Goodbye Vietnam...

Well this is it, my final blog entry from Vietnam, but I hope to have many more entries from travels in the future. We're already talking about next summer's adventure, perhaps a motorcycle ride to Alaska...we'll see. At any rate, this is our last night in Vietnam. We are back in Ho Chi Minh City after a whirlwind trip to Hanoi. I really did not care much for Hanoi especially after the bed bug incident but a two night trip through Halong Bay, one night on a Junk ship and one night on a private island called Monkey Island made the trip very much worth the trouble.
I did not know what to expect from our boat expedition, I had heard mixed reviews from those who had done it, but I was beyond pleasantly surprised, I was floored. The boat was beautiful, our room was comfortable, the food was amazing, and Halong Bay was mystical and gorgeous. We were taken out to the bay and then allowed to kayak around for an hour or so. We were then taken to an incredible and gigantic limestone cave where we explored for a while, and from there we went back to the boat for some swimming, diving, relaxing and eating. The food was almost the best part, these people fed us like royalty, bringing out dish after dish of delicious cusisine. We were only planning to do the one night trip, but we were enjoying ourselves so immensly that we decided to continue on for a second day on the Monkey Island for a whopping $40 more per person. Did I mention how cheap this place is? On our way to the island we stopped for a 2 hour uphill hike/climb into the jungle, where we topped off at a look-out point that included a giant iron tower to climb up on. I'm sure that the view from the tower was incredible, but I was not brave enough to climb up it after experiencing the rickety, corroding ladders that we got to climb on the way up to the look-out point. At the top we were not only met with an incredible view of the landscape but also of one of our fellow hikers. An extremely confident german man who I had failed to notice previously had somehow lost his pants and was hiking in a black speedo with his button up tee tucked in, a back pack, and combat boots. I am not kidding. Ray has pictures posted on his blog, you should definitely take a peek, we had to be pretty sly about getting the shots, but I'm so glad we did, proof was required. That excitement aside, the hike was exhilirating and the following day and night were spent relaxing on the island, sunbathing and swimming. Oh yeah, and we also looked at some demon monkeys. The island is aptly named because it is inhabited by some Langurs who live on the other side of the island, thank God. The troop of monkeys who live there are known for being incredibly aggressive. According to The Lonely Planet, "Many tourists have been bitten." We hiked over to see them, although I kept trying to talk Ray out of it, and once we got over there, I hung waaay back. Ray got right up close and got some great shots of them, but the human/monkey interaction was pretty appalling, I get why they bite. They were completely surrounded by a mass of people who were teasing them with food and making them jump up for it, as well as throwing it at them. I saw one monkey flinch several times as people chucked handfuls of fruit at his face. I was steaming and had a strong urge to start throwing food at these people's faces. Jerks. So it was not surprising when one monkey jumped at one of the worst teasers and took a chunk out of his leg. So, as I said, I understand why they are aggressive, I would be too. But with all of the sympathy I felt, I still had no desire to get close. Aside from that, the island was awesome.
We spent one last night in Hanoi and then flew back to Ho Chi Minh this morning. Strange how this crazy city has begun to feel like home. It's our third time back here and I think that the little bit of familiarity we have as a result of the time spent here has bred some comfort. I don't feel ready to leave. I feel as though I have just gotten my bearings in this country and I want to spend more time developing the little understanding I am beggining to have. I want to learn the language...at least enough to be able to read the giant propaganda billboards. And I want to try more food, there's so much I didn't eat. I miss home, I miss friends, animals,work, and Olympia so I am looking forward to coming home, but I also know that I could keep traveling for several more months if time, money, and opportunity allowed. I am not done with Vietnam, and I really want to see more of South East Asia, next time it will be Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and China as well.
Thanks to everyone who kept up with the blog, I loved reading your comments and knowing that you were with me on this journey. I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Love,
Heather

Nha Trang - Hoi An - Hanoi

So we've covered some ground since my last post. We left Nha Trang several days ago and headed north to Hoi An via an 11 hour night bus ride on a "sleeper bus," which is basically a bunch of pseudo beds that are smashed together on a gi-normous bus. It seemed like a great plan to us since bus riding is so boring anyway and it was going to be such a long one that sleeping through it would save us the cost of a hotel room and keep us from wasting a day on a bus. We failed to factor in the primitive road conditions in much of Vietnam, likely excacerbated by the recent flooding. To say the least, it was a rough ride. We would barely doze off only to be jolted awake whilst catching air as the giant bus sailed over God-knows-what. This went on for the entire 11 hours. By the time we reached Hoi An we were so fried and exhausted that we promptly passed out at our hotel and still wasted the better part of a day. Oh well.

