Sunday 23 December 2018 Leaving home
On this trip we decided to do things a bit differently; instead of travelling alone, or with our usual travelling companions, Bev and Andrew, we would add another two to our team. Rudy and Mary. I flew with Mary many years ago when she was an Ansett pilot, and Elly has known her from before then. Rudy used to magically appear whenever Mary and I would be on an overnight stop, just to make sure I wasn’t leading her astray. Many years later Rudy and I were both flying with Cathay Pacific Airlines out of Hong Kong.
Even though Bev and Andrew had never met Rudy and Mary, we were quite confident that they would get along.
The four usual suspects took the same flight from Melbourne to Saigon, or, officially, Ho Chi Minh City. We were in Premium Economy, although we found it difficult to see what the difference was between that and Economy, other than allowing us to jump the check in queue ( thanks to Elly who sniffed out the short queue) which was so long for economy it nearly snaked out the front door of the terminal. Rudy and Mary were coming from their house in Big White, in Canada, and arrived a few hours before us.
We were collected from the airport by our guide for the next two days, Anna, with her driver. She gave us a non stop commentary on the way in to our hotel with some interesting information. We asked her about the Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City situation, and it appears that, even though the city was formally re-named, the locals generally prefer the short two syllable version. Anna said that if she was heard calling it Ho Chi Minh instead of Ho Chi Minh City, she could be arrested for insulting her country. In practice it is still Saigon for many people, and even the airport designation is still SGN.
Introductions were made on arrival at the hotel, and we cobbled together some gin & tonics before heading off to the market to wander a bit and have some dinner.
Saigoon night market
Monday 24 December Saigon
This morning Anna took us on a fairly long drive to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. These are the extraordinary network created by the North Vietnamese, initially in the war against France, and massively extended during the Vietnam War ( They sometimes call it the American War). It was very well presented, if crowded, and we were shown brilliantly disguised entry points, fiendishly clever and nasty traps that would impale any American soldier should he be unfortunate enough to walk onto one.
Torture trap
The underground tunnels were ingenious, with sections too narrow for American troops, but passable by the smaller Vietnamese. Mary volunteered to squeeze down through one tiny access hole – she just made it, but getting back out looked difficult, but she was managing, however, Anna, who obviously thought Mary couldn’t get out, grabbed her under the arms and dragged her out. Poor Mary, who was actually managing quite well finished up with bruises from the force of Anna’s manoeuvre.
Tunnel access point made larger for tourists to try
There was also an underground hospital and cooking areas which had the smoke vented out through bamboo poles into the surrounding forest, or near water to make it appear to be mist if observed by the enemy.
They did clever things such as making sandals in reverse, so that any footprints they made would look as though they had been walking in the opposite direction.
With a very clever enemy, and the terrifying traps that could kill them agonisingly at any moment, it is understandable that many Americans, and Australians who survived the war had severe post traumatic stress disorder.
Anna’s father fought against the Americans, although in the north, not in these tunnels, and even told his daughter that he felt sorry for the enemy soldiers who had been conscripted and had to fight in those conditions.
We walked, crouched over, through a section of the tunnel, with just enough room to get through, amazing to think of the Viet Cong surviving down there in those conditions for so long at the same time being an efficient, inventive fighting force.
Camaflage construction from termite mounds
Jack fruit growing at the entrance
In the afternoon we did a city tour, getting the feel of the place and visiting the Independence Palace, which was the former Presidential Palace. It is very grand, with all the rooms fully furnished, but cordoned off, so you can look but not touch.
Presidential Palace
On the upper floor, just outside the window, there is an American Huey helicopter, apparently left as a gift. It brought to mind that famous photo of the last helicopter perched on top of a building, with people scrambling to get on board as the Americans left the city. That helicopter was, in fact, on a small landing pad on top of the CIA building, and we could see that actual makeshift pad from the street, minus the helicopter of course.
Helicopter landed on CIA building to withdraw American staff. Centre left building between red roof and tree line to the right.
Catholic Church
Central Saigon Post Office
Photo of Ho Chi Minh inside central post office
View from our hotel Grand Silverland
Speaking of the street, the traffic is beyond chaotic! There are literally hundreds of thousands of motor bikes and motor scooters swarming through the streets, mixed with cars and buses. Traffic lights, where they exist, are advisory only. It is a challenge to cross the road as all you can see is a wall of motor bikes like waves onto a beach. We had been told that the way to cross is just to walk steadily without varying your speed or direction, and the traffic will organise itself around you, maybe with a horn toot or two. This, in fact, works, although you still have to be ready to break that rule as a last resort.
The amazing thing is that it works! There are motor bikes weaving in and out, cutting across in front of other bikes, cars and buses, and nobody seems to hit anything. There were a few places we found ourselves just not able to muster the courage to cross, as the wall of vehicles was too solid and never ending.
Dinner at a more up market Vietnamese/ French influence restaurant in a courtyard off the main plaza where Ho Chi Minh’s statue was covered, enclosed maybe for renovation. Perhaps he will be on show for our return. Bev, Andrew and I (Elly) wandered the streets after dinner amongst the millions of people parading the streets on Christmas Eve. We mastered the road crossings with the skill of the locals. Mary and Rudy failed to convince us to accompany them to Christmas mass.
Handling of cash is a little daunting, as there are around 16 thousand Vietnamese Dong to one Australian Dollar, so calculating in your head for tipping or shopping is challenging. Elly is carrying most of the cash so I am managing to avoid the brain work. When the restaurant bill come to over 2 million Dong it comes as a bit of a shock!
25 December – Christmas Day
This morning we visited the War Remnant Memorial, which is a multi story building with American military aircraft and tanks in the forecourt, with plaques giving the basic technical details as well as their gun/ rocket/bomb capability.
Inside there were several floors dedicated to different facets of the war, mostly to do with the atrocities perpetrated by the U.S. – detailed photographic records of victims. It was interesting seeing the story from the point of view of “the other side” that is, the victors, who, as we know, get to write the history.
Even with the knowledge that this was the story from the other side, it was still very disturbing, and heavily reinforced our opinions that the U.S. and Australia had no right to be involved.
After spending a couple of hours in the museum, Bev expressed a desire to have a look at a pagoda which was apparently a not too distant walk, before a scheduled appointment at a Vietnamese cooking class.
Siesta on the streets of Saigon
Andrew led the way because he had the pagoda address on his phone map. The temperature was in the low 30s and we were working up a good sweat as the pagoda was only 200 metres away and we could hope for some shade. We started to doubt Andrews guiding instructions after about the third course amendment, and the pagoda still 200 metres away. In desperation we fled into a McDonalds, which was where the pagoda should have been, to get some cool air and a drink, only to find that the temperature inside was the same as outside, but without the slight breeze!
It was getting to be time for the cooking lesson, so we found a taxi and tried to organise for it to pass by the pagoda on the way, however, the phantom pagoda never materialised.
Our cooking class was operated by Luke Nguyen’s company and was set up very professionally. Our instructor was Binh who was very good and clear. We created a 3 course meal which was primarily fish, which didn’t excite me too much, but I decided I would eat whatever we produced. The lesson lasted a little over three hours, and I am here to say that my creation was every bit as good as the others, and I have a certificate to prove it! Elly, of course now expects me to create a full Vietnamese meal when we get home, fat chance, I have forgotten it all already.
Tools
After the magnificent meal we had created and eaten, we met up with an old friend from Hong Kong, Alistair Hayman, who is now living in Saigon. We had tickets for a show in the Opera House, which we had decided would be interesting to see, just for the building itself.
Saigon Opera house
We were pleasantly surprised by the show which was a brilliant display of synchronised gymnastic dance. The staging was simple and varied and their performance included throwing bamboo poles to each other, sometimes rotating end over end, to be caught by another performer who had just throw his/her pole to someone else. Frisbee type baskets were flying everywhere , again, being caught and disposed of to the next person, and more baskets were being flung left to right, up and down, all being caught and immediately disposed of.
It came across to me that this was a representation of the strong socialist communist workers achieving a high level of production for the advancement of the Party. This didn’t spoil my enjoyment though, I thought it was brilliant and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
We walked back to the hotel for a quick G&T before bed.
Ho Chi Minh under cover
26 December Mekong Delta to Cai-Be
A mini bus collected us from the hotel for a more than two hour drive to Cai-Be, south west from Saigon, in the Mekong Delta. Here we boarded our boat, the Mekong Eyes 2, for an overnight cruise. The boat was very impressive, all timber outside and in with dark timber panelling lining the walls and ceilings. There were shaded areas on the outside decks and an internal meeting room as well as some cabins on that level. One level down was the dining room and the remaining cabins. Some of us were allocated lower deck cabins, but Rudy insisted that we had all been booked on the upper deck – he was wrong as it turned out but worthwhile as the staff managed to put us on the upper deck. Shoes were off at the entrance, so it was socks or bare feet. The cabins were tiny, but they had ensuites, and it was impossible to actually lay our suitcases open on the floor.
Mekong Eyes 2
We split into groups for a short half hour walk through a local village and our guide pointed out all the fruit trees and vegetables growing all over the place in the warm humid climate. The surface was a bit muddy in one spot, and, of course, my feet went from under me and I finished up down with hands and knees in the mud – well done me!
Disembarking at small village
Back to the boat, change of trousers, and up on deck, now with the shade cloth removed, for a pre dinner drink as the sun set to give us a beautiful balmy evening as the boat pulled away from the shore of the river. We passed lots of boat traffic as we went, mostly loaded with produce and, generally with fairly loud motors.
We cruised until about 9:00 pm when we anchored overnight.
27 December Cai- Be
This morning we the boat engine burst into life at about 6:30 am and set off for a “Sunrise Cruise” while we had breakfast. These early mornings go against my concept of a holiday; I thought you slept in while you were on holiday – silly me!
