Archives for "Travel"
Off to Annecy with Minna and Hiia!
Four days of girly fun up ahead in French Alps with Rundgren’s Angels. Chamonix here we come!
I asked Minna what to bring along and she replied: dress and high heels. The suitcase is all packed and tomorrow 5am will get here soon, so it is time for a holiday song!!!
Hey Adam – this has dirty lyrics, so you should like it, too. 
Youtube probably punishes me for uploading the song and will pull it down in an hour, but I am in too good mood to go about ranting about music industry’s stone age approach towards video distribution. Dinosaurs will die. Enjoy the song (Grrr just noticed that the song cuts in the middle – full version that doesn’t allow embedding here. Man, the copyright/region issues suck, but it’s the thought that counts).
Take care & see you soon!
Back to Hanoi, goodbyes
It is pouring rain and everything is gray and misty. All the colours of the world have vanished overnight.
Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain…
We return to the Halong Bay harbour around nine in the morning and drive back to Hanoi. It is the last day of the tour and we are all tired and happy. It has been a long way from Bangkok to Hanoi, but how much I have seen and learned…
There’s nothing like a bit of rowing in the rain
I spend most of my afternoon back in Hanoi in the hotel room. First I have a long bath and then a long nap, whilst my roommate runs to a travel agency and changes her return ticket to Melbourne to an earlier flight. When I get out of the bath, she informs me that she will fly back to Oz in few hours time. She stuffs her clothes to the bags and heads off. I stand out and wave to her and her cab vanishes in the rain. She had pre-booked and paid the hotel room for the following night as well, but since she has decided to go home early, I get to stay in the hotel for free instead.
Now I have a room for myself for the first time in few weeks! It is such a luxury to be able to spread my things around, watch Discovery Channel and chill. The hotel wi-fi connection is crap, and the Internet rarely works, but during this trip there has not been a thing such as a working wi-fi. If the internet works, the jpgs appear bit by bit like back in 1999 J. My roommate used to make jokes of me and my nerdy love for computers, but I was able to help her out with all technical problems with her camera, Ipod etc. I also taught her loads of new tricks. We all have our hobbies.
We attend the final goodbye dinner and most people go for drinks afterwards. I accompany a fellow tour member to her last night shopping spree. She is leaving back to the US early tomorrow and has to get rid of all the remaining dong. Dong is a currency of Vietnam, but outside the borders it is not valid. At least not yet. I hear bizarre stories of people not getting their Australian dollars changed to dong at the moment, because Australian dollar is too strong. The same problem goes with changing dong to US dollars. I hear that the only way I will get US dollars is to go to the bank and get the money out from my ATM card over the counter. I hope it will work, I will be out of money in few days time. It sounds like the Vietnamese currency business is a bit of a jungle.
We walk back to the hotel in the darkness and rain. Hanoi is gorgeous at night and one gets everywhere by foot. The streets are dark, the rain has wiped away the smoke and the pollution and the air smells great.
Halong Bay, Sung Sot Caves, overnight boat
Early in the morning we take a bus and head north to Halong Bay. It is a four hours long drive from Hanoi and it is raining – the first rainy day during my trip. I feel relieved it is not hot and sunny, the Hoi An heatstroke incident was such a nightmare to go through.
I am studying a history of Halong Bay in the bus. Halong Bay area has more than 3000 limestone karsts and it is listed to the World Heritage. I read about a local legend from my Intrepid guidebook:
“Long ago when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons descended upon what is now Ha Long Bat (hence the name “Bay of Descending Dragons”) and began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form barriers against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam”
On a roadside someone is grilling a dog. Curiously it still looks like a dog, the head or hair has not been removed. It looks like a dog is just having a nap on hot coals. The dogs in Vietnam often look a bit something in between german shepherd, finnish spitz and chow chow. I wonder what dog tastes like.
It is pouring rain when we get to Halong Bay. I finally get to use my umbrella to block the rain rather instead of the hot sun. To our happy surprise, the whole boat will be ours for the whole day and night. There are about ten cabins, a restaurant deck and the roof deck. The boat looks simply amazing, I am hoping the weather will improve so that I can use the deck as well.
