Halong Bay pictures

Typical fishing village in Halong Bay, there are tons of these scattered around.







Kayaking through a cave to get into a lagoon. This cave is the only way into the lagoon and it can only be accessed at low tide.








Local fishing boat.











Fishing boat inside one of the many caves .








Sunset over Halong Bay.

Pictures from Sapa

Trekking through the forest to get to Fansipan












Our group of trekkers at the top of the mountian, couldn't see anything though.








Our guides cooking dinner over the fire with the accommodation building in the background.














Kids using the irregation ditches as a slide and having a great time.











The waterfall at Cat Cat village.












Yours truly helping the locals harvest some rice.






Locals working hard harvesting rice.

Hanoi

I visited Hanoi a few times while in Vietnam because the city acts as the starting point to both Sapa and Halong Bay. When all was done I spent a combined amount of 4 days in Hanoi: one before Sapa, one between my trip to Sapa and Halong Bay and two more after Halong Bay before leaving for Laos.

Needless to say the first day in Hanoi was spent just wandering around the old quarter and mostly arranging my trips to Sapa and Halong Bay so not very much touristy stuff got done.

On my way back to Hanoi from Sapa I met a fellow Vietnamese traveler from Saigon and he was planning on taking a day trip to an ancient Vietnamese town about 40km west of Hanoi. So I agreed to join him on this excursion as I figured that it must be pretty interesting if the locals were going. Although it was only 40km away it took nearly 2 hours to reach the town on motorbike due to the poor condition of the roads, and sitting on the back of the motorbike for 2 hours became quite uncomfortable so I was happy to get there. The town itself was quite interesting but also very quiet considering people still lived there. But it was still fun to wander around the old town that was composed of narrow roads between all of the walled houses. Aside from the ancient houses in the village there was also an old temple and a nice village center with a couple of small monuments and wells.

After leaving the old village we went to a small citadel in another nearby town. This citadel had a beautiful location as it was located on large piece of land surrounded by a wall and moat so it was pretty isolated from the city. Unfortunately most of the buildings that had been present in the citadel had been destroyed during the war so all that remained now was a temple in the center and some of the surrounding gardens.

That night back in Hanoi was October 10th, Hanoi's independence date, so there were a few small performances happening on the streets around the city. Although there didn't seem to be any really big celebrations it was quite interesting to watch some of the small performances.

My final two days in Hanoi, and Vietnam, were spent going to a couple of the sights in the city and organizing transportation to Laos. On the first day I spent several hours wandering through the museum of ethnology which was very well done. Within the museum there were descriptions of every ethnic group of Vietnam including articles of their clothing and tools on display. Outside there were also several examples of the traditional houses for some of the ethnic groups.

Finally on the day that I was leaving for Laos I went to the Temple of Literature which is a beautiful complex in the city and also Vietnam's first university. Over half of the grounds were well maintained gardens where scholars could come to sit and think. Also included are old buildings containing statues of several important contributers and stone stelae which record the names of all of the successful graduates.

Next it was time to board the bus going to Vientiane, Laos. A journey that has been nicknamed the bus ride from hell because it is supposed to take nearly 24 hours on twisty roads.

Upon leaving Vietnam I would highly recommend traveling here, although I found the northern part of the country to be much more fun than the south with Sapa and Halong Bay being the 2 highlights of my trip here.

Halong Bay

After returning to Hanoi from Sapa I had 24 hours to spend in the city before leaving for my trip to Halong Bay. So I passed most of the time just wandering around the old quarter of the city and getting my very dirty laundry done.

The trip for Halong Bay departed at 7:30 am and consisted of a 3 hour bus ride out to the boat dock in the bay. Once there we boarded one of thousands of old junks that sail the bay with tourists and departed for karst formations in the bay. After hearing about lots of bad experiences for people going with budget operators on Halong Bay I decided to spend a little more money. As soon as we had left the dock I decided that it was money well spent as the boat was well kept, the guides were great and the food was delicious. Upon boarding the boat we were all greeted with a huge lunch consisting of several courses of different sea food. Delicious.

