Wednesday, May 20, 2009
2:33 PM

Goodbye, Vietnam!

Vietnam.
10 to 19 May.

Fourteen. Hoi An. So we were at Hoi An after a night's ride on the Sinh Cafe sleeper bus, with our main purpose as tailor-making suits and enjoying the old town. My 3-pc wool-cashmere suit costs only $120, while the additional pants $30, a steal compared to what you get in SG or HK!

Hoi An was a pleasant little old town like what you find on TV serials, with Chinese writings everywhere. The amazing thing is that flooding occurs so much and so often during the wet season that the first storey tends to get flooded and people have to evacuate the ground level and move to the second level.

Such a little old Cheena town

Hoi An features Cao Lau that can only be found in Hoi An, and really cheap Bia Hoi. But Vietnamese music can really be so cheena and obiang!

Cao Lau

Fried Vietnamese Wanton

The beach has softer sand than that at Nha Trang, with much better seafood as well!

Dessert was chocolate mousse cake at Cargo Club.

Fifteen. Hoi An. Perhaps the best hotel stay I had on the whole trip, it was such a steal, complete with a swimming pool and breakfast.

Sunrise sunrise...

We headed to explore the rice fields under the clear, sunny skies before heading to find a Japanese tomb and then to An Bang beach.

Hard at work.

Ducks!

Nice sunny weather for cycling!

Water buffaloes lazing under palm trees.

Dinner was Mr Linh's white rose, fried rice, fried fish, beer and finally creme brulee at Cargo Club!

Night river view.

Sixteen. Hue. Every city we've been to in Vietnam seems vastly different - Chau Doc, a bustling old-school Mekong town; Saigon, a vibrant and exciting city; Dalat, the highlands; Hoi An; the nostalgic old towns; and now Hue; the imperial city during the Nguyen Dynasty.

We took the walking tour to the Imperial City, without much information or knowledge about the place. So most of the time we were just staring at the city walls.

Nicest bridge in Hue.

Gate into the imperial city.

The palace buildings.

Seventeen. Hue. The guide was not much better, though he definitely said more about the imperial city than I did. We visited the Citadel, Thien Mu Pagoda, Khai Dinh Tomb, conical hat and incense-making villages.

The guide had a hard-to-decipher accent and a very comical earnest face.

This tree resembles a dragon.

Thien Mu Pagoda

Khai Dinh's tomb had terracotta as well.

View from the tomb.

Hand-making incense sticks.

Eighteen. Hanoi. I expected a neater and cleaner city than Saigon, since it was the capital, but got more rubbish, mud and tattered buildings in return. We were also overwhelmed with people touting for hostels, and so we visited one and eventually decided to stay there despite warnings online as we were only going to stay for a night. Never did I know this would be the main reason for Hanoi being my most disliked city in the whole of my trip. The hostel stay was really cheap, but they get their money back in overcharging us for the laundry and getting commission from our trips to Halong Bay and Sapa.

We headed to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum only to find that it's closed for events. That was really one place I wanted to go the most in Hanoi! I really wanted to see the country's independence hero in person. The rain also had be so cruel to pound so hard on us as we ran our way to Trung Nguyen cafe for a good hot coffee.

Cute kids pulling each others' shirts to form a line.

HCM Mausoleum.

Trung Nguyen cafe was a good haven from the downpour.

Discovery was so aromatic!

Hoa Lo prison made famous by John McCain.

Pretty creepy inside.

Crazy traffic junction.

Dinner was by the street stalls, where we had roast pigeons, 生面, fried rice, beef steak and calamaris. Everything was good except the pigeons which were not fragrant and not fully cooked! Yuck! This was followed by 3,000 dong Bia Hoi by the roadside which weren't that great.

Just when we thought we were the cool people going to club in Hanoi, at Lighthouse, there was this creepy ritual going on outside in the middle of the night, as if the road towards the club was not dark and narrow and infested with cockroaches enough. Turned out we were too early and it was not open yet, due to the ceremony. Anyhow we started playing pool, drinking games and couldn't stop drinking the whole night such that Thor puked when he went back!

Nineteen. Halong Bay. The junk was comfortable in twin rooms, and toilets attached. We visited the limestone caves and water palace, before suntanning and kayaking in the sunset. There's really nothing much at Halong Bay besides lazing around in the sun and enjoying the beautiful scenery before you, of the gorgeous limestone formations. It's really a pleasure lying on the beach bench doing nothing. That night, I saw 3 shooting stars.

