We traveled up to Dali on the night train from Kunming. Not much happened during the journey since we were asleep for most of the trip. The trains are neat though. I think it’s a 650 km trip, or something like that, and the train is electric! They have overhead cables strung up the whole way. The cars are fairly new, they’re tall so they can stack the bunks three high. I only have a few small complaints; the window can be opened or closed but you are at the mercy of the people on the lowest bunk - proximity gives them total control; it’s smoky despite the no smoking policy; and many of the Chinese people we’ve traveled with seem to have terrible mucus problems. They’re always coughing and hacking things up. They also spit on the ground or floor where people walk.  It’s really gross and hard to ignore.  Perhaps China will help me develop selective hearing.

Oh well, we’re here. Dali is a great place. I’m actually referring to the Ancient walled city; it’s just a small part of the urbanized area. In many ways it’s not an authentic Chinese city – it’s a tourist town, but we like it. Rich likes the western food and the grocery stores. There is a lot of shopping, but we haven’t spent any money yet.

The best part of Dali is the geography. We’re at 2000 meters and the temperature stays under 30 for the entire day! So, despite the thin air (which we really notice after spending so much time at sea level) we feel very energetic. We went up to Cloud Pass today, which is up another 600 meters (just ¼ of the way to the mountain summit). We didn’t feel energetic enough to climb up though… we took the chairlift. But we walked along the pass a for a stretch, climbed up to see a couple of caves and then walked all the way down the mountain and back to town. The tuk tuk and horse cart drivers all pretended to think we were crazy, but they didn’t fool us! It isn’t all that far.

We’ll be here another day or two, since we like it. We’ve also decided – since we can’t find a guide book anywhere to replace the one that was confiscated – that we’ll travel to fewer places in China and just spend a little longer in each. The fewer times we board a bus, arrive in a new place or have to find a hotel, the easier traveling here will be. Well, that’s the theory.

Hekou, the Chinese border town, wasn’t much of a place. We wandered the streets, looking for internet or a restaurant with an English or picture menu, but we found nothing. Nobody we met spoke any English at all, not even Hello. We were ignored by everyone, which is refreshing, in a way. We ended up buying instant noodles at a grocery store; at least, we assumed they were noodles, we couldn’t read the packaging and we never really figured out what “flavorings” we got. We had hot water in our room so we ate our noodles there and played a completely made up version of Mahjong, since there was a set provided in our room.

We woke up in the middle of the night to pack and head for the bus station to catch our 6AM bus. We had to wake up the staff that was sleeping in the hotel lobby. For some reason, we were charged a few extra dollars for our room, we think they charged us for the soap, but we aren’t sure since our conversation was a combination of calculator displays and charades.

Turns out that we misunderstood our bus departure time. The station opens at 6AM. Our bus didn’t actually leave until 8:45. So we had some time to kill. Rich spent his time wisely, learning the Chinese characters for important things like bathrooms and destinations. He also managed to find an English speaking person (who we suspect was the scam artist we were warned about) but he was actually quite helpful.

The bus ride was fantastic and terrible at the same time. Everything was phenomenal, in its own way; the scenery (wow); the cigarette smoke (wow), and the toilets (double wow - nothing could have prepared me for the experience).

Finally, after 10 or 11 hours of amazing landscapes and toxic fumes, we arrived in Kunming. “No problem,” we said, “now all we have to do if find a pay phone!” Eventually we did, but it required a phone card and nobody seemed to be selling them. A couple of English students/teachers asked us if we needed help (I guess we looked pathetic). They lent us a mobile phone so we could call our Couch Surfing host. Actually, we called one of his housemates, since our host doesn’t have a mobile phone of his own right now; the Chinese military confiscated his camera phone a week ago (you have to be careful of what you take pictures of here).  We got instructions to take a certain bus and get off at a certain stop with a very hard-to-pronounce name. “Jin Si Lu, Jin Se Liu, Jen Se Lu,” I just kept listening and trying to repeat it back over the phone. Eventually I got close to the correct pronunciation and one of the students standing with us in the station recognized it. “JinShe Lu!” he shouted. “You go there too? We go there together!” So we had some travel companions who took us to the correct bus and got off with us at the right stop. We had a great time talking with them on the bus, but we couldn’t help but feel skeptical after our month in Vietnam. Turns out they were great guys and they just wanted to help us out and maybe practice their English in the process. They stuck with us until we met up with our host.

We arrived at our destination and found ourselves in the middle of a party. It was an actual party with overcrowding, live music and a visit from the police. We were tired, but managed to stay awake until the party came to a close; we talked with people from around the World, either studying, working or traveling in China. We also met three other travelers who are staying here. They are a traveling band that gets from place to place on bicycles (They’ve been all over Europe and Asia!). We really admire the guy who plays the bass (the big string instrument – we still don’t know how he fastens it to his bike). The group is very entertaining and talented. If you like jazz at all, check this out: (www.myspace.com/cyclowns)

Kunming is nice, but we’re a little preoccupied with planning since we have no guide book to consult. So we wandered around town all afternoon looking for a guide book. No luck! Sold out, go figure! So we took about a hundred photos of a friend’s guide book and bought some maps. We also bought a phrasebook that should come in handy if we need to tell people we are neurosurgeons or if we wish to inquire about workers benefits in the factory. Or maybe we’ll have the need to say, “We’d like to see an operation under acupuncture anesthesia.” Of course, the real issue with the statements and questions in our book is that we couldn’t possibly understand the answer.