In the afternoon the boat stopped sailing through the karst limestone formations and stopped at one of the largest caves in the area, along with every other tourist boat it seemed. After a quick walk through of the caves, which I didn't find too spectacular but I think that lots of the stalagmites and stalactites had been broken by tourists so it probably used to be quite something special. The one thing that it did have going for it was that it certainly was a big cave. After walking through the cave the boat sailed to a nearby island with a beach where we spent the next hour swimming in the water and walking up to the top of the island for a nice view of the surrounding area. That night was spent on the boat eating again some great sea food and just relaxing.

The next day we were transferred to a smaller boat to go further out into the bay to do some sea kayaking. This was definitely a highlight of the trip as we were able to paddle around the limestone islands and into areas that the bigger ship couldn't reach. We even paddled into a lagoon that was only accessible at low tide through a cave, at high tide the cave was sealed by water and no one can enter it. The day was passed paddling around the edge of Halong Bay and swimming in the ocean, a great day.

That night was spent on Cat Ba island at one of the nicest resorts on the island. Cat Ba is the only city, other than floating fishing villages, in Halong Bay. It is a nice little place but also very quiet. The final day we had free time to explore the island at our leisure or to just swim in the ocean and lounge on the beach before boarding the ferry that would take us back to mainland and from there a bus to Hanoi.

By the end of the trip I had decided that this was one of the highlights of my trip to Vietnam so far and very glad that I went. The weather was pretty good too, it was slightly misty all of the time but it was warm with no rain and no wind. I consider myself fairly lucky as other people I met were supposed to go at the same time as one of the typhoons passed over so had to cancel their trip.

Again I can't access my photos to upload any for now (see post below).

Sapa

I only spent one day in Hanoi when I got there and spent most of the time organizing a trip to Halong Bay and Sapa. I planned to stay in the city and explore some of its museums after these trips.

I arrived in Sapa at the nice an early time of 6am after taking the night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai and a minibus up to Sapa. My first thought of Sapa when I got outside of the bus was that it was damn cold. Although it was probably about 10 or 15 degrees outside it felt freezing compared to the rest of Vietnam so when I checked into a hotel the first thing that I did was put on some long pants and a long sleeved shirt.

When I got all settled into my hotel I walked to the front desk to find out what treks I could do around Sapa for that day and they informed me that they had a 15km guided trek to 3 nearby ethnic villages. It sounded pretty good to so I signed up. After boarding the bus to drive to the start of the trek I found out that it was only going to be about a 6km walk along unpaved roads so not as interesting as I had hoped for. The short walk was still fairly good as we did see many ethnic people, mostly H'mong people, but they were all trying to sell pillowcases, wallets and whistles so they got a bit annoying after a while. After the walk through the villages we returned to the hotel where I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing and playing some games with local H'mong girls who were acting as tourist guides.

On the second morning I joined a group of people who were walking down to Cat Cat village, another nearby ethnic village. This walk was fairly short and there weren't too many people out in the village, however, there was a nice set of waterfalls but that was about the only highlight. In the afternoon I climbed up Ham Rong mountain, the short mountain in Sapa. From here there were some nice views of the surrounding mountains and the village of Sapa, as well as some flower gardens that had been planted for the tourists.

When getting back from Ham Rong mountain I bumped into some people that I met in Hoi An and decided to join them for a real trek up Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam. The trek left the next morning and the plan was to hike for about 7 hours to a camp from where we would summit the mountian the next morning and return back to Sapa in the afternoon, in time for me to make the train back to Hanoi.