Binh Minh, our boat for the day and night
We sail slowly amongst the big carst islands following a long queue of similar tourist boats. On our way we pass several small floating villages and the weather starts to clear up. The waters are calm and it is very relaxing. We drink few beers, sit on the deck and enjoy the quietness after the noise of the big cities.
Our first stop is Sung Sot Caves aka. surprise caves. The cave consists of three separate caves, each of them is bigger than the previous. I tell my friends that the biggest of the caves feels like the Mines of Moria and everyone agrees.
“Speak, friend, and enter”
We are following a stone trail throughout the journey. The caves are steamy and warm. Around me it is quiet and dark, there is also a constant dripping sound. The ceiling looks like it is made of concrete, but I learn that it is actually made by water at the time long ago, when the caves used to be underwater. Some parts of the caves are like Giger’s designs with the alien eggs and some formations are almost like cauliflowers.
Alien eggs.
I see three French couples. The women all carry their newly adopted black haired Vietnamese babies. I assume that the new parents get to spend a while in Vietnam bonding with their new babies before flying back home to Europe. We try to talk to one of the ladies, but she doesn’t speak (or doesn’t want to speak) English with us.
From the top of the caves the views are magnificent and the weather is sunny again.
A view from the top of Sung Cot Caves
We then head to a nearby beach and spend an hour swimming. The water is warm and salty and the views are straight from the postcards.
Swimming in Halong Bay. I am the pink one (again)
We anchor to a bay with other tourist boats and the evening is relaxed and quiet. We have our dinner, and when it gets dark the crew does some fishing. We call it an early night. During the night it starts raining again. I am warm and comfortable in my cabin under my quilts and fall asleep to the thunder rumbling outside.
Hanoi, Koto restaurant, Ho Chi Minh Museum, Hanoi Hilton
At 6am the night train rolls into cool and cloudy Hanoi. The past four days have been boiling and it feels great stepping out to fresh air instead. We leave the luggage in hotel and head to Koto restaurant for breakfast. It is a not-for-profit restaurant and vocational training program that is changing the lives of street and disadvantaged youth in Vietnam. I enjoy the best breakfast I have had during the whole trip by far.
After few mugs of good strong coffee, I am ready to begin exploring the capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Hanoi has been the capital of Vietnam since the 11th century, so I am guessing there will be a lot to explore.
First we head to French quarters. Most of tehe buildings are embassies and classical architectural masterpieces from the French colonial era. When Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) was an ugly concrete, rough, overcrowded and chaotic, Hanoi is green and spacious. It has two lakes, wide French style streets, a charismatic old town and romantic feel to it that I did not expect at all.
We try to get to the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh lies embalmed (in the tradition of Lenin, Stalin and Mao, the final resting place of Ho Chi Minh is a glass sarcophagus). However, it is the first Saturday of the summer holidays, so the queues are already kilometres long – and it is not even nine in the morning yet! I promise myself I will be back another day – it must be worth it.
What Vietnamese do on Saturdays
I am very surprised to see the amount of people queuing to see Uncle Ho and the whole embalming business. My guide tells that Ho Chi Minh wished to be cremated and his ash buried in three different parts; one part in north Vietnam, second to the central and third to South Vietnam. He wrote:
Not only is cremation good from the point of view of hygiene but also it saves farmland.
Instead he gets to lie in his glass coffin in the mausoleum visited by thousands of people every day. This was the choice of the government.
Since uncle Ho has already so many visitors today, we visit Ho Chi Minh Museum instead.
The Ho Chi Minh Museum in Hanoi is the preserver of everything memorable related to the great revolutionist, Ho Chi Minh. The Museum consists of five extensive floors and was inaugurated on 2nd September, 1990, celebrating the 100th birthday occasion of the beloved President.
It turns out to be is by far the oddest museum I have ever visited, as bizarre from outside as it is from inside. It is designed in the shape of a lotus flower “a symbol of President Ho’s noble character”, informs my guide. The building looks very far from lotus flower to me.
A great sample of Russian architecture
Just when I am thinking how the museum feels Russian in its communist style architecture of concrete, marble, wood, gold, dust and dirt, the guide tells me that it IS actually built by Russians.
