Day 21 The Day in Ha Noi

Our overnight sleeper train arrived at Ha Noi station at 4:30 this morning.  Dark and raining.  Slogged our way to the station, but no taxi to pick us up.  We had thought the travel agent was to arrange this.  We were wrong.  Long story-short, we had a “private” taxi take us to the hotel, and when we arrived were presented a charge of $20.  It should have been $5, the hotel concierge negotiated it down to $10.  We know we should negotiate before the ride, but with the rain and frustration, we didn’t.  Another travelling lesson learned.

Spent the morning cleaning up and waking up then decided to head out into Ha Noi for the day.  What an experience.  We in the US don’t use our sidewalks nearly enough.  They are great for eating, playing, sleeping, working, and driving on.  This is a full-blown machine shop.

We are also quite comfortable crossing the street now even in a hailstorm of motorbikes.  Just keep moving at the same pace, as they go whizzing by, no sudden moves or starts or stops.  Stay composed, (at least inside).  This is a great example of what these people carry on a motorbike, this is an I-beam, must weight hundred pounds!

Another great picture of their electrical/phone system.

It all works, I have a better internet connection in our hotel room then I do at home!

Then it started to rain again, and very hard, doesn’t slow the motorbikes down, they just cover up.  Note the passenger.

Final packing for our flight out tomorrow morning. 

We have had a great time in a culture that seems quite comfortable with itself.  We have travelled from the smallest villages to the largest city in the region. People everywhere have been friendly and warm.  We have many good memories.  Thanks for following our experiences.

Day 20 Trekking the Hill Villages

This is our view to Sa Pa as we descend down to the villages.

 

Kinda a cross between the Alps and Kauai!  The valley is full of terraces for planting mostly rice.

This is how we travelled.  Tang, our guide, and two “personal shoppers”.  These are H’mong ladies that follow you all the way down the trial, being friendly, making you little flower hearts, learning your name, telling you about themselves, then at the bottom, they hope you will buy something from them.  Kind of a “pity purchase”.  It worked, but Gloria only bought a $2.50 bracelet.  We assumed they hiked all the way back up to town, but Tang told us they hitched rides on motorbikes.  All in a day’s work. (Oh, in this picture, Tang is texting his wife, remember, they have been married only a month)  Also—their cell phone service in this hilly country is way better then it is in Tuolumne County!!!

We stopped at a school in one of the villages, where we had Tang give away some of our left-over “Bouncy Balls” from our mission….bedlam.  He finally told the kids that only the ones with the best grades got balls.  He give balls to just girls!  At least they are honest.

They have a nice medical clinic as well at the school, below is the poster about H1N1; washing hands and sneezing properly.

We also met an Army colonel .  He and his retinue were making an inspection visit of the clinic and school.  Tang introduced us to him; he asked where we were from, and I told him America.  I would have gotten a smile if I would have said Russia or Cuba.  (see below)

We did get to talk to Tang about his family a bit.  He is one of 12 children, his parents are in their late 70’s, only he and his younger brother went to university, (his brother is a doctor), the rest are farmers.  His mom had her last child when she was 50.  I asked Tang if his father was involved in the “American War”, he said that his dad was a Viet Cong.,and spent his time in the tunnels outside of Saigon.

He told one story of where his dad and 11 other VC were in the tunnels and each day one of them was sent out to get vegetables for the group to eat.  The day his dad was sent out, the tunnel was hit by a bomb and all 11 of his comrades were killed.

Tang did say that his dad was poisoned by Agent Orange, lost all of his hair and it hasn’t grown any since.  I asked him what his dad thought of Americans, he admitted that his dad and many of that generation still hate Americans.

On to lunch.  Spring rolls, stir fry noodles, and french fries.  This is how you eat french fries in Vietnam.

Finally, before we leave for the sleeping train back to Ha Noi, we walk through the neighborhoods giving more balls out.  We have to bounce them first so the kids know they aren’t candy.