The climb started out from a high moutain pass (elevation 1700 meters) and from there we spent the morning hiking through the beautiful forest with the sun shining thinking that it was going to be a great trip. However, shortly after lunch when the major elevation gain started the fog started to come in and thus blocked any views that we would have had. The climb itself was also extremely hard as it seemed to only go straight up (very steep and I wouldn't have minded some switchbacks) and while going up we had to climb over some fair size rocks and through lots of mud making everything wet and slippery. All in all it was not an easy climb and to make matters worse it was still fairly warm and very humid so I was always drenched in sweat.

The camp on the mountain was cozy place as there were about 30 people sleeping in it but all that it contained was some bamboo beds and sleeping bags. Needless to say the night was pretty uncomforable and also became quite chilly up on the mountain and I was glad for morning to come. However the food for dinner that the porters brought up was fabulous as there were several dishes of different kinds of meat, tofu, potatoes, rice and vegetables.

The next day found the clouds no thinner so it appeared that we would be summiting and unable to see anything. This proved to be true as about an hour and half after leaving the camp we reached the summit (3143 meters) and couldn't see further than 30 feet. So at least we made it but we couldn't see anything. The rest of the day was spent climbing/sliding back down the mountain in the mist with a short lunch break back at camp. When we reached the bottem I think we were all glad that it was over as this was one of the toughest climbs that I have ever done, I think.

Back in Sapa I had enough time to grab a nice shower before heading back to Lao Cai to catch my night train back to Hanoi.

Unfortuneatly it's taking forever to upload pictures from this computer and I have a bus to catch in 10 mins so I'll hopefully upload the pictures tomorrow.

Hue

After Hoi An and Danang I made my way up to Hue by taking the train along the coast. The train ride was beautiful as it went over a small pass and the ocean was visible for almost the entire journey.

The city of Hue was once the capital of Vietnam and thus contains a huge citadel in the centre of the city where the emperor used to live. Inside the citadel complex are several different areas including museums, both female and male quarters, and several temples. On the first day I spent over 3 hours there wandering around looking at all of the buildings and I didn't even see everything.

Around the city there are also several pagodas, temples and tombs including The Thien Mu pagoda, the pagoda from which the monk who burned himself to death in protest in Saigon in 1963. For the afternoon and following morning I toured around some of the tombs and pagodas. They are all quite extravagent, although after a while they all seem to look alike so I didn't spend time to visit each one.

The only other attraction around Hue seems to be the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which is just north of the city. I passed on the tour of this as there isn't supposed to be much there to see and the tunnels at Cu Chi are supposed to be far more impressive than the ones here.

My time in Hue was short lived as other than seeing the citadel and all of the temples, tombs and pagodas there didn't seem to be much else to do. Therefore after only 2 days I decided to head up to Hanoi and plan trips to Sapa and Halong Bay.





Buildings within the citadel





Pheonix and dragon statues within the citadel







A lake in the complex of the tomb of Tu Duc









A building in the tomb of Tu Duc (I think it was in this tomb)

Pictures of Hoi An

Marble mountains seen from a distance









Looking from one mountain to another












Cham ruins at My Son.

Hoi An

The overnight bus to Hoi An seemed like a good idea; however, this had to be one of the most uncomfortable ways to sleep/travel. The bed I was assigned wasn't even close to being long enough for me but thankfully there was one empty long bed left so I got to take that, but even then sleeping on a bus that was driving on a twisting road and constantly honking its horn gave way to very little sleep.

Once I arrived in Hoi An though I wandered around the old part of town, a very section of shopfronts and no motorized vehicles on the roads which was a very nice change. The town of Hoi An is famous for its tailoring stores and for any person who loves clothes this place would be a dream. There are so many tailor stores in the old part of town that it's hard to find anything else other than the odd restaurant. The first day was spent just wandering around the old town and going into some of the historical buildings.

