Ding Dang, Nha Trang

August 12th - 14th

Some people love it. Some hate it. Perhaps it is a divisive destination for some travellers, but we both really enjoyed our time in Nha Trang, known to be the beach capital of Vietnam. This honor used to be for the famous China Beach for which the television show was named, but that area has long since ceded the title to Nha Trang.  The actual city was very similar to the strip in Fort Lauderdale, with a promenade with occasional parks running the length of a long white beach. Directly across a small four lane beach road were a ton of hotels and restaurants. On a calm day the water is a deep blue and across the way there is a large green island connected in the distance by a long overseas gondola.

We arrived in the early morning by the sleeper bus and headed to our hotel/hostel, La Suisse.  We had a while until check in, but they provided us free breakfast on their rooftop restaurant.  Common breakfasts in Vietnam have French twists and usually involve any breakfast item and a baguette (i.e. jam or omelets).  Exhausted from the sleeper bus we took naps for a few hours and then headed to the beach.  The main areas of beach for tourists like us are concentrated around the two major restaurants and bars. (That is unless you stay in one of the many ritzy hotels in the area that have their own sectioned off areas).  There are certainly more isolated areas of beach probably only minutes walk away, but we were interested in taking it easy.  And that is what these enterprises offer.

We walked up to the Louisiana Brewery and Restaurant, one of the two major places (the other is called the Sailing Club).  The beachfront has nice quality cushioned wooden lounge chairs in pairs or groups each with a large umbrella usually made of thatched fronds and a small table.  One pays about $3 each for a days usage. The area is a little crowded but we did not mind.  A server comes by your chair and asks if you need anything from the adjacent restaurant and as it happens microbrewery – this fresh craft beer is one of the advantages of the Louisiana over the Sailing Club.  Standard Western beach fare including hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken fingers is available for delivery to your chair as well as cooked prawns, whole fish, oysters. Separate Vietnamese and Indian menus can also be requested.  Next to this area are the water sports which were significant and active.  People were wind and kite surfing, jet-skiing and kayaking, none of which we partook in as we had officially become beach bums, that and we have both seen videos of parasailing gone bad…ouch!

We had a couple of the ice cold draft beers, but we just relaxed, alternately napping in the shade, swimming in the clear water and reading our Kindles.  We also made use of our recently purchased Chinese speaker set and hooked it up to the iPOD, subjecting near-by beachgoers to our beach playlist of reggae and Caribbean music. For dinner we went searching through the back roads of the city, picture neon signs promoting massages, American food and beach stuff, looking for a sushi place that we heard was excellent. Unfortunately, upon arrival to said restaurant, there was only an Irish guy who owned a bar that now stood in its place. so much for getting a bootleg of the Lonely Planet…can’t trust those dates! He was in fact, very helpful and suggested a place that the locals went to in the night market. It indeed was solid sushi, and better yet, five maki rolls and two beers were only $12.

After a nice beach side stroll illuminated by the full moon we found ourselves again at the Louisiana but this time we went to the bar area instead of the beach.  We had several of their local microbrews that were blissfully ice cold and in frosty mugs (a premium in Asia).

The next morning we headed to Vinpearl Land, aka a Vietnamese magical wonderland, across the channel. We probably would have never attempted an amusement park on this trip, but several couples recommended making the trek over there specifically for the water park and since we both love water parks we decided to take the chance. We walked several miles from downtown to the entrance to the park (we wouldn’t recommend it). In order to get to the actual park you can either a ferry or board the world’s longest gondola ride over water. We chose the later. Our gondola ride went smoothly, except for the fact that we were with two kiwis (New Zealanders) who both happened to be afraid of heights. Every time we would cross over a tower the woman would let out a squeal of fright that was unnerving to even me who has an under appreciation for vertigo.

We made it across safely and were ready to immediately start laughing at the cheesiness of our surroundings. We were pleasantly surprised that park was tastefully done, with professional landscaping, safe looking rides and a variety of activities to explore including outdoor rides, an indoor arcade, a water park and an indoor aquarium. We did have a little laugh, being we both grew up going to Disneyworld, on how many attractions and signage was Disney-looking or completely ripped off, ala the flying elephant ride. We headed straight to the water park, lathered on the sunscreen, locked up our belongings and headed for the rides. As we are both used to dealing long crowds, we were confused when there was no one around the water slides. It suddenly dawned on us that it was because the Vietnamese (and people from many other Asian cultures) do not like getting tanned.  This meant the waterpark rides were empty except for us and a handful of other foreign tourists. For our first ride we decided on a pretty tame looking ride called the Tsunami. It was a group ride with two or three people sitting in a double or triple tube. You were pushed into a half-pipe where your momentum would carry you up the other side and then you go back back down and up the other side, like snow boarders do.

