my contributions

Hanoi was splendid. Museums, pagodas, a lot of motorbikes and a lot of people. We discovered night life. According to law, all bars close around midnight, but a number of them will let you in if you knock the door. If police comes by, they are bribed. It seems this pattern suits all parts. It might be a welcome income to the policemen, who are not paid that much, and the bar owners and guests can have the nightlife they want. Hanoi has mostly the same chaotic way of life as Saigon, it seems. Street sellers, a billion small shops, a billion restaurants, bars and hotels and a billion tour offices all trying to convince you to go somewhere on a tour.

Of course, I’ve experienced a lot more about Vietnam and Vietnamese than what I’m telling here, but I can’t seem to find the time or relaxed environment to reflect upon all of that. I’ll see if i can find some time for a recap when I get home, and let you in on some of it.

We took a tour to Cat Ba island in the Halong Bay. A trip for three days and two nights. Once at the island, we expanded the stay for two more days. Cat Ba and Halong Bay is great!

We’re now back in Hanoi. I tried to upload some pictures and write a post while on Cat Ba, but power continued to fail, and I gave up after wasting a good deal of time doing photo resizing and editing (which is mostly just waiting, since computers are so slow here).

Anyways, here goes again, let’s see if I can make it this time.

The view from inside a great, big cave on one of the many mountain islands of Halong Bay.

After we visited the cave we needed to cool down.

We spend the night on the boat. Here’s the sundown with all the other, similar boats anchored. The sound of generators for light and aircon units hums in between the mountain isles. At night, a full moon rose, and four french nurses showed us a film of a Vietnamese woman giving birth. That was their icebreaker, apparently.

The day after, we went hiking on a mountain. It was hot. I don’t think I’ve ever been sweating that much before. I was soaked, dripping from everywhere. Had to put my wallet and phone in the bag or they would drown. But it was a great hike.

A bit of the view from the top.

After the hike and a decent lunch, we were in for some kayaking. This is the entrance to an otherwise completely isolated ‘bay’ surrounded by mountain. Pictures can’t tell the beauty and amazement of that place.

Lasse climbs up and jumps off the cliff.

Cute French nurses, bathing, laughing and talking like nymphs in the sacred bay.

A visit to ‘Monkey Island’.

Took a picture and turned around. This bastard jumped me and bit me in the leg.

Here it is. Luckily, we had plenty of caring nurses around Of course I consulted my doctor and the local pharmacy. I am now on penicillin.

Out and around the islands there are communities of small houses, apparently growing snails, fishing renting kayaks and what have you. These cities are common to most of Vietnam, whenever there’s a river around. But this is right in the middle of the south china sea.

Then we went rock climbing and got pissed in a thunderstorm, but that story is for tomorrow. I need to eat now.

Leaving Hoi An it’s time to consider what happened. And Yes, I admit, I was caught in a shopping frenzy. My bag is now 18 kilo’s worth of tailor made clothes and handcrafted shoes. Of course, we went out to see stuff, but Hoi An has been mainly about 3 danish guys that otherwise hate shopping, going crazy in a city of too many shops, too cheap too not afford it, and too many fun bargains and design discussions with the sales people. I’ll stick to telling the rest with pictures.

Shopping in Hoi An

Martin being measured for shorts. The girls in the tailor shop laughed a lot about this picture.

That’s me in my new suit. Myrian is my personal assistant during the process of choosing, measuring, fitting and closing the deal.

A street in Hoi An leading to the market. Politely saying ‘no’ to offers from sales people constantly wanting to ‘help’ you… Shops everywhere. Motorbikes everywhere. A thousand different noises and smells – leather, fish, fruit (especially the Durian fruit has a strong and very special smell), sweat, gas fumes, mud, live chicken. A chaos…

My Son
…so we went to the jungle. I think tropical forrest is a more precise term. My Son is a very old temple complex with different towers for different purposes, build by the Champa people. I think it was first build in the 4th century and rebuild in the 7th.

The area suffered badly from though fights during the American war in 1968. The area and the vegetation is still influenced by Agent Orange.

One of the many towers. They are old. The area was recently added to the UNESCO world heritage list.

Many tourists visit My Son and we therefore discussed about the risk of this activity. The authorities doesn’t seem to be able to protect the towers from being worn down.

On the way back, we went by boat, visiting a small island where thy specialized in wooden arts.

This guy is carving wood. It’s hard to see from the picture, but their work is very impressive.

A ferry carrying people and motorbikes.

A fisherman. He didn’t catch anything, but he got tips from us for showing how to throw the net. I think that’s how he makes most of his income.

Marble Mountain
On our way to Da Nang to catch a flight to Hanoi, we popped in at the marble mountain. It was hot. Well above 30 degrees i guess. Plenty of water and hats is essential. Marble Mountain has a number of caves in which pagodas has been build. Getting in to the caves offered an escape from the sun.

One of the biggest caves. Taking pictures cannot explain this marvelous place.

We found a “secret” path that led to the top of the mountain. This is me. It’s hot, but up here there’s wind.

A view south.

To the north is Da Nang. Vietnams third largest city. We’re headed there to catch a flight to Hanoi.

Entering Hanoi
Coming to Hanoi is a great experience so far. Just going from the airport to our hotel was full of things to look at. I cannot help but notice what traffic is like: Chaotic. The road from the airport was like a highway. Two lanes in each direction separated with concrete in the middle and ramps for entering and leaving. Yet pedestrians cross and bikes travel this road. Cows taking a dump in one lane. A truck reversing (we couldn’t hear whether it was the lambada or the happy birthday tune playing). A motorbike traveling the wrong direction. Keep your eyes open!