We mangaged to buy train tickets and we're moving on tonight. We hate to say goodbye to all of our new friends, but we have a lot of China to see in the next 25 days.

Hello China!  We made it into the country today but, as always, things were kind of interesting.  We spent the night in Sapa which, as our other blog explained, is a really great place surrounded by spectacular mountains.  When we got up it was pouring rain and consequently all of our stuff we washed the day before (especially my shoes and socks) were still soaking wet.  So we wore/packed our wet stuff and headed out.  Before we left Sapa we wanted to do a bit of web surfing.  We found a place and spent about 15 minutes of pathetically slow surfing.  When it came time to pay, the internet guy tried to charge us for 30 minutes.  I think Vietnam has really changed me.  The price for 30 minutes of internet is $0.13 CDN.  After spending a month in Vietnam and getting screwed by, well it seems like, everybody, I put up a fight.  The internet man either thought I was right or crazy or just wanted us to leave because he told us it was free.

When we found a bus from Sapa to Lao Cai this morning we were surprised that the driver was asking for the price that we wanted to pay, we didn’t negotiate.  Ironically the price quoted to the next traveler getting on the bus went up by about one third.

Once arriving in Lao Cai our next step was to get to the Chinese border.  Some people said they had taken a motorbike taxi and others said they walked to the border.  As soon as we got off the bus we were inundated by drivers offering to take us the border which was, as they said, 5km away.  Fortunately we had a map and after walking about 20 meters we could see the border across the river, maybe 2km away but a very walkable distance.

Once arriving at the Vietnamese side of the border we were met by a guy outside of the building offering to exchange money for us.  Yeah right!

After getting through Vietnamese customs you have to cross a bridge into China.  We read that if they tried to charge you a bridge toll you were supposed to fight it and demand a receipt.  Fortunately they didn’t try and we got across incident free.

The next thing we encountered was the Chinese border.  On arrival one of the first things I noticed was a customer satisfaction machine to rate the border guard!  That’s right, with this machine you were supposed to rate the service of the border guard.  The machine had 4 buttons with labels ranging from ‘very satisfied’ to ‘not satisfied’ (you can probably guess how the border guard usually gets rated).  After the border guard we proceeded to customs inspection, and this is where the story takes a down turn.  We passed our bags through the x-ray machine and I had actually collected mine and had put them on when the x-ray man wanted to look in them and asked to see all of our books.  That’s right, he wasn’t interested in our alcohol or fruit or the years worth of prescription pills we were carrying - he just wanted to see our books.  We had been warned that they like to confiscate Chinese guide books at the border but as long as you put them away and didn’t have them in your day bags you’d be ok.  Well, we weren’t.  Our brand new Lonely Planet guide book, the one that cost us $28 (or almost our daily budget), the book that we spent a day looking for, the book that is supposed to tell us how to navigate one of the biggest countries on earth where no one speaks english… our book was gone just like that.  We tried really hard, as politely as we could, to fight for our book but it was very obvious that we weren’t going to win.  It would have been a much more frustrating experience except the border guy was ridiculously nice and even apologetic.  He explained to us that he has to do it and told us where we could get a new guide book that was allowed.  The reason they confiscate the books is that the maps show Taiwan in a different color than China.  Excuse my ignorance but I guess Taiwan is part of China and the Chinese authorities are really sensitive about the issue.  We offered to tear out the maps but that didn’t work. 

We only made it as far as Hekou which is the border town.  We were planning to go further today but life got harder not having a guide book explaining little things like where to find the bus station and what the name of the next freaking town is!  Actually things aren’t that bad.  We’ve found the bus station and we’re planning on taking the bus to the next big centre where we’re meeting a Couch Surfing person and where we should be able to find some kind of guide book.  Otherwise China is good so far.  It’s true that nobody speaks english.  Just asking about the bus and checking into our hotel was an ordeal.  However the people here have been exceptionally friendly and patient and have tried their best to be helpful.  In the store a lady actually moved out of my way to let me pass through the aisle, this would never have happened in Vietnam.  No one has tried to scam us yet.  Apparently there’s some guy who hangs out at the bus station, Tom or Sam or something with short hair that tries to charge you a baggage fee but we haven’t run into him yet either.  We found a grocery store and the Chinese really seem to know their candy, so at least we’ve eaten well today.

 

Hanoi really got to us. After posting our last blog about our horrible day in Hanoi, we tried to unwind before catching our train. But no bad day is complete until you’ve had a fight with a guy who wants you to pay twice for your beer! He may have been old and forgetful, but he simply wouldn’t listen – and everyone around us was on our side. It wasn’t about the money (16 cents isn’t much) but we were really tired of being taken advantage of. At that point, a guy selling books on the street jumped in and tried to explain it to the old man without any luck. To calm the old man down, he paid our beer. We protested and then tried to give him the beer, but he wouldn’t take it. We ended up walking away; the full glass of beer still sitting on the table. I was touched (though a bit surprised) that a Vietnamese local was willing to settle an argument with cash from his own pocket. As we walked away, the anger and frustration subsided and was replaced with a weary remorse. I worried that I had completely lost my ability to trust.

