from manila we took a night bus to the town of banaue...the bus ride wasn't much fun at all...too air conditioned, everyone was covered up in blankets, wearing long sleeves, etc...except me, because i forgot to take my malong out of my pack...i was miserable most of the night, and wasn't able to sleep...and because i wasn't able to sleep, i was aware of all the weaving back and forth the bus was doing...i was soooo car sick...i went up front just in case i needed to ask the bus driver to pull over, and ended up sitting up there for quite a while...i ended up feeling better and got to watch a beautiful sunrise...while i was sitting up there i looked over at the driver a few times, i couldn't tell how awake he was...and i also realized that the bus didn't have a working speedometer!! sometimes it felt like we were going pretty fast, but who knows...
banaue is known for the rice terraces surrounding the town...they're beautiful...filipinos call them the eighth wonder of the world, and they are pretty impressive...i think layna and i would have appreciated them even more if we hadn't trekked through (and up and down) farming terraces in nepal...the rice terraces in the philippines were built 2000 years ago, (by hand obviously) and produce once a year...rice is a really labour intensive crop, if i haven't mentioned that already...we walked along the road leading out of town, there is a series of viewpoints along the way...at one of the viewpoints we played with some local kids for a while...we even had a handstand contest with them...i lost, miserably...they were super cute, entertaining us by showing us how they could do cartwheels and handsprings over each other...banaue reminded us a lot of several of the villages in which we stayed while trekking in nepal...it's a cute little town...lots of great hiking in the area as well...
from banaue we went to sagada, another mountain town...to get from one to the other, we rode two jeepneys...the first was a 3 hour ride, the second only one hour...normally i wouldn't mention this, but it was great because we got to ride on top of both jeepneys!! a lot of fun, AND great views the whole time...the roads weren't always great though, and several times we were tilted at an angle that could've sent us straight down the mountains...every year the philippines has problems with landslides, (particularly during rainy season) and we saw evidence of several recent slides...the slides sometimes wipe out entire villages...even with the constant fear of a landslide, riding on top of the jeepneys was amazing...being able to look out over the mountain range was amazing...absolutely beautiful...it's a good thing i was sitting on my pack the whole time, as the ride was pretty bumpy!!
there are rice terraces around sagada as well, though that's not the primary reason to visit sagada...the main reason to visit sagada is for the coffins...first, there's a burial cave on the way out of town...the first time i tried to find it, i missed the turnoff, and ended up walking way too far...which was okay, because the view of the valley was gorgeous...when i did get down to the cave, i got to see over 100 coffins stacked up in the entrance...some are said to be over 500 years old...the other coffins to see are the so called "hanging coffins" of echo valley...they're not really hanging, i don't know where that name came from...i couldn't tell for sure, but it looked as though there were steel rods hammered into the cliffs, and the coffins were perched on those...howeva they are up there, they've been up there for a while...the original colour has gone away from most of the coffins...most of them are that grayish, non colour...the coffins in the cave were that way as well...next to two of the hanging coffins i saw chairs tied up...just in case, i guess...another coffin had fallen at an angle, and the lid come off...underneath the coffin was the pile of bones that had originally been in the coffin...kinda creepy!! i read that some elders are still put in coffins for the cave or cliffs, but apparently this is rather expensive...it requires the sacrifice of quite a few animals, to appease the gods...sagada is on the top of one side of echo valley, it's a really small town...there is a lot of hiking around the area, people don't stay in town because of the town itself...the weather was absolutely fabulous while we were there, and i took one afternoon to just walk to the next town down the road...it was only 7km each way, not very long...along the way (which was really really quiet,) i saw several more panoramic valley views...AWESOME!!!
from sagada we went to baguio...baguio is home to camp john hay, which used to be an R&R camp for US military personnel...now it's a park, golf course, hotel, etc...baguio was the total opposite of sagada...it's busy and crowded and a whole lot bigger...that being said, it was still fun to walk around...there were lots of people selling stuff on the street...i can't get enough of the battered and fried hard boiled eggs!! one of the few specific things we saw in town was the cathedral...our lady of atonement cathedral? something like that...anywho, it wasn't the cathedral itself that impressed me so much as its schedule of masses...there are multiple masses, every day of the week...sunday and wednesday there are at least 8 services!!! after baguio we knew we were going south, so we checked the ferry schedule from manila, and figured out that we had an extra day to kill...since baguio was cheaper, we decided to stay there an extra night...i took the opportunity to eat more eggs...hee hee...
20 May 2009
bangkok again, and manila
in between vietnam and the philippines, we were back in bangkok for a day and a half...this time we stayed in an area near lumbini park, instead of the usual tourist haunt of khao san road...even though it took us a while to find our guesthouse, it ended up being a lot better than previous visits...the food at nearby street stalls was better, as were prices...also, the foreigners we saw were those who actually live in bangkok, not those who are just visiting...while walking around i saw several HUGE malls, with brand names in them...it was very hard to walk away from the baskin robbins store, i was sooooo tempted...i did see one new sight, the golden mount...it's a wat on top of a hill...the wat itself isn't any great shakes, but it was the first time i was able to look out over the city, and that was neat...
from bangkok we flew to manila, the capital of the philippines...a very western city...HUGE malls all over the place, lots of english spoken, restaurants everywhere...it's almost like being back in the states in many ways...i first visited manila 5 years ago, when my sister was living in the philippines for a year...being back brought back a lot of memories, to say the least...it was nice to be in a place where i sortof had an idea where i knew what i was doing...
the last time i was in manila, i was guided around by my sister, which meant i payed absolutely no attention how we got anywhere...and we didn't walk much...this time, layna and i both walked...and i realized that it's easy to walk around manila...this does not howeva mean that filipinos do any walking...if at all possible, they take transport...whether that's a taxi, a jeepney, a tricycle, or the LRT/MRT...i saw very few people out just walking, and the tricycle drivers all told me i was nuts/dumb for walking...traffic is not very clean, and i didn't enjoy all the black clouds being belched out of the vehicles, but oh well...i walked through intramuros, quiapo, chinatown, and malate, which are all areas of manila...intramuros still retains some of it's spanish roots, and the manila cathedral is in that area...it was originally built quite a while ago, but has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times...(fires, earthquakes, etc knocked it down...the philippines is home to many natural disasters each year)...
just like saigon, manila isn't all that aesthetically appealing...there are only a few actual sights, and most people don't spend much time there...traffic is crazy, and surprisingly, it's not from personal vehicles...there are just so many taxis, jeepneys, tricycles, buses, etc on the road that things get clogged up...and filipino drivers usually ignore lane lines...still layna and i both really like the city...