After recovering from our bus ride we managed to have a pretty good time in Hoi An. We visited some ancient ruins which Ray blogged about and posted pictures of so you should check out his blog, and we had some clothes and shoes made for us. Hoi An is famous for it's tailors, and you can quite literally get anything custom made that you could ever dream up. Ray had two pairs of slacks, three shirts, and two pairs of shoes made, one of them dress shoes, and the others were sneakers with his name on the sides (mostly ridiculous but pretty cute). I had a really nice fitted wool coat made and a pair of dress shoes made that are chocolate brown with green frogs sitting on lily pads embroidered onto the toe (completely adorable). In total we spent $110 for completely custom clothing which is pretty amazing. The process was pretty far from painless, especially considering that we were working with an 18 hour timeline and several fittings ended up being required. We both ended up taking something from the floor and having it fitted for us after the one that was made for us ended up being, in my case ill-fitting (coat), and in Ray's case lower quality(dress shoes). But over-all we made out pretty good considering what we were asking for.

So now we are in Hanoi. We flew from Danang which is an hour north of Hoi An and we arrived here last night. We have had an interesting experience thus far. We just evacuated from the hotel we checked in to last night because we found a bed bug after getting several bites that we thought were mosquito bites. I am still feeling fairly traumatized, it only happened like 5 hours ago, but we are in a super sweet hotel now, I just beat Ray at Scrabble, and we are heading to Halong Bay in the morning for an overnight stay on a mini-cruise ship around limestone peaks and caves so things are still pretty good. I am definitely praying that the bugs stayed behind in that awful room and that the experience does not haunt us. I think we're going to be just fine.

I am just posting some random pictures of the last few days in no particular order, they are mostly from Hoi An though.

Sunshine!!!

We took a bus out of Dalat yesterday and headed for Nha Trang which is on the central coast of VNM. It was a 3 1/2 hour ride, the shortest we've done yet, and on about a 15-seater (they call it a mini-bus) with only 6 other passengers, sounds alright, but it was by far the most challenging ride to count. The roads heading out of the mountains are winding beyond anything I've ever experienced and about 20 minutes in I was feeling a bit queasy. Apparently I wasn't the only one. Maybe 30 minutes in, this tiny little 20-something young lady sitting a few seats up from us started to toss her noodles and didn't stop for more than maybe 10 minutes at a time to break from being sick there-after. I was having a hard time keeping it together before then, so you can imagine the challenge I faced in keeping the contents of my breakfast down after that started, but I did. The fact that I did was really a triumph considering how I felt...and the fact that by the end of the ride, 3 out of the 6 other passengers had thrown up, yuck!

It took me a little while to recover from that one, but I had some excellent help in the way of a thrilling bike ride around Nha Trang, which, it turns out is not only absolutely gorgeous but also apparently boasts beautiful weather most of the year. The typhoon completely skipped the area, and all they had was some light rain while the rest of the coast got hammered.

I have been thoroughly enjoying myself since arriving here. The food is delicious, the water is an incredible clear blue-green, and warm, the beaches are clean, and there seems to be no shortage of fun activities to keep us occupied. This morning Ray and I went scuba diving and snorkeling. It was my first time diving and I really thought that I would have more anxiety over it then I did. I absolutely loved it! We talked about maybe doing a 3 day diving run and getting our certifications but decided to save the money since there isn't a whole lot of diving to be done in the ice cold waters of the Sound. Tomorrow we are going to take a sky car over to a little island called "Vinpearl Island" where there is a water park and a giant swimming pool (I know, hardly necessary with the ocean right there but we're doing it anyway).

All in all we are livin it up and fully enjoying the change of scenery and weather. We have plans to head to Hoi An on an overnight bus the night after tomorrow, and hopefully we will not run into any more nasty weather. We really want to make it to Halong Bay before the end of our trip so that we can see the limestone peaks.