Outside of Hoi An there are a few sites that are located within 15km of the town according to the guide book so I planned on renting a bicycle to visit a few of them. When I asked the hotel reception how to get to these places on bike they looked at me like I was crazy and informed me that it was more like 25km to the nearest one, I still didn't think that was too bad so I went ahead with my plans and rode out of town towards the Marble Mountains and China Beach. The cycle trip was fairly pleasent riding through the country and after a while I started to actually feel like a celebrity as every kid that I passed felt the need to say hello to me, and judging by the number of kids that I saw I think that I must have ridden by a couple of schools. The Marble Mountains were fairly spectacular, there were about 5 of these "mountains" jutting up from completely flat plains and aside from these mountains there wasn't any topography anywhere nearby. On top of the largest mountain was a few pagodas and some nice viewpoints so I made the trek up it. Just as I was leaving it started to rain, the effects of the typhoon, so I decided to head back to Hoi An and pass on the beach. During the ride back the rain became quite heavy and needless to say I got soaked, even wearing my raincoat.

The next day the rains continued so the day was spent relaxing around Hoi An and not getting up to very much in terms of tourist activities.

About an hour bus ride from Hoi An is a famous site of Cham ruins called My Son (pronounced Me Son) and on my last day I arranged a tour out to them. The site is a world heritage site and very extensive, there are 7 seperate sites where temples were built (all within a couple hundred meters of one another). The entire site itself had been built over a span of 11 centuries, as a comparison Angkor Wat in Cambodia was constructed in 3 or 4 centuries. However, due to wars only 1 of the sites at My Son remains in decent condition with most of the others only some walls or foundations still exist. The site though is still impressive and set in some beautiful hills (My Son means beautiful hill) and is definately worth the visit.

After Hoi An I took a bus to Danang where I was to spend a day before taking the train to Hue. In Danang there is a well done Cham museum that contains loads of artifacts. The artifacts are mostly parts of temples from around Vietnam that had been partially destroyed. The museum was well set up and there were lots of signs in english explaining the different figures seen, so it was well worth the morning walk through before my train to Hue.

The computer I'm on doesn't have an accessible USB port so I'll upload the pictures for this post the next chance that I get.

Nha Trang

The journey to Nha Trang started at 7:30 in the morning and since it was less than 500km separating the two cities I thought the bus should get there around 1pm. Needless to say I was wrong. The trip took almost 10 hours as I didn't arrive until 5pm so in hind sight I should have taken the overnight bus or train to save myself a day in vietnam. Once in Nha Trang though I met up with a couple of Aussie's and the first thing that we did was book a diving trip for the following morning.
I personnally didn't think that the diving was the best here in Nha Trang, which is supposed to be the spot in Vietnam, but it was beautiful out on the boat and around the island. Underwater there was nothing very exciting: a some coral, very few fish (I thought), and about the only interesting thing that we saw was some eels. The Aussie's I was with had dove in Thailand and said that it was much much better there so I'm hoping for that.
That evening the Aussie's, an American couple that we met while diving and myself went to checkout the nightlife. One of the dive masters told us which bars to go to but when we got there they were all pretty quiet and they didn't pick up for the rest of the night, and we all thought that Nha Trang was supposed to have great nightlife, o well I guess it is the quiet season in terms of tourists.
Next day we rented motorbikes to drive around the city and visit some Cham towers. The Cham people are an ethnic group in Southeast Asia that built several religious sites from the 3rd-14th centuries. Cham people still exist but their numbers are low and the ones in Vietnam live mostly in the Mekong Delta region. The Cham towers that we visited were very well preserved but the guide that we got for them gave contradicting information to what the American couple had heard so we weren't sure what to believe. While at the towers our guide told us about some waterfalls only 10 km away so we decided to head over to them. Quite a while later and asking several locals we found the Baho waterfalls, they were 25km down the highway and then 3km along a dirt road. we spent most of the afternoon swimming in the water and climbing up to all three sets of waterfalls.
My final day spent in Nha Trang was mostly spent relaxing on the beach and in the backpackers district just waiting for my overnight bus to Hoi An to depart.




