Hanoi, Halong Bay, and a perfume pagoda!

Hanoi, capital of Vietnam and home to giant lake dwelling turtles (really), water puppet theatre, and a giant mausoleum containing the embalmed remains of a national hero! A hero who's dying wish was that he be cremated and given a normal send off (again... really) Hanoi is a strange and exciting place.

A few high-lights of Hanoi... Well the water puppets were ace, basically Punch and Judy in water, with fireworks and dragons... what more can you want! The soundtrack is entirely live and mostly Vietnamese singing and yet you understand exactly what is going on, and even if you don't the action is pretty self explanatory... they also have evil ticket sellers who play tricks on tourists...

We knew that the shows were popular and so wandered up on our first day in Hanoi expecting to book for the next day, we were confronted by a sign at the front of the queue telling us the shows were sold out for today and tomorrow... damn... well after some thought we decide to book for our last day in Hanoi some 5 days later, all well and good and no major drama. Sadly others were not so lucky!

Whilst we waited to buy our tickets a couple came up to us (American, not that it matters, but it's interesting to note that Post Obama (PO) a lot of former 'Canadians' are now happy to admit where they really come from...) and asked if there were tickets available for today? Well we tell them about the sign and they are sad :'( as they are leaving tomorrow and they've tried to get tickets twice before and it's always sold out... oh well it's just not to be... except that when we get to the front we are offered tickets for that night... EVIL ticket people!

We searched for the couple in vain but they had wandered off into the night, probably to argue about why they hadn't bought tickets in advance and possibly to part forever after their flight home.. and all because of a sign that the ticket sellers had probably forgotten about, and that may have been up since 2004... sorry random American couple.

We spent new year in Hanoi and had been warned not to expect too much as the real celebrations in this part of the world happen at lunar or Chinese new year. We met up with a couple of Aussie girls we had met earlier in our trip up Vietnam and followed the stream of people heading towards the giant turtle lake where we found people milling around, eating candyfloss and generally being festive! Hurrah!

Well this was the thing we thought and milled with everyone else and tried to find out what was going on... there were thousands of people all gathered together but as yet we did not know why! We found a spot to have a couple of drinks and watch the world go by and we noticed that attention was focused on the lake and that something would happen at midnight! We drank and talked and waited. A little before midnight a hush descended and we stood expectantly and looked towards the centre of the lake wandering if there would be a firework display or a countdown or something? We checked and rechecked our watches, had the time passed? Were they late? People began to stream off into the night.

Nothing had happened. The people of Hanoi had gathered together, all looked out across the lake at midnight... at which point nothing was due to occur. People waited for midnight and when it had passed they just wandered off. It was all very communist and it left us all a bit bemused.

New years celebrations in Hanoi were a bit of a let down after the build up and feverish speculation we had entertained about what would happen on the lake... and yet bizarrely they had guaranteed themselves a place in our memories and anecdotes in a way that mere fireworks could never have done. A quiet new year, but a great memory of thousands of people happy to look out at nothing together, and then go home content with the feeling of a job well done. The people of Hanoi had seen in the new year and it was much as the old one had been.

We visited the Perfume Pagoda and saw communism in action as well as the beautiful countryside and geography of north Vietnam. Tourists visiting the pagoda need to be paddled up the river for 90 minutes, and then after their visit they are ferried back, it's all by hand, no engines and it means the river is extremely peaceful and serene. The slightly bizarre aspect to the boat trip is that the government administers the boats and allows registered boats to work in numerical order with no competition, boat 1 works, then boat 2, and so on until all the boats have ferried a boat load and then boat 1 goes again, all very ordered and fair and communist. Unfortunately there are 2,000 registered boats, each boat carries 4 tourists on average and each villager gets to use their boat about 3 or 4 times a year which is a bit crazy, but no-one seems to mind, and amidst such peaceful surroundings it was easy to understand why.

The perfume pagoda itself is in fact a natural altar formation in a large cave on top of a mountain, two monks spent their lives there in meditation and prayer and they are remembered there as well as a the more conventional Buddhist altar. There are a number of man made pagodas bordering the walk up the mountain and it is considered one of the holiest places in Vietnam. The whole complex is a beautiful place and the ride up the river makes it even more impressive. The river is surrounded on all sides by huge limestone outcrops rising out of the countryside and shrouded in mist, Ibis birds glide across your path to settle on the backs of water buffalo... idyllic and everything we hoped to experience in Vietnam.

