We Found the Sun (and some new clothes)!

Hoi An is known as the clothes tailoring capital of Vietnam; it certainly didn’t disappoint us! We made our way to Hoi An from Hué via a short three hour bus ride. To our surprise we were booked into a sleeper bus for this middle of the afternoon ride. With no other options but a bed, we made ourselves as comfortable as possible and laid back until we made it to Hoi An.

We were lucky to get a really nice hotel room in Hoi An. Rooms are really cheap all across Vietnam (about 20-25$) and you can get some really amazing places. This place came with free bicycles to tour the town; it was a very nice touch!

Conscious that this was the place to get some clothes made, and since we both got a little money at Christmas from AJ’s Grandparents, we splurged and shopped like crazy in Hoi An. John had a suit, a coat and some size 15 shoes tailored for him, while AJ got pants, shorts, a coat and some shoes for herself. The prices were great and the quality was amazing. We had it all shipped back to Canada via slow-boat, it should hopefully arrive in 3-4 months (kinda like us)!   

Hoi An is a beautiful city. There are lanterns everywhere in the town and once a month they turn off all the lights and only leave the lanterns on to illuminate the town (we wouldn’t be around to see this).

We toured the town and took in the sites, including the Japanese Covered Bridge.

It was built in 1593, the construction started in the year of the dog and ended in the year of the monkey, so on one end of the bridge they have dog statues while the other side has monkey statues.

         

We went to a bar for a couple of drinks on our first night in town and yet again, we randomly ran into our German friends as we seem to be following each other down the Vietnamese tourist trail. This made for yet another late and fun night!

The next day we rented a motorbike and checked out the ancient Cham city of My Son. It is now a Unesco World Heritage site, but unfortunately it’s in pretty poor shape as the American’s bombed the hell out of it during the Vietnam War. Never the less it was pretty cool to check out and the hour and a half motorbike ride there was lots of fun. We didn’t have a map, just a general direction in which we should head, so at every intersection we would stop and ask a local, “My Son?” and they would point us in the right direction. It took a little longer than it should have, but we made it! 

We wrapped up our time in Hoi An with a cooking class at a nice little Café. We learnt how to make a Green Papaya Salad, Spring Rolls, Braised Pork in a Clay Pot and Sweet and Sour Shrimp. The food was great and now we can feed all our friends back home some amazing Vietnamese dishes!

From Hoi An we made our way to Nha Trang via a sleeper train. Unfortunately, this train wasn’t nearly as nice as the last one we took. We arrived in our train cabin only to find two locals sleeping in our bed. We showed them our tickets and they slowly crawled out of bed and disappeared into the hallway. We were both thrilled at the idea of sleeping in someone else’s used sheets, but at least the bed was warm. Either way, we wouldn’t be getting much sleep; AJ was sick with a cold and the train intercom would continually blast random messages in Viet every two hours for the entire night.

Nha Trang is a big town that is right beside a gorgeous beach. 

It’s really popular with expats, many of them having settled down here, hoping to find the best of both Vietnamese worlds, beach and city all in one. There is a pretty good nightlife area with a strip of bars and one late night club.

Our Hotel was ok, it was only $15 a night, but the house bar/restaurant was more of a tavern for expats. At first we thought this was pretty cool as there were lots of people to talk to and everyone was up for a drink, but after a couple of days of seeing people wake up, head to the bar and start drinking at 10AM, we had seen enough. Most of them hadn’t even been around town to see the sites. We didn’t make this mistake.

There are some amazing Cham ruins right in the middle of town, as well as a beautiful cathedral and some amazing boulder formations by the water. 

But the nicest of all were the two giant Buddha statues. There is a giant sitting Buddha as well as a giant lying Buddha; the size of the statues is so amazing. 

One of the statues is surrounded by busts of six monks who burnt themselves alive to protest their lack of freedom of religion. Quite a site to be seen.

When visiting the giant Buddha a monk invited both of us to take a turn sitting inside the giant bell while he rang it and chanted a prayer. It was pretty amazing feeling all the vibrations through your body; very relaxing to say the least.

We also made sure to hit up one of the day cruises that head out to the surrounding islands. We joined the Funky Monkey Booze Cruise for the day, complete with the Funky Monkey Boy Band. Yep, it was as good as it sounds! They got people from each country up on stage and made them sing a song from their country that the band knew. We were with another guy from Montreal that day, so when we went up and said we were from Quebec, Canada they played a French song that John had never heard of, “Savez-vous planter des choux” followed by “Frère Jacques”. Good to know the Quebec music scene is well represented in Vietnam.