Retrospective Dalat

So we did finally get some shots of Dalat before leaving. The last day that we spent there was half-way decent so we ventured out and checked out the "Dalat Crazy House" which is, as aptly named, a crazy-looking house designed by a Vietnamese woman who is a renowned architect from the north. Here are some pics of the house as well as some other shots of Dalat...

Da Lat...

So, unfortunately I have very little to report as well as a distinct lack of new photos to post. We left Saigon on sunday (saturday for you) and took a "sleeper bus" to the city of Da Lat which boasts some french colonial architecture as well as some well-landscaped parks, cathedrals and an area that is supposed to be beautiful called "The Valley of Love" with a park and lake that you can ride horses around. I have been looking forward to Da Lat since we arrived in Vietnam partly because of these attractions but mostly because it maintains cooler temperatures than many other areas in Vietnam due to its' location in the mountains.
We are on day three here and most of what we have seen has been the inside of our hotel room as well as some very lame movies. The weather has been pretty intense/awful, worse even then in Phu Quoc. There is a typhoon that is expected to hit Hoi An which is just north of Da Lat and on the coast, tonight, and apparently the weather that we are experiencing here is as a result of that typhoon. The weather's bad enough but Ray also has a cold...he doesn't want to admit it but he's asleep at 1:15pm after taking cold medicine and eating noodle-free, brothy soup...hmmm?
At any rate, I don't expect that we will end up seeing much of Da Lat. I am using this down time to catch up on reading for school and to just relax...if the weather were nice I would venture out on my own but it hardly seems worth getting the few articles of clothing that I have soaking wet.
We are heading to Nha Trang, another beach town in the morning, and hopefully the weather will begin to lighten up so we can explore and take more pictures.
Wish us luck!

Goodbye Phu Quoc

We are departing from our little island paradise tomorrow (saturday) morning and I have to admit that I am quite ready to go despite my rave reviews. The weather has been nothing short of wild with torrential rains and fast winds that shake our little bungalow like a leaf. I am not really complaining, I actually love the weather, but I am beginning to miss the sunshine and the ability to comfortably stroll about. We are taking a plane this time, no death-defying bus or boat rides, although I am a terrible flyer so I am not sure what's worse, but it's only a 1 hour flight so hopefully I can remain calm.

I will miss our little bungalow and the restaurants where no matter what we ordered it was delicious (except for one order of bbq squid w/guts intact and even that had a delicious marinade). We have been adopted by a little island dog that we have named Xin Chau which just means "hello" but our Vietnamese vocabulary is still pretty limited and what we do know I feel fairly certain we are demolishing in our pronunciation. Pretty much everyone laughs when we attempt words or phrases, but it's alright, at least we're funny.

So now it's off to Ho Chi Minh City once again, for at least a night and then on to Dalat, a little mountain town that is supposedly much cooler and very charming. If we decide to skip Dalat in favor of more ocean then we will head to Nha Trang and hopefully we can catch some rays there and do a little snorkeling. Either way I will keep you posted!

Island Life

I have to admit that it’s hard for me to resist the urge to keep pinching myself. I can hardly believe this is real. I am on a remote island in Vietnam, with coconut palms, white sand beaches clear blue water, and a bungalow set just feet from the ocean which cost us a whopping $15. The weather is the only potential draw back with occasional monsoon rains and wind, but the deep sleep that this kind of weather induces just makes it feel like part of the unbelievable package.
The awful part was what it took us to get here. We took a bus that would probably comfortably seat 10 from Chau Doc to Rach Gia. It was a 3 ½ hour bus ride and the driver managed to cram 21 of us in there. About half way there we blew a tire (maybe from all of the weight?) and we all had to get off while they changed it, which they did with an amazing swiftness (perhaps because it’s happened before?). Once in Rach Gia we were ripped off by some motor bike drivers who charged us probably 3x the going rate for a 5-7km (3-5m) ride to the port where we were then loaded like sardines onto a giant water bus/speeding, bouncing, flying death trap of a boat that took us to the island in just over 2 ½ hours. I had a bad feeling about that ride when the lady behind me lost all of her noodles (literally) before we had even left port. Either way we made it to Phu Quoc Island with sound body and lunch intact where we fiercely haggled our way into a bus ride around Duong Dong (the most populated part of the island) to find our bungalow of choice.
Right now I am sitting in a lounge chair on the front porch of our little home-for-the-moment, facing the ocean, drinking iced coffee and composing this blog. As amazing as this spot is, we are actually planning to move to a bungalow a little further up the beach this afternoon where we will have hot water, an outdoor shower, AC and Wi-Fi for $5 more (unless we can haggle our way into a cheaper price, which is quite likely).

