We've covered a lot of ground and had a change of plans since the last post, but the last week or so has probably been the most enjoyable one so far. From Hanoi we took a public bus to Halong City, the gateway to Halong Bay. For some reason, instead of taking us to Halong City, the bus literally dropped us off on the side of the highway where two guys on motorbikes were conviently waiting to pick us up. They extorted some ungodly sum out of us to take us the rest of the way, which we couldn't really do anything about because we didn't even know which way we were supposed to walk. On arrival, the city was dead.... barely a tourist or a local to be seen. From what we could gather, most people tend to book their tours of Halong Bay while they are actually in Hanoi- they take a tour bus to Halong City, get strait on a boat, and then once off the boat already have a tour bus back back to Hanoi waiting for them. Consequently, there is very little in the city at all, and we milled about for a few hours trying to find a good deal on a tour. We started by going to a nice looking hotel and asking about tour prices. We were quoted $62 per person for a 2 day tour with 1 night sleeping on a boat in the bay. We though this was too high, so we explored the dock area and after an hour or so of intense negotiations, we managed to secure a tour through a nice fellow for the price of $69 for a 3 day 2 night tour, including 1 night on the boat and a second night on an island we had wanted to visit anyway. He also threw in a free bus ride back to Hanoi when we were done, and a free stay at his hotel that first night. So we jumped in a cab with this gentleman and he took us right back to the hotel we started at. Turns out it was the same place, go figure.
The tour was fantastic. Halong Bay was truly incredible and unlike anything we've ever seen, far exceeding our expectations. We rode through the massive bay (over 3000 islands) for hours on top of the old wooden boat, went kayaking, and had a decent nights sleep on board. The next day we were dropped off on Cat Ba Island (the biggest in the bay) and got to climb a good sized peak to a view reminiscent of Jurassic Park. It was a short, 2 kilo walk but climbed somewhere around 700 feet. It took about 30 minutes each direction, maybe a bit more. Afterward we were taken to our hotel on the other side of the island, and from there we walked for a mile or so to a beautiful beach with only a few other people on it. It was definitly the prettiest beach on the trip thus far. The next day we jumped a boat (which by the way, was near sinking the entire time) back to the coast and then hopped on a bus back to Hanoi. We decided while on the way back to skip out on the city of Sapa, which was supposed to be our next stop. To go, we would be cutting our visa expiration a bit too close for comfort. Also, the train tickets to Sapa were extremely expensive, and it would cost quite a bit more to get to Laos after that. That being said, we booked some bus tickets to Laos for this evening and we *should* be there by this time tomorrow.
Since we're leaving Vietnam, here a a few of our thoughts and observations that might be entertaining or informative.
1.) We both agree that the best way to describe Vietnam is one word is 'chaotic'.
2.) For some reason the people here love the movie and music of 'Titanic'. We have seen it on TV multiple times, and the soundtrack is played all over the country in both English and Vietnamese. The soundtrack is even blared on loudspeakers in the streets.
3.) There are signs that say 'Merry Christmas' and 'Happy New Year' all over the place. We have no idea why, but they've been in every city we've seen.
4.) Late night Vietnamese TV is hilarious. On a couple of occasions, it has consisted of two teenage kids sitting in front of a TV playing a soccer videogame against eachother. There is an announcer, and each kid even has a cheerleader that watches the screen and cheers at the appropriate time. Very entertaining stuff.
5.) We went to the 'Hanoi Hilton' where John McCain and other U.S. Pilots were held. Apparently, the U.S. pilots were treated extraordinarily well and the whole ordeal was more like a vacation than a prison. On the other hand, the Vietnamese that were imprisoned ealier in that same place (by the French) were tortured, murdered, and abused. Propaganda? Nah.
6.) KFC and Pizza Hut are MUCH better in Hanoi than they are in the U.S. 3 weeks of rice and noodles may have play a role in that.
7.) There is definitly a cultural difference between North and South Vietnam. The north is more aggressive, chaotic, and slightly less pleasant overall. We don't think this has anything to do with the war, but it's interesting nonetheless.