We realized the difference between these slides and the ones we grew up with instantaneously.  We rocketed downwards, hit the uphill curve, got whiplash and then shot up the other half of the pipe hitting the opposite lip of the pipe.  Bouncing backwards we repeated this all way down the tube occasionally hitting the upper retaining wall and finally were dumped in a nice roll over into the pool.  We both came up laughing hysterically. And I mean it literally. We had so much adrenaline pumping through us afterwards that we couldn’t help but laugh uncontrollably at surviving it. Despite that experience, we thought it must have been a one time-fluke. Surely there can not be two crazy slides at this park? Testing fate, we headed to a more innocuous looking slide, called Black Hole (maybe the name should have given it away).  On appearance it was a covered tube slide that was all black inside and had several twists a turns and by rights looked like fun.  It began as expected with a brisk ride down the dark hole with some fun turns and bumps but near the end the tube turned downward into a fast decline.  It was so fast the water running down the tube that normally serves to facilitate sliding began to spray in our faces, blinding us like some of the straight down, kamikaze slides.  This was tolerable because right before the blinding spray we could make out daylight at the end of this stretch, giving what was false reassurance it would be over soon. Instead of the splash down we expected there was simply a sharp jolt, a feeling of falling and a slam into something below.  Upon opening our eyes, we found ourselves sliding around a giant funnel in which you spin around several times before swirling to the hole in the center. I can’t tell you how frightening it is to be moving towards a hole you have no idea where it goes to. Thankfully, this hole finally drops you several feet into a pool below.  Unfortunately we did not have easy access to our cameras, so none of this is otherwise documented and the description may not provide quite the sense of suspense we had.  We had to conclude that the “slide” engineers may have been better in Florida. 

We took a short break from all the heart pumping excitement in the lazy river.  This was a funny excursion because of the attempts to decorate portions of the river in thematic ways in an obvious and not entirely successful attempt to mimic Disney-like amusement parks.  A portion of the river was a haunted cave that the Vietnamese were reluctant to enter for unclear reasons and instead abandoned their rafts immediately before entering it causing a huge build up in tubes.  It was certainly dark in there and had fake giant spiders and tribal masks with a single working blacklight.  Later in the river the banks were adorned with mixed carvings including a depiction of the evolution of man and later dinosaurs.

We did some more slides that were thankfully fun but without the terror.  After doing the majority of the slides we headed to the Ocean World just outside the water park area.  This was also surprisingly well done even if the English version of the signs said a lot, but a little about the actual marine life adjacent.  Further down the corridor we heard intermittent group exclamations of delight.  We both wondered what attraction was causing all the commotion.  Maybe it was tank of dolphins, sharks or even penguins?  We got to this large tank and saw the group crowding together to see something obviously incredible.  It was a large viewing area of the main tank and after we saw this main event, we discovered it had some great giant rays, sizable white tip sharks, freely swimming eels and other impressive aquatic life on par with Atlanta’s aquarium.  So what was this awe inspiring display?  Feeding time for the sharks?  No.  A rare sighting of marine life?  No.  It was a woman dressed as a mermaid, complete with sequined fin costume, who was swimming in front of the viewing area on intervals and blowing kisses to the crowds.  Um, yeah.

After that educational experience we escaped the heat and headed to an area named “Indoor Attractions.”  We did not know what to expect but found a two-story complex decorated with some amateurish murals of middle school era fan boy art (Comic and movie characters with some Manga for good measure) and filled wall to wall with games including video arcade games, table games like air hockey, carnival games (the basketball, timer game) and a state-of-the-art modern theater that had a bonus dimension over puny 3D IMAX theaters: 4D!!!  We of course caught the matinée (there were four such theaters playing different sequences every 15 minutes or so).  We actually waited in line to enter a small room with seats in an slightly elevated platform and handed very old 3D/4D glasses.  They played a poorly rendered computer graphics car racing sequence to an ill-timed motion sequence of the platform.  Hilariously bad.  We played some carnival games, some rounds of air hockey, a Dance, Dance Revolution rip off game and I (Pearce) played a shooting game side-by-side with a very serious looking Vietnamese youth.  With no way to top that we decided to say goodbye to Vinpearl Land and hopped on the suped-up sky buckets back to the mainland.

