Vietnam: Hoi An

I think that from the get go when we climbed the bus to head to Hoi An, many of us in the group (especially the girls) were eagerly anticipating our arrival in Hoi An. Sure, Hoi An is listed as a UNESCO world heritage site and the old town has been marvellously preserved in its ancient structures and shop houses but it is also known for its tailor shops and it's ability to produce ready made clothes in a day! With two and a half days scheduled for us in Hoi An, I was definitely determined to make the most of the time - shopping and sightseeing combined. Our first night, our guide brought us on a quick walkabout the old city. Other than being blindslided by stalls and stalls of street food (a story to come later), I was quite in awe of the the old town - it was literally like a step back in time. Old shop houses lining the streets and lanterns lining up the buildings and trees at night. It was a sight to behold.

We started the next day with a vengeance. After a hearty breakfast, made our way down to the old town with Iz. From the previous day, we already had a list of tailor shops that we wanted to visit. One must applaud the wireless technology in Vietnam. Almost every hotel/shop we visited had wireless or at least a computer that we could use. One of the shops that we visit was Yaly and they had computers with high speed internet that allowed us to browse the net quickly for dress designs.

Pictures of the streets of Hoi An, it's just so lovely to walk around and just wander. Above left, Yaly ( the tailor shop) where we spent most of the morning on the first day since we had to decide on our designs and then choose the material which was another hard decision as we were just wondering around the shop looking at different types of fabric of varying textures and colours and wondering which was the best fabric for the dress. The salesgirls will help you, but ultimately you're the one who has to make the decision. After everything, you still have to get measured, pay up, and make your appointment for your fittings the next day... very tiring! Above right, where we had our very late lunch at Cargo which is just a few doors down from Yaly. One of the few times in Vietnam I had non-local food but I was too hungry to care. 

The good thing about Hoi An and the tailor shops is that everything is situated in the Old Town, so in between running between shops and fittings, we also took the time to explore the town and its historical sights and also buy some gifts for our friends back home. To enter the town, one has to buy a ticket which allows you to visit 5 historical sites (there are people at each site to check and snip off your ticket). The more notable sites are the Japanese bridge, the Clan houses and Old houses (which is still inhabited by families but they open it up for people to see the way of life and the different generations that have stayed in the house. Like Hue, Hoi An is also prone to flooding and many places were affected by floods last year. One of the families showed us pictures of a sampan boat in their kitchen which was an indicated of how high flood waters were.

How we spent our nights in Hoi An. The streets at night are lovely as the lanterns come on and numerous restaurants convert into bars and vibe is very very chill. Perfect for most of us who just wanted to have a drink after a long day of shopping and sightseeing! We had dinner at this Italian place "Good morning Vietnam" where I was introduced by Iz to this lemon liquor called Limoncello.... very strong, so much so I couldn't finish it and I gave the rest to D. The owner was quite nice though and treated everyone to a shot of Limoncello after our meal. We also found a bar "Tam Tam" which had a pool table which was pretty cool. The boys ended up dominating the table and they actually played a round with the staff.

One of the hotels in Hoi An - famous for the fact that the film " The quiet american" was filmed here.

One of our favorite hangout bars in Hoi An, simply because of its proximity to Yaly and where most of us gathered at the end of the day. We often sat at the table facing the road and people watched.

This has to be my favourite street food experience in the whole of vietnam. Photo courtesy of Iz who took this while I was checking out the dumplings that the lady was selling. So they sell sticks of what I would usually call satay but to eat it Vietnamese way, we take out the meat from the skewer and wrap it up in a rice paper and lettuce. They also served dumplings (to make it easier for imagination, think of really mini soong kueh but with shrimp or mung bean filling instead served with sweet chilli). Lastly they had dao huay! But with ginger syrup in it which was an added bonus and I had seconds after and everything cost $10,000 dong only each!!!

