2 weeks in Vietnam
We started in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and slowly worked our way north to Hanoi for a total of 2 weeks in Vietnam complete with a ton of tours, a party boat, scuba diving, a Vietnamese cooking class, great eats AND some great company and lots of laughs.
Our friend Minh came out and traveled with us in Vietnam, which made our time there unique, given that she speaks the language, was born there and has family there. Though I’ve always found that not knowing the language and exactly what people are saying always makes a place more exotic and fun to travel in, when you are traveling with someone who does know and can get the inside scoop on conversations, it makes for some pretty interesting discoveries as well. Minh was able to provide this insight for us 🙂
One aspect of travel in Vietnam, which was difficult to get used to was that it’s the land of organized tours. We found that if you wanted to see any of the major sights and do it affordably, you had to take a tour. We took a total of 5 tours while we were there!! Though it’s nice to have everything organized and taken care of for you, getting herded around on a bus and repeatedly jumping on and off can get a little tiring…but sometimes you gotta do whatcha gotta do!
During our 2 weeks, we hit a good variety of cities and sights. Our first stop was Ho Chi Mnh, which turned out to be much more of a zoo than I expected. The streets are packed with and dominated by scooters and motorcycles, with a few cars sprinkled in here and there. Crossing the street is like super-Frogger and can be terrifiying. We found that the best way to do it was just keep an even pace while crossing and to never slow down. This way, you just let the scooters slow down and weave around you, which makes for safer circumstances for all – though still just as terrifiying. While we were there, we took a tour of the Mekong Delta area and visited a bunch of “factories” – that is if you call an operation of a few people a factory. Our first factory stop was the coconut candy factory, which consisted of a woman stirring a viscous mixture of coconut and sugar, another woman who spread it out and hacked it into small bite-sized pieces, and a third woman who wrapped the pieces in wax paper. May not sound like the most glamorous job, but our tourguide explained that these women can make as much if not more making and selling coconut candy than working in the rice fields. It is also less physically taxing and more pleasant than working out under the unforgiving sun. We also visited a honey farm (where we were served some excellent tea with pure honey and kumquat juice – yum!). For me, the highlight of this tour was getting to hold a 18kg python!
After Ho Chi Minh, we made our way to Nha Trang, a very chill beach town that is known for its party boat tours and scuba diving. Our knock-off “Mama Han’s” party boat tour(Mama Han was the “godmother” of the party boat operation in town until she got thrown in jail for bad-mouthing the gov’t, which isn’t so surprising as she had a reputation for being tough, opinionated and having a special affinity for the F-word) took us out for a day of sun and fun complete with the “floating bar”, and rock-a-roke entertainment (imagine a drunk Vietnames man singing Barry Manilow tunes in his speedos -how’s that for entertainment?) and our guide who told us to call him “Funky Monkey”. On our tour, we met two Germans, Henning and Axel, who were traveling on holiday and who we managed to meet up many times during the rest of our trip. Anthony and I also treated ourselves to a day of the cheapest scuba diving we’ve ever had ($35/2 dives incl. equipment and transportation). Not the best diving, but worth it nonetheless.
Our next stop and my personal favorite was Hoi An, a small town on the coast which is an old trading port and UNESCO World Heritage site. We saw some of the most beautiful and best preserved Colonial and Chinese architecture and enjoyed the slow and lazy pace of the town. We also took a tour of the My Son ruins, which were pretty impressive and had many similarities to those of Angkor Wat , though much smaller scale and less abundant. Here, Minh and I took an incredible cooking class at a local cafe where we were taught how to cook three dishes that we chose off the menu, which we got to eat aftwards! Our teacher was a 19-yr old girl named Hanh who worked at the cafe and who was so sweet and made our class extra enjoyable. Without tooting my own horn, the meal that we made was hands-down the best meal we had in Vietnam: lemongrass chili shrimp, shrimp papaya salad and sugar cane shrimp. If you want the recipes, let me know!
Next stop was Hue, where we took a tour of the Demilitarized Zone and many of the significant sites from the war. It was a very interesting experience being there as an American tourist, as many of the tourist sights are war-related. In Ho Chi Minh, we visited the War Remnants Museum (formerly named the War Crimes Museum), which is chock-full of exhibits that show the war from a different perspective than you get in the States. As an American, its definitely an interesting and insightful experience. On the DMZ tour, you visit tunnels that villagers dug more than 25m under the ground and lived in for many years in an effort to survive the bombing and other threats during the war. You visit sites of old bases, battles and etc. I have to admit, that it’s pretty thought provoking stuff.
Finally, we ended up in Hanoi and visited the rightfully reknowned Halong Bay. Hanoi, though still bustling and busy, was nowhere nearly as crazy and crowded as Ho Chi Minh. Here we saw a water puppet show, where all the puppeteers stand sometimes waist-high in water controlling the puppets, visited Uncle Ho at the Massoleum where his embalmed body is kept for visitors to view. We also had this bizarre experience being part of what I can only describe as a “popsicle mob” where we participated in a mob of at least 25 people, pushing and shoving, and waving money at a popsicle vendor selling popsicles (we didn’t even have a clue what flavors there were) – it was like being on the floor of the exchange. We caught sight of the commotion from the street and had to join in – unfortunately they sold out of popsicles before we got one. But lucky for us, there was another vendor down the street who had some left. We also spent a fair amount of time in Hanoi with our new German friends, Henning and Axel who introduced us to Bia Hoi! They found an intersection in Hanoi with a open air, sidewalk “bar” on each street corner, also known as Bia Hoi. Each “bar” consisted of just a keg and lots of tiny, kid-sized plastic chairs and sold beer for $0.12!! The four of us also took an overnight boat tour of Halong Bay, which had INCREDIBLE scenery, karsts, and stunning blue water. We also had a memorable night of great company, drinking games and karaoke (of course)!
Overall, we had a good time in Vietnam and really enjoyed everything we saw, though I have to admit that the company, our old and new friends, was what really what made it for me.
Best Eats:
– Boiled duck eggs: eggs with duck embryos, boiled and served with Vietnamese herbs and salt and pepper…sounds gross, but mmm, mmm good!
– Vietnamese coffee: brewed with a drip percolator with sweetened condensed milk -it’s strong, dark, hot and awesome!
– Minh and my $1 lunch on the river! Two very flavorful, yet simple dishes of fried rice crackers, baby clam salad and a spicy peanut sauce and and awesome dessert, which was a sweet corn and coconut milk soup.
– The meal we cooked in Hoi An (back pat, back pat ;))
For pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594085499464/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594085527494/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594093486079/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594085542446/
That’s all for now!
– Shan
Tags: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Hoi An, SE Asia, Southeast Asia, Travel, Vietnam
Shan
March 11th, 2008 at 5:27 am
hello shan,
I’m planning to go to vietnam in a few weeks (coming from bangkok, where I live at the moment) and I wanna do almost exactly the same trip as you did! One question: How did you get around from city to city?
thankful for some information and tips!
cheers,
mai