Apologies for the recent chaos. We’ve been struggling to get WiFi and due to a minor dropping accident back in Siem Reap, Cambodia – our good camera’s lens has gone kaput, thereby leaving us with our little Panasonic Snapper and no cord with which to attach and download pictures onto my computer. We eventually got it sorted though – hence the 3 blog posts in a row. I’m up to date on the World Cup now as well – Viva L’Espana!! So – from where we left off we had arrived back in Hanoi – the capital of Vietnam and former headquarters of the Viet Cong headed by the enigmatic and obviously impressionable, commie-to-the-core – Ho Chi Min. He is essentially deified in these parts, with signs and monuments dedicated to him virtually everywhere. The story goes (based on my guide’s historical knowledge) he studied in France and then spent about 30 years travelling around the world learning about how different countries functioned. He became enamoured with Marxist and Leninist theories and returned to Vietnam in 1941 to lead a political movement to oust the French colonialists. By 1945 the French were gone but returned again in 1946 which led to the early makings of the Vietnam War. He died in 1969 at the age of 79 (old for a Vietnamese) and although requesting to be cremated was not granted his dying wish. Instead he was embalmed and 5 years later placed in a massive mausoleum in Hanoi which is supposed to look somewhat like a lotus flower reflecting his continued adherence to Buddhism despite his socialist view of the world (remember Marx – “ Religion is the opiate of the masses”). The massive marble structure looks more like a cubic Parthenon than a flower but to this day it is where he resides. Everyday the mausoleum is open for an hour and a half in the morning to receive visitors. The road in front is cordoned off and cameras and phones barred from entry. Literally thousands of Ho Chi Min fans and tourists take the walk through looking upon his greatness in all its dead glory and you know what – he hasn’t aged a bit! Aidan and Jen were amiss from our visit owing to Aidan’s rip roaring temperature – he’d earned a day in bed so we split up the troops. From Ho Chi Min’s current resting place we ventured through his old office buildings and home then onward to Vietnam’s first university dating back to the 10th century AD. It was a monument to the aspiration for knowledge and education with massive statues of some of the initial ideologues of the time such as Confucius and some related Vietnamese Scholars and teachers. The afternoon took Jen, Cole and Piper to the museum of ethnology which provided a hands on view of some of the cultures of Vietnam such as the Hmong while Aidan and I held down the fort, catching up on the blog and dealing with the raging fever which eventually abated. Feeling he was on the up and up, we forced him out of bed and off to the Water Puppet Show a 10 minute walk up the street. He managed alright, albeit with a bit of grumbling and made it right to the end of the show before emptying his stomach contents discretely into a bag out in the foyer – all class. We took one of the rickshaw rides home as he wasn’t up to walking and put him back to bed with a large dose of Ibuprofen. Our treatment seemed to work though and by morning he’d turned the corner and was almost as good as new. It was a good thing as we were off to Ha Long Bay for a night on the South China Sea.
It takes a good 3 to 4 hours to travel 150kms to Ha Long Bay due to the chaotic traffic conditions and speed limit of only 40-80 km/h. We stopped about 2/3rds of the way for a refreshment at a road side Vietnamese Souvenir/tourist shop filled with massive marble sculptures, incredibly intricate needle-point pictures, traditional clothing, jewellery and a café. Most of the artistry is done by victims of land mines, all of whom are missing either a limb or digit here or there – simply amazing. Ha Long Bay is essentially a tourist port with numerous ‘junk’ boats – not really ‘junk’ at all as we found out but beautiful wooden boats with luxurious cabins and decks to motor around the numerous karsts jutting abruptly 100’s of vertical metres out of the sea. We settled into our air conditioned cabins and powered over to a floating village to visit a massive arching cave at the base of one of these karsts. Our tour guides were these tiny Vietnamese women who didn’t speak a word, simply rowed their small reed-woven boats around the village and back to the pier from whence we started. The Victory Star (our ‘junk’) has a couple of dragon boats moored in this area and part of the day’s festivities was to split the tourist squad into two teams for a race. Naturally, Jen and my team conquered with boat lengths to spare – wasn’t difficult with most of these out of shape Europeans! Dinner was 5 courses ie) way too much food but delicious just the same. Bloated and tired from our recent exploits we had one quick attempt to fish for some squid off the back of the boat (without success) then sunk into our beds and slept in until the sun began peaking through our blinds unrelentingly. Our second day on the boat brought us to one of the largest caverns I’ve ever seen. Along with hundreds of other tourists, we ascended the steps and entered the chasm, venturing deeper and deeper into its core, listening to our jovial tour guide point out the different stalactite shapes and their animal or phallic representations. From there we headed back to shore and a drive back to Hanoi to prepare for a night train to Lao Cai and couple day trip to Sapa and surrounds.
