HALONG BAY!

After a brutally boring and uncomfortable 18-hour bus journey, we arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam. We had about 12 days in the North, and we still had to figure out where we wanted to go first, and for how long. We shuffled our way over to a guesthouse and looked up some weather reports for the Northwest of Vietnam, as well as for the eastern coast - the two big sights we’d wanted to see in the North. We ate a complimentary breakfast at a hotel that we weren’t staying at, and decided that it made sense to stay for the night and take a trip to Halong Bay the following day.

We booked a trip to go see Halong Bay, which is about 4 hours east of Hanoi by bus. They send groups on 3-day excursions out into the bay on big wooden boats called junks. You get to sleep one night on the boat, followed by a night sleeping in lean-to’s on their private island. After lots of deliberation, we decided to book the trip with one of the party companies called Hanoi Backpackers. It has a bit of a reputation for being a booze cruise filled with lame drunken idiots, but we got lots of recommendations from friends, and even more on the internet, so we crossed our fingers and booked it.

We arrived by bus in the afternoon, and got shuttled out to the mothership The Jolly Roger by about 1. On the bus we ran into a couple of Scottish hipsters that we had met in Southern Vietnam, and they had amassed a crew of about 8 other British hipsters from their travels - 4 of the 5 guys had these weird crew cut haircuts where they buzzed the sides and back and left a long floppy grungy mess on top… and they kept talking about their fringes. It seemed like a funny crew and we realized when we got onto the

top deck of the boat that we were going to have a blast either way.

The Jolly Roger was a big wooden ship with 3 levels. Private cabins with marble bathrooms on the first floor (nicer than most of the guesthouses we’d stayed in), a full restaurant and bar on the second floor, and the top floor had a massive deck the size of a tennis court, with reclining beach chairs, big speakers and red and yellow Vietnamese flags flying high. The big boat slowly lumbered out of the harbor, and after about 15 minutes we were in the heart of Halong Bay.

Halong Bay is one of the most unique places I’d ever seen. It is a seemingly endless emerald green bay, where giant towers of light grey limestone jut straight out of the water. There are over 1000 of these giant cliffs- called carsts. Some have the diameter of a city block, while others are skinny slivers of cliff not more than 60 feet across. The further we went into the bay, the more congested the water became with these huge cliffs. As The Jolly Roger weaved in and out of the towering carsts it felt similar to sightseeing from the top of a double-decker bus in New York City while staring up at skyscrapers.

The giant rock formations shot straight up out of the water to a height of about 1000 feet. Jagged grey rock formed the body of the cliffs from bottom to top and each cliff had a full head of hearty green vegetation at the top.  Birds with 5-foot wingspans circled overhead or stared at us from nests perched high in the sky. There was nothing uniform about the carsts, but they all shared one distinct feature. Countless tides had eaten away the limestone at the base of every carst, forming a deep, dark relief in the base of each cliff. At low tide a black band of shadow wrapped around the base of each cliff and it almost looked like the cliffs were hovering above the water.

The boat had a good group of people on it, so we sat out admiring the scenery, playing cards and having a few beers. The boat took us deep into the bay, and after about two hours we anchored in a little harbor and everyone started jumping off the top deck of the boat into the water. We spent the afternoon swimming and exploring some local caves, before heading back for a giant dinner and a long night of partying.

The next morning they woke us up at 7AM so that we could switch to smaller ferry boat that would take us to the private island. Half of the people on the trip took a ferry home having paid for only a one-night trip and so we thinned the group out and headed to the island. The ferry took us deeper into the maze of carsts and by about 9AM we had arrived on the beach of Castaway Island – such a corny name. The beach was about 100 meters long, with two massive cliffs acting as book-ends. There were a few communal, lean-to bungalows at the edge of the beach, equipped with mats and bug nets, and a large floating dock out deep in the water. There were also a few beaten down, old fiberglass kayaks strewn along the beach. This was one of the few sandy stretches that we’d seen in the entire bay, and it felt great to be able to get out of the boat and explore the bay on our own a bit. 