We also took a trip to Halong bay in the North of Vietnam, the bay is actually a series of limestone islands justting out of emerald blue seas that along with lord knows how many other places proclaim themselves as the '8th wonder of the world.' The islands themselves jut out of the sea almost vertically and are home to a healthy population of sea eagles and shelter a number of floating villages of fish farms and suppliers to the tourist junks. We couldn't get the scientific explanation for how the islands were formed but the traditional story goes that a dragon sent to help fight the Chinese thrashed it's tail and churned up the earth and left the almost 2000 islands lying behind it... they never taught us that explanation in geography but personally we prefer it to plate tectonics and it's more plausible than creationism so live and let live.

We spent a couple of nights cruising around the bay, kayaked under sea eagles floating on the thermals above our heads, and explored limestone cave formations, at the suggestion of our guide we even got up at 5.30 to see the sunrise over the islands... and found ourselves alone in the cold (no-one else aboard fancied it) as the sun came up behind an island and so wouldn't actually rise for another hour at least... :( oh well back to bed! We met some Italian chaps who epitomised La Dolce Vita, their work means they get 3 months off a year and they just go and see a different bit of the world! A few beers, a few tall tales, some frankly dreadful karaoke and we ended a great trip on a high (if off key) note.

We had done Vietnam at one hell of a pace (although the length of these blog entries may make it seem like we took ages...) but we had seen a lot, the geography was stunning and will be the thing we remember the most although the silent new year will also live long in the memory, probably a lot longer than the clothes we bought in Hoi An. Next stop is Malaysia which we decided to visit at the last minute rather than return to Thailand... we decided that we had seen a lot of temples, and would see more beaches in the Philippines so we wanted to see more nature and more jungle! So off we fly in search of Orangutans... but more likely leeches!

VIETNAM HO CHI MINH!!!

Vietnam is probably the most geographically impressive place we have visited on this trip, it is also unashamedly communist (with certain concessions in the Chinese mould to capitalism that has seen it's economy grow rapidly over the last few years). The communist outlook leads to some strange practices... but more on that later.

Exploring Vietnam is most easily done by open tour bus, you buy a ticket at one end of the country and pick the number of stops you want to make and head on out, you confirm your ticket the day before you want to travel from each town and that's it basically. We started out at the bottom in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), formerly known as Saigon, and planned to make 4 or 5 stops on our way to Hanoi in the North where we would take a couple of side trips before flying to Malaysia, we would be in Vietnam for Christmas and New Year and we were both unsure what that would mean in terms of celebrations or catching up with family or friends.

So the first stop on our tour of Vietnam was HCMC, former base of the southern Vietnamese fighters and their American allies... it has a war museum that was formerly known as The Museum of American and Chinese War Crimes... but in these days of normal diplomatic relations is now somewhat unimaginatively renamed the War Museum. There are tanks and bombs and war planes from both sides, there is more than a little bias in the exhibits but it's understandable to be honest when you see the photos of the effects of agent orange and other chemicals dropped on the country.

In the markets around HCMC you can find examples of war memorabilia from both sides with engraved Zippo lighters being the most appealing to the casual observers (you know, watched a couple of Oliver stone movies), if you believe the market vendors then just about every American GI must have had a lighter, decided to get it engraved with some witty slogan or sexy lady... and then promptly dropped in on the floor for people to find later... still they were fun to browse through and the genuine ones were pretty interesting, a couple of our favourite slogans were: "We are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful. and the less poetic, "killing for peace is like fucking for virginity..." both appealed for different reasons but both raised a smile.

The biggest shock to the system in Vietnam is the traffic and the road rules for pedestrians... the traffic is almost exclusively 2 wheeled and there are 3 million scooters in HCMC alone. Pedestrian crossings are rare and the advice given out, and practiced everywhere you need to cross a road is... "Look for a gap in the oncoming traffic, look towards the drivers to try and make eye contact and walk slowly across the road, the traffic will drive around you..." not exactly the green cross code, basically crossing the road is an act of faith (step out and prey hard) that most reminded me of the scene in Indiana Jones and the last crusade where Harrison Ford has to step out over the ravine to show his faith in God and finds the hidden walkway. Debs took to this like a duck to water and thinks this is a fantastic system, the drivers do avoid you and only get really alarmed if you stop moving and it has the added bonus of not having to wait for the 'green man' to appear before you walk ... I wasn't so sure (especially when you see drivers texting from the back of their scooters) and was grateful that as we were both facing the traffic she couldn't see the look of bemused terror slapped across my face every time we crossed a road.

By the time we left Vietnam we were both happily marching out into traffic safe in the knowledge that we would be avoided... at the end of a tiring journey to Malaysia you are instantly refreshed and reminded that you have left Vietnam when you are almost run over and cursed heartily by the proton driving Malaysian whom you have just stepped out in front of and who despite your wide eyed staring and smiling has refused to drive around you... whoops.

