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Vietnam - giant buddhas, emerald green landscapes, cheap beer and the best coffee
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Wills: The first couple of days were very chaotic and very different to Oz and NZ but we soon got used to it. Its beautiful and my favourite country so far. So many massive buddha statues, everyone is very friendly, so many pagodas and cheap beer.
Hanoi (North)
Like we said in the last blog, Hanoi hits you like a slap in the face. The old quarter buzzes and hums to it's own melody of zooming motos, locals buying and selling goods, men's bia hoi gatherings in the street corner restaurants and the odd ring of a bicycle bell as it attempts dodging the other road traffic (including pedestrians!). We stayed a whole week in Hanoi. Mainly because we needed that time to settle into such a new place and to get ready to head on our way south. We also decided to change our pace in South East Asia and slow down a bit. We'd seen so much zooming around South America and New Zealand, we decided to slow down from a fast run to a slow stroll and not try to pack too much in but absorb places a bit more.
We fitted a lot into our week in Hanoi but all at a nice slow pace. We went to a water puppet show which was so different to anything I've seen before. The pupeteers stand in water,behind a bamboo screen and hold the wooden puppets in front of the screen to act out scenes, all accompanied by traditional music. This tradition started out in the rice fields as entertainment amongst the field workers. A lot of the scenes depict rural scenarios such as water buffalo out in the fields with a farmer. There was also fire involved with the puppets jumping through a ring of fire and the wooden puppet of a devil type creature spurting fire from his horns!
In Hanoi we also took part in a rural tour run by Bloom Microventures where our tour fees go towards a microloan for a lady living just outside of Hanoi. On the tour we met the lady who told us she's going to use the money to buy and raise chickens. The interest she pays back is minimal and the capital for the loans is all raised through tourists. It's a new venture started by some students from the London School of Economics and they are trying to spread this type of program all over the world. I think they said that 3bn pounds is spent by tourists in developing countries, so if even a third of this could be used to finance loans of this sort, tourism could really work to alleviate poverty. It was really interesting. It also meant we spent a day in a village where no other tourists really go, we cycled around the village, did a short trek, talked to some of the villagers who have used these kind of loans and stopped for a sugarcane juice on the way back where Wills volunteered to take charge of the sugarcane press, to the amusement of the Vietnamese people after he got tired after 10minutes! I think this might have been the point where Wills said he doesn't like to visit ethnic minorities and won't do it again!!!! He feels like it's an intrusion to go into people's homes on a kind of tour, taking photos etc, which I do agree with but I thought this tour wasn't that intrusive, although I really felt for the lady having 10 Western guests march into her house!
We went on a day trip to Halong Bay where limestone peaks tower out of the water. Theres not much else to say and we thought it was a bit overhyped. Maybe it's because we've had enough of boat rides by now but although the scenery was beautiful the amount of tourist boats and crowds of tourists everywhere meant it wasn't anything special to us.
We also explored Hanoi by night which was beautiful. There's a huge lake in the centre of Hanoi and at night mutlicoloured lanterns hang in the trees around the lake, reflecting like a glass image on the surface. The famous red bridge is lit with red lights all along it's length so in the reflection of the lake it appears like a vibrant red oval. You get swept into the night markets in the narrow streets of old quarter which are lined with stalls, lit up yellow, selling everything you could ever imagine. From the rooftop terrace of a 6 floor building where we ate one meal, we could see the volume of traffic speeding around the streets, the lights blurring as they weaved in and out of eachother.
So with all that, by the time we left, Hanoi was less of a slap in the face and more of a firm hug :-).