We also enjoyed a great local meal which was kind of like Korean BBQ where you cook your own food, except we were brought a clay pot with a fire in it.

While in Nha Trang we met Hau on the corner of the street. He stopped us and asked if we wanted to take an Easy Rider tour with him. We had never heard of Easy Rider tours, but he was pretty convincing, he showed us some photos, an itinerary and old customer reviews. So, after thinking about it for a couple of days, we called him back and agreed to ride motorbikes with him through the Vietnamese country side. We opted for a 3-day 600km tour that would bring us off the tourist path for a couple of days. More on this in our next blog!

Looking for the Sun!

When we last left off we were on our way south looking for some heat. Unfortunately, we mostly found rain. We caught a nine-hour night train from Hanoi to Dong Hoi. But, because we booked a little late, we were only able to get a hard-sleeper cabin. Basically this meant there would be six people in a very small space on small mattresses. Image a triple bunk bed. 

Fortunately for us the bed wasn’t that bad; unfortunately, one of our roommates was the biggest snorer in Vietnam. He was a local man, and when John woke up in the middle of the night to poke him in order to make him stop snoring, he was faced with that awkward moment where the local Vietnamese man wakes up in the middle of the night and stares at you and you can’t explain in his language why you are poking him. He then went back to sleep and kept snoring, John put in earplugs. I guess this is how we deal with the language barrier. Either way, we were happy with our trip and we made it to Dong Hoi, home of the world’s largest dry Cave: Paradise Cave.

We would only stay one day in Dong Hoi as the only thing to see is Paradise Cave. We skipped the organized tour and opted for renting a motorbike and driving the approximately 100Km on our own. It was a two-hour ride, but well worth the trip, Paradise Cave was unreal! It was bigger than anything we could have imagined!

As we were leaving the cave we ran into a group of German guys we had taken the Halong Bay tour with. This would be the first time we realize how small Vietnam is and how all the tourists essentially follow the same trail.

After our time in Dong Hoi we made our way to Hué. Hué is a really fun town to visit. It was the first time we found a really fun backpackers’ environment with good parties, cheap drinks and late nights. It was also the second time we would run into our German friends, but this time we would party into the wee hours of the night, with AJ and them partying on the dance floor, while John ruled the pool table (the Viets had nothing on him). AJ figured out the best way to get home quickly was to hop a ride on the rigshaw, but the cheapest way is to be the driver!

After our late night parties, we took in a lot of local culture. Hué is really in the middle of it all. There are amazing tombs in the hills around Hué. We rented a motorbike and visited three different tombs of ancient Vietnamese emperors. Each tomb is like a miniature city build solely to remember this person. The detail, effort and size of each tomb were incredible.

We also had an interesting experience on our way to the tombs. Despite the fact that the roads in Vietnam are completely crazy, people still find a way to drive up to you while your cruising along on a motorbike and strike up a conversation. We were driving down the main street at 40km/h and a local woman drove up beside us and started talking to us, asking where we were from and where we were going. When we told her she offered to help us get there and told us to follow her. She showed us the way to both tombs we wanted to see and then invited us over to her home for fresh tea and fruit. Quite a nice experience, until she asked us to help her fund her kid’s education. We gave her $5 and continued on with our travels. We assume she only stopped us because she was hoping we would give her money, but despite this, it was still nice to visit her local village, hear her story and hopefully, help her out a little.

The next day we hopped onto an organized tour to visit Vietnam’s the former Delimited Dry Zone (DMZ). The tour was way too long (13 hours), and wasn’t really interesting, except for one part, the underground tunnels and the old military bunkers and trenches. 

We made our way to an area of Vietnam that was heavily bombarded by American fighter planes during the Vietnam War. There was a village that made the choice to stay rather than run away. However, they chose to stay underground. The village of 350 people built an intricate tunnel system underground where they would live for six years. There were maternity rooms (17 babies were born underground), rooms for families (they could support up to 6 people in a room) and meeting rooms for up to 50 Vietnamese people. The tunnel system had three different levels, the first level was 15 metres underground, the second level was 18m and the third 21m. It was unreal to spend 30 minutes underground walking the tunnels that locals lived in. An amazing experience to say the least.