After breakfast we transferred to a sampan to visit the local floating market which comes to life from about 2:00am onwards. All the boats in the market had a sample of what they were selling tied to the top of their mast, so you could see from a distance what produce they would sell to you.
Floating Market
From there we headed onshore to see the local market and then to check out a noodle factory.
noodle shredder
Then came lunch, which was provided at a local restaurant with the table all laid out for us. We seem to be having three meals a day, lunch being several courses, which is way too much for most of us, but we all seem to cope and at least the food is healthy.
Next it was on to a waiting bus to take us on the 2 hr journey to Chau Doc, which is a relatively large town, similar to, but much smaller than Ho Chi Minh City. Our accommodation was at the Victoria Hotel, which was a very nice place right on the river. We did our usual trick of arriving at our destination and then immediately try to find somewhere else to go. The women managed to find a spot called Sam Mountain, which we could reach by taxi and then the last walk from the car park would only be 10 minutes up to the peak to view the sunset.
I agreed to go, but Rudy decided to enjoy the hotel pool and outside relaxing area. I should have done that too! The taxi took us up to the car park where there was a “sister” hotel to the Victoria Hotel. We then set off on the “10 minute” walk which was very steep and took half an hour! At the top there was a little shop which we had to walk around to get to the viewing area, which wasn’t all that marvellous. We decided to go back down a short distance to a much better area for viewing. Around that time the cloud cover became much gloomier and it looked as though we were in for a thunderstorm which delighted Elly as she envisioned some good photo opportunities, the only problem was that we were out in the open.
We decided to make a quick exit back to the car park hotel and get the storm and the sunset from their outside pool area. We just made it back in time to see some amazing roll cloud formations almost right down to the ground, caused by the advance of the storm. Elly was also ready to get the sun setting between the underside of the cloud and the horizon.
Then it all went away! No storm and no sunset!
Back to our hotel for G&Ts with Rudy, although, even though we had our own bottle of G it was difficult to find any T, so we had to make do with gin and some sort of lemon drink which was available everywhere. Desperate people!
Dinner at the hotel was good, with lively political discussions between Mary and Andrew, great stuff! After dinner Rudy and I called it a night while the others had a few games of 500. We were to be ready with bags packed at 6:45 am next day for our river journey to Phnom Penh in Cambodia! What is it with these early mornings?
28 December Mekong to Phnom Pehn
Motor cycle ferry
We managed to materialise in the foyer at around 6:45 to board our high speed boat, which took us, after about an hour, to the Vietnamese customs and immigration centre adjacent to the river. After that small hurdle we went upstream for another 5 minutes to the Cambodian customs and immigration centre where we paid our US$ 34 and had our details checked to give us a Cambodian visa. We were lingering aroung the courtyard waiting for our passports to be processed watching magnificent roosters being washed and groomed, one at I time. The remainder 6 or so were in holding cages. From previous experience in Hong Kong we sadly and correctly assumed they were fighting roosters and very valuable. From there it was another 3 hour journey along the Mekong River to Phnom Penh.
The river is enormous, about a kilometre wide, and when you think of all the other arms and tributaries that make up the Mekong Delta, it is hard to imagine the sheer volume of water passing through it.
We arrived at Phnom Penh Sisowath Quay International Port and were then transferred to our hotel, the White Mansion Boutique Hotel which was very attractive, and was, in fact, the former U.S. Embassy. Lovely big rooms and a French bakery on the ground floor for breakfast.
On the afternoon of our arrival, we had free time, without a guide, so we set off on a walking tour, maps in hand. The weather was noticeably hotter than in Saigon, so we kept to the shade as much as possible. We arrived at the National Museum, where Rudy and Mary decided to give it a miss while the rest of us bought tickets and wandered through the various hot, humid rooms which were filled with glass cases containing ancient remnants. All in all, not very exciting, so we made our way down to the river and joined up with Rudy and Mary. Rudy had noticed a bar there, which was the old Foreign Correspondents Club, so we thought that we should climb the stairs and share a bit of history. We had some drinks on the roof top bar looking out over the river, imagining all the stories that had been told over beers in the past.
National Museum
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a restaurant for some dinner. It was OK but we were put off a little by the woman sitting barefoot on top of a table near us, chopping lettuce! Later, there was a young child in nappies, sitting on the same table sucking on a bottle of milk. We finished our dinner and walked home wondering if we would get away with that situation unscathed. We did!
colonial river front building
View from FCC -foreign correspondence club
Davids noodle shop
29 December Phnom Pehn
We had a tour guide for the day, and began with a visit to the Royal Palace, which covers an enormous area and consists of lots of buildings, including the King’s residence, which, of course, we couldn’t access, a library, a meeting room, which was long and ornate, with chandeliers hanging from front to rear. There was also a separate building, open at the sides, which is used for national and ceremonial dancing. Also on the grounds were a few Stupas, very ornately constructed and decorated. These are for the ashes of former kings and their families.
The current king’s father is interred in one of the Stupas. He had many wives, but only one “official” wife, so she made it in to the Stupa with him, but the other wives were tossed.
The current king aged 64, remains single!
palace
Stupa for king and first wife only.
Silver Stupa
The Silver Pagoda followed, along with the requirement, again, to take shoes off! My shoes have difficult laces, so I was less than impressed by this requirement – everyone else seemed to have slip ons. Among the display in the Silver Pagoda are 7 women with national costumes, a different colour for each day. This would be very handy for those who don’t know what day it is, just look at the women – if it’s green it must be Tuesday!
7 days- 7 colours.
Next on our list was Wat Phnom, which is a temple built on top of a hill. The word Phnom means hill, so this was built on the highest hill around. Phnom Penh was said to be founded by a wealthy woman, Lady Penh, who built the temple on the highest ground.
There is now also, a Chinese temple on the hill to cater for the Chinese population here.
Lady Wat, rich benefactor
Lotus flowers
Next was the serious and somber; we visited Tuoi Sleng Genocide Museum a building named S21, which was formerly a school, but during the rule of the Khmer Rouge was transformed into a detention and interrogation centre. It was a three level structure, the ground floor being for the men, the first floor for the women, and the top for the children.
Only 7 survived S21 to tell the story. Men, woman and their children were held and tortured here before being transferred to “The Killing Fields” 15km out of city centre. The conditions and cruelity beggar belief.
Tiny space to be detained. Starvation and torture in the name of idealism
The cells in which the prisoners were held were tiny, and doors were not necessary because they were chained and manacled. People were tortured here to obtain “confessions” and then transported to the Killing Fields 15 km north of the city. The people who were tortured and killed were people who were educated, academics, teachers, engineers, in fact, anyone who was educated above the level of peasant farmer.
In S21 there were photographs of hundreds of people killed displayed in the rooms to see as you pass from room to room.
We then travelled to the Tull Sleng Genocide Museum established at the Killing Fields. There is a central memorial which contains the skulls and bones of the victims in see through glass walls so, as you walk around it you can look through at the skulls, most of which have obvious signs of brutal force.
Surrounding the memorial is a walkway which passes the site of a holding room, which was used as a waiting area, once the rate of killing reached 300 per day, a figure that the Khmer Rouge killers found could not be exceeded. The walkway passes marked off areas where mass graves were found after liberation.
It was hard to imagine that this peaceful spot could have been the site of such violent brutality against innocent people.
Mass grave sites
Branches are sword like and were used to decapitate prisoners
Tree used to smash heads
Clothing remnants
On return to the city we were dropped off at a high rise building that our guide said had a roof top bar, so up we went and had a couple of drinks there overlooking the river and the city, as Elly tried to get some sunset photos, even though we were facing east! She has her ways.
crossing the road
making headway
30th Dec. Phnom Pehn
Quiet day today. Elly wanted to take photos of the monks who walk the streets every morning from 6 AM until 11 AM colleccting food and money from various houses and business’. What they don’t eat they give to the poor but not sure what they do with the money. Hopefully it also goes to the needy.
31 December Phnom Penh to Siem Reap
We left Phnom Penh in a mini van with just the driver, who spoke no English. No guide today. The drive took around 5 hours through generally similar countryside, some open fields and some small roadside villages; not too inspiring but a comfortable ride, if you disregard the numerous times we were on the wrong side of the road, passing a line of other cars and trucks, with other cars coming towards us.
We tried not to dwell on this, and became somewhat fatalistic over the journey.
Lilly ponds by the road
Arriving at our hotel Tara Angkor in Siem Reap, we checked in then walked in to the downtown area, which was about 2 km from the hotel, along the river. The weather wasn’t too hot, so it was a nice walk.
We had a bit of late lunch, and as we exited the restaurant we noticed a couple of large fish tanks filled with lots of small fish. The sign suggested that you should put your feet in the tank, and the fish would come and clean your feet of any dead skin.
This didn’t appeal to Elly or me, but the other four actually did it, making lots of ooh ahh noises which didn’t sound as though they were having fun. Elly and I decided to walk around a little while this was going on. We found an ice cream shop and decided that was much better than having our feet eaten by fish.
When we returned to the others they said that their feet felt great, and that they became used to being eaten after a while.
We took a Tuk Tuk (rhyme intentional) back to the hotel, where preparations were being undertaken for the New Year’s show and dinner, to which the guests were invited. The whole place was filled with party lights and balloons, and pre dinner lollywater was served from 5:40 pm, – no proper drinks. There was a stage at one end of the area, which was outdoors, just outside the hotel building, and some local dancers gave some performances, after which we all moved through a sea of party lights to another outdoor area which also had a stage as well as an enormous buffet dinner. A local band was performing as well as some more singers and dancers, as we finally ordered some wine and the evening was in full swing. We 6 were seated at a table with another 6 who comprised an American family of grand parents, parents, and twin boys who were travelling together. Rudy suggested that we all mix up our seating so that we could talk to different people instead of yelling at each other across the table.
