THE END OF VIETNAM

Hoi An was the next stop on our journey. This was probably not a good place for us considering it is where everyone goes to get clothes made! We spent too much money but had some really cute clothes designed and tailored to fit us perfectly...very exciting! It was a really cute town, located right on a river. One night we decided to go out and ended up at this beach bar that everyone went to once all the bars closed. We had read in Lonely Planet that you haven't done SE Asia right if you haven't had at least one near-death experience....and it was here that it happened!! When we decided it was time to head home we hopped on the back of a motorbike for about a 10 minute drive back. We were both crammed on the back seat together and it was the scariest 10 minutes ever! He took off and was going sooo fast we were both screaming at him to slow down! It was so late, there was no one on the street and we were flying past everything. We were screaming "Oh my God!! Slow down!!" He would just mimic us and say "Oh my God!" in a really high pitch voice. This, of course made us laugh so I don't think he realized how scared we really were. But basically, we were happy to have made it home after being convinced the entire time we were going to crash or simply fly off the back of the bike!

In Hue we had a few days of culture. We spent a day exploring the Citadel and the next on a boat ride down the river, stopping at a tomb and pagoda along the way. The pagada was the home of a Buddhist monk who publicly burnt himself alive, sitting in the lotus position, to protest the government's oppresion of religious freedom. We had also seen the memorial in Ho Chi Minh where he had done it. Both days were about a million degrees so it was a little hard to enjoy the sites, sweat was literally dripping off us.

After another night sleeping (or at least attempting to sleep) on the bus we made it to Hanoi. We spent the first day exploring the city sites. We went to Hoa Lo Prison which was where John McCain and other American pilots were held prisoner during the war. They had his pilot suit and some of his things on display. The interesting thing about it for us was that despite the fact that they were in fact held captive, they were made to seem like they pretty much enjoyed themselves there. All of the pictures showed them playing chess, decorating for Christmas, cooking for each other, smiling, etc. They even had a display of all of the games they played, the gifts they were given when they were released, and so on. Prior to this, the prison was used by the French to imprison the Vietnamese. But, in this circumstance the prison was portrayed as being awful. Prisoners were constantly chained to cement by their ankles and basically tortured. It was very interesting to see.


From HoiAn we booked a two day trip to Halong Bay. It was absolutely gorgeous. We spent the night on this big, old wooden boat with a group of people. We toured around the Bay where there were thousands of limestone islands of all different sizes. Some of the islands are hollow and we were able to walk through the caves. It looked like we were in outer space. After, we went kayaking through some of the islands where we were surrounded by the islands. It felt like we were in a scene from Jurrasic Park and we were waiting for a Teradactyl to fly over us. We were very impressed with our kayaking skills-basically, that we didn't tip over! It was such an amazingly beautiful place. Spending the night on the boat with everyone was really fun, too.

Next, we took an overnight train to Sapa, our last stop on Vietnam (a much better experience than our bus rides as we were actually able to sleep)! This actually ended up being our favorite town in Vietnam. The town is adorable and surrounded with beautiful, green mountains. All of the women are in traditional dress and very talkative and sweet. I think we were asked about a thousand times "What's your name? Where do you live? How old are you? How many brothers and sisters do you have? What are their names?" This was ALWAYS followed by "Do you want to buy a purse? bracelet? earrings?" (which we ended up buying too many of because they were just so sweet!) The first day we went trekking to a local village. The views are incredible and women of all ages offer to walk you around-with hopes that you will buy something from them after. It is great, though, because we were able to talk for hours to the people that live there and learn all about their lifestyle (and, of course, ended up with bracelets and wallets that we really didn't need!) The next day we hired a local guide that took us trekking to 3 more local villages. Instantly, we were followed by groups of women and little girls who did the whole tour with us, asking us questions about our lives and telling us all about theirs. They were so cute, they would grab our hands and walk with us and they made us crowns made of flowers. Yes, we ended up with more bracelets! It was a really great experience for both of us!

