And the end of Hanoi, Vietnam, and the whole Trip. :(

The night train brought us into Hanoi at 4:30 in the morning. We were told to grab a taxi to our hotel, but since it was only a mile away, we decided to take an early morning stroll through the mostly deserted streets. Morning hours in most cities are so peaceful, and here, we got to cross the street without fear of being run over. Our hotel was sort of closed when we arrived, but the breakfast cook showed up at the same time as us and just knocked on the front door, waking the poor bellman asleep on the lobby couch, who let us in. 

We got to sleep in the lobby for about 45 minutes before the hotel guests started to come down for breakfast. We were only staying at the hotel until 8am, waiting for a bus to take us to Ha Long Bay - a large expanse of water with over 1100 mini islands of limestone and trees spread all over. “Ha Long” means “Descending Dragon” and it’s said that all the islands are the Dragon’s eggs.

Our bus was cramped, stopped at a marble factory where they tried to get us to buy overpriced statues, and took 4 hours, but once at the bay, we were transferred to a Junk Boat - small 20 person cruise ship that would float us around the Bay for 2 days and let us see some of the area’s main attractions. Our room was small and the bathroom smelled like a rotten egg, but it was quaint and the boat had three levels: bottom was rooms; the middle held the bar, dinning area, and more rooms; and the top was spread with lounge chairs to admire the view.

Unfortunately, the weather was quite foggy, so there wasn’t a crystal clear view of the islands with a beautiful blue sky backdrop, but it did give the mountains a grey-blue blended watercolor look. There were also about 50 other ships within half a mile of us, so the emptiness of the bay we saw on all the flyers was probably from 20 years ago. Ha Long Bay has only been open to tourism since 1994 and since then, over 500 different junk boats, day boats, sail boats, and speed boats show visitors the beauty of the area on a daily basis.

Our first stop was Ti-Top Island- a small island that the Russian liaison to Ho Chi Minh liked to come to when working with the Vietnam President, therefore the country named it after him. We could have went swimming, but 30 degree water seemed a tad cold, so we opted to join the large line headed up 300 stairs to a viewing platform looking out at the bay and more islands. It was a nice view, but probably would have been better on a sunny day and with less people.

The afternoon was spent kayaking a small inlet bordering a monkey island. We watched as cute little baby monkeys scaled down sheer limestone cliff-faces and somehow survived. There was a big monkey that stayed on “his” rock and if the other monkeys came near him, he’d get pissy and lash out. The monkeys were so cute that Robby kept paddling us closer to the island and I got mad because I did not want a cute, fluffy monkey that might have rabies on our kayak. 

While kayaking, we met a nice British couple, Dan and Becky, who were on a different junk cruise and we just talked about all the places we had been to in Vietnam while paddling back to our individual boats to take showers and enjoy sunset happy hour. Since it was New Years Eve, our boat laid out a lovely spread of fruits and chocolates with accompanying wine to celebrate in the evening. The tour leader tried to get everyone to sing a song from their country, but most people opted to dance instead. At Midnight, all of the boats in the area honked their horns, blinked their lights, and you could hear cheers across the water.

The following morning, everyone on our boat went off to see a cave, but since we were on the 3 day/2 night cruise, whereas they all were on the 2D/1N cruise, we were shuttled to two different places before being deposited on a day boat. Our kayaking couple, Dan and Becky, also happened to be on our day cruise, so we had some great people to spend the day with. We explored a cave that had small entryways leading into large chambers and was imbedded into a rock face above the water, kayaked to a sandy beach (that a bunch of other people also happened to kayak too), and visited a pearl farm where the sales lady murdered a poor oyster in front of us to show us how they dig the pearls out of the shells. 

Our day boat apparently ended at 3pm, when the normal 2D/1N cruise people start their adventures, so we had 2 hours to lounge on the sun deck of our boat and start happy hour early. When the new ship passengers came back to the boat, they were all like, “where’d you come from?” But everyone was really friendly and it was nice to spend the evening with a more talkative bunch of people. Our first group of passengers mostly spoke Korean and Indian, so it was mostly a game of charades to communicate.

