Hue Cool

Coming into my trip to Southeast Asia, Hue was one of the places to which I was most looking forward. It used to be the capital of Vietnam, has a rich history, and also has a significant recent history with the battle that took place there following the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. With the exception of the weather, I wasn’t disappointed in Hue.

After arriving in Hue and having lunch, we had a little walking tour of the city. The weather was horrible but we still went on for a little while. We started off by going to the Citadel and the Imperial City, the seat of power for the Nguyen Dynasty. The Citadel was also the finishing point for the Battle of Hue in 1968. Like many of the places that we have seen in Vietnam, the Citadel and Imperial City show damage that occurred not only during the Vietnam War (or American War as it is known here) but also during occupations and wars by/with China, Japan and France.

In the evening, the group went to a dinner in which they dressed like Vietnamese kings and were fed the meals of the Vietnamese kings. I imagine that meant cheese because I couldn’t imagine a cheesier event. I’m sure they had fun, but I decided to skip out on that event and foraged for food on my own.

The next day was one of the highlights of the entire Southeast Asia trip for me so far. We took a six-hour sightseeing tour of Hue by motorbike. In the rain. I’m not sure if my insurance would have covered anything that had gone wrong, but it was worth the risk. Going through the busy streets of Hue on a motorbike gave me a completely different perspective on the traffic that I had seen throughout Vietnam and on the city that I had seen. You might think that riding on the back of a motorbike in the rain would be pretty miserable, but after having walked around in the streets the night before in the rain, riding on the motorbike was actually pretty pleasant.

During the tour, we made several stops. We stopped at one point to view one of three covered bridges in Vietnam. (Or so it was described.) There was also a little market at the site. A few minutes later, we stopped to watch a Vietnamese Kung Fu show. It was very touristy, but entertaining nonetheless. We moved on to a place where we watched a woman making incense, and then to a former French, then American army base where small and large battles had taken place throughout the post-World War II era. Our guide for this part was seven during the Tet Offensive and was able to tell very interesting stories about that time in Hue history.

Later, we went on to a Buddhist orphanage. We had a fantastic lunch and then went inside to play with some of the children. We kicked the ball around and laughed with the children for a while. One of the little boys rubbed my belly and called me Buddha, but otherwise I had a great time.

After the motorcycle trip, we went on a boat tour of the Perfume River and visited a pagoda on the river bank. At the temple of the pagoda, there was a Buddhist prayer ceremony taking place. It was interesting to see, but I always felt intrusive when watching something like that, so I was a tad bit uncomfortable.

Sadly, we weren’t in Hue for very long and that was about all of the time that we had for sightseeing. I felt like I took advantage of what was available and was able to fit a lot into the short period of time in which I was there, but I think it would have been nice to have spent a little more time there.

Hanoi to Hue

On November 3, we were back in Hanoi and we had another day to catch up on anything in Hanoi that we had missed. The main thing that I figured that I had missed was a chance to see Uncle Ho. It turns out that the people at Lonely Planet are lying sacks of crap and that Ho Chi Minh was not in Russia, but had been in Hanoi all along.

We put together a group and went to see Uncle Ho. I’ve learned that the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh is one of the holiest places in all of Vietnam. For this reason, I will refrain from being disrespectful. I will say this, though. When I’m gone, please make sure that I’m not put on display for anybody and everybody who wants to come by and gawk at me. In his will, Ho Chi Minh requested that his body be cremated and his ashes be spread out over three different areas of Vietnam. I think that was a wise choice.

After visiting the mausoleum, we hopped into a cab and went into the Old Quarter and walked around the markets for a while. I had done this a few days prior, but I didn’t really have much to do, so I went along and did it again. Afterwards, I walked around the city some more – without getting lost for a change – and stopped by a few cafes and restaurants for coffee and to play on the internet while I waited for the group to get together again for yet another overnight train from Hanoi to Hue.

Early in the evening, we all met and walked to the train station, which was pretty close by. We boarded the train with no problems. For the first time in the entire trip, the train cabin in which I stayed had four beds instead of six, so there were none of the storage problems on the Vietnamese train that we had on our trip to Hanoi. About an hour into the train ride, the Chilean member of the group broke out a bottle of Pisco – a Chilean, grape-distilled liquor – and the drinking started. It was all fun and games until some drunken jerk broke the empty bottle of pisco in one of the cabins. Okay, that was me, but we had probably had enough to drink at that point anyway.

Because of heavy rains in the middle and south of Vietnam, the train to Hue was delayed about three hours. The hangover made for a long morning, but it ended soon enough and we transferred to the hotel, which like the hotel in Hanoi, was called Victory Hotel.