one of the sights is rizal park...it's still called luneta by a lot of locals, even though the name was changed in the 50s, i think...jose rizal is one of many philippine national heroes...i think he stood up to the spanish with words? they've got his farewell poem translated into several different languages...it's actually pretty moving...in one area of the park you can see the cement footprints of the steps he supposedly took, leading to the spot where he was executed...at one end of the park is a statue of rizal, guarded by two members of the filipino military in dress uniform...toward the other end of the park is a statue of lapu lapu, who was the leader of one of many tribes way back when...he's known because he won the battle with ferdinand magellan when the later first landed on the philippines in the 1500s...magellan didn't last long after landing, and that defeat set back spanish colonialization by about 100 years...at the far end of the park is a map of the philippines...made of cement, in water, so you get an idea of what the whole country looks like...the best view would have been from the LRT line closeby, but i couldn't figure out a way to get up to that spot...(it wasn't a stop, so there wouldn't have been anywhere to stand)...all along the sidewalks in the park are busts of other filipino heroes...they've got a lot of them!!!
from bangkok we flew to manila, the capital of the philippines...a very western city...HUGE malls all over the place, lots of english spoken, restaurants everywhere...it's almost like being back in the states in many ways...i first visited manila 5 years ago, when my sister was living in the philippines for a year...being back brought back a lot of memories, to say the least...it was nice to be in a place where i sortof had an idea where i knew what i was doing...
the last time i was in manila, i was guided around by my sister, which meant i payed absolutely no attention how we got anywhere...and we didn't walk much...this time, layna and i both walked...and i realized that it's easy to walk around manila...this does not howeva mean that filipinos do any walking...if at all possible, they take transport...whether that's a taxi, a jeepney, a tricycle, or the LRT/MRT...i saw very few people out just walking, and the tricycle drivers all told me i was nuts/dumb for walking...traffic is not very clean, and i didn't enjoy all the black clouds being belched out of the vehicles, but oh well...i walked through intramuros, quiapo, chinatown, and malate, which are all areas of manila...intramuros still retains some of it's spanish roots, and the manila cathedral is in that area...it was originally built quite a while ago, but has been destroyed and rebuilt a number of times...(fires, earthquakes, etc knocked it down...the philippines is home to many natural disasters each year)...
just like saigon, manila isn't all that aesthetically appealing...there are only a few actual sights, and most people don't spend much time there...traffic is crazy, and surprisingly, it's not from personal vehicles...there are just so many taxis, jeepneys, tricycles, buses, etc on the road that things get clogged up...and filipino drivers usually ignore lane lines...still layna and i both really like the city...
one of the sights is rizal park...it's still called luneta by a lot of locals, even though the name was changed in the 50s, i think...jose rizal is one of many philippine national heroes...i think he stood up to the spanish with words? they've got his farewell poem translated into several different languages...it's actually pretty moving...in one area of the park you can see the cement footprints of the steps he supposedly took, leading to the spot where he was executed...at one end of the park is a statue of rizal, guarded by two members of the filipino military in dress uniform...toward the other end of the park is a statue of lapu lapu, who was the leader of one of many tribes way back when...he's known because he won the battle with ferdinand magellan when the later first landed on the philippines in the 1500s...magellan didn't last long after landing, and that defeat set back spanish colonialization by about 100 years...at the far end of the park is a map of the philippines...made of cement, in water, so you get an idea of what the whole country looks like...the best view would have been from the LRT line closeby, but i couldn't figure out a way to get up to that spot...(it wasn't a stop, so there wouldn't have been anywhere to stand)...all along the sidewalks in the park are busts of other filipino heroes...they've got a lot of them!!!
17 May 2009
wellington, christchurch and queenstown
when i told people i was going to wellington, they all said i should take the overlander..it's a train that takes the entire day to go from auckland to wellington..it's supposed to be really scenic, and allow you to see beautiful areas of the north island..so i signed myself up for the train, it left at 0725 on a monday morning..the ride itself was okay, nothing spectacular..new zealand is pretty, but i felt as though i had already seen prettier areas than what i saw during that train ride..it didn't help that mt ruapehu was completely invisible when the train went by, but it's supposed to be an awesome view most of the time..i couldn't even tell there was anything there, the whole area was enveloped in a mist..anywho, as i was walking out of the train station, i noticed that someone was busking in the lobby area of the train station..i liked the music, he seemed pretty good..there were lots of people standing around watching, and cameras filming the whole thing..i stayed until he was done playing, but didn't know who it was, and felt too stupid to ask someone..(later on in the week i found out it was john mayer, doing publicity stuff for his concert that took place the next evening in wellington!)..
i found a hostel, and elected to put myself in a girls only dorm room..new zealand has a really good system of hostels, the infrastructure of backpacking is set up well in the entire country..
during the next three days i walked all over..unlike auckland, a visitor can walk all over wellington and see just about everything..it's the capital of the country, but only has about 150,000 people..(the biggest city, auckland, has over a million)..the nickname is windy welly, and i figured out why pretty quickly..the wind never seems to stop blowing!! i walked through te papa, the national museum..its really well done, and huge..it takes hours if you read and look at everything..the displays are put together well, and some of them are interactive for kids..i walked through the botanical gardens, which i didn't think were all that great..i took the cable car up to the top of a nearby hill and was able to look out over the city..i walked to the parliament area..the prime ministers office is in a building called the beehive, and it's UGLY..who knows why they chose that particular architect's design..it's awful..i took the guided tour as well, which i enjoyed for the informative aspects..it was neat to learn about the different areas of the building, what different rooms are used for..my favourite was the room where the queen sits when she visits..(which is practically never)..i was stunned to learn that there are rules still followed about who gets to walk where when the queen is sitting..if a member of parliament walks across in front of the queen he/she will be thrown out of parliament and forced to resign his/her seat!! i thought that kind of stuff was done with a long time ago, but this is a country far different from the US..technically, the head of the country is the queen of england..strange..i also walked to a monument that has something to do with antarctica..i'm not sure on the details, but there is a line where if you look at a particular angle, and could see that far, the next land you would see is antarctica..nifty..