But another day in Vietnam has cured me of my worries. I’ve finally learned my lesson - trust will turn you into a sucker!

We woke up around 6AM as the train reached the end of the line. We were still pushing back our bed sheets when a guy popped into our train car room asking if we needed a ride to Sapa. We said “no thank you” even though it was exactly what we were looking for. We tried to explain that we weren’t stupid; maybe he didn’t believe us. The guy followed us (though he thought he was leading) all the way out to the parking lot. His price started at 50,000 dong but he kept reducing it as we got closer. Just before leaving the station, there is a bus ticketing desk where you can buy a 25,000 dong ticket. We were considering it when another guy approached and told us we could take the local bus for 10,000 out on the street. We thought we’d give it a try, so we exited the station. Well, we never found any local bus - the “helpful” guy was just trying to get us past the ticket desk so he could sell us a ride in his minivan for 25,000!  Of course, there was no way he was getting any money out of us after that. We managed to find a big bus that agreed to take us for 20,000.

But it gets worse! We took a motorbike taxi and after learning our lesson in Hanoi we were very clear about the price before getting on the bike. (Just in case you picked up on it, yes, it was the both of us and the driver on one motorbike). After arriving at our destination, our driver tried to renegotiate the price – just like in Hanoi! We weren’t all that surprised; he too claimed we’d negotiated a rate for one person so we owed him double. But like I said, we were very clear in our negotiations. We just handed him our agreed upon rate and walked away. Some things about Vietnam really suck.

Even so, Vietnam has some really amazing places to visit. Sapa is beautiful and the air is fresh (albeit thin). There are some really big mountains, deep valleys and fast rivers, but the most awe inspiring sights are the terraced rice paddies that fill the valleys and climb halfway up the mountainsides.

We went on a trek down into the valley and were joined by a couple of H’Mong women who were able to speak English rather well. They wanted our money, of course, but they were very nice about it and we both agree that they earned it. We didn’t sign up for the guided trek like everyone else in town, so the H’Mong ladies were helpful; guiding us along the correct paths and helping me stay upright over some really steep, slippery patches. They’re tiny, but they are very surefooted and strong. We bought a couple of souvenirs from them and they stayed with us until we reached our destination. They didn’t ask us for anything more and they didn’t try to renegotiate anything. They just smiled and said goodbye. It really restored my faith in humankind.

Too bad we can’t stay in Sapa forever, but there are those silly little things called visas that keep us moving. It’s time to face our next challenge – China!

Well, we've seen some of Hanoi. Not the best parts, we don't think, but the stuff we could get to on foot anyway. This place has been really annoying as far as people trying to sell us souvenirs, hotel rooms, taxi rides and tours. Today we finally took a rickshaw like ride to a temple and when we got there, the driver tried to renegotiate a larger price. I've never seen Richard so assertive. Anyway, we paid him 2/3 of his asking price (but more than we thought we had originally agreed upon). So after our temple visit (which was sadly disappointing) we bitterly walked all the way back to our hotel, shooting fierce glances at anyone who suggested we take a taxi.

Today has been tough all around. We couldn't find a China guidebook anywhere, though they were cheap and plentiful everywhere before Hanoi. Eventually we bought one at the bookstore for full price ($28 US - almost our daily budget here). Then we searched all over town but couldn't find a place to get any Chinese cash, apparently you can only get it in China. So we're going over the border without any useful money. Should be exciting.

But our day got even better when I couldn't find my bank card. We searched and checked with the hotel and the Halong bay tour company, no luck. So we cancelled it. It's not a huge deal, except the only way to get a replacement is in person, in a bank, in Canada. So hopefully Richard's 15 year old card will hold together another 6 months (pray for us! it's not looking good!)

But we did do one thing in Hanoi that was absolutely fun and unforgettable. The Water Puppet show. It's marionettes, but instead of strings, they're controlled by sticks and levers hidden below the water. It was well done. We got a couple of pictures, but they aren't great - we were too far back for the flash to do us any good.

And last but not least - Hanoi is the place to get Bia Hoi (fresh beer). It's draught without preservatives and it's cheap, about 13 Canadian cents per glass. And we're talking generous glasses. Of course, it's too hot to have very much, I'm dehydrated as it is.

We're getting on the overnight train in a few hours bound for the northwest region. We're going to visit Sapa, then we're heading to China. You'll hear from us the next time we have internet!

Halong Bay, what can I say? It’s incredible.

We’re out in the bay surrounded by thousands of islands, rocks jutting out of the water everywhere, towering above us. It’s not unlike some of the scenery we’ve seen in Thailand and Malaysia, except that it’s over such a large area; the boat trip took several hours and we’re still in the middle of it.

It took several hours of wandering Hanoi (and many Google searches) to pick a tour agency. We ended up spending more than most backpackers on a tight budget, but our boat is great, everything is well organized and we’re very relieved. For those of you who know about our boat trip in Hell, oh sorry, it just slipped out, I meant to say; for those of you who know the story of our Galapagos trip, you will better appreciate how thrilled we are with this boat.