After arrival, we went to lunch at a restaurant owned by a deaf mute man, who also took our orders and served us. The food was excellent, including chicken spring rolls that we rolled ourselves, but the highlight probably was watching the owner open five bottles of beer at once with sticks, bolts and a little kung fu. Come to think of it, maybe the highlight was the spring rolls because they were pretty damn good. In any event, after lunch, we went on a little walking tour of Hue. That seems like a pretty good place to start the next post.

Where The Hell Are All The Monkeys?

On the first of November, we left our humble abode in Hanoi and hopped on a four-hour bus to Halong Bay. I had never heard of Halong Bay, so I didn’t know what to expect. It was a pretty great place, though.

We arrived shortly after noon and went to our rooms and shower and get ready to leave again. At around noon, we hopped on a boat for a cruise of the bay on the northern Vietnam coast. I believe that I was told that at the moment, it still is the biggest port in Vietnam. Anyway, there are thousands of islands in and around the bay and the boat cruise exposed us to many of them. Onboard, we had a lunch with various seafood and vegetarian dishes. The highlight of this was the fish that was staring at me. More specifically, the highlight was the fish’s eyeball because I finally got the nerve to eat a fish eyeball. It tasted optically. (Note: At the time I wrote this, I forgot to mention that we also visited some caves. Shows you how much I enjoyed them. I was able to take some pretty decent pictures of them, though.)

After the boat cruise, we returned to our hotel. We had some time to kill before dinner, so my roommate and I had a couple drinks before dinner. For dinner, I had pho ga and spring rolls. The restaurant was close to the hotel and the food was delicious. Afterwards, we went to a nearby bar and drank until they shut off the lights not only of the bar, but the entire freaking town. It was only 11 pm, but what the hell. We probably had had enough anyway.

The next day, we got up early to go back to the bay for a little kayaking. This was my first experience kayaking and I’m sure I did a sucky job, but it was a lot of fun and we got to see a lot of the bay from a different perspective than we had on the boat. At some point during the kayaking trip, we stopped at a little beach for some swimming. The beach didn’t have sand but, rather, had tons of seashells all over the place. It was very pretty, but a little hard on the footsies. Still, it was fun.

After swimming, we kayaked back to the boat where we had another thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat. (Obviously, it wasn’t Thanksgiving, but I believe in quoting Arlo Guthrie whenever possible.) More seafood and more deliciousness.

We also boated to Monkey Island. I don’t think that “Monkey Island” is the actual name of the island, but we were promised lots of monkeys on the island. We were bamboozled! Hoodwinked! Run amok! We didn’t land on Monkey Island, Monkey Island landed on us! (I also believe in (mis)quoting Spike Lee movies whenever possible.) Due to recent construction on Monkey Island, the monkeys have taken to the hills, so there were no monkeys for us on “Monkey” Island.

After the boat trip, we hopped onto another bus for yet another trip to Hanoi. We hit Hanoi just in time for rush hour so it took several hours to get back to the hotel. We went out for dinner as a group again – this was becoming a habit in this new group and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. We went to a restaurant called Little Hanoi (there were three restaurants by this name on the street on which we ate) and then went to a little outside bar for a few local beers. (I love me some Bia Ha Noi.) We stopped at one establishment called the Funky Buddha to use the toiletical facilities. The place was all about the funk and didn’t seem to be about the Buddha at all. No problem, though. I came, I peed, I left.

The next day, we were to have one more day of sightseeing in Hanoi, this time with a guide, before hopping a train out of town. I’ll tell you about that next time.

Changing Groups in Hanoi

We reached the final night of the Hong Kong to Hanoi leg of our trip. I missed the final dinner, as had become my habit recently, but the whole group got together in my room later in the evening for a farewell party of sorts. We bought a case of German beer and drank until it was gone. The night lasted until around 1:30 am and a drunk time was had by most.

I got up relatively early the next morning and decided to walk around Hanoi for a little bit. As I had done the day before, I got lost as all get-out in Hanoi. It just turned out to be a difficult city for me to become oriented in. At one point, I walked around for about an hour, including down one street in which I hardly ever saw a car, let alone a cab. I was getting close to checkout time at the hotel and I was getting nervous that I was going to be late. Then, when the street ended and I finally returned to civilization, I looked to my left and saw my hotel. Thank you, Buddha!!!

After getting back to the hotel and checking out, I decided that it was time to go see Uncle Ho. Actually, I wasn’t planning on seeing Uncle Ho because another traveler’s Lonely Planet said that Uncle Ho would be in Russia being renovated in November. I went to Ho’s complex, though, and walked around and took some pictures. The area is sort of a mini-Tiananmen Square in Hanoi.