Wearing one of my new tailor made dresses once back in S'pore :)

 

 

 

 

 

Vietnam: Hue

After our return from Halong, next up was our trip down to Hue (pronounced "Hui"). To get there, we had to take another overnight train - 14 hours from Hanoi. The beds were not as comfortable as the train to Sapa but the timing was much better to handle. We arrived at Hue at about 9 in the morning which meant that most of us slept pretty well and were up and alert when we reached the station. I'm sorry to say that about this point of the trip I had gotten a bit lazy with regards to picture taking and was rather content to just see and commit the sights to memory. Hence, pictures will be quite limited from now on. Train stations always excite me. There is a buzz activity around you and one feels so excited especially this was the first time in Hue. Even while walking around, my eyes were gleaming as I spied the numerous street hawkers plying their simple hawker fare. I wasn't hungry, but I was definitely intrigued by what the locals were doing. 

Since we were too early for the hotel check in, the guide, Lap had arranged for a motorcycle tour for us around Hue. It was drizzling but apparently it was still ok. 

It was an exciting trip! All of us sat pillion on the motorcycle and I do have to give kudos to the motorcyclists for being so good in their steering/driving. We went through alleyways, bumpy back roads, muddy pools of water and at no point did I feel like I was going to fall off. Floods are a problem for Hue and then being the rainy season we were able to see the effect of rain on the city - rice fields were flooded to the brim and often the paths separating the rice fields and rivers was just a small strip just enough for the bikes to ride past.

One of the oldest wooden bridges in Hue/Vietnam, built centuries ago by the royal family. Fortune tellers hang around the area and some in our group had their fortune told and it was interesting to listen to what the fortune teller had to say to them. D went to have his palm read and the lady predicted that he would meet a lady 29 years old in Thailand and that he was a person who love to drink and party. Quite aptly true as back then I knew of a 29 yr old lady that he was interested in... but whether it came true, I don't know :) The guide told us a story of how a few years back the fortune teller had informed a couple that they would break up before they left Vietnam and true behold, the couple actually split up when the tour reached Saigon! The guide refuses to say whether he believes this was the work of the gods though he did mention that when his wife was pregnant, the doctor had told them it was a girl, the fortune teller said it was a boy. It turned out to be a boy. Top right picture shows the flood marker in Hue. Flood waters rose up to 3 metres high at one point in time. The dragon boat below was the one we took on our ride along the perfume river.

Lap (our guide) also brought us to an agricultural museum where an old volunteer lady showed us rituals of the daily life in Hue. In the picture above, she is showing the group how to eat betel leaves which is like eating mild opium for a kick. It stains the teeth, so many of them end up with blackish teeth which is considered attractive in these parts. Another part of Hue which we saw was the Thien Mu pagoda (above right picture).

My apologies, I cannot remember this lady's name (Mrs...) but she's a famous conical hat maker in Vietnam who has appeared on TV and been overseas to show her conical hats. She designed the 3 layer hat where if you hold the inside up to the light, you can see paper etchings of Hue's famous sights and a vietnamese poem. She was born a disabled child so we found it quite amazing that she is able to perform the craft with such skill. The hats are oiled on the top layer so they are water proof as well.

Visit to the King's tomb. Most of it is closed off for excavations which will probably take many years so what we did was to walk around the complex. Most of it was destroyed during the Tet offensive which is a pity. In one of the pillars, H found a bullet lodged in it (picture above)

Another thing Hue is known for is joss sticks. Especially with Tet coming up. Different colours have different aromas!

The highlight of Hue - exploring the Citadel. This is the building from which Emperor Bao Dai abdicated from in 1945 and the former seat of the imperial government. Unfortunately, this place was badly destroyed during the Tet offensive many of the buildings have definitely seen better days. It is a rather tranquil area though, nice for a walk around.

