Hello friends
Hanoi is nice! It’s still a bustling city with the real asian touch as I understand it: small alleys full of business, traders, bikes, bycicles, food stalls. Not many business towers have been errected so far in the centre like in the cities of China, where there seems to be a competition to have to most fancy skyline. I visited a couple of pagodas and strolled around the small lake they have right in the centre. I enjoyed the greatest coffees since a while!
After a couple of days I decided not to go to the northwest, as I wanted escape the cold weather. Instead I took a bus to Hue, a city much further south. There an old citadelle, including sort of ‹forbidden city› is the nicest attraction. I’ve been in Vietnam 4 years ago, but then, because of really bad weather, I skipped this citadelle. This time the sun was shining and I had a great day on a bycicle. I also biked to an old and small pagoda the same day. The next day I did a tour on boat to see the thombs of several emperors of ancient times. These were more or less similar temples and not far as beautiful and fancy as the temples I’ve seen in China. The tour was somewhat exhausting, the provided meal very basic and transport from the boat to the temples a hassle on motorbike. Next time I’d go by myself. The following day I went to see the DMZ (De-Militarized Zone), a place loaded with history during the Vietnam war. I booked these 2 tours together, so no wonder it was a similar minimal tour again. It was only a ‹half day tour› because for the afternoon I had booked a bus ticket to my next stop in Hoi An. So this DMZ tour consisted of visiting an important bridge, which does not exist anymore, a firebase, which does not exist anymore (but a memorial) and the Vinh Moc tunnels, where vietcong fighters were hiding from the Americans. Then I found out that all other folk on the tour had booked a full day. As I was the only one to go back, they brought me to a public bus station, put me into a minibus and payed my trip back to Hue. Of course this minibus only left when it was full. Really full. It eventually left. Soon I found out, that full is different off what I thought is full. The minibus got filled up as I only had experienced it 14 years ago in Indonesia. Yeah! I finally was back in South East Asia!!! Anyway, I made it back to the hotel just in time, including a ride on a motorbike taxi from the bus stop.
In the evening I arrived in Hoi An, a very nice city that still has a intact old town. It is very touristic but as there is big competition it’s easy to find a cheap room. I rented a motorbike to get to the temples of ‹My Son› the next day. I set off at six in the morning, to be there before the tourist buses arrive. The early morning ride was beautiful, partly in thick fog. But looking to the sky it was always clear, that another beautiful day was ahead. I liked the ruins. It’s not a huge place. But as I was there early it was very peaceful! On the way home I missed a turnoff and only realized it after 25 km going to far to the south. As I stopped several times to take pictures of the students coming back from college (especially the girls in their typical and beautiful white vietnamese dresses) I did not regret my detour at all.
The same day already I was off to Na Trang in a night bus. 12 hours in a seat. And there I catched another bus to Mui Ne immediatelly on arrival. Only the transfer from one to the other bus was a little hectic. When a bus arrived I was told that this is not my bus and I have to wait. As no other bus showed up I started to ask around. After many calls they arranged a motorbike that brought me to a gas station where the same bus as before was waiting for me. All this took a couple of hours. That’s also the time, the people on the bus spent waiting for unknown reasons. Maybe just for me.
Anyway, I made it to Mui Ne! This was the 100-st day of my trip. I planned to celebrate this with my first jump into the sea on this trip! When I finally was on the nice beach my enthusiasm died somehow. Not one meter of water without a floating plastic bag or some other rubbish. The beach itself was not to bad, but not clean either. It was not a pleasure to jump into the water. I still did it, only because of this special day. I did not enter the water a second time. I was such a disappointment! Four years ago the water was still clean! What have they done!!!
Whith some other fellow travellers (Jana, Jordi and Silvio), which I met in Mui Ne (Silvio in Hanoi already) I did a tour on hired bikes to the sights around Mui Ne the next day. A giant reclining Buddah in a nice and quiet hillside location (Ta Cu Pagoda) and the famous red sand dunes of Mui Ne. The good thing in Mui Ne was a restaurant with lovely staff and very good and cheap food. But this was not enough to keep me staying there longer. So a bus brought me to HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City), better known as Saigon, the following day.
In Saigon I visited churches, markets and all the other major sights on a rather long walk.
The next day some pagodas in Cholon (Chinese town) were the target of interest. Saigon again is overcrowded. So many cars and motorbikes. It’s just a pain to walk around and cross a road. Furthermore they park their bikes everywhere, so you never can get anywhere without thousends of detours around their bikes. Even while your walking on the pedestrian way, they don’t care at all, just stop half a meter in front of you and stay. And of course there is never calm or rest. Constant honking, as everywhere in Asia.
Together with Silvio I booked a 4 day/3 night tour from Saigon, through the Mekong delta to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Even quite touristy, as in every place we visited dozends of sellers with souveniers were ready to jump on us, I liked the tour. We spent most of the time on boats, cruising on huge streams as well as in tiny channels. The sights included floating markets, a ricepaper factotry, a rice mill, a coconut candy factory, a fishing farm and so on. The first night we stayed in a ‹homestay› with a family, which was not really a homestay but some kind of dormitory. The second night in a hotel in Can Tho and the third one on a rather big boat, that brought us to Chau Doc near the border to Cambodia. Crossing the border was rather fast, as most of the formalities had be done by our guide, while we still where cruising.
To conclude my Vietnam report I’ll now try to summarize my thoughts and feelings.
As noticed above I’ve visited Vietnam 4 years ago already. I didn’t like it so much then. This time I still have very mixed feelings. The reasons are, that as soon someone is doing business in tourism, you can not trust him anymore. I travelled many countries, but in Vietnam I experienced far more cases, where they tried to cheat me, where they miss-informed me, where they massivly overcharged me. One example: In Saigon we went to a nice restaurant near the cathredal to have a small lunch. As we did not order a huge expensive meal we were suddenly not welcome anymore. First the owner asked us to move to a different table which we didn’t like, so we asked for another option. He refused with really angry gestures so we decided to leave. This guy