The whole Vietnam, part 1

  Hoi An, Vietnam
Sunday, June 15, 2008

I am going to take you through Vietnam only highlighting chosen episodes of my trip because I did the 1,650 km of Vietnam, from the Mekong delta all the way to Sapa, stopping here and there along the way. Funny enough, cause nobody speaks a word of english in Vietnam, it is actually quite easy to take the bus because there is a company called Sinh cafe that has this open ticket tour to get you from south Vietnam all the way to the north. It also has sleeping buses and I had to take 2 of them, one from Nha Trang to Hoi An and one from Hue to Hanoi, very interesting experience. Here is a pic of my seat/bed in the bus, next to 4 other guys.

Sleeping bus

The first stop, after Cantho, was Ho Chi Minh city.  Amazing city, filled with 2 wheels, more than you can imagine, more than you can even dream of. It is a maze of motorbikes driving as slow as one can be, be it under the rain, in the heat and in the pollution, does not matter, everybody has a moped there. Out of the 5.5 millions people living in the city, there must be about 5 millions moped driving around the city. There are no real driving rules, not many traffic lights and all this makes it very challenging to cross the street. Have a look at the movie to judge by yourself.

Crossing the street in Saigon

 I stayed in a guest house in the backpacker district of the city and hooked up with some French friends of friends, so they are friends as well. It has been a pleasure to hang out with them as they can definitely be considered as locals and they showed me around the city bringing me to all the good places in town. Most of the places I went to where full of westeners and sometimes full of French people ! Sometimes, you just have to remind yourself of where you were cause you could be in a bar in Paris, it would just be the "same same". The next day I stayed with some Vietnamese friends of friends and they drove me all around the city with their motorbike, they even invited me to their family dinner.

Family dinner

It was awesome to experience the city like a real Vietnamese. Amongst several museums and palaces that I visited while in Ho Chi Minh city, I went to the war remnants museum which was really striking with heart wrenching pictures of the effects of the agent orange during the Vietnam or American war depending how you want to call it... ie if you are American or Vietnamese.

After 2 days in Ho Chi Minh city, I made my way inland, up the mountains, in this place called Dalat. As usual, the bus ride, that should have taken 6 hours, took over 9 hours but I met a really nice couple of American people, Anna and Doug, who just got married last october and are taking a year off to travel around the world. Awesome people. I ended up spending a couple of days with them. Once in Dalat, they had a booking at the Dream hotel, unfortunately that place did not have any other rooms left for me, so the owner sent me to her brother, well he came to pick me up with a motorbike, and I stayed in this really nice place. Soap in the bathroom, towels, toilet paper, sheets, hot shower and even a TV ! After a couple of weeks of travelling, you call this a luxury palace ! Dalat being at 1475 meters in the mountains, it actually benefits from cool temperate climate (20 degrees), which was very refreshing.It is also dotted with lakes, waterfalls, mountains, evergreen forest. It is a very relaxing place, especially after the craziness and hot weather in Saigon.  Dalat is also known to be the finest place for Vietnamese honeymooners and kitschseekers. In the valley of love, you can pose for a photo on a pony accompanied by a vietnamese dude dressed as a cowboy. Sorry no pic on that one !

I stayed a couple of days with Anna and Doug and we went on a "touristic tour" that was organised by the dream hotel and took us all over the area : silk making, from the worms to the dress, that was absolutely impressive to watch those girls take out the silk from the cocoon and separate the silk wires one by one. Nothing is wasted there, so after that, they actually fry the worms to eat them...No, I have not tried that...yet !   The economy is based on extensive agriculture and most of the fresh products, vegetables, meat, coffee sold in Vietnam come from Dalat. We visited a couple of farms, coffee beans, peppers, rice, flowers. It was really cool to see how they make rice noodles and also how they make it dry in the sun, everywhere and anywhere they can, on the road, in the streets, in the fields, on the roofs, simply everywhere.

The rice noddle drying

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Apart from that,we also rented bicycles to visit the French quarter, really rich, big houses, the Bao Dai summer palace, very retor, the botanical garden and the crazy house, made by a crazy architect, this place is actually a guest house in which you can stay overnight, but have to live early morning to let the visitors walk around.

