Monday, December 8, 2008
Buy the ticket, take the ride
Some of my most memorable moments while on the road have been accidental. A week-long cargo boat ride from Brazil to Colombia because any other means of transport would have been too expensive. A frenzied exit from a near-rioting crowd at the Champs D'Elysses on New Years Eve. Driving through a pedestrian-only street market in the wee hours of the morning in La Paz, because the locals we were with didn’t know how else to get us back to our hotel.
These are moments when each decision goes beyond the everyday what to eat and where to drink, and each choice could either help or hinder the cause, with no in-betweens. Moments when senses feel just that little bit more attuned to risks, adventure and a bargain.
Crossing the Vietnam-Laos border was another one of those precious moments for me.
Max, Jim and I had decided to cross overland on a whim while in Hoi An, and had little planned besides our destination, Vientiane. Driven by a desire to leave the fast-paced, overly aggressive Vietnam as quickly as possible, we set our sights on the closest convenient border town, Lao Bao.
Said to be the most popular overland crossing between Vietnam and Laos, Lao Bao is located in Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province, some 150 kilometres North-West of Hue and 300 kilometres from Hoi An. Arriving at Lao Bao and crossing the border is achieved via Highway 9, which once served as a tributary of the historic Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Our adventure began in the early afternoon of December 6 with a bus ride to the Quang Tri provincial capital, Dong Ha. We had planned to spend one or two nights in Dong Ha, visiting the nearby DMZ before crossing the border to Laos. As soon as our bus set us down in the seedy-looking town that evening, however, I became anxious to leave.
Bypassing a very persistent and somewhat creepy tour agent, we found the Lonely Planet-recommended DMZ Cafe for advice on visiting the DMZ and crossing the border. DMZ Cafe's proprietor, Mr Tinh, is an elderly, personable, proficient English-speaking man who ably sold us a government-endorsed tour of the DMZ for the next morning.
As per Mr Tinh’s advice, we toured the DMZ and the Vinh Moc tunnels, where North Vietnamese troops and their families lived from 1966 to 1972. The tunnels housed 500 people during the six-year period, and include designated caverns for ‘family rooms’, a meeting room, a hospital, and a maternity ward where 17 babies were successfully birthed.
The tour then took us down the Ho Chi Minh trail to Khe Sanh (yes, we hummed the song, quietly), where we visited a museum filled with anti-American propaganda. We farewelled the tour group at the tiny town of Khe Sanh to catch a local minivan to the border -- a ride that was an experience in itself for the friendliness and quirkiness of the 17 locals who were crammed in with us in the 12-seater van.
We arrived at the Lao Bao bus station at 3.45pm, and walked to the border under an optimistic blanket of sunshine. Thanks to the relatively late hour of the day, the border crossing was entirely devoid of queues or crowds, and our visas were processed with great efficiency and lots of smiles.
The Vietnam-Laos cultural difference was apparent the instant we crossed over onto Laotian soil. We were approached by motorcycle taxi drivers as soon as we entered Laos and were surprised and somewhat humbled to find that they took our usual ‘no, thank you’ at face value. Our lesson came in the form of a two-kilometre-long hike to the Laotian border town of Daen Sawan.
And the walk was one to remember. We walked past leafy green valleys, witnessing village life as locals lit cooking fires for the evening. We walked past children who swarmed around us yelling the Laotian greeting, ‘Sabaidee’. We walked with no knowledge of our destination, into a warm, pink sunset.
These are moments when each decision goes beyond the everyday what to eat and where to drink, and each choice could either help or hinder the cause, with no in-betweens. Moments when senses feel just that little bit more attuned to risks, adventure and a bargain.
Crossing the Vietnam-Laos border was another one of those precious moments for me.
Max, Jim and I had decided to cross overland on a whim while in Hoi An, and had little planned besides our destination, Vientiane. Driven by a desire to leave the fast-paced, overly aggressive Vietnam as quickly as possible, we set our sights on the closest convenient border town, Lao Bao.