That worked well, and we all got on well. The grandfather was a retired cardiologist, the mother was a doctor, and the dad was a financial advisor and the boys were in grade eight at school. They were obviously a very close knit family and we passed the time till midnight talking to them.
At midnight there were balloons and fireworks and general merriment – then we went to bed and left them to clean up the mess.
01 January 2019 Siem Reap
This afternoon we were picked up by our guide, Keo, and driver, Sam, to take us to have a look at the floating village on Lake Tonle Sap. This is an enormous lake which is actually fed by water from the Mekong. As the Himalayan snows melt the water flows into the Mekong down as far as Phnom Penh, and then splits, with some of the flow heading back to the north to feed Lake Tonle Sap, which expands to four times its normal size.
Once the snow melt flow eventually stops, the lake flushes out and feeds back down to join the Mekong at Phenom Penh then out through the delta to the sea.
We stopped at a small village near the lake to see farmed crocodiles behind a small house and then to see the village temple.
Farmed crocodiles
backyard crocodiles
Washing in the Mekong
Beautiful child at the temple
We arrived at the edge of the lake to find a very well organised system with lots of boats carrying tourists out to see the floating village, which consists of small houses lined along either the bank of the lake or along the mangroves which have formed alongside the lake. Our boat took us out through these moored houses and out to open water where some other boats/houses were moored separately.
School’s out
School pickup
We tied up to a floating dock and climbed aboard to be greeted by a guy with a python which he then offered us the opportunity to wrap it around our necks! Rudy volunteered, followed by Andrew. I used my cynicism about tourist traps to avoid having the thing around my neck.
We climbed up to the top deck to have a look at the area with a 180 deg view, but there was nothing we hadn’t seen on the way out.
Back in the boat to cruise past all the houses again. Small boats were towing and carrying bits and pieces, one even towing a cage of ducks being transported to their demise.
Fishing by foot
Houses and families along the river
Apparently when the lake is flooding the outlying boats move back to the shelter of the bank or the mangroves.
We then stopped at the Angkor Silk Farm and were shown the stages of making silk, from silk worms and Mulberry trees, to the creation of their cocoons and the method of converting the cocoon to a thread of silk – each cocoon is actually made up of one single thread of silk, and, of course, the thread must not be allowed to break.
Then the process of converting it onto spindles, the dyeing process and then the weaving of intricate garments. This was New Years Day and a holiday, but they kept a few women on duty to show us the process.
Called fried because it is made on a freezer board like a hot plate but frozen
02 January Siem Reap
This was a big day, as we headed off to Angkor Wat, which I expected to be way out in the sticks, but was, in fact, only a 10 minute drive from the hotel. There are 4 gates separated from the main temple; we entered via the East Gate. This temple was constructed beginning in the year 1113 AD for the King at the time, Suryavarman, and was a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu. Work continued for 37 years until the king died in 1150 AD when all work ceased, because the new king wanted to construct his own temple.
It was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century. The building is vast with the core consisting of lava stone which is quite lightweight and relatively easy to transport, while the outer layer is of sandstone which can be used for engraving and carving. The building process involved thousands and even hundreds of thousands of workers, elephants and engravers. This information was kept in 4 libraries, one at each corner of the structure, until the later control by Thailand, when the records were destroyed, although some of the engravings discovered later, gave this information.
The site occupies some 400 acres and is surrounded by a huge moat.
Look, quick take photo, no tourists now
Elephant tusks
wall engravings
Buddah’s face in profile. Always 4 images on a stone
Trying to photograph the monks in situ
not queuing to climb up a level. 2 hour wait! Rudy offered $10 to head of queue but alas…
Classic Angkor Wat photo
After leaving through the South Gate, we stopped at a nice little money spinner; a large, tethered helium balloon which, for US$15 would take a small group up about 100 metres, which would give a panoramic view of the temple. We did this, although poor Elly had been thinking this was going to be a conventional hot air balloon which would take us right over the top of Angkor Wat, and so she left her long lens in the bus!
Tethered balloon
Next on the agenda was a visit to the Bayon, a Buddhist temple at the heart of Angkor Thom, meaning Big City. This temple is also massive, consisting of 54 towers, and on the side of each tower is a large, smiley faced Buddha. That is 4 faces on each tower, so 4 times 54 means a total of 216 smiling Buddhas. Similar construction materials, lava stone and sandstone, but not as large as Angkor Wat. It was, at one stage, the capital of Cambodia.
We then found ourselves at Ta Prohm, which is particularly famous for its part in the film Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie. It is still in need of a great deal of reconstruction, but has a lot of atmosphere with several trees whose roots have enclosed parts of the building and over the centuries have wormed their way into the nooks and crannies and then expanded as they grow. The tree is named Spung and according to our guide Keo, these are 290 years old.
A long and tiring day, so back at the hotel Rudy had all the makings for some G&Ts, and then after hunting for a good place to eat we found the Mahon Khmer Cuisine, just a few minutes walk from the hotel.
03 January Siem Reap to Luang Prabang
This was to be a free morning prior to leaving Siem Reap to fly to Luang Prabang. Elly, on the other hand had hired a guide to take her back to Angkor Wat for some sunrise photos with Bev who volunteered to get up early to accompany her. I stayed in bed! Rudy and Mary went for a walk into town and back.
Hindu Wat- Prasat Kravan 10th Century
Banteay Kdei
Banteay Kdei
Banteay Kdei
We had a little time remaining so we headed off in our tuk tuk to the town centre for a few street shots. I managed to interlope on an advertising photo shoot in the main temple in LP
model in front of main town temple.
Models happened to be inside temple
Temple offerings
Tulips
We then left our bags in the hotel and all 6 of us squeezed into one Tuk Tuk ( a record, l think) and found a restaurant for lunch.
We caught our flight at 5:00 pm for Luang Prabang in Laos, and went through the border visa proceedings without too much hassle. Our driver was there to take us to our very cute hotel. We then set out to find a restaurant, walking, since we were only about a kilometre from the centre of town. We walked through the night market which seemed to go on forever, and found a nice restaurant, a bit upmarket but still inexpensive by our standards. The town is very pretty and quite small, with hills on both sides and the Mekong river flowing through it.
04 January Luang Prabang
Elly was up at 5AM to see the parading monks of Luang Prabang collecting alms and occasionally giving some food to a few children in the line up. Alan and the others stayed in bed! I then wandered around to the river to see sunrise and then to the monks temple and living quarters. All before breakfast!
Our guide Su and driver took us a short distance down to the river, where we boarded our own private boat. These boats are plentiful here and consist of a very long Hull with comfortable seating. In some cases the aft section of the boat has living quarters built in, although ours just had a toilet. Bev asked Su about whether people lived permanently on their boats, and he said that often one person may stay on board overnight for security, because otherwise someone may “ borrow” the boat. Bev said “ you mean steal it?” And he said, “ no, just borrow it forever”.
We headed upstream for about two hours, which was very pleasant, with Su giving us a history lesson on the way. We finally moored at the site of the Pak Ou Caves. Laos has been under the control of, or invaded by many countries over the centuries, including France, Thailand, Vietnam and China.
During a period of Chinese control, it became known that all except two of the many temples were to be destroyed so all the wooden Buddhas were removed and transported up the river to the caves. As you climb up the steps from the boat into the lower cave you are surrounded by Buddas in front and to the sides as well as hundreds of them perched on any available ledge. Local people who come to see the cave often bring with them another Buddha to add to the collection.
Another 200 steps takes you to the upper cave which isn’t quite as crowded as the lower cave, although it reaches further back and has no lighting, so we had to use our phone torch to see not only the Buddhas but where we were treading.
Re-boarding our long boat, we now turned downstream and soon came to another mooring. Here we climbed the steps and found ourselves in a small, dirt floor house with a large 44 gallon drum which had a fire burning under it and some pipes attached.
This turned out to be a still, making rice whiskey. There were some shelves with professionally labelled bottles which were,of course, for sale, and you were allowed to taste, which we did. Not being a whiskey drinker, it was wasted on me, but the consensus seemed to be that it was somewhat less than top of the range. There were also strange insects and reptiles preserved in the bottles, maybe in the whisky.
There were other small shops in the village selling the usual silk scarves etc. probably all owned by our guides relatives – no, I am being unfair.
We headed back to our mooring at around 5:00 pm and were just leaving the boat when Elly, ever on the hunt for a sunset to photograph, started to get excited about the sun going down across the river, with the hills in the background. Much to our amazement she started negotiating through our guide, Su, with the boat driver, as to how much it would cost to take the boat out onto the river for an extra hour. It turned out to be a reasonable 20 dollars, so we gave Su some cash to go to the shops and buy some beer and chips, which he quite happily did, and he was also quite happy to come with us, even though he should have been able to go home since his day was officially finished.
He later explained that he felt it was his responsibility to stay with us until we were safely back at our hotel.
We settled back in the boat and sailed to the middle of the river and had Happy Hour while we waited for the sunset. It was very pretty as the sun set behind the hills, and after a short time it looked all over, but Elly said we should wait a bit longer as the colour was staring to become more intense. Eventually it became a magnificent sight with strong red and yellow colours radiating from behind the hills. “Told you so.” Said Elly.
05 January Luang Prabang
A morning visit to the Wat Mai Temple which housed a large gold Buddha and the usual ornate surroundings of the many temples was followed by a visit to the National Museum, which was formerly the Royal Palace, just next door to the Wat Mai Temple.
After entering the grounds of the National Museum, to the right there is a very recent temple like building which houses the Phra Bang, the sacred Buddha made of gold,silver and bronze. This Buddha is only 83 cm tall, and legend has it that it was made in the first century in Sri Lanka and presented as a gift to the king. It was moved from temple to temple over the years until 1975 when the current building was completed in the grounds of the Palace, and moved there permanently.
