Good Mourning Vietnam
Vietnam, what a place!

Now, I'm no historian but I am reasonably OK at piecing together evidence and predicting future events.

Here are the facts, as far as I can tell;

The people were originally Chinese (see previous blogs). Every now and then some superpower such as China / USA invades... Leading to mass destruction, loss of infrastructure, lives, crops and everything essential to life as we know it.

Given the above, you'd imagine these were going to be the most miserable, downtrodden, bitter and twisted people on earth. But they're not, they smile, joke and laugh all of the time. Perhaps it is bone structure, or perhaps they wear their conical hats too tight, but for some reason or other they spend all of their waking hours smiling. (They might smile asleep, I've simply no experience).

Due to the excessively tight schedule I devised involving the re-unification express (railway) we were only ever going to have a few days, with a few nights asleep on trains. Imagine my pleasure when Susie listed the places she wanted to visit, 2 in total between Hanoi and Saigon (Hoi An and Dalat) and neither accessible by train. So we bought a bus ticket... 30 USD for 2000km on rough roads with enough bus-miles to purchase a set of matching bus company mugs.

Our first few days were spent in Hanoi. Hanoi is probably beautiful, its just hard to see due to the number of motorbikes. No joke, the roads are jam packed 24/7 with thousands of scooters. You have to walk in the roads as the pavements have scooters parked on them. Now, the first night we arrived there might have been a few more than normal as Vietnam had just beaten Cambodia 9-1 in the tiger cup, but the number had to be seen to be believed. At least 4 on each, all horns pipping and carrying enormous flags. Crossing the road became a surreal experience, simply reverse the green cross code.

1) Stand on the edge of the pavement. Look both ways. If nothing is coming you're standing on the edge of the lake, turn around and you'll see the road.
2) Step calmly into the flow of motorbikes.
3) Continue, make no erratic movements, until you reach the other side. It works perfectly, the drivers simply move around you. Susie often closed her eyes.

We joined a tour to Ha Long bay. This is a 4 hour bus ride east of Hanoi, we boarded a boat and cruised around this area of outstanding beauty. Lots of limestone karsts rising from emerald seas, black kites circled overhead and the sun shone on us as we basked in the evening sunshine. We hiked to the top of Cat Ba island, giving breathtaking views across this national park. I'm not going to go all eco-warrior, but give it a couple of years and this will be the eastern Cancun, they've already started on a promenade built on an area of reclaimed land. Given the people it should be a really good place to visit.

After Hanoi we headed to Hoi An, appeasing my need to visit anagramatic places. Hoi An retains its colonial past, French buildings and food but without the French attitude to foreigners! This is the place for tailoring, nearly bought a suit (20 USD) but decided against it. Even buying a couple of shirts involved taking 6 or 7 measurements, sure enough they fit unlike anything else I have, and only 7 USD a piece. I promised myself one day I'll have a suit tailor made, I won't as I'm too tight to pay for it back home, but I ought to.

Next stop Dalat. A town in the highlands, renowned for its lakes, hills and endless views. We arrive after a 20 hour bus ride to overcast skies, gloom and rain. You can imagine how enthralled I was... A hearty meal and a bottle of local wine called "Dalat Dong" raised spirits. Following morning the sun was out, really quite pleasant. Visited a hill tribe, waterfall, lake, tourist stuff.

Left Dalat for Saigon. Saigon is a modern city, it could be anywhere, but the scooters give it away. Officially there are 8 million people here, and 2 million scooters. The thing to do on a Sunday night is cruise with your family on a scooter, mum&dad + 2 kids was the norm, even tiny babies. Again following the Vietnamese-cross code worked wonders. Visited the war museum and read all about the things the Americans did over here. Lots of stomach churning photographs, obviously one sided. Seems strange the Americans went after Saddam for his use of chemical weapons on his own people, they must have very short memories... Today we visited the Cu Chi tunnels, these networks of passages provided living / fighting quarters for the VC. Had to smile when I heard the Americans couldn't fight them in the tunnels, they couldn't get their fat arses down the holes! We crawled through a short section and saw some of the man traps the VC devised, they might not have had chemical defoliants, dioxin bombs and the rest but they certainly made a wicked bamboo pit trap.

In my quest around the world I've been considering career options, ruled one off the list; Unexploded Ordinance Recycling operative : gathers unexploded bombs, disassembles them then uses the contents to make VC landmines. Guess my attention to detail isn't quite up to this line of work - there's no "undo" button on those things.

Tomorrow morning we head off to Cambodia. In the back of my mind Cambodia says poverty and Blue Peter appeals, but all of my other preconceptions have been wrong, so who knows. No idea if we'll be able to blog/mail until we reach Thailand in the New Year.

Happy Christmas and New Year to you all, enjoy the break.

- posted by Adrian @ 10:19:00 AM