Phu Quoc - 31Jan to 4 Feb

Moved onto Phu Quoc today; an island off the south coast of Vietnam. A few days to really chill out and hopefully get a dive or two in.

West along beach at Mai Phuong Resort

Hotel at northern end of island and  is right on the beach, only 14 bungalow rooms and very quiet if a little tired.
Spent the afternoon in the shade doing nothing.

Looking towards the restaurant

Food at the hotel is very good, especially the fish dishes.  We went diving today.  The dive boat came to our hotel and picked us up.  The visibility was pretty poor and there was nothing too special to see but we had a good time and the crowd on the boat were great fun.  At least five of them were teachers, teaching at an independent international school.  Apparently their life is good; recommended that they stay in Vietnam, where their classes are approximately 12-18.

View towards our bungalow centre
at back

We've just had a lovely plate of steamed prawns, fresh from the sea and tonight (2nd Feb) is the Lunar New Year - celebrated by both the Vietnamese and the Chinese.  They have told us they are having a party and that all the guests are invited.  We are not sure that we can stay awake until midnight but will do our best.

One of the neighbours

Well we stayed awake and eventually went to bed around 1.30 after a buffet was served just before midnight, the hotel owners family, friends and staff arrived and a local rice base spirit was served copiously in shot glasses, to be downed in one, followed by the shout of "Yoh!" (It was poured from mineral water bottles, so presumably a private source!). Seems that they celebrate from midnight onwards rather than up to and just after as we heard the party into the small hours. The next day we spent lazily and when we walked over to the restaurant to get some supper found the family sitting at a long table buffet that they insisted we join,; beer and spirits provided again. We were introduced to grandmother, mother, father,  father-in law, mother-in-law and friends. A lot more toasting of Chuc Mung Nam Moi / Happy New Year and we were really made welcome; the family put special bits of the buffet into our bowls etc.. What a privileged experience. We understand that they celebrate every night for a week. We thanked God we were leaving the next day - a week of this could finish us off.

Back in Saigon for one night before we set off tomorrow morning for Cambodia, via a three day boat trip up the Mekong Delta to Phnom Penh.

Saigon - 27 / 31 Jan

The street below our room at midnight.

Once again into the turmoil of a city. Made the mistake of booking into a hotel in  the centre of the backpacker district; fortunately had asked for and got an upper floor room as the street outside stayed hectic till late.

First VC tank to break into Presidential  HQ

We did a city tour as an easy way to see some of the sights; this, as had Hanoi, had quite a political slant with their pride in the Vietnam War, American violations etc. although the guide did repeatedly say it was in the past.
The most fascinating element of our stay was seeing the prepararations for TET, the celebrations marking the start of the lunar new year. Flowering shrubs feature hugely in this, far more so than say our Xmas trees. Many open spaces and parks in the city were turned into markets for trees and shrubs the vendors sleeping alongside their  wares. These were bought and carted off often strapped to the back of the ubiquitous motor bikes.                  

Taking home the Tet tree
 by bike

The fact that they can't always see anything doesn't seem to matter the city traffic is full of people transporting goods on their motorbikes: wardrobes, sheets of glass, crates of pepsi not to mention families of 4, even 5.

Anyway, back to these lovely plants, below is just one example of the efforts that they put into decorative plants for new year.

A. bonsai' flowering shrub set into a rock garden display.

Relaxing in Hoi An - 23 / 27 Jan

Fishing boats on the river through Hoi  An

At last somewhere that allows a bit of chilling out.

Hoi An is an ancient port and as such has a sizeable Chinese community. Each group within it has its' own meeting house generally combined with a temple but possibly including gardens and school rooms. These are very ornate and colourful areas.

We hired bikes one day and cycled out through the fields to the beach resort at Cua Dai.  This was a very interesting trip and we cycled through lots of countryside and villages.  We stopped to watch a number of fishing boats as they stripped fish from their nets.  

Inside garden of a Chinese
 meeting house

Fishing boats at Cua Dai stripping
 the nets of fish

Hue's temples and the Citadel

Entrance  to the Forbidden City,
 Imperial  Citadel, Hue

Entrance to the Imperial Citadel in Hue.
Severely damaged in the Vietnam war
it is undergoing extensive restoration.

We didn't allow enough time in Hue realising that we needed to allow some chill time and not try and fill every day; it catches up in due course. So we decided not to do the trip to the DMZ          (Demilitarised Zone ) as we had started to flag.

We did do several temples and the old Imperial Citadel, actually only C19th/C20th. The Citadel was a little disappointing; not really all that old; mainly during the period of French rule when the emperors continued to stay on the throne as puppet rulers. However, there were one or two interesting aspects to be appreciated. An appreciation of what a feudal position the emperor held with tens of wives and hundreds of concubines; some fascinating artwork including detailed pictures and poems painted onto the back of glass to be viewed through it and the efforts now being made to restore what is a major tourist attraction.