Every Lao New Year it is taken from the Museum by procession to the Wat Mai Temple to be exhibited there where it is ritually bathed by the devout.
The National Museum, former Palace, was built in 1904 in the French colonial era, and was originally accessed from the Mekong river flowing past it at the rear, but that access is now not available. The rooms are very ornate and the walls are covered with images made from individual small glass pieces on a deep blue background.
Laos has had 73 kings, the second last, the 72nd, is commemorated by a large statue in the grounds of the Museum. In 1975 the communists overthrew the monarchy, and the last king and his family were exiled to France, where his children still reside.
Stupa
Emperor’s Security
Our next adventure for this day was a climb up to the highest point of Luang Prabang, to the gold stupa at the top of Mount Phousi, some 380 steps. It is said that if you haven’t climbed Mount Phousi, you haven’t visited Luang Prabang, so what choice did we have?
We made it, and from the top we had a 360 degree view of the town, the river and the airport and the surrounding hills. The whole place is really lovely and the weather has been like a Melbourne autumn.
Pre Wedding photos with view
Reclining Buddah on mountain top
We descended from the mountain on the other side where our mini bus was waiting for us. Our guide had promised us a nice spot to have lunch, so we drove for about 40 minutes up to the Kuang Si waterfall. There we found several pools of water with quite a lot of water flowing through each of them. Built around various sections of the falls were decks set for dining, right next to the water. This was our lunch spot, and it was just beautiful.
After lunch and a beer we headed further upstream, passing similar falls on the way until we reached the base of the main waterfall of Kuang Si, which was quite spectacular with plenty of photo opportunities and the possibility of swimming. There is a rescue centre for Asiatic Black Bears ( Moon Bears). It is totally funded by an Australian charity and currently has a very passionate English couple managing it with the help of some Laos staff. The bears are beautiful and of varied ages. there are 23 in all including one Malayan sun bear rescued from a bile farm, illegal poaching and wildlife trade. The village enterance to the park has a number of small shops and food stalls. We spent quite some time there before heading back to the van and home.
Moon Bear
After assessing various ways in which we could achieve Happy Hour, we finally decided to arm ourselves with our trusty bottle of gin, some cans of tonic and glasses from our room and perch ourselves on the bank of the river nearby and watch the sunset. Very pleasant it was, although the sunset couldn’t match the quality of the previous day.
Dinner at a small hole in the wall on the way back home was excellent, and a good day was had by all.
06 January Luang Prabang
This was a free day, so we had a good sleep and took our time over breakfast, deciding what we might do. Rudy and Mary decided to hire bikes and do their own thing, while we decided to walk along by the river up to the confluence of the Mekong and the Man Khan rivers. The town has a wonderful feel about it and as we walked we found that on the side of the road next to the river there were lots of restaurants with plenty of shade all along the way, whilst on the other side there was a proliferation of guest houses and restaurants, all looking very appealing. The further we walked the more upmarket they became.
Finally we reached the confluence and sat down for a cool drink, overlooking the river with its long boat traffic. At this point there is a bamboo bridge probably about 50 metres long from our side of the Mekong to the opposite side of the Man Khan river. This bridge lasts from about October until March, when it finally succumbs to the large amount of water flowing past. At that point the whole bridge has to be made again! We felt that we had to walk across it just because it was there.
07 January Luang Prabang
A free few hours today before being picked up and taken to the airport for a short half hour flight to Vientiane. We had been concerned that we didn’t have any paperwork for this flight and were told that it would be delivered via the tour guide company, but that didn’t seem to be happening. On the way to the airport we suddenly pulled to the side, and a little man knocked on the side window and handed in the paperwork. How did that happen? Must have been their head office hole in the wall.
Elly’s last 5am get up to see the Monks. She has been hoping practice makes perfect!
The flight to Vientiane took 27 minutes, but before take off, as we were sitting in the emergency exit row, we had to say that we could operate the escape hatch in an emergency. The passenger in the emergency exit window seat in front of us was asked this question, but obviously didn’t speak English or Lao and was completely unaware of what was being asked of him. Rudy, who was in the aisle seat next to me offered to swap seats with the passenger, but that didn’t seem to be acceptable. The flight attendant was completely at a loss as to what to do. The correct thing to do would normally be to relocate the passenger and seat another passenger who could confirm his or her ability to operate the exit. None of this was done and the flight attendant just wandered off after having relegated it to the too hard basket! This was Lao Air, not good!
Fortunately the exit wasn’t required and we arrived in Vientiane with all the wheels and wings and important bits all in their correct places.
08 January Vientiane
Out in the morning with our guide, Song, to do some more temples, the first being the Wat Sisaket which was built in 1818 and houses an enormous range of Buddha statues, many of which are very small. The total number of statues in the temple is 10,136, ranging from large to tiny. In the courtyard surrounding the main temple are most of the statues, each with its own niche in the wall. Inside the temple itself are 2052 Buddha statues. There is a series of frescos depicting Buddha’s life, these have recently been renovated by a team from Germany.
We then passed the Presidential Palace, which is used for offices rather than residential, and is referred to as the Vientiane White House, built in 1925. Song pointed out the Laos flag and the Hammer & Sickle Party flag, 7 million people, and just one party, then he said, “ We won’t talk too much about politics.” Apparently you have to be cautious about what you say here, because the ears are listening.
The Hor Phrakeo Museum was next, with an open area with low manicured hedges surrounding lawns leading up some steps to a temple. Built in 1560 by the king to house the emerald Buddha from Luang Prabang, although in 1779 this temple was burnt down, and then the Buddha was also taken to Thailand. This king was the one who changed the capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane.
There is a jar, from the Plain of Jars, which is too far from Vientiane for us to visit, but it was good that we could take a look at one of them. The age of the jars is said to be around 2500-3000 years, and they are scattered in groups of just a few up to several hundred. Their purpose is thought to be associated with burial practices at the time, although Song suggested that they might have contained rice wine, and the bones that they have found in some may have been those of someone who had had too much to drink, and fallen into the jar and drowned!
Buddah statues in the museum
Walls of mosaics
After lunch we set off for the Buddha Park, and on the way we stopped and walked part way across the Lao Thai Friendship Bridge which is bridge spanning the Mekong River, and allows traffic between the two countries. It is a slightly unusual bridge because traffic in Laos drives on the right and traffic in Thailand drives on the left. The bridge was designed and built by Australian companies and funded by the Australian government.
Buddha Park is a sculpture park 25 km south east of Vientiane and contains over 200 Hindu and Buddhist statues. It is operated as a tourist attraction and a public park. The statues are of humans, animals, god’s and demons. There are also many Buddha statues as well as characters of Hindu belief including Shiva, Vishnu and Arjuna. There is a spherical construction made of concrete, with windows (openings) on each of three levels representing purgatory on the ground floor, earth on the first floor and heaven on the top level. You can enter via a mouth at ground level and climb to the next level by internal concrete steps. On each level you can view through openings into a scene representing life on that level. We did all that without doing ourselves a damage and finally left the park.
After the day’s tour we found ourselves a bar on the third floor of a building near the hotel, overlooking the river, and from there watched another sunset – a bit too much cloud to put it in the top ten.
Then dinner at a French restaurant for a change.
We have found Vientiane to be not as appealing or with as much character as Luang Prabang however we have enjoyed our time here.
09 January Vientiane – Hanoi
A free morning with a late breakfast and a wander for half an hour for lunch at a recommended cafe. Elly and Bev had spent the morning exploring the local market while Mary and Rudy checked out the Catholic Church in their wanderings and I worked on the blog. We were collected for a trip out to the airport for our flight to Hanoi in the evening. We were met at the airport by our guide, Khue, a most unlikely character, running around excitedly, full of happy body language and enthusiastic commentary as we drove to the hotel. As with our other guides, a great deal of concentration was required, for me at least, to decipher what was being said.
Our hotel, the O’Gallery Premier Hotel was OK, although the rooms were dark and gloomy, but clean at least.
10 January Hanoi
Out at 0830 to begin at the Museum of Ethnology, which is a very impressive facility. Vietnam has a population of around 90 million people and comprises 54 ethnic groups; the Viet and 53 minority groups, each of which include numerous local groups who have similarities in many areas, but also some differences. The museum devotes its space to pictorial, photographical and physical displays of the various minority groups. Khue was very thorough in his explanations of the displays in the museum.
In the grounds and gardens surrounding the building itself are actual examples of the houses and their layout of some of the minority groups. We were shown by Khue the interiors and the living spaces and layouts of the different houses, as well as the different methods of construction, governed by factors such as whether the group lived in the lowlands or on the hill slopes, or even at the top of the high ground.
The temperature is cooler than in Vientiane and the traffic is as chaotic as in Saigon, except that it seems more lethal. Cars often stop at a red light if they must, but motorbikes give them no attention at all!
Following on from the museum we were taken to see the stages and techniques of the production of lacquerware. This is a quite extraordinary process, highly skilled and time consuming. There are two types of lacquer which is taken from the lacquer tree; one is black and the other is clear. The items made and, of course, on display in the adjoining shop, were bowls, plates, wall hangings, decorative boxes and just about any other item you could think of.
The timber is treated first with black lacquer, several coats, each of which takes three days to dry before being smoothed by rubbing under water, ready for the next layer. Several artists were working on pieces as we watched, some working with paint and some with finely crushed eggshells which are used to give texture and detail to the work. When the picture is complete a layer of clear lacquer is applied and again is left to dry for three days. The surface is quite rough at this stage so the piece is then smoothed by rubbing under water. This is repeated several times until it is smooth to touch. A massive number of man or woman hours is required for each item, and really the price doesn’t reflect that.