On our first day at the beach we were approached by an Australian girl named Resha who was working as a promoter for the neighboring restaurant and bar called the Sailing Club.  She was there to talk about a party being held there on Saturday night (the night in question) and would have a fashion show, fire dancers and drink specials.  There was a cover but it could be avoided by going early for dinner.  So we got freshened up after a full day at the amusement park and headed to the “club.”  We were seated after a bit with a good view of the set up for the party.  They had brought out additional seats and tables below on the beach with a stage, DJ booth and giant blocks of ice that would later serve as an “ice bar.”  We both ate very well and had a nice chat with a couple from Australia.  One of the more memorable of our drinks so far was a local favorite mixture of local rum and some kind of mixer (usually coke) called a “jam jar” served in the actual old jam jar.  It was really good.  However after an extended dinner and a few jam jars we still had a couple of hours to go before the party even started.  So we missed the extravaganza opting for an earlier night.

the next day we went back to the beach after sleeping in and there was a light rain.  So we covered for shelter and used the time to catch up on e-mails, travel planning, etc.  The next day we would be leaving for the Nha Trang airport to go to our last stop in Vietnam, Saigon.

Sleeper Bus

August 10th-11th:  6:00 pm - 7:00 am

Hoi An to Nha Trang

Hoi An Tailor

August 8th - 10th

We had high expectations for Hoi An, a French-Vietnamese colonial port city, before we arrived. This was mostly because everyone we met on our trip who had been there loved it. We knew it was supposed to be “traveler’s porn”, as another traveler described it, with a historic town center made up of charming mustard yellow buildings, ornate roofing and cheerful bougainvillea. It also is known for the predominance of tailor shops that you could have a custom made silk suit made for under $200. We were not disappointed.

Since our hotel, The Sunflower, had a swimming pool and lounge chairs, we decided to spend our first morning lazing about; a decision made easier by the lazy feeling we had after eating at the sizeable buffet breakfast we got free with our room. Our next order of business was to meet with a tailor to have some suits made for Pearce. I was hesitant about spending money on having clothes made for either one of us because there are plenty of bad tailors amongst the good, but since Gordon had already vetted the shop, called # 09, I felt much more confident. Especially since Katelyn teaches home economics and gave her stamp of approval.

We entered the shop through an open front room which has a sampling of the clothes they can make hung on the walls and on mannequins. When they realized we were serious shoppers we were brought to the back of the shop which consisted of two rooms, each covered floor to ceiling with bolts of different types of fabric. We were implored to sit at a small table, given bottles of cold water, cooled with fans and generally made as comfortable as possible before getting down to business.  The three women who worked there hovered uncomfortably close and made commentary as we tried to make our way through tomes of clothing catalogs.

The head tailor was a take-charge woman who was a master of the art of sales. In our discussions of what Pearce should have made, the types of materials, etc. her favorite phrase to say over and over again, was “why not?” Should we get the more expensive liner?…why not?! Should we buy four more shirts?…why not? You get the picture. Pearce and I try to use this expression whenever possible now.  This existential argument was peppered with complements such as “You sexy man!,” “you very beautiful,” and “you look good in that too.”  Pearce was first fitted for dark blue suit with pin stripes and was convinced to get another suit of gray.  We threw in some fitted shirts and would have to come back in two days for the final adjustments.  As for me, it would have been very easy for me to provide a few pictures from the internet/magazines, but I declined getting any clothes made as I didn’t have a real need being a masters student.

After suiting Pearce up we were lead next door to the cobbler, who was affiliated with the tailor. Where we were again ceremoniously led to a table and deluged with a ton of “designer” books. After some urging from Pearce, I picked out a hip pair of deep brown leather ankle boots and promised that they would look exactly like the picture; unlike the suits, this was not exactly true –they were leather and they were shoes but that is as far as the comparison goes. Even so, it was a fun experience and I can officially say I was cobbled.

Leaving the designer world behind, Pearce and I strolled deep into the Old Town, looking at the traditional (tourist) lanterns and orange clay figurines as we passed. The Old Town is a rare place in Vietnam with much of the French Colonial architecture, we only glimpsed in Hanoi, preserved with low and long row houses painted with good restoration.  It was also much quieter than Hanoi as the streets were restricted to motorbikes and sometimes only pedestrians.  This led to one of more memorable, peaceful and beautiful strolls we have had in Asia. Crossing over the Thu Bon River we entered a peninsula called An Hoi, which shifted from tourist-centric to glimpses of real-life Vietnam: children playing soccer, a man meticulously cleaning his rooster with the care you would treat an infant, and people and scooters piled high on boats headed home for the day.