Meliss and I spent the morning swimming around in the bay, before hopping into a kayak and checking out some of the narrow stretches where The Jolly Roger was unable to fit. We paddled into little lagoons and were able to get an up close look at the floating fishing villages scattered throughout the bay.

We paddled through these little floating towns, which were 3-4 hours away from any inhabitable dry land. Families built small, shed-sized shacks on 10x10 foot floating docks out in the water. Most of the shacks had an adjoining grid of bamboo rods and nets that Vietnamese fishermen would scamper across to check on their catch. Most of the shacks had an overly energetic dog meant to scare birds away from the nets.  It was the most bizarre place to live that I had ever seen, but the people seemed as comfortable as anyone on dry land. Little floating villages would have about 10 separate floating houses, and people would hop into their little boats and head to their neighbors dock for a cigarette or for lunch. Everyone seemed pretty friendly as we kayaked through and took some pictures, and we had a great time trying to find our way back to our beach.

Back on the island they were fixing up the speed boat for an afternoon of tubing, and a few rock climbing guides had just been taxi’ed to our island to set up ropes and help people climb up the sides of the cliffs. We spent a little bit extra for this 3-day tour because none of the other companies have activities like these. We had a blast tubing and climbing the cliffs for the afternoon. Meliss and I did as much as we could, and we were happy not to be too hungover from the night before, lots of people just slept the day off on the beach. Eventually the sun started to go down and it was time for another big dinner.

The tour guide - a 22 year old girl named Bianca, who looked 40 after a few too many  months of drinking and partying – tried to force another night of drinking games, body paint, and shenanigans, but most people opted to chill out by the beach and relax after such a full day. Sleeping in the open front lean-to’s was great, and Meliss and I woke up early the next morning to take the kayak out for sunrise while everyone was sleeping. We got to see the fishermen adjusting their nets before setting out for the day, while watching the sun creep up between the cliffs.  We went for another swim and then had to pack our bags and head home.  It was an action packed couple of days, and the weather was perfect for us the entire time. We hopped back onto the bus to head back to Hanoi just as the rain clouds came out and opened up on the bay. 

Hoi An, Vietnam

After a couple of days soaking up the sun, and stuffing ourselves with seafood, we decided to continue heading north in Vietnam, and moved onto Hoi An. Hoi An is an amazing little town in the middle of Vietnam with lots of the old world Asian charm that we’d seen in movies but not yet in person. Hoi An has been a commercial center for over 1000 years, acting as a satellite trading post for the Japanese and Chinese businessmen, with its allegiance shifting back and forth between those two empires until the French and then the Vietnamese finally claimed it for themselves.  Each group left a distinct mark on the place; the Japanese built a few small covered bridges over the canals, while the Chinese built ornate town halls for their businessmen working in Vietnam… and the French left a great legacy of bread and pastries. The big mix made it a great place to spend a few days.

The historic town center has been preserved so that shops and restaurants appear much as they would a few hundred years ago. No cars or motorbikes are allowed in the city center, so locals meander through the streets in their sun hats making it feel like a bustling Asian village straight out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (except for the sweaty white tourist groups with fancy cameras and matching “Good Morning Vietnam!” t-shirts). Other than that, the whole ancient Asian village thing is all there.

The streets are filled with long rows of 1-2 story pale yellow houses, where walls are draped in big tangles of vines or damp green patches where the moss has eaten away at the paint and plaster. These building are nearly 200 years old and the well worn floorboards in every shop have almost as much character as the walls outside. Narrow cobblestone alleys split the rows of shops and houses up, where locals awkwardly bump shoulders as they try to pass one another on 60-year-old bicycles loaded with all sorts of goods. All of the streets seem to empty out down by the riverside, where fishermen taxi in, drop off their wives with baskets full of live fish to sell in the market, and then push back off and make space for the fishermen behind waiting to do the same.