Said to be the most popular overland crossing between Vietnam and Laos, Lao Bao is located in Vietnam’s Quang Tri Province, some 150 kilometres North-West of Hue and 300 kilometres from Hoi An. Arriving at Lao Bao and crossing the border is achieved via Highway 9, which once served as a tributary of the historic Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Our adventure began in the early afternoon of December 6 with a bus ride to the Quang Tri provincial capital, Dong Ha. We had planned to spend one or two nights in Dong Ha, visiting the nearby DMZ before crossing the border to Laos. As soon as our bus set us down in the seedy-looking town that evening, however, I became anxious to leave.
Bypassing a very persistent and somewhat creepy tour agent, we found the Lonely Planet-recommended DMZ Cafe for advice on visiting the DMZ and crossing the border. DMZ Cafe's proprietor, Mr Tinh, is an elderly, personable, proficient English-speaking man who ably sold us a government-endorsed tour of the DMZ for the next morning.
As per Mr Tinh’s advice, we toured the DMZ and the Vinh Moc tunnels, where North Vietnamese troops and their families lived from 1966 to 1972. The tunnels housed 500 people during the six-year period, and include designated caverns for ‘family rooms’, a meeting room, a hospital, and a maternity ward where 17 babies were successfully birthed.
The tour then took us down the Ho Chi Minh trail to Khe Sanh (yes, we hummed the song, quietly), where we visited a museum filled with anti-American propaganda. We farewelled the tour group at the tiny town of Khe Sanh to catch a local minivan to the border -- a ride that was an experience in itself for the friendliness and quirkiness of the 17 locals who were crammed in with us in the 12-seater van.
We arrived at the Lao Bao bus station at 3.45pm, and walked to the border under an optimistic blanket of sunshine. Thanks to the relatively late hour of the day, the border crossing was entirely devoid of queues or crowds, and our visas were processed with great efficiency and lots of smiles.
The Vietnam-Laos cultural difference was apparent the instant we crossed over onto Laotian soil. We were approached by motorcycle taxi drivers as soon as we entered Laos and were surprised and somewhat humbled to find that they took our usual ‘no, thank you’ at face value. Our lesson came in the form of a two-kilometre-long hike to the Laotian border town of Daen Sawan.
And the walk was one to remember. We walked past leafy green valleys, witnessing village life as locals lit cooking fires for the evening. We walked past children who swarmed around us yelling the Laotian greeting, ‘Sabaidee’. We walked with no knowledge of our destination, into a warm, pink sunset.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Southbound
Our final three days in Hanoi were spent on a tried and tested routine of Happy Hour, Bia Hois, and dodgy, backpacker-filled nightclubs, through which we met several Australian backpackers, one Scott from Scotland, and an Italian marble tradesman with a failsafe business plan.
By the time Joel arrived in Hanoi on December 1, my body had suffered its limit of smog, dust and late nights out and had its vengeance in the form of a painful, phlegmy cold.
Joel had travelled halfway around the world to join us. Unsympathetically, we rewarded his efforts with an 11-hour-long train ride in a six-berth ‘hard sleeper’ cabin to Hue that very night.
Our quest for train tickets illustrates much of what I dislike about travelling Vietnam. A majority of travel agents, including our hostel, sold hard sleeper tickets to Hue for US$47 per person. When purchased directly from the train station, however, the same tickets cost about VND468,000 (US$27.50).
There seems to be a convenient lack of transparency about booking processes and prices in Vietnam that is conducive to overcharging tourists. Inflated prices mean price-conscious travellers have to bargain heavily for a fairer deal, which, for me, ruins some part of an otherwise relaxing vacation.
And then there are the persistent, aggressive touts, the occasional beggar, and the creative arithmetic employed by shopkeepers. One particularly annoying case in point was the ticketing officer at Hanoi’s train station who collected VND500,000 from each of us and then claimed only to have received VND2,400,000 in total. When we insisted that she count the money slowly and clearly, she complied, counting clearly to twenty-four, and unsuccessfully -- and shamelessly -- hiding the last VND100,000 bill in her other hand.
