Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

Mira, me he dado cuenta que he vuelto a escribir en castellano. Que así sea entonces. Ya que Lluís está muy ocupado con sus fotos, no le quedan ni tiempo ni ganas para desplegar sus dotes literarias y me temo que os tendréis que conformar con mis humildes aportaciones…

I´ll write a few days in Spanish and then I´ll go back to English, OK?

26-31 August: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Lo que nos sorprende de Saigón es que carece de “casco antiguo”. Nosotros dando paseos, en busca de callejuelas, rincones oscuros y placitas coloridas, pero sólo encontramos calles y avenidas anchas y rectas. Aún así tienen su encanto estas avenidas con su tráfico sin reglas, parecido al de Hanoi. También lo tiene el barrio (Pham Ngu Lao) donde estamos alojados, lleno de bares, restaurantes, puestecitos de comida y tiendas de souvenirs. Igual que el barrio chino, con sus pagodas apretadas entre casas normales, farmacias de medicina china y restaurantes chinos.

Una pagoda preciosa (no me acuerdo del nombre):

Durante la búsqueda de las pagodas indicadas en la guía, nos encontramos de repente delante de una casa antigua, guapísima, completamente hecha de madera. Ya que no hay mención de ella en la guía, ni hay cartelito ni nada, pero parece abierta al público, nos acercamos tímidamente a la entrada. Enseguida nos acoge un señor mayor, que está encantado de poder hablar en francés, ya que él hizo sus estudios en Francia. Con mucho entusiasmo nos enseña toda la casa, que era de sus antepasados de la dinastía Ming. Con el cambio de dinastía, su familia tuvo que huir a la China. Luego él volvió y se hizo cargo de la casa. Después de la visita, nos ofrece un té y nosotros hacemos una donación para el mantenimiento de la casa (que una señora de limpieza no estaría demás).

El amable señor delante de sus antepasados:

Una pareja distinguida en unos asientos igualmente distinguidos:

Otro día visitamos el War Remnants Museum, que expone todo lo que te puedes imaginar refente a la guerra de Vietnam: armas, tanques, helicópteros, cartas de soldados del Vietcong, fotos de víctimas del químico “Agent Orange” y hasta un feto deformado. Salimos – y con nosotros un montón de guiris más – en silencio y tocados por el recuerdo de las barbaridades que hicieron los americanos durante la guerra.

También fue interesante ver el Palacio de la Reunificación, construido en los sesenta como Palacio Presidencial, pero ahora está prácticamente en desuso, desde que los comunistas entraron en 1975, el día de la rendición de Saigón. Lo bueno aquí es que todo lo dejaron tal cual fue ese día, con mobiliario de los 60-70 y todo.

España (Tay-Ban-Nha) contribuyó a la lucha contra los comunistas con 12 soldados (´taban apañaos esos!)

Como en cualquier ciudad, tampoco nos perdimos el mercado de Saigón:

Una mezquita muy mona en el barrio pijo de la ciudad, donde nos tiramos mas de 1 hora haciendo fotos de todos sus rincones:

La idea fue irnos el 30/08, pero nos gustó tanto la ciudad que decidimos quedarnos un día más…

Algunas “street images” de Saigón:

Zelfs onze Jeff is hier te vinden! (Pepe de Brujas, otro chocolatero, para entendernos)

Atractivo forastero en Saigon:

30/8/07

We decided to give Saigon one more day (but only one, since the next day, 31/8, our Vietnam VISA expired) in order to visit the Dam Sen Park and the Giac Lam Pagoda. Let me quote what Lonely Planet says about the park:

Dam Sen Park administers a dose of slightly bizarre fun. Giant animals made of coconut shells are outdone only by the ones made of CDs. Within the park´s landscaped gardens embellished with lakes, bridges and pagodas, you´ll find an ice block wonderland inside an enormous freezer-room, cafés and gift shops, and a roller coaster. Sunday afternoons find couples napping on lawns while others, dressed in formal wedding regalia, have professional portraits taken.

