2/28/09
While en route from the airport to town, we saw a naked man covered in mud riding atop a car with his legs draped over the front windshield. He was the reason for the backup we were experiencing. This was the culmination of a barrage of images that flooded us from the moment we left the airport. First I remember the bright green rice paddies with workers in coolie hats, and water buffalo. Then the traffic- bicycles, motorbikes, cars, buses. And CONSTANT honking!!!!Jed pretty much covered the traffic, so I won't get into that, but that, and the sheer mass of humanity is the most striking thing about this place. For the last couple days I've had a low grade headache; I think the visual and audio overload- not to mention the anxiety level when crossing the street. I'm eager to get to someplace less harried. This place has been most interesting, though. The "old ways" are still here; the women in coolie hats balancing baskets on bamboo rods over their shoulder, the cyclo drivers, the ancient markets and shops....but most of the young people are modern and fashion conscious. You may have noticed that I spelled "Ha Noi". All the Vietnamese words are actually single syllable; they are joined together for presentation to the western world. Interesting, huh? Another peculiarity is that the street names here in the old quarter change after every block. I think this dates back to when the blocks were divided by merchant types (they still are, to some degree). Anyway, it's a labyrinth of small steets, hard to identify on a map and hard to locate a destination. Add to that the difficulty crossing streets and the constant pestering of hawkers and cyclo drivers, and you can understand the cause of my headache. Tonight we opted to eat dinner on our street, just to avoid the hassle.Weather has been very warm and humid, with a significant rain shower every afternoon. This afternoon, Jed was on the passenger seat of a motorbike when the rains hit. Our hotel offered to send an employee to the train station to help Jed purchase tickets for our trip to Ninh Binh tomorrow. This hotel has been amazing. It's on a busy (but pretty quiet by Hanoi standards) little loop of a street, very centrally located, decent accommodations, internet access, a rooftop (9th floor) breakfast venue with a nice territorial view, and the nicest, friendliest, most helpful staff you can imagine. This has been a much appreciated calm in the storm of Hanoi. I have yet to find an easy way to attach pictures; the ones I sent, I can't label properly. They are all from the 2 day boat trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.
Layne
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
3/6/09
This is the most charming place we've been! Hoi An is an old old merchant town on the central coast of Vietnam, and many of the original merchant houses and homes still survive. It is a Unesco World Heritage site. Today I will be exploring on my own, as Jed is attending an all day cooking class. There are literally hundreds of shops for custom made clothing and shoes. They will make something for you within 24 hours! And cheap! The only downside is that they initiate the hard sell the second you so much as glance at the merchandise. All the shops are wide open on the street side; you can see a lot from the sidewalk. Our hotel here is quite plush, yet it was only $20 including breakfast. It has a swimming pool in an atrium in the center of the hotel, and the decor is very Asian- lots of carved wood.
We took the train from Hanoi to Hinh Binh, an unexciting, but exceptionally friendly city about 65 miles to the south (still a 3 hour train ride!). We were sure the locals had held a community meeting and practiced saying "Hello", because we must have been greeted 50 times- by children, construction workers, people on bicycles....they went out of their way to be friendly. Beautiful smiles. Ninh Binh is the "base" for outings to see the "mini Halong Bay"- mountainous limestone formations called "karsts". We had decided to bypass Halong Bay, west of Hanoi, because it is extremely touristy and in overcast weather is not at its best anyway. So we rented bicycles and a guide ($15 for the entire day for all) and headed out to the rice fields and the karsts. It was a glorious day; starting with a 2 hour boat ride in a small boat with just us and the rower (that part was gorgeous, but spoiled slightly by the constant pleas to buy souveniers and food) and then riding to a couple other destinations. We climbed 500 steps to a hilltop shrine with a great overview, and we saw a couple dynastic temples. Here, the temples are associated with royalty; they are nothing like the temples in Laos and Thailand, which were whole compounds, generally housing monks. The places of worship here are simple pagoda structures, sometimes elaborately decorated, but much smaller than the temples of the other countries. The real highlight of our ride, though was our guide, Nhu. She is a 22 year old young woman who is doing a "work study" at the hotel to practice her English skills. She was so valuable as a source of information about Vietnamese life. We grew quite attached to her in the few hours we spent with her, and she felt the kinship as well. We promised to stay in touch; maybe you'll have an opportunity to meet her, as we extended the invitation to have her stay with us in the U.S.
