Nha Trang to Da Lat

We couldn't wait to get to Nha Trang since we had heard it was a beautiful little beach town. What we found was very different. The beach was covered in garbage and the town had been completely westernized to suit the tourists, with extortionate prices to match. We were actually questioning whether we were still in Vietnam! We thought we'd give it a chance anyway and decided to stay for two days.

Day 1: We went to the Oceanographic Museum, after reading about its fascinating ocean life and the loads of information displayed about their environment. What we found was a row of small dirty aquarium tanks with some fish, an actual small swimming pool lined with scum, where two sharks swam around and round in small, tight circles in the brown water, a stuffed shark and stingray, complete with bullet holes and collapsing heads, and a huge dead manatee with its tongue sticking out, floating in formaldehyde in a large fish tank. We were speechless. There was also the empty pool with the display sign overhead stating, "Algae". Fascinating. However, all of the tanks had that feature included anyway. The grand finale was a room right out of a mad scientist movie, with wall to wall, floor to ceiling shelves full of "specimens". Really just different types of fish disintegrating in jars of formaldehyde. We walked out without saying a word.

We decided to try to save the day, so spent the afternoon tracking down the residence, which doubles as the studio of a famous Vietnamese photographer named Long Thanh. He was home, so showed us around his darkroom and gave us some advice. His photos are incredible, especially since he only shoots with blk & wht medium format film. He also develops and prints everything in his own little darkroom, but only when he has the resources. Developer isn't available in Vietnam, so he has to wait every few months for his friend to bring it to him from Germany. Amazing. Check out his website: www.longthhanhart.com

Day 2: We decided to do something silly and fun, so we booked tickets for a well known party boat called Momma Lins. We were supposed to spend the day snorkeling and floating in life rings in the water while a floating bar comes around and serves you. We sort of knew it was too good to be true. We were not wrong. This so called "party boat" was full of Vietnamese families with children, the "Crazy, Hilarious" guide we were promised, only spoke Vietnamese, so they were the only ones who got any jokes. There were only five other Westerners on the whole boat, and when it was time to eat and it was discovered there wasn't enough seating around the table, we were gathered up and put up on the roof of the boat to eat on the cement floor. Our "afternoon" of snorkeling ended up being 20 minutes and the "all you can drink" ended up being two dixie cups of Whiskey mixed with wine (Ugh!) over a half hour period floating in the water. It got worse from there, but it would take another two pages to list the ways in which we got ripped off......again.

Vietnam is well known by travellers for promising you one thing to get your money, then giving you something so different you cannot believe how they can lie so blatantly. Everyone laughs about it afterwards, but at the time you just cannot believe it has happened again!

....And just like that, we were in Da Lat. We arrived the next morning, and with Scott and Reinira hired an "Easy Rider", which is a guide who takes you through the highlands of Vietnam from anywhere between a few hours and a few weeks. We spent the day on motorbikes cruising around visiting tea and coffee plantations, silk worm farms, a village with a giant chicken statue (why not?), and a bee farm. Good times. That is Da Lat in a nutshell.

Next, Saigon and the finale of our Vietnam experience! I bet you can hardly wait to hear how it ends. : )

All set for Tet

We arrived in Hue, Vietnam's capital, and only had one day to wander around this little city. We visited a famous pagoda, beautifully situated on top of a hill, surrounded by water. The grounds contained gorgeous temples, an ancient tower and an old Austin mini. Yes, an Austin mini. It sits on display, because a now famous monk drove it to Saigon 40 years ago, parked outside of a government building and set himself on fire to protest religious oppression. I guess that's one way to do it. As the sun was setting, all the child monks gathered in one of the temples and started clanging a gong while chanting. The sound was so beautiful and haunting, we stood for ages listening.