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Pictures from the remainder of Vietnam should be up momentarily!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Crash!! (Again)
This morning we arrived in Hanoi after a 17 hour bus ride. It turned out to be quite an interesting ride--4 hours in we hit someone on a motorbike!! Jason said they actually ran into the side of our bus and weren't paying attention, so it was nice to know it wasn't our driver's fault. I felt the bus jerk quickly to the left then heard a loud "thud" on the right side. We stopped and some of us got out to see what was up. We aren't sure how bad the man was injured, but he was taken to the hospital (on another motorbike of course!). We were told he would be okay. A crowd of locals had gathered around to see what had happened, and as soon as the man was taken away, Jason and I became the center of attention. We had about 20 kids surrounding us, pulling Jason's hair, poking us, and giggling. One guy emerged named Hai who spoke decent English and translated for us with everyone. The young girls were captivated by Jason's hair, and gave him a round of applause when he put it in a ponytail on top of his head. They all wanted to take pictures with us and shake our hands, and told us many times how beautiful I was and how handsome Jason was. Later they asked me to sing a song, so I sang "You Are my Sunshine," and they sang a couple of songs for us. They asked many times how we felt about Vietnam, and we told them how beautiful it was and how nice all of the people were. Hai responded that Vietnam was very poor, and the people were short (they kept referring to how tall Jason and I were!) He said they were very gentle and smart though, which we certainly agree with! Another couple from our bus from Portugal joined us and he was very tall, and the kids had a great time trying to jump up to his height. Between his height and Jason's hair they were easily entertained! We couldn't communicate well with everyone, but there was tons of laugher and giggling; definitely the highlight of the trip so far! We talked with them for 2 hours while they fixed the bus, and when we had to leave Hai said "I hope someday in the future we will meet again." I hope so too.
Today we are checking out a few things in Hanoi, and tomorrow we go to Halong Bay! It's probably the highlight of Vietnam and I'm very excited to go. The following day we will come back to Hanoi, then take the train north to Sapa. We'll spend a day or so there, then head for the Laos border! Hopefully we are done with vehicle accidents, we're hoping the train will be a safer way to go!
Today we are checking out a few things in Hanoi, and tomorrow we go to Halong Bay! It's probably the highlight of Vietnam and I'm very excited to go. The following day we will come back to Hanoi, then take the train north to Sapa. We'll spend a day or so there, then head for the Laos border! Hopefully we are done with vehicle accidents, we're hoping the train will be a safer way to go!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
What we did today
We did it! Today we think we sucessfully found the only mean people in Vietnam. We got some bikes from the hotel (back on two wheels, yay) and rode about 4km out to the Hoi An beach. Michelle had read in the guidebook that it was OK to park your bike on the beach, but that some people had set up little operations to try and charge you to park in certain areas. Well as we rode up we were yelled at and flagged down and told to park our bikes in a certain area because they were not allowed on the beach. After we did, the guy tried to charge us 20 times the already illigitmate amount the guidebook had stated. We said nevermind, we'd park somewhere else, and asked if there were any free areas around. The guy just told us to get our bikes out of there, and was of absolutly no help. So on the way out we passed the guy who had initially flagged us down. Hoping he would be more helpful, I asked him if he knew of any other place we could go that was free. He just kept yelling 'No!' and motioning for us to pay or leave, then he got out a big stick and kept hitting a sign that said how much it cost and smacking our bikes trying to get us out. I got out the guidebook and pointed to it saying I knew it was free somewhere... but the guy just kept yelling and getting more aggressive. Quite frankly, they were both totally full of crap... I couldn't even get either of them to look me in the eye when we talked. I tried, they just turned away when I looked at them and told us to 'go home'. pff.