The crazy house, Dalat

We also went on a 6 hours hike in the jungle and obviously got lost in the middle of nature, but once at the top, it was really worth it. To get there, we had to take a local bus and the trip was also worth it.

Trek in the jungle, Dalat

After Dalat, I went back to the coast in the city of Nha Trang. Here I hooked up with a friend of friends of friends (the ones I met in Saigon) who happened to be a tour guide and on top of that he was on holiday at the time I was in Nha Trang. Perfect timing that allowed me to once again, experience Vietnam the vietnamese way. The Vietnamese people are very proud of their culture and are very happy to show you their country. It was such a pleasure to have a private tour guide, as a friend who could show you all the good things and it was also such a relief to actually be able to communicate, understand and be understood, know what you are actually eating, drinking and discover so much more. He took me on his motorbike to the Po Nagar cham towers, the reclyning buddha, the giant seated budhha, the drinking budha, no ok, not that one, the hollywood sign, yes that is right, here is the picture,

The hollywood sign, Nha Trang

the Long son pagoda and we also had lunch with his friends in the middle of nowhere after a drive through
rice paddies and lotus fields. Their house was very interesting, there was a kitchen/toilet/bathroom that was about 2sqm with dishes on the toilet step (no toilet seat, they are all turkish/chinese style toilets that you flush with a small bucket of rain water. There was also a bedroom/living room/garage cause they always park their motorbikes in the house. We had lunch with the entire family (in Vietnam, 3 generations live under the same roof) all seating on the bed that was used as a table and a chair at the same time. They put on the loud karaoke that you can hear in every single buses and there were also rats walking up and down the polysterene ceiling. Nobody did not seem bothered by the rats as they said that when they sleep, the rats sleep as well, so no problem. You could still see their long tails hanging through the holes on the ceiling. Delicious food though, real vietnamese homemade meal and of course interesting set up.

One sleeping bus after and I was in Hoi An, well known for its quality food and numerous tailors that can do or copy whatever you want in less than 24 hours. While in Hoi An, I took a cooking class with a great chef. Unfortunately, most recipes are done with ingredients that are not always easy to find outside Vietnam. One recipe requires green papaya, but if we can not find it, we could replace it with green mangos, if we can not find green mangos, we could use lotus roots, if we can not find lotus roots, we could try bitter cucumber, if we can not find bitter cucumber, we should move to another country. Hoi An's architecture is influenced by chinese, japanese and French with big colonial houses in beautiful colors

Hoi An

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Hoi An 2

It also has a beautiful beach, a few kilometers outside the city, so I rented a bicycle to get there and it allowed me to go a bit further on the beach to find myself completely isolated on a deserted and amazing beach. It was simply a paradise  Coming back towards Hoi An, there was a restaurant that was literally on the beach, under beautiful, colourful trees. It was so peaceful to enjoy a fresh and well chosen crab...until a loud noise occured. It was simply a flat long, bright green snake that must have fallen asleep and fall from the tree, straight onto my food. I was too surprised to even realise exactly what had just happened and before I knew it, the snake had crawled away moving its tail with big, fast, wavy movements that I can still picture in my head. 

Hoi An is also 35 km away from the Cham's ruins of My son dated from the 7th century. You have to go at 5 am in order to beat the crowd ... and the heat and you can enjoy this stunning sight lost in the middle of a luxurious valley in the jungle.

My Son

Next stop after an only 4 hours bus ride is Hue, the Vietnam's political capital from 1882 to 1945. Very importantly, there was a delicious boulangerie next to my hotel and I could enjoy pains au chocolat every morning. A real pleasure when you have had rice and noddles for breakfast for the past month and a half. The boulangerie was supporting an orphanage and a bakery school for disadvantaged kids, so one good reason to buy even more pains au chocolat. In Hue, I spent time with 2 Americans, really funny and interesting guys, we rented motorbikes to drive around and out of town. Gorgeous city, full of history with a citadel, an imperial place, an old theatre and the tombs of the Nguyen emperors.