Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (still called Saigon by most people here in the south of Vietnam, apart from government officials) after a short flight from Danang.   In the north of Vietnam, it was really tangible how sincere was the reverence and admiration in which Ho Chi Minh was held by the population.   Indeed, whilst in Ha Noi we'd visited the 'holiest of holies' when we went to the mausoleum which usually houses his body (against his own wishes - he wanted to be cremated).   It's uncannily like Lenin's mausoleum in Moscow.   Right now, though, and for two months every year, his body is removed for further embalming injections, mainly in Russia, so we had no opportunity to visit him on this occasion.   He's certainly seen in the north, though, as a real hero, on a par with Ghandi or Mandela.   Having started the revolutionary movement in 1930 to try to overthrow the French colonial powers (who, I think we've said already, were pretty brutal), he then led his country's opposition to the Japanese invasion during WW2, and then again opposition to the French resumption of power, and then to the American invasion from 1964 to 1973, before finally reunifying the country (north and south Vietnam) in 1975 by sending in tanks to the palace of the American-supported puppet president here in Saigon (one is still there on the front lawn).   Not sure quite why, but we haven't encountered the same sense of reverence to Uncle Ho here in the south.

Anyway, after checking into our hotel, we went for lunch at a cafe called Pho 2000. Pho is the Vietnamese word for noodle soup (which is ubiquitous in this City), and the cafe has been called Pho 2000 since the then-outgoing President Bill Clnton, and his daughter Chelsea, dined on that local dish here in November of that year. Not surprisingly, there are several pictures around the walls of this very basic canteen-style cafe. What is surprising, though, in this region of high-tech photographic equipment, is that most of the pictures are pretty faded and lacking in any definition or colour.
After lunch, we walked to the War Remnants Museum, near to the Reunification Palace. I'd defy any westerner to visit this place without coming away sobered, moved to tears, and thoroughly ashamed. The documentary, photographic, and real 'artefactual' evidence of US atrocities on the people of Vietnam is shocking indeed. Hundreds and hundreds of photographs of victims of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliants - children and adults with skin, faces, internal organs, and limbs mutilated by contact with the various acids; the 'tiger cages' - suitcase-sized, barbed wire covered cages in which two or three Vietcong would be held, in foetus position, for days or weeks at a time under the searing heat of the sun, photos of American soldiers disembowelling prisoners, playing football with decapitated heads. and torturing/terrorising women and children in rural villages. And, in the streets today, continuing examples of the genetic effects on those born of parents who were direct victims of chemical warfare, are everywhere. Loads of young people with disabilities of various kinds, but most notably deformed limbs - all of these people, it would seem, determined to overcome their difficulties stoically - we've seen virtually no beggars, except one with a truly horribly burnt-out shell of a face. How the hell the West can believe it holds some kind of moral high ground in world affairs, what with this, Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, 'extraordinary rendition', we really don't know.

Sorry, rant over now.  It was a sobering experience, but we really can't pretend it didn't all happen.

Okay, back to the holiday fun.   In the afternoon of our first day, we all went on a 'cyclo-tour' of the City.   A cyclo, according to Andy's description, is one half of a bicycle, and one half of a bath-chair, welded together with a steering link in the middle.   The interesting thing with these contraptions is that the bath-chair goes out first into the traffic, like a baby in a pushchair - a good cure for constipation!   You may remember our description of the traffic  in Hanoi (I know Linda does!).   Well, it's 10 times as bad (though just slightly more orderly) than that! But it was really good fun, and a great way of seeing a city in a short space of time.  The drivers were surprisngly helpful, considering our lack of a common language, in pointing out many interesting sights.

In the evening, we went to have some street-food near to the night-market.   On the way, we stopped briefly for a beer in a local bar and, just as were we leaving there, my flip-flop came apart.   Within 10 seconds of me noticing this, and deciding that there was nothing else for it but to return to the hotel and change, a young Vietnamese chap came out of nowhere, complete with a shoe-shine/shoe-repair kit, and fixed my flip-flop in 3 minutes flat, for the grand sum of US$1.00   Bloody amazing!   I spent several minutes working out whether he'd actually crawled under the table where I'd been sitting, and deliberately sabotaged the flip-flop, but then decided it was about time not to be so cynical!  

At the night-market, I had 'beef cooked on roof tile' - which is exactly what it says on the tin.   On the table in front of me was placed a thick clay/terracotta plant-pot with a small charcoal fire inside.   On top of this was placed a concave, bamboo-shaped roof-tile.   I had to dip the uncooked beef and vegetables I was served with into some cooking oil in a small dish, and then cook these ingedients on the roof-tile, which was placed at an angle, so that the excess oil would run off back into the oil dish.   Not surprisingly, every so often the oil would trickle into the fire, and flame up wildly, just inches from my face!   Just what you need when the weather is already hot and humid!   Andy, meanwhile, chose the eel hot-pot; also cooked over a small, table barbecue - and also delicious, apparently!