We stopped for lunch at the KOTO restaurant which is an Australian funded establishment aimed at helping Hanoi Street kids. Bev has, in fact, booked us into this restaurant for dinner, because she had known about it through teaching connections in Melbourne, so we cancelled that, but enjoyed the quality fresh food at the lunch.
Our next place to visit was the Temple of Literature, which was built in 1070 in the Ly dynasty and inspired by Confucius and contains a statue of Confucius and four of his followers. In the grounds are buildings which were used in 1076 as Vietnam’s first university educating the intellectual elite of the country.
Khue had pointed out to us in the morning a queue which stretched forever, as people landed up to visit Ho Chi Ming’s Mausoleum where they would get a few seconds to see Ho lying there as they passed by. He suggested that we probably didn’t want to queue for hours to see this, and we agreed, so in the afternoon we visited the official offices and home that Ho Chi Minh used while he was in power, and also the much more modest house which he moved to later in the 1950s which was built on high stumps, elevated above ground with just a few rooms and with an external toilet. The whole complex is set amid peaceful gardens with a small lake.
Khue had organised tickets for us to see a water puppet show, which seemed to have more tourists than locals as audience, but was really very unique. The stage was filled with water, and the accompanying musicians were seated on each side of the stage. At the rear of the stage there were bamboo curtains, presumably ro allow the puppeteers to see through, and at the same time blocking the audience’s view of the puppeteers. The puppets would appear in front of the screens, in the water, and do their dance or whatever with other human type puppets, or sometimes with dragons which breathed fire and darted around. It is hard to say how the puppets were controlled from behind and under the screens, particularly without getting entangled with the other puppets controls.
It was all very cleverly done, and good fun. At the end, the puppeteers showed themselves- there were eight of them. Very impressive.
As we came out of the theatre, Khue had arranged a bicycle “rickshaw” for each of us to take us back to the hotel. That was great fun as we rode for about 45 minutes through the city in the early evening.
There are 7 million people in Hanoi, and 5 million motorbikes. The motorbikes use the footpath as both a road and a parking lot. Pedestrians often have to walk onto the road, a potentially fatal move, in order to continue walking on the footpath after passing the sea of parked bikes.
11 January Hanoi
Khue was up and about meeting us at 08:30 for a walking tour of the Old City as well as the French Quarter. He also took us into a couple of restaurants to give us food we didn’t want ( I think they must have been owned by his relatives). I became indisposed and returned to the hotel while Khue led the others to see the Hanoi Gaol, otherwise known as the Hanoi Hilton, not to be confused with the actual Hanoi Hilton. Khue seemed to be very proud of the facility and waxed lyrical about how well the American prisoners of war were looked after and treated so kindly.
Before dinner we found this really unusual situation; the train line coming into Hanoi passes a level crossing. Just about 30 metres before the crossing, people accumulate on both sides of the track. Fold up seats are provided, and you can get food and drink at the Railway Station Restaurant, while you sit and wait for the train to pass. Some people actually stand their mobile phone cameras up against a stone, right between the tracks, ready to record the train passing over. The whole atmosphere is very laid back and pleasant until a minute or two before the train arrives, when everyone is told to fold up their chairs and stand back against the wall because there is not much of a gap! Sure enough when the train past there was very little room to spare. The train comes around the corner tooting continuously because the driver obviously knows the setup. After the train has gone everyone goes home. We finished up having quite a long talk to the woman who owns the cafe, obviously a smart lady with a good little gimmick she cultivates.
It was getting a bit late, so we visited a restaurant that Mary had found that looked good, and it really was.
12 January Hanoi – Lao Cai
A free morning, so we walked to Hoan Kiem lake which is in the city area, and quite large. This area adjacent to the lake has the streets blocked off to traffic on Saturday , so the scene was quite peaceful and quiet. There is a small footbridge leading to a temple on a small island, so we had a little investigate there before we strolled up one of the blocked off streets where we found a mass of kids cars, battery operated, some with the kids driving them by themselves, and others with a parent walking along behind operating a remote control. There must have been a hundred of these cars with a few entrepreneurial types organising the whole show.
A little further on was an open square where a group of young people was doing a dance routine whilst being recorded on video. When that finished a few of them came over to talk to us; we found out that they were young medical students doing a promotion to attract more students, and they enjoyed talking with us to practice their English. They were really nice, friendly kids and we enjoyed talking to them.
We have spoken to a lot of people on this trip, often due to our gregarious friend, Rudy, who will strike up a conversation with anyone he passes, quite often with some outrageous comment which generally requires a reasonable grasp of English and a good sense of humour, and amazingly he picks his targets well. His humour just cracks me up.
Next, we moved on to the Opera House, which is distinctive with its yellow and white colour and French influence in style. We checked for any shows that might be on for our return, but with no luck.
A Hop on, Hop off tourist bus was sitting outside the Opera House, so we decided it would be a good thing to do, to cover the places we hadn’t seen, so we sat up top in the open and did a circuit before heading back to pack our bags, because we were scheduled to catch an overnight train to Sapa, 8 hours North West of Hanoi.
Khue, our tour guide collected us from the hotel and drove us the short distance to the station and shepherded us into a very third world concrete waiting room while he organised our tickets for the train which was an overnight sleeper departing at 10:00pm. We then dragged our bags across several rail tracks to the platform where our train waited. We had two four berth compartments for the six of us, which had been previously booked, although Khue kept repeating that he had arranged this for us: “ Two compartments, eight beds, six people.” As though this was some fantastic feat he had engineered.
We decided that Rudy and Mary would have one compartment, and the remaining four would have the other. So it was happy hour with munchies in their compartment. As the train pulled out we looked out the window, which we had open in the corridor, to see the Railway Station Cafe, the scene of our gathering the previous night. We saw it and noted how minimal the clearance was as we passed. I nearly had my head taken off as I looked out, by some structure which whizzed past very close.
We didn’t get a great sleep during the night, with hard beds and lots of stopping a lurching accompanied by a fair bit of noise, and the wake up banging on the door started at around an hour before arrival. If you didn’t turn on the lights and show signs of stirring, which we didn’t, a woman would come around and unlock and open the door and tell you to get up!
13 January Lao Cai – Bac Ha Market – Sapa
We arrived in Lao Cai, near the Chinese border, at 6:00am, in the dark, and again dragged our bags across the rail tracks to the terminal station, where our guide, Veng met us with a van and driver. She was very nice, and was dressed in traditional clothing of her tribe, the Black Hmong people, which is one of the minority groups within Vietnam.
We drove to the Bac Ha market. This felt very weird, in the dark, after an all night train journey, unwashed and sleepy, being taken to a market instead of an hotel. However, the sun came up and we recovered somewhat. We went in to a place which had breakfast of sorts and some coffee before walking to the market.
This market is the largest ethnic market in the region and is held every Sunday. It was enormous and displayed all the normal fruit and vegetables, clothing, weaving products and other items normally associated with markets, but here you could buy one of hundreds of Water Buffalo, pigs, puppies, roosters, ducks, you name it, it would be there.
After leaving the market, we were scheduled to have a short boat trip. We weren’t sure of the purpose or it, but we couldn’t do the boat trip before midday because the water upstream was being used for electricity production and it wasn’t available downstream until it arrived at noon. Down to the river we went at noon, in our van, only to turn a corner and find a man with a hoe, spreading soft gravel from a metre high pile which had been dumped in the middle of the road. He asked us to wait for a few minutes while he spread it out enough for us to pass, which we did, but then our driver decided it was spread enough to try to get through. It wasn’t. We were bogged!
It was “ everybody out” to lighten the load and also to help push. This had no effect other than to bury the rear wheels a bit more. We all took turns at using the hoe to clear a space in front of all the wheels, and after about 20 minutes we finally became unbowed and drove on to a very uninspiring place where the boats were kept. These were metal long boats which could take about ten people, but we had to split up, with Elly and I in one boat and the rest in another. We were told that six of us would be too heavy. This sounded unlikely to me until I saw the reason; the water was only a few centimetres deep. There was nothing much to see as we set off in our boat and within a couple of minutes we ran aground!
Our boat driver jumped out into the water to try to push us off the gravel and rocks using his bamboo pole which each boat carried. In the mean time the others were watching this unfold and having a bit of a giggle, and for some reason our guy waded across to their boat, and as he did our bamboo pole fell off and floated off in the distance with the current. What a hoot!
If our boat had freed itself, we would have been swept downstream without a driver – that would have been fun, although as I was realising this I noticed that we did have a rudimentary anchor, so that would probably stop us if we threw it over.
Eventually our guy managed to free us and we went downstream for about ten minutes when we went ashore, when we assumed we would be turning around and heading back, but no, this was the end of the line and our van came along to collect us. Veng told us that normally there would only have been another ten minutes on the boat anyway so we hadn’t missed a lot.
We then drove to our final destination for the day, Sapa, which is a lovely little town. Our hotel, the Victoria Sapa Resort was a very lovely hotel with a lot of character, on high ground above the main town. The veranda in front of our rooms overlooked the town and the lake which looked just gorgeous in the late afternoon and evening with mountains soaring on both s There are steps leading from the hotel to the town, and on the way down we found a good restaurant tucked away beside the steps. We were all a bit fatigued after the train and the long day, so we weren’t up late.
14 January Sapa
An 8:00 am start for a busy day had us driven to the Muong Hoa Valley where we commenced a walk. From where we started we could see enormous areas of terraced rice fields on the slopes opposite. We were high up at the head of a very long deep valley.
When we alighted from our van there were several ladies in Black Hmong traditional clothes, and it became obvious that they were waiting for us because they started walking with us, asking the usual questions of “where do you come from, what is your name,” etc.
