Vietnam

The best thing about Vietnam, hands down, has been the food - really good, cheap food. A baguette sandwich with pork and vegetables costs only 30 cents and a full dinner with drinks can be as little as three dollars. My favorites have been baguette sandwiches from street vendors and a cook-it-yourself beef meal served with a hot plate (pictured below).

We flew into Hanoi and spent a few days there before heading north to Halong Bay then south to Nha Trang before coming north to Hoi An. The first thing you will notice in Hanoi, like the rest of Vietnam, is that scooters make up 95% of the traffic. Since these are smaller and more agile than the large automobiles that make up most of the traffic in the US, traffic behaves much differently here than it does there. Rather than making a mad dash across the street as you might in America, the safest way to cross in Vietnam is to wade slowly into the street and let the motorbikes pass around you. This is generally how the drivers deal with each other as well. Most intersections do not have stop signs or stop lights so the drivers simply make their way slowly through in no particular order. It is not unusual to see traffic moving simultaneously in four directions through the same intersection.

Hoan Kiem Lake lies right in the center of Hanoi - and in the center of Hoan Kiem Lake is Tortoise Tower (pictured below) and Ngoc Son Temple. In the 18th century, a Confucian master built the temple to honor a 13th century general. Sometime in between those two dates someone built Tortoise Tower to honor the tortoise who allegedly swallowed the general's sword.

We walked by St Joseph Cathedral many times as it was about two blocks away from our hotel. When the Nguyen King handed Hanoi over to the French in 1886, they promptly destroyed Bao Thien pagoda and built the cathedral in its place. The cathedral was modeled after Notre Dame and I suspect the neon lights on the nativity scene were modeled after Vegas.

We also visited the Hoa Loa prison which lies a few blocks further south of the cathedral. French colonists built the prison 1904 to hold mostly native Vietnamese political prisoners. Later, the Vietnamese used the prison to hold American POWs, including John McCain and James Stockdale, who ironically named it the Hanoi Hilton. Conditions in the prison at all times seemed at best terrible and it is a stark reminder of the awful things that people are capable of doing. I am neither inclined nor qualified to write anything more.

The Temple of Literature was built in 1070 as a Confucian Temple. Six years later the first National University in Vietnam was formed within the temple to educate members of the Elite. Graduate's names were etched in stone steles that sit on top of turtles.

The temple features a number of bonsai trees,

also a few interesting dragons adorning the roofs,

prominent reflecting pools,

and most importantly a giant drum.

From Hanoi we headed north to Ha Long Bay where we celebrated New Years Eve on a boat. Trying to leave the dock was a bit of an adventure as most boats were triple parked or more and we were far inside. The boats surrounding us wouldn't move to let us leave because they didn't want to lose their spot. When the boats looking for a spot realized that we were leaving they tried to force their way into our space - but we hadn't left yet. After 45 minutes playing bumper boats we cleared the commotion by the docks it was not long before we were completely surrounded by Ha Long Bay's iconic karst islands.

Ha Long Bay is a park and the islands are protected territory - people are not allowed to live on them. Many people have managed to skirt the rules and live in the area in floating villages.

Most of these people make a living as fishermen.

Some however make a rowing around selling snacks and drinks to the many tourist boats in the area.

Along the way we stopped in Surprise Cave.

and stopped for a photo-op.

Went kayaking.

And jumped off the boat - even though it was a little cold.

We passed the evening by playing cards and celebrating New Years in every time zone leading up to ours - we even continued this the next day for New Years in the western hemisphere. A few calls from family and loved ones were very welcome. The weather was crummy the first day but cleared up for a beautiful sunrise on the second.

We stopped in Hanoi just long enough to book train tickets to the beach town of Nha Trang. We were lucky enough to get the last two sleeper bunks on an overnight train leaving the next afternoon. A few days on the beach and in a boat were a great break from the rigorous sightseeing we've been doing.

We caught an overnight, sleeper bus from Nha Trang north to Hoi An, a town known for its Old Town area but, more importantly, its tailors.

Hoi An

As home to one of the largest harbors in Southeast Asia, Hoi An was a prominent trading town in the 16th and 17th centuries. As a result, some of the buildings preserved in the Old Town area have a distinctly European feel. This street(pictured below)in Old Town is home to a number lantern makers.

We couldn't spend a few days in Hoi An without visiting My Son, a Hindu temple built in the 4th century.

The site, now in ruins, was where the Champa dynasty held religious ceremonies and also served as a burial ground for royalty and national heros.

We spent a few hours wandering around the complex admiring the intricate details that have somehow survived 1,600 years in the middle of a very humid jungle.

My Son

On the boat ride home we passed a couple fishing. This two man operation was typical of the fishermen we had seen in Nha Trang and Halong Bay - one person steers and the other casts a net over and over again, all day, every day.



We spent our last day in Hoi An filling up on baguette sandwiches, making some last minute alterations to our new clothes and perusing the local market for souvenirs. We took a somewhat perilous cab ride early the next morning to the Da Nang Airport where we left for Cambodia.