Vietnam: Leftover Photos

So this final post on Vietman is not too exciting, but I wanted to add some more pictures that didn't fit in with the other posts.

Come to think of it, there is one story I meant to tell which I forgot:

While in Hanoi on our second night, Kelsey and I were heading back to the hotel. It's easy to find, but we would occasionally walk right by it because there is just so many other things to look at. That night, we walked right by it, but for good reason. A gate was pulled down over the front door. This presented a problem, that we couldn't get to our hotel room, and we had a flight the next morning. We searched all around the building for another entry and tried to pull up on the gate, but to no avail. This is one problem that we could not have possibly forseen. How can you plan for your hotel to disappear? You can't.

So we walked looking for other people, hoping that someone out there could help us. We walked to a cafe where a few people were eating, and finally a waiter at a restaurant was willing to talk to us. We communicated through a series of gestures, pointing, and noises that the gate was locked at our hotel. The guy, very polite says "oh, just knock on the gate!" Well he didn't actually say this, but he communicated it with gestures anyway. We went back to the hotel, knocked on the gate, and sure enough, it opened. We walked into the darkened hotel to find two sleeping mats where hotel employees were sleeping. I am guessing that this is fairly common in Vietnam.

I'll get to the photos anyway, now. This one is is a potato chip logo that I enjoyed. The man, Mister Potato, is very similar to another American tube contained potato chip mascot, but with a hat:

I have a few more photos of Halong Bay. It was a bit overcast so the colors aren't as vivid as I had hoped, but it's still pretty cool:

And another ship and mountain:

This is the houseboat where we went kayaking. On this boat lived both a cat and a dog. I'm wondering what the life of a houseboat cat is like:

Just the back of a hat that I liked on one of the bus rides:

A great sign, "Say no with smoking for your health!":

Riding in a taxi in Danang on the way to Hoi An:

This is a Vietnamese crosswalk sign. They were all blue and white, but every single one was a little bit different from the other ones. I'm not sure if each one is hand made, or what:

A chicken in a park we went to in Hanoi:

This is just a giant worm, nothing more:

I'll blog again shortly!

Last Day in Vietnam

On our last day in Vietnam, the train pulled into Hanoi at about 6 in the morning. We went to our favorite spot, Lake Hoan Kiem while the sun was rising and walked around it probably three times and watched the sunrise. We just literally had nothing to do and nowhere to go, so this seemed like a good idea. We saw some workout classes going on, including one of all middle-aged people dancing to 'Where do you go, my Lovely?'. Here is a nice picture of a tree:

Luckily, we were able to keep our bags at the hotel that we had stayed at a few days prior. They lady there, Bella was amazingly helpful. Without our bags, we were able to go and check out a few sights. We made our way to the Temple of Literature, a Confucius temple commemorating famous scholars and learned people.

First, though, we stopped at a park right across the street which required jumping a fence to get into. This place was so secluded, which was a nice break from the constant motor bikes whizzing past every second in most other places of the city. Oh, here's the park, it's basically a giant circle with a lake and an island in the center, which you can't see in this photo:

This is the gate to the Temple of Literature:

A super awesome vine-filled tree within the temple area:

A nice pink flower, feel free to comment if you know what type of flower this is:

The temple featured the biggest gong I have seen to date. I'm sure it can produce an amazing sound but no implements were present with which to strike it:

A nice photo of the buildings on the premises; I like the curves at the corners of the roofs:

Afterward, we headed back to the lake area and did some finished our shopping. While I was shopping, I left Kelsey by the lake and she ended up meeting two different guys who asked her to help with their English. The second guy we met and ended up going out for a few beers. I bought him about 60 cents worth of beer, he paid 10 cents for me to use a nearby bathroom. When I say nearby bathroom I actually mean alleyway where some guy lets you pee for a small fee.

Here's a nice photo of the historic district in Hanoi:

So we had our last dinner and headed to the water-puppet theater for our show. We paid an extra dollar for VIP tickets and were in the second row. VIP tickets are $3, so it was worth it. This is a pretty famous show, tickets must be bought at least a day or two ahead of time. My favorite part was the musical accompaniment, which was absolutely sensational.

Kelsey and I ended up being a little tuckered out for the show since we had not slept for a long time. The show had no speaking, only music, and told stories such as when rice farmers tamed the water buffalo. I caught a few photos, but don't have a perfect memory of the experience. Here are some of the puppets:

Here is a well crafted dragon puppet that sprays water:

Our last day was also New Year's Eve, so we got to see a lot of bright lights but had to leave town by around 10 to go to the airport. We had a countdown in the terminal on my Ipod watch and then sang 'Auld Lang Syne' with some Korean middle school students who were also in the terminal with us.