They carried backpack baskets, and one was spinning hemp into a single strand as she was walking.
We weren’t sure about their reason for being there, although they would offer to help, or if Elly was doing her usual falling behind photographing, one would hang back to wait for her. Veng was occasionally speaking to them but generally walking with us.
The scenery was just beautiful, with the terracing covering what seemed to be whole mountainsides. Also, water was cleverly being controlled via streams, man made channels, even aqueducts underneath bridges we were crossing. There seemed to be water everywhere we looked, either flowing or lying on the terraces as we looked down on them.
Eventually, after walking for about ninety minutes we arrived at the village of Lao Chai, which is where the story really started, as the ladies who had been walking with us suddenly started to insist that we buy their woven products from them. They said that since they had been walking with us “ all the way from the top” we had to buy from them,not one item for a couple, but one each. Very clever to build up a “debt” by leaving us alone and just being sociable all the way down. We did some negotiating and left with everyone being happy.
We decided to continue walking to the next village, Ta Van where we were again asked to buy things, but this time it was the Zay people, another ethnic group, but selling similar stuff. Our driver was there waiting for us to take us back to Sapa.
We had learned about a mountain, Fansipan, which Rudy christened Fancypants, and which is the highest mountain in the Indochinese peninsula, at 3100m elevation. It also happens to be adjacent to Sapa. It is accessed by an incredible engineering wonder, first of all you enter the Sapa railway station where you find a modern funicular, which we boarded and had the carriage almost to ourselves. This connected Sapa to the base of the adjacent mountains, the trip lasting about ten minutes. From there we took the cable car, the longest three wire cable car on the planet. The expanse of this was amazing, the cable cars disappearing up through the cloud. The weather is a big variable here, and quite often you can’t see the peaks, but we were lucky we decided to do this because the next day’s forecast was for cloud and rain. There was some cloud, but the peaks were sometimes visible from the town. The view on the way up was just spectacular, looking down the valley we had descended in the morning. Eventually we reached the cloud base and continued up through it, coming out into clear skies and more spectacular views of the mountains around us with cloud swirling between the peaks and through the gaps. Finally after what was an amazing ride, we reached the top, which had a restaurant and shops and lead out to an open area where you could look down the side of the mountain, although it was a bit windy and chilly by then.
From that area there were forty steps up to the next level, where there was a large Buddha statue, a bell tower and a pagoda. The altitude was getting to my ageing system and after climbing thirty of the steps I was feeling very faint so I gave it away and sat looking at the view over a beer whilst the others took another cable car up to the actual peak of the mountain.
We were very lucky that this wasn’t peak ( pardon the pun ) season, because there were very few people using the complex. I think that you would barely be able to move during the busy season and it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
We made our way down in the cable car with a young couple from Bendigo, then all our group except Andrew and myself went for a wander around the town and soon it was time for Happy Hour and dinner at the hotel restaurant which was pretty good.
15 January Sapa – Hanoi
All went to check out the town centre, while I stayed in to catch up on the blog as the plan had us being picked up at 12:30 pm and being driven to the bus station to catch the bus at 1:30 pm to Hanoi, a five hour drive.
That worked, except that when we arrived at the bus station, which was just a small hole in the wall operation, we found that we were not booked. Confusion reigned until a search for our names revealed that we were booked on the 4:00 pm bus instead. An inspection of the 1:30 pm bus by Elly and Rudy just before it left revealed uncomfortable sleeper seats and the stuffy smell of feet with shoes removed, so with the knowledge that the later bus would be much nicer, we went across the road and had lunch while we waited.
Sure enough the bus was quite comfortable, and we had mentally adjusted to a 9:00 pm arrival in Hanoi instead of 7:30 pm, as we had an early start the next morning, 7:45 am, with bags packed, for a five hour bus ride to Ha Long Bay.
16 January Hanoi – Ha Long Bay
We packed light and left a large part of our baggage with the hotel to keep until we returned from Ha Long Bay. We were ready in the lobby at 7:15am, which is far too early for me! The bus ride wasn’t too bad and we stopped for two rest breaks, the second being at an enormous place which sold everything from coffee to massive garden water fountain statues. It seemed to be connected to a disabled persons establishment, and a few disabled people were working on some beautiful, precise tapestries. As we entered the Ha Long Bay area it became obvious that this is a massive tourist venue. We had expected it to be busy, but this was amazing.
There were high rise apartments and shops, along with development still continuing as we drove along the access road to the harbour. At the harbour there must have been at least one hundred boats each able to carry thirty or forty people. We were loaded onto a tender and taken a short distance to our boat. We were given our room keys and then seated for a seafood lunch. The cabins were quite comfortable although it was good that we hadn’t packed the full extent of our luggage. The view surrounding us was quite spectacular, with rocky islands poking straight up out of the sea. There are more than 2000 of these islands throughout the Ha Long Bay Area and make for amazing scenery. The down side is that this is such a popular tourist destination that there are swarms of boats doing the same thing as we were and also in the same spot, and at the same time!
After lunch we were herded onto a tender and taken to a nearby conical shaped island with a structure at the top. This was Ti Top Island named after some Russian dignity who visited the island with Ho Chi Minh, and apparently offered Vietnam a bucket load of assistance for their fight against the U.S. during the Vietnam War. In the foreground as we alighted was a statue of this illustrious gentleman.
We then commenced climbing an infinite number of steps to the top to get a good view of all the surrounding islands. It did feel as though we were being processed, since a number of other boats had pulled in and disgorged their passengers as well, so there was a conga line of people climbing the stairs. The view was great within the confines of our shoulder room, however, within about ten minutes the place was practically empty, so the thought occurred to us that if the different companies staggered their visit instead of rushing to get there first, things my be bit less crowded.
There was a choice of kayaking or being rowed by a local for the afternoon activity, so, in view of the fact that it was quite cold and cloudy and we didn’t want to get wet as well, we opted for the row boat. This was one of those boats where the guy stands up at the stern and rows standing up and facing forward.
It was quite pleasant and we headed for what appeared to be a cave in the rock wall of one of the islands, but turned out to be a tunnel going right through. As we passed through we could see some monkeys on the rock walls, sometimes in the clumps of bushes on the wall and sometimes climbing nonchalantly straight up the rock face. Very cute, but spoiled by the Chinese tourists in the boat next to ours throwing food at them.
Back to the boat for Happy Hour, unfortunately in our cramped cabin, because, even though the boat had a roof deck, it was just too cold to sit out there.
17 January Ha Long Bay
This morning we sailed to the site of a floating village, where we did, actually take up the option of kayaking from a kayak place adjacent. There are only a few floating villages left now, as most of the people have been resettled by the government, who gave them a house on the mainland as incentive to move. Elly and I paddled in front of and around some of the houses, receiving varying degrees of discouragement from the resident floating dogs whose job it is to protect their territory.
The others did the same at their own pace, although Rudy was in pain from his troublesome leg and so he bailed, nor literally! And Mary continued on her own, showing no sympathy at all.
Next on the agenda was a visit to a pearl production factory, where they make pearls in the Mikimoto method of injecting an irritant into the oyster to promote the production of the pearl. Quite interesting and, of course we had to wander through the shop, just in case we wanted to buy something.
A visit to a cave was next, climbing steps to access it and admire the stalactites and stalagmites. Apparently there are hundreds of caves in the area, but most are not open to the public. Coming out from the cave there was a steep, rocky section which was a bit crowded, but, from the top gave an excellent view through 360 degrees.
Back to our boat for overnight mooring, along with about twenty other boats in one small area. We asked why we were all clustered together overnight instead of spreading out so we could at least have the illusion of isolation, as there are vast amounts of ocean completely empty. Government rules was the reason given, supposedly because it makes it easier to “control” the boats in case anything goes wrong. So we all stayed sandwiched together.
We managed to have Happy Hour on the roof deck as the temp was a bit warmer, and with jackets it was really quite pleasant.
18 January Ha Long Bay – Hanoi
A 6:45 am breakfast this morning – I don’t do early mornings!
This was to be our last day on the boat and we had to get going to fit this visit in before heading back to Hanoi.
We all jumped in the tender for a short ride to the “Amazing Cave”. This was accessed via sixty something steps (up). It had been discovered by a Frenchman in 1901 but has only been opened since the nineties. This cave put yesterday’s to shame. It has four rooms, two of which are very large; the main section can hold over a thousand people. Vast ceilings, some smooth and others forming wave like patterns, massive columns of stalactites and stalagmites all combine with other shapes and visions, so that the people walking through seem insignificant.
A tremendous amount of work has been done to make this cave a spectacular tourist site. A beautifully laid stone floor takes you through the cave in around thirty minutes if you just walked and didn’t stop, but more like an hour for the average visitor. The lighting is subtle in some areas and I little more spectacular when required, as well as footpath lighting to make the whole thing safer.
That was by far the largest cave I have ever seen and the most spectacular.
Back on the boat we started to cruise slowly toward the harbour, again doing a dance with a dozen or so other boats, and as we approached, it was declared lunch time, so they fed us again.
We did have a good time on the boat and we met some really nice people in that short space of time.
To the bus for a four hour drive back to Hanoi and a farewell dinner as Rudy and Mary were due to leave the next morning to head back to Canada via Hong Kong.
19 January Hanoi – Hue
We said goodbye to Rudy & Mary as they began their journey home to Big White in Canada. We had a great time travelling with them and it was sad to see them go.
We were due to fly to Hue in the afternoon, so we had time to go to the Women’s Museum. This covered a wide range of the aspects of women in Vietnam, initially about the traditions of courtship and subsequent marriage ceremonies. In some Vietnamese societies there is a patriarchal system, whilst in others it is Matriarchal where the women inherit the property.
