Hoi An, Vietnam

The next stop on our tour of Vietnam was Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  This was a charming little city located on the coast and is a very well preserved trading post from the 15th to the 19th century.  We did a lot of wandering the streets of the Old Town which were closed to cars and motorbikes, eating great Vietnamese food, getting clothes made and soaking up the culture.  While the weather wasn't fantastic the few days we were there, it was still a great time!

Japanese covered bridge constructed in the 1600's

Shop houses in the Old Town part of Hoi An

The view of the beach from our hotel during one of the storms

Drinks with Greg & Kristen at the hotel bar

A kid selling lanterns to float down the river

Riding in an old sidecar courtesy of the hotel

Hoi An is known for their paper lanterns

Kristen and I having tea at a traditional Vietnamese tea house that was run by deaf women

The Cu Chi Tunnels in Vietnam

While in Ho Chi Minh, we took a day trip out to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  I'd heard from a few people that this was something we shouldn't miss.  These were the tunnels that the Vietkong lived in during the Vietnam War to avoid the US troops.  They were incredibly inventive in trying to survive - creating tunnels that went down 4 stories and were tens of miles long.  The tunnels were incredibly tiny and claustrophobic!  Vietnam has widened a portion of the tunnels to allow visitors to crawl through them...Westerners couldn't fit in the normal sized tunnels.  Even with them being widened, they were still very small!

A booby trap - yikes!

Trying to fit in to one of the entrance / exits of the tunnels.  Crazy small

Shooting an AK47...why not?

Managing our way through the tunnel

Vietgiving in Ho Chi Minh

While Kristen & Greg were in Asia, we decided to go up to Vietnam to do some exploring.  We (well I, they stayed in Vietnam longer) spent 2 nights in Ho Chi Minh and 2 nights in Hoi An.  

One of those nights in HCM was Thanksgiving and for our Thanksgiving meal, we went on what could have been one of the best things I've done in Asia yet.  It was a 5 hour tour on the back of a moped through the crazy, no rules of traffic streets (who pays attention to a red light??) of Ho Chi Minh to go to various places that normal tourists would't go to and eat traditional Vietnamese food.  

We ate frog, goat, scallops, other random things, but overall it was a wonderful experience!

One of the drivers cooking the goat

Kristen looking really forward to the shot of liquor that they couldn't tell us what it was....banana maybe?

Frog

A traditional Vietnamese delicacy called Balut which is a fertilized egg...see pictures below and yes, they love this.

What's inside the egg....don't worry, I didn't touch any of the egg or the bird!!!

Hanoi

We spent two nights in Hanoi on this trip.  The first night we got in to the city rather late and met up with some friends from Singapore that were up there for the weekend too.  We went to a big group dinner but didn't have much time to see any of Hanoi.  We knew we had Saturday night and most of Sunday before our flight back to Sing to explore.

Hanoi Sky Line

We had heard about going to see a Water Puppet Show and we went Saturday afternoon.  They were basically just wooden puppets on long sticks dancing in water.  It was interesting but a little long.  Don't know if I'll be rushing back to go see it...

Sorry for the bad picture, but you get the gist

There is a lake in the middle of Hanoi - Hoan Kiem Lake - with a temple in the middle. The Temple of the Jade Mountain, is on a little island that you could walk over on a bridge to.  It was built around 1865 or so but has been renovated since.  It was the standard temple with a few large offering altars. They were offering anything from flowers and money, to cookies and beer!

One of the few pictures without a massive tourist group posing for pictures on the bridge

We then just walked around Hanoi for a bit to see what we could find:

Hanoi Opera House

Turtle Tower in Hoan Kiem Lake - yes there are turtles in the lake

I'd also been on the search for a Banh Mi or Vietnamese sandwich.  I asked a few locals and they had no idea what I was talking about.  Did the Vietnamese not eat Banh Mi's, I wondered?!?  Finally a guy at the hotel recommended this small shop for a sandwich and I was so excited to try and authentic Banh Mi.  Well I must admit, it was pretty disappointing....it's sad to say that there are better Banh Mi's in San Francisco!

All in all I enjoyed Hanoi and Vietnam.  It was a bit manic with all of the mopeds and people, and I could definitely not live there, but the Vietnamese are such nice people and so welcoming.  There are many more interesting places in the country to explore - Ho Chi Minh, Nha Trang, there are a ton of places to go!

Vietnam, I'll be back!

Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay has been one of the places that's been on my Asia Bucket List to visit since I've been here.  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that sits off the east coast of Vietnam.  It features thousands of limestone pillars and islands coming out of the sea which is what I wanted to see!

Thanks Instagram for making my picture look even better!

The trip from Hanoi was a 3 hour long ride in a van (with no shocks) over incredibly bumpy roads.  If you ever go, pay the extra money and take a private car out there, not the van that the boat provides!  Once we got there, we boarded our Junk Boat and took off for a night.  There are hundreds of junk boats (some better than others) and I think we got a pretty good one!

Picture of our boat

We motored around Ha Long Bay to an island which we climbed to the top of and had an amazing view of Ha Long Bay.

From there we went to a fishing village and had a local lady row us around in a boat.  It was amazing to see how these people lived.  They definitely used all of the resources they had available and lived off of the ocean.  It was interesting but also a bit sad knowing that this was all that they had.  It made me very grateful!

Floating houses

The village and our row boats

The local school

The next morning the boat took us to 'Surprise Cave' which was in one of the limestone pillars.  It was a huge cave with three chambers and the last one looked like we were on the moon or something.  The cave was discovered in the early 1900s by the local people.  The Vietnamese then used the cave to store ammunition in the cave during the war because they didn't think that it would be found!  

A few more pictures:

Sunset

Vietnam - Random Pictures

Hi Everyone,

Sorry again that I've been so horrible about keeping this updated!  I've been travelling a good amount lately (mostly for work) but I seem to be in Singapore for the next few weeks until heading to Australia at the end of July and then after that it's my vacation home!!!

But on my travels, I went up to Vietnam for a long weekend (thanks Singapore for having a public holiday on a Friday).  My friend and I flew in to Hanoi and stayed there for a night before travelling 3 hours out to Ha Long Bay for a 2 day/1 night Junk Boat cruise and then back to Hanoi for the last night.  I'll break out the blog posts based on city, but here are a few random pictures that I thought were great...especially the first few.

Mopeds are EVERYWHERE in Vietnam and there are absolutely zero traffic laws either.  I tried to find an intersection to video but the blog isn't letting me upload it.  Therefore a picture will have to do.   I don't know how there aren't a bazillion accidents a day with the Vietnamese driving like this, but I guess they've got the system worked out and they know what to do!  Trying to cross the street amongst this was interesting - basically you step off the curb, walk in a straight line at a constant pace (don't slow down or stop) and the mopeds can judge where you'll be so they can go around you.  It's pretty crazy, but I made it back alive!

On our ride out to Ha Long Bay, we came across this moped.  * This could also be the best picture of my trip - sorry I can't rotate it the right way up *

We thought to ourselves...what the heck is that??? Turns out its a man, his wife and their dinner - of a water buffalo - all on a moped going home.  Only in Asia...

Here are a few others from the 'markets' in Hanoi.  Many of the Vietnamese ladies will sell goods off of their bicycles.  They usually only have one or two things to offer at a time - herbs, mangosteens, flowers, etc.

Here are some of the sidewalk markets:

Some sort of pork maybe?

In Ha Long Bay, they have floating markets selling anything from rice, to bananas to Oreos =)

Fresh catch of the day in the little baskets behind the boat