From There to Here, and a Lot In Between

So, once again I am left typing out a massive posting because we've had little time, and I require at least an hour to do the blog justice, and with each stop that time expands greatly as you might expect. Now, having made oh, let's see... I believe about 7 stops. I'll cover as much as I can, as briefly as I am able (those that know me well will know what to expect). I will delay you no further, other than to say that I will start where I left off and try to finish where we are.

I believe our last entry was from the day we arrived in Dalat. We had taken a moderately lengthy bus ride up into the mountains and had found a room that is still the best we've had, both luxury-wise and price-wise. But I suppose no one is reading this anxiously awaiting news of our accommodations, so I'll try to describe Dalat, the surrounding area, and our experience. Unfortunately for us, it was extremely rainy and cold (low 60s, we're babies now) the entire time we were there, so we missed out on most of the things we came for. Dalat its self is a relatively small town surrounding a smaller lake and organized around the kind of tourism that attracts businessmen and families more than backpackers - golf courses, karaoke joints, resorts, etc. However, evidently beyond the city limits there are numerous vast towering and plunging multi-tiered waterfalls, none of which we had the joy of seeing because, as I said, it was pouring the entire time. We did get to see the market which was about the same as every other market we've visited in every other town except for a couple of products unique to the region. They are these: strawberries, some other type of berry that slightly resembled that of the boysen variety, and candied and dried fruits from kiwi to tomato (the later of which I was led to believe were strawberries and if you'd have seen them, you'd have believed it too). Despite the rain, we enjoyed ourselves and made the best of it, suffering it with little complaint, though venturing from our hotel in spirts. In the end though, we were forced to cut our visit short by a day or two. We are definitely visiting again when we come back to Vietnam. The waterfalls must be seen.

From Dalat, we took a bus to Nha Trang, which was really just a a stopping point before we continued to Hoi An. The city was nice and because we were taking an over-night bus to Hoi An the next day, we got more than a day to explore. Being right on the sea and with several small islands just off the coast, it is immensely popular and the beach is populated by an astonishing number of men in speedos or similarly tight and short swimwear, and women in bikinis (I only note this because Vietnam is a fairly conservative society as far as dress, and we were surprised by how indifferent or ignorant of this many tourists are). All along the beach is a boardwalk and at night it is largely frequented by Vietnamese playing soccer, eating at the various vendors (we even saw lobster offered at one) and children renting and driving mini-cars like the plastic jeeps and Corvettes you buy at Toys R Us. That first night we even caught a group of Vietnamese teens break dancing. We had prapared to eat lobster seeing as how it was seemingly was offered everywhere, but we found it to be more expensive than at first glance. The restaraunts trick you by putting it in terms of price per kg. It would've cost us each around 400,000 dong to eat which is more than $20usd each (the exchange rate is commonly 16,000 to the dollar). We ate noodle soup for 15,000 dong instead.

The next day we rented a motobike as we had until 7pm when our bus left. We spent most of the day driving up and down the coastline checking out the local temple, which wasn't all that spectacular because we are quite templed out, having seen as many as we could in Thailand and Cambodia. We also drove to some smaller towns and beaches. We both ended up a little sunburned because we neglected to put any protection on whatsoever. I got it worse than Hilary as I was the one doing the driving and so facing the sun most of the time. If we ever come back, we'll go to one of the small towns to stay.

We didn't do one of the island tours because most sounded like booze-cruises and as I've said before, that's not really our scene. We managed to make it a full day and at 7pm climbed aboard our bus for an extremelly long and uncomfortable night of travel, I with my knees pressed firmly against the chair in front of me and Hilary with only my shoulder to rest on. Despite our best efforts, we got very little sleep and arrived in Hoi An quite haggard and in dire need of showers. We hadn't the opportunity since the morning the day before and had spent the entire day in the sun on the motobikes. You can imagine the odor that we carried of sleep and sweat and recycled are. Not good to say the least.