A huge statue of Ho Chi Minh greets the visitors. Everything inside the museum is also random and unexpected, I am simply in awe. Displays have a message, such as peace, happiness or freedom. The rooms are full of random art and weird sculptures.
Hello and welcome
I have simply no idea how anything inside relates to Hi Chi Minh. Lonely Planet guidebook describes the place quite accurately:
It’s probably worth taking an English-speaking guide, as some of the symbolism is hard to interpret.
Hard? Impossible I would rather say, but everything is funny and inspiring at the same time. The random massive fruits on a wonky table the Alice in Wonderland style are superb, a bizarre car sculpture driving through the wall, a huge brick pipe rising from the ground…
Fruit from a wonky table, anyone?
I seriously do not have an idea what any of these displays mean, but it all is really alternative and very coolindeed. In its Russian acid trip, the museum is irresistibly interesting – whoever planned it was definitely in the zone. The rest of the group doesn’t quite get my excitement, but I would give five stars to it any time.
Me enjoying the Guernica section
Next to the museum lies Chua Mot Cot, a one pillar pagoda built by Emperor Ly Thai Tong (who ruled in 1028-54). It is shaped like a lotus blossom rising from the sea of sorrow and it is meant to have magical powers; praying in front of it will give good luck and a baby son. “If there was a pagoda for Good Men I would definately climb thousand stairs to pray”, tells my Canadian friend to me when she hears this story. According to the legend, Ly Thai Tong was childless and dreamt that he met an eight handed Buddha Avalokiteshvara, who handed him a baby son while sitting a lotus flower. He then married a peasant girl that he had met and she bore him a son. After the son was born Ly Thai Tong built the pagoda.
Most of the women in our tour group rush up the stairs to pray, but I don’t believe praying helps, so I just hang around and watch a married Australian couple from our tour climbing up the stairs together to the pagoda. Whilst praying for a baby boy, the tall husband hits his head to the roof pillar. I can’t stop laughing. I hope that the blow means something good, twins perhaps?
Praying for a baby son
Next stop is a French colonial style presidential palace. It was built by the French in 1906 for the governor general of Indochina. Currently it is held as an administrative office of the Government. Ho Chi Minh never wanted to live there and the story goes: when he came to power and was given this palace to live in, he told people that the place stinks. The servants spent days carefully cleaning it and after the hard work he was then brought into the palace again. Uncle Ho then explained that he had not meant that it stinks because of dirt, but because it smelled of French. Ouch. 
French colonial style presidential palace
Ho Chi Minh had a very ascetic lifestyle and he first chose to live in a small house next to the palace. It had a bedroom, a dining room (display plates were catered for one person only, he never married) and a small office with photos of Karl Marx and Lenin hanging on the wall. The choice of photos is not very surprising.
Ho Chi Minh’s office desk, Karl Marx and Lenin
Later, a small stilt house was built for him, according to his wishes. It is a tiny, beautiful, Japanese style house, which served as his residence 1958-69. It has only two rooms; a bedroom and the office. It overlooks a little pond surrounded by grapefruit trees. I learn that grapefruit was Ho Chi Minh’s favourite fruit. It is very modest residence, but its minimalism feels very good. I think the stilt houses have good vibes, shame the stilt style doesn’t work up in the northern hemisphere. Now that I think of the yearly floods of some parts of England, the stilt houses could actually improve a lifestyle.
Uncle Ho’s one-bedroom stilt house
Ho Chi Minh is a saintlike character. No one in Vietnam criticises him. It is amazing to see the amount of people who are visiting his house, museum and mausoleum every day. I wonder how long this will last. The stories local people tell about him paint a picture of a humble flawless monk-lifestyled saint, who loved his country more than anything else in the world. According to all-knowing Wikipedia:
In Vietnam today, he is regarded by the Communist government with almost god-like status in a nationwide personality cult, even though the government has abandoned most of his economic policies since the mid-1980s.
I continue to the remaining part of the former Hoa Lo prison in the centre of Hanoi – known as Hanoi Hilton by the American POWs during the Vietnam war. The prison was opened in 1896 and was the largest prison of the North Vietnam. Two thirds of the original prison was demolished in 1993 to make way to Hanoi Towers; a huge office, apartment and shopping complex. Times move on.