The second day here, we wandered around the city on foot, just lapping up the local sights.   One of the most incongruous sights we came across was a scene which showed both 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' within a few yards of each other.   There's an almost-completed, absolutely huge but stunning building, all glass and steel, being built right on the Saigon River.   It's about 60 stories high, with a large heli-pad jutting out in a large semi-circle from about the 40th floor.   It's a very graceful, hi-tech, modern building which would not look out of place in Dubai.   (And, no, you're wrong- it's not a hostel for the unemployed and disabled, it's actually a financial services office tower, surprise surprise).   It's VERY impressive and beautiful - but just turn your eyes 90-degrees, and you'll see absolute squalor, with local people living under a flyover, on make-shift beds, broken down trucks, or hammocks slung between the stanchions - themselves all wrapped around with the most amazingly chaotic and terrifying mass of electricity and telephone wires.   Imagine the horror of one member of our group - he's a telecoms engineer from that most orderly of countries, Switzerland, and he spends most of his time open-mouthed and agog at this spaghetti of wiring all over the streets and pavements!

The back-streets of the city were absolutely fascinating.   Seems that whole areas specialise in a particular product - a whole street of high-tech hi-fi and telecoms equipment, followed by a whole street full of dried fish shops, then another full of second-hand electrical equipment, and then another row of bathroom fittings and tiles - most of which themselves would not look out of place in the West, were it not for the fact that they'd been left out on the street, covered in dust, for seemingly weeks on end - not the most impressive of sales displays!That evening, we met up with our nephew, Dominic.   He's just started working here in HCMC, after spells in Shanghai, Qatar, and Egypt, mainly teaching in English Language Educational Institutions.   He's currently an Academic Manager, so does little actual teaching these days.   It was great to meet up with him, as we don't seem him too often, albeit that our rendezvous started somewhat chaotically.   Andy and I had both booked into a massage parlour in a hotel near to our's for just an hour, which should have left us plenty of time to meet up with Dominic.   Somehow, however, it lasted much more than an hour and by the time we were due to meet Dominic, the heavens had opened and, despite having to go only a few yards back to our hotel to find him, I must have looked like a drowned rat when I finally got back to meet him.  He and I then decided to dash back to the massage parlour to meet Andy, which meant that, by now, both Dominic and I were absolutely soaked to the skin.   Anyway, all's well that ends well, as they say, and Andy and I ended up having  a really good 'craic' with Dominic over an admittedly not very inspiring meal (unusual in our experience so far, but we didn't feel much like exploring further for a better restaurant, given that the deluge continued for quite a while).

Then off to bed quite early - next day was an early morning bus journey to the Cambodian border and thence to Pnomh Penh.

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Aah: Hoi An!

Have just spent two-and-a-half wonderfully relaxing days in the beautiful fishing village of Hoi An, about 50K south of Danang.   It's yet another UNESCO world heritage site (seems that designation covers just about the whole of Vietnam:  in the UK I think we only have two such designated sites - one of which is Cynthia's house in Dorset, with a bit of the Jurassic Coast thrown in for good measure!)

Hoi An is really beautiful and colourful - a cross between the slightly dilapidated beauty of Venice and that of Upton-upon-Severn. The other similarity with these two is that this little coastal town also frequently floods, and has only just recovered from some heavy flooding earlier this year.  Indeed, the river water was slightly lapping over the port-side when we took our first 'orientation walk' with our tour leader, Nak, on arriving here.   Lots of ochre-yellows, brick-reds, turquoise blues and greens cover the painted walls of the higgledy-piggledy small water-front houses.  

We had planned to meet up with John here -  Cynthia's son, and brother of Jo in Vientiane.  Unfortunately for him, and us, he's currently in hospital in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, recovering from a knee operation, followig a bout of Dengue Fever.   Also, his girlfriend, Liz, went down with Dengue Fever whilst he was being operated on, and he's now looking after her, also in hospital in HCMC!   Get well soon, both of you.  Our consolation, however, is that we shall be seeing the pair of them over Christmas-time, when we'll be returning to Hoi An, on John's recommendation (good one, John!).   That's when his mum, our lovely friend, Cynthia, will also be joining us all from Dorset, leaving her dog, Sally, to guard that particular UNESCO site for a while.   (You will just LOVE it here, Cynth).