Serendipitously we found a row of very cute food stalls, each named after their proprietor i.e. Mr. Bang. We ordered two delicious bowls of Cao Lau, a Hoi An specialty consisting of thick noodles, pork slices in broth and fresh herbs. It is topped with crush fried wonton and optional homemade chili sauce for heat.  It was there we have a little dog redemption: there was the tiniest of puppies playing the in area adjacent and we played with him. (no harm came to him.)

After dinner we strolled back towards the river near sunset and found a small café that over looked a small street and the bank of the river. The café was a nice French place where we splurged and bought ourselves a bottle of red wine. The whole scene with the gentle breeze, the partly cloudy sky with one of the those rare pink and violet sunsets, the wine and of course the company made for one of those unforgettable moments in life.

Refreshed with a wine induced slumber, we spent the majority of the next day checking in on the results of the cobbled shoes (epic fail) and strolling through the Old Town and milling about through the infinite shops with their wooden carvings, lanterns, paintings and even bought about ten silk ties at $2 per tie to go with all this suit buying.  We ate at a place called the Bobo Café for its choice of name (Bobo being one of our shameful couples’ nicknames) and had some more traditional and local fare: Banh Xeo, shrimp and pork savory pancakes and a curry dish.  We spent of of time here with the WiFi and caught up.

Later in the afternoon we made our way to an island across the river called Cam Nam.  We were searching for a famed bar called Sleepy Gecko.  After a little hunting down barren and muddy roads we found the oasis twinkling with lettered lights promising good times as reward for happy hunting.  It is a place known for its good and familiar service, as we are suckers for a places with named and known owners especially when their name is Steve. (see Allyson’s father, Pearce’s uncle and a bar in Pearce’s birthplace St. Simon’s Island called Poor Steve’s)  We arrived early as is our habit as the youngest, old people you will ever know.  We thought the hour was the reason we found the place empty save for the bartender and ourselves.  The personal service was welcome as the Aussie bartender was friendly and fun and even let us “sample” the local rum twice.  It was delicious as was the very cold beer and Irish whiskey.  We made use of our drinking and made several surprisingly coherent travel decisions and reservations, securing travel and board all the way down our itinerary to Bangkok.  There was a well timed torrential downpour we watched comfortably from the second floor covered balcony that probably prevented any one else coming to the bar.  We ended up closing the place down as the titular Steve politely asked us to leave.  Not as old as we thought!

We walked through a night market that was shutting down for the night and otherwise the place was very empty and quiet.  We found another inebriated couple who happened to stay at the same place and caught one of our few cabs we have used in Asia.  The next day we had an expected late start but went to the tailor to get the adjustments on the suits.  The fits were perfect the quality good to our untrained eyes.  This led to some more shirt orders and many happy exchanges between us and the employees.  We had to ship the suits and some of the purchases, including gifts, we have accumulated back to the States.  We went to the hotel because they had claimed that the people from the post office would come to the hotel and would do everything for us: boxing, packing, wrapping and delivery.  We were a little suspicious of this given our reference of the U.S. postal service, our natural traveller’s paranoia and the presence of many scams in Vietnam.  But darn it if they didn’t come and do exactly that with all evidence of legitimacy and efficiency.  They packed our things far better than we would ever had and there was no service charge.  As we learned later this is done because the official post office has to compete with the other third party outfits.  Fascinating. 

With our things being shipped, we had a quiet night and packed up ourselves for our travels to the beach town of Nha Trang in Southern Vietnam.  We had arranged a sleeper bus…

Cat Ba, Dog Ahhh!

Cat Ba Island, Ha Long Bay, Vietnam  August 4th - 7th

The ocean was calling us, so like hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of other tourists we headed to the wonders of Ha Long Bay, an area delineated a World Heritage site due to its unique beauty of karst (seems to be a theme) jutting up out of deep blue water. After much investigation and discussion we decided to opt out of the typical overnight stay on an “authentic” junk boat and instead did a do-it-yourself package. We headed over to the bus station and secured a bus-boat-bus combo with the help of a handwritten note from our hostel rep. By 7:40am we were off heading first to Haiphong, a droll sea port town and then on to a ferry that would take us to the Southern end of Cat Ba Island, only then to be loaded up on another bus to head to the main drag of Cat Ba on the entire other side of the island.

Waiting for the bus, we met our third set of Americans who happened to be from….you guessed it, Atlanta, Georgia. To make this world even smaller, two of the three were affiliated with Emory and were training to be nurse practitioners. The trip went really smoothly, with us pretty much mindlessly following the crowd from one vehicle to another with random stopping points here and there. About mid-day we arrived at Cat Ba town proper and dropped our stuff at Slo Pony, an adventure tour company we knew we would be using later on while we looked around for a place to stay.