The following day we would enjoy our last morning by touring the Hué Citadel before make our way to Hoi An. The Citadel was amazing. It was a city within a city, and within that city there was another city. Yeah, pretty nuts! It was huge, with giant walls, fishponds, elephants, farms, gardens, temples and all this surrounded by a moat. It took hours to visit but the history was incredible.

After our time in the citadel we waited for the bus we had booked for the three hour ride to Hoi An. To our surprise we ended up being put on a sleeper bus that was passing through town. It was comfy, albeit, a little weird to be lying in a bed for such a short journey. Never the less we made to Hoi An and we were ready to enjoy the everything about this amazing town. More on this in our next blog entry!

Back on the Road

Our last blog update was when we had to head back to Canada due to John being very sick. That was just over 3 months ago. Well, time flew while back at home. We got to visit family and friends in Granby, Montreal and Toronto.  

AJ got to work a little, John helped out his brother with some home renovations, we got in a little volunteer work, we enjoyed an epic 45cm snow storm and we even got engaged!

Next thing you know, we had waited the 90 days that the insurance company had told us would be necessary in order for John to be insured again. The conditions that had put on us was that his symptoms would either need to be steady or getting better for 90 days so that it would not be considered a pre-existing condition. Fortunately for us, John’s health just got better and better, and with lots of luck on our side, he was able to completely recover from GBS in an incredibly short amount of time (after talking to people about what happened to John, we heard some real horror stories about other people sick with GBS and the incredibly long recovery times – months/years – that they had to go through). 

And so, eager to continue our travels in Asia, we shopped around for a flight to Vietnam. What would you know; we found one leaving on January 1^st, the 91^st day since our return to Canada. 2013 would be a good year in Asia!

Now, enough about old health problems and cold Canada, we are now in Vietnam! Our first destination would be Hanoi. Too bad Hanoi is damn cold this time of the year… Never the less we’ve made the best of this amazing second chance and we soaked up as much as we could.

During our short three-day stay in Hanoi we visited a ton of museums and temples, walked all over the city and ate some really good food. We took time to visit the History, Women’s and War museums, while also checking the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh’s body still lies today (it looks like he’s taking a nap) and the old Hanoi prison where American war prisoners, including John McCain, were held during the Vietnam War.

We saw this explanation in the woman's museum. We thought it was pretty timely since we are now engaged.

Visiting Ho Chi Minh was quite an experience, as the complex where they keep his body is tightly guarded by the Vietnamese military. When you walk in the room where his body is kept, you are told to walk straight, have your hands by your side and to keep moving. Never the less, it’s pretty amazing to see his body, over 40 years after he died in such good condition. Unfortunately, we can't take any photos of him...

The Hanoi Prison was even more intense. The torture exhibits, propaganda on the walls and tours of the tiny solitary confinement cells where prisoners were kept, was creepy to say the least. It was the first and hopefully the last time either of us had been in a prison!

The streets in Hanoi are pure chaos, with motorbike zipping all around you as you try to cross the street. It’s a pretty amazing site to be seen, especially since they find a way to avoid hitting you and each other, all while never really stopping. You can also buy anything you want on the streets. 

Say you have an interview and forgot to wear a suit, no problem! You can buy a suit, shoes and a tie all on the side of the highway, not to mention buy a baguette for breakfast and balloons to celebrate. Hanoi has it all!

One of the most impressing parts of Hanoi is the clothes boutiques. It’s pretty obvious that Vietnam makes most of the clothes sold in the west. There are “Made in Vietnam” stores everywhere selling any American brand you can think of for a fraction of the cost. How about a North Face jacket for $30? If we weren’t planning on travelling for such a long period of time, we would have bought so much stuff!

After our quick three-day stop in Hanoi, we booked ourselves a two-day one-night cruise on Halong Bay. Vietnam has proven to be the cheapest place we’ve travelled so far, and the quality of accommodations and food has been really high. The cruise was no different. We were amazed by our room, the food and, of course, Halong Bay! It’s amazing what $55 can get you!

We were fortunate to be on the boat with some really people who helped make our tour a memorable one!

Next, we are headed south. We will be visiting the largest dry cave in the world, we’ll check out some other amazing Vietnamese cities and hopefully, find some warm weather!