On our first afternoon, we went off for a fantastic seafood lunch in a local restaurant, the Mermaid.   Andy had a Vietnamese hot-pot with massive prawns, clams, squid, river-fish and vegetables, whilst |I had prawns in coconut milk, served piping hot inside a white coconut shell.   Absolutely gorgeous.   In fact, we can think of several of you who ought to be chartering a plane to get out here just for the seafood - Clive, as you were amongst the first to spring to mind, perhaps you could organise this flying charabanc, and make sure you include Sandra next-door, Len and Maggie in Mallorca, and any others who might want to hop on board?!!  

After our first lunch here, we walked through an amazing riverside street-market, covered in low-slung tarpaulin over and between the stalls, for shade we imagine, under most of which Andy had to walk headbowed, so low-slung were these tarpaulins.    The market sold every kind of fish, seafood, fruit, vegetable, herbs and spices imagineable.   Outside of the market, Hoi An is renowned for its tailor and shoe-shops, any one of which (around 200 of each, despite the town's small size!) will make you a dress, suit, shirt, blouse, pair of shoes or boots, to your exact measurements, in whatever style you choose, within 24 hours.   Not surprisingly for here, there's lots of silks, as well as wools and cashmere, to choose from.   There are also loads of handicrafts, jewellery, artwork and pottery shops as well.   And the traders, particularly the women, are really, really persistent.   As we walked along these narrow streets, we were constantly entreated by all of them, "Mam, Mam, M'dam, Sir, Sir, you buy somesing?   You come only lookee my shop?   Sir, where you flom?   You ha chillen?   You buy somesing take home for you chillen?"   Many of them also attempt flattery - "Sir, Sir, you velly hansom man, I make you somesing nice to wear."   They have no qualms about taking you by the elbow and trying to manoeuvre you into their shop, and, much to Andy's chagrin, three or four of the women actually stroked his stomach, saying "Happy Buddha belly, Sir, velly nice"!   THEY think it's a compliment!  Not many men round here have any paunch at all - probably 'cos there's no Harvey's!   AND they all seem to work so very hard - in fact, we've noticed that many of the men and women here will sleep by their market-stall, or in their shop, presumably rather than miss any potential passing trade - hope that's the case, anyway, rather than it being their only home!)

Our first full day here, we wandered around the 'old town' streets, taking in the Japanese covered bridge - which dates from the 15th century, when Hoi An was first established as a trading port with Japan, China, and other trading partners -  as well as several similarly ancient old houses with intriguing architecture, one of three folk museums, and took in some 'intangible heritage', as they call it, in the form of folk music, songs and dance.   At one of the folk museums, we wanted to buy some silk scarves, but were a little short of cash.   When I asked about the nearest ATM (there seem to be plenty everywhere), the female shopkeeper, Vung, called for her brother, Hung (yes, really!), who stuck a crash-helmet on my head, took me outside to where his motorbike was parked, sat me on the pillion, and shot off through the little alleyways to an ATM about 5 minutes' drive away - and all before I even realised it was happening!   The transactions completed, we continued our sight-seeing/shopping tour around the old town.   On the way back to our hotel, we'd stopped for yet more gorgeous seafood in a bar recommended to us by John, the Hai San, and also treated ourselves to one of his other recommendations: some sugared ginger, from one of the many street traders.   Delicious - AND good for the digestion, too.

That evening, we dined by the port-side (another seafood restaurant), and got talking there to the owner, Mr Phong.   After learning that we were from England, living 'near London', his first question was to ask if we knew Leyton in London.   (Dad, you'll be pleased to hear that your birthplace is 'on the map' over here.)   Mr Phong's question led to him showing us a whole portfolio-full of letters from people all over the world - the latest from a travel writer based in Leyton, London - thanking him for tours he had arranged for them to his own village, about 15k from Hoi An, where, it would seem, his wife cooked a marvellous lunch whilst Mr Phong talked to his visitors about the various struggles for independence - from French colonialism, from Japanese invasion in WW2, and from the American war of the 1960s and 70s.   (Cynth, John and Liz - we've taken Mr Phong's card, and would highly recommend us taking up his offer of a tour while we're here at Christmas-time.)

On our second full day here, Andy and I hired some push-bikes, and cycled the 5k to the gorgeous Cau Dai beach - a long, white-sandy, palm-fringed beach, with a wonderfully calm sea (after several weeks of typhoon turbulence) in which we swam around lazily with some of the younger crowd from our tour group.   In the afternoon, the two of us took a boat tour around the islands and islets, and our boat 'captain' took special care to arrange for some local fisher-folk to position their little sampan and throw their fishing net, several times, into the water, in front of the by-now setting sun.   As a result, we managed to get some lovely pictures.   What a treat!   After this delightful hour-long voyage, we had yet more scrumptious food, near to a restaurant famed for having given Mick Jagger culinary 'satisfaction' on several occasions.