my next week trip was to christchurch..in the canterbury area of the south island..it's home to the international airport of the south island..wine country, for the most part..lots of farming in general i think..the international antarctic centre is near the airport, i really enjoyed that visit...there is sooooo much i don't know about antarctica..they have displayed the new zealand history in antarctica, among other information..there is also a room where you can experience a blizzard..before going in the room you put on boots, and a winter jacket..when the "storm" starts, you can feel the wind picking up and the temperature dropping..it's not the temperatures that get you, it's the wind..it's awful!! but it was a neat experience..coming out of the room i felt like i was in the tropics:)..christchurch has nice gardens as well, and i found a yummy chocolate/fudge shop..who knew gluten free truffles could be so tasty? one afternoon i took the bus over to lyttleton, a small town near christchurch..it's picturesque, and has a building with a big ball on a pole...(think times square for new years eve, when the ball drops to mark the exact start of the new year)..this ball used to drop to let ship captains know exactly what time it was..that way they were able to make sure the clocks on their ships were right, and that way they knew they could properly figure out navigation..inside that building there used to be a family, it's now a museum..they used to live like early settlers lived in the US..christchurch has a number of churches, and old buildings that look distinctly british..i found a rugby store that had jerseys from every team imaginable..i ended up buying a jersey for the antarctic rugby team..fun:)
my last trip was to queenstown..when it was built, it was w/out a name..someone came, and as it was being finished, they said it was fit for a queen..hence the name..not big on originality, hee hee..it's the outdoor activity capital of the country..you can spend a LOT of money in queenstown..that's where bungy jumping originated, and you can still go with that company if you so desire..you can also go canyon swinging, skydiving, spend an hour on the shotover jetboat, etc..i took the cable car up to the top of one of the nearby hills that looks out over the city..as queenstown is farther south than anywhere else i visited, it is farther along in the season change than anywhere else..the leaves were beautiful, all colours of the rainbow..up at the top of the hill i rode the luge that's been built up there...that's my idea of fun, i could've spent a few more hours up there..i walked through the botanical gardens, which didnt impress me much..i found a british lolly shop, which was fun..i took a day trip to milford sound, which was beautiful..the bus drive to and from was long, but really pretty..we drove through a one lane tunnel, and on a steep, turny road..the boat ride up and down the sound was really pretty..(on a side note, a kayaker who had come from australia across the tasman sea lost his life just 30km outside of the sound just a couple years ago)..i loved being outside all day, i definitely wasn't impressed with the lunch that was part of the tour..but i rather expected that..one of the most disappointing experiences of queenstown was when i discovered that my atm card from the states wouldn't work..when i finally managed to ring my bank, i was informed that there was no atm card registered to my account..it turned out that it had been so long since i had used it that it had been kicked out of the system..argh..which left me with almost no cash, and no access to any cash..i had credit cards, but no way of getting any cash..ugh..in queenstown there is a restaurant called fergburger..i had heard about it from another traveller in christchurch, who said i had to eat there, so i did..BIG burgers, and BIG servings of chips..YUMMY!! the worst part of my experience in queenstown took place the day i was scheduled to fly back to auckland..apparently the domestic airport in auckland was completely socked in by fog that morning..completely..it was shut down..no flights going in or out..which meant that many flights to and around the rest of the country didn't go either..i ended up stuck in queenstown an extra night, which really upset me, as dan and i had planned an evening out that night, and i had only a limited number of nights left with him before leaving the country..queenstown isn't an international airport, and flights can't go in or out after sunset, which is pretty early..by the time the fog cleared in auckland, flights all over the country were disrupted..lots of flights ended up being cancelled, which stranded a lot of people..the airlines put people up in hotels, but i was really really really disappointed not to be back in auckland that evening..i did get back the next day..
i found a hostel, and elected to put myself in a girls only dorm room..new zealand has a really good system of hostels, the infrastructure of backpacking is set up well in the entire country..
during the next three days i walked all over..unlike auckland, a visitor can walk all over wellington and see just about everything..it's the capital of the country, but only has about 150,000 people..(the biggest city, auckland, has over a million)..the nickname is windy welly, and i figured out why pretty quickly..the wind never seems to stop blowing!! i walked through te papa, the national museum..its really well done, and huge..it takes hours if you read and look at everything..the displays are put together well, and some of them are interactive for kids..i walked through the botanical gardens, which i didn't think were all that great..i took the cable car up to the top of a nearby hill and was able to look out over the city..i walked to the parliament area..the prime ministers office is in a building called the beehive, and it's UGLY..who knows why they chose that particular architect's design..it's awful..i took the guided tour as well, which i enjoyed for the informative aspects..it was neat to learn about the different areas of the building, what different rooms are used for..my favourite was the room where the queen sits when she visits..(which is practically never)..i was stunned to learn that there are rules still followed about who gets to walk where when the queen is sitting..if a member of parliament walks across in front of the queen he/she will be thrown out of parliament and forced to resign his/her seat!! i thought that kind of stuff was done with a long time ago, but this is a country far different from the US..technically, the head of the country is the queen of england..strange..i also walked to a monument that has something to do with antarctica..i'm not sure on the details, but there is a line where if you look at a particular angle, and could see that far, the next land you would see is antarctica..nifty..
my next week trip was to christchurch..in the canterbury area of the south island..it's home to the international airport of the south island..wine country, for the most part..lots of farming in general i think..the international antarctic centre is near the airport, i really enjoyed that visit...there is sooooo much i don't know about antarctica..they have displayed the new zealand history in antarctica, among other information..there is also a room where you can experience a blizzard..before going in the room you put on boots, and a winter jacket..when the "storm" starts, you can feel the wind picking up and the temperature dropping..it's not the temperatures that get you, it's the wind..it's awful!! but it was a neat experience..coming out of the room i felt like i was in the tropics:)..christchurch has nice gardens as well, and i found a yummy chocolate/fudge shop..who knew gluten free truffles could be so tasty? one afternoon i took the bus over to lyttleton, a small town near christchurch..it's picturesque, and has a building with a big ball on a pole...(think times square for new years eve, when the ball drops to mark the exact start of the new year)..this ball used to drop to let ship captains know exactly what time it was..that way they were able to make sure the clocks on their ships were right, and that way they knew they could properly figure out navigation..inside that building there used to be a family, it's now a museum..they used to live like early settlers lived in the US..christchurch has a number of churches, and old buildings that look distinctly british..i found a rugby store that had jerseys from every team imaginable..i ended up buying a jersey for the antarctic rugby team..fun:)
my last trip was to queenstown..when it was built, it was w/out a name..someone came, and as it was being finished, they said it was fit for a queen..hence the name..not big on originality, hee hee..it's the outdoor activity capital of the country..you can spend a LOT of money in queenstown..that's where bungy jumping originated, and you can still go with that company if you so desire..you can also go canyon swinging, skydiving, spend an hour on the shotover jetboat, etc..i took the cable car up to the top of one of the nearby hills that looks out over the city..as queenstown is farther south than anywhere else i visited, it is farther along in the season change than anywhere else..the leaves were beautiful, all colours of the rainbow..up at the top of the hill i rode the luge that's been built up there...that's my idea of fun, i could've spent a few more hours up there..i walked through the botanical gardens, which didnt impress me much..i found a british lolly shop, which was fun..i took a day trip to milford sound, which was beautiful..the bus drive to and from was long, but really pretty..we drove through a one lane tunnel, and on a steep, turny road..the boat ride up and down the sound was really pretty..(on a side note, a kayaker who had come from australia across the tasman sea lost his life just 30km outside of the sound just a couple years ago)..i loved being outside all day, i definitely wasn't impressed with the lunch that was part of the tour..but i rather expected that..one of the most disappointing experiences of queenstown was when i discovered that my atm card from the states wouldn't work..when i finally managed to ring my bank, i was informed that there was no atm card registered to my account..it turned out that it had been so long since i had used it that it had been kicked out of the system..argh..which left me with almost no cash, and no access to any cash..i had credit cards, but no way of getting any cash..ugh..in queenstown there is a restaurant called fergburger..i had heard about it from another traveller in christchurch, who said i had to eat there, so i did..BIG burgers, and BIG servings of chips..YUMMY!! the worst part of my experience in queenstown took place the day i was scheduled to fly back to auckland..apparently the domestic airport in auckland was completely socked in by fog that morning..completely..it was shut down..no flights going in or out..which meant that many flights to and around the rest of the country didn't go either..i ended up stuck in queenstown an extra night, which really upset me, as dan and i had planned an evening out that night, and i had only a limited number of nights left with him before leaving the country..queenstown isn't an international airport, and flights can't go in or out after sunset, which is pretty early..by the time the fog cleared in auckland, flights all over the country were disrupted..lots of flights ended up being cancelled, which stranded a lot of people..the airlines put people up in hotels, but i was really really really disappointed not to be back in auckland that evening..i did get back the next day..