Water Palace.

Lazing around in the sun!

Kayaking at Halong Bay!

Bonnie was the Floridian ABC who joined us on our trip!

The golden hour.

Jump!

Damn cheap!

Twenty. Halong Bay. Weida found his wallet missing and we were trying to solve the mystery of how he lost/ misplaced his wallet, which contained all his money for the trip and cards. He remembered that the last time he saw his wallet, he tucked his wallet into his backpack and into the room. There was not one time he took his wallet out. It seems apparent that a staff has taken it, but we couldn't be sure to point fingers. We combed the room and the seats but without avail, so he took a photo of the junk and asked to make a police report in order to claim insurance. As he did so, mysteriously, the boss came forward and said that a staff found his wallet on the sofa (which we obviously covered). I guess they were worried for their company's reputation, so made the staff own up and return the wallet. I wonder how often this happens, because such dishonesty really makes me very irritated with the north of Vietnam.

Happiness when he found his wallet back!

Bonnie and Leann were to stay a night in Hanoi so they could set off for China and Singapore respectively the following day. Little did we know that they would be thrown out of their rooms, with their backpacks zipped and found outside their room when they were back from dinner. They were then forced to go to another hotel, which was in such bad shape there were rats in the room that bit Leann's cap and shoes! The only reasons why I would go back would only be for the water puppetry, HCM Mausoleum and to whack these bastards.

Twenty-one. Sapa. The route from Lao Cai to Sapa was beautiful, and looked exactly like what I saw in the postcards - never-ending kueh lapis of padi terraces.

Even before we started our trek to the Lao Chai and Ta Van villages, we could see some Hmong women waiting outside our hotel. So when we started on our trek, the Hmong women starting marking out their "guests" by walking alongside us and asking us, "where are you from?", "how old are you?" and "how many siblings do you have?" Their English were pretty much limited to introductory ones. I was initially a little hostile and wary for fear we had to buy lots of overpriced souvenirs from them, but eventually thought it unkind if we have to spend the rest of the day trekking with them. So I allowed a lady to help me down the muddy and slippery trails. Honestly, without her, I'd have fallen many times and gotten my whole pants and bag all muddy. So I did her a favour by buying a really overpriced Sapa bag, which really wasn't made by her. Bah.

Lao Chai and Ta Van villages are situated at the bottom of the valley, after a 12km trek, with a breath-taking view! Such a beautiful place, that's why so many tourists. But sometimes I wonder if tourism does them more good or more bad, causing so many of these tribal people to resort to tricks and lies to sell overpriced items, though some of them are really nice people.

Twenty-two. Sapa. We trekked to Catcat village in the morning, where we saw locals trying to cut up a dog. But the highlight was really biking to Ma Tra and Ta Phin. Of course, I couldn't bike, so I was Vik's pillion rider. Many parts were muddy and slippery, which made the biking experience especially exciting for fear we'd fall into the muddy puddles. The view was freaking awesome and my words and even photos really can't do the beauty justice.

The guide said they would chop up dogs from farms or dying dogs to eat. How gross is that?

Cute black piglet eating mud!

Cat Cat village named after Cascade, french word for waterfalls.

Taken on the motorbike!

The tribal people hard at work!

At Ta Phin, as Vik was about to take a photo of Thor looking really cock in his helmet, he dropped his bike key in the gushing river! After a tiring search, we gave up and Vik made his way to retrieve an alternate key, while Weida was trying to fiddle with the ignition keyhole. Eureka! He found a way to start the bike without using the key, so we called Vik back and carried on our trip before making a dirt-cheap duplicate key.

Many kids here are bottomless.

The cafe overcharged us, so Vik gave a deadly stare to the elderly boss.

Dalat town by evening.

Twenty-three. Dien Bien Phu. The 4 of us were squashed in the back of the minibus headed for Dien Bien Phu. The rest of the bus made up of locals headed for Lai Chau, 2 Germans, 1 Irish, 1 French, 1 Kiwi and 1 Spanish backpackers. Despite the heat, bumpy ride and squeezy experience, the view was fabulous! At one point, the bus rolled back as it attempted a muddy upslope. For that moment, I wondered if we had to get out and push the minibus, but of course the driver reversed and tried to garner enough momentum to get up again.

The Viet customs at Tay Trang.

The very mini bus.