Ninh Binh (North)
Our next stop south was the rural town of Ninh Binh, 2 hours south of Hanoi and a bit of a hidden gem. It was one of our favourite places from the whole trip. We stayed at Kim Lien's guesthouse where we met Lien the owner, one of the most welcoming, friendliest owners ever with the best (and biggest portions) of food in the whole of Vietnam. There was so much to see and do over the 3 days we were there that sometimes it was hard to believe that it was real and that the day had actually happened and it wasn't just a dream. We cycled ourselves straight into the countryside from the guesthouse where people in the village would wave as we rode past and we actually managed to get to some beautiful sites by bike (once we'd worked out the map which resembled a treasure map favouring pictures rather than accuracy!). We climbed 700steps to get to the top of a hillside where you could see out for miles and miles across the rollling green limestone hills, rice paddies, snaking lakes and Ninh Binh town.
We visited the 'alternative' Halong Bay which beat it's more famous neighbour hands down for us, where limestone peaks jut out of the water but instead of sailing around the peaks, a small wooden boat takes you UNDERNEATH the mountains. We thought we were coming to a dead end when we were told to lie down in the row boat and the boat was steered under the hillside, through caves where, from lying down, you could put your hand up and touch the roof of the cave until it would open up into huge cathedral space and then narrow back down again. It was amazing - a whole underground world of waterways under these huge limestone peaks. Beat that Halong Bay!
But the thing that blew me away was a construction site we visited. It's a huge pagoda (place of worship) that's being built by a millionaire and work started around 4 years ago. It covers the same amount of ground as a site such as Machu Picchu, the size of a village - it's that huge - and at any one time there are likely to be around 400 craftsmen working on the site. The scale of it was just so huge that thinking what the finished effect will be, is just mindblowing. You walk through long corridors carved into the hillside where hundreds of marble statues line the corridors as far as the eye can see and small golden buddhas are held in glass encasements built into the walls so that the wooden walls are barely visible, there are so many. You come to the bell tower where the bell, the size of a small house is enclosed within a bell tower with the gorgeous tiled roof which juts out in the typical Asian style. You walk a bit further, past a lake the size of an olympic swimming pool and come to a huge building which you think must be the main place of worship. All the time, a calm lilting song is being played over loud speakers which creates the kind of peaceful atmosphere you'd expect in a place of worship. You enter the main building after slipping off your shoes and it's very dark inside. There are 3 people sweeping the floors. You turn the corner and out of the darkness looms a ....metre giant golden buddha, weighing 200tons, flanked either side by two other giant golden statues which fill the entire space of this huge central room. Jaw dropping. Literally I had to keep going back to believe my eyes. In the distance of all of this is the pagoda that they're building which stretches into the sky, tower upon tower, and can be seen for miles around. I think when this place is finished, Ninh Binh might be a bit more touristy than it was for us. We felt very smug getting into something like this for free and seeing it as a rough diamond.
Hue/Hoi An (by Wills) (Central Vietnam)
oh my god, from ninh binh we booked a sleeper bus to hue and basically it involves a passenger getting into a bed straight away and strangers sleeping either side of you with only the slightest of aisles separating you. so we had to go to sleep at 7pm when all the lights were turned off. i didnt go to the toilet but jones did and she said it was full to the brim, splashing about and it was horrible. it was good i didn't go, i didn't drink anything on purpose. we finally got to hue and when you get off the bus you get swarmed by taxi drivers offering to take you to your hotel. we ran into a couple we met previously, a belgian couple called wim and sylvia and we had a nice time with them eating and drinking and finding the cheapest places available. laughed all the time. on one day we cycled to some royal tombs, Tu Duc's tomb, and we got caught in a monsoon rain. we only had jones' raincoat to shelter under, under some trees and the locals were laughing at us. then the locals brought us some plastic bag anoraks for 10p so we cycled the rest of the way in them. The tomb was massive and afterwards we went for a traditional vietnamese coffee where you only get 2 teaspoons of coffee in the glass. we saw the ancient citadel within a citadel built in 1804. it was good but a lot of the things in vietnam have been rebuilt because of the war. we found a nice curry place, omar's, best curry we've had - a change from rice and noodles.