16 May 2009
vietnam 3
after hoi an, it was a short bus trip (4-5 hours i think?) up to hue...another ancient city, it used to be an imperial city...it seems that whereva royals have lived in the world, the food is always better, even centuries later...there was certainly a lot more variety of food available in hue...YUM!!
before arriving in hue, i met a girl on the bus, we chatted a bit...thinking nothing of it, we both got off the bus and were approached by two representatives of the same hotel, offering a decent rate...we figured we would check it out, and if nothing else, take advantage of the free ride to the budget accomodation area...anywho, somehow we ended up deciding to share a room...and what a room it was...HUGE...HUGE...HUGE...the ceiling was equivalent to the 2nd floor ceiling...we both had queensize beds too...tv, a fan, a bathtub, towels, it was pure luxury...all for $7 a night, only $3.50 each...at that point we didn't even know each other's names, but why not? hee hee....i discovered later that night that she had taught english in japan for a year, so we spent a bit of time figuring out similarities and differences...fun...
anywho, the first place i decided to explore was the citadel...not in use anymore for the original purpose, but plenty of people still live within the original walls...i had to walk across a bridge to get to the citadel, and to hear all the offers from the motorbike and cyclo drivers, you would've thought it was a 3 hour walk to get there...but it wasn't...the largest flagpole in vietnam (37m, or something like that) is on the outer wall of the citadel...the vietnamese flag isn't anything exciting, just red with a yellow star in the middle...but it was neat to see it flying strong with the blue sky background...i wandered around the imperial city area of the citadel, with it's former temples, palaces, theaters, etc...there is a temple in there where women weren't allowed in!! not even the empresses...my favourite area was the living quarters of the empress mother, or whateva she was called...maybe i liked it most because it was totally deserted...while wandering through the imperial city i came upon the area where they keep a couple elephants...i don't know why the elephants are kept there, or what they do, but i decided to say hello, and perhaps have my picture taken with one of them...i tried to be polite, but apparently he didn't like me, because his hello consisted of shoving me away with his trunk...i tried again, but again he rebuffed me...sad...hee hee...the amusing part is that a british couple had volunteered to take my picture for me, and the guy took the picture just as the elephant was pushing me away...lol...
the next day i took a tour of various locations around the former DMZ...the DMZ (the 17th parallel, it basically follows one of the rivers in the country) was once the border between north and south vietnam...i got to see the rockpile, (there was a US base on top of it, reachable only by helicopter,) the former doc mieu base, (only the remains of a tank are left, it was part of the "electronic eye/wall" built by the US in an attempt to stop the north vietnamese from getting into the south,) the former khe sanh base, (sight of one of the largest battles, but the area really didn't mean much of anything, given where it's located...it ended up costing the lives of too many on both sides, for a hill that didn't matter,) dakrong bridge (over which the POWs were exchanged when the US pulled out of vietnam in '73) and the tunnels at vin mohc (sp?)...the DMZ area was bombed, a LOT, by the US, so villagers in several areas built tunnels...unlike the tunnels down south which were used more for fighting, these were used for living...people stayed in the tunnels for as much as five days straight...they're much bigger than the tunnels at cu chi...i could stand up properly through most of them, i only had to duck my head a little...they had family rooms, a school room, even a maternity room...17 babies were born there!!
my last day in hue i hired a bike and rode out to some of the tombs just outside town...(another advantage of imperial cities, there are often grand tombs to see...these guys liked to be buried in style!)...the tombs were great, and BIG...i again missed a turnoff, and ended up riding quite a bit farther than i expected...so i didn't see the three tombs i had intended to see, but i did see two others, so life was good...i was the first customer at one of them, the money guy had to get change from one of the local vendors...
that night i took a bus to hanoi, the capital...i arrived just after 0900 the next morning, to more touts...one showed me a brochure for a hotel, and we settled on a price that sounded good to me...($6) but, surprise surprise, when i got there, they said they didn't have any of those rooms left...but, golly gee, they could give me one of their $15 rooms for $12...ummm, no...i told them the reason i went there in the first place was for the price of the room, not the hotel itself...so i picked up my stuff and left...i've heard about that scam before, and i'm sure that it works much of the time...but i'm too cheap...so i started walking, and soon enough found a room for $6...it wasn't great, but i knew i'd be meeting up with layna again that night, so i only needed one night...
hanoi is supposed to be laid back compared to saigon...i was expecting a big difference between the two cities...but i didn't feel much of a difference...traffic was slightly less crazy, but that's about it...there is certainly a lot more to see in hanoi and it's a lot more aesthetically appealing...the vendors are more apt to try to charge foreigners high prices though, which is always disappointing...and by high prices, i mean even higher than the tourist norm...after being in vietnam for three weeks, i know what most prices are supposed to be (well, at least what a tourist can get) so i know when to walk away...
while in hanoi i visited the mausoleum of ho chi minh...when he died, his wish was to be cremated...but the government wasn't about to respect the wishes of their idol, so they built a HUGE mausoleum for him...it's a lot like lenin's mausoleum in moscow, russia...you're not allowed to take a camera or handphone in the mausoleum, they've got a check area for those...you walk in, walk past several military guys in dress whites, then enter the room itself...i counted the number of military guys in dress whites in the room itself, 13!!!! the room is temperature and humidity controlled, it's pretty chilly...it's total silence, except for the whir of the air conditioner...the guards aren't moving or talking, so it's all a bit creepy...plus uncle ho looks rather uncomfortable, and waxlike...no one stays in there for long, it's not a place for lollygagging...by the time i walked out, my camera had already been transferred from where i turned it in!! later that afternoon i visited the literary temple...i've forgotten the history, but needless to say, it's been around for a while...there were a number of temples in the complex, and since it had been used as a university at one point, there were also 82 stelae, one for each of the professors...that was probably the most crowded sight in hanoi...from there i walked south, and saw the former prison at hoa lo...most people wouldn't recognize that name, but during the war, it was known in the states by a different name...the hanoi hilton...it was originally built by the french to house rebels, and communist supporters...the north vietnamese government used it to house american pilots shot down during the war...there were pictures of many of the former inmates, from communists to pilots...they even have the flight suit and parachute that used to belong to john mccain, the former candidate for president of the US...there are also a couple pictures of him...one during his visit in 2000, and one of him being hauled out of a river after being shot down...(in that one i have no idea how they know it's him, cause the picture isn't clear, and the angle is terrible)...there was an entire video dedicated to the american pilots who lived there, telling how they had great living conditions...lots of smiling photographs...i felt like it was more propogandized than the war remnants museum in saigon...
we were sad to be leaving vietnam, as neither one of us felt like we had seen enough of the country...another country we'd both like to return to...