The previous afternoon, we'd also both seen some lovely leather flip-flops/thongs in a shoe-shop, and wanted to buy them.   Seems you are rarely allowed to buy 'off the shelf'.   Despite both of us believing we'd got the right size, the shop-girl insisted on measuring us both for a perfect fit to be made.   This involved drawing around our feet on paper, making a mark where the big toe and the second toe part company, and measuring the 'girth' around the narrowest and widest part of our feet.   We collected our personalised footwear the following day - and all this for around £7 per pair!

Hoi An Street Market

Typical Hoi Ann Street

A Hoi An Tailor's Shop

Hoi An Market

Hoi An Fishers at Sunset, with their Sampan

Hoi An Quayside



More Hoi An Fishers at Sunset

Beginning the Boat Trip

Bike to the Beach

Japanese Covered Bridge



Our last night in Hoi An, before fying from Danang to Ho Chi Minh City, saw an absolute deluge of rain, the noise of which kept us both awake in the wee small hours.   We weren't staying near to the harbour/riverside, but we could only guess, as we drove away, that the frontage there would have been at least ankle-deep in water by then.

Hoi An Riverside Scene

Hoo-way Hue!

Sorry - can't find an acute accent on this keyboard for the 'e' in Hue, so this crummy title will have to suffice by of a pronunciation guide for this City on the central coast, roughly half-way down the elongated S-shape which is Vietnam.
It's considerably calmer than Hanoi (but then, where wouldn't be...?), and, by comparison, a little 'ordinary', dare we say. Mind you, our trips on the only full day in Hue were far from ordinary. We had a local guide, Thanh - another happy, smiley, joke-telling guide. He took us in the morning to the Imperial Citadel, built alongside the Perfume River in the early 1800swhen Emporer Gia Long, first emperor of the Nguyen dynasty, moved the capital from Hanoi to Hue in a bid to unite the country This dynasty made Hue a famous centre of the arts, scholarship and Buddhist learning, but their ambitious building projects and luxurious lifstyle resulted in crippling taxes. In 1885, the French seized power, making the emporors nominal rulers only. French rule was , by all accounts, harsh and punitive and, from then on the city was embroiled in social and political unrest, led by the anti-colonialists, in which the teenge student, Ho Chi Minh took an active part. Hue ceased to be the capital in 1945 when the puppet emporer Bao Dai finally abdicasted to ' Uncle Ho'. Today, the Imperial Citadel, which was heavily bombed and almost destroyed in both WW2 and the Vietnam war, is being renovated thanks to yet another UNESCO worls heritage listing.
Apart from some history and politics, we soon also learnt that every time our guide Thanh asked us a question about what we thought something was, what it meant, what it stood for, he was really setting us up as the 'straight man' for one of his many fairly crummy jokes - in fact, we think he's taken lessons from Paul Newman (for the uninitiated, he's the landlord of our local, the Six Bells in Chiddingly). Also, each time he finished one of his jokes, Thanh immediately pointed out to us that it was funny - just in case we hadn't got it. One example was when he showed us a couple of very ancient, very large frangipani trees whose branches were being suppported by a number of large stakes in the ground. On responding to his question about what the stakes were for, he quickly corrected us - "No, no for holding up chee ('tr' seems as difficult to pronounce for the Vietnamese as 'th' is). Just tha these chees sometimes go for walk in nigh, and, because they so ol, they need walking stic to hep them". He also explained that the purple Forbidden City inside the Citadel was only for the Emporer, his eunuchs and concubines, and VIPs. But that, in this case, 'VIP mean Very Impotent Person - as Emporer Ly ha no chill'n, even though he ha over 1,000 concubine. We say he ha plenty artirrery, no shell"! Yeah, I think you get the picture!
After this admittedly hilarious tour, Thanh took us to one of Hue's three 'national pagodas',which was interesting in its own right, but also because here is housed the 1950s Austin Westminster which, in 1963, one of the monks drove down to Saigon (then capital of South Vietnam when the country was still divided after the Vietnam war), got out in front of the Presidential Palace, and immolated himself in protest at discrimination against Buddhists by the US-supported Roman Catholic President, Ngo Dinh Diem. The photograph of this very public immolation protest, complete with the Austin car in the foreground, hit the headlines all around the world at the time, and it was certainly one which I remember seeing in the UK's newspapers whilst I was in my last-but-one year of secondary school.
After lunch, Thanh arranged for our group to go on a motor-bike trip. 9 of us rode pillion to 9 Intrepid Travel blue-shirted professional drivers (oh, incidentally, we also learned that here in Vietnam, ordinary citizens are virtually never allowed to drive cars - that is the province of 'professional' drivers only - god help 'em!) Anyway, once we were all helmeted and seated, the leader of these 9 motor-cyclists shouted out the Vietnamese equivalent of "three, two, one: we have lift-off", and we all sped away from a standing start in a shower of dust and small pebbles. Pretty exhilarating! After only a few yards, our convoy shot off the road and into a forest, travelling up a dusty/muddy, in places deeply-rutted, track to the top of a hill overlooking a big bend in the river. Here there were three big concrete bunkers, rather like our martello towers - one French, from colonial times, one American from the Vietnam war days, and one South Vietnamese from when the Americans handed the south over. Amongst the trees were several young 'courting' couples, who seemed most put out at our slightly noisy arrival, and there was much rapid re-arranging of clothing going on! Thanh explained that the hill is now known as 'good view hill', because this is the excuse all the youngsters give their parents about why they spend so much time up there.
Having stopped for a photo-call, we got back onto our bikes, and scrambled our way back down the hill, shooting straight out into the oncoming traffic, Hanoi-style, with much beeping of horns. The 2-hour ride took us through the countryside full of padi-fields and occasional jungle, down really tiny winding lanes in small ramshackle villages - the kind of scene where you might expect to see us all emerge covered in people's washing from their back-yard washing lines. Though all these villages seemed pretty dilapated, they all had at least one, sometimes two, elaborately decorated temples of various kinds. We stopped for refreshments at a large museum of peasant/agricultural life. Whilst I cack-handedly tried to learn how to separate rice from its husks using a rattan sieve, Andy had his palm read by a 200-year-old Vietnamese equivalent of Eleanor Rigby - "wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door". This strangely rouged and painted, wizened, toothless old woman spoke some heavily-accented form of English, and we learned from Thanh that she had been the bride of a GI who had abandoned her at the end of the war. Then, it was back to our hotel, still in convoy and Hanoi-style driving, to shower, change, and do our best to stop our legs wobblng!
In the evening, we went to an Imperial Banquet at a local restaurant, where we all had to dress up as King and Queen (Andy and I),or courtiers or eunuchs (the rest of the group). We sat down to this banquet, which compromised several courses of lovely food, each morsel of which was moved by chopsticks from the serving platters to our individual bowls by some silk-clad serving wenches. We didn't, though, have a banquet of 50 dishes, cooked by 50 different chefs and served by 50 different serving girls, which was apparently the penchant of one of the many Emporors we'd learned about earlier this day. Our banquet was accompanied by some traditional music and song, played and sung for us by some very accomplished male musicians and female singers who, in local tradition, did the 'hard-sell' bit with their CDs at the end of their performance. A really good night out, though, after a fun-packed, exhilarating day. So much for us starting this posting with the word 'ordinary'!