Close to Ho Chi Minh Land is Chua Mot Cot, also known as the one-pillar pagoda. I don’t really know much about it except that I knew it was the landmark that was on the Hanoi magnet that I had bought earlier in the day, so I had to go see it.

I walked around town for a little longer and then came back to the hotel and met my new roommate. He’s a young guy and he’s from Chile. Looks like I’ll get to practice a little Spanish for the rest of the trip.

Early in the evening, I met the rest of the group that is travelling to Ho Chi Minh City. Unlike my other groups, this is a very young group. There are fifteen people and only three are over forty, with several people in their twenties. This looked like the party crowd that the Chinese portion of the trip was not. But this is a travel blog, not a people blog, so enough about them for now.

I’m pretty sure that we went out for dinner as a group that night. At the time I’m writing this, that night was five nights ago and I just don’t remember. (In retrospect, I now remember having dinner that night. We went to a nice restaurant and I had Bun and Ha Noi beer.) Whatever we did, we weren’t out but so long because we had to check out of the hotel early the next morning for a bus ride to Halong Bay. That seems like it’ll be a good spot to start the next entry, so I’ll go ahead and stop this one here. Later!!

Marching Into The Hanoi Hilton

In an uncommon turn of events, I think it’s been a week since I’ve written anything. That’s just because it’s been a busy week. New group; lots of moving around; lots of things to do and things to see. Let’s start with the train ride from Sapa. After almost two days away from the group, we met back up to take a bus to Lao Cai. From that point, we took an overnight train from Lao Cai to Hanoi.

The overnight train to Hanoi wasn’t too bad. I brought four cans of beer with me and downed those pretty quickly after we got on board. They helped me go to sleep, but they also woke me up early. I slept in the middle cot and it was so tiny that I literally felt like I was sleeping in a coffin that was missing the side panel. (The Vietnamese trains are significantly different from the Chinese trains, but I’ll write more than that in a “passing thoughts” post.) We were awoken by a woman knocking on the doors at 5:30 am telling us that we had reached Hanoi. It was pretty surprising since it was the first time that one of our trains actually arrived early – about 90 minutes early, in fact. We got to the hotel around 6:00 am and we were ready to check into the hotel early. This was great because I was exhausted.

At the hotel, I slept for a couple hours and then the group got together and we went to a place called Koto for lunch. Koto stands for “Know One, Teach One.” It’s an interesting restaurant. The employees were poor children who were pulled together and trained to work in the tourist industry. After a few years of training, they start working at Koto for experience. After gaining experience, they go on to work at other restaurants and hotels in Vietnam. Added to the good work, the food and coffee both are excellent. If you’re ever in Hanoi, I highly recommend Koto.

Afterwards, a few of us like-minded people walked over to the Old Quarter. The first place on the agenda was Hoa Lo prison. The Hoa Lo prison is better known to the world as the Hanoi Hilton. It was a place for Vietnamese political prisoners to be held during the time when France controlled Vietnam. Of course, people from my side of the pond know it as the place where American pilot prisoners of war were held during the Vietnam War. Also, it is known as a former home of John McCain.

The Hanoi Hilton was very interesting. Not much of the original facility is left. Much of what is left focuses on the time when it was used to house Vietnamese political prisoners. With respect to its history as an American POW camp, all you see is propaganda about how well the American POWs were treated. After watching the film, seeing the pictures, and reading the information boards, I became convinced that the American pilots weren’t captured – it was much more likely that they ditched their planes on purpose because the quality of life at the Hanoi Hilton was so fantastical that they wanted to live there at any cost. In any event, that’s how the Vietnamese portray it.

After leaving the Hanoi Hilton, we walked to the lake in the middle of the Hanoi Old Quarter. I don’t remember the name of the lake, but it was pretty and it was involved in an Arthuresque story about an emperor and a sword and a turtle. Okay, the turtle part was new to me, but the rest was pretty familiar.

We also walked around the markets in the Hanoi Old Quarter. They were pretty typical for city markets, with each street seeming to focus on a different item. We walked around for a while and then went to a bad restaurant for some bad Vietnamese food while we watched the traffic below. The traffic is fun to watch in Vietnam, but that’s also a story for a different time. For now, however, it’s time to move on to another entry.

Sapa - I Vant To Be Alone

On what was supposed to be our only full day in Sapa, I just tried to spend as much of the day alone as I could. Having felt suffocated a little bit by the group with which I was traveling, I got up, went to a buffet breakfast restaurant and then to a coffee shop. (The same coffee shop that I’m in now.) The following day, we were scheduled to go on a seven-hour hike to visit nearby villages and then spend the night in a Vietnamese homestay. While this would have appealed to me if I were doing it solo (Is the subjunctive correct here? I don’t really care.), the idea of spending all that time with everybody was not so appealing. I ended up running into the tour leader in a Sapa street (it really is a small town) and telling her that I was going to cut off from the group and remain in Sapa, where I would meet the group when they returned to pick up their belongings, before heading to Hanoi. From that point, actually from dinner the night before, I was on my own and that’s pretty much how I needed it to be at the time.