before arriving in hue, i met a girl on the bus, we chatted a bit...thinking nothing of it, we both got off the bus and were approached by two representatives of the same hotel, offering a decent rate...we figured we would check it out, and if nothing else, take advantage of the free ride to the budget accomodation area...anywho, somehow we ended up deciding to share a room...and what a room it was...HUGE...HUGE...HUGE...the ceiling was equivalent to the 2nd floor ceiling...we both had queensize beds too...tv, a fan, a bathtub, towels, it was pure luxury...all for $7 a night, only $3.50 each...at that point we didn't even know each other's names, but why not? hee hee....i discovered later that night that she had taught english in japan for a year, so we spent a bit of time figuring out similarities and differences...fun...
anywho, the first place i decided to explore was the citadel...not in use anymore for the original purpose, but plenty of people still live within the original walls...i had to walk across a bridge to get to the citadel, and to hear all the offers from the motorbike and cyclo drivers, you would've thought it was a 3 hour walk to get there...but it wasn't...the largest flagpole in vietnam (37m, or something like that) is on the outer wall of the citadel...the vietnamese flag isn't anything exciting, just red with a yellow star in the middle...but it was neat to see it flying strong with the blue sky background...i wandered around the imperial city area of the citadel, with it's former temples, palaces, theaters, etc...there is a temple in there where women weren't allowed in!! not even the empresses...my favourite area was the living quarters of the empress mother, or whateva she was called...maybe i liked it most because it was totally deserted...while wandering through the imperial city i came upon the area where they keep a couple elephants...i don't know why the elephants are kept there, or what they do, but i decided to say hello, and perhaps have my picture taken with one of them...i tried to be polite, but apparently he didn't like me, because his hello consisted of shoving me away with his trunk...i tried again, but again he rebuffed me...sad...hee hee...the amusing part is that a british couple had volunteered to take my picture for me, and the guy took the picture just as the elephant was pushing me away...lol...
the next day i took a tour of various locations around the former DMZ...the DMZ (the 17th parallel, it basically follows one of the rivers in the country) was once the border between north and south vietnam...i got to see the rockpile, (there was a US base on top of it, reachable only by helicopter,) the former doc mieu base, (only the remains of a tank are left, it was part of the "electronic eye/wall" built by the US in an attempt to stop the north vietnamese from getting into the south,) the former khe sanh base, (sight of one of the largest battles, but the area really didn't mean much of anything, given where it's located...it ended up costing the lives of too many on both sides, for a hill that didn't matter,) dakrong bridge (over which the POWs were exchanged when the US pulled out of vietnam in '73) and the tunnels at vin mohc (sp?)...the DMZ area was bombed, a LOT, by the US, so villagers in several areas built tunnels...unlike the tunnels down south which were used more for fighting, these were used for living...people stayed in the tunnels for as much as five days straight...they're much bigger than the tunnels at cu chi...i could stand up properly through most of them, i only had to duck my head a little...they had family rooms, a school room, even a maternity room...17 babies were born there!!
my last day in hue i hired a bike and rode out to some of the tombs just outside town...(another advantage of imperial cities, there are often grand tombs to see...these guys liked to be buried in style!)...the tombs were great, and BIG...i again missed a turnoff, and ended up riding quite a bit farther than i expected...so i didn't see the three tombs i had intended to see, but i did see two others, so life was good...i was the first customer at one of them, the money guy had to get change from one of the local vendors...
that night i took a bus to hanoi, the capital...i arrived just after 0900 the next morning, to more touts...one showed me a brochure for a hotel, and we settled on a price that sounded good to me...($6) but, surprise surprise, when i got there, they said they didn't have any of those rooms left...but, golly gee, they could give me one of their $15 rooms for $12...ummm, no...i told them the reason i went there in the first place was for the price of the room, not the hotel itself...so i picked up my stuff and left...i've heard about that scam before, and i'm sure that it works much of the time...but i'm too cheap...so i started walking, and soon enough found a room for $6...it wasn't great, but i knew i'd be meeting up with layna again that night, so i only needed one night...
hanoi is supposed to be laid back compared to saigon...i was expecting a big difference between the two cities...but i didn't feel much of a difference...traffic was slightly less crazy, but that's about it...there is certainly a lot more to see in hanoi and it's a lot more aesthetically appealing...the vendors are more apt to try to charge foreigners high prices though, which is always disappointing...and by high prices, i mean even higher than the tourist norm...after being in vietnam for three weeks, i know what most prices are supposed to be (well, at least what a tourist can get) so i know when to walk away...
while in hanoi i visited the mausoleum of ho chi minh...when he died, his wish was to be cremated...but the government wasn't about to respect the wishes of their idol, so they built a HUGE mausoleum for him...it's a lot like lenin's mausoleum in moscow, russia...you're not allowed to take a camera or handphone in the mausoleum, they've got a check area for those...you walk in, walk past several military guys in dress whites, then enter the room itself...i counted the number of military guys in dress whites in the room itself, 13!!!! the room is temperature and humidity controlled, it's pretty chilly...it's total silence, except for the whir of the air conditioner...the guards aren't moving or talking, so it's all a bit creepy...plus uncle ho looks rather uncomfortable, and waxlike...no one stays in there for long, it's not a place for lollygagging...by the time i walked out, my camera had already been transferred from where i turned it in!! later that afternoon i visited the literary temple...i've forgotten the history, but needless to say, it's been around for a while...there were a number of temples in the complex, and since it had been used as a university at one point, there were also 82 stelae, one for each of the professors...that was probably the most crowded sight in hanoi...from there i walked south, and saw the former prison at hoa lo...most people wouldn't recognize that name, but during the war, it was known in the states by a different name...the hanoi hilton...it was originally built by the french to house rebels, and communist supporters...the north vietnamese government used it to house american pilots shot down during the war...there were pictures of many of the former inmates, from communists to pilots...they even have the flight suit and parachute that used to belong to john mccain, the former candidate for president of the US...there are also a couple pictures of him...one during his visit in 2000, and one of him being hauled out of a river after being shot down...(in that one i have no idea how they know it's him, cause the picture isn't clear, and the angle is terrible)...there was an entire video dedicated to the american pilots who lived there, telling how they had great living conditions...lots of smiling photographs...i felt like it was more propogandized than the war remnants museum in saigon...
we were sad to be leaving vietnam, as neither one of us felt like we had seen enough of the country...another country we'd both like to return to...