King and Queen!





Court Musicians!



3-2-1 We Have Lift-Off!

'Eleanor Rigby'

After a Good Dinner.



Imperial Citadel at Hue.

Rice Sieving.



This Water Buffalo is for Mike!

It's Saturday 23rd October, and we've got two days in Hoi An, on the east coast of Central Vietnam, with no organised group activities, so will have time to bring blog up to date - and add some piccies! Watch this space.

City in the Bend of a River

This place is mad!!!  We all know it better as Hanoi, which translates as the title to this blog. As we came from the airport to the city centre by bus, all of us were absolutely agog with disbelief. Think of Piccadilly Circus, in terms of the volume of traffic, noise, dust, fumes, add in some heat and humidity, and multiply it at least by 50. Buses, lorries, rick-shaws, taxis, mini-buses and millions and millions of small motorbikes, all swarm through the tangled web of streets, many actually driving INTO oncoming traffic on either side of the road, doing U-turns at will, joining the traffic at oblique angles to each other, and/or turning into the main drag from side-roads or from the kerbside without checking what is coming at them.   It seems that it's the job of the traffic already on the road to, somehow, accommodate those joining whenever and however they feel like it.   And in all of this mayhem, pedestrians walk slowly from one side of the road to another, or even going along the road in either direction, intermingling with the traffic with amazing nonchalance. At first sight, there seem to be absolutely no rules of the road at all. However, on more careful observation, it becomes obvious that all this madness actually seems to work quite well. The important thing, as a pedestrian, is to walk slowly, calmly, and at an even pace, and do your best not to lose your nerve. And that's important, as the pavements here are absolutely no place for pedestrians! They're there for these millions of motorbikes to park in never-ending rows, traders to hawk their wares, people to squat on corners eating their bowls of food and drinking tea.   But Hanoi is also exciting, vibrant, manic,and really pulsating with life. After a fairly boring wait at the airport in Vientiane, it really made our whole party come alive with laughter, amazement, and jaw-dropping disbelief.