One section of the museum had video interviews with women on the bottom scale of society; women who would share a room with many others, who would get up at maybe 3:00am and go to the market to but their goods, usually foodstuff, and then go to the streets to sell to the passers by. Often the husband is working at home, perhaps far away, and the combined income is just enough to survive, and maybe to pay for children’s schooling.
One really interesting display was dedicated to the role women have played when the country was at war. Women were heavily involved, both in the hard work of tunnel digging, and on the actual front line of battle. Many women had leadership roles in the military and were the recipients of military awards for their exploits.
We were supposed to be picked up at 12:10pm for our flight to Hue, but I received a phone call from the local travel agent while we were in the foyer waiting. They wanted to know whether we wanted to change our pick up time. I said that we wear already checked out and the driver was right outside, so no!
When we arrived at the airport however, we found that our flight was delayed from 2:55pm to 4:00pm – nobody had bothered to tell us !
We arrived in Hue and were met by our guide, Vu, who delivered us to our hotel, the Eldora, which had rooms of “Renaissance Inspired design” This meant the toilet was in the shower cubicle, and there was a flowery free standing white bath looking through a glass wall into the bedroom! Weird.
We went for an evening walk through the city which had its central streets blocked to traffic from 6:00 pm to 10:00pm every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so people were out playing what seems to be a National game played by three or four players, kicking a shuttlecock to each other without letting it hit the ground. Kids we in the streets which were eerily quiet
apart from music being played and sung. We found a roof bar where we sat and watched the streets below, while a band and some singers entertained a small crowd. It was a great atmosphere.
20 January Hue
Our first visit was to the royal tomb of Khai Dinh, the 12th king of the Nguyen dynasty. It took 11 years to complete from 1920 to 1931, however he died in 1925. The tomb is renowned for its mosaic interior and is a mixture of Oriental, Roman, Hindu and Buddhist styles. The tomb was completed by his successor, Bao Dai, who ruled from 1926 until 1954, when he abdicated and moved to France. he was the last king (Emperor) of Vietnam.
We then continued to the tomb of the fourth king, Tu Duc, which took three years to build, from 1864 to 1867. Tu Duc was a horny old king, as he had 104 wives, but no children. He died in 1883, and because he had no children, three of his nephews succeeded him for short periods subsequently. There is some speculation that Tu Duc’s body may not be in the tomb due to possible grave robbers, since money was also buried with the king.
A walk up a small hill through a pine forest found us at the top of the hill overlooking the river, which makes a nice picnic spot, with the sobering sight of three large concrete bunkers as gun emplacements used by the South Vietnamese during the war – apparently never used.
A short boat ride took us to The Buddhist Pagoda of Thien Mu which is Hue’s best preserved religious monument. It was built in 1601 and is seven stories high, perched on top of a hill overlooking the Perfume River.
The Citadel was next. This is a UNESCO world heritage site which was commenced in 1804 by the second king, Emperor Gia Long and employed thousands of workers in order to build the walled citadel and surrounding moat to protect the city, which, at the time was the Vietnamese capital. A lot of the citadel complex doesn’t exist any more. The citadel was oriented to face south east to the perfume river for additional security.
Our journey back to the hotel was as passengers on a cyclo, these are the three wheeled man powered vehicles that do the job that rickshaws used to do, except that the driver, instead of pulling you along, sits high up at the back and pedals – also, they only take one person; anyway, that was fun.
21 January. Hue – Hoi An
The weather started to let us down with solid rain developing, the upside of which was that we would be spending a few hours in the shelter of our van en route to Hoi An. We had to travel over the Hai Van Pass as we travelled south, where the cloud was down to the ground level as we drove through. Once we came back down to sea level the rain had almost stopped, as Vu dropped us off at a local restaurant for lunch, and met up with us afterwards at his favourite coffee cafe.
Vu then gave us a walking tour of Hoi An which is filled with character, but is also Tourist Central. You can walk along the riverfront streets with their associated shops, or you can weave your way around and through all the narrow lanes and alleyways, but, don’t think because you are in an alleyway two metres wide that there won’t be a motorcycle coming along in the next few seconds.
This area used to belong to the Chinese in the 16th – 18th centuries, and the nearby Japanese community built a wooden covered bridge in 1590 to allow them to cross the river to access the Chinese markets. That bridge is still used today.
As the daylight fades the whole town lights up with lanterns lining the streets and shops having decorative lighting. People are touting for romantic boat cruises on the river and others just want to sell you a candle floating in a paper container. I don’t know whether this always happens, because the Lunar new year is approaching, so some of the festive atmosphere may be due to that, however, I suspect that because it is Tourist Central it may be a permanent thing.
We found a nice restaurant for dinner overlooking the river, ate too much then had an ice cream on the way back home.
22 January. Hoi An
Today we drove for about an hour out of Hoi An to the My Son Temple. This is a group of partially ruined Hindu temples, constructed between the 4th and the 12th centuries by the kings of the Champa people. There are strong ties to Hindu divinities, with Shiva being recognisable in places. The French discovered the site in the 19th century and it is now a UNESCO heritage site. It’s construction is primarily of bricks, with only a small part done in sandstone. It was subject to widespread damage by carpet bombing in the American War, as the Viet Cong used the area as shelter in the mistaken belief that the U.S. wouldn’t bomb a holy site.
Three times a day there is a performance of traditional dancing and music on a small stage, and we arrived in time to see the some of the current performance which included a player playing a reed type instrument culminating in his playing continuously without breaking for breath for at least 5 minutes, by managing to always have a positive pressure in his mouth whilst somehow breathing in through his nose; amazing. We then set off to walk through the temple remains. It was very well organised, as to get to the site itself was quite a long distance on a well paved road. So we hopped on to a golf cart type of vehicle and were driven to the start of the access path.
The afternoon was spent working out ways to get rid of some more money – er, I mean it was spent shopping for clothes. Hoi An has a reputation as a town where you can buy tailor made clothing with overnight service, so you can be measured one day and your clothes will be ready, and, if necessary, delivered to your hotel, the next day. Bev, Elly and myself had some made to take with us.
23 January Hoi An
A memorable day today, as we had a tour booked through Jack Tran tours. Jack is an entrepreneur who has established a thriving business in Hoi An which until recently had little competition. Our guide was a delightful young girl in her twenties, who first of all took us to her village. Her name was Lily and she loved to talk, of which she kept on reminding us. She had been pestering Jack for a long time to let her run a tour, and he finally relented; now he is trying to find another girl because he is delighted with her ability.
She spoke a lot to us about her thoughts and her life. She is a bit of a rebel, and will go against even some of the family traditions if she believes they are not relevant in this age and an impediment to her achieving what she knows she is capable of, and yet she is still heavily tied to the traditions and ceremonies of her culture. Their religion is based on Confucian principals.
Lily showed us the boat repair and waterproofing facility which the village operates, then we boarded round, basket shaped boats which took us out to a long, covered boat. Her team of fishermen were good natured and helpful, they did a performance for us in the basket boats, spinning around and rocking up and down and looked as though they might capsize, but no, these guys knew exactly what they were doing. Propulsion is achieved by moving the paddle from side to side, changing the angle for each stroke. We paddled up to the clumps of coconut palms at the edge of the waterway, which were white where oysters were clinging.
Back on the long boat, Lily sat us down and opened up about her life and family, with particular emphasis on her late grandfather. He was Viet Cong, even though he lived in the south. Lily said that he had survived by living amongst these water palms and at times had to sink below the water using a straw to breathe.
Her grandfather wouldn’t talk about his time in the war unless he got a bit drunk on rice wine. She believes he had PTSD. When asked what a Communist was, he had no idea, he was fighting for the North for his own reason – he didn’t like the King! Lily became very emotional when talking about her grandfather as she described trying to get him a bit drunk so she could probe more.
Lily also talked about her family life, and how it is very patriarchal, and where she feels discriminated against and not respected. She described a time when her parents were arranging marriage for her to someone she didn’t want to marry. A meeting of the parents and the prospective couple was arranged, and she was instructed to be quiet and demure, which she was, however, what nobody knew was that prior to this meeting, she had had a small tattoo on her upper arm, knowing this would outrage everyone especially her father, not to mention her prospective in-laws; even the tattooist was reluctant to do the job.
During the meeting whilst being quiet and demure, she reached across and raised her sleeve so the other family could see the tattoo. That wedding never happened!
Lily first heard about tourists when she was about 12 years old and her concept was that these people would come past and say “ Hello”, so they became known as the Hello People. Even now she was sometimes referring to us as Hello People, saying that she was very grateful for the Hello People because we are helping to support the people of her village, where the income is shared around.
She then, with her crew, offered for us to join in an enactment of a ceremony to do with the souls of relatives who have passed away. The long boat was driven onto the beach and everyone donned colourful ceremonial clothes and incense was burned. We each had to kneel down at the bow of the boat and think of a wish, before throwing 2 old coins up, and if they landed on opposite faces,your wish should come true, if not, you had one more try. If they didn’t land correctly the second time, that meant your wish would not happen.
Next we climbed ashore to the beach where the crew set us up to try to cast one of their circular fishing nets into the water. I made a bit of a mess with mine, but the others did quite well. A bit further along the beach there was a small “house” where the owner had lived for more than 40 years and next to which was a large net which is lowered into the water and then, via a wheel which is turned by pushing with feet and pulling with hands to bring the net up, hopefully with fish in it. We tried it, and it is not easy, and by the time we had pulled the net up, And fish would already have escaped.
Back to the boat where the captain and cook, named Captain Cook, had prepared an excellent lunch for us.
We left the tour with a great amount of respect for Lily, who is a quite extraordinary girl who hopefully will go on to great things.