When I pictured our trip to Vietnam this is hardly what I had in mind, now that I know what this place is like, I am going to have a hard time wanting to leave, I could easily spend the remaining 3 weeks here living the island life, but I guess, in the name of adventure, I can settle for 5 days.

Mekong Delta

Finally! This blog has been very hard to access for some reason.

The last couple of days have been pretty adventure-packed. We left Saigon after 3 days and boarded a bus to explore the Mekong Delta via boat where we saw floating markets, explored some factories, and had a delicious lunch on a small island, followed by a short bike ride around the little village. We then took another bus from the city of Vinh Long to the town of Chau Doc where we stayed overnight on a floating hotel and then today we explored a fish farm and another small village via boat. We were taken back to the city of Chau Doc and then driven to a temple honoring Mr. Ho Chi Minh (the guide called him Mr.) and King (also Mr.) Ngyen. Our last stop was a buddhist pagoda. We had to walk up several flights of stairs to get to the pagoda but the view from the top was breath-taking, or maybe I was just out of breath. We are currently in a hotel in Chau Doc and will be leaving tomorrow to travel roughly 6 hours to get to the island of Phu Quoc where we plan to stay for at least a few days.
Ray is staring over my shoulder right now, offering "helpful" running commentary on what I am writing, stressin' me out!
At any rate, so far I love Vietnam. People have been very gracious and the food has been mostly delicious. It is definitely hot and humid, but not unbearably so. I feel good here, bedtime is early as is wake-up time, and despite the copious quantity of motorized vehicles blowing off exhaust, I feel healthy. I am looking forward to more exploration and hope to have pictures of the ocean to post very soon.

Saigon

We're in Saigon. We've been here for less than 12 hours and are doing fine, although I feel pretty out of it, probably due to lack of sleep/jet lag. I don't have much to say yet. It's busy and hot, full of smells, delicious and disgusting alike. I am fascinated and occasionally overwhelmed, but my sense of self is still strong and I feel fairly grounded despite being totally out of my realm of comfort and knowing.

And we're off!

I'm packed and ready. The printer is beside me steadily cranking out the research articles that I will need to read, dissect and cite for my first APA paper as a graduate student. I will be researching and writing said paper whilst hurtling through the air at a frighteningly high speed for 18-20 hours. This is how I will begin my Vietnam vacation...at the same time that I am beginning my graduate career. Actually, once the paper is done I am mostly free and clear for a couple of weeks and I hope to fully take in all of the sights, sounds, and experiences in Vietnam.
I am having a hard time finding excitement within myself knowing that there are so many hours of travel and work ahead, but I would imagine that excitement will work its way in once that plane touches down.
We have hotel reservations for a few nights so at least we know where we're going right away, which is somewhat comforting, other than that we are open to most anything.
I should be in touch soon!

The Adventure Begins...in 4 days.

I thought I should put something up here since I have already given out the address and some of you might be checking it out already.
We are leaving for Vietnam on wednesday, September 16th and will be spending a month basically aimlessly wandering around the country. We fly into Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) after some un-godly number of travel hours, I'm thinking 20 or so, and we are planning to stay there for a couple of days. After that, the tentative plan is to head south for the Mekong Delta and then take a ride on a fast boat to an island with beautiful white sand beaches and sea snakes (definitely a deterrent for swimming). From there, I think we will start trucking north, most likely via train.
Of course all of that is subject to change...but for now that is the initial general outline.
I do not think that I have quite processed the fact that I am going to Vietnam in 4 days, I don't think that it will really hit me until I board that plane...or maybe not even then, it might have to land there before I'll believe it.
I will keep you all posted as much as possible and try to upload pictures regularly. I would also love to hear what is going on back home, so feel free to share your stories with me as well.

-Heather