Round the World Next Stop Vietnam

April 2008

Ho Chi Minh City…trying to cross the road. Dave and I have just spent 4 days in Ho Chi Minh city formerly Saigon, in the south of Vietnam. Taking a cab up from the airport we drove at night in to the heart of the city…surrounded by thousands and thousands of motorcycles. It’s an incredible sight, the roads are choked with them…virtually no cars only 2 wheeled transport weaving everywhere. It looks like chaos. The following day we venture out, hugging the curb unsure of how to cross the road…there is no let up in the flow of this…it’s a constant incoming tide of noise and exhaust fumes. There are few traffic lights, no obvious traffic lanes and pedestrian crossings don’t seem to exist. In a city with a population of 8 million people they estimate there are 5 million motorcycles. It’s a free for all but like other tourists we take a leap of faith and copy the locals, stepping in to the road, taking a deep breath and weaving our way between as the bikes slow to negotiate our passage and flow around us. It’s exhilarating…and completely bonkers. A family of 4 fly by only the driver wearing a helmet and we watch incredulous as other bikes drive in the opposite direction directly in to the oncoming traffic, crossing in front of it all.

We visited the War Remnants Museum on a half day city tour with Sinh Cafe who operate tours countrywide at fair prices. The museum was harrowing; alongside tanks helicopters, bombs and an arsenal of weapons used during the Vietnam war by the Americans and Southern Vietnamese against the Northern Vietnamese…there were reconstructions of the Tiger Cages used to torture prisoners. Hundreds of photographs show atrocities including the effects of defoliants Agent Orange and Napalm used by the US military. Having never seen any bombs before, to be confronted by these huge weapons is terrifying.

On the same tour we visited the Reunification Palace, built in 1966 to serve as South Vietnam’s Presidential Palace. It hasn’t been changed since the day the first communist tanks in former Saigon crashed through its gates on 30th April 1975; the day the city surrendered. The room of desks with telephones amused us as it was called The Telephone Room. One of the war rooms where meetings would be held on the progress of the Vietnam War was resplendent in green and the First Lady’s private entertaining room featured shag carpet circular furniture and leather rocking chairs.

Streets scenes around the An An Hotel in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh where we were staying including the wonderfully elaborate Sri Thendayuthapani Temple (Chùa Ấn Giáo in Vietnamese).

The overloaded street pylons are jaw-dropping…but everything seems to work. People play checkers or draughts set up on the street on metal tables and stools, a man takes a nap balanced on his moped.

Street vendors, usually women sell by the side of the road or on pavements…fresh fish, vegetables, fruit, sweet treats and traditional brreads. Transporting it to their chosen selling spot either loaded up on a bicycle or carried across their shoulder son long bamboo poles, a loaded tin pail balancing either side.

At the Temple Club Dave found a British newspaper and we relaxed with a drink. The club once operated as a guesthouse for people visiting the Hindu Temple across the street.

Dave and I are now in Dalat; we arrived here after a 7 and a half hour $7 each bus journey yesterday (Monday 14th April). Thankfully it had loads of leg room, reclining seats, air-con, free blankets and bottled water, rest stops for the loo and a lunch stop; plus an on-board young lady called Quing who kept checking up to make sure we were both okay being the only Westerners on the bus. Much better equipped than your average British coach and they even went out of their way to drop us off right outside our Hotel here in Dalat. For a mere $20 a night we have an immaculate double room with shower and satellite TV including a full breakfast!

Mekong River. The day before we left Ho Chi Minh City we took a full day Mekong Delta tour – again with Sinh Cafe Tours; our guide was very new to his job but he was excellent. Incredible value, it cost about £5 each for a 10 hour day trip. 2 hours by air-con coach to join a motorised boat to cross the Mekong River.

We saw floating fish markets and fishing boats covered with lights to attract the fish when fishing at night. We visited a small island called Con Phung where we ate lunch and cruised natural creeks in the Ben Tre province. A young girl and another lady paddled us in a rowboat up a small estuary of the Mekong lined with the typical coconut trees and water coconut which grow underwater. A loaded boat carried rice; the main product of the Mekong Delta area where 80% of Vietnam’s rice is grown. A strange long boat with lengths of plastic piping was possibly a re-fuelling station. Houses jumbled closely together hugged the shoreline.