Anyway, working off the assumption that the beach was probably bigger than just that little area, we rode back a short ways and then headed north (parallel to the beach) to see if there was some other way to get there. There was, and after only 1/4 mile of riding we were rewarded with free parking for our bikes, cheap beer, comfy chairs right on the water, and beaches as far as we could see in either direction - with no people. In fact, it was by far the nicest beach we've seen thus far. Since the road we took actually connected to the beach we had originaly tried to go down (behind the 'security guard') we rode up from behind the guard on the way back just to waive and smile, but he was gone. Dang.
Off to Hue tomorrow.
Anyway, working off the assumption that the beach was probably bigger than just that little area, we rode back a short ways and then headed north (parallel to the beach) to see if there was some other way to get there. There was, and after only 1/4 mile of riding we were rewarded with free parking for our bikes, cheap beer, comfy chairs right on the water, and beaches as far as we could see in either direction - with no people. In fact, it was by far the nicest beach we've seen thus far. Since the road we took actually connected to the beach we had originaly tried to go down (behind the 'security guard') we rode up from behind the guard on the way back just to waive and smile, but he was gone. Dang.
Off to Hue tomorrow.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The last week
It's been awhile since we last updated, but it's been a great week! After the last post we spent 4 great days in Dalat. After wrapping up there (we were both sad to leave) we took a 6 hour bus to Nha Trang. We only stayed 2 nights there, party because we couldn't get in the ocean, but mainly because we only have 30 days on our Visa and if we don’t pick up the pace we’ll be cutting it a tad to close for comfort. So, at 7 pm last night, we got on an overnight bus to Hoi An.
An overnight sleeper bus is a thing to behold. They are behemoths on wheels... easily towering over every other vehicle on the road. They fit so many people on that it's unreal… the beds are 2 high (bunks) and are barely wide/long enough for your average Vietnamese person, much less an American (even I was slightly squished). Your feet slip into a small narrowing cubby that slides underneath the person in front of you. This is probably hard to imagine, and I never got a good picture, but you are essentially trapped up to your knees, so extricating yourself from your ‘seat’ is a process of wiggling and fidgeting. The bus sleeps three across, so you are also right next to other people. Two things came to mind as we rocketed down crummy Vietnamese roads packed in that sardine can: 1.) My Mom would absolutly freak out if she ever got into this situation. In fact, there is absolutely no force on this earth that could possibly hold her on this bus once she walked in and saw how cramped it was. 2.) I kept flashing back to the Seinfeld episode where Kramer has a bunch of Asian people sleeping in his chest of drawers (Carl Farbman drawers, I believe?). Michelle and I were both on the top bunks, so the swaying of this massive vehicle did a pretty good job of keeping us awake for the 11 hour drive. We didn’t get sick though, so we’ll call the trip a success.
Anyway, Dalat was fantastic and is our favorite place so far, although that might change for Michelle soon. The cool weather was great, and the look and feel of the city was slightly European but distinctly Vietnamese. We toured some great waterfalls and other sites and basically just bummed around for a couple of days… just like you should on vacation. Our hotel had Discovery channel and we had the good fortune of being there during Asia’s yearly “Shark Week”, so that was cool. Nha Trang was also nice, although it was extremely touristy. We easily saw more westerners there than everywhere else combined (thus far) and consequently the street vendors and salesman were much more aggressive and annoying. We ate more good food, sat on the beach, and walked a few miles to an awesome Buddhist Monastery. Now we’re in Hoi An, which is covered with tailoring shops where you can buy custom fitted clothes at dirt cheap prices. For example, a handmade, custom fit silk dress runs somewhere in the $15-$20 range. As I write this, Michelle is scouring the Jcrew and Athropolgie websites trying to find a picture she can print and show the tailors. You can buy fitted suits as well, which I’ve been considering, but I probably won’t end up getting one.