View from my hotel room of Nha Trang, the ocean and distant mountains










Cham Towers
















Pete sitting in Baho waterfalls
















Beach in Nha Trang

Mekong Delta

I took a two day trip from Ho Chi Minh city to the Mekong Delta to see the wonders of this part of Vietnam. The trip consisted of boat rides around the Delta visiting floating markets, and places where coconut candy, rice paper and rice krispies are made. My first impression of the tour wasn't very good as the first floating market that we visited was pretty dead as all the action happened before 11am, the time that our bus got to the delta. After that we enjoyed a free lunch with "unlimited fresh fruits", which turned out to be only a handful of leeche fruits and rambutans. Needless to say the tour could only get better.

After lunch we got back in the boat and went to tour the coconut candy and rice paper shops. These were fairly ordinary but the coconut candy that was freshly made was delicious.

The following morning was spent going through another floating market. This time though it was 8am so the market was full of life and much more interesting. Each boat had people on it and everybody trying to sell something, from what I could tell it was mainly fruit for sale. After the floating market the tour stopped at a rice krispie shop where the rice krispies squares were being freshly made from the nearby grown rice.

After the tour it was a 4 hour bus ride back to Ho Chi Minh to spend the night and then on to Nha Trang.



Typical Mekong Delta setting, for one of the smaller river branches.













Rice paper drying in the sun














The floating market, the items displayed on the bamboo poles are what each boat is selling





















Making kice krispie squares

Saigon photos and Cu Chi Tunnels

As mentioned before, Saigon seems to be dominated by motorbikes. So I've put a photo of a SMALL parking lot for motorbikes. They are everywhere.














Trying to cross the road (the picture doesn't do it justice)









The wiring system in Saigon seems very unsafe. I can imagine that one day one of the telephone poles holding all of the wires is going to break creating lots of problems.






From Saigon I took a half day trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels which are located just to the North of Saigon. The tunnels here are a remainder of the tunnels used by the Viet Kong during the Vietnam war. In this area only they extended for over 200 km and were all dug using small hand shovels and baskets to move the waste material. The most difficult job was disposing of the waste material as any large piles or newly dumped soil would be visible from the sky and American bombers could easily bomb those targets. Therefore to keep the tunnel locations hidden the Vietnamese could only dump the waste material into existing bomb craters or carry it all the way to the Saigon river and dump it there. The tunnels themselves are all quite tight and the deeper underground they go the smaller they get. The average height of the tunnels is approximately only 60 cm high and 40 cm across, a tight squeeze for someone like myself crawling through them. They also went to depths of 30 meters to be able to survive bombs; however, they contained several "fighting rooms" at only a few meters depth from where they would attack any soldiers.






Entrance to one set of tunnels
















Tunnel system (60 cm high x 40 cm wide)







In addition to the tunnel network in the area the Vietnamese created several traps for any American soldiers to fall into and die. Most of the traps were some sort of covered hole in the ground filled with sharpened bamboo stakes ready to impale anyone that fell in.



Trap with bamboo stakes

The Adventure Starts

Today marks the first day of my trek around the world. I landed in Ho Chi Minh city (still called Saigon to all the locals) late last night and was kindly picked up from the airport by Kevin Meyer.

Saigon is a city that is owned by motorbikes, it seems that everyone here drives one. If you can imagine thousands of motorbikes, some cars and buses and very few rules of the road you can get a sense of the chaos of the streets here. Crossing the street is a major undertaking as no body seems to stop, ever. All you can do is slowly move across the road and hope that all of the vehicles miss you.

This morning I visited the War Remnants Museum which goes through the Vietnam war of the 60's. The most interesting and gruesome part of the museum was all of the information covering the chemical weapons that the Americans used. The amount of damage that these chemicals caused on both the environment and the people was devastating. Entire forests were destroyed and the number of people living with diseases or birth defects caused by the chemicals is massive. The majority of the museum was photographs with descriptions but it was a very eyeopening experience about the harsh reality of the war.

More updates with some photos will follow later as I experience more of this amazing city and the surrounding country.