Vietnam Days 11 thru 15 - 03/11/09 - 03/15/09

We spent the next day doing absolutely nothing... again! Eden Bar (below) was one of our favorite places for dinner.

At this point we were missing the dogs a lot. We saw this puppy on the beach. He was digging up crabs (white thing on right side of picture) and chasing them around the beach. We were thrilled to see that puppies act the same everywhere!

In case you hadn't gotten a grasp for how remote this island was...

A few days later we headed back to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). We stayed overnight and then caught a very early flight to make the trip back home. This is an example of the lovely traffic in Saigon and Hanoi. It is CRAZY.




FAQ:

Q: How did you cross the street?

A: We usually tried to walk next to a local but, if not... you just have to walk at a constant pace and they will swerve around you.

Q: How long did it take to get there?

A: About 28 hours total. We flew from KC to Chicago to Hong Kong to Saigon. It was quite an interesting flight path. We actually flew over the North Pole and saw some amazing views of Siberia. Ambien was our friend.

Q: Was it hot?

A: It was about 95+ degrees in the South (very humid) and about 75 degrees in the North



Q: Was it difficult to understand people/ did they understand you?

A: The only place we had difficulty was in taxis but, we just wrote down where we wanted to go and we got everywhere just fine. We took more guided tours than we normally would but, we were on a tight schedule and we were unsure of the language barrier.

Q: What is the currency?

A: The Dong (no joke). The exchange rate at the time was about 17,000 dong to the dollar. It is a little disturbing to take 2 million dong out of the ATM but, that is just over $100 dollars.

Q: Was the food good?

A: We had some great meals and some average meals*. We really prefer more flavor in our food (like Thai) but, Vietnamese food in general is a bit on the bland side. Breakfast was sometimes difficult... they eat Pho for breakfast everywhere. (*note: don't eat airport food)

Q: What were the domestic planes like?

A: We flew Vietnam Airlines for all of our domestic flights. The planes between Hanoi and Saigon were 747s that were nicer than our United flight to Vietnam. We took a small prop plane to the island.

Q: Did you ever feel unsafe?

A: Nope, they loved us. Especially Stacy's hair and pale skin. They all cover themselves from head to toe (including gloves) so that their skin stays fair. You always seem to want what you can't have!

I think that is about it. We had an amazing trip and would highly recommend it for any of the more adventurous travelers out there!

Vietnam Day 10 - 3/10/09

After spending 2 days doing almost nothing around the resort, we decided to go snorkel ling. We signed up for an all day trip that included 5 stops and lunch. The whole thing cost $17 each. The guides had us quite disturbed about jellyfish (which we never saw any) but, Stacy practically had a panic attack when she saw a plastic bag in the water that was headed straight for Joe :)

Joe fishing for lunch (with no luck)

Stacy caught 2 and wasn't even trying!

This is where we stopped for lunch...

Vietnam - Days 8 & 9 - 3/8/09 - 3/9/09

We had one more night in Hanoi and we took an early morning flight to Phu Quoc to spend the rest of our trip. The first 8 days of the trip were very busy and we were looking forward to spending the rest of the trip relaxing.

This is a picture from the plane. You can see the red dirt roads. There were very few paved roads on the whole island.

We stayed at a wonderful resort called Cassia Cottage. The place slept about 40 people but, you always felt like you had the place to yourself. This was our private beach....

Beaches are just a little too sandy and salty for us (crazy! I know!) so, we prefer to lounge poolside where you can hear and see the ocean.

This is the little bridge down to the beach. To the right is the restaurant and to the left is the massage hut. One hour massages were FIVE DOLLARS!

Vietnam Day 7 - 3/7/09

After another overnight train, we arrived at 5am in Hanoi, but had to go immediately to the Handspan travel office for our tour to Ha Long Bay that left at 8am. This was a VERY Long day with the back-to-back travels and the most exhausting of our trip, but it was definitely worth fitting into our schedule. It was about a 3.5 hour drive to Ha Long bay where we took a boat into the bay for a 4 hour tour. We were very surprised at the amount of boats in the harbor for tours. The guide estimated about 400 boats dock daily to take visitors into the bay.