The night to end all nights in Vietnam. Persuaded Lap to bring us out for a local vietnamese bbq dinner - lured especially by promises of stingray. Iz, D, K, T all came along and when we walked into the local place, every local turned to stare at us. It was hilarious. Then Lap did what Lap does - ordered a frog and when it came and was put down in front of us, all of us went OMG and immediately whipped out the cameras to do the touristy think and take pictures. The viets eat frog but eating the frog meat wrapped in a spring roll with leaves/herbs as the frog meat can be quite strong and overpowering to some. Pretty cool way to eat it (I think that viets like to eat everything via spring rolls) compared to in S'pore whereby the most common way is frog leg porridge and they would NEVER serve it like that. Everyone that I've showed the frog leg picture to has immediately went wide eyed upon seeing it. Have I also mentioned that alcohol is dirt cheap in this country? A bottle of local vodhka cost only 60,000 dong! Naturally we went crazy with it and by the end of dinner, we had gushed down four bottles and all of us were pretty drunk by the end of dinner.

Picture of all us going crazy at brown eyes bar despite the vodhka filled dinner. I don't think we realized that extent of our drunkeness till the next morning when everyone came to ask me how I was filling and I was just so embarassed for the rest of the day.

Vietnam: Halong Bay

Halong Bay was such a welcome respite after the trekking in Sapa. It wasn't hard (trekking), but I was definitely glad to have proper hot showers and beds after! Don't ever take them for granted! It was a pretty tiring journey to Halong from Sapa. The train landed in Hanoi in the wee hours of the morning (like 5am) and we did not really have anything to do till our bus left for Halong at 9am. So most people just stayed at the hotel. Iz and I went for a walk around the lake to people watch. Along the way, our guide informed us that the government had recently raised the price for entry to Halong, so be warned... There are many junk boats plying their trade around Halong. Most have like 8 rooms or so, just nice for a small group like us. There is a small crew on board who prepares the meals and rooms and the food was very delicious! They even have a small bar where the local boy will whip up cocktails - they can be quite expensive compared to getting them on the mainland though (US$4) for one cocktail. They were quite potent though.

 

From the harbour, our junk boat sailed to the middle of Halong Bay where we were treated to endless sights of the picturesque bay. For the curious, Halong Bay means descending dragon bay in Vietnamese. Interestingly, long is also dragon in Chinese. From the deck of the boat, everyone just went picture crazy, taking pictures and just lounging around despite the cool winds and most of us being wrapped up in our jackets. 

 

We spent two days and one night on the boat. The second day we were take to one of the limestone islands/caves to explore - most notably the Grotte des Merveilles as named by the french.One sees alot of the stalagmite formations which the vietnamese have given many names to as many of them resemble creatures eg Dragon, Lion. There's even a structure which many have said leaves much to the imagination (middle picture below).

Pictures of me and group just playing around...

Last picture of Halong Bay

Vietnam - Sapa

Sapa - one of the places which I was very excited to go to way before I boarded the plane for vietnam. Scenic places have always interested me and there is often nothing more rewarding than hiking into the valley for a glimpse of nature at its best. In this case, it's nature and it's manipulation by the indigenous tribes which I was looking forward to see. The travel that we had to undertake to get to Sapa was one of the rougher ones on the tour. An overnight train to Sapa which saw us landing in Sapa at 5am in the morning. Imagine me in my glasses and changing into my jeans in 2 seconds and trying to pack all my stuff in the next 2 minutes and making sure that I was warm at the same time. Sapa in winter can be very chilly. So much for a tropical holiday :P 

Train station at Sapa. Reminded me alot of train stations in Europe, where we had to walk over railway tracks to get to that particular train that we were taking. There were many touts hanging around as well, so one had to be careful

One of the first ethnic villages we visited at Sapa was the Red Dao tribe - very easily recognized by their red headgear. Another interesting feature is that they love to pluck their forehead and eyebrows as it is seen to be attractive to the opposite gender. The moment we reached their village it was like wow we were celebrities or something. The ladies immediately crowded around our bus and as tourists we went crazy with the photo taking. So the thing about stereotypes - our guide informed us that in these tribes, the woman are the ones who do most of the work. They work in the fields and they walk to the markets everyday. Whereas for the men, they used to chop wood but due to the decrease in such jobs, they stay mainly at home and indulge (think alcohol and smoking). In fact, in Vietnam, it is socially acceptable for men to smoke but woman who do are frowned upon and see as bad eggs. As one can see from the photos below, all the tribal people we saw were mainly the woman. However, it is their way of life so no point getting all feminist all their behalf. I'm willing to bet that they are happier poeple compared to us anyway.