The train ride to Hue in a six-berth hard sleeper was significantly less comfortable than our previous experience in four-berth ‘soft sleepers’ to and from Sapa. Hard and soft sleeper cabins are of the same size, so to fit the extra two people in each hard sleeper cabin, beds are stacked just a little too close to each other in a triple bunk configuration.
The bottom-most beds are the most costly, and afford just enough room for a short, slouching person to sit. Sitting is virtually impossible on the middle and top bunks, which makes for a lot of wriggling when trying to access bags or go to the bathroom.
We had carelessly left our breakfast Oreos at our hostel in Hanoi and weren’t game to try the mystery hot food being carted from carriage to carriage on the train. By the time we arrived in Hue, just past 11am, we were famished and set out immediately for a very tasty lunch at a local diner.
Hue was the capital of Vietnam during the 19th century Nguyen dynasty, and some impressive architecture from the era remains. Best known among these is the Imperial City where the emperors and their concubines resided in a similar fashion to the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The city is crossed by the Perfume River, which is also called the Huong River and seems to play a large part in local life, as well as tourism. During a VND10,000 per person, one-hour-long cruise aboard a houseboat, we passed numerous fishing boats, transport boats and locals doing their washing in the river.
Sadly, my worsening cold was taking its toll on my mood and energy, and I spent little time away from our very comfortable room at the Sports 2 Hotel.
We left Hue after a rushed lunch on December 4 via bus with the Camel bus company. The four-hour-long bus trip to Hoi An was relatively painless -- perfect downtime, I found, for me and my cold.
Hoi An is a small port town on the South Central Coast of Vietnam. Once an important harbour town for the ancient Champa civilisation, Hoi An now is best known among travellers for its numerous silk tailors. Keen for a taste of the famed handiwork, I had a small silk dress tailor-made for VND180,000.
The city also is located about 50 kilometres from the UNESCO World Heritage Site, My Son, which was a sacred Hindu site of the Champa people from the forth to 13th centuries. We visited My Son on a day trip from Hoi An, exploring the 25 excavated temples and witnessing first-hand their extremely hardy bricks whose constituents are said to be as yet unknown to the Vietnamese.
We stayed at the Thanh Van hotel in Hoi An’s Ancient Town, where US$10 per person bought Jim and I a double room with a minibar, bathtub and poolside entrance. So enamoured was I by the hotel’s courtyard pool that I insisted on spending our last night in Hoi An -- and our last night as a complete group in Vietnam -- on a midnight soak with beers in hand.
On December 6, our group split in two. Max, Jim and I decided to make our way across the border to Laos by bus, while Joel and Viren were bound Southward to Ho Chi Minh city before heading over to Laos by plane and train.
By the time Joel arrived in Hanoi on December 1, my body had suffered its limit of smog, dust and late nights out and had its vengeance in the form of a painful, phlegmy cold.
Joel had travelled halfway around the world to join us. Unsympathetically, we rewarded his efforts with an 11-hour-long train ride in a six-berth ‘hard sleeper’ cabin to Hue that very night.
Our quest for train tickets illustrates much of what I dislike about travelling Vietnam. A majority of travel agents, including our hostel, sold hard sleeper tickets to Hue for US$47 per person. When purchased directly from the train station, however, the same tickets cost about VND468,000 (US$27.50).
There seems to be a convenient lack of transparency about booking processes and prices in Vietnam that is conducive to overcharging tourists. Inflated prices mean price-conscious travellers have to bargain heavily for a fairer deal, which, for me, ruins some part of an otherwise relaxing vacation.
And then there are the persistent, aggressive touts, the occasional beggar, and the creative arithmetic employed by shopkeepers. One particularly annoying case in point was the ticketing officer at Hanoi’s train station who collected VND500,000 from each of us and then claimed only to have received VND2,400,000 in total. When we insisted that she count the money slowly and clearly, she complied, counting clearly to twenty-four, and unsuccessfully -- and shamelessly -- hiding the last VND100,000 bill in her other hand.
