Busy life in the North

We are still in Vietnam and enjoying our stay very much. The north has a little different feel than the south, a little crazier and hectic with hints of India chaos and pestering, but still great. We spent 5 wonderful days in the very atmospheric town of Hoi An. Wow, I need to go back there with the girls because the shopping (i.e. custom taylors that will make anything and everything for you at a very, very cheap price). It was hard to walk around the place and not buy much. Like many places we've been we keep saying that if we were here on a shorter vacation and had some slush money, oh the amazing things we could buy. So, if anyone needs a fresh new custom suit, winter coat, wedding dress, or anything else go to Hoi An.

Aside from the shopping, the town was old and crumbly and so dang cute. It looked like a modern designer came through and created this old french look, exept that it was authentically old and french and a designer couldn't recreate the buildings to look as great as these. Exploring the streets and buildings was a highlight of Vietnam.

We took a scooter one day and visited China Beach which was a popular spot for the U.S. troops to have a day off while over here during the war. The beach was nice and empty but the currents were too strong to swim. We had and interesting lunch on the beach (no menu's in english) and I think that this is the hardest country so far to be a quazi vegetarian, everything is made of meat, and strange meat at that. We stopped at some interesting temples and mountains made of marble on the way back to Hoi An.

After Jared successfully pried me away from Hoi An (seriously ladies, go there) we went to Hue to see some more historical stuff. We are getting a little board of temples, forts, stupas, palaces, museums, etc... but there is still so much to see while we are here, so we must press on. The town itself wasn't real great, but we did see old cities ruined by the wars and masoleums for the past emporers who ruled in the 1800's.

We left Hue a little early so that we could get a visa extension in Hanoi before ours expired. This required taking an overnight bus (haven't done one of those in a while) to Hanoi, the Capital city of Vietnam. It is interesting to see the difference in the local people of the north v.s. the south. Its more hurried up here and the sellers/taxies/touts are more persistent and in your face but it is buzzing with life. We took a short overnight tour of Halong bay but probably should have done one more day. The tour itself was cheap but wasn't great (setting aside the rats and cockroaches on the boat, I guess its like they say, you get what you pay for), but the bay was absolutely beautiful. We slept on the boat with a great family from Australia who made us feel part of their own since we were the only outsiders. We swam and kayaked for a bit around the bays limestone Karsts and saw a few caves that were all lit up with different colored lights (felt a bit hoaky and disneylandish, but much of the tourists sites are like that here in Vietnam). It would have been nice to have our own boat and guide to explore more of the bay, but we enjoyed the beauty regardless.

North Into the Monsoon

You may have noticed we aren't as consistent in our blog postings as we once were. Maybe we're lazy now, maybe it's the unpredictable internet connections of SE Asia. Regardless, accept our most humble apologies.

After our stint in Ho Chi Mihn City we veered off the beaten track a bit and visited Dalat--the honeymooners capital of Vietam. Set amid man-made lakes, concrete statues of various animals, and green terraced hills as far as the eye can see, this is the first place we've visited in the past two and a half months where we haven't been dripping sweat around the clock. In fact, at several thousand feet above sea level, we actually got to enjoy putting on our shoes and long sleeve shirts for a few days. Praise Buddah! Unlike it's ill-mannered alter-ego that we visited in India, Mt. Abu, Dalat was a pleasant town with a colorful (yet smelly) market, nice waterfalls nearby, and a generous helping of the strange touch Vietnam puts on areas of interest--such as neon halos around Buddah or the Virgin Mary, swan-shaped pedaloos for the lake, or 15 foot high concrete tigers.

We spent one day cruising the cool hills, checking out the sites, and weaving through traffic, and I'm proud to report I've become quite the master of the Asian motorbike. Luckily, there are only a fraction of the people in Dalat as there are in Saigon, so the ride was reasonably safe. As a funny side-note, people wear very fashionable helmets in Vietnam--they're equipped with attachments that shade from the sun, or add a nice personal touch. In fact, they seem to be so popular that people rarely seem to take them off. Whether at the market, walking down the street or fishing on the lake, a good percentage of the people seem well prepared to step into a construction zone. When all else fails, do as the locals do when visiting your friendly local pagoda.

