December 2007 | Main | February 2008
January 27, 2008
Christmas came late at our place
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January 22, 2008
Camping with the boys
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January 05, 2008
Day 16 - Ha Long Bay
Another long drive
We had originally booked to go to Halong Bay on the Emerude which is a large boat with a distinctly deco feel about it - the website and pictures looked great, and while it was expensive we were happy to go with a quality experience. However on arriving in Vietnam we realised that I had stupidly booked it for the day we flew out, meaning we would have to change the flight home or cancel - so we cancelled. Our hotel the Hanoi Elegance were keen that we did go and they booked us on the Bhaya which was a little cheaper but “highly recommended”! So we took the car back on the suicidal roads and drove 3 hours to Halong City where we were dropped to wait for other passengers and the tender to take us aboard our boat.
The Bhaya
The cruise itself is fairly simple and from what I understand it is replicated by most cruise operators you cruise a small part of the bay and islands, you visit the “Secret Cave”, you climb the mountain, you do some kayaking, you eat some food, you watch the sun set, you watch the sun rise, you cruise some more, you return to base.
Secret Cave - discovered by the French in 1901
It was magic - there is no other description for the place, it has an incredible serenity with calm waters, beautiful surrounds and amazing light. We kayaked, we swam, we jagged for fish and I took about 900 photos of the changing light some of which I will include here.
dawn
tai chi
Posted by crispin at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
January 04, 2008
Day 15 - Ha Noi
Dogs, Frogs and Chopping Boards
Hanoi is the most cosmopolitan city we visited, and possibly for this reason many people seem to make it the first place they arrive in Vietnam and migrate south, rather than the northern approach we took. In the old quarter where we were staying there is a focus on tourism, mostly of the backpack variety, this is not all about the glamour traveller - yet. But while there is this focus on tourism, there is also an incredible local community that live there largely as they have for decades, sure there is some technology change but much is the same. The streets of the old quarter are largely named after the the trade that takes place there, for instance there are streets that sell goldfish, others that sell, joss sticks and paper money, another that has people making things out of tin (like the large tin letter box we purchased) - the street our hotel was on features people who make grave stones. They do this principally with marble and they cut them with grinding stones (in the street - from early in the morning till late at night) and then fill in the pertinent details and add a photo or etched picture of the deceased, its quite artistic if a little noisy - still the grinders made a change in noise from the bike and car horns.
Hazy Lake
Our street also had numerous street food vendors who interestingly changed during the day, one lady would set up around 6am and make some kind of rice breakfast thing in a banana leaf till about 10am and then she would go, others catered to the lunch trade and others still set up for dinner from around 6pm. The amazing thing was the level of set up some of these portable restaurants would go to, setting up burners and wood fired stoves, small tables and signs.
Food in the street
Dogs...!
Friday morning we got up and headed out of the hotel looking for breakfast, somewhere different so we wandered down to the lake and ate at the café that is along side it looking over to the tortoise pagoda and the island - the coffee was incredibly strong and we ordered the local version with sweet condensed milk.
We wandered on alongside the lake where we again saw the man who sells goldfish on the back of his bicycle and met an Australian who had been in Hanoi for 15 years and married a local. We wandered on through the streets of Hanoi with him listening to the stories of expat life in Viet nam - which led us to Hanoi's oldest market (right near the old jail known as the Hanoi Hilton) here we saw plenty of dog and other treats being prepared for sale, we were the only non vietnamese in the market and this is where we found the chopping board, some would say the buying a 3kg chopping board in the morning and then carrying it around Hanoi on foot to be foolhardy, but that is what we did.
Temple of Literature
We continued our trip onto the Temple of Literature one of the nicest buildings in Hanoi and surprisingly one of the only temples open in Hanoi we spent a few hours wandering around before continuing our trip. We made it to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum to find we had arrived on one of the days it is closed, so we took some photos (with our chopping board) and continued our walk slowly back to the hotel via the market.
Outside Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum with the chopping board
We had decided as this was our last night in Hanoi that we should splurge and go for a fancy dinner at the Metropole - the oldest and flashest hotel in Vietnam. So we frocked up and caught a cyclo down there, the cyclo rider had little english and decided that he needed to give us a tour of the old quarter before taking us to the Metropole so we took a lazy ride around town seeing most of the streets we had seen before and a few we had missed - actually it was a lovely experience.
The Metropole has 3 restaurants, one Vietnamese, one French and one more of a Cafe, we decided on the french restaurant which turned out to be one of the best meals either of us had ever eaten any where. We had foie gras, lobster, duck, truffles, you name it we had it and it was absolutely fantastic but then it would want to be with a bill of $370 USD (nearly 20 times the average dinner bill of $20).
pictures to come once they are uploaded!