Really, the rest was even more blurry from there with the lack of sleep. We left the Busan airport around seven in the morning, got into the car, and drove all the way back across Korea in the tiny car. I probably shouldn't have driven with so little sleep under my belt, but there were no incidents. I then had a precious few hours of rest before I had to go to Seoul, check into a hotel and meet my family the next day. Keep reading, my families trip to Korea is coming up next!

A Few Shots from the Train

Riding the trains in Vietnam was a great experience. I really like the train as a form of travel across countries, or across continents as I hope to do some day. I discussed train travel with a French man and he much prefers it to traveling by plane because it imparts the feeling of traveling a great distance. While riding the train you get to see everything pass by out the window, and it gives you more time to think about what your next destination will be like.

Kelsey and I met some more cool people on the trip from Danang to Hanoi. An old man who was our cabin mate intently watched Kelsey while she was writing in a journal. She knew he was watching so she started drawing pictures to clue him into what she was writing about. When she pulled out tape to attach some tickets stubs to her book, he immediately went to his bag and got scissors to help her cut the tape. During her process of attaching the stubs, he sat there and watched and sliced the tape anytime she needed it.

We also met a French couple were actors in Paris, the man who I mentioned above. I had a nice talk with the girl, Roxanne. I mentioned about how in Korea people are always running into me and not looking where they were going. She went on a rant about how angry she gets and yells at people when they bump into her in Paris and don't say they are sorry. She translated what she normally says to people into English, and then I had her say it to me in French. It was very entertaining.

This ride started during the day, so I was able to capture some photos out the train window. It's a really nice ride through Vietnam because of the great jungle, mountain, and seaside landscapes. Here is a beach:

I stuck my camera out the side of the train and snapped this one:

And the sun set:

Hoi An, Vietnam

The only stop on our train voyage through Vietnam that time allowed was in Hoi An. More specifically, the train stop was in Danang, and then we got a taxi ride to the ancient city of Hoi An, which is now basically a tourist resort. We only had 24 hours to spend, so it was somewhat of a quick stop.

The city of Hoi An is very picturesque because the buildings are so very old and have a unique architecture compared to the rest of Vietnam. It's pretty small, but I didnt' have too much time to explore the area:

One of the features of this town is that a river runs through it, making it even more beautiful. For some reason we witnessed a boat crossing the river completely crammed with motorbikes, bicycles, and people. I have no idea where it was going:

The river also included many entrepeneurs who offer boat rides for a cheap price. Kelsey and I caught a boat ride during the sunset, though it was overcast and getting dark so quickly. At least there was a nice pink hue to the sky for a while:

Me driving the boat:

The boat ride was nice, but we needed to refuel. Seeing a bunch of restaurants, we stopped at a random one and got an order of duck curry and duck rice. Here is my duck curry with a Vietnamese-style coffee on the side:

Our restaurant seated us very close to the street, so many street souvenir sales-people stopped by to greet us. This kid sold his small clay animal shaped ocarinas for quite a bit more than some places, but he was just so charming. He kept calling Kelsey darling, and she ended up buying a bunch of stuff from him:

I also bought a few things from him, as well as a few souvenirs from a girl raising money to put herself through school. Overall, the gifts sold in this town tended to be quite a mark-up from the rest of Vietnam. Hoi An did offer some great taylored clothing, though. Apparently a suit made in Hoi An is only half the price compared to Saigon or Hanoi. Kelsey used the opportunity to get a custom made dress. She ordered a dress at 8 something the night we got there, and they had it ready for her by 11 the next day. Pretty ridiculous, actually, for only about 20 bucks a dress.

We spent that night at a club with some other travelers and some ex-pats living in Vietnam. There were some interesting people from Russia, Belgium, Australia, the U.S., etc.

The next day was booked with walking through this market and getting breakfast:

This was followed by getting an hour long massage, picking up her dress, checking out of the hotel, and then eating lunch and getting out of town. It was a really nice place to visit, but 24 hours was a little too short.

That Time at The Saigon Train Station

That was an interesting choice for a tile, wasn't it? Well a more accurate title for this post would be 'That LONG Time at the Saigon Train Station'. It started when Kelsey and I came back from the Cu Chi Tunnels and needed to catch a train. We didn't have any experience with trains in Vietnam, so our concierge tried to call for us. She probably tried to call three times and always got a busy signal.

With no other options, we headed to the station to pick up some tickets for that night. As I remember, we got to the station at about 5:30. There was no line at the ticket counter, so we walked up there and finally figured out that we needed to get a numbered ticket. The current call up was at number 630. We pressed the button and received ticket number 801. Duh Duh Duh.

