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Warming up to the cold north…

Sunday, February 3rd, 2008

After the pure relaxation of southern Vietnam, we decided to not take the 12 hour bus ride and instead caught a flight north to Hue. It was a bit drizzly and cool there. This was odd to us as we hadn’t seen any type of precipitation for quite some time. Still, we enjoyed ourselves, rented bikes and made the best of it.

After Hue, we again forewent the 16 hour bus ride and caught a flight (good thing the domestic flights are reasonably priced!) to Hanoi. We land… over the load speaker comes “it’s 5 degrees outside”… quick conversion makes that aound 42 degrees F outside… and it’s raining. hmmm. Unexpected to say the least. So, dressed inappropriately, we head out to get a transport the city. We find a mini-bus that will take us for 2USD per person so we hop in. The way mini-buses work is that they wait to fill up before they head out. So we wait.. and wait. Finally, almost an hour later, we’re off. We get to the city center and it’s drizzling like in Hue, only it’s the kind of cold that goes right to your bones. After the calm beach atmosphere of the coast, the hustle and bustle has us a little caught off guard but finally we find an accomodation and settle in. Of course, this city doesn’t seem to have heat (at least at our price range), so it was very good that we had sleeping bags 😉

We took a walk around the late in the Old Quarter and found some decent food. The next day we checked out the water puppet show that is famous in vietnam. It’s looks something like this:

The next day we left Hanoi for a boat tour around Halong bay. Halong bay is quite beautiful. It reminded us of the ferry from the North Island to the South Island of New Zealand. With the wind, being on the boat was quite cold. It was OK though as we had some good company with a few Ausie’s and Germans we made friends with. Also, the guide on the boat gave us a good lesson on how to speak some vietnamese which was nice.

When we arrived back in Hanoi, the rain had let up and it was nice out. The temperature had risen and we started to feel the life of the city. It was a very nice city once we settled into it.

Now we’re off to Laos which should be warmer. Can’t wait!

Dan

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I Love Vietnam!

Monday, January 28th, 2008

We are in Vietnam, slowly making our way north. We started in Ho Chi Minh City, which we liked, especially after being in Phnom Penh, although it is very busy to the point where crossing the street is a high risk activity. In Ho Chi Minh City we went to some of the “American” War museums… that’s what they call the Vietnam war:) It’s very interesting to hear stories of the Vietnam war from Vietnamese perspectives.

Hung’s friend, Thao and her girlfriend, Fung, took us out for the evening to a very nice bar with a live band. Instead of typical US bar food, they order huge plates of fruit to eat at the bar. No wonder the Vietnamese tend to be so thin. We were very lucky and won a free bar tab for the night in a bacardi promotion. I also won a free bottle of bacardi rum and some other bacardi paraphanelia because I was able to answer some bacardi trivia. Who knew I had any worthwhile alcohol knowledge.

After a few days in Ho Chi Minh City, Dan and I made our way to the beach in Mui Ne, which is a small resort town. There, we stayed at a really nice resort for only $37 US a night. It was very relaxing after the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City. Kite surfing is very popular in Mui Ne but since that kind of spending is not in the budget, we decided we would pass. Resistance proved futile though as watching people gliding through the water and doing flips convinced us that at least one of us should take the lesson. We decided that I would take the lesson as I am a better listener and that then I could teach Dan. This proved to be a stupid idea as even after 5 hours of instruction, I am in no position to teach anyone and now Dan is obsessed with becoming a pro kitesurfer:) For those of you who are not familiar with the sport of kitesurfing, the way it works is an enormous kite drags you across the ocean on a board which is slightly smaller than a surf board. It is great fun…there were a few times while practicing on land where there I got several feet of air between me and the ground because the kite would pick me up. To learn you take it step by step, first practicing flying the kite on land, then having the kite drag you through the water and then trying to get on the board. I still need some practice to stay on the board so we are going to try it again soon.

After Mui Ne, we headed north to Nha Trang, another beach town, where I must guiltily say, that we spent most of the day hanging out at a beach club, swimming in the ocean…and seeing no touristy sites other than the coast:) Next time we are there we might take a scuba diving course but we decided not to do it this time.

We just arrived in Hoi An today which has a very quaint old town which we spent the day wandering through. After passing on souvenirs for two months, Hoi An got the best of us. We purchased a few original pieces of art by a very talented local artist, and then on the way home, right after saying, “no more buying” to Dan, a cute dress pattern got the best of me and a tailor will have a new dress ready for me in the morning, exact to my size with the fabric I chose (for only $12!). Our hotel has a swimming pool so we are going to continue Vietnam’s relaxing variety of tourism tomorrow. Perhaps we will take a bike ride as well.

After Hoi An, we are heading to the cities, Hue and Hanoi. Then we will head to Laos for a few days before bidding southeast asia fairwell and heading to India and Nepal. Don’t hold us to this plan though, because as we speak, I look over at Dan’s computer and see that he is researching kite surfing venues in Thailand so maybe we will be staying in southeast asia a bit longer than expected:)

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