Hoi An, as it turned out, is a beautiful old French colonial town with narrow streets and a small river bisecting it. We visited for this reason and because it is the tailoring capitol of the area. There are tailors on virtually every corner and they are all seemingly desperate for your patronage. Also, I don't think they can distinguish between white people very well because often we'd be asked to come and look at someones shop several times in a day no matter how we responded. The tailor next door to our hotel was especially adept at this, asking us to visit his shop both as we left and again as we returned, both of which were fairly frequent due to our hotel's proximity to town. We are generally polite with vendors of all ilk, so we did not try rudeness, anger or insult. Perhaps those are the tacks to take. Instead we shopped where less badgered to do so. We ended up spending more than we expected, but not that much at all by US standards. We priced the first day until we found a tailor shop we felt comfortable with, based on a mixture of price, availability of material and personal character. In the end, we bought two suits for me (one nice bright green wool one that is pictured - dapper if I say so, and I do) and several things for Hilary, including a pretty summer dress and some skirts and pants. When I first asked about the green suit, the shop owner refused to believe that I was serious. She kept insisting that the material was too hot and really only for coats anyway, but in the end we managed to convince her that I was indeed serious about the suit and she made a beautiful one, or rather the place that does their sewing did. The person who actually did the stitching requested that he be called when I came to pick up the suit because he wanted to see it on me. I don't think he believed I wanted it either.

Later that day, we discovered the market which is similar to all the other markets we've visited but different in that it also has a wing filled with tailors that charge at least $10 less per suit than the tailor shops. I don't know the breaks on women's attire, though Hilary did get a coat there while I got a third suit. We both chose floral print linings, which evidently hadn't been done before judging from all the fuss over it. Again, the clothes turned out very smart.

We spent the majority of our time in Hoi An strolling the narrow streets and eating in various colonial-style buildings. We found ourselves at a wonderful French bakery at least once a day to get sesame rolls and pain du chocolat (sp?). Hilary also purchased something like 10 purses because they were so nice and also ludicrously cheap - some buys were encouraged by the fact that the proceeds went to help disabled people, others were simply too nice to pass up. On the riverfront we discovered fresh pressed sugarcane juice. They make it by pushing a long stock of sugarcane through a press, then taking that same sugarcane, folding it around a lemon and running it through again. It is delicious and very thirst quenching. Don't tell Gatorade. They may show up and try to steel the formula. We also found another kind of pomegranate that is yellow on the outside and has light pink seeds on the inside. Very good, though not as sweet as the red kind we get in the US, however, you can get about 4 for the same price.

Clothing, purses and fruit are not the only games in town, as there is a booming shoe trade also. There are multiple streets utterly lined with small shoe shops that have various designs and colors ranging from the common place to the utterly absurd and ornate. Some of the material would be better suited for a Kamono than a pair of sneakers, but there they were. These shoes are not to by, but are designs to choose from. When you go to one of these shops, they sit you down and measure your feet, then hand you a few catelogs to look through to pick a design. Then you get a pile of materials to choose from, like you might choose a dress. After you've chosen all of these things, your shoes are custom made. All for as low as $7usd. Not bad.

On our last day, we rented bikes and road the 4kms to the beach. The ocean was blue and the sand white, as you may have suspected, and we walked it for a couple of kms. It was lined with ridiculously sized resorts that just as easily could've been small towns considering that people staying there have no need to leave. All had in-house tailors and gift shops carrying the same things as in town but at a mark-up of maybe 100%. These places never cease to amaze me in their grandiose seclusion, and their detachment from almost anything resembling the country in which they are situated. They are much like McDonalds or any other chain in that you could be in any country in the world when inside one. They are so similar as to allow very little differentiation. You could fairly expect to walk out of one and be in another country entirely. I guess I just prefer getting a genuine cultural experience verses the canned one provided by resorts and the like.Getting back to the point, these bike excursions always make our travel seem more real, or at least more in line with what we'd imagined for ourselves before setting out. I think it's the intimate view of the countryside, the ability to view people living their lives according to their culture and traditions rather than as dependent on tourists, and the escape from the throngs of tourists themselves.