Day 19 Coc Ly Market and Chay River Cruise

Our morning started with a drive to the town of Coc Ly.  Each Tuesday they have their weekly market.  Unfortunately, prior to market opening, they had a downpour, and the water was still flowing through the market area.  Mud was deep and slippery.

This “Little Water Buffalo Went to Market”.  We were told he is probably worth around $500.  Good for farming and someday, eating. 

Everyone was in their colorful native wear.  This market is primarily for the locals, they have to buy all of their fancy dresses as well.  Tang told us that much of it is made in China!

Gloria is easy to spot in a crowded market!  We are around a foot taller then everyone.

Working our way through the mud and streams.

Next, we cruised down the Chay River.  The Chinese will have the river dammed by 2011 just downriver from this marketplace.  This will submerge this area and 100’s if not 1000’s of people will need to be relocated.  Vietnam needs the hydroelectric power.

This is Tang, the captain and a gal we thought would be our stewardess.  She just sat there the whole time.

Due to the rains, there were waterfalls everywhere.  Like Yosemite in the spring.

Here we are at the border with China.

Day 18 Trekking Sa Pa

Sapa is where Ha Noi-ites go to get out of the heat.  Sorta like Pinecrest Lake.  So, lots of Vietnamese families here, as well as Australians.  Our guide, Tang, says that Australians are their “favorites”. 

The main outdoor market is where the Hmongs, and all the mountain tribes sell their wares.  They are everywhere, not only the marketplace, but up and down the streets as well.  They work in groups, a bit overwhelming.  Always smiling, but very persistent.

Nice hotel, killer view of the mountains surrounding Sa Pa.

Our trek today is down to a little village below Sa Pa, about 4 kilometers.  Tang took us into a house where four generations live.  They make indigo for dying clothes.  Quite a process; something for everyone to do.

 This is their storeroom.  Stocking up corn for the dry season.

 

This is grandma polishing some of the fabric, she would be great on a skateboard

300 people live in the village, many of them are kids.

After the trek, Tang convinced us for $20 to have he and his friend take us to the highest part of the mountains on their motorbikes.  So, off we went for the afternoon.  Great fun dodging all the cars and trucks, and they us.  We ended up at a Buddhist temple, where we were allowed to ring their bell. 

      Gloria and I may now be Buddhists!

 

 

Day 17 Relaxing at Cat Ba

Today was a day to relax at the resort, do some shopping, then head back to Ha Hoi.  Historically Cat Ba’s claim to fame is that during the Vietnam war, they did have a secret cave they turned into a hospital for wounded Viet Cong.  Now is it a destination resort for Vietnamese and Chinese primarily.

This is the Sunrise Resort.  Really quite nice, Great pool, nice breakfast buffet, and good WiFi!

There was a “pig situation” in town.  This guy’s two cages of pigs went flying off of his motorcycle in the middle of the intersection.  He, and the pigs, were not happy.  As he prepared his bike to put the boxes back on, he had to redistribute “pigweight”, and the only way to do that is move the pigs around from box to box.  And the only way to do that is to grab them by the ears, pull them through the wires, them push them into the other box.  Very amusing, but very noisy.

I am afraid this is a bit graphic.  These jars contained anything that swims or crawls.  There is a whole year of Biology 101 in each bottle.  Oh, this is some ones dinner tonight.

Here is our motley crew.  Our guide, Anh, is second from the left, with the four Aussies on either end, then Eileen the lawyer and Gloria and me in the middle.

From Halong Bay we took a hydrofoil boat to the mainland, then back to Ha Noi by bus.  Speaking of the boat, didn’t really see the outside, but the cabin was a bucket of bolts.  It had airline type seats, but it must have been like what the old Soviet Union’s Aeroflot planes were like.  All broken down and filthy.  But……once that boat took off, it moved!!  I have never been in a boat that sounded or flew like this thing.  Fast, very fast.

We were then dropped off at the train station for our overnight flight up north to Sa Pa.

Here we are with our two bunk mates on the sleeper car.  Yes, they are Australian too.  Working their way through Vietnam south to north.  Nice gals.

