Well here we are 3 weeks into our trip and I've managed to avoid blogging until now but Mark's insisting I add my two penneth. I'm not too sure where to start as he's doing such a good job of reporting the edited hightlights but here we go.......
I can't believe we've only been gone 3 weeks, Vietnam is such a varied country and we've managed to cover a good variety of what it has to offer.
The two mains cities, Hanoi and Saigon have a very different feel - Hanoi is really gutsy and Asian, especially the old quarter which has narrow little streets, crammed with people making and selling their wares and transporting everything on the back of their motorbikes. I've seen a farmer with 3 fully grown pigs (each in a basket) balanced on his bike. Lots of people transporting panes of glass, front doors and even a family of 5 on a bike. Avoiding them while crossing the road is an art in itself - my current tactic is to close my eyes, hold Mark's hand and and hum 'Scotland the Brave'.
Saigon has a more western feel - much wider streets, lots of fancy hotels with roof top terraces to look over the city drinking cocktails and 'Gloria Jean's' coffee shop which is Cafe Jigsaw in disguise.
The museums here are very moving, particularly the War Remnants museum previously called the War Crimes museum. It has an amazing exhibition called 'Requiem' of photographs taken by some of the photographers who were killed or went missing in the war. A damning one-sided picture of the American tactics.
After visiting the museum we took a trip out to the jungle to Cu Chi where there was a 200km network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong to infiltrate the Amercain bases - they used to pop up in the night and shoot the GI's in their tents, and leave barbaric spear traps and land mines for them. Such atrocities on both sides, it's difficult to say who's side you would have been on....
Anyway, we've met some really nice people when we've been on our trips, it seems that most of Ireland are here at the moment but also a fair chunk Holland and Australia.
Hotels have been very good for the money - we're paying about $15 to $20 a night for nice double rooms with bath. I've been very glad of the hair dryer as most days there is monsoon type rain and I end up like a drowned rat - talking of which, a rat scurried out of its hole in the pavement when it was raining last night straight into my leg -ugh!
Highlights so far - the magical Full Moon Festival in Hoi An last week, kayaking in torrential rain in the beautiful Halong Bay - Mark says crawling around in pitch black in the Cu Chi tunnels was his!
All for now, jxxx
1 comment:
Hi
Great to hear from you on Saturday afternoon, I was trying to work out what time it was for you when you called, and decided that it was probably quite late in the evening. I hope you enjoyed the mekong delta trip. I think Marc would have loved to speak to you, but as you know he was slumming it in Paris with the boys for the rugby. Weather here in blighty is rubbish, the Winter grey has set in (probably for the next six months), which is normally a trigger for me to start planning a holiday! I start a new job in BAT on Nov 5th, its non project based (which will be a bit more secure) and back working for our internal IT support company. Its basically analysisng and evaluating all the local systems and whether or not they should be streamlined and supported centrally from about four locations in the World - sound familiar ?
Anyway enjoy Oz and keep blogging -I was very impressed with June making her guest appearance!
Take car
Den
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