Eighty percent of the shops in town sell tailor made clothes. Hoi An is the tailor-made capitol of the world, and has been exporting silk and fabric for hundreds of years.  Meliss and I would find a quiet corner stall to sit, and eat a big spicy bowl of Pho, and more often than not, there would be with a big tuxedo’ed mannequin and his wedding-dressed mannequin wife looming over us from the shop next store. The town lives and breathes by the sewing tables and tailor shops, and store after store had huge rolls of fabric piled to the ceiling with all sorts of suits, shorts, jackets, dresses, and backpacks dangling from the rafters on display.

Since Meliss and I are coming home completely broke and completely jobless, we decided it made sense to get ourselves some work clothes tailored. I’m sure my brand new three-piece suit will come in real handy when I’m painting rooms in my parents’ house. We got a little carried away and told ourselves that the only way to really impress in some interviews would be to get some fancy new threads, and this is the cheapest place in the world to buy them.

We found a great shop where little Vietnamese women zoomed back and forth across the shop with measuring tapes, clothespins, scissors, fabric and clipboards and we decided to dive in. They swarmed around us with clipboards while babbling about liners, fabrics, buttons, tapering, pleats, and pockets. They also made sure to constantly compliment us on how handsome and beautiful we were (which lost some of its appeal when we heard the same compliments being thrown at the fat, sweaty Aussie guy in the dressing room next door).

We didn’t really know what hit us. The whole experience felt really strange. We walked in as scrubby backpackers, (who’d chosen clothes that morning by picking the least damp or smelly ones) and walked out as scrubby backpackers in suits. 

The girls who work in the shop did a few fittings, which reeeeaaaally stressed Melissa out. Luckily for me, my clothes fit pretty well after the first sizing, and all of the overused compliments in broken English from the shop girls made me happy enough to not change too much: “oooooh meee-ster, you be-yoo-tee-fur man”. Meliss on the other hand had to go in 3 separate times. It got easier when we found a couple rickety old bikes to rent, which made getting around the small town a breeze. First her clothes were too loose, and then they were too tight, and then they were loose in some spots, and too tight in others. The girls buzzed around her with clothes-pins and chalk mindlessly muttering in Vietnamese, while pulling and poking spots on Melissa. She spun around and around trying to see where the next clothespin was going to go.  She got more frazzled and annoyed after each fitting, and I was able to sit by in my new suit and laugh it up with my personal tailor, Phuong. Finally, after a last minute call to the tailor, everything seemed to fit, and sit just right.

In the end I bought:

2 pairs of slacks

3 dress shirts

1 three-piece suit

1 winter coat

1 pair of tailor made suede shoes

For a grand total of just over 300 bucks! (now I just need to find a job…to have a reason to wear them and to have a way to pay for them)

Meliss bought:

2 pairs of pants

1 blazer

2 dress shirts

1 dress

1 skirt

1 winter peacoat

All of the fittings gave us something to do during the days, but the city took on an even more interesting and eerie feel at night. The hustle and bustle died out as the sun went down, and bright red and orange silk lanterns lit up the streets. You could sit out on the street and have a home brewed draft beer for about 10 cents, while watching people float paper lanterns down the river. The street food was delicious and amazingly cheap, once you squatted down low enough to eat it at the one-foot high tables.  We had a great time soaking up Hoi An. At first glance it was a sleepy little town by the river, but we soon came to realize that it hummed steadily like a sewing machine, and that there was a lot of life packed into those 200 year old shops with the crumbling walls. The town was a whirlwind experience, but there was a constant relaxed energy of the place - which has probably been similar for the past 1000 years - that kept us going. We stuffed our backpacks full of the new clothes (shipping was too expensive and too slow) and boarded a night bus for Hanoi, Vietnam. The last leg of the Vietnam journey!