This month, October 2010, Hanoi (more often shown here as Ha Noi), celebrates 1,000 years of existence, and there are many red banners, murals, lanterns and decorations adorning the streets. Just before we arrived here, there'd been huge celebrations and firework displays to mark the occasion.    The city used to be caled Thang Long, or 'City of the Rising Dragon', after a new king looking for somewhere to settle claimed to haved seen a golden dragon rising up from here towards the heavens. (Must have been some good opium in those days!).

Our first night here, we walked from our hotel to a local restaurant, keeping VERY close to our guide, Nak, every time we crossed the road. The food here is very good, but far less spicy than we've been used to in Thailand and Laos, and we often ask for some additional chopped chillies, just to get our 'fix'.
The following morning, we set off by bus for a 2-hour journey to Halong Bay in the Gulf of Tonkin. Here, if you want to 'pick a flower' or 'shoot a rabbit', you ask the driver to stop at the 'Happy Room'.  Well, we stopped at a Happy Room half-way to the Bay, which was in another handicraft complex set up by a not-for-profit organisation to make employment for people who are victims of 'Agent Orange', the US chemical-warfare of choice during the Vietnam war years. (It was here, in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, as some of you may remember, that the US alleged that one of its destroyers had been attacked by the North Vietnamese.   After a second such allegation by the US, President Johnson sought and got Congress approval to 'take any measures necessary to repel further attacks', and thus began the bombing of North Vietnam).  On our journey, we saw loads of motor-bikes loaded up with perhaps 6 or 7 large bird-cages full of birds, half a hedgerow of crops, massive basket panniers with market produce, and even one with a full-sized cow strapped to the pillion, one with three large pigs, and one really massive water buffalo!  Yes, on the back of a small motorbike!! Judging by the way they were strapped on the backs of these vehicles, we can only hope that these animals were already dead (though our guide thinks not...) 

Halong Bay, a UNESCO world heritage site, currently vying to be listed as one of the new '7 Wonders of the World' apparently (quite how that works, we're not sure, but there's apparently a website where you can vote for this), is GORGEOUS. It consists of nearly 2,000 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with emormous grottos or caves - one of which we visited - with huge, weirdly shaped stalagtites.   (I kept expecting either another James Bond-style water-chase, or at the very least a Thunderbirds jet-ski, to energe suddenly into the waters from somewhere hidden inside this massive cave complex).   Several of the Halong Bay islands support whole floating villages of fisher-folk, whio apparently ply the local waters for over 200 types of fish and around 450 kinds of molluscs.   After floating around the islands on our very luxurious sailing junk for an hour or two, and following our visit to the cave, the sailing junk dropped anchor and we swam for some time in the warm, milky-green sea - so relaxing and buoyant, just wonderful - before getting back onto the still-anchored boat for some sunbathing and photography.    There was a bit of a mist all around as the sun started to go down, which seemed to add a dream-like quality to the whole place.   Just as the sun set, we enjoyed a cocktail each, before tucking into just about the most wonderful seafood dinner we've had this trip.   We know several of you who would have just loved this whole experience.   As the moon and stars rose in the sky, all of the couple of dozen other boats also staying the night nearby started to put their lights on, and the scene turned into something hugely romantic, calming, and peaceful (except for some thankfully-distant karaoke noises from one or two of them.)   We had a lovely room on board, complete with en-suite bathroom, and king-sized bed, and we were lulled gently to sleep in the calm waters of Halong Bay.   We can certainly recommend it!

The following morning, after a lovely breakfast on board, we sailed back to the harbour and returned by bus to the madness of Hanoi - quite a contrast!   It's amazing really, given that it remains a communist country, just how strong is the Vietnamese people's entrepreneurial/commercial spirit.   Every inch of space here is a trading opportunity - including the mainly female street vendors who roam around the traffic wearing their 'coolie-hats', and carrying over one shoulder a large bamboo pole, with huge round baskets tied on either end of the pole, replete with perhaps several dozen melons, ugly-fruit, kilos of grapes or sweets in both.

