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!