Now, truth be told, even by myself, there isn’t a bunch to report about Sapa. In the town, I walked around a lot; ate at a bunch of different cafes; and went to the local market. I have eaten a lot of stir-fried noodles with chicken in Sapa and I have developed a taste for it. As touristy as this town is, I don’t expect any of the Vietnamese meals that I’ve had are “authentic” but I guess they will provide a good basis for me to judge other meals since I will be in Vietnam for another two weeks plus.

I did buy some goods from one of the local women who was hawking stuff on the street. I bumped into her on my first day and we talked for about ten minutes because she was very nice and her English was excellent. The next day, I bumped into her again and I agreed to buy some stuff from her and her partner, whom I had also met the previous day. The transaction was sort of surreal. We went into an alley, not a scary alley but for a little shelter from the motorcycles and cars cruising down the streets, and she pulled out her basket and started showing me goods. Unfortunately, about a half-dozen other local sellers saw us go into the alley and they followed us. All of a sudden, I was surrounded by eight little Vietnamese women pulling out various local hand-made goods and saying, “buy from me.” I ended up just buying from the two that I had met the day before, but I felt like I was running a gauntlet through the alley to escape.

Even though I spent what amounts to about three days in Sapa, there really isn’t much else to report. Since the weather was so craptastic, and because I needed to start booking flights, trains and accommodations for my post-Bangkok trip, I spent a lot of time indoors at the hotel or in restaurants and cafes. In a few hours, the group will return to Sapa and later this afternoon, we will board an overnight train to Hanoi. Having had an opportunity to spend significant time alone over the past few days, I should be ready to return to the group without feeling claustrophobic. When we get to Hanoi, one person leaves the group and another eight to twelve will join. Hopefully, I will find the changed dynamic refreshing. In any event, I’m caught up now and I’ll write a little more after some time in Hanoi.

Out Of China, Into Vietnam

On October 26, I woke up for the final time in China. The group once again met for breakfast, but by this time, I was getting kind of grouped-out. We had been spending way too much time together ever since Hong Kong and I decided that some more Sheldon-time was in order. I figured I’d see enough of them on the bus to Vietnam.

Around 11 am, we hopped on a bus for Hekou, a border town between China and Vietnam. Going through immigration and customs wasn’t as difficult as I might have imagined, unless you were the tour leader, that is, who had to bribe one of the immigration officials to let her through. Evidently, this is standard practice because even though this was her first time leading a group into Vietnam, she had been told to expect it. Anyway, we got into Vietnam fairly trouble free.

At the Vietnamese border, we were picked up by a van from the hotel, which took us for a one-hour trek to where we would be staying. The trip was on a foggy mountain ledge road with narrow roads and heavy traffic. I learned pretty quickly not to look out the window because every time I did, I could see my life flashing before my eyes.

The hotel that we stayed in is in Sapa and is called the Mountain View Hotel. It is at the corner of a winding road in the middle of one of the most touristy towns that I have ever visited (even though I liked the hotel very much). Every restaurant sells a small selection of Vietnamese food along side pizza, hamburgers and all kinds of other western favorites. Every sign is in English and Vietnamese, if it has any Vietnamese at all. Every third building is a hotel and there are locals in the street constantly trying to take tourists on motorcycle rides or sell local hand-made goods. And I mean they are everywhere.

We arrived in the late afternoon and, you can probably guess this at this point, met for dinner and an orientation walk. Well, most did. Remember an entry or so ago, I mentioned that I was sort of getting grouped-out. By this time, every fiber of my being wanted me to get as far away from the group as I could. It wasn’t anything personal about anybody in the group, or even the group collectively. There’s a reason, though, that I nearly always travel alone and it’s because I like being alone. I did go with the group to the restaurant and I had a beer, but then I removed myself and went to another restaurant to eat.

The restaurant that I went to eat at was called Charlie’s Café. I figured that eating there was officially surrendering, but I’m glad I did. The food was good, the beer (Hanoi Beer) was cheap and the guy who ran the place was friendly. He asked me to help him with the English on his menu. Then we went online and started talking about how he could buy Apple products cheaply because they are twice as expensive in Vietnam as they are in the United States. Apparently, they are subject to a 100% tariff here, or something like that. Anyway, he bought me a beer for my trouble and I went back to the hotel for my first night’s sleep in Vietnam.