For dinner Bev wanted to check out the nearby beach at An Bang. We took a taxi to have a look, but when we arrived there was not much happening. Along the beach front, all the restaurants were empty, or nearly so, and as we passed, the spruikers would try to entice us in. One place had a billiard table, so we ordered some drinks and had a challenge match. After a slow start, Elly and I emerged triumphant.
We didn’t want to eat there, so we wandered back to one of the first places we had seen, and had a meal there. Elly did her usual order of crab, whilst the rest of us didn’t.
Unfortunately she suffered terribly from about 1:00am and was unwell for a couple of days.
So much for An Bang beach.
24 January Hoi An – Dalat
Today we were scheduled to arrive in Dalat, but to do that we had to be driven from Hoi An, back to Danang, which we had passed 3 days ago, to catch a flight to Nhatrang, then be driven for 3 hours to the highlands of Dalat.
That all went smoothly until it didn’t.
On arrival at Nhatrang our tour guide and driver were nowhere to be seen, so several phone calls to the travel agent elicited an apology for the stuffup and a promise that there would be a driver within 30 minutes. An hour and a half later, the guide and driver arrived. That was OK because we passed the time by playing 500 while we waited.
We arrived at Dalat, staying at the Du Lac Hotel, which is an old style colonial style place, where things didn’t seem to go well. First of all, it has an old style cage type lift, which seemed determined not to come down to the ground floor. There was a foyer bar which, because we were tired after a long day, we decided to settle into for pre dinner drinks. We asked the barman for our drinks, but he said he couldn’t give us the drinks because his system was down and he couldn’t generate a bill! We thought this was crazy, so Elly said: “Just make the drinks, write it on a sheet of paper and give it to reception who will put it on our room charge.”
That idea seemed to meet with his approval, so Bev ordered her cocktail, but the barman said she couldn’t have that because he had no ice cream. Andrew was getting a bit frustrated by this time, as he had already he’d an encounter with one of the staff who just looked at him blankly, and reminded him of Manuel in Faulty Towers, such that he expected her to say “ Que?”
Bev’s second drink was also rejected for some other reason, and Andrew looked across at me and said: “You do sell cheese do you?” (Monty Python for those of you from another planet). I had trouble keeping a straight face.
Finally things were sorted out and we decided to have dinner at the hotel and an early night.
25 January. Dalat
Our guide , Riches (Think millionaire, he said) picked us up at 9:00am. Dalat is 1500m elevation and has very pleasant temperatures all year round, although it still does have a wet season. The French colonists used to come there to escape the heat of Saigon. Our first stop was at a cable car station which took us up to Truc Lam Zen Monastery which is in a beautiful hilltop setting surrounded by peaceful, manicured gardens. Riches took us aside and gave us a long exposition on Buddhist philosophies, which was obviously not coming from a guide book, but from within. He was a skilful teacher and story teller with great enthusiasm for the topic under discussion, and also, unusually, was easy to understand as his English was very good.
After walking down from the Monastery to the shore of a lake which covers 1000 acres, where we were picked up by our driver and taken to the residence of the last Emperor, Bao Dai which was built in 1933. He became Emperor at the age of 13 and spent most of his time from the age of 9 to 19 in France being educated. He moved permanently into residence here in 1939.
After lunch at a small, quiet restaurant we rushed to catch the train. This train line used to be used to transport materials and equipment up to Dalat for construction, but ceased to operate after the American war. It has only recently been activated for just a short distance, just for tourists. It is a clunky old Diesel engine pulling what I gather is an original old carriage which is in quite good condition. We got up from our seats and stood outside just behind the engine to get the atmosphere. Looking out from the train over the valley we could see thousands of acres covered with greenhouse roofs which grow thousands of acres of flowers, with 4 crops per year as well as 2 million tons of vegetables each year. The greenhouses are not so much about temperature as they are about humidity control.
When we alighted from the train we found ourselves at the Chua Linh Phuoc Pagoda, which at first looks a bit like Disneyland, but is, in fact a fully functioning Pagoda in several sections and is constructed entirely of recycled materials, for instance at the entrance to the gardens is a dragon made out of 20,000 beer bottles. All the walls of the two main towers are a mosaic of recycled glass and other materials.
All through the afternoon Riches was giving us a detailed account of the history of Vietnam and the complexities which governed the reasons for the wars this country has endured.
We called in to a church used by the Lac (pronounced Latch) people who are one of the minorities originally from the lowlands who had been driven out and had to move to the high ground. The Catholic religion brought by the missionaries fitted within the Lac culture, and now you can see some of both, such as a cross over a pair of buffalo horns.
26 January Dalat – Saigon
We had our bags packed and loaded into the van because at the end of the day we were to catch a flight to Saigon. Riches was ready and waiting. We had a discussion about his name, which Bev had done when we first met him. The story is that his Vietnamese name is Phu which means million or millionaire, but since the currency is so low everyone is a millionaire, so he thought it would be more meaningful if he was just “Rich” or “Richie”.
Our first destination was the old military airport just outside Dalat city, which is now not used, but instead is used for growing flowers. Richie was discussing various aspects of flower growing as well as a bit of history on the growing of marijuana. In the past, when marijuana was not illegal, it was well known that animals that had marijuana in their diet were definitely healthier than other animals, so it was grown quite openly. Now it is illegal it is still grown in small quantities hidden among other crops.
These flower crops at the old airfield were chrysanthemums, some batches in bloom and others not yet. Apparently the growing has to be in sync with demand, so for each special day of celebration there must be sufficient quantities of flowers in bloom. The flowers in bloom were for the upcoming Lunar New Year, Tet, while those not yet in bloom were for two weeks ahead which marks another special day. If the growers get it wrong they can lose a lot of money.
Coffee is a very big thing in Vietnam and they have their own way of serving it, either black or with condensed milk, in special cups made of separate sections. Richie took us to a coffee producing farm which uses weasels! This I had trouble getting my head around; they keep weasels in individual cages, and feed them coffee. This coffee then works it’s way through the weasel’s digestive system and when it comes out, this is the stuff they use to make their coffee!
The weasels have a pretty good life, because originally they were staggering around as high as kites so now they only “work” every second day.
After that I didn’t think I could be surprised by anything, but, what would I know. Next stop was a cricket farm. Now, I love cricket, but crickets?
There were large open hessian containers all arranged in a line with crickets at various stages of development and as you walked along the rows of containers you could see a range from miniscule just born crickets to adult size crawling over old pieces of wood and leaves. It takes 40 days from birth to being big enough to eat.
Richie happily set up a table with some chairs and set out a bowl of cooked crickets with toothpicks and a dipping sauce as if he expected that we would eat them.
OK so we did! Can’t say it was the best thing I have ever eaten, but we survived.
Richie is a tour guide, but also is a small farmer who grows his own coffee, without the weasels, as well as avocados, bananas, black peppers and macadamia nuts.
He drove us to his house to proudly show us his farm, and his wife made us a cup of his own brand coffee. We bought some, with his wife and young daughter weighing the beans and sealing them in paper bags for us to take with us. Apparently the weasel coffee is vastly more expensive than the non weasel variety, why I wouldn’t know.
Leaving Richies house we were then taken to the Elephant Waterfall, so named because one of the rocks below looks a bit like an elephant. There was a lot of water flowing over the falls although, apparently not nearly as much as in the wet season. The climb down to the bottom was a bit of an adventure, but we all made it unscathed.
During our drives throughout the day, Richie became the master story teller, giving us a history of his family, which was very complicated, with a large contingent of relatives, and how they all fitted into the scene from before the American War, during and after it. I can’t possibly relate it but it made fascinating listening as we drove, and as we came to the end of the day he concentrated on the life of his father and also his efforts to teach the history of events to his daughters, to make them realise that Vietnam’s history is also their history.
We could see that he would be a great teacher, and one of those people who makes history a fascinating subject.
We finished our tour at the Dalat airport for our short flight back to Saigon where it all started.
27 January Saigon
We had some time between checkout and our pick up for the airport, so Bev and Elly, always trying to fill the time gaps, decided to be driven around town on the back of a couple of motor bikes. This struck me as potential suicide, given the insanity of the traffic out there, but they thought it would be fun, and apparently it was, and they both managed to survive.
Golvan George December 31, 2018
Enjoyed your usual informative very detailed blog, with Ely’s great shots. She does not appear to have missed a single sunset! Leave some G&T for us in Cambodia, as we plan to arrive in Siem Reap on 9 Jan, I think that we could be overlapping? Meanwhile, have a safe and happy 2019. And watch out crossing the roads.
xx,
George and Naomi
Alan and Elly January 1, 2019 — Post Author
Thanks, sorry about multiple emails you probably received. Think we have it sorted now.
paul kamsler December 31, 2018
Hello Elly & Alan,
Another fascinating trip with fabulous images. I always look forward to receiving another ‘Brooks Blog’!Maybe its time for Cairns…if it stops raining.
Happy New Year from your country cousins.
Wendy Lukey January 4, 2019
Happy New Year!! Sounds like you are having a great time and am loving reading all about your trip. Also great photos!! I feel like we are living vicariously through all your travels!!! Lots of love Wendy and Des.
Geoff and Sue January 6, 2019
Thank-you once again for sharing your wonderful and interesting trip. Amazing places–and sometimes disturbing memories. As always the photography is superb, Elly. John (aka) Symo enjoyed Vietnam especially the food. Vietnamese cooking is easy, Alan, just put anything green in a pot and add fish sauce! I’m surprised you liked it as you seem to have an aversion to fish, I love fish but cannot stand the sauce. ho hum
So Where next? Sometimes I think we should pay you to go on all these trips…and then I get over it.
Sharon Hurst January 11, 2019
Hi E and A!! As always a wonderful blog – have no idea where you get the time to do it all! Wonderful detail and great pix. Happy New Year and CU back in Oz.
Sharon n Pete 🙂
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