Our last day on the boat was spent visiting Surprise Cave - a rather large series of cave chambers that stretch into an island interior. I think I would have enjoyed it better if there would have been some sort order to the amount of people allowed in at one time, but instead we walked-stopped-walked in a cue of 100’s. We lunched back on the boat and then we were put on a bus back to Hanoi with Dan and Becky. We joked that they were stalking us, but since they were at the boat dock first, we technically were the stalkers. 

Our Hanoi hotel, Golden Rooster, turned out to be amazing. We had been there twice before for breakfast and to wait for rides elsewhere, but we got to actually check in this time. Our room was clean, comfortable, cool, and heavenly compared to our Sapa and Ha Long Bay accommodations; a great hotel to spend our last two days in Vietnam.

Hanoi is a very big city and offers tons of activities and attractions - shows, food tours, pagodas, museums, numerous Night Markets, and the Water Puppet show - a unique show that illustrates 11th century Asian puppet tradition and tells the story of a giant turtle, a lake, and ancient village life. 8+ puppeteers use long poles to control the characters and make it appear as if the puppets are walking, dancing, and running on water. The show is accompanied by a live Vietnamese instrumental band. For only $5 and having been just 45 minutes long, it was a rather nice evening activity. 

1 day later, we saw “My Village”, an amazing performance of acrobatic ability infused with a live orchestra that told the story of a Vietnamese tribal village’s daily life. Since the only talking during the 75 minute show was singing, strategic lightening and music helped tell the story of love, loss, hardship, and friendship. I encourage everyone to see this show as it is spectacular and well worth the entrance price, plus you can meet the performers after the show and talk with them or take photos.

We spent our 1 full day in Hanoi on a City Tour visiting various tourist sights in the area. 1st stop was Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum where he is actually entombed and can be viewed on the weekends (creepy), plus Ho Chi Minh’s residence. There is a bomb shelter on the property, but no one apparently knows how big it is or the layout. 2nd stop was the “One-Pillar Pagoda” - rising from one pillar in the centre of an elegantly square shaped lotus pond, the pagoda is said to represent a lotus flower growing up out of the water.

Aside from a mini stop at a lacquer factory that showed us how a small Vietnamese village makes egg shell lacquer art, which was actually fascinating and way more time consuming than I ever thought, we toured the Museum of Ethnology for our 3rd stop. The museum had displays on most of the indigenous tribes of Indochina (Vietnam, Thailand, & Cambodia), including a few replicas of their houses, clothing, and jewelry. 

We had a tasty lunch before visiting the Temple of Literature - opened in 1070 as Vietnam’s first National University and dedicated to the study of Confucius. Our last stop on the tour was the “most beautiful pagoda”, at least according to our tour guide. If you take a picture of Tran Quoc Pagoda from the side with the incense pillars that house real monk’s ashes, it is rather lovely. It’s also situated on the edge of the West Lake - 17km expanse of water that borders a bunch of the taller buildings in the city. There are approximately 30 lakes in Hanoi. 

For our last few hours in the lovely city of Hanoi, Robby and I walked around admiring all the buildings and the people. We got slightly unlucky when it decided to rain, but a nice shop vendor gave us plastic bags to put our cameras in. We visited the Hoa Lo Prison, dubbed by captured American Vietnam War pilots as the “Hanoi Hilton” because of the excellent treatment they received- daily exercise; good food; education on the Vietnamese people and culture, which ended up changing their minds about the war and having most of the pilots regret bombing the hell out of the country; and general respect from the Vietnamese guards. 