We were shown how local people produce rice paper (used for making spring rolls) and coconut candy…with tasters of everything. Our Vietnamese friend Lin bought us Water coconut to try; he and his wife Fung now live in America and were travelling on the same tour. It’s not as tasty as the standard coconut…has very little flavour but it was great to be shown it as we had heard of it before. Our guide draped a python around my neck at lunch and around Lin and we had bumping jostling ride on a creaky pony and trap.

Dalat. We are currently on a tour with Hong and his driver Thanh, part of a group called The Easy Riders based in Dalat running motorbike tours around Vietnam. We met Hong on our first evening in town wearing his distinctive blue and black Easy Rider jacket. Following him to a local cafe we negotiated a price for a car and driver rather than motorbikes and Hong set us up with a 4-wheel drive air-con vehicle with plenty of room and we’ve been on the road 3 days…right in to the central highlands of Vietnam.

We stayed 2 nights in Dalat before heading off up country with Hong and Thanh. Below are some images from Dalat including The Crazy House designed by the female architect Hang Viet Nga, her monument to her architectural philosophy of dreams, fantasy, and nature. Shaped like a huge tree with tunnels travelling through the trunks, the buildings are ferro concrete (also used to make boats and swimming pools). Inside these trunks are rooms…small suites like a hotel which can be booked; a Kangaroo room, Ant room, Termite room, Eagle room and so on. Part Gaudi and all eccentric, it’s a fabulous place to visit and indulge childish fantasies running up and down steps through weird corridors.

A much smaller town but with a thriving tourist industry due to its location and plenty of bars and clubs at night, we explored Dalat on foot…walking by the main market, bike repair shops, along streets crowded with vendors, houses with balconies hung with laundry and to the lake. We had a comfortable room, two beds and fleecy blankets.

The population of Vietnam is approximately 84% ethnic Vietnamese, 2% ethnic Chinese and the rest is made up of Khmers, Chams, and members of more than 50 ethnic groups known locally to the Vietnamese as the Minority People. The majority of these Minority people live in poverty scattered in different villages and forming different ‘tribes’ across the country, mainly in the highlands. Over the past 4 days of touring with Hong and Thain we have met many of these people and been invited in to their very basic homes to share tea with them and to see their way of life. We have been humbled by their generosity and friendship and saddened by the hardship they live through daily.

Many villagers have no access to schools or access to hospitals and medicine. We visited families known as the Chil and the Ma based in Da Lat province and the people of Buon Jun village in Dak Lak province. Hong, our wonderful Easy Ride guide took us to visit Chil women basket weaving with palm grass, to visit a traditional longhouse in Bon Jun village, on stilts, the family’s chickens and pigs live underneath…several generations of one family live together. A Vietcong lady welcomed us in to her home and everywhere children ran gleefully, pointing at my camera…posing with their dogs.

We’re now in Hoi An, it’s 35 degrees centigrade hot humid and sticky, but it’s such a relaxing and pretty town we keep extending our stay. To catch up here’s a long blog entry covering the 4 days we had on tour in to the interior of Vietnam with Hong and Thanh, soon nicknamed Mr Smooth, he’s quite a hit with the ladies. An incredible experience, grateful that we went with guides as we would never have seen this part of the country or learned so much. Our first stop was a silk worm factory where we were shown the process from worm cocoons through to the finished silk garments. The cocoons are placed in hot water to kill the worms, removed from the cocoon with no waste as the worms are usually cooked and eaten. The emptied cocoons bob in water from which a machine sucks up the thread unravelling it on to spools. It’s startling how quickly the process goes from live worm to thread. There’s a far slower hand process, each cocoon handled individually which produces the more raw ‘slub’ looking silk which sells at a lower price though the process takes longer. The silk thread is wound on to bobbins and the heavy brown hanging bamboo pieces pictured below are a pattern which passes through a machine to impress the pattern on to the cloth.

