Colourful Vietnam

Yes it's been a while, but we're back!
We had 3,5 weeks in Vietnam until now and we will leave Vietnam the 9th of March to head off to Darwin via Singapore (2 days)

To give you an idea about this colourful country I will summarise the cities we've been travelling through.

We started off in Ho chi minh city (previous Saigon and still being called Saigon by most Vietnamese people)
Saigon is a very busy city, you can’t imagine how heavy the traffic is. Thousands of motorbikes, local buses, cyclo’s (riskja’s) and some cars colour the streets of this city.
To cross the street you have to walk slowly to the other side of the road. Don’t walk to fast and don’t stop in an instant than the locals will avoid you on their motorbikes. Crazy!!
Something else you will notice in Saigon is the women in their traditional clothes. This is a white pants with a white long overdress. This is used on schools and in many work places.
We really liked Saigon, it’s a big city but doesn’t feel like that.
Something special we did in Saigon was going to the horse race track. We’re the only foreigners what was quiet funny. We had no clue how it worked but soon an older Vietnamese man came up to us and asked if he could help. He had lived in the States so we could easily communicate with him.
He showed us around and told us how to gamble it was good fun and the bets were only 0,50 Euro cents so not really a big problem if you lose.

After Saigon we went to Mui Ne a beach town 6 hours north of Saigon. No the intention was not to lay on the beach but to do some kite surfing!!!
Mui Ne is one of the big kite surf spot of Asia so we decided too give it a try with a 10 hour course (spread out over a couple of days)
We had a great time and met a lot of nice people! The lessons were good but hard as well. What a power can those kites get.
Vincent was doing well and was almost ready to stand up the board but than the wind died and didn’t come back the days after.
I had 2 hours less lessons than Vin and was still busy with body dragging in the water.
Vincent was so excited about the sport that he even bought a kite for a very good price. Now we can practise in Perth, Australia when we’ll be there.

So we had to leave Mui ne thinking about our schedule. We took the bus to Dallat, the vegetable capital of Vietnam. Fresh big strawberries, avocado’s and green veggies. Dallat is also famous for it’s wine, no this is not your average Bordeaux but after 4 months in Asia everything will do. And that only for 2 Euros a bottle!
Dallat turned out to be to busy for us. The reason for this was the Tet.
The tet is the Vietnamese new year (same as the Chinese new year). The Vietnamese people will have around 2 weeks of celebration around this day. Most people will get together with the whole family mainly to eat and drink.
They will save money the rest of the year to spend it all during these 2 weeks. The result is that everything in Vietnam is double the price. Transport, hotels, food, everything what didn’t help us a lot J
Most people take their family to Dallat because of the nice mountain temperature, so it’s packed.

The 2 weeks around New Year are crazy. Vietnamese men will drink the whole day and night in groups and don’t worry to step on their motorbikes afterwards.
We had to be very careful to avoid those crazy men.
Apparently 3000 people were injured and 800 people were killed during these days by traffic accidents in Vietnam and this will happen yearly.

The next stop after Dallat was Nha Thrang, but we escaped the day after to continue on to Hoi an, the pearl of Vietnam. We took a night train and slept in a cabin with 2 other people.
Hoi an is a beautiful city with French colonial buildings. This town is famous for his tailor measured clothes and we know why now….. We had some clothes made for us and only paid a fraction of what we would have paid back home.
We had to escape Hoi an before buying more and more so we headed off to Ninh Binh to see some nature of Vietnam.
Ninh Binh is a small town 93 km South of Hanoi. It’s beautiful especially because it’s surrounded by rice fields and lime stone rocks. We drove through this scenery by motorbike and made some great pictures. We also hired a rowing boat to get a better view from the water. It was amazing. See website for pictures: http://www.terragalleria.com/vietnam/vietnam.ninh-binh.html

Because we only had 9 days left in Vietnam we had to speed up. We decided to take our first local bus, destination; Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. As you can imagine we’re not really keen on local buses because of the crazy traffic in Vietnam. I’ve been in many countries before but I’ve never seen such a dangerous traffic as here in Vietnam. The reason is: no rules! The bigger your car, guts and ego the higher you priority.
Overtaking in corners, no problem, with 3 cars next to each other on a 2-way lane, no problem.
In the bus we only looked in our books, to afraid to look out of the window. Fortunately it was only 2 hours.

Hanoi a big city again but the old quarter is pretty. I can’t say what I like more Saigon or Hanoi, to me two total different cities. Again major traffic with mainly motorbikes.
We did a city walk with some other Dutchies and ended up at the beer corner.
Here you can drink local beer for only 10 Euro cents a glass!!! Even I had a glass of beer.
We heard many stories about rip offs in the North of Vietnam and they are true!
We had no major rip off yet but the stories we heard were unreal. Tourists will be charged 10 times the price if you’re not careful. A taxi ride for 1$ will cost you 10$, Some fruit for 0,50$ will cost you 2$. Hotels will try to charge you more money when you’re checking out, it’s ridiculous.
It’s very tiring trying to get the right price the whole day!
We even heard from a Swiss guy who live in Hanoi for a while and spoke some Vietnamese that the propaganda loudspeakers on the street will say ‘ Don’t forget to let tourists pay more ‘
Most of the Vietnamese people are nice but many are very nasty.

We’re now in Sapa, 350 km North West of Hanoi. This is Switzerland in Vietnam. It’s beautiful.
Many mountains with in the valleys rice paddies, what gives it a beautiful landscape.
We will do some hiking and side seeing around before heading of to Halong Bay for a 3 days boat trip through Lime stone rocks.

Friday it’s up to Singapore and than Darwin where tropical cyclones and crocodiles are on the menu. Ah well after Asia we can survive everything J

I can tell you so much more about this colourful country and the local behaviour but than this page will never end.
A couple of words, typical for Vietnam:
Noise, Crazy traffic, short term thinking and beautiful landscapes.

Speak to you soon!
Love Vincent and Desire