Pictures of woman from the Red Dao tribe. They are all very friendly people and very smart - they pick English up very fast and we were able to have conversations with them while exploring their village. Because of their very physically active lifestyle, many of them look older than their age.

The school in the Red Dao village where many of the women's children were enrolled at. While most of the adult women still wear their traditional clothes as part of their daily wear, you can see the influence of modern lifestyles as some of them and most of the children were dressed in modern jackets and pants (sad)

A with the Red Dao women at the school. The splash of colour is amazing...

One of the Red Dao invited us to her house for a drink - aka shot of rice wine (which is very strong!) I noticed these chinese bits of paper on the walls and apparently they are well wishes written by the fortune teller to celebrate the women's son's recent marriage. Vietnamese can't read/write chinese so they have to pay someone else to write these well wishes for them.

After we got back to the main town of Sapa, Iz and I decided to take a walk down to the Cat Cat village (of the Black H'mong tribe) where apparently there was a nice waterfall that we could see at the bottom of the valley. On our way down, we met this young girl and her older friend from Lao Chai village and they walked down the valley with us as we made our way to Cat Cat village. The girl was so cute, she was very pretty and she made this horse for me from the surrounding fauna. At first I was skeptical thinking she was going to try to charge me for it, but she insisted in the words she knew, "Free free! Cadeau!" It took a while for me to piece it together, but Iz, being Swiss realized that she was speaking french and she meant it as a gift.

View of the valley during our trek down to Cat cat village. It's also very common to see wild boar and buffalo among the rice terraces. I should mention that these women from the tribes are very very fit. When talking to the girl, she mentioned that she walked 3 hours from her village to Sapa and she does it everyday... omg... RESPECT.

Me and our companions during this short afternoon trek

Goal accomplished! I felt that the village was quite commercialized simply because on our way down, there were heaps of shops selling tourist gifts like cheap silver jewellary and shawls. There were also ladies selling the traditionally dyed outfits (made from the indigo flowers). A bought one of those and her fingers were stained blue for the majority of the trip. Another thing I didn't understand was that the young boys would run around with no bottoms and with snot flowing freely from their noses....

The next day, our trek to our homestay started proper. This time women from the black H'mong tribe followed us. They do this because they hope to get you to buy some handicraft items from them. The trek was pretty ok but admittedly I did not have the best shoes for them (old sneakers) and there were times I was greatful for those women to guide me along the slippery footholds. There were instances where we were literally walking along the rice terraces whereby any false step and I would find myself sitting in a rice paddy field!

Indigo flowers where they get the dye from...

I took so many pictures of the rice terraces, but in this cases, the pictures do little to translate what we saw in the valley. Terraces and terraces of rice fields - all carved out in the last centuries by the tribes. The scenery was truly spectacular and I have alot of respect for these people and their will to live. Imagine farming in the mountaineous regions with simple tools and having one harvest crop a year - and they've done it for many centuries

It was a delight looking at the children as we trekked along the fields. Many of them do work like carry firework from young! (They're all girls) and the picture of the young child "training" to carry his sibling on his back was quite endearing too.

Iz, D and I exploring the riverside near our homestay

Sights we saw while walking through Lao Chai village. There's actually a church that's been built there and some of the women are converts. The amusing thing is that they did not know the word for catholic so when we walked past, all of them starting pointing and making the sign of the cross in front of me.

Our homestay accomodations for the night. Pretty comfy. My mattress was right at the end and with no lights I was practically crawling on my feet when it came for bedtime.