09 May 2009
vietnam 2
after mui ne, we took a bus up to the hill station of dalat...originally "discovered" by a frenchmen, it was an escape from the heat, especially during the summer...before the advent of air conditioning, it was a favourite place for vietnamese students to attend uni, as you don't need air con in dalat...since it was another holiday, it was difficult for us to find a room, and those we did find were ridiculously expensive...the room we finally went with was huge, and under the eaves...awesome...
the last ruler of vietnam was a guy named bao dai, and in dalat alone he had three palaces...you can see all three of them, but the most popular to visit is his "summer palace"...i don't know what i was expecting, but it wasn't much...he was so influenced by western culture that it was the same as seeing a house in the states...not very exciting...about 3km from the summer palace are the waterfalls of cam ly...not very exciting either...man made i think...if not, they certainly look it...i saw a zebra available for riding there, but opted to skip that...the most interesting thing in dalat is probably a place called the crazy house...created by a woman called hang nga (i think) who is the daughter of the guy who took over after ho chi minh died, it's a combination of alice in wonderland meets gaudi...strangest architecture ever...
dalat is built around a man made lake, the book says it's 7km to walk around...a nice walk, i did it three times in three days:)...a very easy walk...there were people running around the lake at all hours of the day...
the second full day we were in dalat i did a lot of walking...more than a half marathon, at least...one of the reasons was that i walked out to more waterfalls, 5km out of town...the falls at datanla were much better than cam ly...still not the greatest, but they looked awesome in comparison...plus, they've built a bobsled rail, soooo much fun...i rode down and up twice...i'm such a scaredy cat when it comes to going fast, i never catch up with anyone on those sorts of things...i loved it...
while we were in dalat, nalayna read her guidebook and realized there was an area in south vietnam she wanted to go see...since i wanted to keep going north, we split up again...she went down to the mekong delta, i went up to nha trang...
nha trang is another beach town...in the states the name is probably known because it was a popular R&R spot for US military personnel during the war in vietnam...it was super overcast while i was there, so i didn't spend time on the beach...(shocking, i know)...i went to see cham ruins, which weren't very interesting because they had been renovated...they just didn't look very authentic anymore, if that makes any sense...while walking to and from the towers i saw a fishing village, which was nifty...some of the fishing boats (we saw them in mui ne too) are circular...they're like big woven baskets...people get in them off the boats, and they only have one paddle...i wonder how long they stay out in those "boats"? i also wandered around in a photo gallery for a while...the guy whose name is on the gallery has apparently won several awards...some of the photos definitely caught my attention, but others didn't seem all that special...all the photos were black and white...he doesn't use a digital camera, and develops all his own work...the people pictures were what caught my eyes the most...the last thing i saw in nha trang was another wat...the wat wasn't anything exciting, but there was a giant buddha 150 steps up the hill behind the wat...he just sits up there, as if to look out over the city...the city views were awesome...i would've liked it even more if the kids hadn't kept pestering me to buy postcards...
after nha trang i kept going north, to a town called quang ngai...(pronounced hwang nai)...most people in the states have never heard of it, it's not a popular spot on the tourist trail...the only reason anyone goes there is to see the memorial at son my...most of you probably don't know that name either...but i bet all of you (or at least many of you) have heard the name my lai...son my is the name of the area where the massacre by US soldiers took place...somehow, they got information that led them to believe that vietcong were hiding in the area, and that the area in general was supporting the vietcong...what ended up happening was awful...US soldiers helicoptered in, and went through the hamlets in the area, and destroyed them...while destroying them, they also massacred many of the inhabitants of the hamlets...at least four hamlets were completely destroyed...many old men and women, younger women, and children were brutally murdered...and the whole operation was photographed by a US photojournalist...my lai is the name of one of the hamlets, though i don't know why that is the name so well known...it's not even the name of the hamlet where the most people were killed...the total number of people killed was in the hundreds...the US military knew it had screwed up badly, and in an effort to cover up what happened, swore all the soldiers to secrecy...that obviously didn't work...a year later, the US military also went back to the area with huge bulldozers, and ploughed up the entire area, so there was nothing left...when you visit now, you wouldn't know that anything had happened there...it's about 12km outside quang ngai, a very peaceful little area...there is a musuem showing many of the pictures taken that day...in the museum is a comment book, and some of the comments left by visitors over the years are pretty emotional...many of them have been left by vietnam vets...even though the US destroyed the whole area, the vietnamese government went back and rebuilt some of the ruins to memorialize what happened...now you can see exactly where all the houses stood...and next to where each house was, there is a sign listing the name of the family that lived there as well as the family members who were killed...there are cement walkways between the houses, with footprints in them...bootprints representing the soldiers, and bare feet representing the villagers...
after quang nai my next stop was a town called hoi an...they call it an ancient city, and it's certainly been around a long time...originally, it was an important port for all of southeast asia...it's still very commercial, but now everything is catered to tourists...there are LOTS of tailor and shoe shops...you can have any clothes or shoes you want made in hoi an...you can barely walk 5 meters w/out someone trying to get you into their shop...the town itself is another UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are no cars or buses downtown...yay...of course, that doesnt stop the motorbikes, and some of those drivers are pretty aggressive...the beach in hoi an, about 5km down the road is great...i wish i had had time to lay out there!!
my second full day in hoi an i took a bus out to more cham ruins...these were a LOT better than those in nha trang...this area is called my son (not to be confused with the memorial place of son my that i just mentioned)...archeologists have divided my son into groups lettered A-K...the best ruins to see are groups a, b, c, and d...the ruins are a similar to khmer ruins, and the ruins at sukhothai and ayuthaya...which isn't all that surprising, considering the groups had been invading and conquering each other for centuries before the modern states existed...
the last ruler of vietnam was a guy named bao dai, and in dalat alone he had three palaces...you can see all three of them, but the most popular to visit is his "summer palace"...i don't know what i was expecting, but it wasn't much...he was so influenced by western culture that it was the same as seeing a house in the states...not very exciting...about 3km from the summer palace are the waterfalls of cam ly...not very exciting either...man made i think...if not, they certainly look it...i saw a zebra available for riding there, but opted to skip that...the most interesting thing in dalat is probably a place called the crazy house...created by a woman called hang nga (i think) who is the daughter of the guy who took over after ho chi minh died, it's a combination of alice in wonderland meets gaudi...strangest architecture ever...
dalat is built around a man made lake, the book says it's 7km to walk around...a nice walk, i did it three times in three days:)...a very easy walk...there were people running around the lake at all hours of the day...
the second full day we were in dalat i did a lot of walking...more than a half marathon, at least...one of the reasons was that i walked out to more waterfalls, 5km out of town...the falls at datanla were much better than cam ly...still not the greatest, but they looked awesome in comparison...plus, they've built a bobsled rail, soooo much fun...i rode down and up twice...i'm such a scaredy cat when it comes to going fast, i never catch up with anyone on those sorts of things...i loved it...
while we were in dalat, nalayna read her guidebook and realized there was an area in south vietnam she wanted to go see...since i wanted to keep going north, we split up again...she went down to the mekong delta, i went up to nha trang...
nha trang is another beach town...in the states the name is probably known because it was a popular R&R spot for US military personnel during the war in vietnam...it was super overcast while i was there, so i didn't spend time on the beach...(shocking, i know)...i went to see cham ruins, which weren't very interesting because they had been renovated...they just didn't look very authentic anymore, if that makes any sense...while walking to and from the towers i saw a fishing village, which was nifty...some of the fishing boats (we saw them in mui ne too) are circular...they're like big woven baskets...people get in them off the boats, and they only have one paddle...i wonder how long they stay out in those "boats"? i also wandered around in a photo gallery for a while...the guy whose name is on the gallery has apparently won several awards...some of the photos definitely caught my attention, but others didn't seem all that special...all the photos were black and white...he doesn't use a digital camera, and develops all his own work...the people pictures were what caught my eyes the most...the last thing i saw in nha trang was another wat...the wat wasn't anything exciting, but there was a giant buddha 150 steps up the hill behind the wat...he just sits up there, as if to look out over the city...the city views were awesome...i would've liked it even more if the kids hadn't kept pestering me to buy postcards...