We spent a day cruising, swimming, walking and kayaking. We saw a huge cave, kayaked through a tunnel to a hidden bay and cooled off with a swim. The food has been great and there is lots of it. The first night we relaxed on the top deck for a few hours, watched as the sky grew dark and chatted with our fellow travelers. We stretched out under the stars as lightning flashed in the distance.

The one thing that spoiled the day a little bit was the sheer number of boats and tourists in the area. We were expecting it to be crowded, but when you actually see it, and you hear the horrendous Karaoke from the other boats… well, it’s a bit of a let down.

But our second day turned out to be quite the opposite! We said goodbye to the other boats as they headed back to the mainland; we headed in the opposite direction and cruised through some completely deserted parts of the bay. We actually went into an area that is off-limits to tourist boats – but our guide got us special permission from the Halong Bay Police. We asked how that was possible and he explained the rule is in place to protect the environment, but that we would be responsible during our visit. We also noticed that some money exchanged hands at the police boat.

We went on a lovely trek on Cat Ba island. I should say that the surroundings were lovely; the trek was really quite strenuous. We went through dense jungle over rough terrain and since it had been raining, it was really slippery – no serious injuries. To complicate matters, we had to duck under numerous spider webs and reapply our repellents frequently (since we were sweating profusely). We were all gasping for air, but we saw a lot of creepy critters scurrying about, like the huge centipedes, so we had incentive to keep moving.

We trekked for an hour and a half over a couple of small mountains to a hidden valley where a local couple lives. They grow fruit and farm fish and have a lot of dogs to protect the fruit from the monkeys. We had some tea and lychees fresh off the tree. The people were rather elderly but capable; they’d been living there since before the war, which is why they are permitted to live there (Halong Bay is a national park). The man lost an eye in the war - we’re told Cat Ba island was extensively bombed. The woman wasn’t there as she had gone to market with some produce to sell. By the way… she trekked through the same dense jungle we did, but carrying a huge, heavy sack of fruit and vegetables. Then, when she gets to the bay, she has four hours of rowing to look forward to and she won’t even make much money. It’s amazing what a person can do when they don’t have the option to do anything else.

The old man insisted we take some lychees with us. Since they ripen everywhere at the same time, they are worth little at market and they would otherwise go to waste. Our guide insisted he couldn’t carry them, but the old man yelled something very loudly and our guide translated it as, “Nonsense, it’s only a little bit!” So we took lychees with us.

The trek out was a little shorter than the trek in, which was good because we were starting to fade.

We were supposed to spend the afternoon kayaking, but most of us were too lazy so we just relaxed on the boat and went for a lazy swim now and then. The boat was lashed to a floating fish farm and I had fun watching the cuttlefish and various crustaceans go about their business.

We spent the night in Cat Ba town; an overdeveloped strip of land on the other side of the island. The hotel was really, really nice which we appreciated after a long, exhausting day. I guess you do get what you pay for on these tours! We were on the ninth floor and we had a huge room with big windows and a balcony. We had a tub which is nice for doing a load of muddy, smelly laundry (and scrubbing our shoes). There was plenty of room for our clothesline and we turned up the AC so everything dried overnight; the hair dryer was handy for the shoes.

The boat taking us back to the mainland isn’t quite as nice as the one we were on yesterday – Richard is hunting a roach with his screwdriver – but it’s a short trip back. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye. 

Hue was a bit of a pleasant surprise. We visited the Citadel and a few tombs outside the city; they were a little different from the things we’ve seen thus far and we were glad for the change. The sites were stunning and lovely.

The Citadel is two hundred years old and it’s big – it’s encompassed by a 10 km wall and moat. Inside there are palaces, temples, lakes, bridges and gardens. There are also walled areas inside the Citadel such as the Forbidden Purple City, where the emperor kept his concubines. Much of the Citadel is undergoing restoration, but unfortunately, much of it was destroyed beyond repair during the war.

We also spent a day on a tomb tour along the Perfume River. We visited three tombs but surprisingly, the tombs are much more than just places where emperors were buried; we actually toured large, walled areas that served as residences for the emperors before their deaths. The palaces and temples were nice, but I was most impressed with the lakes, walls, staircases and bridges. These emperors had really good landscapers. The pictures don’t do the places justice.

We think we may have been swindled at the ticket booth for one of the sites. Richard is sure he gave the ticket lady a 100,000 dong bill, but after a subtle dip under the table she showed us the bill and pointed out that it was a 10,000. We weren’t sure enough to argue and we didn’t think there was much point. We’ve noticed that some Vietnamese people play ignorant very well. Anyway, we may be wrong; we’ve misidentified the bills before (or at least this has happened to us before, perhaps it’s not the first time we’ve been swindled). The comma is not very evident on either bill, so it’s easy to miss a zero. Also, the bills share pretty much the same green/brown color scheme, which is stupid when you consider that 20,000’s are blue and 50,000’s are red.  I have a feeling the bills “get switched” on tourists more often than we realize. We’ll be a lot more careful with our 100,000’s from now on. It’s not a huge loss though - just a little more than 6 bucks. Still… I wish I’d jumped through the ticket booth window onto the table and looked over the edge to see if the woman had a stash of 10,000’s and 100,000’s on her lap. I regret that I didn’t, I could have, the window was big enough. I would have loved to see the look on her face if we’d caught her!

