Good-bye Vietnam
Hanoi, VietnamÂ
conical hats
motorbikes
beef noodle soup
beach excursion
long slow train journey
rice paddies, rice paddies, rice paddies
beautiful long silk dresses with deep side splits worn over pants
mystical Halong Bay
Most Amazing Couchsurfing Experience
ethnological smorgasbord
modernity meets old world
spring rolls and doner kebabs 😉
black-toothed ladies
disappointingly warm weather (it was supposed to be 10 degrees, but it was 28 and we were looking forward to winter! not complaining though – it’s also usually constantly drizzly and humid, but we got blue skies)
Vietnam was a rush and we’ve missed lots of it. We raced through Saigon; we wanted a few days at the beach and then needed to get to Hanoi leaving enough time to get Mongolian visas. As it turned out, the embassy was the fastest we have come across yet, processing our visas in only a couple of days instead of the two weeks we had allowed, so we could have stayed longer in the south, we could have taken a slower journey up the coast, stopping along the way. But, not knowing any of this, we needed to rush.
In Hanoi we spent a fair amount of time in our room with an unwell Ella-Rose, so we didn’t see Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, we only passed the thousand year old Literature Temple without stopping to dismount our horses before entering (as the sign requests), we haven’t made it up the tallest building to view the city, we haven’t joined the Vietnamese throngs pilgrimaging out to the famed Perfume Pagoda, we visited only one of many museums in the city……
We made it to Halong Bay, but didn’t get up to Sapa and Bac Ha as we had planned.
There remain a lot of reasons for us to return to Vietnam.
Some travellers we’ve met have said you couldn’t pay them to come back here, but we have quite enjoyed it. Apart from the hour long argument with tour company and hotel staff (all of whom banded together against The Big Family) this afternoon, that is. Oh, and the fact that we were shown a brochure of a nice hotel and so we went with the guy to check it out, but it ended up being a not-so-nice-one (but we stayed anyway, coz it was late and they had internet and breakfast was free!)….then they tried to throw tax on to our bill at the end of our stay….and if you didn’t know to expect it, I guess the constant overpricing would get a bit tedious…..but apart from these things, and perhaps in contrast to Cambodia, which didn’t tug at our heartstrings in the same way it did for others we have spoken to, Vietnam has delighted us.
Watching their Dadda take on the big guys in black t-shirts at the hotel this afternoon was great entertainment for the children! Seriously-laid-back-Rob got pretty animated, but nowhere near as loud or literally in-your-face as a couple of the other side, who screamed at him and then stormed out (conflict resolution classes would be beneficial here – as would Ethics 101 and the-customer-is-paying-you-and-so-you-should-try-to-please-him seminars…although given that they had our money, I guess they didn’t need to please anyone, and changing their story with every breath was of no consequence to them – see note about ethics class). Anyway, that was fun!
We would return to Vietnam.
Good-bye South-East Asia….Hello Central Asia tomorrow!
Tags: postcard: Vietnam
rayres
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