after nha trang i kept going north, to a town called quang ngai...(pronounced hwang nai)...most people in the states have never heard of it, it's not a popular spot on the tourist trail...the only reason anyone goes there is to see the memorial at son my...most of you probably don't know that name either...but i bet all of you (or at least many of you) have heard the name my lai...son my is the name of the area where the massacre by US soldiers took place...somehow, they got information that led them to believe that vietcong were hiding in the area, and that the area in general was supporting the vietcong...what ended up happening was awful...US soldiers helicoptered in, and went through the hamlets in the area, and destroyed them...while destroying them, they also massacred many of the inhabitants of the hamlets...at least four hamlets were completely destroyed...many old men and women, younger women, and children were brutally murdered...and the whole operation was photographed by a US photojournalist...my lai is the name of one of the hamlets, though i don't know why that is the name so well known...it's not even the name of the hamlet where the most people were killed...the total number of people killed was in the hundreds...the US military knew it had screwed up badly, and in an effort to cover up what happened, swore all the soldiers to secrecy...that obviously didn't work...a year later, the US military also went back to the area with huge bulldozers, and ploughed up the entire area, so there was nothing left...when you visit now, you wouldn't know that anything had happened there...it's about 12km outside quang ngai, a very peaceful little area...there is a musuem showing many of the pictures taken that day...in the museum is a comment book, and some of the comments left by visitors over the years are pretty emotional...many of them have been left by vietnam vets...even though the US destroyed the whole area, the vietnamese government went back and rebuilt some of the ruins to memorialize what happened...now you can see exactly where all the houses stood...and next to where each house was, there is a sign listing the name of the family that lived there as well as the family members who were killed...there are cement walkways between the houses, with footprints in them...bootprints representing the soldiers, and bare feet representing the villagers...
after quang nai my next stop was a town called hoi an...they call it an ancient city, and it's certainly been around a long time...originally, it was an important port for all of southeast asia...it's still very commercial, but now everything is catered to tourists...there are LOTS of tailor and shoe shops...you can have any clothes or shoes you want made in hoi an...you can barely walk 5 meters w/out someone trying to get you into their shop...the town itself is another UNESCO world heritage sight, so there are no cars or buses downtown...yay...of course, that doesnt stop the motorbikes, and some of those drivers are pretty aggressive...the beach in hoi an, about 5km down the road is great...i wish i had had time to lay out there!!
my second full day in hoi an i took a bus out to more cham ruins...these were a LOT better than those in nha trang...this area is called my son (not to be confused with the memorial place of son my that i just mentioned)...archeologists have divided my son into groups lettered A-K...the best ruins to see are groups a, b, c, and d...the ruins are a similar to khmer ruins, and the ruins at sukhothai and ayuthaya...which isn't all that surprising, considering the groups had been invading and conquering each other for centuries before the modern states existed...
01 May 2009
vietnam 1
our point of arrival in vietnam was a land border crossing...easily the least efficient crossing we've done...as we were on a bus, it was annoying...get off the bus at the cambodian exit, hand our passports to an official...as he called off our names, get back on the bus...ride to the vietnamese immigration side (during which time i guess our passports received the exit stamps from cambodia)...get off the bus, grab all our stuff, go inside the arrivals hall and wait...there were railings set up as if to guide lines, but there were no lines...we just stood around with our stuff and waited until our name was called and we were handed back our passport with the new vietnamese stamp...not all countries need a visa to enter vietnam...japan, and norway are among them...one of the travelers on our bus was from iceland...he was traveling with a norweigan...while in norway (i think they both lived in oslo) the icelandic guy went to the vietnamese embassy to ask if he needed a visa, and they said no...so he didn't get one...well, according to the guys at the border, he did need one...they turned him back and said he had to go back to phnom penh (or sihanoukville) and get a visa!! how awful is that? all of us had been wondering what happens if you show up w/out a visa, and i guess we got our answer...i wonder if he decided it was worth it or not...
anywho, our first city was saigon...the former capital of the republic of south vietnam...(which ceased to exist 30 april 1973)...a crazy city...the largest city in vietnam, with 12 million people...many residents of the city aren't legal, as they don't have proper residence permits...at the end of the war, the new government sent them out into the sticks, but they snuck back and have stayed...but not having the proper permits means they can't own businesses...traffic in saigon is crazy...probably the craziest i've ever seen, and i've seen traffic in a lot of places...it never stops...if you wait for traffic to stop before crossing a street, you'll never get to cross...(on a side note, i did see a chicken cross, without being hit!!)...there are gbillions of motorbikes, usually with more than one person on each bike...
we saw the notre dame cathedral (which has no stained glass windows since they were blown out during the war, the post office (it's huge, and for some odd reason, on a bunch of postcards,) and the war remnants museum...the museum has a few planes and tanks left over from the war, but what is most interesting are all the photos on display...quite a few from photojournalists during the war...of the people involved, the action each day, etc...some are really disturbing...and some just make you stop and stare...there are also photos of victims of toxic chemical poisoning...it's never been proven conclusively that all the toxic chemicals the US dumped on the country during the war have caused the abnormalities, but i'd say the statistics are pretty hard to deny...again, some of the pictures are horrifying, but at the same time, it's hard to look away...
as a city, saigon isn't all that pretty, and there isn't a whole lot to see, but it's great to walk around and soak up the atmosphere...it's the commercial capital of the country...
one day we took a day tour out to see a cao dai temple in tay ninh...cao daism is only followed in southern vietnam, by about 3 million people...it's a combination of confucionism, buddhism, taoism, christianity, and a bit of animism...the temple we saw is the HQ for the religion overall...it's really really colourful...the worshippers are dressed in one of four colours, i'm assuming they are based on rank, though i don't know anything about the religion...most people in white, but also some men in red, blue, or yellow...they have services 4 times a day, we were able to observe some of the noon service...the other half of our day tour was to the tunnels at cu chi...during the war, the villages in the south were often bombed a LOT...so they built tunnels for survival...the viet cong used these tunnels for fighting as well...not too far from saigon, the tunnel network is over 200km long!!...well, it was...in 1968 the US found out about the tunnels (they had wondered why their own soldiers were being shot in their tents in their bases...it turned out that several of the secret entrances were in the bases themselves) and ended up bombing them to smithereens...there is very little left of the original network...there are a few entrances left though, and they're tiny...most foreigners don't fit!! cu chi was one of the hamlets where people lived in the tunnels as well...we got a chance to see some of the booby traps, as well as the chance to go through 50-100m of a rebuilt (and slightly enlarged, though still not big by anyone's definition) tunnel...