After a long day of tombs and rivers we spent a very long night on a bus. Actually, the bus ride wasn’t so bad; 13 hours, but it was a better bus than we’ve had so far and we were fairly comfortable. Strangely, we were the only foreigners on the bus this time, we’re used to having lots of other people to commiserate with. There were Vietnamese comedies and musicals playing on the TV and the sound was turned way up. In addition, one guy near us was kind enough to share the music on his crummy mobile phone with everyone within earshot. It just sounded like more noise. Oddly, nobody complained. But the noise only lasted a few hours, and then everybody slept, some on grass mats in the aisle. But my favorite parts of the trip were the rest stops. I discovered a whole new kind of bathroom – the Ladies Peeing Floor. It’s a smallish room where many women squat and pee while rubbing elbows. I found the smell overwhelming and I left to seek out an alternative toilet. The women throw water over their peeing area when they’re done (hopefully on target, but the smell indicates otherwise) and it all runs out a hole in the corner of the room. As it turns out, there are also private stalls of the same design (which is good because I had to go). Men just go anywhere, at anytime with any number of people watching. I have no idea what a person would do if they needed to do more than pee.

We’re now in Hanoi and we’re getting set to explore the town. We’ll try to post another blog tomorrow.

Ants! We’ve been really lucky with the whole insect/spider/rodent thing - until today. Sure, we’ve seen plenty, killed some, shared our food with others – but today was the worst! Rich jumped out of bed this morning when he discovered he was being eaten alive. Later, I showered and put on some clean clothes and I thought the clothes kinda stung, or were itchy, like I was allergic to the detergent or something, but when I mentioned it to Rich he said, “That’s the ants biting.”

And so I tore off my clothes and indeed, they were full of ants. These are really tiny ants; so small they look like lint at a glance, but what a set of teeth they have! So how do you get rid of the ants, you ask? It’s a four step process. First, you remove any dirty laundry from your bag, shake it out and hang it (ants aren’t good at getting to hanging things, as we’ve discovered with our food). Second, you shake out your laundry and drape it over a chair. Thirdly, (this it the best part of my four step process) you bait the ants with bran flakes (cornflakes are an acceptable substitute). You just scatter a few flakes in a place the ants will find them, but in a place away from your stuff. The fourth step is simply to move things around a bit and wait for the ants to spread some “no food left here anymore” pheromones, and then the ants just go away.

We have one more night here in the ant room, but we have two beds, so we’ll try the other one (the one not baited with bran flakes).

Oh, by the way, we’re in Hoi An. It’s a world heritage site, some buildings are a couple hundred years old and have an obvious French influence.

The trip here was horrendous - a 10.5 hour journey on a sold out bus at night. It might have been ok (there was no sun so it wasn’t hot and there was less traffic which means less weaving and honking). But our two seats were the only broken ones. We couldn’t recline, but the people in front of us sure could… and did. Space was really tight. Rich was draped over the seat back in front of him with his feet sticking out into the aisle; well his feet were in the aisle until a guy strung up a hammock in the aisle beside us. Rich did his best to accidentally kick him from time to time.

When a couple of guys got off the bus in the middle of the night, the European girls in front of us quickly claimed the extra two seats for themselves. I tried to ask nicely if we could please switch seats since ours were broken. I don’t really remember the conversation except that it took a lot of explaining to get the girls to understand, maybe because they were half asleep or didn’t speak very good English. I think I got a little bitchy. One of the girls ended up taking the two broken seats – but believe me, two broken seats is still better than one good one. At least we got three good hours of sleep.

The Old Town here is nice, but I can’t say I love it… I don’t know why. Every building has a shop selling souvenirs, clothing or beer. Ok, the beer is good. They have Fresh Beer here, which is draught beer without preservatives. It costs about 20 cents Canadian for a mug. Not quite a pint.

There’s a beach here. A lot of beach, actually. 30 kilometers of it; one section known as China Beach. No surfing, much to my dismay. But the water is just cool enough to be wonderful.

This is the place to get clothes made. I didn’t really want anything, and I certainly didn’t want to mail it home, so I had a pair of pants made. I’m just going to wear them while I travel, they fit and look good, but I’m not sure I should have let her talk me into linen. Its nice fabric and I really like it, but I’m not sure it’s practical. Oh, yeah, they cost $11 US.

Today we rented a motorbike and drove out to My Son, an area of Ruins that date from the 3^rd to 13^th centuries. Actually, the ruins were disappointing, but the ride there and back was really nice. We stopped many times to get directions and the people were really friendly. The landscape is amazing and the towns are fascinating.

Tomorrow morning I complete step four of my ant removal program and pack my bag with my fingers crossed. Then we head to Hue for a night… or two.