We’ve had a lot of interaction with locals over the past week, most of which has been great, and a few things come to mind as being particularly interesting (at least to me). First, we were constantly being approached by people who tried their hardest to start up conversations. Sometimes the conversations were just friendly conversations, other times they very abruptly turned into sales pitches. Either way, if there is no where to be the conversations can be a lot of fun, mainly because the locals have a tendency to blurt out everything they know about the U.S.A. right then and there. We’ve had people tell us stories (which may or may not be true) about relatives in the U.S. We’ve had people start randomly naming off U.S. cities and landmarks (New York, California, Sea World) only to smile and walk away when they finished. We’ve had more than a handful of people say something like “Barack Obama, number 1!” or tell us about how much they love him. And among the salesmen, the fact that they once served with the South Vietnamese Army during the war seemed to be a great way to try to get us to buy things. As we move into north Vietnam (we are in the middle right now) Michelle and I are very interested to see if and how the sentiment towards us changes.
The most interesting thing that struck me during all of this was a simple passing comment our hilarious and eccentric tour guide made a few days ago. He was giving us a simplified, broken-English version of Vietnamese history and said “Vietnam was ruled by minorities (the Vietnamese) for many, many years. Then the French ruled for 100 years, then the Americans for 20 years, and now the Vietnamese again.” I found this particularly interesting, because you’d be hard pressed to find an American anywhere who would say that the United States ever actually ‘ruled’ Vietnam as the French or Vietnamese themselves ever did. Even staunch proponents of the war, people who initiated, designed and executed it like LBJ, Nixon, or Kissinger would never say that we ‘ruled’ it: we were there for a purpose and never intended to stay. But it doesn’t seem like people here necessarily view it that way. Regardless of our reasons why, from their viewpoint the Vietnamese were not in control of their land, and so we were viewed as their rulers. This is a decepitivly simple concept and a gross diconnect between how Americans want to be viewed and how they are actually viewed. And sadly, 30 years later, we still do a poor job at representing ourselves correctly, as our two current wars will attest.
Finally, this blog’s layout has been updated a bit, as I’ve added links to our pictures to the right hand side of this page. Each country will eventually have it’s own link and gallery. I will probably update those pictures more frequently than we update the actual blog, so check back occasionally.
That’s all for now.
P.S.- Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? Seriously? Lol.
An overnight sleeper bus is a thing to behold. They are behemoths on wheels... easily towering over every other vehicle on the road. They fit so many people on that it's unreal… the beds are 2 high (bunks) and are barely wide/long enough for your average Vietnamese person, much less an American (even I was slightly squished). Your feet slip into a small narrowing cubby that slides underneath the person in front of you. This is probably hard to imagine, and I never got a good picture, but you are essentially trapped up to your knees, so extricating yourself from your ‘seat’ is a process of wiggling and fidgeting. The bus sleeps three across, so you are also right next to other people. Two things came to mind as we rocketed down crummy Vietnamese roads packed in that sardine can: 1.) My Mom would absolutly freak out if she ever got into this situation. In fact, there is absolutely no force on this earth that could possibly hold her on this bus once she walked in and saw how cramped it was. 2.) I kept flashing back to the Seinfeld episode where Kramer has a bunch of Asian people sleeping in his chest of drawers (Carl Farbman drawers, I believe?). Michelle and I were both on the top bunks, so the swaying of this massive vehicle did a pretty good job of keeping us awake for the 11 hour drive. We didn’t get sick though, so we’ll call the trip a success.
Anyway, Dalat was fantastic and is our favorite place so far, although that might change for Michelle soon. The cool weather was great, and the look and feel of the city was slightly European but distinctly Vietnamese. We toured some great waterfalls and other sites and basically just bummed around for a couple of days… just like you should on vacation. Our hotel had Discovery channel and we had the good fortune of being there during Asia’s yearly “Shark Week”, so that was cool. Nha Trang was also nice, although it was extremely touristy. We easily saw more westerners there than everywhere else combined (thus far) and consequently the street vendors and salesman were much more aggressive and annoying. We ate more good food, sat on the beach, and walked a few miles to an awesome Buddhist Monastery. Now we’re in Hoi An, which is covered with tailoring shops where you can buy custom fitted clothes at dirt cheap prices. For example, a handmade, custom fit silk dress runs somewhere in the $15-$20 range. As I write this, Michelle is scouring the Jcrew and Athropolgie websites trying to find a picture she can print and show the tailors. You can buy fitted suits as well, which I’ve been considering, but I probably won’t end up getting one.