The train ride to Hue in a six-berth hard sleeper was significantly less comfortable than our previous experience in four-berth ‘soft sleepers’ to and from Sapa. Hard and soft sleeper cabins are of the same size, so to fit the extra two people in each hard sleeper cabin, beds are stacked just a little too close to each other in a triple bunk configuration.
The bottom-most beds are the most costly, and afford just enough room for a short, slouching person to sit. Sitting is virtually impossible on the middle and top bunks, which makes for a lot of wriggling when trying to access bags or go to the bathroom.
We had carelessly left our breakfast Oreos at our hostel in Hanoi and weren’t game to try the mystery hot food being carted from carriage to carriage on the train. By the time we arrived in Hue, just past 11am, we were famished and set out immediately for a very tasty lunch at a local diner.
Hue was the capital of Vietnam during the 19th century Nguyen dynasty, and some impressive architecture from the era remains. Best known among these is the Imperial City where the emperors and their concubines resided in a similar fashion to the Forbidden City in Beijing.
The city is crossed by the Perfume River, which is also called the Huong River and seems to play a large part in local life, as well as tourism. During a VND10,000 per person, one-hour-long cruise aboard a houseboat, we passed numerous fishing boats, transport boats and locals doing their washing in the river.
Sadly, my worsening cold was taking its toll on my mood and energy, and I spent little time away from our very comfortable room at the Sports 2 Hotel.
We left Hue after a rushed lunch on December 4 via bus with the Camel bus company. The four-hour-long bus trip to Hoi An was relatively painless -- perfect downtime, I found, for me and my cold.
Hoi An is a small port town on the South Central Coast of Vietnam. Once an important harbour town for the ancient Champa civilisation, Hoi An now is best known among travellers for its numerous silk tailors. Keen for a taste of the famed handiwork, I had a small silk dress tailor-made for VND180,000.
The city also is located about 50 kilometres from the UNESCO World Heritage Site, My Son, which was a sacred Hindu site of the Champa people from the forth to 13th centuries. We visited My Son on a day trip from Hoi An, exploring the 25 excavated temples and witnessing first-hand their extremely hardy bricks whose constituents are said to be as yet unknown to the Vietnamese.
We stayed at the Thanh Van hotel in Hoi An’s Ancient Town, where US$10 per person bought Jim and I a double room with a minibar, bathtub and poolside entrance. So enamoured was I by the hotel’s courtyard pool that I insisted on spending our last night in Hoi An -- and our last night as a complete group in Vietnam -- on a midnight soak with beers in hand.
On December 6, our group split in two. Max, Jim and I decided to make our way across the border to Laos by bus, while Joel and Viren were bound Southward to Ho Chi Minh city before heading over to Laos by plane and train.
Labels: Vietnam
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sup sup Sapa
We hadn't seen Max and Viren for about two weeks, and quickly embarked on extended drinking sessions to make up for lost time. At least, that’s we told ourselves.
As it turns out, nights out in Hanoi are a dangerously affordable affair. Our first discovery was happy hour at the hostel, where two-for-one pricing essentially priced each Bierre La Rue at VND10,000 (~AUD$1).
The price of beer fell lower and lower as we walked from our hostel to the Old Quarter's tiny nightclub strip; culminating finally in VND3,000 homebrewed ‘Bia Hoi’ on the streets.
Bia Hoi is a light draught beer that is poured from a metal keg via a cheap-looking rubber hose. All in all, it may not be the most sanitary of gastronomical activities, but the Bia Hoi experience is not one to be missed.
For backpackers in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the most popular Bia Hois are those on the street corner of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. Foreigners and locals alike sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny plastic chairs, crouching over tinier stools on which sticky glasses of beer perch.