Mui Ne & Nha Trang: Beaches of Southern Vietnam

After blitzing the sights and sounds of Saigon, we headed north to the beach towns of Mui Ne and Nha Trang for a few days. We took a 4 hour day bus from Saigon to the beach town of Mui Ne. We expected a lively and picturesque drive through farms and villages, like the ones we'd become accustomed to in Cambodia, but we were sadly mistaken. All of the small towns north of Saigon seemed to be invested in some sort of heavy industry, which was then funnelled back to the ports in Saigon via large cargo containers. It was a wasteland of massive cement, logging, and industrial machinery factories, and the mopeds and water buffalo we'd hoped to see were replaced with 18 wheelers hauling two containers each.

We arrived in Mui Ne late, and found a little bungalow near the beach. We met some other travellers and found a cheap dinner by the beach, before crashing for the night. The town threw us off at first since all of the restaurant and tourist advertisements are written in Vietnames and then in Russian. You would even hear the Vietnames waitstaff greeting people in Russian instead of English, while a Russian techno song would blare over the speakers in the bar next door. I've been travelling for almost 3 months now and have met ZERO Russians, but here in Mui Ne they came in droves of matching Adidas and Puma track suits, which must have come with speedos included.  We never really figured out the story with this, but it added a great quirkiness to the whole place.

We woke up and rushed to the beach. In true budget backpacker fashion, we stealthily snuck up to one of the posh beachside resorts (that we could never afford), and stole the cushions from their beach furniture to set up our own spot by the water. The beach was beautiful, and we swam for most of the morning, before going to rent a motorbike to explore some of the areas around the town.  There were some amazing things to see and it felt great to be back on a motorbike riding down the coast.

First we went to a place called the Fairy Stream, which is a tributary that runs about 3 kilometers from the beach back into the mainland. It has towering red and white sand dunes to the left and lush green jungle to the right. and you can walk down the middle of the stream ankle deep in water until you come to a waterfall at the end.









 

             






We hung out there for a while before hopping back on the bike and going to a little fishing village a few kilometers away. The village was incredible. In the harbour, hundreds of ancient looking fishing boats were moored in place and leathery Vietnamese men sat in their boats behind tarps and picked at their nets while chain smoking cheap cigarettes. The fisherman here also use these weird little half sphere vessels that look exactly like bowls. They weave big bowls out of bamboo leaves and then cover the bottoms with tar. They look absolutely useless, but the bottoms of the boats are always full of fish. The fishermen tie them to eachother, and they bob around in the harbour with oars hanging out like a sink full of dirty bowls after breakfast.

We had a great time walking around and snapping a few pictures before heading back out to the famous Mui Ne  red sand dunes. On the way we got a bit lost and stumbled upon a rocky beach with no tourists in sight. The winds whipped a lone kite-surfer back and forth across the water at ridiculously high speeds, and a gang of local kids hung out watching him. They pointed us in the right direction and sent us along with some tuber that looked like a radish but tasted like a fresh crisp apple.























Eventually we came to the sand dunes right as the sun was beginning to set. Vans full of older Russian tourists with the same sunset plan, pulled up and offloaded as well. The dunes were really cool, and were the closest thing to a desert that I'd ever seen. We hung out for a little while, Meliss promptly got sand blown into her eyes, and had a harder time enjoying the views, but we roamed around until the sun went down and the sand became cold.

We had a great ride back through the towns and went back and had a shower before heading out for a seaside seafood BBQ that we stumbled upon during the day. This ramshackle operation served us some of the best seafood we'd ever seen. They had bathtub sized tanks and buckets set up along the sidewalk full with at least 20 different species of sea life. Little sharks, soccer ball sized conk shells, 5 types of clams, 3 types of mussels, frogs, moray eels, crabs, lobsters, sea urchins, and at least 8 types of fish. All of the critters were still alive, and we were given a basket and told to fill it with anything we wanted, and then it would be barbequed for us on the spot. PETA would have thrown red paint all over us if they had seen us, but it was also one of the best meals of the trip. We had a feast of crab, scallops, and giant tiger prawns while sitting with our feet in the sand. It was a great way to end a great day.






