We’ve had a lot of interaction with locals over the past week, most of which has been great, and a few things come to mind as being particularly interesting (at least to me). First, we were constantly being approached by people who tried their hardest to start up conversations. Sometimes the conversations were just friendly conversations, other times they very abruptly turned into sales pitches. Either way, if there is no where to be the conversations can be a lot of fun, mainly because the locals have a tendency to blurt out everything they know about the U.S.A. right then and there. We’ve had people tell us stories (which may or may not be true) about relatives in the U.S. We’ve had people start randomly naming off U.S. cities and landmarks (New York, California, Sea World) only to smile and walk away when they finished. We’ve had more than a handful of people say something like “Barack Obama, number 1!” or tell us about how much they love him. And among the salesmen, the fact that they once served with the South Vietnamese Army during the war seemed to be a great way to try to get us to buy things. As we move into north Vietnam (we are in the middle right now) Michelle and I are very interested to see if and how the sentiment towards us changes.
The most interesting thing that struck me during all of this was a simple passing comment our hilarious and eccentric tour guide made a few days ago. He was giving us a simplified, broken-English version of Vietnamese history and said “Vietnam was ruled by minorities (the Vietnamese) for many, many years. Then the French ruled for 100 years, then the Americans for 20 years, and now the Vietnamese again.” I found this particularly interesting, because you’d be hard pressed to find an American anywhere who would say that the United States ever actually ‘ruled’ Vietnam as the French or Vietnamese themselves ever did. Even staunch proponents of the war, people who initiated, designed and executed it like LBJ, Nixon, or Kissinger would never say that we ‘ruled’ it: we were there for a purpose and never intended to stay. But it doesn’t seem like people here necessarily view it that way. Regardless of our reasons why, from their viewpoint the Vietnamese were not in control of their land, and so we were viewed as their rulers. This is a decepitivly simple concept and a gross diconnect between how Americans want to be viewed and how they are actually viewed. And sadly, 30 years later, we still do a poor job at representing ourselves correctly, as our two current wars will attest.
Finally, this blog’s layout has been updated a bit, as I’ve added links to our pictures to the right hand side of this page. Each country will eventually have it’s own link and gallery. I will probably update those pictures more frequently than we update the actual blog, so check back occasionally.
That’s all for now.
P.S.- Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? Seriously? Lol.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
From Palms to Pines....
We made it to Da Lat! I have no idea how, as it was the most terrifying bus ride I've ever been on. We expected Vietnam to be rolling hills, but no, there is some serious elevation here. We also expected a 3 hour bus ride which turned out to be over 6. Six hours of winding up narrow mountain roads in a huge bus, precariously close to the edge (I saw one vehicle down there), often with other huge buses coming towards us. We kept thinking we must be close, because we were reaching the tops of the peaks, but then we would cross the pass and drive up higher peaks! I'm not sure what the elevation here is but will try to find out today. So far we LOVE Da Lat! The weather is beautiful, crisp and a little cool (probably like the weather you have in Missouri about now). We found an incredible hotel, $7/night for a private room with hot water, television, free internet access, and it's very clean. And the room is pink and white :) We think we might stay here 4 nights since we both slept the best we have since we got here last night. Today we plan to just explore Da Lat, and tomorrow possibly tour outside of town a bit, as there are supposed to be pretty waterfalls and lakes. We are both very happy with where we are right now!
Funny side note--the other day at the health clinic the nurse told me she thought I was Vietnamese when I first walked in! So apparently I really can blend in anywhere. At the same time another clinic worker slowly approached Jason's hair and gently pulled a curl and watched it spring back. He looked absolutely amazed, and told Jason his hair was "pretty and beautiful." He definitely will not be mistaken for Vietnamese.
Since we have free internet for a few days I imagine we'll be on here fairly regularly, so look for updates! This town is supposed to be very kitschy so hopefully we can get some fun pictures.
