A week in Vietnam

Have just returned to Hong Kong this past weekend after spending last week traveling throughout Vietnam.  We were on the move to see as much as possible in one week - but could have easily spent another week or two in the country just to see it all! Overall the cities were crowded, noisy and polluted. It was a miracle crossing the streets given the hundreds of motorcycles going by at any one minute (the trick is to move slowly through the motorcycles rather than try to run across the street during an opening in traffic – which won’t exist). My favorite parts of Vietnam were the more rural parts – the Mekong Delta in the south, Sapa in the north in the mountains and Halong Bay in the north along the coast.

In my longest posting yet, here goes an attempt to describe a very busy week full of Vietnam adventures:

Our boat for 2 days / 1 night

We flew from Hong Kong directly to Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City, but everyone still calls it Saigon), where we spent one night, then left first thing in the morning to head south to the Mekong River Delta. We spent the night on a riverboat called Dragon Eyes which took us from Cai Be to Can Tho.  The delta was incredibly busy with boats – people living on boats, transporting goods, hauling building materials, fishing, tourists like us, etc.  We also passed various towns along the edge of the water, which primarily consisted of run down buildings.  In Can Tho we experienced a water market, where everyone converges on their boats to buy/sell various goods and food.

Local fisherman

Morning at a brick factory

Market along the delta

Most boats had eyes

Evening on the delta

Market in Can Tho

We then returned to Saigon. We walked around the streets, visited a market, a cathedral and the Reunification Palace – where the North Vietnam tanks rolled in on April 30, 1975 and the President of South Vietnam surrendered.  To get our minds off of the atrocious war, we finished the day with a drink on the Sheraton rooftop (a must according to Lonely Planet).

Coffee Bean - from LA to Saigon!

The usual

Reunification Palace - former South Vietnam capital

Reunification Palace frozen in time at April 30, 1975

The North Vietnam tanks rolling in on April 30, 1975

South Vietnam's war room in the Reunification Palace

Saigon marketplace

Notre Dame Cathedral (note the bird on the Virgin Mary's head)

After a day in Saigon, we flew to Hue – the old imperial capital.  In Hue, we visited the Imperial Palace, an old pagoda and two tombs.  Hue is known for its crab/rice paper rolls, which we thoroughly enjoyed. 

Imperial Palace

Imperial Palace

Street market

Hue crab specialty restaurant

Pagoda

Emperor's tomb. Who doesn't belong?

Vietnam's last emperor's tomb

After Hue, we flew to Hanoi, where we boarded an overnight train to take us up to the mountain area of Sapa.  Sapa is home to a number of tribes. We spent two days, one night in Sapa, and hiked throughout several small villages, visiting the Black H’mong and Zhao tribes. We constantly had local women surrounding us, trying to win a tip or sell a trinket.  The local people in this region are very poor, and survive on tourism and rice crops – which look beautiful tiered amongst the hills.  The weather was significantly cooler up in the mountains of Sapa.

In the rice fields

Overlooking the town

Fake North Face on every corner

Black H'mong

Black H'mong women being shooed away from out-front our hotel by Communist govt official

Hiking with the locals

The overnight train

We then took the overnight train back to Hanoi, where we had a transfer scheduled to take us to Halong Bay – an area in the northeast of Vietnam which is up for becoming one of the new Seven Natural Wonders of the World – which I fully support after having seen it! We spent the two days and one night on a beautiful traditional junk boat.  We sailed throughout many of Halong Bay’s seemingly endless array of small islands – over 2,000 in total.  During the late afternoon, we explored a cave in one of the islands, full of stalagmites and stalactites.  We also kayaked around one of the islands during sunset – which turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip overall.  

Halong Bay

The islands of Halong Bay

Kayaks on a Halong Bay island

Evening in Halong Bay

Kayaking at Sunset

Halong Bay

Fishing village in Halong Bay

Fishing village again

The next day on the boat we visited a remote and extremely poor village amongst the islands, with a population of 256. The government facilitates for the children to attend school, but most of these students return to their village as soon as possible rather than use education as a tool to escape.  They earn a living by fishing, harvesting pearls and paddling tourists around for tips.

On a small docked boat in the village

After Halong Bay, we went back to Hanoi – a trip which was supposed to take 3 hours but ended up taking 6 hours because of a traffic accident which gridlocked the road for miles - and then flew back to my temporary home in Hong Kong!

Street scene in Hanoi's old quarter

Another street scene in Hanoi's old quarter

Thoughts on Vietnam based on observations and conversations with local tourguides:

-       Still a very poor country, but growing quite quickly

-       Out of every Vietnamese person that I spoke with, no one liked the Communist government. At the same time, no one paid much attention to politics – instead they focused on their families

-       Rice, rice and more rice! Every meal consisted of some form of rice – whether rice noodles in pho soup, rice paper spring rolls or just plain rice. From the north to the south, the country is united by rice

-       We mainly saw women doing most of the work – the women rowed the men around in boats, the women worked the rice fields, the women cooked, the women cleaned. Not sure where all of the men were

-       Motorcycle heaven – it’s common to see families of four piled on to one bike. The children generally don’t wear helmets. Lots of surgical masks work to keep out the pollution and dust when riding. People also cart around live animals strapped to their vehicles – pigs, ducks, geese, chickens

-       They eat dog, cat and snake

-       Usually the nice buildings were government buildings (no surprise in a Communist country). In Sapa, the government officials had very nice cars which they drove amongst dirt roads with people living alongside wandering livestock in houses with dirt floors

-       We visited a school in Sapa which consisted of two classrooms with about 20 children each – all clean and well dressed. The teachers were hanging out together in another separate room and didn’t seem to be in any rush to get back to their classrooms to teach. Surrounding the school were tons of other indigent children who didn’t have the luxury of attending school and instead worked with their families. The whole government propaganda idea of putting the school on the tourist route didn’t quite work as they had imagined…

Now back to classes in Hong Kong… but my next trip is right around the corner – a quick 2 days in South Korea later this week!