Nam Bhang. On to visit Elephant Waterfalls and a stop at the Buddhist temple in Nam Bhang accessed by such a rickety wood plank bridge we expected to fall through it. Stone steps leading to the temple are flanked by carved dragons which crawl along a verandah and down, guarding the entrance.

Behind the temple stands a huge white buddha with a view of its interior thorough it’s large belly button and an entrance door in the flowing sleeve under its right hand. Huge carvings adorn inside…some carved from wood others moulded from Papier-mache.

A pit stop for lunch with Hng and Thanh with great views over countryside from a simple roadside building. We didn’t see a menu once in the 4 days touring with them and we ate locally at simple places each day; Hong would simply ask us what sort of thing we’d like to eat, for example chicken or goat, and would then take us to a place that sold it. The food was always delicious and as we feel in to a natural groove with one another, the company always fun.

Our first overnight was at Lak Leke, a simply furnished room with great views from the terrace of the lake. At breakfast we met Windy, another Easy Rider and friend of Hong’s who was running a similar route with his biker colleague Phu taking two Irish guys Aidan and Michael to Nha Trang. Hong was on good form, telling us stories about how short he is compared to his wife and to pretty much everyone else. We jokingly referred to Aidan and Michael as the married couple…we would bump in to them regularly over the first 2 days of our tour, falling in to an easy camarade…laughing each time we saw them carrying their crates of beer.

Driving further in to the countryside we see rice threshing machines working the fields and farmers raking rice out to dry on the side of the road. Vietnam is currently the second largest rice exporter after Thailand.

And an unexpected elephant ride. It’s bloody high up, we had to climb a stepped tower to climb aboard the elephant. Windy had turned up with Aiden and Michael, and was trying to convince us to take the one hour ride…rocking too and fro above we were relieved to have decided on 30 minutes; it was scorching hot at 10am and 38 degrees…the guide led his elephant in to Buon Jun Lake to cool with us panicking at how deep it was going to go. Bunches of bananas as a treat and a poke from the elephant’s trunk, it was an experience and the elephants seemed to be well looked after and loved. Leaving later we saw Water Buffalo wallowing in the shallows of the lake and sand dredgers working on the water.

We walked over a bridge further along the route, non-operational since being bombed during the war…reminders of the Vietnam/US war a constant shadow but one from which the local people are embracing as part of their history which can educate visitors through tourism. Hong takes us to a local mushroom farm and a black pepper farm, things we take for granted buying from the supermarket back home and fascinating to see at source. The mushrooms fertilise from spores mixed in with wood shavings and a small branch of tapioca in plastic bags hung in a dark damp space; they grow out of the slits cut in to the sides of the bags…the bigger mushrooms are called ‘ears’ locally. The black pepper is grown on a small family plot…they stick a big piece of wood in to the ground training the pepper vines to grow up around them.

To another waterfall, hooking up with Michael and Aiden again…the local park guide gently haggling to buy their empty beer cans for scrap aluminium. We lounge on the grass as Hong spins another riddle in his accented english, he’s funny and generous, very quick to giggle rather than laugh…he loves his riddles and on every day together he tries to catch us out. And everywhere we travel meeting local people, the ubiquitous coned rice paper hat to shade from the sun and women from hill tribes wearing distinctive dress…everyone friendly, quick to smile and engage.

To a small noodle making family business who have become successful supplying local restaurants and locals. The noodles are flat and white, the owner sits on a plank of wood which presses the rice flour through the noddle pressing sieves which denote the width of the noodles. A local market run by the minority peoples is crowded with people and we are treated like rock stars…Hong told us many of the people will never have seen a foreigner before. The staring and occasional touch on the arm isn’t intimidating as everyone is welcoming in their curiosity. To a rubber farm where small bowls hang from tapped trees collecting the sap.

Rice terraces and roadsigns, Communist Workers propaganda and pitstops for freshly pressed sugarcane drinks and filtered Vietnamese coffee.

