Northern Vietnam-Hanoi,Ha Long,Hue
Trip Start
Feb 19, 2007
1
28
Trip End
Sep 04, 2007
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Our last stops in Vietnam were Hue, Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. We stopped off briefly in Hue to visit the ancient citadel which was impressive, although much of it was bombed in the war and was now being rebuilt. Plus they didn't seem to be doing that good a job on rebuilding putting plastic laminate on everything instead of wood carving. After Hue it was onto the Hanoi, the capital after a 12 hour bus journey, with the bus driver picking up random people and they lying on the floor of the bus again - not very comfortable for them, but I was ok in my bunk bed type seat thing. I'd heard about alot of scams in Hanoi so we booked a hotel as you can get tricked by touts into going somewhere else when you get off the bus. I had though the south of vietnam would have been more capalist that the communist north, but actually I got the vibe it was the other way around when I got off the bus and all the taxi drivers were ripping off because they knew that it was about to rain. Quite the entrepreneurs! Hanoi was an interesting city, if you could block out the countless fruit basket ladies and cyclo drivers whistling at you the who time trying to attract your attention. They have a lovely, if not murky lake (Hoa Kiem) in the middle of the city where the legend of the turtle and the sword came from. Rumour has it that giant turtles still like there, but really, I think the pollution would have killed off any turtles long ago ;) We of course had to go see Uncle Ho in the Mausoleum, there was a massive queue to go in and you can't even stop to look at him, you have to keep moving all the time. To be honest he looked a bit waxy to me but I guess he did die quite some time ago! Then afterwards we had to go to Uncle Ho's house and museum, he really is a talisman to the vietnamese people. We checked out the famous water puppet show as well, have to say for $1.50 its very good value for money and quite entertaining. Ferg wasn't too impressed with his cramped seat though! Enough sightseeing done it was time to hang at the "bia hoi" corner for the super cheap beers at 4000 dong each - about 25 us cents. Possibly the cheapest beer I've ever had and definately better than alot of more expensive crap!! Very good for people watching, some unfortunate girl walking past had her skirt tucked inside her knickers which attracted quite the few laughs!
One of the most famous sights in Vietnam is Ha Long bay, so we headed out for a two days trip. Now you could pay about $30 for a two night trip but we decided to splash out and do it luxury style as cheap trips in Vietnam are just a bad idea. So we had a great two days in Ha Long, thought the weather would be crap,it being wet season and all, but it was really good, lots of sunshine. We stayed on a private island the first night, and I decided that it might be nice to have some pringles to snack on. Went off to dinner and on my return to the bungalow the pringles were spread over the floor as we must've had a pet rodent hanging out in our room. Delightful! The next day after chilling out on the island, we hopped onto our junk where we were spending the night. Quite a few people were jumping off the boat so I thought I'd give it a whirl too even though there were one or two jellfish lurking around the place. First time I hopped in it was really nice. Second time I decided just to hop in from a sitting position on the edge of the boat. This turned out to be quite a bad idea as there are quite a few loose nails and one decided to grab my bikini bottom and rip it!! Luckily I managed a graceful exit out of the water as Ferg found my spare pair! Quite embarrassing really, but everyone on the boat got a laugh. I actually preferred this to the night on the island, even though I'd heard bad things about the boat, I actually thought it was really comfortable and very relaxing to be out under the stars at night!
