Hoi An, Vietnam

We arrived at Hoi An bright and early at 7 am on the night bus. The seats on the night bus are quite comfortable, but with the bus swerving back and forth on the winding road it's hard to get any sleep. Not to mention that the "highway" is in constant repairs and is quite rough.

We decided to treat ourselves with our accommodations and stay at a place that had a swimming pool. We immediately went for swim when we checked in and then had some breakfast.

The owner of the place was very friendly and he kept pouring me wine while we were having breakfast. They were still apparently celebrating Tet. Later in the day we cruised around on bicycles to check out the city and the beach. It was a nice bike ride through the town, by the beach, and through some rice paddies.

 

We walked out to a Japanese tomb where we got some pics of some farmers with water buffalo in the rice paddies. There was a guy hanging around the tomb that was all friendly and offering to take pictures. Of course wasn't just being friendly for free as we have learned that doesn't happen in these parts.

Once back in the main town centre, Roberta got sucked into one of the many tailor shops in town. The owner, Micky, was a little spitfire and Roberta liked the cut of her jib. She ended up getting a few souvenirs from her. Micky was trying to persuade me to get a suit, but I didn't want to have to carry it around for the rest of the trip so I had to turn it down.

Next, we headed off to Hai Cafe for a Vietamese cooking class. It wasn't very surprising that 'food motivated Roberta' wanted to do a cooking class. We were in a group with six 60-something Aussies who were quite entertaining. We had some great conversations with them. Two of the six ended up slicing open their fingers unfortunately, and were forced to sit and watch while we prepared dinner. We made 3 dishes and ended up eating five. We had mackerel wrapped in banana leaf, fried beef salad, fried spring rolls, white rose dumplings, and Hoi An pizza. It was all quite delicious.

Hoi An Pizza

Early the next morning we were woken up by Gustav, a Swedish guy who had taken the night bus. We invited him to partake in our day adventures. We jumped on our beautiful bikes and set off. We decided we would walk through some of the historic buildings down town. Hoi An was a major stop on the Silk Road, so there were many merchants from China, Japan and the world over that made stops in Hoi An. Our first stop was the Museum of Textiles where we learned about silk. Hoi An played an important part in the silk trade back in the day. A lady inside showed us how to know if a garment is actually silk. Just burn a small thread. 100% silk smells like burnt hair while other fakes smell like burnt cotton or burnt plastic.

 

Our next stop was a 200 year old Japanese style house. It had nicely carved pillars. It had a pulley system to hoist up all the artifacts when flood waters are threatening. Last historic stop was the Japanese Covered Bridge that was around 500 years old and linked the Chinese merchants to the Japanese merchants on the other side of the river.

We then went on to the beach for the rest of the day. I finished another Harry Potter book. Never thought you would catch me reading HP, but I am actually enjoying it. After supper that night when the streets were bare, we cruised under the Chinese laterns for a while.

The next day we decided to see if we were capable of driving scooters in Vietnam before we attempted the drive between Hoi An and Hue. For the test run we went out to the My Son ruins. It was about 45 kms away. I was a bit nervous but the driving went without a hitch. The short time spent on the #1 highway showed me that I wanted to avoid it as much as possible in the future with the large semis whizzing by. We met Steve from Edmonton who was cruising through Vietnam on a motor bike which is quite a common thing to do. He had some crazy stories about the drive.

 

The ruins themselves were alright, but it was more for the scooter ride. We decided we were capable of the drive to Hue over the Hai Van pass which was supposedly the nicest stretch of road in Vietnam.

 

 

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Nha Trang

We arrived in Nha Trang by bus around supper time. Didn't really see too much of the city that night, just walked around a bit looking for supper. It's actually hard to find cheap eats here because the place is FULL of Russians that come here on holiday and drive the price up. The signs are even in Vietnamese and Russian (English if you're lucky).

The next morning we did all the boring travel things that don't get mentioned in blogs like walking across the city in sweltering heat with our big packs on (we were switching to a cheaper hostel) and madly searching for a bus that wasn't full (Tet screwing us over repeatedly). In the end we would stay one night longer in Nha Trang than originally planned because busses are jam packed around the Tet holiday.

That afternoon we rented some bikes and headed out to Po Nagar Cham towers. These were built between the 7th and 12th centuries and 4 of the original 9 towers still stand.

The towers are set on a hillside and give some great views of the Nha Trang harbour full of fishing boats.

Worth mentioning: Jared and I stumbled upon a great spot for lunch- we had bun thit nuong (vermicelli noodles, bbq pork, fresh herbs, fish sauce) and nem phan (roll your own fresh spring rolls with pork). Also ran into an Englishman that told us about a nice beach to check out called Bai Xai.

Delicious food comes out of these metal boxes

After lunch we headed to Thap Ba Mineral and Mud Spa. It was great fun, and a bargain at $15 for the both of us. Had a sit in the mud pool (that smelt like evergreen) and then a long soak in the hot pools. Sorry we don't have pictures, took them with the camera because it's waterproof and those will be in limbo until we get home to the camera cord :s

The next day we took the advice of our English friend and headed to the beach. For $25 we got a cabbie to take us out 30km to the beach, wait 4 hours while we beached and dined on seafood and then drove us back! This place has totally screwed me up for what price to expect out of pretty much everything. Food, transport, hotels, it's all so cheap compared to back home. We lounged on the beach, and had some yummy fresh crab on a little mini BBQ.