From Hue to Hoi An. I know, they all sound the same. We still get mixed up too. Now, what is Hoi An famous for? Well... its hundreds, no, thousands of tailor shops situated pretty much everywhere you go. These tailors will make anything you could possibly imagine, made to fit like a glove and for dirt cheap prices. Unfortunately, we arrived just in time for Tet (New Year). Oh Tet! How it plagued us so. We were warned that everything would be shutting down for ten days, so thought Hoi An would be a nice place to hang out because of its beaches. We also wanted to get clothing made, but soon realized that 95% of the shops were closed for the holiday. On top of that, prices flew up everywhere because hardly anywhere was open and supplies were limited. Whatever didn't work out for us there, the excuse was Tet, whether or not that was actually the reason. I must admit, it was a confusing few days. We'd walk into a shop that was clearly open, and the whole family would be sitting on the floor eating, which is not unusual, but would announce they were closed. In Asia, we'll walk into a store at any time of day, and we will almost certainly walk right into a family meal being eaten right on the shop floor, leaving us feeling like we're constantly interrupting their family time, just because we need to buy toilet paper. So it was hit and miss until Ian and I found a couple tailors who would make our things. In the end we each got a couple Italian cashmere and wool suits done for under $100 each! We're not exactly sure where we're going to wear them, but gosh, they are beautiful.

Our second day there we got up while it was still dark out, with our friends Scott and Reinira , we hopped on motorbikes and drove the hour to My Son to see the sunrise. Well, we missed sunrise but spent the morning wandering around the ancient temple ruins dating back to the 8th century! Hard to believe that something that old can still exist!

That afternoon we went to China Beach, made famous from the T.V. series in the 80's. No, I don't remember it either. But it is a beautiful beach, and one of the few that haven't been turned into a garbage dump. It is shocking how environmentally careless people are here, although we figure that if animals and humans don't even have rights in this country, the environment doesn't stand a chance. Everyone just throws everything everywhere! We'd be on the most beautiful, secluded hike and be stepping over garbage the whole way, or on a beach and actually have to clear a spot on the sand from empty bottles and wrappers. It made us so angry how they're destroying such a gorgeous country and they just don't care! So, we were enjoying our day on China Beach and because of Tet everything on the beach was closed, of course. Out of no where a security guard from a resort down the beach spotted us and walked over to demand money for parking our bikes by the closed restaurant we were in front of. We stared at him in disbelief since the restaurant we were parked by had nothing to do with the resort he was from. When he became more demanding about giving him money, that would obviously go straight into his pocket, disgusted, we packed up our things and left. Another beautiful day ended off with harassment from a local. What else is new?

Things got worse when I got sick, and in Asia when you get sick, you get really sick. We came to the conclusion that I'd contracted hook worm (Nice.), which is extremely common in Vietnam and can be picked up from anything, so my chances were pretty good. Just another casualty of Vietnam. Can this country get any better?! Fortunately, I got better just in time for New Years eve. We went out with Scott and Reinira and watched some hilarious live dance shows that weren't actually supposed to be funny. We then watched the longest fireworks display any of us had ever seen, not because there were a lot of fireworks, they were very small, in fact. After each display, it was almost like they'd have to reload, so six different times, what seemed to be the last firework would go off, then silence, everyone would cheer, the crowd would start to disperse, then suddenly they would start going off again. Six times. By the end we were killing ourselves laughing.

After six days in Hoi An, the longest we had stayed anywhere, it was time to leave. We went to the bus station and sat across the road having something to eat while we waited. Our bus pulled up and everyone started putting their bags on. We still had five minutes so we went back to get our food packed up, when all of a sudden our bus took off! Ian ran over and what we found out later had happened, was they decided to switch buses, so unloaded everyone and their bags back off the bus. Since we had stepped away, our bags remained on that bus! Ian took off like lightening! He actually jumped onto the back of some random man's motorbike and yelled, "Follow that bus!" So he did. He and Ian flew through four sets of lights before Ian jumped off and ran in front of the bus to stop it. And yes, this is a true story. It could have ended horribly, but Ian saved the day! He's grinning right now, reading this. Oh the excitement!