After an afternoon walking, by now brazenly, around the City centre, and around and over the beautiful Hoan Kiem lake (with a bright red bridge leading to a temple in the centre of the lake, which is a favourite gathering place for couples to have their official photographs taken before their wedding - the official photographers encourage passers-by to take photos too, so we did!),  Andy and I had a leg and foot massage - in the weirdest back-alley imagineable, and with one of the two masseuses sniffing loudly for the duration, and, at one point, making text-calls with one hand whilst continuing the massage single-handed!  Not the  best massage ever, and nothing like as good as the two in Ventiane - but there'll be some more! Then it was off to the airport for another flight, to Hue (sadly, in lieu of a planned overnight train trip on the Reunification Express, which was cancelled because of the flooding - 167 people have apparently lost their lives in floods in Vietnam in the last week).

On that happy note, we'll post this blog - and hope to get some photos up shortly.  But we're really, really busy having lots of fun, and blogging has to take its turn!

1000-Year Celebrations in Hanoi

Many Hanoi Street Scenes

Hanoi's Lake Hoan Kiem at Night

Several Scenes of Halong Bay

Halong Bay at Night

　
　
　
　
　

A Trip Down the River in a B52 Bomb-Case Canoe - It Can Only be Laos!

Yes, you've read it correctly - as part of our trip to the Homestay village this weekend, we travelled for 25 minutes each way by river, and back again this morning, in a 5-person canoe made from the casing of one of the thousands of B52 bombs which had been dropped by the Americans during the Vietnam war. This is one of hundreds of uses to which the Lao have put the still-deadly debris of what has become known as the 'Secret War' during that horrible time. An estimated 260 million tonnes of various kinds of bombs were dropped on Laos by the US - a plane-load every nine minutes for eight years, more than the total of bombs dropped during the whole of WW2! - in response to the Viet Minh funnelling massive amounts of war munitions down the Ho Chi Minh trail. And this carpet-bombing took place despite a 1954 Geneva Conference declaration of neutrality for Laos. Sadly, some 78 million tonnes failed to explode, and the consequences are still being felt in this country today. Doubtless we'll return to this subject when we eventually return to Vientiane, as we plan to visit the COPE National Rehabilitation Centre dedicated to supporting the victims.
Anyway, we'd set off from Vientiane, by air-conditioned private bus, at 9.00 on Saturday morning (16 Oct) for the supposedly 6-hour drive (including refreshment breaks) to the Hmong village of Hin Boun, planning to drive for another 12-14 hours by bus the following day, to Ninh Binh (not Ninbim, the quirky, cannabis-worshipping, Queensland village which was the birthplace of our friend, Margo, wife of Andy's ex-tree-surgery colleague, Ben Jackson). Hin Boun was to be the last Laos stopping-place before reaching the Laos-Vietnam border. We travelled along the Lao Highway - a sort-of dual carriageway on which our skillful driver skated gracefully around pot-holes, herds of cattle, buffalo and goats, stray dogs, pigs and chickens, as well as lorries, pick-ups, family-filled small motor-cycles, weird-looking tractors, and young children on push-bikes. We were told that we would stop roughly every two hours for toilet stops and/or refreshment stops. However, should anyone not be able to wait for the two-hour toilet break, we were to ask the driver to stop in order to 'shoot a rabbit' (males), or 'pick a flower' (females). How wonderfully euphamistic!
For the first time since we arrived in Indo-China, the weather was relatively cool (a comfortable 18-20 degrees) and drizzly;  for the most part, the weather has been in the low to mid thirties, and pretty sticky.   In fact, Jo declared it to be imported 'Manchester rain', rather than the usual tropical stuff - it was relentless, pissy, and grey-skied. For the most part, it's been in the low to mid 30s, fairly humid and sticky. In fact, one Swiss ex-pat we asked, suggested that Europeans never do get used to the heat and humidity; they merely get used to the sweat - and adapt their lifestyle accordingly, showering and changing several times a day.
At our lunch-stop, though, Nak, our tour leader, had a telephone message that the highway over the border in Vietnam was unpassable because of a land-slide due to unusually heavy rains this year. We therefore spent an additional hour at our roadside cafe while Nak, and Ghii (our Laos-based guide) tried to work out what best to do. While they were busy, however, there was the first (and, we hope, only!) near-mutiny in the group - mainly orchestrated by the only other 'mature' British female - albeit a mere 50-year-old. This character had already declared herself unhappy with the idea of a primitave homestay, and with the duration of the bus journey on the two days - even though these were both made clear in the Trip Notes to which we had all signed up. It was, by now, raining quite heavily, and she did her best to whip the group up into returning immediately to the comfort of the 'Travelodge' in Vientiane, despite the fact that the homestay itself was well inside the Laos border. In the event, however, the tour leader declared that we would continue on to the homestay, but, instead of travelling on to Vietnam by road, would return to Vientiane the next day, to take the plane direct to Hanoi.
In the event, because of these delays, we turned up at the 'B52 river-crossing' only shortly before sunset (around 5.30 pm). By the time we arrived at the, admittedly scarily rudimentary, village homestay, the rain was heavy and persistent. We therefore disembarked our B52s in pouring rain, up a very muddy and slippery riverbank (two of the group fell over and got covered in red mud), and went straight to the wooden house, perched on high stilts accessible only by a wooden-planked staircase, without really seeing any of the villagers, except for a brave few looking out at us from their shacks through the dying light and rain. The family house in which our half of the group were staying had one large family room at the top of the stairs, with no furniture to speak of. There were various bits of linoleum covering the floor - obviously lots of off-cuts from different patterns and styles, and loads of what looked to be bedding rolls in the rafters. There were two other 'rooms' partitioned off by curtaining, in which the family members (grandmother, mother, father, and two young girls) were squashed up to spend the night - they usually use the family room which was given over to us, apparently. Through a doorway was a fairly large, but very spartan kitchen, with a small log-fire in the middle of it (we didn't actually go in, as they were busy cooking our meal, and it was difficult to see how this fire didn't actually burn down the whole house, built of wood as it is!).   Apart from a number of pots and pans hanging around the walls, and a few food-sacks in one corner, there was nothing else in the room. Underneath the house was a muddy, albeit concreted area which stored several sacks of rice on a huge pallet, fenced off from the chickens and rooster which were skittering about under there, a couple of small motor-bikes, loads of bits of iron, some farming-looking implements, and two large weaving looms - on both of which the women of the family had made a start on some stunningly intricate patterns in threads of pinks, gold, yellow, blue and purple silk. These seemed really out of place in this muddy/dusty/primitive-looking location. A few feet away from the house, in amongst some bushes and trees, was a walled squat-toilet for the use of all of us - family and visitors alike. There was a large barrel of water beside the squat toilet, in which floated some very large, dead beetles, and a huge plastic ladle. This ladle was to be used to scoop up water to flush the squat toilet after use. The only washing facility was an outdoor cold tap, shared by all the houses in the village, just across from the house in which we were staying.   People using this 'en-suite', which none of us did, would cover themselves in a sarong (women), or shorts (men) to perform their very public ablutions.   Apart from the beautiful weaving already mentioned, the most incongruous thing of all in this tiny village were several HUGE satellite dishes - which would not look out of place in Joderell Bank!   Most of the houses, including 'ours', had TV and hi-fi, and one of the most bizarre memories I have is seeing the grandmother in our house, looking like something out of a biblical movie scene, flicking through the buttons on the TV remote whilst we were eating our breakfast.   We were told that this particular Hmong village is amongst the wealthiest, partly because of the income from the homestay visitors, but also because most of the men there nowadays work on a huge hydro-electric dam nearby.   (Incidentally, we also understand that there remain some ethnic tensions between the majority Lao population and the Hmong tribes, the Hmong having been recruited by the Americans during the Vietnam war to provide a 'home-grown' resistance movement to Communist sympathy, arming a crack-force of 10,000 Hmong warriors, naturally suspicious of communism and eager to trade their opium and courage for guns and money.)