Hoa Lo prison before the partial demolition
The Hoa Lo prison held Vietnamese political prisoners during the French rule and later American pilots during the Vietnam war. The propaganda photos about the American prisoners are the most interesting part of the exhibition. The prisoners smile to the camera and seem to have great time. The photos don’t match the description I have read about the torturing. My Lonely Planet guide for South-East Asia describes:
Famous prisoners included Pete Peterson, who later became the first US Ambassador of a unified Vietnam in 1995, and Senator John McCain, who cannot raise his arms above his head because of his torture…and tried to commit suicide twice while imprisoned.
The black and white photos taken by Vietnamese photographers demonstrate how well the American prisoners were treated in Hanoi Hilton, just another classy sample of war propaganda. Some of the remaining prison cells had wax characters demonstrating how the prisoners were chained together.
This is how prisoners were chained in Hoa Lo
I walk around Hoan Kiem lake (Lake of the Restored Sword). Everything is sunny, green and beautiful. Another legend is related to the lake and its funny name: In the mid-15th century, Emperor Ly Thai To was given a magical sword from heaven to fight away the Chinese from Vietnam. He succeeded and one day while boating out, a giant golden tortoise emerged, grabbed the sword and disappeared into the depths of the lake giving the sword back to its divine owner. It is beautiful, but I don’t see any turtles 
A bridge leading to an island, Hoan Kiem lake, Hanoi
In the evening our group gathers together for a dinner in a famous Hanoi restaurant Cha Ca La Vong, restaurant that only serves fried fish cooked in one specific way. The restaurant hasn’t changed its menu for over 150 years. I learn that the restaurant not only has maintained its menu that long, but that it has become so well established and so famous that the whole street has been named after it.
The food is great! Before going back to the hotel, we stop to Fanny’s ice cream bar by Hoan Kiem Lake. Things could not be better.
Scooter tour, Thien Mu Pagoda, Emperor’s tomb, Boat trip on Perfume river, night train to Hanoi
I wake up feeling rubbish from last night’s King’s dinner and am tempted to pass today’s optional programme, a scooter trip through the countryside. But once again, everyone else is chirpy and ready to go, so I gather my strength and hop on a scooter.
It is another hot and sunny morning in Vietnam. I am already sweating at nine o’clock, when we make a stop in the rice fields. The farmers have already been working for quite a while, by their looks of it. They are covered from head to toe, you can see hardly any skin from under the layers of clothing… and the temperature is nearing +30c.
Working in rice fields.
This specific area of Vietnam gets two rice crops a year. It is the time of the harvest; the water has already been pumped out of the fields, the rice has been cut and it is now being piled and taken out from the fields to dry.
Rice closeup
Both rice and hay are dried the same way, left to dry on the side of the roads. We ride our scooters over countless piles of drying layers of hay. I assume people spread the hay on the road in the morning and in the evening it is all dry and ready to be swept away to the storage rooms. Sometimes I see car tracks that have messed a pile of rice, but I assume the roadside is generally good and safe place for drying rice.
It is the last school day before the summer holidays and a local school is giving prizes to every child before they are free to vanish for couple of months. The kids are all dressed in their best clothing and look very beautiful. We stop to watch the ceremony and the children all get distracted and yell ‘Hello’ to us.
Last school day before summer holidays.
The kids still have a long day ahead, so we jump back on the scooters and head to a local market. The weather is too hot for me, so instead of walking around I go look for a shadow and find a spot under a decorated bridge. An old fragile lady possibly in her seventies is sitting next to me. She weights probably 40 kilos, she is dressed in beautiful pink silk costume and unlike most women in Vietnam she is wearing makeup. She must have been a real beauty once. She opens a conversation telling me the bridge is 230 years old. I nod. Then she asks if I want my future told to me for a dollar. Great deal.
My future:
“In a year you will find a man. He is 36 years old when you meet, educated, most likely a doctor. In two years you are married and you will be in together and in love for the next 35 years. You will have two children; a girl and a boy. (There will be another man involved tho, which I don’t quite know how that will work). You will have good income of money and you will die happily in your sleep as an old woman.”
Fortunes under the bridge.