Our tour group and our kind homestay hosts from the giay tribe. These blouses (I felt) were the closest indication that they had previously lived in China centuries ago with the pattern being very similar to Chinese fashions and the buttons as well.

Vietnamese hospitality - when someone comes to your house, offer them a shot of your local specialty. In this case, it was rice wine. Very strong and we had at least a few rounds on top of all the beers that we had that night. It's a water bottle, but don't be deceived... they recycle alot here.

Sapa was wonderful and if possible, I would like to go back again (possibly in warmer weather). A funny story is that I went to the valley fully expecting to lose signal and be absolutely lost to civilisation during the 3 days. Who knew that in the valley, I would experience the best signal (full bar) that I would have on the tour. Crap I don't even get full signal back home in Singapore. It was so amusing to be trekking and suddenly have the ethnic lady beside me pull out her vibrating cellphone (2G) and start chatting animatedly to her friend on the other side of the line. OMG. A running joke among the group was that we would always ask where was the wi-fi so that we could "check in" Even in the most unlikely of places we would always ask and sometimes we were proven so wrong...

Vietnam: Hanoi

It was a whole different experience when I started working. I knew that travel was never going to be the same again. Money was always going to be the issue (now with other life responsibilities on my list) and by my age, I had gotten used to a few luxuries in life that I could have gone without about 5- 10 years back (hot water showers etc). However, there were still many places that I had not seen and I did not want to give that thought up just because I was beginning a new chapter of my life. So I was quite determined to plan a trip and get away from work - and by that, I did not mean just the weekend getaway kind of thing. I meant like a real getaway, at least two weeks away from work where I could just forget about my working a life for that moment and not grip about having to go back to work on monday when I had only just arrived at my destination the previous friday.

Picking a destination was not difficult last year. It was going to be somewhere in Asia because ironically, it was one of the least visited continents on my logbook. I blame this on the fact that I've been living in European countries for the past7 years before my return to Singapore. Or perhaps another reason could be that I always knew that eventually I would return and would thus make more sense to explore Asia from an asian base (practical me says that). One of the first countries that came to mind was Vietnam. It was always a country that I've heard alot about and for a lone traveller, it seemed like the reasonably safe choice as well. After that decision was made, I made my booking early in March (in part also spurred on by a weak US dollar and discounts offered to me by the travel agency if I booked early).

December came by so fast and it was such a long time since I booked, that I had actually approached it with kind of a glum "Ok let's get out of here" outlook. And so it came, 4 Dec, I left home in the early hours of the morning, while everyone was still fast asleep with my backpack fully packed. My flight to Hanoi was pretty pleasant other than the fact that I got ripped of 400,000 Viet dong more during the taxi ride to the city (but I'm over that). I should also say now that in terms of taking pictures, it's been one my laziest efforts. So half of the photos here are courtesy of my travel mates and also because many of them had better cameras than my old canon. :P

So first impressions of Hanoi - crazy! It was so different from S'pore and everything I had read online and in the guidebooks were all true. The hotel was located on a busy street and was out, we were greeted with this choas of motorcycles and the occasional taxi/car. Crossing the street is a leap of faith and boy did I take many of those while in Hanoi. After the first day though, I was crossing roads like I owned them and having this "bang me if you dare" attitude. That's the kind of mentality one has to take in the city - if not, you would never move.

Busy motorcyclists on the streets. Heaps of street pollution as well, hence the face masks. 

Arrived in Hanoi mid afternoon and after depositing my bags and having a quick bite, went to take a walk down to Hoan Kiem Lake which was a quick 10 minute walk from the hotel. Local legend says that a giant turtle lives in the lake and it is many centuries old and is a symbol of good luck for the city. Interestingly, the turtle is one of the four mythical creatures in Vietnamese culture. The other creatures are dragon, phoenix and unicorn (if I remember my guide correctly).