Ninh Binh

Right,
So our next destination was Ninh Binh, not to be confused with Australian Hippy Drug town "Nim Bin". We've had to clear this up a few times already. We arrived at 11:00pm and were pleasantly surprised to find 3 men with motorbikes standing by the side of the road, one holding a sign that said "Cindy Mowes". What a welcome! Maybe this country wasn't so bad.
We hopped on the back of the bikes and were ushered off to our hotel, and what a hotel it was! For $8 a night, this was one of the nicest places I had ever stayed. Things seemed like they were looking up.....or were they?

The next day we headed to Tam Coc, famous for its picturesque rivers winding between rice paddies, tall limestone rock formations and, you got it, more caves. Turns out there's a lot in this country. The first thing we noticed after we'd set out on our bikes was the abundance of rice paddies everywhere we looked! Riding down the dirt road, watching the rice pickers working, it felt like we were in a different era. As I was riding along dreaming, I looked up to face a Vietnamese man standing on the side of the road. He had a rock in his hand and pretended to whip it at me, then started laughing. Way to ruin the mood. Not that funny when I nearly swerved into traffic.

Once we arrived at Tam Coc, we hired a local woman to paddle us down the river in her boat. We were surprised to find out how gorgeous it really was. As we we paddled through the caves I had this overwhelming feeling of being on the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disney World. It was very cool. The woman paddling our boat was getting tired so she made Ian pick up a paddle and help her. Sucker. We could not have been enjoying ourselves more, when suddenly she stopped the boat in the middle of no where and pulled out a box of her embroidery, which she then tried to pressure us into buying. All the serenity of our surroundings instantly disappeared. After refusing her over and over.....and over again she begrudgingly paddled us back, but not before demanding a tip from us first. Ha! Feeling slightly irked, we jumped back on our bikes and headed to the next location. As we rode, this time I had one man ride by on his motorbike and pretend to kick me over as he passed, then within minutes another man on a motorbike headed straight toward me in his own game of chicken and barely missed me as he swerved at the last second. What is WRONG with these people?!?! It sounds ridiculous, but its like being in a country full of bullies who get so much pleasure out of picking on tourists. One after another..... We had never felt so unwelcome in our lives.

At the next site we had children following us everywhere demanding, not asking, for money. "YOU GIVE ME MONEY!" Finally we started demanding money from them, which really confused them. As we rode back, all we heard was "Boom Boom!" (Money) and the only place we stopped to buy something, instead of being happy we gave them our business, they became rude when we refused to buy more. What a shame that such an incredibly beautiful country has so many nasty people. Even when we went to the market, bartering, which had been normal in every other place we'd been was taken almost as an insult. If we weren't willing to pay whatever they wanted we were shooed away and ignored. Then we'd watch a local buy the same thing for a quarter of the price. Are you also getting the feeling like it was one incident after another? Besides rude people, the market also provided the most disgusting thing we've seen since being here. I nearly screamed out loud when I passed a table piled with boiled dog heads, the rest of the decapitated body next to them being dismembered and sold off piece by piece. It was something out of a horror movie.

The next day was a bit of a relief as we rented motorbikes and headed out of town to a national park. The landscape on the way may have been the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life. The sun coming up behind the silhouettes of the rice pickers bent over in the paddies. Cows wandering through ancient looking graveyards in the mist, while the sun rays streamed through the heavy clouds. So beautiful, it was hard to breathe. I would have taken a million pictures if I hadn't been on a motorbike. That's the problem with being a photographer and a tourist. Its impossible to be good at both! We went to a monkey conservation park where we saw rare species of monkeys - black, brown, grey, red, blond, they were all amazing. The rest of the day we spent on another hike through the jungle, then back to the hotel to board yet another bus.

What can I say about Ninh Binh? Mixed reviews. Definitely worth going for the scenery, but other than that, at times it was just plain lousy Charlie Brown!