During the day, Ta Hien’s Bia Hois host no more than ten people at a time. As night falls and traffic subsides, however, the plastic chairs spill out onto a significant portion of the road. The boundaries that separate neighbouring Bia Hois seem to dissolve, and the street corner is a mess of chatter and spilled alcohol.
After two substantial nights out, we decided to give our livers a break and caught an overnight train to Sapa in search of some fresh mountain air. We booked accommodation and train tickets through the Sapa Rooms Boutique Hotel, a simple yet classy Australian-owned establishment.
Sapa is located about 350 kilometres North-West of Hanoi, near the border between Vietnam and China. The district is dominated by the Hoang Lien Son mountain range and is home to several ethnic minority groups, including the Black H’mong and Red Dzao people.
Tourism in Sapa tends to centre around ethnic minorities, a focus which is disconcertingly apparent at times. Tourists invariably are swarmed by local touts who dress in colourful, traditional garb and hawk overpriced trinkets during the day, and rasp offers of marijuana and heroin at night.
Another of Sapa’s tourist attractions is the scenery. The town sits at an altitude of approximately 1.6 kilometres above sea level, against a mountainous backdrop that is made all the more mystical by a constant fog.
On our second day in Sapa, we were taken on a six-hour-long guided trek through the Hoang Lien Nature Reserve to visit the minority Lao Chai and Tavan villages. We were guided past beautiful terraced rice fields and streams, eventually arriving at a local primary school where we handed out gifts of mandarins.
For a majority of the eight-kilometre trek, our five-person tour group was joined by a persistent group of local touts. I was initially resistant to interact with them for fear of the usual hard sell, but slowly was won over by the helpfulness of one 25-year-old girl who walked beside me, supporting me on slippery ground and offering interesting little tidbits about the local vegetation along the way.
Although I refused to purchase her bags and jewelry, I thanked the girl with a small monetary tip as we neared the end of the trek. Of course, the very act of doing so prompted an instant magnetic reaction that attracted all touts within sight to me, and although most of our initial entourage of touts had dissolved, one followed us a further distance to tell me that it was unfair that she hadn’t been ‘thanked’, adding that Jim was a ‘bad person’ for not buying from her.
The trek concluded with a motorbike ride back to the hotel. It was my first time on a motorbike, and especially after having witnessed Vietnamese road etiquette, I was terrified. Unsure of the customary way of riding behind an unknown motorbike taxi driver and not wanting to seem too familiar, I sat with my hands perched desperately on -- and sweating onto -- my driver’s shoulders.
Despite my fears, it was an exhilarating 30-minute-long ride and I am almost sorry I wasn’t able to muster up the courage for an hour-long motorbike taxi to the hot springs the next day.
We returned to Hanoi on the morning of the 29th, where I was instantly reminded of my loathing for big cities by a price-gouging, route-manipulating taxi driver. How’s that for a 5am wake-up call!
As it turns out, nights out in Hanoi are a dangerously affordable affair. Our first discovery was happy hour at the hostel, where two-for-one pricing essentially priced each Bierre La Rue at VND10,000 (~AUD$1).
The price of beer fell lower and lower as we walked from our hostel to the Old Quarter's tiny nightclub strip; culminating finally in VND3,000 homebrewed ‘Bia Hoi’ on the streets.
Bia Hoi is a light draught beer that is poured from a metal keg via a cheap-looking rubber hose. All in all, it may not be the most sanitary of gastronomical activities, but the Bia Hoi experience is not one to be missed.
For backpackers in Hanoi’s Old Quarter, the most popular Bia Hois are those on the street corner of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. Foreigners and locals alike sit shoulder-to-shoulder on tiny plastic chairs, crouching over tinier stools on which sticky glasses of beer perch.
During the day, Ta Hien’s Bia Hois host no more than ten people at a time. As night falls and traffic subsides, however, the plastic chairs spill out onto a significant portion of the road. The boundaries that separate neighbouring Bia Hois seem to dissolve, and the street corner is a mess of chatter and spilled alcohol.
