Nov 2007

It hasn't exactly been a nice welcome, but its a new country, so welcome!

We arrived to Vietnam from sunny and hot weather to chilly, rainy, and muggy weather. Blah! Then we had some difficulties finding accomodations and had to settle for someplace more expensive than what we wanted to pay for a night before we moved... again and again. Finally, it was bound to happen - I thought it would be China, but less than 24 hours of being in Vietnam I got some kind of food poisoning. Boo! It was horrible and I still can't think of what it could be, so now I'm just scared to eat anything. As many travellers can attest to, being ill in a foreign country really makes you miss the comforts of your own home (and bathroom!). Alas, I'm in slooow recovery but am feeling better. Good 'ol ibuprofen!

So besides those little mishaps, we still managed to squeeze a lot in. We just happen to arrive the night of Halloween. We totally almost forgot about it until a hostel that we couldn't even get into invited us to a Halloween party, which was nice. And it was fun! Seeing English, Irish, Aussies dress up and have some good 'ol Halloween fun with games and everything. Might have well been in Chicago!!

(The girl on the left was a mushroom, the guy in the midde... ???, and the guy on the right was a snowman. He won the costume contest).

We spent the next day sightseeing, everything from the Ho Chi Minh Mauosoleum (which, by the way, he was in Russia being 'cleaned' so we didn't see him. I later learned that he didn't even want to be embalmed. He strongly persisted that he be cremated and ashes thrown over the north, central, and south of Vietnam. But then as soon as he died, these officials just 'deleted' that request and embalmed him anyway. Oh well.) to the Presidential Palace to his Stilt house to the flag tower. We also saw this cool One Pillar Pagoda:

Story has it that Emperor Ly Thai Tong in 1049AD had no son and had a dream that he was visited by Quan Am, Goddess of Mercy. The dream was that she was sitting on a lotus flower and presented him with a baby boy. Of course later Ly Thai Tong married a new young queen who bore him a son. So he built this one pillar pagoda to represent a lotus flower and is in a small pond. AHh... how nice.

From there we also saw the famous Temple of Literature, the oldest architectural complex in Hanoi. It was established during the Ly Dynasty as well as founded in honor of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. It served as a center for higher learning and educating future madarins for centuries to come. I didn't get the whole story, but there is some kind of series of exams and one person passes and becomes the next instructor? Something like that. Its really beautiful:

The thing to do in Hanoi is to go to Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site and a contender to be a Wonder of the World in 2008. Everyone has to go on a boat tour where you are shuttled 3-hours in a bus to the bay to take a boat to the bay. We opted to spend the night there because it would be too much to cram in one day. The weather blah, but we still managed to enjoy it as it is really pretty. The bay is spread across 580 sq.mile and has more than 2,000 limestone and dolomite outcrops. According to legend (yes, I know, everything seems to come from some kind of legend!), the bay was formed when a gigantic dragon (ha long means descending dragon), plunged into the Gulf of Tonkin and created this myraid of islets by lashing its tail. Although geologists say the outcrops are formed by selective erosion, most people still believe the dragon story and all the boats have a dragon in the front. Dragons represent royalty and good luck in Vietnam. Anyhoo, besides looking at the amazing and bizarrely shaped outcrops, there are a lot of caves with all sorts of stories. We went to the Hang Sung Sot cave, which is known as the Cave of Awe. It has 3 enormous caverns and is pretty impressive (although we hear most of it is restored and we don't know whats real and whats fake). Our guide kept on pointing out things that looked like .... umm... rocks, and was like "thats a turtle!" We all looked at each other and were like "ummm.... okay. Sure." Then "Thats a dragon!" Yea, sure. Then he pointed to this and was like "What do you think this is?"

Uhh.... no comment on that one!

Here is a pict of Halong Bay with all the boats:

We also had the opportunity to kayak around the bay, which was pretty cool (although it was kind of rushed, but what can you do?). The rest of the evening was spent on the boat playing cards and hanging out with other backpackerrs.

So back to Hanoi. Have I mentioned yet what a change of pace it is from sleepy Lao? The city is sooooo congested and soooooooooooooooooo crazy with the motorbike traffic. It seriously takes 23904823094823 hours to cross the street (okay, like 5-10 minutes) because everyone is just driving like madmen (and women!). There isn't a real direction they follow... its just drive like mad, whether on the opposite side of the street or on the sidewalk, it doesn't matter. I think I faced death about a hundred times already:

Always an adventure!

Actually, besides being known for the traffic congestion (and noise! Soooooo much honking!!!!!!!), they are also known for the conical hats, which are pretty cute and ethnic looking:

(I guess I was kinda obvious taking a picture of her. Look at that smile! She probably wanted to sell me something). Most of them are vendors and are carrying the long wooden sticks on their backs and have something balanced on both sides. Amazing on how much weight they can carry!

After a walk around the Hoan Kiem Lake and a visit to the Museum of Ethnology, we feel we hit most of the hot spots in Hanoi. The Museum of Ethnology is pretty cool - they recreated a lot of the 54 ethnic groups that represent Vietnam. Here is a Central Highland ethnic home... the figures are all representative of things:

A lot to see and do in Vietnam!

Here is a quote from Confucius to finish up:

"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand"