Visiting Vietnam

Our overnight location in Halong Bay.

A chilly cruise through Halong Bay.

The ultra-touristy cave of Halong, complete with multi-coloured lights.

The second stop on our vacation was Vietnam.  We travelled from North to South, and spent a total of three weeks.  The country is beautiful, unique and full of stories about its tumultuous past.  We arrived in Hanoi in the evening, and were frustrated that our hotel had not sent the car they promised.  We eventually made it to our hotel and I got my red head on to rectify the situation.  They refunded us for our very expensive taxi ride, gave us two days of free breakfast and a free ride to our next destination - so I guess it did pay off.

A monkey enjoying his favourite beverage.  Thankfully it was filled with water!

So many puppies! (aka. heaven on earth)

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum (You could only take photographs from the back.  They confiscated all cameras for the entire approach and within the mausoleum itself.)

We spent two days in Hanoi exploring the city.  We saw the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh (which I am pretty sure is fake), a few history museums, a very cool water puppet show and wandered through the old town.  I really enjoyed the puppet show, and it took me a long while to figure out that the puppeteers were actually standing in the water behind their puppets.  I did not enjoy the old city, as it is just small narrow streets packed with thousands of motorbikes, constant honking, and no sidewalk space.  Other people had highly recommended the area, and even lauded it as one of their highlights - but Chris and I were less than impressed!  I live in China.  I deal with honking and overcrowding on a regular basis.  Why would I want to see that on holiday!?  It was Chris' 25 birthday while we were in Hanoi, so we celebrated with a ton of delicious Vietnamese food, and then boarded an overnight train to Sapa.

One of the war memorials we visited.

The famous water puppets.

A peek at the jumble of electric wires on a street in Hanoi.

Chris shot an AK47.  He said it was terrifying!  

One of the "booby traps" of the Vietnamese soldiers.

Cu-chi tunnels (all the other pictures didn't turn out because we were crawling the rest of the way.  Even on my hands and knees my back was scraping the top of the tunnel the whole way, and I am not even tall!

Hoi An lit up for Tet.

Enjoying a delicious coconut smoothie in Saigon.

Unfortunately on our first day in Sapa both Chris and I had a bit of the flu.  We went to go hiking, but we decided that we would not be able to do a longer hike.  Instead we just did two smaller routes.  The first day we went into the valley to see rice terraces, waterfalls and villages.  We went very slowly, and took plenty of long breaks.  It was definitely frustrating to be feeling sick when we were in such a beautiful place, but we still enjoyed the town despite not trekking as planned.  We spent the second day climbing to the lookout over the town, and enjoyed a long relaxing picnic lunch.  The town itself felt like a ski hill resort.  All the stores were for trekking supplies, the restaurants were cute log cabins, with giant fireplaces.  The views were spectacular and the people were lovely!

The beach in Mui Ne.

Riverside in Hoi An

There were miles and miles of flowers being sold during Tet.  It is traditional to put these flowers or  cherry branches in your home for the beginning of the new year.

Our private pool

We went directly from Sapa to Halong Bay for a two night trip around the bay.  Trips to Halong are done with a tour group, so we chose one that had one night on a boat and one night on the beach.  The area was one of the highlights for both of us.  The first day we went kayaking, saw a cave and just hung out on the boat.  It was actually fairly cold, but it was still awesome to spend the night on the boat.  We were travelling with a great group, and enjoyed our time getting to know them.  The next day we had a tour of floating fishing villages, saw monkeys, and napped on the beach.  It was beautiful and a must-see in Vietnam.

The floating fishing village of Halong.

Trekking in Sapa

The terraces of Sapa

From Halong we travelled southwards to Hue.  The town name may be recognizable, as it was the former dividing line between North and South Vietnam.  We were hoping to soak up some history with a DMZ tour - but we were disappointed.  The tour was more driving than information, and most of the historical spots have now been converted to rice fields.  Although this is great for the development of the country, it was not very interesting to drive to!  Hue used to be the imperial capital, so we spent some time exploring the old palaces and then a good amount of the afternoon sleeping by the pool!  We definitely could have skipped this town, as our purpose was history and we were thwarted by the low quality of our tour.

Tet celebrations 

The mountain top view of Sapa.

Hoi An was our next destination.  The town has a very touristy feel, but I really enjoyed our time there. It is well known for shopping, silk and tailor shops.  We did not get anything made, but we did buy the majority of our souvenirs at the myriad specialty shops we explored.  There are a few sights to see within the town, but what I most enjoyed was just wandering throughout the streets - people watching and consuming as many bakery treats as possible.  We also spent one day on the beach, which was beautiful and not at all crowded.  We rented bikes for a dollar then rode out of town for about 30 minutes.  Unfortunately Chris got pretty burned, so it was good that the next day we were on a bus out of the sun most of the day!

A shot of us in Sapa.

After Hoi An we took a VERY long bus ride to Mui Ne.  We had been told that the area was less crowed than other beach areas, so we were excited for a few days of sun and sand.  Unfortunately that was not true.  Our days in Mui Ne coincided with Tet (New Year's).  This meant that we had a really difficult time finding any place to stay.  We did finally get a place, but it took us about 2 hours and a 5 k walk (with our backpacks) to locate it.  At the resort they only spoke Vietnamese and Russian.  They had terrible food, poor service and very few amenities.  However, their pool was great and we had it to ourselves for three days.  The other guests only came to the pool after 4 pm, by which time we were ready to quit for the day.  The beach was dirty and extremely windy.  The location is famous for wind surfing, not snorkelling as we were hoping for.  All in all I would not recommend the location.  Most of the resorts are abandoned and decaying, transportation is hard to find and it is expensive.  It seems like they have tried to develop a resort area, and have not been successful.  There were plenty of buildings, but only every fifth development was actually operating.  The rest were left to decay!

The view from a dinner out in Sapa.

Our final stop in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon).  The city is clean, well organized and exciting.  We visited a few museums, a palace and we took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels.  The museums were definitely emotionally challenging, as they contained information on the impacts of chemical warfare, the continued trials of economic setback and the hardships faced in the war.  The museums are a special mix of truth and propaganda, but they were certainly interesting.

There were the cutest little pigs all through the villages in Sapa.  I loved them.

We both really enjoyed our time in Vietnam.  The scenery is lovely, the weather was great, and we learned a great deal about the history of the country.  I would definitely recommend  a trip here, but you could easily skip Hanoi and extend your time in the South.

Nighttime view of Saigon

Paddling through Halong

The creepy figurines depicting life in the tunnels of Hue.