The Day After Vietnam!

We are back from Vietnam! It was a successful trip, good weather (no rain at least) and all of our flights and travel went as planned... kind of. We decided not to pay the extra money for a tour guide/translator and had just as much fun "winging it" - we got to everywhere we wanted to for the 2.5 days and had a wonderful time exploring Northern Vietnam! We traveled with Zach and Alisa, our neighbors here in Taipei who also were experiencing Vietnam for the first time.

First thing I noticed - Vietnam is definitely different than Taiwan! We flew into Hanoi which is 6+ million people per the web (over 2x what Taipei is), yet it doesn't really feel like a big city as Taipei does since there really isn't a city center. There are a hand full of buildings over 20 stories tall, but not many, and they are not really grouped together.

Second thing I noticed - There are a LOT of tourists from "the west" in Vietnam. It made me realize that Taiwan has Westerners, but most are here to work or live here (like me) - Taiwan doesn't currently have the Tourism that we saw in Vietnam. It's unfortunate for Taiwan.

Third thing I noticed - it's all about American Money in Vietnam. Everyone wants to sell you something, everyone takes American Dollars, everyone wants to be helpful to you on your trip in return for a small tip. It's probably the most "in your face" sellers everywhere that I've experienced in my somewhat worldly travels. The same person will come back after 20 seconds to see if you've changed your mind in buying one of his 20 books in a box. Granted things are as cheap as I've ever seen in the world, but I was annoyed pretty quickly with people invading my personal bubble space constantly trying to get me to buy something or take a ride on the bike ride thing. Even worse than when I was in China! As for the American Money - too bad nobody outside of Taiwan takes the Taiwanese Dollar;) But we were able to find an ATM that gave us Vietnamese DONG (seriously, their money is called Dong) and we were set to go!

We started with a day in Hanoi, the capital city in the North. It's probably what most people picture life in Asia as looking like. Not very modern, and the living conditions for the locals are ok. They have running water and electricity, but they don't beef up and make things flashy like they do in more 1st world countries. Yes, Vietnam is Communist, but outside of the red flag with yellow star on it, we really couldn't tell. It's not like there are guys with machine guns walking around the entire time. If you think that's what Communism is all about, you're way off. Hanoi was pretty polluted, but the lake that we decided to focus our day on was very nice. Pictures on the right - start with Day #1 and the Hanoi pictures. We were actually there on 10/10 which seems to be a National Day of sorts for them as well. They are actually gearing up for 10/10/2010 which will be a 1000 year celebration. A lot of people that want you to buy things speak English. If you ask them a question in English that won't result in you giving them money, they seem to be immediately unable to speak English. Plus cab rides will have a different rate every time depending on your cab driver. The exact same distance cost us 2x once than it did a few hours earlier. Go figure.....

We did have a group of elementary school kids pass by and they thought it was a great time to practice their English and say "Hello" every time they walked by. It really was funny. A lot of things are translated into English - again, they want that American money! The Vietnamese language is quite different than the Mandarin I've been accustomed to hearing here in Taiwan. The written Vietnamese uses English type characters, but lots of additional strokes to the letters (like a sash through the long part of the h) that makes it look rather unusual to the untrained eye. We had a couple of buffets that day that were very cheap, and actually really good Vietnamese food!

Day 2 was much more exciting day of adventure as we took a 3+ hour car ride to Ha Long Bay. This was encouraged to us by a couple of people and was described as "Lost-esque" referring to the TV Show. He was right. Ha Long Bay is being considered for one of the Modern 7 Wonders of the World and it really is a beautiful way to spend a day on a boat. Best part was having a huge boat rented just for the four of us. The drive there kind of sucked as it's a 2 lane road with a lot of traffic for tours. By the way, the driving rules in Vietnam are basically "yield to things bigger than you" which is very true. Also gives one an upset stomach if you watch traffic coming at you continuously. As I do in China, I learn to look off into the distance at the mountains and water - that way you don't see how close you just came to getting hit by a bigger truck.

Ha Long Bay is a large group of islands of Limestone that the water has shaped over the years. Basically for those of us who believe in some sort of Earth Evolution, the glaciers came through, created mountains, but then the ocean water came back and covered most of the bottom parts of the mountains, leaving the tips of the limestone to stick out of the water. Some are small enough to fit in a standard Living room, but a lot of them are neat enough to explore, if there is a way to dock and climb up them. There is one island that was open to tourists as part of the paid tour that includes a trail through a huge cave. Our camera did not do this cave justice. It was very amazing and very humid;)

Some tours can be arranged where you stay a night on the boat out in the middle of nowhere. That might be on my list for my next visit to the area. For anyone who's thinking of visiting Vietnam, skip the other stuff, go straight to Ha Long Bay. Just pray for a clear day, ours was kind of hazy - but it did NOT rain:)

I'm sure I'll think of other things throughout the week to share, but my time today is minimal. I have the pictures uploaded and am working on adding comments after I post this.