Anyhow, we enjoyed Hoi An greatly, but were ready to go when it was time. Too many tourists and the food was too expensive. So we caught a bus to Hue, which was about a three hour journey and only another stop-over before going on to another stop-over in Hanoi, which would lead us to Halong Bay. Hue was nice and once again we were taking a night bus the day after our arrival, so we were afforded time enough to explore the city. On our only full day we rented bikes and went over to the Citadel which is the old imperial city. There are several smaller "cities" within, though the entire thing is maybe a square mile. The architecture was interesting and we enjoyed the visit, but don't really have much to say about it on the whole. We're not really museum goers or sight see-ers anyway. We prefer natural wanders. That night we took a sleeper bus instead of the standard bus we'd taken on our last over-nighter. The sleeper bus was supposed to have reasonably plush bed/chairs and be a lot more comfortable, with plenty of leg room. As it turned out, the beds were more like narrow bunks on a submarine and neither Hilary nor I could fully stretch out. Hilary wore her bitchin' new moose socks given her by Oley and life-savors as the bus was near fridged. Then, in the middle of the night, the toilet began overflowing. Thankfully it was down a little from floor level and near the side doors so the water that came pouring out went under the door and onto the road. I had woken to use the bathroom and found the toilet already brimming. I told the bus driver, but he thought I was asking to use the bathroom I guess because he kept thumbing at the back of the bus, saying bathroom. Finally, an hour later we stopped to pick someone up and I rushed to the front. Again they tried to tell me to use the bus toilet and again I tried to explain the disaster that was occurring in there. Finally I just told them to take a look while I went pee in the bushes, and I got off. When I returned, they had discovered the problem. There wasn't much delay however. I think they simply turned the water to the toilet off, but I don't know. I didn't check.

In Hanoi we were greeted by a crush of motobike drivers and hotel hawkers all trying desperately to get you to use their services, as usual. And as usual we pushed through them to get some space and figure things on our own. We had met an Italian couple on the trip over and we decided to split a taxi with them. (Luckily people have not outwardly had contempt for us being US citizens and given us a fare shake as far as we can tell. We have been admitting to being from the US rather than proudly announcing it, so maybe that has something to do with it. But maybe they just give us a fair shake because they've realized that people no more reflect their governments than than tin cans reflect an image). Anyway, we found a nice little hotel and began shopping around for trips to Halong Bay and Cat Ba island. As luck and expenses would have it, our cheapest and best option was the trip our hotel provided, so we signed on and began to explore the city.

Hanoi was nice for the day and they have bootleg DVDs for less than $1usd, so we bought a bunch. You can even get the entire series of Seinfeld for all of $20, seasons 1 through 10. We didn't. Our only night in town happened to be Saturday, so there was a big street market as I assume there must be in every city in this part of southeast Asia. We explored it but only got some kem (ice cream) and almost hit by several motobikes. The next morning we left for Halong Bay bright and early, taking a small bus to the harbor where our guides had to buy tickets and arrange a boat for us (the thing was well planned as you might guess). After sitting in the sun for maybe an hour, we finally boarded a boat. This did not however mean that we were taking to the sea, though it may have implied otherwise. Instead we sat docked for another hour and a half, part of which was spent eating lunch. There was a little excitement as a small knife fight broke out on an adjacent boat, but the sour feelings were quickly quelled without bloodshed or further violence. I guess maybe pirates still do ply these waters. Finally our boat put to sea and we grinded out into the bay, bumping the boats next to us to get free. Slowly, as the harbor disappeared, we began to get a small taste of what we were in store for. Small and large limestone islands matted in green vegetation launching straight up from the water with little or no beach, and sometimes even an indentation where the water lapped the sides and wore away the soft rock loomed up before us. We stopped first to visit a cave on a smaller island and were met by a sign advertising the eco-friendly nature of the island park behind which you could see toilets that emptied directly into the ocean. The cave was quite large, lit by several florescent bulbs of various colors and called something like the Heavenly Palace. It was kind of neat but its neatness was greatly diminished by the number of people forming a solid straight unbroken line throughout, the cement path, and the addition of sprinklers behind rocks made to appear as natural geysers but clearly not. After a brief tour we got back on the boat and continued on to where there was a floating village complete with a school and a local water cave. You could take a 20 minute visit to both for $2usd. We passed. At this same stop we saw the first of many vendor boats selling fruit, cookies, chips, soda and cold beer. I think if you were trapped on a desert island, you could still find a Vietnamese vendor to supply you with food. They've probably already got some stands on Mars just waiting for the day. We were getting into the real islands. What we'd really come for. Once we set of, the beauty of Halong Bay began to become very apparent. All around us were sheer islands like the ones I've described earlier. Magnificent graceful things, pristine and almost virtually untouched. Many simply to sheer to attempt to climb at all. And the water spread out around them green as the skin of a lime. Sadly, much of the water was utterly lousy with cigarette butts, plastic bags, processed food packaging and other rubbish. We next stopped to kayak around a small group of islands but were told not to swim. We had planned to ignore our guides but seeing the water closer made us rethink that. Finally we left for where we'd anchor for the night and as it was getting dark, when the guide said we could swim and even jump off the roof of the boat (about 15-20 feet) we excitedly did, imagining the water to be much cleaner here than where we'd been earlier. This was not the case as I was to learn the next morning. That night, Hilary and I met a couple of Germans, one married and with his Indian wife, and a Brit that we spent most of the evening with playing cards on the top deck. They were good people and it was nice to be in an environment conducive to easily meeting people. We've suffered from a lack due to the absence of nightlife and our stays in hostels that are without communal areas. (If we ever open a hostel, the first order of business will be to provide a communal dinner so as to allow people to meet easily.) They were headed back in the next day while we were going to spend a night on Cat Ba Island. Their trek was the opposite of ours so we bid them a good journey. The night was pretty rough as the fan only worked intermittently and our room was stuffy enough to cause Hilary to become slightly claustrophobic. The next day we ate breakfast and docked. Cat Ba was much larger than I expected and it took a while to get to Cat Ba National Park where we were spending the morning hiking. As it turned out, I believe that we didn't actually go to the national park, instead being taken to another trail in a local village while our guides pocketed our entrance fee (it should be mentioned that we paid a flat rate for the entire trip, food, lodging and entrance fees included, so they didn't take money directly from us). We don't mind this sort of scam really and the hike was great, though much more challenging than we were led to believe. It was a climb starting on a paved path and deteriorating to scrambling over rocks. The view was spectacular and we enjoyed the challenge, though I had to wring my shirt out several times. I believe I lost maybe two liters of water weight. After the hike we were taken to our hotel in town and given the option to go to monkey island after lunch. We declined and instead rented a motobike and did our own tour of the island, checking out the nearest beach and the countryside.