I had some how managed to talk Pearce into not pre-booking, the first time on our trip so far, thinking that a resort town would not be difficult to find a place. I was oh so wrong. Apparently, Cat Ba turns into a raging resort town on the weekends in the summer, when all the Vietnamese come to party like its 1999, which made it especially challenging to find a place. We hiked over to Cat Co 2, a beach that reportedly had picturesque bungalows along the water. Turns out they jack up the costs to $20 for no air con, no internet, no security…no thank you. After hiking the 20 minutes back to the main drag, Pearce re-gathered his strength while I hiked up and down the main strip to try to find a room in one of the ubiquitous hotels facing the ocean. After six tries, I tagged out to Pearce who ended up scoring a 3rd floor balcony room facing the ocean on his first try. Only problem was it was only for two of the three nights. We decided we would figure it out later.

After grabbing some orange soda, Pringles, and an ice cream (siesta apparently is not only limited to Spain) we headed back to Cat Co 2 to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. We were joined en masse by what it seemed to be the entire Vietnamese tourist population on the island. Luckily, most of them stayed at Cat Co 1, which seemed to be more a Vietnamese version of Daytona Spring break environment, sans the “Girls Gone Wild”. That is unless you count fully clad women laying in the surf getting their pictures taken in various Glamour Shot poses. Our beach seemed to be reserved for the more laid back Vietnamese, including families looking for shells, groups of friends splashing in the water, and the handful of other Western tourists. Pearce and I decided to get in the water and were disappointed to see trash strewn all across the beach and floating in the water. Apparently disposing of rubbish where you like is not a Chinese-specific phenomena. That evening we headed back to Slo Pony to arrange our tour for the next day. There we met some other adventure bound Western tourists, two of which were Englishmen.  We would run into them repeatedly throughout our stay.  Dave, one of the Brits, was an adventure consultant who leads an unique and enviable life traveling the globe taking rich people on climbing and other sorts of wild expeditions. While sharing some Tiger beer with our new friends/”chaps”, we decided to try the kayak-climbing excursion which would take out us to Han Long Bay, more specifically Lan Ha Bay which was much less visited by swells of tourist boats.

The next morning hopped on a minibus with about 12 other people and headed to the dock. The people in the group were doing some combo of kayaking, climbing or beaching it on one of the deserted islets out in the bay. It was a gorgeous ride on smooth water passing amongst the green karst peaks. On the journey we passed fisherman, a few tourist boats, and whole villages of people who spent their lives out on the water. It was funny to pass a dog or two on those collection of boats and think they probably had never stepped foot on real land. On the ride out there we made friends with Katelyn and Gordon, two lovely Canadians from Vancouver who were traveling through a lot of the same places that we were headed and gave us lots of good tips. (Pearce’s suits and shirts are brilliant Gordon!!) They also have a very amazing tale of how they “met”.  Katelyn and Gordon’s mothers were in the same prenatal classes together and became friends, even joking about how their children (not yet born) should date.  Very long story made short, they are a couple that met before birth!

After picking up the kayaks from one floating village, we headed off to a remote section of the bay where the climbers would break off and the kayakers were free to explore for the rest of the morning, with the only caution that there were a lot of jellyfish in the water if we were to swim. Pearce and I struck off towards a distant beach that looked promising, but gave it up half way when we realized it seemed to be on a more heavily trafficked channel. We headed back towards the boat and twisted our way through the mountains that were all around us discovering little alcoves and other hidden beaches. We even found one section of mountain that made an arch that we could cut through. After getting a sufficient work out, we headed back at the boat to do some swimming. The water was just like a warm bath. Katelyn and Gordon (and the rest of the gang) came in soon after us and joined us in the water for a swim before we ate a delicious lunch. 

At the half way point, we headed to the rock wall via this cute little boat that looks like it is made of a giant tortoise shell flipped upside down. It is in fact a large woven basket, made in the traditional way and got us to our destination successfully. And what a destination.  Our climb site was a small beach between to faces of a karst peak island.  Although during the climb our eyes and attention were trained on the limestone holds, the view from the top yielded beautiful vistas of the bay.  This was going to be and was a spectacular way to be introduced to climbing.  The climbers, an assortment of skilled and unskilled (us) were quickly suited up and walked through the basics of climbing. Our getups consisted of shoes, harness and helmet and key phrases include slack (you need rope to be loosened), take (you need it to be tightened) and rock (if you dislodged something heading to your bela-er). The staff set up a series of climbs that ranged in difficulty and believe it or not, Pearce was the first volunteer to step up. He did an excellent job and worked his way all the way to the top where you hit the pins to signify that you completed the circuit.