After two substantial nights out, we decided to give our livers a break and caught an overnight train to Sapa in search of some fresh mountain air. We booked accommodation and train tickets through the Sapa Rooms Boutique Hotel, a simple yet classy Australian-owned establishment.
Sapa is located about 350 kilometres North-West of Hanoi, near the border between Vietnam and China. The district is dominated by the Hoang Lien Son mountain range and is home to several ethnic minority groups, including the Black H’mong and Red Dzao people.
Tourism in Sapa tends to centre around ethnic minorities, a focus which is disconcertingly apparent at times. Tourists invariably are swarmed by local touts who dress in colourful, traditional garb and hawk overpriced trinkets during the day, and rasp offers of marijuana and heroin at night.
Another of Sapa’s tourist attractions is the scenery. The town sits at an altitude of approximately 1.6 kilometres above sea level, against a mountainous backdrop that is made all the more mystical by a constant fog.
On our second day in Sapa, we were taken on a six-hour-long guided trek through the Hoang Lien Nature Reserve to visit the minority Lao Chai and Tavan villages. We were guided past beautiful terraced rice fields and streams, eventually arriving at a local primary school where we handed out gifts of mandarins.
For a majority of the eight-kilometre trek, our five-person tour group was joined by a persistent group of local touts. I was initially resistant to interact with them for fear of the usual hard sell, but slowly was won over by the helpfulness of one 25-year-old girl who walked beside me, supporting me on slippery ground and offering interesting little tidbits about the local vegetation along the way.
Although I refused to purchase her bags and jewelry, I thanked the girl with a small monetary tip as we neared the end of the trek. Of course, the very act of doing so prompted an instant magnetic reaction that attracted all touts within sight to me, and although most of our initial entourage of touts had dissolved, one followed us a further distance to tell me that it was unfair that she hadn’t been ‘thanked’, adding that Jim was a ‘bad person’ for not buying from her.
The trek concluded with a motorbike ride back to the hotel. It was my first time on a motorbike, and especially after having witnessed Vietnamese road etiquette, I was terrified. Unsure of the customary way of riding behind an unknown motorbike taxi driver and not wanting to seem too familiar, I sat with my hands perched desperately on -- and sweating onto -- my driver’s shoulders.
Despite my fears, it was an exhilarating 30-minute-long ride and I am almost sorry I wasn’t able to muster up the courage for an hour-long motorbike taxi to the hot springs the next day.
We returned to Hanoi on the morning of the 29th, where I was instantly reminded of my loathing for big cities by a price-gouging, route-manipulating taxi driver. How’s that for a 5am wake-up call!
Labels: Vietnam
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Arrival in Nam
Jim and I arrived in Hanoi’s Noi Bai airport on Wednesday November 19, after more than 24 hours in transit from Sydney via Singapore. Grumpy and sleep deprived, I had little patience for the queue-cutting antics of a 10-person Korean-speaking tour group and sent them packing to the back of the queue with some very insistent gesturing.
Getting from the airport to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel was a little more challenging than we’d expected. By the time we reached our hostel from the airport shuttle’s drop-off point, we were sick and tired of being accosted by overeager ‘students’ and an endless stream of motorbike traffic.
Vietnam’s second-largest city, Hanoi is home to some 3.5 million people and is supported by industrial production, trade, tourism and financial industries. In the tourist-centric Old Quarter, sidewalks are lined with vendors so aggressively hawking food, clothing and the like that pedestrians are forced to compete with vehicular traffic on the road.
But crossing and walking on roads in Hanoi is not for the weak of heart. The Western code of traffic lights and lanes seems to have little relevance to the anarchic flow of local motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, and sometimes, it’s all one can do simply to walk steadily forward and hope for the best.
The cacophony of beeping and yelling usually is joined by blaring music and what I assume to be nationalistic propaganda from speaker towers on almost every street corner. I am told that once, on a national holiday, the speakers instructed local touts to support their fellow Vietnamese and save price gouging for tourists.
