VIETNAM: 12 Days of Awesome November 12 - 23, 2009
Jameson and I woke up and headed to the airport around 6 am on Thursday November 12, for what was going to be an amazing and exhausting trip through Southeast Asia. The first stop on the list was Vietnam. We arrived at the airport and checked out bags around 830. Our plane didn't leave until 1030 and we slept most of the way to Vietnam, due to the lack of sleep in the previous days or packing and saying goodbyes. We landed in Hanoi at 130 and the adventure began.
We got off the plane to 31 degree weather, which was a welcome change to the 6 degrees we left in Korea, and shared a taxi with a girl named Natalie to The Drift hostel. almost an hours drive into Hanoi. Jameson had prebooked our stay there, so when we got there our room was ready and we dropped out things and began planning the next few days. With the help of the staff at The Drift, we planned a 3 day trip to Halong Bay, in which you get to spend the night out on a boat and then 2 nights on Cat Ba Island. After getting it settled Jameson and I, along with Natalie went into the Old Quarter to see some sights and grab a bite. We stopped along the way at Hoan Kiem Lake see Thap Rau (Tortoise Tower) that was in the middle and inaccessible, and Ngoc Son (Jade Mountain) Temple, which houses the embalmed remains of a giant tortoise from the lake. After that it was off for some city pictures and dinner, where we experienced out first Tiger Beer; a delicious and smooth beer.After dinner we returned to the hostel for a couple beers and talk with other travelers before heading to bed around 1 am.
We woke up the next morning (Nov 13) early to get on the bus for Halong Bay. There were quite a few people going on the trip, one of which was a guy named Tom who worked for Habitat for Humanity who I spoke with for most of the 3.5 hour bus ride. We got to Halong Bay around 1 pm, where we boarder our boat and headed out into the bay for lunch and cave tours. In the late afternoon, we had a chance to go tandem kayaking in the bay, and Jameson and I being the gentlemen we are let all the others go
before us because there we not enough kayaks. Unfortunately, when the extra kayaks made it out and we got to head out it was quickly becoming dark and the shop owner and group tour guide got concerned. They sent out a search boat for us, which passed us in the complete dark as we were heading back to the shop. We knew where we were going only on the single string of lights the shop had up. Back on the main boat, we had dinner around 8 and then drank with the group until 4 am.Waking (Nov 14) up a mere 2 hours later, Jameson and I took the opportunity to go swimming off the boat before our 730 breakfast. The boat took us to Cat Ba Island, where we headed to Cat Ba National Park and a 2 hour hike before moving to our hotel and lunch. After lunch we got back on another boat and went to Monkey Island for a swim and beach time. The weather was starting to change and become gray so we headed back to the main island for dinner and drinks. We went out for a few beers at a recommended bar before going back to the hotel Noraebang to sing until around 4.
Again we got up after just a couple hours of sleep for breakfast, but then returned to our room for more sleep. In the afternoon after we had gotten some rest, we rented scooters and took a tour of the island. Unfortunately, it was a cool and damp day so after a couple hours of riding we were freezing and had to take the bikes back. That night we grabbed dinner with a few others that stayed for the extra night, 2 of with were a British couple (Chris and Jen) who would turn out to be good traveling friends throughout our trip. It was an early night of movie watching and resting.
Waking up at 730 on the 16th to some more overcast weather, we packed up and headed back across the bay Halong city to get the bus back to Hanoi. We got back to port around 1130 and had some lunch before taking the terrible/bumpy 3hour ride back to Hanoi. Once back in Hanoi we checked into The Drift again and had dinner with Chris and Jen, then had a few drinks with other travelers at the hostel before calling it a night.