The next day we got up early and began the trip back to Hanoi. We got to pass through a different mass of islands than on the previous day and again marveled at their majestic rise into the sky. They are just like in the pictures. Simply breathtaking. Another 3 hour bus ride got us from the dock to Hanoi and we decided to push on to our next stop, Sapa. We had just enough time to get passport pictures for our Laos visas, eat dinner and arrange tickets for the sleeper train. The train was nice enough, better than the bus anyway, and we arrived only this morning somewhat rested. The train doesn't actually take you to Sapa. It takes you to Lao Cai where you catch a bus or minivan up through the mountains to Sapa. The town is amazing. It is placed near the end of a valley up on a mountain wall. It is populated by an extremely diverse group of indigenous people including H'mong, D'Zao, Xia and some others I cannot remember, not to mention the Vietnamese. We immediately fell in love with the town and after befriending a younger H'mong girl named Chang who was trying to sell us some bags, we decided that we should forgo some of our Laos time and hang out here longer as we had wanted to do originally. That night we met a very friendly elderly Vietnamese man who owns a small restaraunt here and challenges all visitors to chess and some of his homemade plum wine. He beat me soundly four times running (but I got him once last night).

We had plans with Chang to visit her village the next day, but when it came time to meet, there was confusion on where and we could not find her, so instead we went to Cat Cat village, about 3kms outside of town. The village its self wasn't so spectacular being much more spread out than what you might expect of a place called a village, and also being heavily influenced by tourism. It is the primary village toured in this area. The trail through the village wound down to the river where we found what looked like a small Swiss grotto to us facing a beautiful waterfall. From there we hiked on along the rivers edge until we found another path, this one mud versus the cement we had been tredding. We turned and followed it up the hillside and came upon a H'mong funeral. Needless to say, we were the only Europeans there, but they were welcoming and let us watch for a while. Once we felt we'd stayed long enough, but not too long, we left and hiked our way back to town where we ran into Chang and discovered the confusion from that morning. We thought maybe something came up or she'd blown us off. We made plans for the future, and that's where it stands now.
Wish us luck. Miss you all.