My first one, a step up in difficult from P’s, did not go as successfully. I made it with 2 feet of the top of a very long climb but got stuck in a rock chute that had no where for me to grip.  Having never climbed before I didn’t know all the creative ways to get up a wall. Watching other people, I now know I should have used my back to press up against the back side of the chute and shimmied up. Still, I was proud of what I accomplished and was much more successful on the rest of my climbs. It was really fun to do something different and challenging, but I have a feeling we are going to be spoiled now as the setting was breathtaking (above and beyond the heights). I believe we both have been bitten by the bug though and are hoping to climb in other parts of Asia as well.  After the two of us successfully climbed the rock several times without injury we made our way across the shore back to the boat.  It was only then after the climbing that Pearce slipped and fell, slicing his hand on a sharp boulder.  Although the cut was small it bled like crazy and for a moment we thought it was much worse.

A video of Pearce climbing the karst peak on Moody Beach.

On return to Slo Pony, we set up a trek through the National park/jungle on Cat Ba for the next morning with Katelyn and Gordon and actually secured a room for our last night on the island. Well kind of. We met a random Scotsman who had a double/single bed he was willing to share. We only had to meet him at 6pm the next day after his climbing tour. Still, it felt nice to have that all sorted out, especially because it felt like I was coming down with a cold. That evening we met up with our new friends Katelyn and Gordon again.  We bonded over dinner and drinks and whiled the night away talking about national politics, travel, religion, love, life and everything in between. Good times.

The next morning my throat had moved from bad to worse, but I didn’t want to miss the hike so we headed to Slo Pony where our bus was going to meet us. It didn’t. Apparently, “Slo” had forgotten to arrange our tour for us and so scrambled to get us a ride. He quickly procured four scooter drivers for which we would ride on the back.  This was a nightmare scenario for both Pearce and Katelyn, made worse because it had just started to drizzle. I think the only reason I got Pearce on the scooter is that it all happened so quickly he didn’t have time to say, “hell no”. I (and I think Gordon) had a wonderful drive out to the middle of the island and actually enjoyed the warm rain hitting my face as the scenes of the countryside passed by. Katelyn and Pearce were happy to have made it in one piece.  Well Pearce did have a slight mishap with the driver’s helmet flying off and hitting him in the face. Whoops.

We waited for a bit and eventually our “guide” who spoke three words of English (slow, low, cow) led us out on our adventure. His name was “Dat” and Pearce could not refrain from making “Who Dat?” jokes a few times.  In the end I am not sure if Pearce enjoyed our scooter tour or our hike better. I would call it more of a barely recognizable trail in the middle of the jungle where you had to scramble over razor-sharp rocks and under enormous spider webs (and spiders) which both Pearce and Gordon are afraid of. We did this for three hours. It was hot, it was sticky, and each of us fell at least once. On the other hand we did get to see two random, bright red crabs, some stick bugs, a leaf bug, a blue cricket and we heard one monkey off in the distance. Our effort was also rewarded with a nice view at the top of the mountain where we balanced on an outcropping of spiky limestone rocks.

Watch our sweaty and triumphant glory at the top of Cat Ba Natl Park. Also witness Pearce calling Katelyn, Stephanie from Montreal (they’re from Vancouver)

After surviving our own episode of Lost, we headed back to Cat Ba Town and rewarded ourselves with an incredible meal at the Green Mango. Shortly there after we had to say goodbye to our friends.  In our travels we have met many people that we like or simply find fascinating (see Australian guy in Yangshuo post), but we think Katelyn and Gordon are people we would most naturally be friends with. Hopefully we will stay in touch, which may depend on how much offense they took to Pearce’s calling Katelyn, Stephanie for the whole first day. She was so sweet she did not correct him until I called him out the next day. (See you in Argentina, you crazy Canadians)  After our farewells, I was in desperate need of a place to rest. Since we were still without a room until 6pm we headed back to Cat Co 2 where we let the sounds of partying Vietnamese carry us off to sleep. After waking we headed back to the strip to meet up with the Scottish dude which I greatly looked forward to as my sore throat had escalated to a fever. We followed him up to his place to only find out that he didn’t actually have the room. You see in Cat Ba, first come first serve doesn’t necessarily hold any weight. So there we were, without a hotel room and it was already dark. After some negotiations with the hotel staff, the Scottsman followed a staff person in hopes of securing something else. He came back about 15 minutes later and said that he had found adequate accommodations for both of us albeit no longer together and not in an actual hotel. Duh-duh-dah.