Vietnamese dreams? I hope I will be older than 100 when I die, because I have great plans for my 100th birthday.
We ride along the narrow roads between the rice fields made of 2×2 meter concrete blocks. I remember East Germany used the same method to build roads. On both sides of the road people are busy working on the rice fields. Our next stop is a conical hat workshop. They are seen everywhere in Vietnam and one size fits all. They are waxed so they last in rain, they can be used as fans, they can be sat on – a least if you are light and Vietnamese and don’t sit on them the cone side up J
A layer of palm leaves being placed on the bamboo frame.
The conical hats are handmade using dried palm leaves, bamboo frame and fishing thread. First the dried leaves are ironed on a heated bomb fragment, “it’s the cheapest way, because there are so many bomb fragments left in Vietnam” explains our guide. It takes four hours to make one hat from scratch and one hat usually lasts less than three months in use.
Every area in Vietnam has its own unique fashion style; in The Hue area only two layers of leaves are used instead of three, which makes the hats lighter. Between the two layers, there is a layer of dyed newspaper with cut out figures, unique only to this area.
The cutouts between the layers show beautifully when the hat is placed against light.
When the conical hat is put against the light, the little paper figurines show darker against the hat. The cut out figures epresent a local poem. Unfortunately I can’t get me a conical hat, because I still got six weeks of travelling ahead of me. No hat can last that long on the road.
When the palm leaves have been attached to the model, the hats are sown together using fishing thread. This is by far the longest part of the process.
We continue on the scooters to an incense stick stall on the Hue roadside where we get to try how the incense sticks are made. The process looks straight forward – a big lump of soft raw incense, tool to flatten it, few bamboo sticks and a table. The girl who is making them is probably just over ten years old, but she can make 3000 incense sticks a day.
Making 3000 sticks a day…
vs. making one long incense stick a day.
When the tour members get try to make incense sticks themselves, I find out that it looks much easier than what it really is.
When we stop to a Tu Duc tomb. It is midday and sun is high. The scooters bring a temporary relief, but immediately when we stop, I start sweating like I have never sweated before. The scooter drivers dose in the shade when we go walking. I am forced to hold an umbrella to block the sun. I feel like Professor Calculus from Tintin, but the heat is unbearable without it. The tomb of Emperor Tu Duc was constructed 1864-67 and served as a second imperial city, where the emperor, who reigned from 1848-1883 came for relief from his duties. He was tiny so all the statues in the tomb were made tiny. Kings and their big egoes. To our surprise the emperor was never buried to the tomb. The reason he was not buried in this location is that he was afraid of grave robbers, and looks like he had a point; the French colonists dug open the floor to search for his treasures, and that is why the floor tiling around the grave is mismatching.
An empty tomb of king Tu Duc. No one knows where he got buried in the end.
We have our lunch in a nearby nunnery. The food is all vegetarian and it is the best lunch I have had during the trip. The nunnery is quiet and the air is cool on the contrast for the weather outside. The swallows are the only creatures making noise, it is peaceful and quiet. We see few young female nun trainees and their haircuts look more punk than nun to me. When I ask why they are only partly shaven, I hear that their heads will be fully shaven only when they are no longer apprentices. We leave them to have a nap and move on.
A delicious vegetarian lunch in a local nunnery.
The last stop before returning to Hue city stands a pagoda called Thien Mu, where the famous monk The most venerable Thich Quang Duc used to study. He is remembered for the famous photo of him burning himself alive as a protest of the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated cross the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diem regime and the iconic photo of the monk’s death won the Pulitzer Prize.
The famous photograph of the burning monk on the wall behind the car.
The sign states: “In this car The Most Venerable Thich Quang Duc went from An Quang Pagoda to the intersection of Phan dinh Phung street and Le van Duyel street on June 11, 1963 in Saigon. As soon as he got out of the car, The Most Venerable sat down in the lots position and burnt himself to death to protest against the Ngo Dinh Diem regime’s policies of discriminating against Buddhists and violating religious freedom.” Curiously, his heart remained unburned and is held in a museum.