After a fairly uncomfortable night for most of our group, sleeping on thin bedding rolls under blood-stained mosquito-nets (though Andy and I, to the annoyance of the others, slept well), despite this unremittingly bleak description of the village, we both found it fascinating and great fun - and the food was fab!  It's also a shame that the weather conditions and the late arrival prevented more socialising with the villagers, 'cos we got the impression that they are a very friendly and hospitable people.

After a superb breakfast of herby omelettes and banana muffins, we set off back down-river in our B52s, and thence the long journey back to Vientiane.   This supposedly 6-hour trip was, however, delayed by at least 2 hours by a jack-knifed lorry that completely blocked the very windy road, about an hour's journey from the village.   Still, most of the group - and the dozens of other travellers in other vehicles held up by the scene - were kept highly entertained for the duration as they watched a huge recovery vehicle slowly inch the jack-knifed lorry out of the ditch into which the cab had toppled.   Fortunately, no-one, not even the driver, had been injured in the event.  

So, we finally returned to our 'travelodge' in Vientiane early on Sunday evening, having left the village at 8 in the morning.   We were all pretty bushed by then, so we wandered into town to get a meal, and then back to the hotel for an early night.  More great Lao street food by the banks of the Mekong first, though!

B52 Bomb-Case Canoes

On the Road to Hin Boun

Around The Hmong Village of Hin Boun

Barbara Shares Jo's Fruit with Village Elders

Roadside Buddhist Shrine

Jack-knifed Lorry