Next came a nasty 11 hour bus ride to Hue. We booked a sleeper bus, but it had come from Hanoi, and was nearly full when we boarded, so Jed and I got the worst seats (two layers of reclined seats with blankets- I've never seen anything like it) He was squeezed in tight between other people in the back of the bus, and I was directly over the bathroom. I thought the worst feature of my place was tighter headroom, but in the middle of the night I smelled the other drawback....Anyway, We still think it was the best way to get to Hue , but it wasn't pleasant. Hue itself was easily doable in a day, the main site being a huge (hundreds of acres) 16th century citadel, and we decided to move on quickly. We did meet an interesting man there. He was a vet who lives in Boise, but spends 6 months a year in Hue living among the locals and gathering and distributing food and essentials to poor outlying villages. He said that during the war, the locals hid him and some fellow soldiers for 10 days in a tunnel while they waited for the Viet Cong to pass through. He credits them with saving his life, and figures it's payback time. He was a very interesting guy. His love for the people was palpable, and I have to say, they are among the friendliest and kindest people we have encountered.
We took a bus from Hue to Hoi An. The ride was uneventful, but gave us an opportunity to see some lovely scenery. We had the jungle hills on our right and the beach on our left much of the way. Near Danang, it's possible to book tours of the DMZ and the tunnels used by the South Vietnamese and American soldiers to hide from and escape the Viet Cong. South of Danang, we were surprised to see many miles of new development- huge hotel complexes and resorts and golf courses. It looks like they have big plans for tourism and conventions. The economy has stalled some of the projects, but eventually I bet it will become a reality.
So now I start my solo day in Hoi An! Stay tuned.
Back again. Yesterday was a success for both Jed and me. He was thrilled with his cooking class, and I exhausted myself shopping. I had 2 things made- a blouse and a skirt. Both were ready by evening. Amazing! I met a couple women who were in "heaven" because ready to wear clothes don't fit them. Jed even got into the swing of things and ordered a couple shirts. That was about 6 pm last night and they are to be ready for fitting at 11:00 today!
This morning we arose at 5:45 and walked to the market, where the fishing boats were unloading their catch; cacophony and a visual feast. Mostly women were clamoring to buy the fish (many types- sardines, eel, skate, perch and "unrecognized by us") off the boats, after which they gutted and otherwise prepared them to sell. Some people were loading baskets of fish onto the backs of motorbikes and bicycles. Nearby, vegetable vendors were setting up their stalls. The city streets were also active with shopkeepers sweeping, communal breakfasting, school children afoot and on bicycles, and other activity. Only one other tourist did we see the entire time! I want to do it again tomorrow; it was wonderful. Today Jed and I are going to rent bikes to visit the beach and explore some nearby islands, and tomorrow we leave for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Layne and Jed
This is the most charming place we've been! Hoi An is an old old merchant town on the central coast of Vietnam, and many of the original merchant houses and homes still survive. It is a Unesco World Heritage site. Today I will be exploring on my own, as Jed is attending an all day cooking class. There are literally hundreds of shops for custom made clothing and shoes. They will make something for you within 24 hours! And cheap! The only downside is that they initiate the hard sell the second you so much as glance at the merchandise. All the shops are wide open on the street side; you can see a lot from the sidewalk. Our hotel here is quite plush, yet it was only $20 including breakfast. It has a swimming pool in an atrium in the center of the hotel, and the decor is very Asian- lots of carved wood.