Novice monk at Thien Mu

Approach to the Thien
Mu pagoda near Hue.
Still an active Budhist
temple

Our favourite visit was to the Thien Mu pagoda. This is still a practising Buddhist temple and we were privileged to see and hear the monks at prayer.

Back in Hanoi

Ho Chi Minh mausoleum

Hoa Lo Prison built and used by the French
 during the colonial period and then by
 the Vietnamese to house American POW's

Back in Hanoi for couple of days we went for the more famous sites. A mixture of the old and new.
Politically the approach was a mixture of national pride in having defeated the French and the Americans and forward looking conciliation and a desire for good relations with the West. An example at Hoa Lo was pictures of John McCain, unsuccessful presidential candidate, there as a POW and more recently a visiting US senator.
We have felt quite safe here on the streets; hostility - none, street crime not in evidence. The most challenging thing is crossing the road; the traffic is seemingly lawless but operates to its own rules. To cross the road you wait for a gap and then step out and proceed with confidence relying on  the traffic,. cars motorbikes etc., to avoid you. Overtly looking from side-to-side is to be avoided as they will assume you intend to give way. To date it has been successful.

Approach to Temple of Literature which
 was originally founded as a  Confucian
 university in the C11th
 

On route to Temple of Literature

Temples, rivers and kingfishers

Local rowing style

Emerging from underground section of river

Kingfisher on Perfume River near Tam Coc

Pavilion at Hoa Lu near Ninh Binh

This was a really special day that gave us so much pleasure. The journey to Hoa Lu took nearly three hours but was well worth it.  We passed through very different countryside to that which we saw when visiting Sapa (north west Vietnam).  Hoa Lu is south west of Hanoi and the land is much flatter and wetter with rice fields and general agriculture a big feature.The countryside around  Hoa Lu however, becomes more hilly and quite stunning.  It was the capital of Hanoi in the 11th Century and the temple here is very beautiful.  We went on a bike ride after this visit which took about an hour and gave us the opportunity to take in this lovely area more slowly.  We passed through several villages where most of the children would call out 'Hello' as we passed.  After lunch we were taken, in pairs,  for a boat ride on the Ngo Dong river which passes through the heart of this lovely area.  Our 'crew' were two women: as you can see from the picture, she used her feet to row.  The other woman sat next to Peter and paddled.  During the trip we passed underneath three very low and very dramatic caves.  One had the feeling that one should duck to avoid serious head injury because they seemed so very low.  

Anyone who has experienced the joy of catching a flash of irridescent blue skimming the across a river or pond will be feel both honoured and thrilled to have caught sight of a Kingfisher.  Can you imagine how we felt when in the space of a two hour trip down this river, we actually experienced six, yes six, close sightings of this very shy creature.  This truly made a perfect end to our day.

Trip & Trek Sapa - 16/18 January

We took a trip to the North West of Vietnam, up near the Chinese border.  Very high, mountainous but famously beautiful countryside.

Paddy fields

Paddy fields on terraced hillsides

Our guide - Ku

This was a long journey and we had to take an overnight train to get to Sapa.  We arrived at 5.00am and were collected from Lao Cai and driven up in to the mountains to Sapa.  We had breakfast before meeting up with our guide Ku, a member of the Black Hmong, whose English was extremely good.  She took us for a 10 kilometre hike to her village where we had lunch before walking on to meet her "grandparents" and learn all about dying hemp using a natural dye made from indigo extracted from plants in their own garden,  The villagers are poor and most of their land is used for growing rice and a mixture of vegetables.  They keep all sorts of animals as well, which they either eat or sell.  A good day and then back on the night train for Hanoi.

15/16 January - trip to Halong Bay

Hanoi Opera - our
 boat on Halong Bay

Sunrise on Halong Bay

All Peter's own work including the flowers

Sea stacks

The two day trip involved an overnight stay on the Hanoi Opera sailing in Vietnam's famous and very beautiful Halong Bay. Highlights of the trip included cookery lessons, t'ai chi on the top deck at sunrise, visiting caves thousands of years old and a floating fish farm.  We took too many photographs to publish all of them but here are a few:

14 January - Hanoi

We walked to a lake in centre of Hanoi to get the feel of the streets and visit a temple.
Later after lunch we went to the Water Puppet Theatre. A very enjoyable performance which combined folk lore puppetry with traditional music and singing.

Hotel room in Hanoi

We were flattered to be given what they called the honeymoon suite, ornate
baroque furniture, for our first couple of days before we went off to look around the areas outside of Hanoi.

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13 January - Hanoi

Arrived today in Hanoi. More of this later.
Hotel is great, we've had a wander around old quarter and had a meal.
Picture of the street at night near to our hotel.
Bed is calling.