We return to the city by boat, grab our rucksacks from the hotel and take a SE4 train from Hue railway station. It takes 12 ½ hours traveling through the DMZ to Hanoi. I love sleeping in the trains. We are staying in the first class, four people per room. We leave before a dinner and our evening meal consists of white bread, jam and beer. See the ‘happy’ faces below.
A beer, jam and bread dinner on the night train.
I fall asleep dreaming of being inside a dragon, listening to Ipod and the rhytm of a train. It is great being on the road again.
Marble Mountains, Hai Van Pass, Hue, The Imperial Palace, King’s dinner
The Internet is still not working and I am getting used to it. I am dehydrated from the overwhelming heat of Hoi An; There is no breeze and as beautiful as the old city is, it is completely unaccessible to me with its burning 35 degrees Celsius. The rest of the tour group has picked up their newly tailored clothes and they have made great bargains. The tailoring has surpassed everyones’ expectations and the tour bus to Hue is full of happy people.
On the way we stop to a Buddhist temple and cave complex called Marble Mountains, (“Five elements mountains”) on a hilltop next to a town full of for stone carving factories and stalls. Big Buddha statue is guiding the entrance and touching his big belly brings one good luck.
Touch my belly for luck!
The caves are dark and cool and beautiful smell of incense in the air. Outside it is about thousand degrees, the weather just doesn’t seem to get any cooler. This area was hectic during the Vietnam war, Viet Cong dropped 19 B-52 bombers in this area alone. I hear that there are good local surfing beaches and Viet Cong was watching Americans soldiers surfing from the distance. They must have been quite puzzled by the sight.
Tour members stand mesmerised inside the Marble Mountain cave.
We drive past Danang, a city that replaced Hoi An as a primary shopping and trading area in the last century. I see the first big department stores during my trip. There are numerous shops selling luxury four-wheel drives. The city is prosperous and feels very western. “Hro Crew” advertises a big silver coloured graffiti on the brick wall.
I watch the local advertisements and spot my first – and hopefully last – David Beckham poster. Mostly the ads have text but no image. Sometimes a rubbish clip art. Signs on the road sides advertise well equipped Hung Thinh, chilled Mr Bong, Buddha lookalike Mr Phat and the local beggar Bin Bin.
The buss climbs up to the mountains and on the highest point called Hai Van Pass we stop for a walk. In the history of Vietnam, the pass has long been an obstacle on the north-south road of Vietnam. Currently it is the base for the most professional hawkers I have seen during my trip. They are very forceful ladies and some group members have really tough time getting rid of them. Usually in Vietnam people behave well and do not get too aggressive, but these ladies are really tough and annoying. I end up buying the ugliest set of postcards I have ever seen just to get rid of one.
The ugliest postcard in the world. I will find a victim to send it to.
We arrive to Hue in the afternoon. The Hue Festival is beginning in few days time and the city is beautiful, decorated and buzzing. Kites, lanterns, paper lotuses, the city is transforming to a magic.
We take the taxis to the Imperial City, a citadel that used to be the royal palace and the home of the Vietnamese Kings. It was badly bombed in the Vietnam War, America held it 30 January – 3 March 1968. I remember hearing that the film Full Metal Jacket is taking place in Hue.
Inside the gates of the Imperial City
Vietnam was a kingdom until Ho Chi Minh came in power in 1954. Inside the Imperial castle I visit the althars dedicated to every king that ruled Vietnam. When uncle Ho became the president, he asked the last king Bao Dai to work as his advisor. The king only stayed for a year before returning to the exile in France. He died in 1997 and has two children who still both live in France. I learn interesting facts about the previous kings: Because of the fear of assassination, no one was allowed to see what the king look like. So when king entered the room, everyone bowed their head. If one looked up, he got his head chopped off. Better not to take a peek .
A phone booth looking guardian post. Superman would find it useful
The Royal palace is located in the middle of the Imperial city. The Hue area was tactically a great choice for a citadel because of the hills both north and south and a river running across it. No women expect the concubines were allowed to live in the city. Wikipedia defines concubinage as “the state of a woman or youth in an ongoing, quasi-matrimonial relationship with a man of higher social status.” The life of concubine sounds like one dull job. Every king had hundreds of concubines brought to the palace as virgins. They lived in the palace in a complete separation from the world. Every night one of them got to accompany the king for the night.The job of the eunuch was to choose who got to spend the night with the king, and therefore the concubines were bribing them, everyone hoped to have a son with the king.