And a surreal lunch stop; Hong nervous at first wondering if we should enter the roadside restaurant he’d chosen. Buses lined up outside…and inside packed with soldiers in dress uniform. Hong told me not to take any photographs until we knew what was going on, and suddenly this joyous occasion spilled over to include us, soldiers lining up to greet us, asking us to pose with them for photographs; us as much a novelty to them as they were to us. These were the Viet Cong veterans from the war, visiting this specific area to remember their colleagues who died in combat…but also to celebrate that they had lived. Cooking and serving up the traditional food they had survived on whilst fighting in the jungle. Incredibly sociable, laughing and playful, teaching me how to dance Vietnamese style moving my hands slowly in to angled poses, singing and clapping, the entire place was in uproar for most of the time we were there…we’ve never received a welcome like this anywhere and I doubt we will again. A celebration of survival, of being alive in the world. Dave and I totally overwhelmed; Hong and Thahn recovered from their initial wariness also overwhelmed, knowing we were in the middle of a unique shared experience.

Our last day. We travel close to the Indochina border with Laos, stopping to see War Memorials and defused bombs used as gate posts.

Driving to Hoi An…Hong playing his favourite song on the CD player ‘My Sleeping Child’…we gently rib him, he’s played it so many times on our trip and it’s a terrible song. He laughs when we tell him but know it will become a favoured memory of our time spent with him. Schoolgirls in their white uniforms spill out of the school gates on bicycles calling to us through the open car window. At our hotel in Hoi An we say goodbye to Hong and Thanh, we feel sad to leave them it’s been an incredible few days together. We exchange numbers and email addresses and genuinely hope to see each other again one day.

Hoi An. We arrived on the night of Saturday 19th April when they were celebrating the full moon festival. Several streets were closed to motorbike traffic, buildings hung with hundreds of coloured silk lanterns. Traditional musicians played on the street and on river boats. Children sold small paper lanterns with candles inside; we bought one to float down the river bobbing with hundreds of candles in different coloured floats reflecting back jewel bright colours of the silk lanterns in the shops and restaurants lining its banks. It looked magical. We intended to stay in Hoi An for 4-5 nights but wound up staying 10, drawn to the relaxed pace, by the made to measure tailor shops (over 200 of them) and we made new friends in Annie and Quique from America who we met in a favorite place called The Mango Room by the side of the river, drinking fresh pressed juices and eating fresh green papaya salads. It was an easy place to get sucked in; the city is beautiful but quiet, closing early at night…walking the streets late evening it’s only us, other backpackers… and the mice. A UNESCO World Heritage site of small streets in the Old Town lined with wooden buildings, crumbling brick colonial style houses, temples and flowering climbing plants.

Hoi An is located in the Quảng Nam province. The city had the largest harbour in Southeast Asia in the 1st Century and was known as Lâm Ấp Phố (Champa City). The former harbour town of the Champa people it sits on the Thu Bon river; an important Vietnamese trading centre in the 16th and 17th centuries, where Chinese from various provinces as well as Japanese, Dutch and Indians settled. During this period of the China trade, the town was called Hai Pho (Seaside Town) in Vietnamese. During the French colonial period (1883-1945), it was called Faifo.

We stayed in room 306 of the Thien Thanh Hotel with a big wooden hot tub on our balcony and a view across a rice paddy. The staff were great fun and we easily persuaded Quique and Annie to move across to the same hotel after they checked in to theirs to witness hundreds of cockroaches flowing out from the under the washbasin when they put their bathroom light on.

We ate ridiculously good food every single day, especially at the small family run Cafe 43 at 43 Tran Cao Van, which we visited 8 or 9 times…welcomed by Toan and his wife Cuc, their children Yen and little May. We told so many other travellers about this tiny place tucked away down an alley with a snooker hall…that on arriving on our final night every table was filled and the family overrun. Still they went next door to borrow an extra table and chairs so we could could join the fun, greet all the people we had met…it was hilarious, we knew every single table, and when we returned for a final breakfast the next morning the family presented us with thank you gifts.