At that point we didn’t care. As we walked toward a restaurant, he warned us that they were doing “something unsavory” with a dog.  Walking through the seating the area, kitchen and backroom of the restaurant, we found ourselves in the back alley behind the restaurant staring at a bunch of people who were surrounding a dog. This dog happened to be dead, was lying on its back with his tongue hanging out. It appeared a family of sorts were roasting its hair off with a blow torch in the middle of the street. Apparently you only need to go one street over to escape tourist Vietnam.  This was a very surreal scene to behold after a grueling day and we were both near delirium.  Needless to say, Pearce and I hurried past as quickly as possible, followed the person up some super sketchy stairs and down a dark hallway and finally entered our room. It was perfect. Clean – check; air con – check; and comfy bed – check. I was so happy I slept until 12:00pm the next day which meant we only had a few more hours before catching a ferry to Haiphong where we were going to catch a plane to Denang/Hoi An.

End-o-China, now In-do-china

August 2nd - 4th

Enter Vietnam.

We were both excited about Vietnam from the outset.  It was a mixture of the exotic and unique nature of the country and it was the one country we have both never been to.  In Allyson’s previous travel in Asia she had seen China, Mongolia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.  So barring a spontaneous excursion Vietnam would be the one mutually undiscovered country.  This is not to say we haven’t seen different parts of the same countries.  But Vietnam would be new and unexplored for both of us and that was intriguing in itself.

The travels into Vietnam from China does bear mentioning, before I dive into Indochina proper.  We had the intention of entering Vietnam overland border and go directly to a place in the Northern highlands called Sapa.  Sapa is known for its natural beauty and the presence of the minority hill tribes people and is highly travelled and recommended by backpackers.  Briefly, there was a very subtle but crucial error in the names of border towns on both sides (Nanning/Kunming and Hekkou/Haiko) on the internet and in our minds.  Both sounding very identical to our American ears would have brought us unintentionally to an island off the coast of Southern China instead of Vietnam.  That would have been a confusing train ride.  This added to a questionable train route between the aforementioned towns resulted in us going directly to Hanoi and skipping Sapa.  We shrugged this off as much of natural beauty was described as similar to what we saw in Southern China.

The border crossing was interesting as we passed innumerable check points each time thinking I was done I would have to bring out my passport again.  We had arrived to the China side via a four-hour bus ride that was actually quite comfortable after an literally unremarkable stay in Nanning (hence no remarks here).  It was not very crowded, but as you might imagine was very official.  We had to disembark the Chinese bus and make our way onto a Vietnamese bus, but between that was the many baggage and person checks.  Allyson had a run-in with a small stowaway in the form of a cockroach on her back.  Don’t worry Allyson thwarted its attempts to escape into Vietnam.

We arrived into Hanoi in the afternoon after the second four-hour leg of the bus trip and checked into our hotel called Little Hanoi.  We set down our bags and began a brief tour of the Old Quarter.  Our first impression of Hanoi was the craziness of the place, of which we had been warned.  Luckily for us, it was a chaos we came to really like and enjoy. The streets are packed with moto-bikes or scooters, bicycles, pedestrians and cars.  Everyone uses the horn here frequently and at first it was concerning because in the States we use it to warn of danger or express our road emotions, but here it is simply to state, “Hey I’m here.”  It is a indoctrinated vehicle culture in which one is only responsible for avoiding what is directly in front of them.  This leads to a constant organic almost writhing movement and honking objects throughout the roadways.  If a pedestrian (such as ourselves) were to wait until a road cleared to cross, you would not see much of Hanoi on foot.  One has to take a leap of faith and I was reminded of the climatic scene of Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and Last Crusade when he takes a similar leap from the Lion’s Head to “prove his worth” and reach the Holy Grail.  We found it was most successful if we didn’t even look, but walked directly out into traffic without a look either way. By some miracle the cars, trucks and scooters all worked their way around us. 

We “leaped” our way over to the center of the Old Quarter and intended on trying to catch the famed Water Puppet show.  At the ticket office we realized they have shows running almost every hour and caught the last one available that day, which happened to be starting right then.  I am not sure what I was expecting, but the show was brief, clocking in just under an hour.  It was a fairly touristy affair, but there we some moments that were hard to explain how it was accomplished. We were happy that we were able to walk right in and did waste any time trying to get in.