Train left the station at 9PM and arrives at 5 tomorrow morning.

Day 16 Kayaking in Halong Bay

 

This is our neighborhood for kayaking.  Really some incredible sights.  We think it is always misty there, don’t think it is smog, just due to the high temperature and high humidity.

Here we are kayaking, we had to pass under this low overhang to get into this incredible lagoon.  Really breathtaking.

This next lagoon we went into could only be accessed once we went through a 300 yard pitch black “cave”.  With the current rushing out, only 3 of the 4 boats made it.  Our guide said it was scary before we went in, he was right! 

We watched monkeys jumping in the trees in the lagoon, incredible.

Day 15 Halong Bay

Kinda a relaxing day today. After a three hour bus ride from Ha Noi ride arrive at Halong Bay.    We thought this would be a quaint fishing village, turned out to be a modern city.  Indeed their suspension bridge marvels the best in the world. 

We board our “junk” for the next two days. 

Joining us are only 5 other people.  4 from Australia, all friends.  And a gal from Lebanon, Eileen.  She is quite a lady.  She has more life experience in her little finger then I do in my whole body.  She has dual citizenship: Australia and Lebanon, is an attorney and has worked all over the world.  Most recently in New York City working for the American Bar Association.  Her family lives in Australian, but she is of Lebanese descent, and has worked in most Middle Eastern countries.  Her most “exciting” job was working for the British Government for 18 months in Basra and Baghdad Iraq, right after the American invasion!

She was part of a team to requalify Iraqi judges for the new government. Her perception of the  war and it’s affects on the Iraqi people cannot be ignored.  She saw firsthand how the military and their contractors harassed, beat, imprisoned and killed many Iraqis based on misinformation, ignorance, misunderstanding, fear, or hatred.  She was “in the belly of the beast” for a year and a half.  She was also involved with legal preparation in London prior to the invasion.

She knew the evidence supporting the US invasion of Iraq that was so convincing to we Americans was indeed a sham.  I believe her knowledge of how the war was carried out for the first 18 months was both eye witness and unbiased.  She said we made just about every mistake possible, and if we had done our homework prior to the invasion, the outcome would have been much different.Just one person’s perspective, but one I can’t ignore.

Eileen and me at dinner

Back to our holiday!  We took the junk out to Vong Vieng Village, a floating village.  About 200 residents.  They primarily farm fish and oysters for pearls.  They have a regular village with families, dogs, the market boat that goes by regularly, a water boat for their fresh water, and we watched a trash boat that was fishing styrofoam and plastic bags out of the water.  We watched the 8 kids in their school, next to the bar with the pool table!

There are four floating villages in Halong Bay, the largest has over a thousand people!

Halong Bay is composed of over 3000 islands that rise out of the Gulf of Tonkin.  These islands are “limestone karsts”.  Some small, many very large and up to 300 meters high. 

Tomorrow, a full day of kayaking among the limestone towers.

Day 14 Ha Noi

Note:  I will try to catch up with Angkor Wat real soon.  I was sick during that time, fine now, but didn’t put the time into the blog.

Flew from Siem Reap last night to Ha Noi.  Yes, they are spelling it differently then we do.  Interesting, our three bags, (one full of dental instruments) was 20Kg over the limit, so we were told by the guy checking us in that we would be charged for the overage.  No way out of it; we asked how much, he said he would only charge us for 10Kg and it was $70.  We thought outrageous, but didn’t feel we really had any say in the matter.  Gloria gave him two 50’s, he reaches in his wallet, and gives her $30 in change, he puts the two 50’s in his wallet and that was that.  Now we are both outraged and screwed.  We checked our bags and boarded the plane.

Our guide, Duc, met us this morning for our day,s activities.  First on the agenda was Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum.  This guy is revered much like Mao is for the Chinese and Lenin with Russians.  I admit he was quite a guy, but I really don’t believe that he spoke 24 languages!

Since this was our “Communist” day, we wore red.