The weather turned out to be better the next day. With the sun out and the wind slowing, Jameson and I headed to the Ho Chi Mihn Mausoleum around 11 am. On the way we saw the Temple of Literature, the country's first national university. Unfortunatley the Mausoleum is closed from September - December for cleaning and removing Ho Chi Mihn's body to Russia to be checked. We did get to see it from the outside, and I have to say it was quite impressive. After the mausoleum we grabbed some Pho for lunch at a little street shop. It was delicious and only cost us $1.20. After lunch we headed to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, commonly known as the Hanoi Hilton, which was a former POW prison and torture center. It was eerie to be walking around in something with such history, that is now located in such a calm feeling area. Once back at the hostel we packed out bags and got ready for the long bus ride ahead of us to Hue. We ate dinner with Chris and Jen again before we all headed to the bus station for our 7 pm bus. The bus was a sleeper bus, which means that if you are a small Vietnamese person, you can lay down somewhat and sleep. Since we are not, the "beds" were a little uncomfortable, and i would have preferred a reclining seat. Thanks however to my super ability to sleep anywhere, I passed out for the first few hours until our first stop, about 3-4 hours in.
Now, some hour in the early am of the 18th we leave our first stop and didn't get too far before the crazy driving that is Vietnam catches up with us. We were all sitting at the back of the bus and didn't see how the events unfolded, but i am 100% sure that I know how it went down. You see, in Vietnam if you are not honking and trying to pass everyone then you are driving incorrectly. This being the case, our bus tried to pass a transport, and found itself looking another transport in the headlights. Now, instead of slowing and getting back behind like a normal person, our driver tried to push the passee off the side to make room for all 3 vehicles. this didn't work and we ended up getting pinched between the two trucks. the windows in the back half of the bus (those right beside me) blew out, showering us with glass. Luckily I was the only one who took any damage, and it was only a small chunk of glass in my elbow. Slowly we shook off the glass and got of the bus. Once we were on the side of the road, I patched up my arm and started the wait for our replacement bus. Luckily, I had a bottle of vodka in my bag and there was a roadside stand selling beers; so we had some drinks for a few hours until the new bus came. Back on the bus we settled in for the rest of the ride to Hue.
Arriving in Hue on the 18th at noon really put us behind schedule, since we were supposed to get there at 7 am, giving us time to see some sights before catching the 1pm bus to Hoi An. As it was, we got off the bus and waked around for the hour we had before getting back on for another 4 hours to Hoi An. We reached Hoi An around 6 and found a hotel right where we got dropped off. We immediately went out for food, since we hadn't eaten in well over 12 hours. We had, and fell in love with a dish called Cao Lao. It is a local dish of fried pork, noodles, and bean sprouts all on top of some lettuce. The reason it is a local specialty is because it is made from special well water that you can only get in Hoi An. After dinner we walked around for a bit before grabbing a couple beers at a local bar then calling it a night around 130.
Waking up on the 19th, it was little sunnier and the rain had stopped. We grabbed some breakfast around 10 and hung out until noon before heading out to see the city. Our first stop was the bus company to book seats for the night bus, however, due to our accident and time delay the sleeper bus was full so we had to settle for a seated bus just to keep moving since we were behind schedule. After that we went to see the Japanese Covered Bridge, named for its Japanese style construction and decoration. It lead into an older part of the city with many gift shops and cafes. We then walked around town and took some pictures at a market and of the river, before heading back to the hotel to get out of the rain and wait for our bus. Our 630 bus arrived around 730, not happy about it, and we were off again for Nha Trang.
Stopping at 11 pm for food and to use the washroom, we arrived in Nha Trang around 7 am. Once we found our hostel, we grabbed some breakfast and went for an 80 minute massage. After sitting on buses for the last several days and touring in the rain, we thought we deserved it. Following the massages, we grabbed some lunch then took a 6km walk to the Oceanographic Institute, where there were lots of live and preserved specimen sea creatures. It was a nice place but I wish we had of gone to see some of the temples instead. For dinner we went with some people from our hostel to Guava Bar, then for drinks to Why Not Bar and Sailors Club. The only problem was, that after "happy hour" all the drinks tripled in price, so we called it a night and walked back to the hostel around 1, getting by a couple of old Vietnamese prostitutes on the way.
Surviving our run in with the prostitutes, we woke up on the 21st to rain. We woke up at 630, which was a miracle since we had no alarm clock and had to be on the bus at 730. We had out free breakfast at the hostel and retrieved the laundry they did for us.Later we found out that one of my shirts and pair of shorts was missing, though I'm sure it was not intentional. We got on our bus at 730 bound for Saigon/Ho Chi Mihn City, which was only 500km away, yet a 12 hour ride. As long as the bus ride was, and as much as it sucked to be on a bus again for 12 hours, the sights were great. The one regret was that we didn't stop in Mui Ne, a coastal city with sand dunes you can crazy carpet down, but once we saw the injured travelers getting on the bus, we realized we might have died given the nature of our lives. Once we reached Saigon, we grabbed a hotel then some dinner before taking in some much needed sleep.
We got up around 9am on the 22nd and had our free breakfast before heading to T.M Brothers Cafe to book a Cu Chi Tunnel tour for the next morning and a bus to Cambodia for the next afternoon. We then spent our day taking in sights around Saigon. We went to the War Remnants Museum, which was full of graphic photos and propaganda from the Vietnam war, as well as weapons from the war; then we stopped for some Pho Ga for lunch before heading to the Reunification Palace. Given it's name, it was rather lack luster, but it was located close to the Notre Dame Cathedral. After the palace we decided to go find the famous Jade Emperor Pagoda, but after a couple hours of walking around and misdirection we gave up and headed back to the hotel, making a stop at the Saigon Central Mosque. We ran into Chris and Jen, so we stopped to have a beer and catch up on each others travels. We then continued our trip to the hotel to have showers and grab some food. After dinner we tried to find an alarm clock, because we had some wake up times in our future but had been relying completely on luck and the fact that we had no real schedule. We found one in a store but had a heck of a time trying to figure out how to work it given it only had a couple buttons, yet several functions. Feeling like we deserved a heros reward after figuring the clock out, we went to Crazy Buffalo Bar for a couple beers with the Brits and had a chance to watch some young children do flame tricks for money. Sad but entertaining. After some beers and some lady boy offers, we headed to the hotel around 1am to get some rest for the day ahead.
Thanks to the new alarm, we got up at 640 the next morning and headed to the T.M
. Brothers Cafe for our tunnel tour. The bus picked us up around 730 and we got to the tunnels at 930 where we met our tour guide Joey, who was hilarious and full of propaganda. The Cu Chi Tunnels is the tunnel system the Viet Cong during the war to hide from and ambush American soldiers. It was amazing to be around a see the tunnels, and actually get to go into some of the first level tunnels; to see the booby traps that were set up; and how the Viet Cong lived and functioned during the war. The tunnels were very small and hardly lit, so when you were crawling through them you really got a sense of how hard it must have been living in them for so many years. After the tunnels we made a stop and a craft factory whose proceeds go to sport those suffering still from the war, such as those affected by Agent Orange deformities and land mine accidents. This however put us behind schedule and many of us were worried that we would not make the bus for Cambodia. As it turned out, they held the bus in Saigon for us for an extra hour because they knew it was not our fault but the tours fault. We caught the bus just in time a few blocks away form where it started, as it had gone on to the next hotel pick up spot. I slept for most of the ride to the boarder, missing some great scenery. We made it to the boarder at 530 and it took just over an hour to get us all across and moving again. Once in Cambodia we stopped for some sketchy roadside food before driving another 1.5 hours to the ferry taht tok us across the Mekong River into Phnom Penh at 9pm. Once off the bus we took a tuk-tuk to the hostel area, which seemed pretty dirty ad sketchy but turned out to be alright. We got a place at The Floating Island Hostel for $4 per night then went out with a few British guys we met on the bus.Well that was Vietnam in 12 days. Sorry it was such a long blog but there was a lot going on. Up next will be Cambodia.
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