On our second day in Hanoi, we treated our travel-strained bodies with an exfoliating massage for Jim and a facial and manicure for me at the Spring Fragrance Spa. But no amount of pampering could alleviate the stress of road-crossings, and by the third morning, we were glad for a break from the city via an overnight cruise on Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located about 170 kilometres East of Hanoi. Its name translates to ‘Descending Dragon’, which originates from the myth that the area was formed from a mother dragon that was sent by the gods to fend off Chinese invaders.
The bay features almost 2000 limestone islands and is shrouded in a perpetual fog, providing a dramatic backdrop for local fishing settlements and hundreds of tourists cruising the region.
We booked a double cabin on a junk called ‘The Pinta’ through its operator, Columbus Cruise, in Hanoi. While US$97 apiece seemed a hefty fee to pay for our tiny cabin with dysfunctional shutters and a rarely-warm shower, I was much impressed by the professionalism of staff and the incredible eight-course meals that were included in the tour.
And the scenery was amazing. Grey-blue skies melded into grey-blue seas with shadows of islands extending to the horizon. While the tour included activities such as caving and kayaking, some of my best moments in Halong Bay were spent simply gazing off the edge of the Pinta’s sundeck.
Our Halong Bay tour concluded on Saturday. So too, I suspect, did the quiet part of our trip. As we returned to the hostel, we were greeted by the jetlagged -- and drinking -- Max and Viren. And happy hour was only 15 minutes away…
Getting from the airport to the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel was a little more challenging than we’d expected. By the time we reached our hostel from the airport shuttle’s drop-off point, we were sick and tired of being accosted by overeager ‘students’ and an endless stream of motorbike traffic.
Vietnam’s second-largest city, Hanoi is home to some 3.5 million people and is supported by industrial production, trade, tourism and financial industries. In the tourist-centric Old Quarter, sidewalks are lined with vendors so aggressively hawking food, clothing and the like that pedestrians are forced to compete with vehicular traffic on the road.
But crossing and walking on roads in Hanoi is not for the weak of heart. The Western code of traffic lights and lanes seems to have little relevance to the anarchic flow of local motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, and sometimes, it’s all one can do simply to walk steadily forward and hope for the best.
The cacophony of beeping and yelling usually is joined by blaring music and what I assume to be nationalistic propaganda from speaker towers on almost every street corner. I am told that once, on a national holiday, the speakers instructed local touts to support their fellow Vietnamese and save price gouging for tourists.
On our second day in Hanoi, we treated our travel-strained bodies with an exfoliating massage for Jim and a facial and manicure for me at the Spring Fragrance Spa. But no amount of pampering could alleviate the stress of road-crossings, and by the third morning, we were glad for a break from the city via an overnight cruise on Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located about 170 kilometres East of Hanoi. Its name translates to ‘Descending Dragon’, which originates from the myth that the area was formed from a mother dragon that was sent by the gods to fend off Chinese invaders.
The bay features almost 2000 limestone islands and is shrouded in a perpetual fog, providing a dramatic backdrop for local fishing settlements and hundreds of tourists cruising the region.
We booked a double cabin on a junk called ‘The Pinta’ through its operator, Columbus Cruise, in Hanoi. While US$97 apiece seemed a hefty fee to pay for our tiny cabin with dysfunctional shutters and a rarely-warm shower, I was much impressed by the professionalism of staff and the incredible eight-course meals that were included in the tour.
And the scenery was amazing. Grey-blue skies melded into grey-blue seas with shadows of islands extending to the horizon. While the tour included activities such as caving and kayaking, some of my best moments in Halong Bay were spent simply gazing off the edge of the Pinta’s sundeck.
Our Halong Bay tour concluded on Saturday. So too, I suspect, did the quiet part of our trip. As we returned to the hostel, we were greeted by the jetlagged -- and drinking -- Max and Viren. And happy hour was only 15 minutes away…
Labels: Vietnam