After the end of the show we wandered around the Old Quarter area to find what is known as “Bia Hoi Junction".  Bia Hoi is Vietnamese for draft beer and this particular corner was known for the phenomenon of small joints in Hanoi and abroad in Vietnam serving local draft beer.  Given my <ahem> enthusiasm for beer this was a must see and what better way of washing down a performance of high art than a cold brew.  In my dreams this junction was the Willa Wonka factory of Asian beer with several microbreweries and large frosty cold glasses of sweet amber goodness. 

Turns out the junction was a street corner identical to any other in Hanoi save for the mass of people sitting on tiny plastic chairs in large fractured groups and spilling into the intersection.  The beer was served in half-pint plastic glasses of “don’t think about it” cleanliness and served warm (beer hate crime).  So we found ourselves drinking some beer at squat-like levels next to the din of traffic and vehicles only feet away, but this ended up being a very nice experience despite the above beercasm (beer sarcasm).  We chatted it up with a nice Irish fellow who let his wife go to the puppet show alone, shame shame.  And I ordered bottles from there which were cold and did not require glasses.

After one or two too many bia hoi’s, we wandered back towards our hotel and to a authentic Vietnam food joint recommended by our concierge for its Pho.  Pho is one of the most recognizably Vietnamese foods and is traditionally a noodle and soup dish with spices and various meats and sprout greens.  Allyson had the traditional dish and I opted for a dish I cannot remember (darn you bia hoi) but it was basically the dry version of Pho without the soup.  We both loved it.  It was a inconspicuous place among many near identical ones.  It was an undecorated halogen lamp lighted place packed with Vietnamese eating at improvised tables and chairs interrupting the sidewalk. What was best is that the local “taught” us the proper way to eat things, adding the lime, fresh herbs and hot sauce as we went. As a side, this actually happens at most eateries where locals outweigh the tourists. It seems they want us to have the jinkin experience. You should know that word if you have been reading these blogs. Ha!

I describe this place because I had an odyssey there that helps one visualize some of the more alien parts of Vietnam and Asia.  With the bia hoi in the system, nature was calling more persistently than the usual urge to wait for a more strategic relief spot.  So I stumbled into the back inquiring for the facilities with my normal mixture of one-word English and unfortunate pantomime.  They answered by pointing to the back.  I went past the cramped and hot kitchen and continued further into a dark crawl space behind a set of stairs into yet a more narrow and darker space.  I passed a dog (alive and well…ish) and had to carefully maneuver inches past several large pots on the ground that were actively being heated and boiling under open flame.  Even further back I was met with a brick wall with a small urinal set in the wall and an adjacent squatter (a hole in the ground).  There were no doors or other concealment from the passage way behind, save for the obstacles.  While enjoying the relief, I noticed it was brighter and cooler in this small space and I looked up to discover…the night sky.  Somehow this area led directly to a roofless alley.  I promised myself in that “bia hoi” haze, I would write about this because I forgot to bring the camera to the bathroom (not a habit really).

The next day we had a planned self walking tour of the Old Quarter and some other sites.  We started early with a Ngoc Son Temple in the middle of Hoan Kien lake.  It was a quiet and serene oasis amidst the buzz of Hanoi.  We made our way in a zig-zag pattern among the streets.  Most of them are named Hang something and the latter historically referred to the common item sold on that road.  Now there are still some preserved craft-themed roads, including a metal works and silk area, but most are combinations of tourist junk.  Imagine a renaming: Hang Crap.  The streets themselves are very pretty with some interesting green space and much preserved French colonial architecture.  We wrapped up the morning tour of the Old Quarter with St. Joseph’s Cathedral.

We then went to the Temple of Literature, an ancient Pre- and Confucian school that now is open to tourists with its pretty courtyards and gardens.  We then went to the disappointingly small One-Pillar Pagoda, but this led us inadvertently to the changing of the guard for the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum.  We then ate at nearby restaurant called Koto, featured in our guide, that doubles as a training center for disadvantaged youth.  The meal was delicious and self-righteous.  Bonus.

That evening, after a rest from the heat, we went to Spanish restaurant called La Salsa that we had spied earlier.  We ate on the upper terrace and had several tapas and enjoyed some nice imported red wine.  It was a nice capper on Hanoi.  We had heard bad things about the city from others which left us with little expectation.  What we found was a city that has all the trappings that might make a non-city person cringe: traffic, noise, hustle and some bustle, but it was also a city with a very specific identity and flavor.  Everyone has opinions and moods that affect their impression, so for us maybe it was the right time, the right place and the right mood. We loved it.