THE START OF VIETNAM

We started off our Vietnam adventure in Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City. Our first night we were very surprised/excited at how nice our hotel was and for so cheap-our own bathroom, tv, two beds, air conditioner....it was amazing, it definitely wasn't a 5-star hotel, but for us, we were stoked! Hitting town, first thing we noticed was how out of control the motorbikes were! They were literally everywhere! First time we tried to cross the street we just stood there thinking 'well how is this gonna happen!?' Finally we saw a local guy starting to cross so we just copied/ followed him, weaving in and out of motorbikes flying past! We would have been on the side of the street for hours otherwise because we quickly learned you don't wait for a clearing in traffic, you just cross and pray the motorbikes will go around you! haha (don't worry moms, we've mastered this now-and Sydney was nothing compared to this hah!) So, somehow, we don't know how this always happens, but we ended up shopping at a market again. We were supposed to be going to the War Museum but got a little distracted on the way and ended up with some great buys!

Next day we went on a day tour to the Mekong Delta where we cruised the Mekong River on a rickety old boat. We felt like we were on the Jungle Cruise boat ride at Disneyland! We did a few stops at some different islands. The first one we watched locals making coconut candy and ended up buying three bags of them, they were amazing! We also got to hold their pet python! Then we hopped on a small 4-person row boat where we paddled our way through the Mekong jungle, stopping and eating fresh local foods along the way. It was a great way to experience the lifestyle of the Vietnamese people.

We also did a day at the Chu Chi Tunnels, which was one of the craziest cultural experiences we have ever had. It was where the Vietcong based their operations to fight off Americans...basically we saw why it ended with an American withdrawl. There was a complicated network of connecting underground tunnels in which the Vietcong faught from. We got to see different traps they used-all of them were pretty gruesome. We were able to crawl (literally) through a portion of the tunnels to see what it was like for the Vietcong; basically it was awful. Later, we had the opportunity to fire a gun of our choice if we wanted. So we chose an M-16, bought 10 rounds and headed out to the shooting range. It was actually very intimidating and we were both shaking trying to make a straight shot! It was so loud we thought we were going to burst an eardrum and when you get down there they hand you headphones to help...but they were literally headphones you would listen to your i-pod with and they did nothing! We were still shaking after but a really cool thing to say we've done. Throughout the entire day our tour guide, knowing we were the two Americans in the group, made it a point to assure us there were "no hard feelings...the Veitnamese are very forgiving people and think of US only as friends."

In Saigon we decided to book a "sleeper" bus that stops at all the main cities all the way up the coast to Hanoi. This meant that we were supposed to actually have a bed on the bus for the all-nighter bus rides. Really, you pray when you get on board that you will have one of the seats that somewhat resembles a bed and not be crammed into the back two rows like sardines, sleeping next to stangers drooling on you (yes, it happend!) First stop was Mui Ne. We hired a jeep to go visit the sand dunes nearby. When we got there we were instantly surrounded by little kids trying to rent us mats to sled down the steep hills of the dunes. The little girls were adorable and about a fourth of our size, trying to position us on the mats while using all their body weight to hold us up! It was great fun, followed by a lot of work climbing back up the dunes!

That night we ended up walking 40 mintues to go to a bar right on the beach that we had read about. All of the sudden there were performers clearing off the dance stage and minutes later there were acrobats standing on top of each other and people dressed as dragons in our face! We also had our first bucket of booze (literally a bucket), which we now know is the cheapest way to drink around here!

We spent the next few days in Nha Trang, a really fun beach town. Most of our days pretty much went like this: wake up and eat at the most delicious breakfast place we have ever eaten at, head to the beach and spend $1 to rent a nice, cushioned lounge chair and umbrella, eat 1, sometimes 2 massive $4 lobsters cooked right on the beach (as an appetizer), shower, have an occcasional $5, 60 minute massage, head back to our favorite breakfast place (also our favorite dinner place), and finish the night out at one of the many fun bars in the town!!! We loved this town and we love our lives-not to rub it in or anything haha!!

We did, however, stray from our usual routine one day and went on a boat tour around the surrounding islands. Being 2 of about 8 westerners with a group of about 30 on a Chinese tour, we realized we were outnumbered and really wouldn't be able to understand anything, seeing as it was mosting in Chinese. The guide would speak on and on and on in Chinese and everyone would be laughing away...and then he would say about 10 words in English and we would all just sit there confused haha. We managed to have a great day though! At one point everyone was shouting and a little Vietnamese man jumped in the water and climbed into his tube, aka the floating bar. Everyone else jumped in after him and floated around the bar drinking his nasty shots! Shortly after three of the guides got on the front of the boat and started singing rediculous songs. They called people up, country by country to sing a song from back home. We got dragged up to represent America and had to sing " Everybody Let's Twist" in front of everyone...it was pretty embarassing! An interesting, but altogether fun day!