Regardless of the strange structures around town and the excessive head protection, the cool climate was the relief we needed. If only it could last all the way to Hanoi. We stayed an extra day in Dalat because we didn't want to go back to the heat and humidity, but we've since moved down from the hills to Nha Trang, on the coast of the South China Sea. Needless to say we've back to scorching heat, and countless moto-bike drivers who are all competing to give you a ride somewhere. It seems as thought the further north we go the more frequent the rain is becoming, too. We actually had one night that the rain started about 6:00 pm, and by 7:30 we were crossing the main road in town with the water nearly up to our knees--we've never seen anything quite like it. Further along down the coast we made another quick stop in a less toursted area and enjoyed a day and a half of hard rain while cruising the quiet coast on bikes. With not much to do and not many menu's in English we moved on after just two nights, but Shanon and I did look good in plastic bags.

Up the coast we go...we will try to be more diligent about the blog, in this our final month overseas. We fly back to Bangkok on the 3rd of June, and then should be stateside on the 14th, and in SLC on June 15th. Yikes!
A few minutes of r&r between thunder storms.

Loving Vietnam

Here we are, alive and well, hangin with the commies in Viet Nam. We sucessfully crossed the boarder into our last planned country on our original agenda.

We came from Cambodia to the border via the Mekong river by slow boat, which was really great. Life on the mekong is slow and muddy. Some of the people live in floating houses right on the river. Very interesting.

We spent our first night in a city called Chau Doc which really didn't have much to it, but was nice to see the daily goings on in the river city. We took off the next day via bus (which was broken down for an hour or so) and boat to the island of Phu Quoc which was absolutely amazing. It was quiet and although there were enough bungalows and resteraunts to eat at, there wasn't hoards of tourists outnumbering the locals. Most of the tourists that were there we from Vietnam anyway. There also was a nice lack of anyone trying to sell you trinkets and junk on the beach. Our bungalow right on the white sand beach looking out over the amazing waters was really, really cheap. It seemed to be what Thailand was (so we hear), 20 years ago before the influx of foreigners. Very nice. We stayed for 4 nights and if Jared would have let me, I think I would have stayed for much, much longer. We lazed the days away in our hammocks and watched the local fishermen working their nets from our porch. It seemed like this place was changing fast with major construction sites throwing up resorts all over. It may just be another gigantic upscale resort island in a couple of years, so we were glad to see it before it changes too much.

Against my pleadings, we left the island and headed for the city of Can Tho which was located right in the heart of the Mekong Delta. We really liked this place and spent a wonderful morning on the river with our wonderful tiny boat guide.

He took us to the biggest floating market in the Delta and we watched the local people go about their grocery shopping, fruit haggling, and meat cooking rituals. We also visited a rice paper factory, snake farm and land market while on our boat tour. The land market was absolutely insane, seriously there were snakes, fish, crabs, frogs and all other random things jumping out of buckets and flopping around our feet. We got some great fruits there including my new favorite fruit-the incredibly sweet and juicy mangosteen.

We also got to participate in the April 30th celebrations- which is for the victory of N. Vietnam over S. Vietnam-pretty much the end of the American (Vietnam) war. So fun, full of random street snacks, motorcycle chaos, and yes a stage with what I assume is Vietnams finest performers. White suite wearing, dance move throwing, high voiced singing stage hounds. Awesome!

We are now in Saigon, which has been full of strange emotions. The city is full of wartime sites and museums. We have been to a few which were heart renching and hard to see. This country seems to have been in war for decades on end and it is amazing that the people have thrived through it all. The museum for the American war (aka Vietnam war) was so sad (the agent orange section was near unbearable) and a bit anti-american but very interesting to see it through the Vietnamese eyes.

Vietnam has been really great so far and has intrigued us in many ways. First of all is the food-I am begining to understand that these people happily eat anything that walks, crawls, swims, hops, slithers, flies or anyother creature that well...lives. We haven't loved the food, but its interesting none the less. Secondly-yes, the locals all wear those conical straw hats... everywhere, and the women all wear some sort of matching brightly patterned pajama suit. Not quite sure what thats about, but they look comfortable. One more thing, they all drive motorcycles, hardly any cars. In a city of 6.5 million people and no traffic laws this makes for interesting walks (yes, they even drive on the sidewalks) and wonderful afternoon moto watching breaks. Priceless. I am sure this country will continue to intrigue us as the weeks roll on.