We befriended Van who became our personal tailor at 113 Tran Phu Street in the Old Town. Dave ordered a bunch of shirts and I got a few things made, shipping some back so we didn’t have to lug it around but keeping the simple black dress and linen skirt, light for travelling. Because we introduced several customers to Van she kindly took us to the beach 4 kilometres from Hoi An where she treated us to a magnificent seafood lunch of clams, crab and prawns. Leanne (from Canada) and Fatima (from Sweden) stayed in the same hotel and came with us to get waistcoats made by Van. Each time we visited Van we were greeted by the lady set up on the pavement next to the shop selling mosquito coils, tiger balm (excellent for preventing mosquito bite itching), aluminium slow drip single coffee makers….and called to “Motorbike taxi?!” by the local family and on our final day we called back “Motorbike taxi?!” which they found hilariously funny.

After a few days running back and forth for tailoring appointments we ventured out in a taxi with Annie and Quique to the local ruins at My Son. Pronounced mi syn, the site consists of a Hindu temple complex in the village of Duy Phú in the district of Duy Xuyên in Quảng Nam province central Vietnam. A one hour drive from Hoi An the ruins comprise of several Champa temples in a valley roughly two kilometres wide surrounded by two mountain ranges. Mỹ Sơn dates to the 4th century, the site of religious ceremony of kings of the Champa dynasty and a burial place for Champa royals and national heroes. The Mỹ Sơn temple complex is one of the foremost temple complexes of Hinduism in South East Asia and the main heritage site of this nature in Vietnam.

Not so 4th century was the experience of being mobbed by a coach trip of 100 Vietnamese schoolchildren who found us more interesting than the ruins. After surrounding us excitedly, jostling for photo opportunities several of them starting asking for autographs which baffled us at first but we played along with as they pushed their school pens, exercise books, even a paper fan at us to scrawl on. It was quite surreal but fantastic fun which really made the trip. I instructed them to count down with us for some group photos calling out “1,2,3,4 ha ha ha ha ha ha!” and 100 kids all joined us. It was uproarious delightful fun which their teachers kindly tolerated until corralling them all back in to a group to continue with their more important education.

Our last few days in Hoi An were spent exploring a town temple and assembly room with orantely carved dragons and conspicuous horses, eating more wonderful food, everything so fresh..wandering the side of the Perfume River. We need to move on but don’t want to leave.

Hue. We’re now in Luang Prabang in Laos but I’ve fallen behind with blog entries mainly due to patchy internet connections. We passed a day or two in Lang Co a 90 minute drive from Hue staying at a place with a pool but as I didn’t take notes and lounged around doing nothing instead I can’t recall much of the place other than it was obviously very relaxing. And on to Hue and our last few days in Vietnam.

Annie and Quique travelled with us by bus from Hoi An and we got happily stranded in Hue due to a Vietnamese national holiday celebrating the economic and social achievements of workers which lasted 5 days; so instead of 2 nights in Hue we were there for 5 staying at a fabulous ‘training school’ hotel called Villa Hue. Young people come here to major in hospitality and tourism, the student staff extremely conscientious as they want to pass their exams. 12 rooms at £25 a night for a huge luxurious room with a large fancy bathroom. They should open training school hotels worldwide…it’s a great idea. So even though we couldn’t get a bus, train or flight out of Hue (pronounced huway)…we were in a great hotel with wonderful trainee staff giving us free cake vouchers. I can’t think of a better way to be stranded.

The hotel connected us with a private one day tour of the Nguyễn Dynasty tombs. Our trip began with a boat up the Perfume River stopping off at the river bank en route so we could hop on and off to visit 3 major sites. The wooden boats are hand painted with metal additions decorated with dragons and we sat inside on random loose plastic chairs inside. The boat owing family of four didn’t speak any English, the hotel had given them a route to follow. They lived on the boat with their cooking quarters in the back near the engine and their two young children played among us…whooping with joy as they threatened to slice Annie in the back with a metal can lid as Annie resaponded by showing them their photogrpahs on her camera. The mother tried to sell us tourist trinkets but hardened to the hard sell none of us succumbed.