The next morning, we had a few hours left with the motorbike, so we packed up our bags and took a long drive out to another set of sand dunes. The drive was great, although we couldnt spend much time at the dunes because we had to catch an afternoon bus up the coast to a place called Nha Trang.  After a full morning of exploring the coast on motorbike we caught our bus and moved on. This second leg of the bus journey was much more scenic and we got in just after sunset and found a cheap room for the night. We went out for dinner the first night, and due to a minor mixup the restaurant gave us a bunch of free mojitos, and we decided to go out for the night. We met a group of Scottish travellers at a bar and had a rowdy late night roaming around the city.

That was followed by a lazy day, with a little bit of city exploring, followed by a much more entertaining day where we booked a boat tour around the islands in the area. We had heard that these were booze cruises, and we were kinda dreading being stuck on a little boat with drunk Aussie bros (there were plenty in Nha Trang). The full day tour cost 6 bucks and included snorkelling, a huge lunch, a visit to a floating village, as well as an afternoon on an islad beach, so we decided to give it a shot. To our surprise the boat was not full of bros, but instead had row upon row of older Chinese businessmen who just wanted to sing karaoke. This turned out to be the best part of the trip and they partied in their own way the entire time. Smoking cigarettes and stripping down to their underwear to jump in the water.  After lunch, the "captain" folded down the seats and made a dance floor in the middle of the little boat so that he and the rest of his crew could put on a little performance. They pulled a drumset made of old gas cans, and water jugs off the top of the boat and, wrangled a rusty old 3 string guitar out from the wheelhouse. Then the captain pulled out a microphone and they started singing Vietnamese show tunes. He easily convinced the Chinese guys to sing some of their favorites, and then talked me into singing Yellow Submarine with him (we didnt get past the chorus). The vid would take another 40 minutes to upload if i straightened it out, so here's the sideways version):

We had an awesome lunch and did some really cool snorkelling off of one of the islands.  We jumped off the boat and swam around all afternoon. It was a hilarious way to spend a day and it cost us nothing. The next day we had booked the night train to Hoi An, so we had to check out of our hostel early in the morning. We left our bags at the hostel, grabbed our books and spent the entire day on the beach. They have thatched cocunut leaf bungaloes 20 feet from the water with big cabana chairs, so we rented one for the full day for 2 bucks. We slept, read, and swam for a full 10 hours and then lugged our bags to the bus station for a real bumpy overnight bus to the 1000 year old trading port of Hoi An.

The beaches of Southern Vietnam gave us a reeeeeeally good beach fix, before continuing the the adventure into the north of Vietnam.

On to Vietnam!!

After an amazing few days in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, it really felt like our travel luck was turning around. We spent a while in Phnom Penh planning out the rest of the trip, we figured out the timing of Vietnam and the Thai islands, and scheduled when we would be heading home to our respective North American cities. It was a bit of a shocker to actually buy the flights, but once we booked, we were able to get really excited for the things we had coming up. We planned it all out so that we would be able to take our time and really enjoy the last 6 weeks of our amazing trip.

So we hopped on a bus in Phnom Penh straight for what is officially known as Ho Chi Minh City on paper, but what everyone in the country still refers to as Saigon. We arrived in Saigon in the afternoon on October 20th. We had just over three weeks to make our way to Hanoi, which is about 1800km away. There were so many places we wanted to stop and visit along the way, so we decided to whirlwind through our stay in Saigon. We had spent a lot of time in cities, and we didn't want to have to pass up on any time in the country or the beach.