Garbage is a real thing here in SE Asia

Day 3 in Nha Trang was spent on a cycling/kayaking tour. In the morning we cycled through some countryside- think rice fields, small villages, and the largest standing Buddha statue in Vietnam. We stopped and had some lovely Vietnamese coffee (epic sugar fest!!) and then after a wee bit more cycling we stopped for lunch. They kept bringing us different courses of food, it was excellent.

Too legit to quit

Rice field on our cycle

 

The afternoon was spent kayaking down the river to where it meets with the sea. Saw the Cham towers again but from a different angle.

The Austrian on our tour that kept insulting the Chinese (also on our tour) to their faces. Made for some hilarious moments, Jared and I just kept smirking at each other. I don't think he was even trying to be mean, just one of those people that lack a filter.

Selfie attempt from the kayak

When we got back into the city we caught a quick bite to eat before getting onto the night bus headed for Hoi An.

 

 

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Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City

So after exploring the Mekong Delta for a couple of days, we ended up in Ho Chi Minh City. It was originally called Saigon, but after the Vietnam War the name was changed to the founder of the Viet Cong. We checked into our hostel and met some weird guys. One was a Vietamese guy who kept talking about Muslim bombs which was weird. The other was a rather stank Dutch guy that was complaining that the beer prices had gone from 5000 - 8000 dong (Yes that's the name of the currency) because of Lunar New Year aka Tet aka Chinese New Year. 21000 dong = 1 US $ so it's so cheap that complaining about it is ridiculous. Later on we talked with an Italian girl who told us a story about being stuck in the aisle of a bus for a 20 hour trip. Most people would be upset, but she thought it was all quite fun and was laughing about it. I've tried to remember this when I get a little annoyed with things. You definitely meet all different kinds of people while traveling.

The next day we just kind of chilled out and walked around to try and secure a bus ticket out. This proved to be rather difficult as most buses were full. Vietamese don't really celebrate any other holiday or their birthday during the rest of the year, so Tet is a huge celebration. Apparently Ho Chi Minh was like a ghost town compared to the rest of the year because most people were out in the countryside celebrating with their families. It still looked pretty busy to me. After a bit we found an overnight bus in two days to take us to Nha Trang.

2015 - The Year of the Goat

That night was like New Year's Eve for us, so we headed down to the river to watch the fireworks that were set to go off at midnight. The streets were lit up with all kinds of different lights and there were flowers everywhere. It was quite pretty.

 

Getting close to the river posed a bit of a problem as the crowds were absolutely huge. Think New Year's Eve in Manhattan on a bit of a smaller scale. We kept following people who were pushing their way through and made it to a decent spot that we could at least breathe in. The fireworks were great, but only lasted around 20 minutes or so.

 

 

Lots of the people there didn't even look at the fireworks except through the video screens on their phones. It was quite ridiculous. I thought it would take us hours to get out of there, but within another 20 minutes most people were gone. It was quite amazing how that many people can get out of one place that fast on scooters.

The next afternoon we decided to check out a couple of the tourist stops. First we went to the War Remnants Museum which was all about the Vietnam War. We definitely learned a lot of what happened over here. Quite disturbing actually. It was the first time that I had really read things that talked about the U.S. being an enemy. It was South Vietnam and the Americans vs North Vietnam (the Viet Cong who were Communists.) The amount of bombs dropped was just crazy. Many of these bombs never detonated, so they are still live and posing a huge risk.

There was a whole section on Agent Orange which was eye opening and quite horrific at the same time. The US and the South used it to kill all the vegetation, so they could see the Viet Cong coming. But it had other very severe consequences. It killed many people from both sides and disfigured many others. It is genotoxic meaning it causes deformations of babies within the womb that can be passed on from generation to generation. We saw the effects of it on people on the street and even in some small children, so it is still occurring some 40 years later. Terrible stuff.

What Agent Orange does to plants.

There was all kinds of guns, tanks, airplanes, bombs, pictures, and stories. It was another one of those eye opening experiences that made me feel very privileged to grow up where I did.

Next, we went to the Reunification Palace. It used to be the home base of the South/Americans. The Viet Cong stormed the gates in April of 1975 which essentially ended the war. It was quite a large place surrounded by a fence with many floors and bunkers. We learned a bit more about the war and decided that was enough of that for the day.

That evening we heard a commotion outside our hostel and went over to the window to where a bunch of backpackers were peering out. They told us that there had just been a knife fight between two Vietamese guys out on the street! One guys had throw a knife, but it hit the other guy handle first in the head. Could have been very bad. It caused a huge back up in traffic. We were just happy to be inside!

The next morning we jumped on the bus to Nha Trang for our next adventure.

 

Bike stand selling squid

Street food eating

Comfortable sleeper bus seats to Nha Trang

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