HCMC was pretty charming and we stayed in a nice micro hotel with the smallest bathroom we have ever seen, we took a rickshaw ride around and couldn't believe how these guys avoided being crashed into and kept us alive throughout the journey, we spent a pleasant couple of nights meeting other travellers and sampling the local home brew ('pretty disgusting to be honest' said our reviewer) and enjoying being largely free of hawkers... or at least being approached by hawkers who would take no for an answer which was a refreshing change from the persistence of Cambodia.

The next stop on our journey north was a beach resort called Nha Trang, this was the first beach we had visited that wasn't on the gulf of Thailand and so saw a welcome return of some surf to throw ourselves around in! This was great for a day but instantly painful on day two when you felt all the bruises you had gathered on day 1! We boarded the bus after a couple of days still trailing sand that the waves had managed to leave everywhere, it was a just before Christmas and we were heading to the old city of Hoi An and it's collection of tailors for some Christmas cheer.

In Hoi An we saw in Christmas in the traditional British way... with drizzle... lots of drizzle. This was to be a feature of the next 10 days but actually made us feel a little bit at home :) (Well me anyway). We didn't manage to find a Christmas dinner, or any party hats or crackers... we ate Vietnamese food looking out over a cross roads in the pretty old town section of Hoi An with it's stone streets and hickledy pickledy old houses, it was a nice way to spend the evening but we did miss our family and friends and raised a glass to them.

Apart from the beauty of the old town Hoi An is also famous for the number of cloth shops and associated tailors... and having resisted the temptation all around Asia we finally cracked and spent our Christmas day being fitted for suits and shirts, dresses and winter coats all justified with the cry of 'it would be far more expensive back home' we indulged ourselves with the help of gifts from our family and it was a real pleasure to talk to the Fosters whilst we were getting fitted (we think it amused them as well). We did try to get tailored socks made as a special 'Nan' gift but we couldn't unfortunately, next time Nan we promise.

We really enjoyed Hoi An, (although not as much as one couple who had previously stayed at our hotel for a week... they sent back 100 kilos of shopping when they left... we sent a rather more respectable single box) and left hoping that the weather would improve as we headed north (not likely was it..) as we had been under grey skies since Nha Trang.

Well we arrived in Hue to rain, took a boat trip up the Perfume river and wandered round the ancient tombs of kings long dead in the rain, explored the ruined Citadel in the rain, and boarded a bus after a single night in the rain. We smelt slightly of mildew and were wondering if we would ever be dry again... oh and we only had 1 jumper each.

The tombs of the kings built alongside the Perfume river were interesting but mostly closed up, the kings themselves were buried in secret with lots of treasure (no-one knows where to this day) but not in their tomb complexes apparently and the beautiful gardens were not really explorable due to the wet conditions which was a shame as they looked really good from under the caps of our hastily purchased ponchos.

Communist Vietnam for a long time viewed it's ancient palaces and citadels as remnants of a discarded past and so allowed them to fall into disrepair and neglect (those that hadn't been destroyed by various wars... the French had destroyed lots of temples and pagodas in apparent acts of malice when they were ousted, and the US bombers took care of a lot of what was left). This means that a lot of palaces and pagodas are in pretty poor condition as the moist conditions mean the rot really sets in (our guide had explained Hue has two seasons, warm and wet, and cold and wet). The government has now realised the value of these sights as tourist attractions and are trying to fix the problem albeit in a rather haphazard way, often there are with strange modern replicas of an ancient building that used to stand on the site, as the temples and pagodas are often closed to the public you can end up trecking around for an hour to visit the outside of a modern replica of an ancient building... in the rain... it's very communist.

Whilst we were in Hue we found out that Vietnam were in the final of a south east Asian football tournament against Thailand and wandered into a crowded bar to watch the game. Vietnam subsequently won with a cracking goal in the last minute of normal time. The stunning victory (Vietnam had never won the tournament before) sent the Vietnamese wonderfully crazy with dancing on pool tables, congas in the street, and the singing along to a song to which the only lyrics were: VIETNAM, HO CHI MINH! repeated over and over again for 3 minutes... and then restarted... it was easy to sing along to though and we all joined in with the fun, it was a great night and we were lucky to experience it, it was slightly tinged with jealousy from this Englishman though who couldn't help but think that England would have fluffed the last minute chance and gone on to lose on penalties... not bitter... honest.

The final leg of our trip up through Vietnam was an overnight bus trip to Hanoi, we ended up on the back beds meaning Ben spent the night shoulder to shoulder with a charming French chap, it does bring you closer to your fellow man this trip, sometimes too close but everyone was friendly about it and a few shared tales and rolled eyes and we were ready to go... we just hoped that we would find Hanoi dryer than the middle of the country...