What followed was an absolutely agonizing wait for tickets that took over two hours. There were only two clerks working and sometimes a group of people would spend over 10 minutes with a clerk. I cannot imagine what they could have possibly been doing for THAT long.

We did finally get our tickets, though, for the 11:00 sleeper train. That left us with another three or four hours to kill before the train. Our obvious first choice was to get some sandwiches and some beer. See Vietnam has these little French bread sandwiches called Bahn My, or something really close to that, and they are extremely delicious. They are one of my favorite parts, these sandwiches, because they are awesome and cost about 50 cents American. They look like this, by the way:

The sandwiches are loaded with vegetables, meat, and sauce. Although the meat sometimes looks like dog food, they are always delicious. Here's a closer look at the inside:

I also got a coconut milk that a small waitress hacked open with a butcher knife:

So we managed to kill another hour or so drinking and eating, and I caught this nice photo opportunity:

With a few hours left to kill, we decided to go inside the station again and use the free internet for a while. Unfortunately, two kids were using the two computers to play games on one, and use Microsoft Paint on the other. Kelsey and I then went and got some snacks. When Kelsey offered the boys these small bear shaped chocolate filled cookies, they surrendered one of the computers.

Another effect of giving up the cookie was that we made instant friends with one of the kids. We tested whether this kid knew rock-scissors-paper, and he did. The boys father, knowing that he had some free babysitters now, left for the canteen never to be seen by us again. We came up with new ways to play rock-scissors-paper, here he is up on a ledge playing against Kelsey:

I learned this kids name at one point, but I couldn't pronounce it and I quickly forgot it anyway. we tried to teach him a little English, but he refused to and just made some noises while we played games with him. We also played high five where he had to jump as high as he could, and then I tried to teach him the game Tetris on a cheap flash version of the game on the computer. We ended up spending over an hour with the kid, and he was pretty awesome:

So now it was almost time to board the train. We got the soft-sleeper class, which was really nice. There were four bunks in each room, so Kelsey and I shared with a Vietnamese couple who slept the whole time. The train ride was a great time because we played cards for a while, and then got to hang out with two Russian couples and two sons from a family of diplomats. So, you know, your average train ride.

Ho Chi Minh City and the Cu Chi Tunnels

Having booked the flight to Ho Chi Minh upon entering Vietnam, Kelsey and I caught an early morning flight on day 3. The flight left at 8 in the morning and we arrived in Ho Chi Minh, which I will now start calling Saigon for typing reasons, at 10. This left us with a full day of exploring the city.

We originally decided to devote the day to a walking tour. This seemed like a really great idea because it's a way to see a lot of the city in 4 hours, but Saigon was somehow nearly impossible for us to navigate.

Anway, the walking tour started at Pho 2000, a restaurant at which Bill Clinton had eaten during a trip to Vietnam:

The pho was absolutely excellent, as was most of the pho that we ate the entire trip. Unfortunately, due to navigation problems, we were at the wrong Pho 2000 restuarant. Anyway, the walking tour continued and we did manage to find a market which was located on the tour. We bought a lot of nice things. I got some shirts and a pair of shorts, because it was really hot. Kelsey bought a Vietamese dress, among a few other things:

Up next on the tour was a roundabout with a statue located in the center. It looks like the roundabout is about 5 lanes wide all around, so it's somewhat daunting. Luckily, we knew the rules for crossing streets in Vietnam. The above all most important rule is to walk a slow, unchanging pace because motorists are especially skilled at dodging obstacles.

Upon crossing, we had a great view of the city and a relatively isolated place to hang out:

There was one vendor who was trying to sell us these lighters. We couldn't get him to go away until we started claiming that we were Korean and only spoke to him in our limited Korean. Somehow, this actually worked. We continued on our way to an art museum that was closed after getting lost some more, and then we found a welcoming sight:Located in the photo is a blue, white, and green sign that says 'Family Mart'. These convenience stores are littered across Korea, and it was amazing for us to find one in Vietnam. A policeman outside wouldn't let me take a photo, so I sniped one from a distance.

The rest of the day was spent attempting to do the walking tour, then giving up and going to get some coffee and hanging out. We also got some pizza and did some more shopping, but it was a quiet evening in preparation for our trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

These tunnels are pretty famous because of their use during the Vietnam war, and we booked a tour to go see them the next day. Our bus left about 8 again, but again that included an hour or so of circling around various hotels until the bus was full. Again the drive was a long time and included an intermission at a gift shop. This time it was a shop where the goods were manufactured by the handicapped, called handicapped handicrafts. They were EXTREMELY expensive.