Lao Cai is 9 hours by train from Hanoi up in the north-west of the country. The A/C cabin with four bunks fit us snugly and although sleep came quick to the kids and Jen, I tossed and turned, struggling to find comfort on the platform-like beds listening to the constant rattle of the clackity train. We arrived at 5:30 in the morning and were immediately met by our new guide Zung. A sleepy drive up to Sapa gave us a bit of steam to enjoy a buffet breakfast and head out the door to acquire some proper rubber boots for our trekking. It was drizzling when we exited the restaurant so we pulled out our multi-coloured rain ponchos and truly looked the part of the ill-prepared traveller. All but I were able to find appropriately sized footwear – Jen really liked the black tall-boot look. A short jaunt up the road took us to beautifully green terraced valleys spreading out in all directions as far as the eye could see. Finding our path, we ventured down to the valley floor being followed the whole time by Hmong women or young girls wishing to sell us intricately designed handbags, woven bracelets and other trinkets. By mid-afternoon we had finally made it to our homestay residence in a place called Tavan, 3 or so kilometres from the main road. Our hosts we’re some wonderfully accommodating Vietnamese with 4 young children in and around our children’s ages. Although language was an issue we seemed to hit it off quite well and settled into our new surroundings. In the distance we could see a large structure which looked to be almost like the inner framework of a tepee but on closer inspection occasionally had kids swinging on it from a large central platform. Keen to check it out our hosts’ children escorted us down the path and we all had a go. The tiny Hmong girls selling bracelets could get it really moving with little if any fear whatsoever. I had a go and it was laughable – seems it takes a bit of practice. Our guide joined us later to take us to the river for a swim – unfortunately the swimming area was essentially an open area of a rather fast moving water and after some tom-foolery Cole just so happened to slip off the rock upon which we were sitting into a serious rapid, holding on for dear life. As I quickly tried to grab him I accidentally pushed Aidan on top of Cole – so then there were two. It didn’t take long though and I had both out – Aidan with a couple of abrasions but essentially both no worse for wear. Back up at the house, we introduced the host kids to some Uno and began to help out with making dinner. Cole was right into helping prepare the duck while Jen took on the spring rolls. Dinner was a feast of Vietnamese dishes – far beyond any of our capacity and was interrupted by not infrequent “Mo, Hi, Ba, Zo!!” shots of homemade rice wine made by our host. They seemed to like the rice wine and attempted to seduce me into liking it as much – fortunately I pulled through with some reserve insight and resisted further doses ….after the first 5 or 6 of course – one has to be accommodating in these circumstances. Our beds were up in the loft of the house and consisted of thin mattresses, some bed coverings and a mosquito net overhead – only slightly more comfortable than the beds on the train but I did manage to get some sleep. The next day we were treated to a thin pancake or crepe breakfast and then bid our hosts adieu, trekking up the road through the rice paddies, a bamboo forest, past a water fall and back to the main road some 5-6kms from where we had started …and Piper did it all! The track so thin in parts and up and down it would have been impossible to carry her without losing our balance so the little trooper forged on – a little disgruntled but unbowed. Needless to say she was a tad tuckered by the end and had a good snooze as soon as we caught our ride back to town. We had a few hours to poke around before heading back to Lao Cai and another night train back to Hanoi so checked out the Sunday market and hob-knobbed with many a prying yet peaceful Hmong – often wishing us to buy some of their handicrafts. We were able to sell our rubber boots back to the store where we had purchased them and gave our new umbrellas to a poor Hmong woman with a sordid history of maternal woe which she spilled in great detail to Jen as they walked along. The train ride back to Hanoi was as bad as the initial journey, pushing me nearly to delirium with the caustic voice of Axel Rose filtering through my subconscious at times with his rendition of “I’m on a night train…” – echoes of a misspent youth and questionable musical tastes. Fortunately, our program had us set up in a day hotel when we returned from Lao Cai and we were able to shower, catch up on some sleep and become human again before venturing to the airport for a flight to Nha Trang – the last port on our journey.
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