The Prison was first built in 1886 by the French during their occupation of Indochina and used to imprison Vietnamese Political Prisoners who opposed the French order. Those prisoners did not fair well in the jail - often dying from treatable diseases like the flu, dysentery, and diarrhea, as well as torture. Conditions were cramped and stifling in the summer and freezing in the winter. But the prisoners never lost faith in their communistic cause as they wrote secret propaganda newsletters and taught each other their ways while chained to the floor. Their commitment to their beliefs and their willful defiance to be assimilated by the French is truly inspirational in the face of such hardships and the threat of death, that loomed over their heads daily. 

To decompress from yet another tale of sadness about a class of people committing atrocities against another group of people, Robby and I went in search of “Loading T”, a coffee shop hidden away inside a residential building that, when we found it, looked ready to crumble. But inside the building, the coffee house was adorable with flower vases on all the tables and a cozy, horticulturist’s living room vibe with a French window open to the street. The drinks weren’t too bad either.

With our time in Vietnam about up, we walked back to the Golden Rooster to grab our bags and head to the airport. We acquired a new North Fake gym bag to pack all the leather shoes we bought in Hoi An, plus some nick knacks we picked up in various night markets, so our minimalist hope for traveling lite vanished, but life is what it is and I don’t think we can every pack with “just the bare essentials”. 

Vietnam is a wonderful country with beautiful scenery; friendly people; amazing coffee shops that serve at times good coffee and at other times terrible sludge; a place of distinctive history and amazing archeological finds; vast and small cities that offer their unique highlights; and an openness to welcome all and forgive passed transgressions. This past month I’ve had a chance to relax on a boat and in the mountains, meet some wonderful people from all over the world, learn more about a couple of wars that senselessly killed millions for the purpose of power or prestige, walk for miles and miles but still be awed by the hidden gems I stumbled across, and find contentment in myself and appreciation for all that I have.

Thank you Vietnam and Cambodia, you’re wonderful countries!

Hanoi, Sapa, Hanoi Again.

We arrived in Hanoi and started our pre-bought 9 day adventure of hiking the local villages of Sapa, relaxing on a junk boat in Ha Long Bay, and exploring the Capital of Vietnam. After leaving our backpacks in the lobby of a hotel, we had 5 hours to explore Hanoi’s Old Quarter - historic for its French Colonial architecture, shopping, and temples. The city also celebrated its 1000 history in 2010. 

Since a lot, and I mean a lot, of clothing is made in Vietnam, (they have clothing stores all over selling the rejects - missing a button, crook stitches, zipper misplaced, etc. for pennies on the dollar) we went shopping. Most of the stuff is North Face, or North Fakes, as the backpackers call it, but who am I to argue with a $18 nano puffy coat that keeps me warm and would cost $250 in the US?

With a new, warm, snuggly coat in hand, we boarded a night train to Sapa - a north Vietnam mountain village known for its rice fields and the local tribes that farm the land. We shared a tiny traincabin with a very tall German who was nice, but didn’t quite understand the concept of “shared space”. Since he had the top bunk on his side of the room, he needed a place to drink his coffee in the morning, so he just moved the sleeping guy’s feet on the bottom bunk and sat down. He also drank 2 of the 4 free water bottles in the car, thinking they were all up for grabs, but really one per person. 

At 5:30am we zombie walked to a waiting taxi-van for an hour drive into the mountains. I passed out against the window and apparently missed the harrowing ride racing up the narrow, windy road to Sapa. We had just enough time to store our bags and grab some breakfast before the tribes women of the Black H’moung came to take us on a trek through the woods to visit their village. Since it was a rainy day, we borrowed muck boots from the hotel, even though they were huge, and were extremely grateful since we ended up slipping and sliding down the muddy hillside for the better part of 6 hours. 

We choose the “hard way” trek, which meant we became part billy goat and went up and down the hills, through the woods, and not to grandmother’s house because she was actually helping us try not to fall on our asses in the mud, all the while watching the mist sweep down from the mountains and over the rice fields. Even though it is winter now, rainy and cold, the rice terraces hold green and brown tones. The eerie quality of the fog helped make the valley look like a magically place. 