Posted by crispin at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)
January 03, 2008
Day 14 - Ha Noi
Today we shopped
Its not so much that there is a lot of stuff in Ha Noi that you haven't seen all over the rest of Vietnam, maybe it is because we are coming towards the end of the trip, or we have a better handle on the money or whatever, today we further got into the swing of it buying all sorts of things from DVD's to replica Zippo lighters, to a letterbox, to more watches! I even found the jacket I have been looking for - we found presents for people and I managed to buy the digital camera that Rhonda wanted a little cheaper here than at home.
Silk Purses in the Markets
Vietnam is a cheap holiday we have spent much less than we budgeted, there are a few traps but it is so easy to come here and have a great time on a modest budget and I think we have done incredibly well. Our hotel the Hanoi Elegance boasts a 2 star price for a 3 star feel and that is all true with our deluxe room coming in at $55 per night!
We have another day here then we are going out on Ha Long Bay before we head home.
Posted by crispin at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)
January 02, 2008
Day 13 - Ha Noi
We packed up and left the grandure of La Residence, and our driver hurtled through the Hue traffic to the airport to catch the daily flight to Ha Noi. The Hue airport is probably the same size as Avalon or Coolongatta (not big) and the process of ticketing was unbelievably slow, however we were not in a hurry and the lounge was hardly a place to truly relax. it featured 200 plastic chairs facing forward with a big LCD screen TV in the middle (turned off) and a small flickering colour TV which was some horrible vietnamese talk show shouting out at the room. We had a good flight and were met by our driver and taken to our new hotel the Ha Noi Elegance Hotel - where they had done a lovely job of welcoming us in. This hotel is right in the middle of the old quarter and our room has a small balcony that over looks the road chaos, amazingly its not too noisy, the traffic starts around 6am but maybe we are just used to the constant horns now?
Ladder Man
Fresh Chicken - killed & chopped up while you wait
We went down to the Hanoi Press Club for lunch and wandered around the lake looking for the mythical 200 year old tortoise said to reside there then we partook in the local custom of Hoi Bia, which is fresh beer served on the foot path in basic plastic chairs so close to the curb that the you can reach out and touch the traffic. The Beer is fresh daily with no preservative and so it is really cheap and the locals and tourists sit together seeing out the early evening, watching the various food stalls set up for an evening dining session. It is quite amazing to see how these mini restaurants that feature little more than a small fire some plastic stools and a tray of basic ingredients set up for the morning, lunch time and evening trade, each has a slightly different dish that they feature, few offer lots of choice - but they are very popular.
we had dinner at the 69 Cafe which is just around the corner from our hotel, the food was excellent, the service however was terrible and incredibly slow, it took an hour for our meal to come and we had to ask for the bill 3 times!
roses for sale in the market are often individually wrapped in newspaper
Posted by crispin at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 01, 2008
Day 12 - Hue
Wet, Wet, Wet
today was ridiculously wet, we got up early and headed out on a tour of the tombs, first by boat, then by car and then by foot. There are 13 tombs around Hue all of them open for viewing by the public, but given the conditions we determined that we should visit the 4 most popular. The first tomb we arrived at was Thien Mu which is recognised by its striking Pagoda which looks over the Perfume River, our boat pulled in alongside 30 other tourist boats and we whipped up the stairs. Thien Mu has a huge bronze bell (cast in 1710) which supposedly can be heard 10km away, the pavilions are home to young monks who tend to the gardens, the temple and the tomb.
We proceeded on to the tomb of Minh Mang which is an impressive complex of beautiful lakes and gardens with a series of temples and pagodas which involve climbing steep steps as you pass over the undulated ground - finally arriving at a walled tomb where the emperor can enjoy the vistas!
We left Minh Mang in the rain and continued to Khai Dinh, which is a lot smaller and is built on hillside rather than in opulent garden surrounds, however what is lost in the gardens is made up for in the amazing temple which has walls covered in illustrations constructed of broken glass and china - a remarkable fresco that covers each wall and the ceiling.
Finally we ended up at the tomb of Tu Duc which is considered to be the most elegant of the tombs, it was also the most slippery, with lethal paths that followed around the expansive gardens, the various temples for his concubines, wives and mother during his life he was said to have preferred the tomb complex to the palace and spent much of his time there even building a theatre complex as grand as the one in the Citadel itself. Later when he died Tu Duc had all those involved in his burial executed to keep his final resting place safe from future desecration (comforting note!).
We returned to La Residence soaking wet and feeling that we had given it everything and not letting the Hue weather get in our way.
Posted by crispin at 07:28 PM | Comments (0)