We’re currently in the beach town of Nha Trang.  And by beach town I don’t mean a sleepy little town with a main strip and a few cheap hotels.  Nha Trang has several kilometers of white sandy beach and there are hotels everywhere.  In fact, if there isn’t a hotel there yet, they’re probably building one soon.  Apparently cruise ships used to stop in Nha Trang until they built the world’s longest over water cable car (I didn’t confirm that but it is quite long).  Unfortunately when they built this cable car, which goes from mainland to a resort island, to save a few bucks, they used short towers instead of the taller towers.  This means that the big cruise ships don’t fit under the cable car and rather than going around the island they skip the town altogether. The economy has suffered a bit because of it.

Despite a festival that’s rolling into town this weekend we managed to get a room, within our budget, that has a fairly descent view of the ocean.  The only drawback is that the sun rises at 4:51am and shines directly into our room for the next five hours.  The first morning was especially hot because the power went out which meant no fan.  Bryana was smart, she went snorkeling.  I stayed behind and tried to cool off in the shower.

Today we spent the afternoon on the beach.  This sounds like a wonderful way to spend an afternoon, and it was, but nothing is ever that simple for us.  We started out by renting a big thatched umbrella with a couple of lounge chairs for a few bucks that they have set up on the beach.  We barely got sat down when the first peddler came by touting their wares.  There’s nothing wrong with this of course, everyone’s got to make a few bucks, and we’ve definitely gotten used to people trying to sell us stuff.  The problem however was the shear number of people that came by. Bryana picked up on this early and rather than just telling everyone in our blog that there were a lot of peddlers she decided to photographically document the situation.  I was looking at the time stamps of our photos for the first hour and we had about 15 people come by trying to sell us stuff.  If you do the math that’s someone every 4 minutes. We took most pictures a little covertly since aiming a camera at a peddler makes them go away (a really important discovery, we think!)

Now you might wonder what they were selling.  A lot of them were selling the typical things like chips, drinks, candy, postcards.  Some of them were a bit more creative and would try and sell books, fruit, cigarettes, sunglasses and art work.  One of the most truly ingenious things however was the people that were selling complete sea food meals.  They would come along with a stick on their shoulders (there’s probably a name for the stick but I don’t know it).  Hanging on one end of the stick would be a tray of hot coals (yes, that’s right, they were carrying fire).  On the hot coals would be a big pot of boiling water full of assorted sea food.  On the other end of the stick would be hanging all of their fresh sea food and when I say ‘fresh’ I mean still kicking.  We wondered exactly how someone would partake in such a meal, after all we were on the beach in our bathing suits.  We did notice however that they were also carrying plates and I’m sure they had cutlery and some claw crackers in there somewhere.

So there were a lot of people selling a lot of different things.  The next thing to tell you about is the way they were selling their stuff.  A lot of the people use pity.  They’ll come along and tell you they haven’t eaten or they need the money for school or they haven’t sold anything all day and their children are starving back home.  Now I’m not a completely callused bastard, although I’m becoming more of one, but if we bought from everyone with a sob story we would have to start selling sunglasses ourselves.  We didn’t buy anything from most of the people, even from the pregnant lady, but we did break down and buy from the old guy that I think was a stroke victim.  We saw the poor guy coming from a long ways a way, he was hard to miss.  He could hardly walk because his right leg didn’t work too well, he had his right flip flop tied to his foot, and he had to do a lot of arm flailing to get anywhere.  He was selling post cards and we can always use more postcards…Actually I think the guy made a killing because just about every other person on the beach bought from him. Still, at the rate he was moving, even if everyone had bought something from him, he’d still only make a couple of sales in an hour. Another lady came to us selling coconuts.  As soon as she saw me she burst out laughing and collapsed in front of us, seemed like a new sales ploy to me.  Apparently she was laughing because my hair-do (shaved my head again) somehow resembled her coconuts…Bry and her thought it was funny, me not so much. Bry has been calling me coconut.

We bought snacks from a few other people because, well, we were hungry and too lazy to get up and go for anything.  One thing that amazes me is when you finally do buy something from someone they never seem satisfied.  Not only do they typically give you a bad price (I think you’re supposed to bargain but it’s really hard to bargain with a pregnant lady and her twelve naked crying children in tow).  In addition to the bad price they usually try and get you to buy their whole basket of stuff.  I would think they would just be happy to sell something and leave it at that.  I guess I’ve never had to sell junk to survive before.

We had another interesting incident.  Shortly after we bought the post cards from the old guy we had a lady come up to us trying to sell her post cards.  We politely declined and then she began to get very angry with us.  She told us that she tried to sell us post cards earlier in the day and we bought from the stroke victim and not her.  I was going to tell her it’s a free country and I can buy from whoever I wish but of course Vietnam isn’t a free country.  I did tell her that she didn’t own me and that I could buy from whomever I wished but she didn’t really go for that.  She left in an offended snit.  This isn’t the first time we’ve had similar run-ins.  I’m not sure if this is another marketing tactic or if I’m truly breaking one of those unwritten rules of business that are different here than they are at home.  If I figure it out I’ll let you know.

Tomorrow we’re off to Hoi An.  I’m looking forward to Hoi An but not the 11 hour night bus trip, I can barely stand 5 hours in the bus!

Well, I have to admit, Vietnam has got great beaches!