We took the train from Hanoi to Hinh Binh, an unexciting, but exceptionally friendly city about 65 miles to the south (still a 3 hour train ride!). We were sure the locals had held a community meeting and practiced saying "Hello", because we must have been greeted 50 times- by children, construction workers, people on bicycles....they went out of their way to be friendly. Beautiful smiles. Ninh Binh is the "base" for outings to see the "mini Halong Bay"- mountainous limestone formations called "karsts". We had decided to bypass Halong Bay, west of Hanoi, because it is extremely touristy and in overcast weather is not at its best anyway. So we rented bicycles and a guide ($15 for the entire day for all) and headed out to the rice fields and the karsts. It was a glorious day; starting with a 2 hour boat ride in a small boat with just us and the rower (that part was gorgeous, but spoiled slightly by the constant pleas to buy souveniers and food) and then riding to a couple other destinations. We climbed 500 steps to a hilltop shrine with a great overview, and we saw a couple dynastic temples. Here, the temples are associated with royalty; they are nothing like the temples in Laos and Thailand, which were whole compounds, generally housing monks. The places of worship here are simple pagoda structures, sometimes elaborately decorated, but much smaller than the temples of the other countries. The real highlight of our ride, though was our guide, Nhu. She is a 22 year old young woman who is doing a "work study" at the hotel to practice her English skills. She was so valuable as a source of information about Vietnamese life. We grew quite attached to her in the few hours we spent with her, and she felt the kinship as well. We promised to stay in touch; maybe you'll have an opportunity to meet her, as we extended the invitation to have her stay with us in the U.S.
Next came a nasty 11 hour bus ride to Hue. We booked a sleeper bus, but it had come from Hanoi, and was nearly full when we boarded, so Jed and I got the worst seats (two layers of reclined seats with blankets- I've never seen anything like it) He was squeezed in tight between other people in the back of the bus, and I was directly over the bathroom. I thought the worst feature of my place was tighter headroom, but in the middle of the night I smelled the other drawback....Anyway, We still think it was the best way to get to Hue , but it wasn't pleasant. Hue itself was easily doable in a day, the main site being a huge (hundreds of acres) 16th century citadel, and we decided to move on quickly. We did meet an interesting man there. He was a vet who lives in Boise, but spends 6 months a year in Hue living among the locals and gathering and distributing food and essentials to poor outlying villages. He said that during the war, the locals hid him and some fellow soldiers for 10 days in a tunnel while they waited for the Viet Cong to pass through. He credits them with saving his life, and figures it's payback time. He was a very interesting guy. His love for the people was palpable, and I have to say, they are among the friendliest and kindest people we have encountered.
We took a bus from Hue to Hoi An. The ride was uneventful, but gave us an opportunity to see some lovely scenery. We had the jungle hills on our right and the beach on our left much of the way. Near Danang, it's possible to book tours of the DMZ and the tunnels used by the South Vietnamese and American soldiers to hide from and escape the Viet Cong. South of Danang, we were surprised to see many miles of new development- huge hotel complexes and resorts and golf courses. It looks like they have big plans for tourism and conventions. The economy has stalled some of the projects, but eventually I bet it will become a reality.
So now I start my solo day in Hoi An! Stay tuned.
Back again. Yesterday was a success for both Jed and me. He was thrilled with his cooking class, and I exhausted myself shopping. I had 2 things made- a blouse and a skirt. Both were ready by evening. Amazing! I met a couple women who were in "heaven" because ready to wear clothes don't fit them. Jed even got into the swing of things and ordered a couple shirts. That was about 6 pm last night and they are to be ready for fitting at 11:00 today!
This morning we arose at 5:45 and walked to the market, where the fishing boats were unloading their catch; cacophony and a visual feast. Mostly women were clamoring to buy the fish (many types- sardines, eel, skate, perch and "unrecognized by us") off the boats, after which they gutted and otherwise prepared them to sell. Some people were loading baskets of fish onto the backs of motorbikes and bicycles. Nearby, vegetable vendors were setting up their stalls. The city streets were also active with shopkeepers sweeping, communal breakfasting, school children afoot and on bicycles, and other activity. Only one other tourist did we see the entire time! I want to do it again tomorrow; it was wonderful. Today Jed and I are going to rent bikes to visit the beach and explore some nearby islands, and tomorrow we leave for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Layne and Jed
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