The tour of the tunnels was really worth it, though. It was really interesting to see this part Vietnamese history and marvel at how small of tunnels these people crawled through and lived in.

Our tour started in a house like this:

Our guide talked a while about the war and the tunnels, and we watched an interesting propoganda video. The video described a series of soldiers called 'American Killer Heroes'. Very nice.

Our guide then showed us a series of booby traps used during combat, including this revolving trap door with a pungee pit below, which looks like it may leave a mark:

He also showed us where exhaust pipes would be place for cooking and how some of the entrances looked. Then, it was time to actually explore a few of the tunnels. We got to crawl through a few for at least dozens of feet. I found it very difficult due to my larger size than the average Vietnamese person. Here is a flash photograph I took of one of the tunnels:

The pictures I took from inside didn't turn out so well, but it seems that the best ones I have is of someone else from the tour standing in front of one:

I have no idea who this guy is, but thanks for posing for the picture, guy. I think my readers can tell how difficult it may be to travel the tunnels.

Next was more of a gift shop phase of the tour. They fed use some potato-like vegetables dipped in some sugary substance that was pretty decent. Kelsey decided to shoot one of the firearms that was available for a dollar per bullet. Here she is with an AK-47:

So that was the end to a nice tour. We snoozed again on the bus ride back and then were off the train station for much more adventure, which I will get to in the next post.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Our second day in Vietnam, Kelsey and I visited a location on the Northeast side of Vietnam called Halong Bay. This is probably my favorite part of the entire trip because of the amazingly beautiful sites that we had an opportunity to see.

Halong Bay is a bay. What makes it amazing is that there are dozens of island-mountain-rock formations spread out around the bay. We booked a half day tour due to time constraints, and set out bright and early at 8:00. Unfourtunately, the bus has to circle around the hotels in the area to pick up people which takes more than an hour. Then its a two and a half hour bus ride to get to the bay, in optimal traffic. It was a little longer for us, including a stop at a gift shop for a while. We didn't really need one, but I think the tour gets a kick-back for taking us there.

Finally arriving at Halong Bay, a great and beautiful land was in store. We first boarded a boat for a short ride to where we would eat lunch and kayak. Our boat was really nice, it had two stories and was easy to get a view of the bay. Our boat was similar to the one pictured below:

It was so great to cruise around all of these tall, craggly rock formations peppering the bay.

On the boat, we met some interesting people. A girl who we shared lunch with, Hannah, was a teacher in Japan. We also met a group of three girls who were good friends. One each from Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, who all met while studying Japanese in Japan. We spent some time talking with them and learning about their lives. I also got a great photo of the Korean and Thai girl recreating a certain scene from Titanic:

Our cruise first stopped at a floating house where we could see some live seafood and buy from a mobile floating fruit vendor. There were two vendors there, and each had a cute little boy along with to help sell the fruit. Kelsey bought a few mangosteins from the lady in the photo. They tasted great despite the fact that the lady refused to give her the correct change:

After a delicious seafood lunch, we were taken to another floating house where kayaks and kayaking equipment were stored. This was the exact moment where I knew that I loved Vietnam. I managed to take some photos and video while Kelsey was paddling:

One of the other kayaks

A view of the bay, with Kelsey's head

This is a video I took while kayaking through a tunnel in one of the rock formations:

An interesting part of the experience was at the end of our kayaking. I was paddling again, and suddenly the paddle broke in half in my hands. I continued to paddle with one of the halves, and upon reaching the house again, I was demanded to pay for the paddle. I insisted that a paddle failure is due to many, many uses and routine wear; not one single use. They still insisted that I pay for the paddle. I was already sick of having every dollar sucked out of my pocket that I made a fuss and the tour guide payed for it. A minor victory, but I felt bad that it may have come out of his or the tour's funds.

With that occurance behind us, we set off toward a massive cave located within one of the rock formations. The group of girls, Kelsey, and I decided to sit on the front of the boat with our legs hanging over the ledge. On the left side is me, next to me is the Vietnamese girl, and then Hannah:

The cave was amazing, though I didn't like any of the pictures that I took of it. I guess if my readers are interested they will have to go and see it for themselves.

After the cave, we cruised back to the bus and then had a sleepy ride back to Hanoi during the sunset. Another fun part of the trip was when we stopped at the gift shop for a second time and found these kittens. I held on to this absolutely tiny little kitten who was the youngest kitten I had ever seen. I had to snap a photo of it because it was ridiculously adorable:

That night we went out for some pho, and had a fairly quiet night in preparation for our flight to Ho Chi Minh, which will be featured in the next post.