We spent a day in Mui Ne, which is probably a nice place to spend a week if you have the time. No surfable waves at the moment, which I was sad to see. It’s a popular kite surfing spot, but there wasn’t much wind either. Maybe that’s why the beaches are deserted right now.

We were actually a few kilometers out of Mui Ne, the resorts and hotels stretch for at least 6 kilometers along the beach. We stopped in Mui Ne for a few reasons; 1) It broke a 9 hour bus journey into two equal parts which are easier to cope with, 2) We were really desperate to see the ocean again, and 3) Mui Ne is supposed to have some really great sand dunes.

But shortly after we arrived, we decided just to stay for 24 hours and then continue on, not because we didn’t like Mui Ne, but because we only have a 30 day visa for Vietnam. We spent a few too many days in the Mekong Delta either sick or lazing about without a care in the world. We’re two weeks into our trip and we still have a lot of ground to cover. I think we might be extending our visas in Hanoi…

As it turns out, 24 hours in Mui Ne was just enough to see the sights, swim in the ocean and relax and unwind.

Right after we checked in, we rented a motorbike from some guy that was in front of our guest house. It took a bit of negotiating, and it still wasn’t a great deal, but would you lend a stranger your motorcycle for $4?

We and went out to the sand dunes, Richard was driving of course (he’s such a sissy). We knew we were at the right place when about 15 kids surrounded our still moving motorcycle and tried to rent us sand sleds. The kids were relentless; they followed us up and over the dunes. Richard kept saying he wasn’t going to slide, I told them I only wanted to slide once, they responded, “Ok, you slide one time, then one time, then one time, as many times as you want.” I don’t think they understood the word “one”. Richard asked them how much it cost, they replied, “It’s up to you.” I did slide once, it was… sandy. If you use the right technique (as per the kid’s instruction) you have to put sand on your sled and sit in it for maximum speed.  Once at the bottom of the steep slope I was glad that the kids all got together to push and pull me back up the dune; I didn’t have to do any work at all! They weren’t being nice, they were just trying to talk me into a second slide. They weren’t impressed with the money we gave them, but the enterprising youth we’ve met here never are. One told Rich, “You’re a big man and I’m just a boy!” Whatever that means.  Most of the kids left us when a tour bus full of new potential customers arrived.

The dunes are neat and I bet they’d be spectacular at sunrise. We might have seen the sunset if the clouds hadn’t rolled in just 10 minutes after we got there (we just barely had time to get a few pictures).

We also saw some of the fishing village which was exciting. We ended up at the far end of town, way out on the peninsula and had to backtrack a few times to find our way back. I was “navigating” and had to explain to Richard that there’s a difference between ‘being lost’ and not knowing which road to turn onto.  We didn’t have a map – I don’t think one exists. I was having fun exploring the town (we turned a lot of heads) but Rich kept alternating his gaze between the setting sun and the gas gauge. So we headed back.

We got up really early the next day to enjoy the beach before packing up and boarding the bus. We had the beach to ourselves for a couple of hours. The water was fine!

We’re now in Nha Trang. We’re lucky to have found a decent guesthouse for a reasonable price, there’s a festival starting and the city is overrun with Vietnamese vacationers!

It’s our last night in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City for all of the communists out there).  I’m writing this from our hotel room balcony overlooking the road in the back packer slum.  It’s actually not that slummy unless you compare it to some of the more posh accommodation we walked passed today.  Something we’ve really noticed about this place is the noise.  Our road is so loud that we have to half shout at each other in our room if the doors are open…and we have to have the doors open because it’s so hot!

We’ve been here for about five days and I’m afraid we haven’t seen as much as we could have.  That’s another difference with traveling for a year; instead of going out sightseeing for the day you might spend it in your hotel room watching a Star Wars marathon.

One place we managed to go was the Cu Chi Tunnels.  During the Vietnam War the Viet Cong (the communists from the north, VC for short) built an incredibly elaborate series of underground tunnels here in the south.  My guide book tells me there were more than 200km of tunnels.  The tunnels were often very elaborate and included sleeping quarters, cooking areas, living quarters, multiple levels, etc.  The entrances were camouflaged so well that the opposition didn’t even know they existed for some time (some of the entrances were even underwater).  The tunnels were such a well guarded secret that the Americans actually built one of their bases right over the tunnels without knowing they had done so.  Apparently it took them a number of months to figure it out, they didn’t know why they were getting shot at in their tents during the night.  Here’s another way the VC would use the tunnels:  the Americans would walk through the jungle and shoot at everything that moved ahead of them thus assuming that there were no more enemies behind them.  Little did they know that the VC would go through the tunnels underneath the Americans and then shoot at them from behind no doubt causing a lot of confusion.

