Caves, Crotch-grabbing and Cats on the menu: Tales from Vietnam...

Cynthia:

We have been in Vietnam for sixteen days, traveling northwards. Yesterday we arrived in Hanoi. It's huge, dense and very chilly (~14*C) city right now and I find myself woefully underdressed both in terms of R- factor and style. I kid you not, everyone here seems to be wearing designer labels-- granted the labels are all misspelled but design labels nonetheless! My one pair of quick-dry traveling pants and flimsy rain jacket just don't cut it and I can't find a pair of knock-off designer jeans in the shops that I can fit my menno thighs into.....enough ranting.

Week one in Vietnam was spent in Hoi An, an old city known for its food, the old well preserved historic buildings that survived the 'American War' and tailor/custom made shoe shops. The boys and I all had shoes made to fit and I also indulged in a couple of dresses!

This dress was made in two days.

We celebrated Christmas here and stayed one more day to see the monthly Full Moon festival. Per (?tourist) custom, we were paddled out onto the river by a rather elderly Vietnamese woman, and in the dark of the evening we set our candles afloat. It was very touristy but really pretty nonetheless.

Lanterns floating on the river.

Such little events are never without their follies, however, and in this case I had to laugh as our non-English speaking paddler all at once started saying something and then motioned for us to squish down low into the canoe as we passed under the approaching footbridge. The river had risen from the recent rains and the bridge clearance was tight, but not prohibitive with a little ducking! We all made it back to shore with nary a scrape.

On to Dong Hoi to see the magnificent and newly discovered 450 million year-old Phong Nha and Paradise caves, only open to the public in recent years. Now I'm no spelunker but these caves took our breath away. Our pictures likely don't capture the scale of Paradise cave but think airplane hangar with stalagmites and stalactites (i still forget which is which) the size of 4 story buildings and you might get the picture. Even Thomas, who usually doesn't impress to easily thought it was "pretty awesome".

Paradise Cave

Next stop: Halong Bay. Our journey here started off on a sour note. We had taken an overnight sleeper train to Hanoi and at 5 am taxied to the bus station. The ticket office was closed but the route we needed (a complex all in one bus-boat-bus combo ticket, as per our guidebook) was clearly posted with the fare and the departure time of 0520. A bus and driver were parked in the station...

Cynthia and Greg: "we go to Cat Ba island, bus and boat and bus?"

Driver: "ya ya, Cat Ba island...office closed...ticket on bus"

We proceeded to board the bus quite readily and happy to avoid a cold dark wait at an empty bus station, and forked over the 190 000 dong(=$9.50) per person. Three hours later we arrived at a bus terminal and we were whisked off the bus, the driver motioning to a shack on the lot. The bus speedily pulled away. Something didn't seem quite right.

Turned out we were nowhere near our intended route. After taxing to a tourist information centre (with English speaking personnel) we figured out what city we were in and how to get back on track. We loaded another rather overloaded bus and eventually got to our final destination of Nam Cat Island Resort. The whole trip from hotel to hotel had taken around 24 hours and looked something like this: Taxi--overnight train--taxi--bus--taxi--taxi--bus--15 minute walk to the port-fast boat to island #1--taxi overland to different port--fisherman's boat to island #2. We arrived exhausted but proud. In spite of being scammed by a bus driver (apparently not an uncommon occurrence) we made it to Halong Bay that day.

...and how beautiful it was. Declared a world heritage site in 1994, Halong Bay is a an archipelago of 2000 indigo limestone peaks rising from emerald waters. We spent two nights including New Years Eve on this beautiful, but cold bay and enjoyed some wonderful seafood barbecues and evening bonfires in the cool night air.

This was the view from just outside our room at high tide.

Three pictures above are from a floating fishing village in Halong Bay

On New Year's day we moved on to Hai Phong, a city of one million and according to tripadvisor.com forums it's a city worth overlooking. Our family wholeheartedly disagreed. Hai Phong is definitely not a tourist town but it has many trees, cafes, friendly people and roads one can cross without having to muster up too much courage (more on this later when we get to Hanoi). Not much English was spoken here and we definitely felt we got a glimpse of the real Vietnam. And truthfully, sometimes it was a bit too real. One night we went to a guide book recommended restaurant and sure enough, there was cat on the menu. I wasn't all that surprised though, as I had heard that the robust looking dogs at our island hotel in Halong Bay and the other dogs roaming village and city streets were hardly street dogs but actually livestock and hence they look healthier than any other dogs we've seen in Asia!

Another encounter with the "real Vietnam" occurred as a grinning elderly woman at a market stall expressed some delight upon seeing our boys...this we were used to but her hand darting in for a groin grab was a first. My hand was equally quick to intercept and this gave her a good laugh. Ironically it was just the day prior that I had read in our guidebook that such demonstrations of affection towards boys might be encountered. We moved on, our boys' prides and anatomy intact.

One unexpected highlight of Hai Phong was our discovery of a little amusement park in the centre of town. Among the rides, some of which had definitely seen better days, we came upon a crowd of roller skaters! We each doned a pair of sorry looking roller skates and Greg and I relived some good times from the eighties albeit among swirling Vietnamese hotshots and blaring K-pop. Thankfully none of us tripped on any of the potholes or cracks in the concrete and the boys moved on to the ball pen. They spent a good hour jumping and sliding around and even had a few local kids in on their fun. We returned the next day for more though park was substantially less populated.

An alley in Hai Phong. The state flags looked quite striking.

This was our second day of roller skating and the rink was much emptier than the previous evening.

Max posing in a store selling mannequins.

January 3: arrival in Hanoi.

We were warned that Hanoi would be dense and kind of crazy but it doesn't seem so unmanageable. Yesterday we walked about the old quarter close to our hotel and also took in the Vietnam Women's Museum. It was really well done. Thomas has celebrated his first meals eaten entirely with chopsticks and the boys readily dig into the Pho Bo ( beef noodle soup) at small streetside restaurants. Greg and I prefer the Ban My (French inspired grilled pork sandwichwiches on freshly baked demi-baguettes) and the fantastic sweet and savoury vermicilli salads. We've gone from fearing street crossing to enjoying the challenge of slowly wading forward in a line parrallel to the curb. The motorbikes and cars zing around us like a school of fish on a mission and occasionally we arrive on the other side a bit disappointed if it seemed too easy!

Today we will do more walking, dining on street food and people watching. We also have tickets for the municipal water puppet theatre this afternoon which comes highly recommended.

A typical view of motorbike drivers. Note the face/ breathing masks which are worn to prevent suntanning, and inhalation of germs and fumes.

Another typical street scene in Hanoi. These hanging bamboo carriers are only used by women ( often vendors) and anything and everything can be carried in them.

Smoking is ubiquitous in Vietnam. Cigarettes can be bought everywhere.

A Vietnamese couple getting wedding photos taken on a celebrated footbridge in Hanoi.

Greg and I trying to warm up over a cup of sweet slowly dripped Vietnamese coffee.

Tomorrow we depart for our second last location: 4 days on a warm tropical Thai beach. Hopefully my teeth will stop chattering by then....

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