Views of Hoan Kiem Lake from all angles

This picture was taken on another day in the early hours of the morning - just after we had touch down from Sapa. Iz and I decided to go and walk around the lake to catch some action since it was better than just staying in the hotel and doing nothing. Surprisingly or not surprisingly, most of the local town was awake and at the park, doing things from tai chi exercise to fan dancing and techno aerobics (I kid you not). The most amazing thing is that the viet housewives would just stand by the waterfront, do their techno charged aerobics and be conversing to their friends standing on their sides very casually. The men just sit down on the benches and chat. I know that people hate stereotypes, but what I found was that in this country, the women tend to be a bit more active than men - leisure and workwise. Will expand on that later. Should also note that the park is a very popular spot for wedding photos. On my first day I counted at least 10 couples having their wedding shots taken at the park and they were changing in public....

The area around the lake is surrounded by numerous high rise buildings which make for great rooftop bars  - where a group of us had a drink one evening. From up there, we pretty much had a bird's eye view of the lake and the night scene of Hanoi from the top. From the top, the lack of traffic rules was made even more obvious.  

Night view of Hanoi plus a picture of us having a bowl of pho by the street - only 30,000 dong and no, did not get food poisoning.

Food/drink - no visit to any town/country is ever complete without trying the local cuisine. As much as I can, I often try to eat the local dishes and not go for the safe european choices - eg. pasta. Most people are skeptical of buying food from the street and for good reason too. However, I also argued to myself that if the locals can eat this stuff everyday, maybe one bowl wouldn't hurt. So on my first day, I was exploring the streets when I chanced upon this lady selling banana friters made freshly! Too a chance and bought one (only 6000 dong) and I was eating it from a piece of newspaper (ink banana fritters - who cares!) Gosh it was delicious. Too delicious.The next best experience was having a bowl of pho with my tour mates by the street side - yeah sitting on tiny stools on the pavement and slurping noodles with pig organs in it.

Picture of the banana fritter on the top left and A attempting to purchase a pork bun from a lady outside our hotel. There are also many ladies walking around the street selling donut sticks - plain, sugared, mung bean filling etc. These are worth trying as well and usually only like 10,000 dong for a stick.

Another local dish - Bun Cha with spring rolls. Love the Vietnamese rice noodles. I could eat a load of these non stop. One of my personal favourite foods from Vietnam.

Having a drink in Hanoi Old quarter on my first night in Hanoi. Beer (or alcohol in general) is really cheap here, like 30,000 for a bottle and it taste decent enough. They have their own brewed beer which is distilled from like a metal barrel kind of thing, but I never tried it. To be safe, go for the bottled ones.

 Sighseeing. The tour started proper the next day and we visited the main attractions of Hanoi including a water puppet show in the afternoon. Pictures below!

Hanoi Hilton (Hao Lo prison) - built by the French, this is where the French imprisoned and executed many of the Vietnamese freedom fighters. They had some pretty brutal ways of torture, included an elevated jail cell in which prisoners would be chained to the top of an elevated floor and made to lie down (blood flowing to the brain = headaches). The prison was also known as the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War as it held American POW's shot down. Pictures of the drain (above) depict how some prisoners managed to escape by crawling through the drains out of the compound.

Afternoon entertainment - water puppet show. To be honest, I did not really understand it as I do not speak the local language and it can be pretty boring for the ignorant. The highlight was at the end of the show where they had this huge dragon puppet fly into the air.

Visit to the one pillar pagoda and the grounds/house where Ho Chi Minh lived and worked when he was alive. Vietnamese love the colour yellow - hence many important buildings tend to be painted in that colour.

Possibly one of the must sees in Hanoi - the HCM mausoleum. One thing that striked me particularly was how they kept the field very clean and tidy. Even as we walked to the mausoleum, one could see public workers dilligently pruning the fields - which btw are fields of equal sized squares, meant to represent countries of equality.

Walking past Lenin square and the war museum enroute to the mausoleum