Vietnam

Vietnam, SE Asia

Months ago, we booked a flight from San Francisco to Hanoi, and it felt really weird. The Hanoi part. Linda's brother served in Vietnam in 1970, and barely returned to tell the tale. Mark watched the Vietnam War on TV and wondered whether this was "his generation's war." Fortunately, they ended the draft in 1973, a couple of years before he might have ended up with a draft number. It is a country with a lot of relatively recent history, and most of it unpleasant and frightening.

Visas alone were quite challenging, as our itinerary was to include at least 5 countries over 5 months. Linda thought her head was going to explode with all the options / limitations, etc. There might be a separate blog post on the comparison of all the countries' approaches to allowing Americans to visit.

Wanting to see SE Asia, but finding it more challenging due to all the various spoken and written languages, we decided to join a tour group for the first 2 countries, for 2+ weeks, giving us a few less variables to think about for a little while at least, but offset by a forced group experience -- which we historically don't do well with (See Michoacan post). We went with Intrepid Travel, known for tours that are a bit closer to the ground (meaning less insulated) than many.

Mark relieved to leave the mausoleum

The tour started from Hanoi, and we arrived a few days early to explore and to acclimatize a bit. We signed up for a highlights tour with a local guide, and visited a couple of major temples, the ethnic museum, a lacquerware factory, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, and the prison -- aka the Hanoi Hilton. The mausoleum was quite weird, as they usually are, and there were long lines and lots of people. Ho Chi Minh's body had arrived back home after its annual month-long refurbishing in Russia. We filed past the body, laughing (inwardly) at the young guards flirting with the school girls and also pushing Mark a couple of times for no apparent reason (as in "keep moving"). Maybe they could read his mind. No stopping. No talking. No pictures allowed. (sorry!)

Security measures at the Hilton -- glass, barbed wire. Kind of like Mexico!

It was an equally odd experience at the Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison), where John McCain was one of the many Americans kept (and tortured) for over 6 years. When our young guide asked "do you know why it was called the Hanoi Hilton?" (We both internally said "irony?") She told us the literal party line that it was because the prisoners were treated so well (they played badminton! which you could say is tortuous...) that it was like being at a resort. Huh. Mark is notoriously bad at not showing his thoughts on his face. But we were not upbraided nor arrested. Whew. 

This is not the guide's fault, she is monitored and required to say these things. Yes, communism is not about freedom, but control. That said the prison was previously used to torture Vietnamese dissidents by the French. The guillotine was used there as well. Up until 1954!

 

On a much happier note, we went that afternoon to see a water puppet show. It was delightful, a musical performance with stories from Vietnam's folkloric past about dragons, turtles, fish, cats, and phoenixes, [Trivia break! A large group is called an odyssey; a small group is a venture!] as well as farmers, royalty, and planting rice. (Obviously not by the royalty.) An hour of smiles for us.

We met up with the 14-person tour group after a couple of days, and we were the only Americans, which was nice. (Aussies, Brits, Belgian, Irish, Germans, Sri Lankan.) We set out the first morning for Halong Bay, a magical collection of karst islands off the northeast coast of Vietnam. 

The islands look like something from a Bond movie, and they almost were when The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed. (Vietnam backed out of allowing filming, so it was filmed in Thailand instead.)

it was actually chilly...!

We spent a day and night on a relatively small cruise boat, complete with teak cabins, and great food. The chef had great knife skills -- the "net" is made from a single carrot! And enveloped a fish for dinner.

The chef made amazing garnishes! 

After the island excursion, we boarded a 10-hour night train from Hanoi to Hue. It was an interesting experience. There was a guy with a cart selling beers for $1 each, so we bought a few to enjoy as sleeping aids.

We had a fun day of touring Hue by motorcycle, as passengers. Hue was an early capital city of Vietnam, and has a Citadel, built about 1789. Our local guide was not good, completely focused on the number of wives, concubines and children, without any story to tie it all together. Hue was attacked during the 1968 Tet Offensive, and initially US troops had orders to leave the old structure intact (~120 buildings) as historically significant. That changed with the NVA realized this and occupied the Citadel. Many buildings were subsequently destroyed.

incensed!

We had lunch at a nunnery, (none were seen,) toured an incense shop, the tomb of an emperor, another temple, and had a dragon boat ride. (How do the motorcycles keep popping up all over?)

That night we had a dinner at a family's home; she was a very good cook. It was, however, a little disconcerting to see a helmet and canteen on the wall that seemed to be from war days. 

We left Hue the next day on a bus, winding precariously through the mountains down into Da Nang and into Hoi An, a quaint and lovely old town on the coast of the Eastern Sea (aka South China Sea to most). The mountain trip was the first time we saw a Vietnamese landscape that was what we expected from watching TV in the 1970's, green and crenelated hills flanked with wispy clouds.

Lovely Hoi An

Our great guide, Jolie, showing the Japanese bridge(s)

Hoi An was generally spared from the impact of war and has several very old buildings. The town is known for custom clothing and shoes. Mark got a custom shirt, and a pair of water buffalo sandals. (Cue Bob Marley... "Buffalo Sandals...")

Mark getting measured

And we took a cooking class, Mark with Lara

We then flew on to Ho Chi Minh City, which the locals still call Saigon. The War Remnants Museum was quite sobering. It had an exhibit on how the world (and many Americans,) protested the "American War." Sigh. There was an excellent display of photojournalist work, a memorial to the many who were killed during the war.  

Not mentioned earlier was that in Hanoi, there are 9 million people, and 6 million motor scooters. That are all driven by crazy people. Saigon is even worse. While we have reasonable spidey sense about all the directions one can get whacked crossing a street in Mexico, this is a whole different league, due to sheer numbers and speed of vehicles.

We went the next morning to the Mekong Delta, on a boat trip (large and small). 

The highlight was the lunch of a fried whole elephant ear fish (!). We showed people how to dig out the fish cheek, they were impressed. Or slightly skeptical. Not sure which.

After 9 days in Vietnam, the next stop was Cambodia. To be covered in another post!

2019 November - December