Getting to the center proves to be as crowded and lively as Saigon, though they say that nightlife is not the same. We’ll have to find that out.

Much more to tell, but much more to do as well. I’ll be off.

First: We’re OK, being far from the storm and earthquake.

From Aljazeera:

At least five people were missing in Lao Cai’s resort town of Sapa, popular with foreign tourists, but it was not known if foreigners were among the victims, the national meteorology centre said.

We were planning to go to Sapa and will reconsider those plans, of course.

So, after snorkeling, we went for a “try dive” – about 6 or 7 meters down, with all the fancy equipment, and a world of beauty unveiled itself. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about sports/hobbies where there’s a (noteworthy) element of risk. But I was never frightened, neither before, nor during the dive. Only amazement populated the experience. I’d do it again! Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring my camera – it’s only waterproof down to 3 meters, so no pictures was taken

In the evening we went for a gin and tonic and a beer at a bar. We hung out there until midnight, playing pool with one of the locals. A woman about 35-45 – it’s so hard to tell the age of a Vietnamese. We witnessed the first upset Vietnamese I’ve seen. She was screaming and yelling a lot of sharp sounds, very rapid. Apparently, she’d found her husband on a bar with another girl. Turned out, as far as I understood, that the woman we were playing pool with, had had the same experience. She’d left her husband. Anders told me that he was told that the women of Vietnam has good rights in that sense. That it’s not too hard for a woman to leave her husband if she’s being ill treated. And they do leave their husbands when they are.

The day after we met Pho (I have no idea how he’s name is spelled) a middle age guy hanging out at the beach. He was drunk, before midday. He was so happy, because his girlfriend had called him, and apparently told him something nice. He hadn’t been talking to her for over a month. He took us to a street cafe and had us buy a couple of beers for him. We chatted a bit. He told us he knew seven languages. Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, English and German. We didn’t entirely believe him. But he was entertaining and very smiling and laughing all the time. He wanted to take us to a karaoke bar, but we refused, taking our sleepy, sober condition and the time of day into account. We agreed to meet later on and have a draught, but never found him again. Here’s a picture from the cafe:

Us and ‘Pho’ at a street kitchen/cafe. We’re drinking coffee. Pho is in for beer.

At the beach. That’s Nha Trang for you.

And then we went paragliding.

Me and Anders getting ready to shoot 40 meters up into the sky. The guy doesn’t speak English, but he memorized the phrase “one to three RUN, ok?” – I was frightened right at that moment.

Running on water, shooting up into the sky. My groin hurt.

One hell of a view. Nha Trang has some 300.000 citizens. Anders tells me that he’s sometimes scared of heights. Our groins hurt.

Landing. I’m glad I did it. Not urging to do it again.

In the evening we went on a bus for Hoi An. But first, a curiosity. In Denmark, many people enjoy artificial ‘sun-baths’ or use various kinds of lotion to get tanned. Apparently, in Vietnam, pale skin is somehow a sign of status. So here it’s the opposite, and the very same corporations that make money on ‘browning’-lotion in my country, makes money on whitening-milk here.

Various Nivea ‘whitening’ products. Enough said.

Traveling by bus in Vietnam is an experience in itself. Remember our trip to Nha Trang by train? It was bumpy and uncomfortable. So getting into a really modern sleeping bus was promising. But the roads here are apparently build for maximum speeds of about 20 km/h, which was not at all respected by the bus driver. Well, some of the roads are OK, but most of them ends very sudden, turning into gravel roads. Or at least sudden enough for the bus to jump off the asphalt with a following hard landing on the gravel, throwing everyone inside up and down in their seats. I woke up a lot of times, scared, fearing that the bus was on it’s way onto the slope on the side of the road, or something even worse. Driving by night probably avoids most of the motorbikes that’s usually everywhere. But this fact must have been noted by others as well, because the roads were full of heavy traffic all night. And the style of driving here is more or less as follows: If something is in front of you, flash the head-lights and sound the horn, then engage in overtaking. If someone is trying to pass in the opposite direction, flash the lights and sound the horn. This will, usually, result in the overtaken vehicle going as far right as possible, and the vehicle traveling in the opposite direction going as far left as possible. If there’s still not enough room for you to pass in between, speed up. The overtaken vehicle and the vehicle traveling in the opposite direction will probably brake, leaving you enough time to complete the overtake. If, however, this approach is completely, obviously, suicide, wait for a moment behind the vehicle you want to overtake, and try again. This applies to all speeds up to about 80 km/h. If you are traveling towards two vehicles overtaking one another, flash the lights and sound the horn. Do not break or make way until the latest possible moment. I tried to film some of it, but the film are to shaky to sense what they’re about, anyway.

I didn’t sleep that much during this 11 hour trip. We’ve booked flight tickets for our journey to Hanoi. I certainly hope that air traffic is regulated according to international standards.

We checked in at the hotel in Hoi An at about 6 in the morning. We were alive, and should have been grateful for that. But the room, ordered as a luxury room with three beds, was tiny and with one single bed and one double bed. Anders was grumpy (he always is that early, but even worse after not sleeping that well, and not having access to cigarettes and coffee). He was outraged. The staff knows who we are know, they won’t forget in the near future, I guess.

Hoi An is great. So much more nice and cosy than Nha Trang. The center is free of motorized vehicles, and full of restaurants, bars, colored lamps and about 500 tailorshops. And of course, the tourists to fuel that many tailors, bars and restaurants. We spend the day yesterday walking up and down the streets, and ended up ordering suits, shirts and shoes – tailor made. We’re going there to try it on in a moment. I’ll have to take care not to have too much weight on the plane back.

That’s it for now. Life is great. I love you all.