after saigon, our destination was mui ne...it's a beach town about 5 hours north of saigon...it's having problems with coastal erosion though...at high tide, the beach doesn't exist anymore in several places...it's set up oddly, at least in comparison to other beach towns...the whole thing is set along one road...which means you end up walking quite a ways to get anywhere...but that's fine...we didn't really go to mui ne to see the beach though...i had read about sand dunes that weren't too far out of town...so one day we hired a motorbike and drove out to see them...the first dunes were red...before we even turned off and parked the bike we were approached by kids wanting us to hire sleds from them...sliding down sand dunes is a lot of fun...fortunately, i had asked what the price should be while back in town, because the first price offered was eight times higher!!! i stuck to my price, and ended up hiring from the girl...she was a sweetheart too...for each slide down, she got me started, and then ran down with me...and dragged me back up the dune for another ride down...very sweet...our second set of dunes were white...much the same, though we didn't slide down these...beautiful, nonetheless...on the way back from the dunes, we got caught in a downpour...we expected it, but still...layna had a poncho, i didn't...ooops...she drove for a while, then i drove...of course, the worst of the rain happened while i was driving...at one point visibility was so bad that i had to pull over to wait it out...i was completely soaked at that point...after it lightened up a bit, i started off again, but between the continued rain and wind, i got cold...very cold...i started shivering, and figured that wasn't a safe thing...so layna and i traded and she drove the rest of the way back...despite being soaked, the day was totally awesome...
that particular day was the first of two holidays in a row in vietnam...that was national liberation day, the day the north vietnamese tanks rolled into saigon, and the south vietnamese government surrendered...as a national holiday, that meant that mui ne was full...we ended up being kicked out of our hotel, and had to find another...we were lucky to find one that wasn't super expensive...it seemed everywhere had at least tripled their prices...our second hotel turned out to be waaaaaaay better than the first though...
after moving hotels, we went for a walk through the fairy stream...it's a regular creek, but along one side of it you can see where all the rains have eroded the rock/sand...beautiful...and being that it was a holiday, there were tons of people out walking with us...we ended up walking with a group of young'uns from phan thiet, a nearby town...they were friendly, and loved taking pictures as much as layna and i do...yay!!!
anywho, our first city was saigon...the former capital of the republic of south vietnam...(which ceased to exist 30 april 1973)...a crazy city...the largest city in vietnam, with 12 million people...many residents of the city aren't legal, as they don't have proper residence permits...at the end of the war, the new government sent them out into the sticks, but they snuck back and have stayed...but not having the proper permits means they can't own businesses...traffic in saigon is crazy...probably the craziest i've ever seen, and i've seen traffic in a lot of places...it never stops...if you wait for traffic to stop before crossing a street, you'll never get to cross...(on a side note, i did see a chicken cross, without being hit!!)...there are gbillions of motorbikes, usually with more than one person on each bike...
we saw the notre dame cathedral (which has no stained glass windows since they were blown out during the war, the post office (it's huge, and for some odd reason, on a bunch of postcards,) and the war remnants museum...the museum has a few planes and tanks left over from the war, but what is most interesting are all the photos on display...quite a few from photojournalists during the war...of the people involved, the action each day, etc...some are really disturbing...and some just make you stop and stare...there are also photos of victims of toxic chemical poisoning...it's never been proven conclusively that all the toxic chemicals the US dumped on the country during the war have caused the abnormalities, but i'd say the statistics are pretty hard to deny...again, some of the pictures are horrifying, but at the same time, it's hard to look away...
as a city, saigon isn't all that pretty, and there isn't a whole lot to see, but it's great to walk around and soak up the atmosphere...it's the commercial capital of the country...
one day we took a day tour out to see a cao dai temple in tay ninh...cao daism is only followed in southern vietnam, by about 3 million people...it's a combination of confucionism, buddhism, taoism, christianity, and a bit of animism...the temple we saw is the HQ for the religion overall...it's really really colourful...the worshippers are dressed in one of four colours, i'm assuming they are based on rank, though i don't know anything about the religion...most people in white, but also some men in red, blue, or yellow...they have services 4 times a day, we were able to observe some of the noon service...the other half of our day tour was to the tunnels at cu chi...during the war, the villages in the south were often bombed a LOT...so they built tunnels for survival...the viet cong used these tunnels for fighting as well...not too far from saigon, the tunnel network is over 200km long!!...well, it was...in 1968 the US found out about the tunnels (they had wondered why their own soldiers were being shot in their tents in their bases...it turned out that several of the secret entrances were in the bases themselves) and ended up bombing them to smithereens...there is very little left of the original network...there are a few entrances left though, and they're tiny...most foreigners don't fit!! cu chi was one of the hamlets where people lived in the tunnels as well...we got a chance to see some of the booby traps, as well as the chance to go through 50-100m of a rebuilt (and slightly enlarged, though still not big by anyone's definition) tunnel...
after saigon, our destination was mui ne...it's a beach town about 5 hours north of saigon...it's having problems with coastal erosion though...at high tide, the beach doesn't exist anymore in several places...it's set up oddly, at least in comparison to other beach towns...the whole thing is set along one road...which means you end up walking quite a ways to get anywhere...but that's fine...we didn't really go to mui ne to see the beach though...i had read about sand dunes that weren't too far out of town...so one day we hired a motorbike and drove out to see them...the first dunes were red...before we even turned off and parked the bike we were approached by kids wanting us to hire sleds from them...sliding down sand dunes is a lot of fun...fortunately, i had asked what the price should be while back in town, because the first price offered was eight times higher!!! i stuck to my price, and ended up hiring from the girl...she was a sweetheart too...for each slide down, she got me started, and then ran down with me...and dragged me back up the dune for another ride down...very sweet...our second set of dunes were white...much the same, though we didn't slide down these...beautiful, nonetheless...on the way back from the dunes, we got caught in a downpour...we expected it, but still...layna had a poncho, i didn't...ooops...she drove for a while, then i drove...of course, the worst of the rain happened while i was driving...at one point visibility was so bad that i had to pull over to wait it out...i was completely soaked at that point...after it lightened up a bit, i started off again, but between the continued rain and wind, i got cold...very cold...i started shivering, and figured that wasn't a safe thing...so layna and i traded and she drove the rest of the way back...despite being soaked, the day was totally awesome...
that particular day was the first of two holidays in a row in vietnam...that was national liberation day, the day the north vietnamese tanks rolled into saigon, and the south vietnamese government surrendered...as a national holiday, that meant that mui ne was full...we ended up being kicked out of our hotel, and had to find another...we were lucky to find one that wasn't super expensive...it seemed everywhere had at least tripled their prices...our second hotel turned out to be waaaaaaay better than the first though...
after moving hotels, we went for a walk through the fairy stream...it's a regular creek, but along one side of it you can see where all the rains have eroded the rock/sand...beautiful...and being that it was a holiday, there were tons of people out walking with us...we ended up walking with a group of young'uns from phan thiet, a nearby town...they were friendly, and loved taking pictures as much as layna and i do...yay!!!
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