The tour took a bit of a bad turn at lunch. Apparently we had one tribeswoman guide, but the other 10 tribes women who helped us transverse the mud come to “help you” with the purpose of forcing you to buy a purse or bag from them at the end of the hike. We had just sat down for lunch when 15 of them surrounded us and shovel trinkets and purses in our faces. They said they helped us and we must buy. I picked up a purse to look at it and our guide told me, “she is not our tribe, you need to buy from our tribe”. So I put the purse down and bought one from one of the women who helped me, but the other three women who helped me as well started to get angry I wouldn’t buy anything from them. Essentially I got claustrophobic with them all pressing in and shoving products in my face that I yelled at one of the women that I wasn’t happy and they needed to get away from me. They sort of left, but we got evil stares in return. 

Going into the hike, I knew that the tribeswomen helped you on the trail and that you should tip them for the help, but forcing people to buy overpriced handcrafts they don’t want is wrong and makes me not want to tip at all. After that, I was a bit angry and unable to appreciate the scenery for the next hour or so. It didn’t help that we separated from our whole tour group, save one guy, when we went to our Homestay and they went back to town. A Homestay is where you stay in a local’s home and they tell you about their culture, you get to help them cook or watch them in the rice fields. It’s an immersion experience of you learning about them and them learning about you. Our Homestay in Sapa was not this.

Walking to the Homestay, we passed by many cute Homestays that had gardens or a little bar or people laughing inside. We left all that behind and kept walking out of the little town. We started to hear very loud music blasting over the valley and my first thought was, “oh crap, that’s where we’re going.” I hate being right. Out of all the cute places, we got a “Homestay” run by a family that spoke no English, wasn’t interested in talking to their guests, or being helpful in anyway.

The music stopped when we arrived long enough for the proprietor to show us mattresses on the floor upstairs and tell us dinner was at 6pm; it was 2pm when we arrived. Robby, and Eddie, the guy that came with us, attempted to sleep, but it was freezing and the proprietor decided he would sing his own terrible karaoke, so it was futile. We donned our raincoats and gum boots and headed back into town just to do something, anything than die of boredom or bad karaoke.

We met some nice Belgium girls, found egg coffee - a raw egg blended with condensed milk and sugar and poured over strong coffee, and talked about our lives. It was actually nice. When we got back to the Homestay, a bunch of people had shown up and were eating dinner. There was an irate Frenchman who was wet and cold and asked for the standing heater to be turned on, but there wasn’t petroleum for it (we’d asked earlier), so one of the guys that worked in the Homestay built him a mini mortar with hot coals and stuck it at his feet. It was pretty funny. The Frenchman also told us at 8:30pm we were talking too loud and “people” were trying to sleep.

So, Sapa Homestay was a bust, but Eddie was fun to hang out with and the hiking was pretty. The following morning we went to see a waterfall and then explored the actually town of Sapa. Most of the stores sold more North Fakes, but it was still fun to browse the arrangement of colors, textures, and styles. We also found a lit up lake that had a giant pink lotus statue floating in the middle, outlined by green and blue lights. 

Our last day of Sapa was spent visiting Cat Cat Village. What once used to be a working H’moung village has been turned into a tourist trap where visitors can dress in the local water tribe clothing and take Instagram selfies to their heart’s content in predesigned photogenic stops. There’s a large statue of a water jug and flute that represents the tribe, a waterfall, water wheels with hammocks, flower garden, and shops. Even though it was touristy, the photo sites were very beautiful and we lucked out with a bright blue sky and the ability to see rice field for miles. 

Our second adventure on the night train was better, we had a nice Belgium couple sharing our cabin who told us of their incredible Homestay in a house way up in the mountains with a small local family they lived with for two days where they helped around the house and learned about each other’s lives. We now know there are true homestays available, we just have to book the right one next time we come back to Sapa.

To be continued...