Our first stop was at the Thien Mu pagoda. Its seven storied stupa the tallest in Vietnam. The temple is often the subject of folk rhymes known as Ca Dao about Hue, such is its iconic status and association with the city. It is regarded as the unofficial symbol of the former imperial capital. The pagoda sits on the Hà Khê hill in the ward of Hương Long in Hue, around 3 km from the Citadel of Hue constructed by the Nguyen Dynasty.

We were amazed to see displayed the car that had belonged to the monk Thich Ouang Duc who burned himself to death in protest in Saigon in 1963. The horrific photograph of the monk engulfed in flames is famous worldwide. Moving away from the car Annie and I met one of the local monks who kindly allowed us to take his photograph.

Back to the boat and life on the river…idling by vibrant green rice paddy fields, refueling boats, more sand dredgers and boat dwellers cooking, washing, working…the river their permanent home.

Our next stop was at the stunning ruins of some tombs we cannot remember the name of, just a short climb up from the river bank. We have named them the 102 degree ruins because that was the temperature recorded on Quique’s watch at the time; it just kept getting hotter and hotter and really humid. The local motorbike taxis tried to tell us it was at least a 40 minute walk to the ruins but as expected it was only 10 minutes. At this point we had wised to the jokers. We limply explored the tombs in the sticky close heat, sweat pouring before heading back to the boat.

Back on the river we stopped at the Minh Mang, a pretty forest setting where granite staircases lead from the Honour Courtyard to the square Stele Pavilion. A templed dedicated to the Emperor Minh Mang and his Empress is reached by a succession of three terraces. It’s a beautiful site with ornate bridges, carved wooden buildings and large expanses of water. We saw a snake slip quickly through a stretch of water disappearing in to the banked brick wall….moving so fluidly it barely caused a ripple. We stopped for lunch which wasn’t particularly good but they did serve a bizarrely elaborate shrimp paste on cocktail sticks speared in to a pineapple dragon. All looks and no content; it tasted bloody awful, unusual for Vietnam where the food has been glorious. A thunderstorm rolled in at lunch casting the sky an inky dark blue; we thought the air would cool but the humidity increased.

We parted company with the family boat people here and joined a car and driver to visit the last 2 tombs. Khai Dinh tomb was the highlight of our day. Only recently built in the 1920’s, it looms darkly on top of a hillside up a steep flight of steps. Emperor Khải Định was the 12th Emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam. His name at birth was Prince Nguyen Buu Dao. He wanted to restore the prestige of the empire but enacted a policy of close collaboration with the French government, following all of their instructions to give ‘legitimacy’ to French policies. Because of this Khai Dinh was very unpopular with the Vietnamese people. The nationalist leader Phan Chu Trinh accused him of selling out his country, living in imperial luxury while the people were exploited by France.

The interior is elaborately decorated with tile, mosaic from floor to ceiling; it was breath taking.

Tu Duc tomb was our final stop of the day; very pretty surrounded by water but not as simulating as the other sites and to be honest at this point we were completely knackered and threatening to collapse in a molten heap from heat exhaustion. Back to the hotel where the staff who’d been baffled this far by our relationship with QuiQue and Annie due to the age difference had veered from Dave and I being teachers travelling with two students and instead landed on Quique being our son. I made the mistake of telling him…this is going to run forever, I can tell. We said our goodbyes in Hue, Quique and Annie heading back to New York. He’d bought some knock off designer suitcases and crammed them with the ridiculous amount of shirts and suits he’d had tailored back in Hoi An. At different points along the trip random pieces of the suitcases would fall off and one split at the seams…and on the final day as Dave lifted the largest one in to the waiting taxi, the telescopic handle came off in his hand. We fell about laughing, the perfect end to travelling with new found friends.

Comments

April 15th Emma: Leza…the boat would have been a garage for the rest of the boats! Hence the pipes I reckon.

April 20th Deb: WOW WOW WOW!!! Love the pics! Leza, I really appreciated all the time you spend on this blog…keep the pics coming, you crazy Photo Journalist! Love to you both! Deb

April 23rd Sandra: Dave, you look like you have walked into an issue of Fables!Missing you both,xxxS&T.

April 26th Sandra: More amazing tales, this travelling life suits you two! Keep those photos coming.xxxS&T.