Saigon was an amazing city. First thing you notice when you arrive are the 5 million motorbikes on the streets. I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but I'm not kidding, there are 5 million motorbikes for the 10 million people in Saigon. It makes for verrrrry hectic traffic, and hellish traffic crossing. There seems to be absolutely no traffic rules, with everybody going in every direction (you can count at least 5 directions in the picture on the right), whenever they want. The picture also shows the giant knot of wires that hovers above you everywhere you go in the city. The best advice for crossing the streets is to not hesitate, walk at a slow and even pace, and the motorists will swerve around you. Its definitely not for the faint of heart, but you have to stay smart, cause one wrong step and you're toast!

We dropped our stuff off at our hostel, and headed out to see what Saigon had to offer. First stop was the Saigon Market. Much like every other market we've been to over the past two months, it was busy, dirty, smelly and chaotic. It took us about 10 minutes to realize that the novelty of the stinky chaotic mess had worn off, so we headed back outside to keep walking around. We stepped outside and were immediately confronted with a billion cyclo drivers offering us an hour long tour around the city. One guy explained that we'd be able to see some cool stuff, and it would only cost us a dollar each! So we each hopped into a carriage and off we went. My cyclo driver was awesome, his English was really good, and he'd been doing the job for over 30 years, since the end of the war. He liked to explain the history of things, and Kev and I found it a really nice relaxing way to see the sights. Aside from the occasional fear-for-your-life traffic crossing, the ride was a success. We briefly saw some of the major sights, which helped us map out our plan for the following day.

Our first night in Saigon was undoubtedly one of the best nights we've had on the trip. First off, sitting outside of "gramma's bar", which looked like a corner store with kiddie tables strewn out into the street in front, with foot-high stools packed with all types of people (best part: home brewed 25 cent beers). I bumped into a friend-of-a-friend from home, which was really cool! I hadn't seen anyone from Toronto in so long, and this was a hilarious place to have a random street bump in, it was really nice to hear about her experiences in Saigon. Sitting at the same random street bar drinking the same 25 cent draught beers we also bumped into a traveller we had met in Sihanoukville, Cambodia a month before. He was a super cool guy, and it was great to get another night with him. We were all sitting around drinking when the table next to us started to fill up with some rowdy Vietnamese guys and gals. They started talking to us, and next thing we knew we were all screaming "YO" (cheers, in Vietnamese) and pounding back cheap beer. The night turned into a great time, they shared some cool local experiences with us, we went to a cool bar and got our dance on, and were introduced to our first authentic "Pho" meal at 4 in the morning. This first meal with the locals was a life-saver. They showed us which veggies and sauces to add and in which proportions. All in all it was an incredible night, and it made us love Saigon even more.




The next day we woke up ready to see some Saigon sights in earnest, no more lazy cyclo-ing by. We hopped on moto-taxis (terrifying), and headed to the War Remnants Museum. The Vietnam War was an absolutely terrifying time in history, and we were looking forward to learning more about what happened during that time. Being Americans, and having fathers that were of draft age around the time of the war, we both felt a connection to what happened here. We didn't know much of the history, so it was eye-opening to see a first hand account. The museum was basically a large photo-exhibit, showing historical truths, demonstrations and support from around the world, and the after-effects of the war. The photographs were beautiful, although some of them were incredibly difficult to see. Neither Kevin nor I had ever really realized just how opposed the world was to American actions in Vietnam. The atrocities that occurred during the war were plentiful, and this museum left no stone unturned in showing people what happened. As painful as it was, it was a real testament to the strength of the Vietnamese people, and at the end we were happy to have seen it. After the museum, we walked around the city some more, checking out some of the stores, where we bought old propaganda posters! We watched the crazy traffic, ate some Pho, and headed back to our hostel exhausted. It had really been a hard day for us, so after some more walking around, we called it a night.

The next morning we packed up our stuff and headed out walking. We saw some really cool alleyways and colourful streets, where we went on a photo-spree. We basically just moseyed around until our bus at 3pm heading for Mui Ne! We'd had more than enough city for a little while, so we were so ready for a week of beach fun :)