Funny side note--the other day at the health clinic the nurse told me she thought I was Vietnamese when I first walked in! So apparently I really can blend in anywhere. At the same time another clinic worker slowly approached Jason's hair and gently pulled a curl and watched it spring back. He looked absolutely amazed, and told Jason his hair was "pretty and beautiful." He definitely will not be mistaken for Vietnamese.
Since we have free internet for a few days I imagine we'll be on here fairly regularly, so look for updates! This town is supposed to be very kitschy so hopefully we can get some fun pictures.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Minor Update
Since the 'incident' (which hereto for is how we will refer to the motorbike occurance) we haven't done much. We sat on the beach for about 6 hours yesterday, got tan, ate food, and have visited the clinc once per day to get re-bandaged. Today, since we're leaving the city, they were nice enough to give us brand new unopened bottles of some cleaning stuff, cotton, and bandages so we can do ourselves up. They charged us, but it was just under $3 so no problem. I'm also happy to say that despite the ungodly humidity, we're both healing up well. Today we head to Dalat... the city itself is at around 5,000ft of elevation, so the cool, dry mountain air will probably help even more. That's all for now.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Read Michelle's post first! (In addidtion...)
Hello... just wanted to add a few things to what Michelle said! To reiterate, we are both fine. The ordeal messed up our budget for a few days, but we can make up for that. Physically, it's nothing a few 65 cent beers won't fix, althought we did exhaust our gauze and some other medical supplies a mere 3 days into our trip. =0
The area we were in when we crashed was pretty much the middle of nowhere. It was a beautful drive out to a very small village. The road we were on was a very fine powdery red sand, so it could have been much worse. The camera that broke (not related to the crash, Michelle did it!) was my cheap Canon camera that I've had for a couple years, not my nice DSLR- so we'll still get plenty of pics. However, we were very dissappointed to have not gotten pics of the beautiful countryside, quaint little village (not a foreigner in sight, except the two of us sliding across the ground) and extremely nice people (but terrible drivers). We're in great spirits at the moment... everyone was so nice about it all (the people that drove into us on the wrong side of the road, the nurse, the mechanic that fixed our tire, even the owner of the motorbike) that it's hard not to be.
I'm sure everyone wants pics... so here has been our day thus far-
http://cid-fb8cc05f73293d8d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Trip%20Pictures?uc=1
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We've gotten a lot of comments about the Tsunami/Typhoon that hit this part of the world. Just to clarify, the tsunami didn't hit here, it was primarily in the South Pacific. Central Vietnam DID get hit by a typhoon right as we were arrrving (we passed through some turbulance on the plane) but all we saw of it on the ground was some heavy rain. No worries!
We've got 2 more days here in Mui Ne, then off to Dalat!
The area we were in when we crashed was pretty much the middle of nowhere. It was a beautful drive out to a very small village. The road we were on was a very fine powdery red sand, so it could have been much worse. The camera that broke (not related to the crash, Michelle did it!) was my cheap Canon camera that I've had for a couple years, not my nice DSLR- so we'll still get plenty of pics. However, we were very dissappointed to have not gotten pics of the beautiful countryside, quaint little village (not a foreigner in sight, except the two of us sliding across the ground) and extremely nice people (but terrible drivers). We're in great spirits at the moment... everyone was so nice about it all (the people that drove into us on the wrong side of the road, the nurse, the mechanic that fixed our tire, even the owner of the motorbike) that it's hard not to be.
I'm sure everyone wants pics... so here has been our day thus far-
http://cid-fb8cc05f73293d8d.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Trip%20Pictures?uc=1
---
We've gotten a lot of comments about the Tsunami/Typhoon that hit this part of the world. Just to clarify, the tsunami didn't hit here, it was primarily in the South Pacific. Central Vietnam DID get hit by a typhoon right as we were arrrving (we passed through some turbulance on the plane) but all we saw of it on the ground was some heavy rain. No worries!
We've got 2 more days here in Mui Ne, then off to Dalat!
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