole, cheese and beans. Stuffed on enchiladas, we then went to a few of bars which were very entertaining. One of them was called 17 Cowboys, a western themed bar. We pulled up to a pack of greeters, all wearing obnoxious red cowboy hats and vests. Inside the swinging saloon doors, there was all sorts of western garb decorating the walls. It was pretty funny seeing this in south east Asia and we had a good time listening to the live band singing 90's cover songs. It was really interesting getting Ramon's take on Vietnamese culture and how it differs from our own. Since he spoke the language he had an insider's view. We ended the night at a hotel bar that was one of the only places with dancing. Jodie was asked to dance a couple of times and later told me she never thought she would do the Cha-Cha with a Kuwaiti man and then the Twist with a 5 foot tall Filipino man all in the same night. She was all smiles and in her element. The next day Ramon and Thuy Van treated us to a delicious lunch in a very nice Vietnamese restaurant. We had duck with orange sauce, spring rolls, wantons filled with seafood, beef with lemon grass among other dishes. Afterward Thuy Van took Jodie to get a traditional Vietnamese dress made at a local taylor which was delivered to our hotel later that night. That afternoon we made a quick stop at a museum, then after dinner we cruised the night market. At 8 pm we went to the water puppet show that is a famous Hanoi attraction. It was really cool, there was a large pool in which puppets were choreographed to live music. The puppeteers stood in the water behind a bamboo screen so we could only see the puppets. We had been craving some karaoke ever since leaving Si's place in Hawaii and Ramon and Thuy Van said they would take us out.

Thuy Van brought some of her friends that she had grown up with which made it even more exciting. We alternated between Western and Vietnamese songs while we had some beer and ate some spicy beef jerky with lime sauce. It was a lot of fun and we were very glad to have some new friends who were such wonderful hosts.

The next morning we left for Halong Bay to see it's spectacular scenery. We decided to take an overnight tour (courtesy of Frank and Sue) on a boat called a Junk, which contrary to the name was quite nice.

The ships are beautiful old miniature ark looking vessels that have sleeping cabins, a dining floor and a deck on the top. We had 12 other shipmates that were a fine sample of Western travellers. Four Danes, three French, two Germans, two Brits, and a Canadian made up our motley crew. We had a great time making new friends and sharing travel stories.

Best of all though was the amazing scenery. Shortly after our boat departed we found ourselves in a labyrinth of hundreds of rock islands, towering above us all around. It reminded me of Ton Sai in Thailand, but even more spectacular. It was a very surreal mystical experience, and definitely one of the more beautiful places we had seen. We spent a total of about 24 hours around Halong Bay, cruising through the narrow passage ways between the rock outcroppings, and we loved every minute of it.

We returned to Hanoi to spend one more night before we depart for Luang Prabang in Laos. With our last few hours in Hanoi we made our way to Hao Lo Prison aka the Hanoi Hilton. It was very interesting seeing how the prison was built by the French to house Vietnamese prisoners and later used by North Vietnamese to house American POWs, most famously John McCain. After weighing our options for getting to Laos, we decided on taking a plane. The other option was a 30 hour bus ride through the mountain passes on the border of Vietnam and Laos. As adventurous as this sounds, we read some stories on the Internet from other travellers who made this journey, which more than one of them dubbed the "death bus". A one hour flight seemed a better option. Vietnam has been wonderful and we are glad we got to spend a little more time in this beautiful country. Here is a few parting thoughts about Vietnam:

- Jodie and I are GIANTS here, the average Vietnamese man is 5' 3".

- Women do 95% of the manual labor, from working the rice fields to hauling goods on carts. The men like to sit around, smoke and drink tea.

- The coffee is fantastic, even the "Weasel Coffee" that gets its flavor from passing through the weasel's digestive system.

- Most words are under five letters, but depending on the pronunciation the same word can have three or four different meanings.

- People here are always smiling, even if they are frustrated.

- While dog meat is a local delicacy we opted not to try it for fear of Marley smelling it on our breath when we get home.