Update from Vietnam (finally!)

Ahh, Vietnam...We've been here over two weeks and simply have not been able to take the time to post, it's been that great. After spending some pampering days in Bangkok, we purchased Vietnam tourist visas and a plane ticket to Hanoi and we were onto country number 5. The first highlight of our trip was when we discovered our Bangkok visas were indeed valid and not forgeries -- or at least forged well enough to fool Vietnamese immigration officers! From then on we stayed in Hanoi for a week with trips to the Northern highlands and Halong Bay before heading south towards Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. As for our adventures in and around Hanoi...

1. Hanoi: Definitely my favourite city to date, but maybe that's just because Alyss spotted a Canon camera store that fixed my broken camera in under 10 minutes! The hustle and bustle of Hanoi is hard to describe - sometimes the entire city feels like millions of honking motorbikes, which I guess it is. But the beautiful part of Hanoi is the trees - every street is lined with trees. And the colonial buildings are a nice touch too. It's neat being in a place with such history as well - not many countries can say they've kicked out the Chinese, French, Khmer Rouge and Americans. Not only does this history make for interesting places to visit, but we've yet to find another country that offers quality baguettes and cappuccinos for breakfast!

We spent most of our days wandering the streets of the Old Quarter and beyond where we discovered such delicacies as Bun Cha Nem - grilled pork in a soup with rice noodles and spring rolls. These heroines also highly recommend local beer with your meal - delicious! (Or "ngon qua", which has made us many local friends despite our likely atrocious pronunication!)

Seriously, Bun Cha Nem is amazing: Who can say this doesn't look delicious? Mmm.....bun cha

2. The Highlands: For our first weekend in Vietnam we decided to spend it in the highlands near the border with China, a 10+ hour train ride from Hanoi. The climate is completely different from Hanoi requiring fleeces, boots and wool socks. But the really cool thing is the people - Vietnam is home to over 81 million people and while 80% of these are ethnic Vietnamese, another 1% is classified as "ethnic minorities" and included over 50 different hill tribes. In our first stop, the town of Sapa, there were mostly Black H'mong people (because of the black-blue dyes used in their clothing) and then in Bac Ha we saw Red Zao, Dzai, and Flower H'mong tribes.

Anyways, onto Sapa. As soon as you descend from the mini-van several things happen. First you realize how great the temperature is - you're not sweating buckets and your hair is barely frizzy anymore! Second, you decide terraced rice paddies are the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Third, you start to feel the pull of little hands on your clothes, hands, and hair. When you look down (yes, even I had to look down), you realize that over the past 10 seconds you have been swarmed by really cute kids wearing traditional tribal clothing trying to convince you to buy their bracelets, embroidered pillow cases, blankets, etc. Ah, the cash cow of tourism. As you disentagle yourself from the crowd and make a mad dash for the peace and quiet of your hostel, you unwittingly shout back "OK, maybe later I'll buy something". While this may seem innocent enough, apparently "maybe" translates as "yes" and Alyssa and I were hounded by many astute sellers on our next foray into town pouting that we had promised to buy from them. And their memories! Man, you talk to these kids for maybe 5 minutes and they have got your name, citizenship and relationship status memorized! And it's very difficult to turn down cute kids who know a lot about you! Look, here's a picture of Alyssa buying stuff from a whole bunch of them.

We spent the next two days hiking through the hillsides with our guide Quyet and two awesome Swiss Germans, Nadia and Heidi. We saw terraced rice patties, rivers, waterfalls, water buffalo, local Black H'mong villages and still more children with the "you buy from me!" line. Cute for the first time, not for the dozens of more times. Again, one begins to think vile thoughts of the tourism industry. We spent the night in a Dzai village with a really nice family...OK, so sure we only smiled at each other, but they seemed really nice. Quyet made us an amazing dinner of rice, stirfrys and the best fried tofu with tomatoes we've ever had! And to top it off, he pulled out a 2L water bottle of "holy water" for after-dinner drinks, which turned out to shot after shot of local moonshine, or rice wine for the uninitatiated. While I imagine only rocket fuel would taste worse, after 15 shots of the stuff I forgot I had taste buds to even complain about the taste. I'm sure you can all imagine the state your poor heriones were in, so we'll leave it at that.

Day 3 saw us again trapped on a tourist bandwagon to Bac Ha, a small village 3 hours away famous for its large market on Sundays. Not only did we splurge on a few handicrafts (like my new beautiful blanket!), but we saw a market like something from another century. Live animals, tobacco, fruits and vegetables, shoes, crafts, clothing all being sold by Flower H'mongs with beautiful coloured clothing -- imagine Medieval Europe in Vietnam...and then add in a lot of mud.

So then we were carted around for more sightseeing, to an "authentic" Flower H'mong village (don't get me started!) and the Chinese border with Vietnam. Finally we were dropped off at the train station in Lao Cai where Alyssa and I made friends at a local restaurant by playing cribbage and giving our cameras to little kids. We also watched Vietnam win the Agribank Cup which is a very big deal (if you happened to be in Vietnam, that is). Then we were back to Hanoi via night train for a day of laundry (and de-mudding) before heading north to Halong Bay.


3. Halong Bay: About 4 hours north of Hanoi near the coast of China, the strangest thing happens. Huge limestone mountains jut out of the South China Sea -- its really amazing. Unfortunately, many other people think so too and so Alyss and I were once again following the well-travelled tourist trail. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts, our feisty heroines had to split up for the first time in over 2 months with Alyss signing up for a 3-day tour and me taking a 2-day tour (since I wanted to be back in Hanoi for a World Wildlife Fund conference). Both tours involved mini-bus rides to Halong City and boat tours through Halong Bay. While I can't say the typhoon off the coast of Vietnam improved the weather (there were a lot of grey skies and rain), the scenary was still amazing. As for my tour, it sucked huge without Alyss - the other 10 people were totally lame and severly decreased my opinion of foreign tourists. There seemed to be no end to their complaints - from the lack of milk for their tea to the noise and dirt in Hanoi. Needless to say I didn't hang out with them very much and instead wrote a lot of postcards. (Yes, there was even one to Alyss!). But apparently Alyss's tour was better but I'll leave her to tell you about that. But really, Halong Bay is very pretty, see?

-em.