He died in 1969 and the war dragged on for 6 more years.  The North’s  biggest challenge was to first get him embalmed, (fast), and then keep him from being obliterated by US bombs.  Some good stories about those two objectives. 

Indeed, they still send him back to Russia every year for three months to get him “freshened up”, or should we say “detailed”.  Today, the door was closed, he was in Russia.

 

He is revered much like the North Korean’s worship Kim Il-Sung.  Ironically, the government has abandoned most of his economic policies since the mid-1980s.  Also, he was very insistent as to his cremation and scattering of his ashes on three mountain tops in Vietnam. Instead, he spends fall in Russia with the technicians from Madam Tussand sprucing him up!

We continued with the Ho Chi Minh Museum.  Really a history of modern Vietnam.  Also, quite interesting.  The last 200 years has been that of being conquered and imperialism.  First the French, then Japan for a while, then the French again, finally the US in the 60’s and 70’s.  And those pesky Chinese kept showing up by the 100.000’s, sometimes to help the Vietnamese, some time to declare war against them.

They did OK as long as their Big Brother was the Soviets. When the Soviet Union shattered in 1991, the Vietnamese realized they either had to “sink or trade”.  They grew up real fast and became the manufacturer for the world right behind China.  And that is where they are today.

We did spent some time on a “cyclo”, this was part of the “tour” and one I would not recommend.  It is like a reversed tricycle, with you in the front with the pedaler in the back.  They pedal so slow you could walk faster.  Add to that the dust, dirt and exhaust from 3 million motorcycles and and unknown number of busses and cars……

This was my view.  No, nobody even saw us as they zoomed by.  You feel like a red blood cell with millions of other cells in an artery.

Here’s Gloria, before we started, she is still smiling.

Finally, here is my latest menu shot.  There is always one good laugh when you eat at foreign restaurants.  Alex, Greg, remember the item on the menu in England?  I just read recently that restaurants have tried to rename it!  For the rest of you, sorry, family joke.

Bon Appetit

Day 9 – Final Post

On the plane back home.  A great family time.  Amazingly, we woke up to torrential rain.  Really the first rain we have seen all week.  Very cloudy and overcast, indeed a bit bumpy taking off. 

A few more pictures to describe the island of Bonaire.  It is indeed a rather sleepy island.  As mentioned before, not a whole lot goes on here. Tourism is really their only “export”, (and salt).  Their busy season is December through April, when it is quite cold in northern Europe.  Otherwise, we were told it is up and down. 

Many of the service personal here are tri-lingual.  Dutch, English and Spanish.  Because Bonaire is so close to South America, many of the vacationers are from Argentina, Venezuela, etc.

There is a lot of building going on, and lots of buildings that are partially built, but looked abandoned.  Prices for vacation homes and condos seemed high - $400K to over a million.  But, nobody is looking.  Weekends seem busier downtown, but restaurants are never full, and the few curio shops we looked at yesterday were totally empty.

Diving, though, was excellent.  Although unique in that it is all shore diving, with a little of research and energy, there was plenty of opportunity and variety.  We ended up going on 17 dives.  A great variety of soft and hard corals, invertebrates, and fish.  Visibility ranged from 40-70 feet.  They have a “no touch” policy, indeed you can’t wear gloves to dive, to discourage you from touching any of the coral.

This was our setup, 4 or 8 air tanks and all our gear in the back of the mini 4-foot pickup.

We found some Indian hieroglyphics on a isolated part of the island.

All of the diving on Bonaire is on the leeward, western side of the island.  You can see why one doesn’t dive on the windward side!

This is downtown Kradeldijk, main town on Bonaire.

These are cute, each dive side is ID’ed by a yellow painted piece of coral on the road.

We finish with last night’s sunset at the harbor.  Thanks for your interest in McKelvey Travels. 

Our next adventure will be in October when Gloria and I travel to Cambodia for a week of service dentistry with the same multi-national group we went to China with a few years ago.  We will be working at numerous orphanages in the country.  We anticipate blogging again, hope you can follow us!