Unfortunately there’s not a lot of tunnel left to see.  Even if the original tunnels still existed, they’re so small that us non-tiny-Asian folks don’t really fit (the tunnels measure 80cm wide and 60cm tall, that’s 31” by 23” for you non-metric type).  The Americans had a hard time getting control over the tunnels.  First of all they couldn’t find them and when they did they were often booby trapped.  They had a special division of Tunnel Rats, that was what they called the six shooter wielding soldiers that crawled on their bellies through the tunnels to try and shoot the enemy, that didn’t work too well.  They finally resorted to carpet bombing large areas which pretty much demolished the tunnels…and everything else in their path.  As far as what the tourist gets to see, well, there’s really not much.  There’s a model of what the tunnels might have looked like, there’s a somewhat frightening display of some of the booby traps that were used and don’t forget the shooting range where you can try your hand at shooting an M16 or an AK47 for just $1 per bullet with a five bullet minimum.  The thing that really got my heart pumping was the recreated 100m long tourist tunnel that we got a chance to crawl through.  The tunnel dimensions were somewhat enlarged to fit us folk (80cm wide and 120cm tall) not to mention that the tunnel was cemented in for safety as well as having a couple of bale out exits in case you freaked out.  I’m not ashamed to say, well maybe a little, that I baled at the first exit.  Imagine sort of squat walking through a very dark tunnel.  What made it really bad was that there were about 20 of us going through it all at once, that meant someone right ahead of you and someone right behind you.  And of course there was the heat, the earth here in Southern Vietnam isn’t cool like it is at home.  Let’s just say I was very glad to see the light of day at the first bale out exit.

Here’s a quick side story about our day at the Cu Chi Tunnels:  Unfortunately my bowels haven’t been holding up here in Vietnam like they have for the previous portion of the trip.  Bryana had discovered some super drugs in Thailand so I figured I’d give them a try.  Fortunately they worked and everything was good for the day at the Tunnels.  Unfortunately, with the combined heat and not really being able to get much food or water for a while, my other nemesis, the headache, started getting the better of me on our tunnel outing.  Fortunately I’m a wise traveler and carry a large stash of drugs for such an occasion.  The drugs worked and the headache went away.  Later that evening, after getting back from the tour, we were doing a bit of shopping.  As we were shopping there was this little 6 year or so old girl sort of tearing around the store.  Now just to recap: I defeated diarrhea, a pounding headache and managed not to completely freak out in the tunnels.  And what does the little girl do?  She runs up to me and punches me in the balls…she didn’t get one of our coveted Canadian pins.

 A little more from Bry:

Richard is fine, by the way.

There are a few other pictures in the album, some from the Reunification Palace here in Saigon.

We also visited a Cao Dai Temple near Saigon. The Cao Dai religion is a combination of Buddhism, Christianity and Confucian religions (with a little Islam and Hinduism thrown in there as well). They believe in one God - with many names. They've also made Victor Hugo a saint.

We were able to visit the temple during mass (or worship - they use either term). The temple itself is very colorful. Us visitors seemed to be the cause of great distress among visitors; I could only guess from the yelling, pointing and shoving that the Cao Dai worshippers were telling me to:

1. Take off my hat
2. Use another door
3. Stop and go back the way I came
4. Get off the platform (That was an accident, seriously, I thought she wanted me to go that way)
5. Stay away from the front entrance during the service

And a few other things I didn't catch. And I was only one of many clueless tourists roaming around. They must get a lot of donations to put up with it.

Well, the last day of our tour in the Mekong Delta was a little bit interesting, but a whole lot boring. We spent all day in boats. Not the same boat, but several. All I can say is that from water level, all of the Mekong Delta looks the same. Muddy water and green shores.

But, like I said, it was a little interesting. A few things made it worthwhile.

We got to see how coconut candy is made, and then we tasted it, and then we bought a bunch and I’ve been eating it ever since. It’s not really great candy… I think we were just hungry when we bought it.

I got to try something really interesting on our tour – snake wine! It’s actually a bottle of hooch with snakes and scorpions shoved in it. It’s supposed to be good for your health. I didn’t particularly care for it. It’s like very strong rice…mmm not wine, it’s much stronger, but it’s bitter and has some other taste that reminds me of ammonia. So I sampled but didn’t buy. Richard didn’t try it at all.

And then there’s the weasel coffee. I actually haven’t tried it (that I know of) but it’s just interesting to see it for sale here. Sure, it’s coffee; could be whole bean, ground, etc, but it’s coffee. The difference is the weasel. Yes – the furry little animal. See, the weasel  consumes the coffee first. I don’t know if they force feed coffee to weasels or if the weasels eat it on their own accord, but whole coffee beans, when fed to a weasel, don’t get digested… they come out the far end much the way they went in. The beans are collected and, I pray to God, washed, then sold for a much higher price than regular coffee. I’ve heard this done with cheetahs or something elsewhere, and I have to say, the fact that they chose the weasel in Vietnam is a little baffling to me.

Lastly; we’ve noticed that written Vietnamese looks a lot like French. I don’t know the details, but the language was romanized in the 17^th century by a French Jesuit. The details are not important, let’s just say – looks like French. So, when Rich and I ate at a scary restaurant and Rich ordered the chicken, we were a little concerned that the Vietnamese translation was chien. But when it came, it was indeed chicken (not dog) and we found out later that chien means fried. Which is, needless to say, good to know!

Not much else to say about our trip; pretty rivers, some bees, some pythons, a cup of honey tea and – oh, Rich ate some fruit. By the way, my new favorite fruit is sapodilla, though it’s not called that here.

We’re in Saigon now and we’ll post a blog about it soon!