Hoi An (Central Vietnam)
By the time we got on the bus to hoi an, the rain was hammering down and when we arrived in Hoi An we were officially in a flood stricken area. Attempting to get into Hoi An town from our guesthouse involved wading through water through the streets that was knee height in some areas. In the ancient cobbled streets of Hoi An, the small, ancient houses were flooded in some places by waters of 2metres and the river had burst it's banks. Our friends could only get across the lobby of their hotel by boat! But the people of Hoi An seem used to it and over the years have faced floods on this scale and beyond. In one ancient house we visited there were marks on the wall indicating the various heights of the flood waters over the years. Floods can be serious in Vietnam, especially the central and southern areas and this year the situation was dire in the Mekong Region where hundreds died as a result of the floods. For us, in Hoi An, we were able to watch over 3 days as the ancient city kind of emerged from the water, like the lost city of Atlantis. Hoi An is a beautiful town steeped in history and we enjoyed exploring the cobbled narrow streets where yellow whitewashed houses merge together, tailors line the streets and lanterns light the paths by night. We also met up with our friends again for another night of fun and laughter.
Beaches
We managed to hit two beaches on our travels south - Nha Trang and Mui Ne. Nha Trang is more of a big tourist resort where we enjoyed happy hours and being offered everything possible while we lounged on the beach, from sellers offering fruit, massages and beer. At Mui Ne, where whites sand beaches stretch along a long drawn out coast dotted with palm trees, we stayed right on the beach in a quiet part of town and chilled out.
Dalat (Central Vietnam in the mountains)
The hill station of Dalat is Vietnam's main producer of vegetables, flowers and even the odd bottle of wine! Here, we took to the road on motorbikes (with 'EasyRider' drivers) across hills and mountains and visited lots of farms, a coffee plantation, silk worm factory, waterfalls and flower gardens. Under communism the farms were collectivised so that each worker had to produce the same quotas as everyone else and everyone would take home the same amount of pay no matter how much was produced. This was disastrous for Vietnam and in a country rich with rice paddies, it could no longer produce enough rice to feed it's own people. Our guide, Thau, told us that it was also disastrous on an individual scale because he said everyone felt 'lazy' and didn't have the motivation to work. Once this policy was overturned in the eighties I think, farming became a booming business again and now Vietnam produces not only enough rice for the whole country but is one of the major exporters of rice to the entire world. In Dalat, amongst the flower farms and plantations, huge houses could be seen which look exactly like dollhouses but on a large scale - French colonial style with sweeping verandas, huge pillars and staircases in a very grand style. We asked who owned these houses and Thau told us that most of them are owned by the farmers. You can make a lot of money in Dalat by farming. We saw how the most expensive coffee in the world is made by feeding the coffee beans to weasels and when the weasels poo it out, it's used as the speciality coffee! Yum. We didn't try that but the coffee we did have in Vietnam was the best I've ever had. So smooth, strong and chocolatey, sometimes nutty, and made with condensed milk which gives it a really rich taste. I was addicted and I'm still going cold turkey now :-(.
Saigon (Southern Vietnam)
So after 3 and a half weeks of our travels southwards we finally hit Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it's officially known. Another hectic breakneck speed city! We visited the war museum here which really made it hit home how much the American War (as they call it here) has effected and continues to effect the country and its people. Awful pictures of brutality line the walls and I felt a bit sick coming out into the fresh air afterwards.
I wish I could write more (because I really could!) and really explain how beautiful this country is but sometimes the nature of beauty is more than the things you do and see and much more difficult to put into words. It's in the shy smiles of the people on the streets, the feeling of discovering a place that takes your breath away, the way the flavours of your first mouthful of food or coffee hits your pallette and seeps it's way down your throat, like nothing you've ever tasted before. After seeing so much and coming so far (we're over halfway through our trip now!) we felt like we needed something special to take our breaths away and that's what Vietnam was for us.
- comments
Dad Lovely photos and descriptions again,i thought Will in the water was brilliant,also both of you in your hats and on bikes. See you soon Dad. x