Now wouldn´t you think that it is a nice park with original statues where you can find some shade on a hot day? Well… It turned out to be the most ¨kitsch¨ attraction park I´ve ever been to, with dragons, a cactus garden, a waterfall slide (one up, one down and being splashed with water), an enchanted castle, a hall with ice statues, and some poor old tied-up elephants, walking rounds in their own… Of course, every attraction had to be separately paid for, but since every attraction was so poor on the outside, we didn´t really want to find out what it was like inside.

The Giac Lam Pagoda wás true to its description as a haven of peace and meditation. That much so, that I almost fell asleep on one of the comfortable wooden chairs inside the Pagoda, dosing off on the sound of the chants of the monks.

Impressive Buddha outside the Giac Lam Pagoda:

And then it was time to pack our suitcases again to be ready for the trip to Cambodia the next morning.

Vietnam

9-13 August: Hanoi
Bueno, llegó la hora de irnos de Sapa, de mis amigas y del hotel (Family guesthouse) con sus preciosas vistas y su gente simpática. Por la tarde cogimos el minivan hasta Lao Cai y luego el tren de noche hasta Hanoi (en soft seat A/C = lo más baratito de lo no-cutre).

Oops, I´ve started to write in Spanish without thinking! So, we´re on the train to Hanoi… We expected that arriving in Hanoi at 5.00h in the morning would mean having to wait until at least 8.00h for the city to wake up. But no, we were wrong. Everywhere, people were starting to get out on the street, many of them in pyjamas, to do their morning exercises around the Hoan Kiem Lake or to get off to work. It seems that also the Lenin Park is full of the most sporty Hanoiers between 5h and 7h in the morning, but we never saw it for ourselves…

Some images of the Hoan Kiem Lake:

In the guesthouse where we stayed the first night, and after them making a lot of effort to get us in, we were asked to leave the next day because they had a group reservation. When Lluís mentioned they should have told us that when we checked in, the guy got all offended and said that he could run his hotel the way he wanted. That´s true of course, but we thought that he should at least have given us another option. We were lucky, anyway, because we found a nice room in a guesthouse run by a charming old lady, who was delighted to be able to practice her French with us.

In the beginning, after relaxed Laos and reasonably quiet Sapa, we needed a little time to get used to the crazy traffic of Hanoi: a chaos of bicycles, motorbikes, rickshaws and taxis, where traffic lights are merely decoration and sidewalks are ideal parking lots for motorbikes. Once we knew, though, that we had to cross the street slowly and while making eyecontact with the drivers (to allow them to zigzag around us) and that blowing the horn is a normal practice when passing another vehicle, we started to love the city.

The traffic in Hanoi…

… and me confidently zigzagging through it

We made a walking tour around the old centre, visited the women´s museum (explaining the role of Vietnamese women in both wars, against the French and afterwards the Americans), the Temple of Literature, and also the Hoa Lo Prison (nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton).

Having a refreshing coconut after our museum visit:

We strolled along the numerous markets, our favourite spot in any town, because of its colourfulness and because we find it very representative for the way people live. We always look for the food stalls around the markets, where people are usually friendly and good and cheap food is served.

This is Lan, a very warm and generous woman, in whose street stall we went for a drink a few times and ate the delicious noodle soup in the stall next to hers.

Although we couldn´t talk, since her English was non-existing, we had whole chats and a few laughs with her. One of her friends even invited Lluís for a smoke. You know, men´s stuff… There are food stalls on the street everywhere. In the morning, you see the women carry off with their stick on their shoulder, taking small steps due to the weight of the two superheavy baskets dangling on either side. They carry their whole ¨kitchen¨in there and before luchtime they have their stall set up, with plastic tables and baby stools around them.


14-17 August: Halong City-Halong Bay-Cat Ba

After a few days in Hanoi, we started looking for a way to get to Halong bay, a UNESCO patrimony we didn´t want to miss. That is when we started to be put off by Vietnam. We didn´t like to participate in any organized tour, being a part of the heard of tourists, being crapped in a bus, then lead onto a boat, and taken around Halong Bay, along with 20 more tourists on the same boat and surrounded by 50 more boats. But we found out that going by ourselves by public transport wasn´t an option, simply because it does not exist (or we didn´t find it anyway).