Even more surprisingly, our boat would probably have held 40 people comfortably, but ended up with just the 7 people on our tour. We first stopped off at a cave, that is one of the largest in the region and then back to the boat for lunch. They served a very good lunch which consisted of some of the local seafood: whole prawns, spring rolls, calamari, fish and fruit. The remainder of the trip we spent cruising around the bay, which is known for the thousands of limestone formations that come out of the sea.

Vietnam - Day 5 & 6 - 3/5/09-3/6/09

The train arrived around 5am and our guide took us to our hotel in Sapa and we had a few hours for breakfast and a shower.

We then hiked down through the mountains to the Cat Cat Village where many H'Mong people live. Stacy bought a hiking stick from a child. Joe SHOULD have bought one because he slipped & fell into a terrace. Stacy had the privilege of cleaning his only pair of jeans that night. We got to see how they live and work. Their fields are set up on terraces in order to be able to farm in the mountains and was very peaceful there. At the end of the tour we walked down to a local waterfall before hiking back up to Sapa.

This terrace is full of a plant used to dye clothing red...

The second day in Sapa, we hiked down to 3 villages. Just before we left Sapa, there were several H’Mong women waiting outside of our travel agency’s office. We thought they were there to sell us some goods like they had the day before, but they were actually there to help escort the tourists through the mountains and to their village of Lao Cai. This was kind of a nuisance at first, but we soon realized that the terrain was very slippery and in some parts hard to maneuver. Both of us had a few spots that we nearly slipped, but the H’Mong were right there to help guide us to the more stable spots. In fact, there were times when they were taking the rough spots themselves (wearing rubber shoes with a baby on their back) and holding our lunch in order to help get us along safely. We were very thankful they were there and ended up buying some goods from them when we arrived at their village.

When we arrived in their village, there was a funeral ceremony going on. This was very rare and they celebrate this very differently than we do. It lasts for 3 days and the 3rd day, they sacrifice a Buffalo and celebrate the individual’s life. Each year afterwards, they meet on the anniversary of the death and all the family members from the surrounding villages will meet where the individual died to celebrate. On the 3rd, anniversary, they sacrifice another buffalo in celebration. We snapped this picture before we knew it was a funeral (and weren't supposed to photograph it).

From there we went on to another village that had a different ethnic minority – The Dzao. They are the women in the pictures wearing the red hats. They were having a wedding celebration in their village, which was interesting as well. All the men were inside celebrating and drinking rice wine and the women all gathered outside as they are not permitted to drink as the men do.

At the end of the day, we went back up to Sapa for a few hours before we had to take another overnight train back to Hanoi.

Vietnam - Day 4 - 3/4/09

We spent most of the today touring the Old Quarter and some other sights. There wasn't much difference between Saigon and Hanoi and we were getting a bit sick of the crowds, so we ended up seeing a movie in the afternoon. Not surprisingly, Jim Carrey movies are just as bad in Vietnam as they are at home:)

Dried Fish in the market - Rocky & Duke would have loved it here!

We found a nice lunch spot that overlooked the lake (and the neverending traffic) and had very large beers.

At 8:00 last night we made it to the Handspan tour office where we took an overnight train to Sapa. Joe didn't exactly fit on the bed. Ambien was definitely our friend for the night :)

Vietnam - Day 3 - 3/3/09

Today we visited the Cu Chi Tunnels. This is an underground network of about 100 miles of tunnels that the Vietnamese used during the war. It was very interesting what they did, but we had mixed feelings about seeing this from their perspective. They used alot of medi-evil traps where alot of the soldiers would fall through the bamboo traps and fall on poison coated bamboo spikes and also had many other types of traps that were hidden for the soldiers to fall in and get caught up in. At the end of the tour, we got to see some of the secret entrances to the tunnels and crawl through a section. The 1st level is barely big enough to crawl through on your hands an knees and the 2nd level is only big enough to crawl through, which we didn't go into. They also had a 3rd level that had alot of the kitchens.

After the tour, we went back to Saigon until our flight to Hanoi. We got to our hotel around midnight to find a strange empty room attached to ours that looked as if it was falling apart. After closer listening, we heard a couple dozen rats in there so we decided to check out and find another hotel that was a bit nicer!