So, yes, in order to see Halong Bay and get to Cat Ba, we had to enter the tourist mill and join a group of other foreigners. To give you an idea of how this machinery works, I´ll only give you this example: for the exact same tour, we paid 34 USD each (2-days trip with bus, boat, lodging on the boat, lunch, dinner and breakfast included), others paid 40 USD and still others 90 USD (these did have AC ánd an hour of kayaking included). It just depends on where you buy and how you bargain. There are no fixed prices for ANYTHING in Vietnam. Even for a simple bottle of water in a shop they overcharge you if you don´t complain. It got really tiring and frustrating sometimes, having to be constantly on the watch, trying to get a fair price.

Anyway, after the tour, which wasn´t all that bad due to the fact that the impressive views made up for the commercial circus, we arrived to Cat Ba, where we planned to have a few lazy days on the beach. Unfortunately, the place had the charm of Benidorm and it was too hot to stay in the sun for more than 2 hours. What the heck? We´re flexible. We don´t like the place? We leave and head for the next destination. No problem.

Halong Bay:

A fishing farm:

Grocery shop on the water:

17-21 August: Hué
In order to get to Hué, we had to go back to Hanoi and take the bus from there. We arrived at 5h in the morning, had a kingsize breakfast for one lousy dollar and we found a guesthouse quickly. And… surprise… no bargaining necessary. Good room at a good price from the start, and a lovely landlady with a very good level of English. We immediately liked this small town with its nice atmosphere, good food, friendly people and the beautiful Citadelle, where we spent more than 3 hours enjoying its marvels. Hey, maybe we could get to appreciate Vietnam…
(Mind you, not that bargaining wasn´t necessary anymore, but I guess we´d got used to it, and started seeing it as a game… I just hope we don´t start bargaining for everything when we get back to Barcelona. Habits die hard, you know.)

Strange statues in the Citadelle:

A bit of a bummer was the tour we made (yes, we didn´t seem to learn…) to see a pagoda and three of the many tombs around Hué. It was kind of: get on boat - get off boat - quickly walk to tomb 1 - pay entrance fee - quickly walk around & take pictures – hurry back to boat (¨Who is late, will be lost¨ were the guide´s menacing words and we didn´t want thát!) – have quick lunch on boat – get off boat – pay another entrance fee – look around tomb 2 – run back – etc etc.
Come on, Sandra, think positive and go on to Hoi An…

Thien Mu Pagoda in Hué:

We were on one of those coloured boats:

This beauty was on a boat next to ours:

21-26 August: Hoi An
We loved it!! Lluís because Hoi An is incredibly photogenic and has very cheap draught beer, and I loved it because of the luxurious hotel we were in, the beautiful clothes shops, the choice of exchange book stores, the friendly people (although a little too pushy, but by now we could cope with that!) and the picturesque flair of the town.

Hey Anneke, they even have some of our conversations registered here!
Let´s start with the hotel. Here an explanation is needed about the way the transport system is set up. One of the most economic ways to travel is with one of the opentour bus companies. The deal is that you pay a cheap fare, but in return you are taken to restaurants and hotels on which the companies have their commission. In this case, we were dropped off at an expensive-looking hotel a bit outside the centre. 10 to 15 USD a room. We told them we were sorry, but that was above our budget, we were looking for something for 6, maximum 8 USD a night. They said OK. So, for 8 USD we had a luxurious room (with a real bath!!) with terrace, access to swimming pool and free bicycles, as well as a cosy garden restaurant.

If this isn´t luxury…

Lluís made various photo safaris through the town, and while he photographed details of houses, the fish market, street names and dried flowers or incense against walls, I admired the different shops and learned some more Vietnamese from a nice shop girl.

We had a few bicycle rides, once to the beach and another one to some villages on the other side of the river.

We also made an excursion to My Son, a religious sight with beautiful temple ruins. Although we had to get up at 4.00h in the morning, it was worth it, first of all because of the amazing sunrise, but also because it was “relatively” cool. When we got back to Hoi An at 9.00h, the sun was already merciless.

My Son:

Yes, “connoisseurs” amongst you, I know this is not Judith Petit´s hand, but the butterfly seemed to like it…

On the last day in Hoi An, we just relaxed on the sunbeds in the garden with the occasional dive in the swimming pool, before being picked up at our hotel for a 24h-bustrip to Saigon.

To be continued...