Queen Mother’s house in the Imperial Palace.
The concubines did not get to leave their house inside the royal palace. They spent their days embroidering, singing, dancing, chilling and looking pretty and their only aim was to get pregnant and bear a son to the king. They did not study and they did not have any political power. When the king died, he was buried to a tomb and all the concubines moved to the tomb with him and lived the rest of their lives there.
King obviously had loads of sons and daughters and when they became older they were all given a piece of land and sent out of the palace. So being a prince or princess didn’t mean one got to spend all their life in the palace. There simply was not enough room.
I learn the four sacred animals of Vietnam and their meanings. A dragon symbolises the king and all the king’s houses had dragons carved on the roof. Phoenix represents the beauty and the queen. Every house that belongs to the queen has phoenixes encarved to them. Unicorn is the symbol of the wisdom and turtle represents the longetivity. I do not know if the eastern unicorn is the same horned horselike creature I know of – it seems to look more like a dragon to me.
Dragon with pearl in his mouth. The symbol of the king.
Later in the evening we take part in an organised event called King’s Dinner. I was not very keen on joining, because the weather has been boiling the whole day, and because I simply think it sounds crap, but everyone else is eager to go, so I tag along. First a king and queen for the evening are chosen who get to eat their dinner together in separate table above their people. A princess, eunuch and warlord sit in the main table near the king and the rest of us are …sigh… concubines.
Me dressed up as a concubine.
This evening turns so bad it is quite funny. We are first given the costumes and then ordered to stand in line. We march upstairs to a small room of an empty restaurant, where we get a separate room of our own. A band plays for us whilst we settle to our table. The setting is very kitch and when the food is brought to the table, it all looks like nothing I have seen so far. The meal is set up in a royal manner, I guess, with carved birds and decorations. The band plays throughout the meal and after every song we clap like school kids. The last song played is ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and when it starts, we all crack up. When the meal, we are rushed to pay and to get out. It was the most expensive meal of the trip but I guess that is what you get for participating the royal meal.
The tour group after King’s dinner.
Cua Dai Beach, Hoi An, Cooking course
It is too late to get a tailored costume made, because I missed my chance yesterday whilst sitting in the bathtub. Instead I head to a nearby Cua Dai Beach with my American friends and I get much more attention from the hawkers than I do if I go somewhere alone. We get ripped off in the local taxi both directions and the salesmen on the beach simply do not let us alone at all. I realise that my rubbish no-makeup, permanent bad hair day look is very useful; the more elegant Americans get harassed more. On the other hand, with my current rubbish looks I will end up a spinster.
My American friends are having a swim I practice my haggling skills on the beach. I end up buying an anklet and a bracelet from a Vietnamese lady covered under three layers of clothing. And I am sweating wearing a bikini. Vietnamese people cover their faces from the sun to avoid getting any darker and they wear clothes that cover the whole skin. How the women can survive all clothed up in the burning sun I do not have an idea. When she finally sighs and agrees to my price she tells me: “American lady bought two and she paid more than double, much nicer shopping with her”, I tell her that American lady definitely has way more than double my travel budget.
I go swimming under a blue sky and a burning sun. The water is crystal clear, sand white and fine small fish swimming in the bottom. A local diver surfaces a huge bag full of shells in his back. I admire the fish when a big jellyfish floats past me. I regret not studying which ones are dangerous and which are not, but I feel a bit alerted after seeing it. If I was in Australia, it definitely would have been poisonous, because everything in Australia is poisonous or lethal Afterwards I hear from locals that jellyfish here in Vietnam are harmless.
I get asked all the time where I come from and what my age is. When they hear my age they all think I am younger, which is good. On the other hand, in Vietnam, the older you are, the more respect you get. When you serve anything to an older person in Vietnam, remember to use both your hands. It is a sign of respect.
Vietnamese people touch me a lot, and they find my pale skin interesting. I do not like the touching, but it is something that one has to get used to. Western beauty ideal seems to be landing here in a rapid speed. I hear that in Vietnam white skin is trendy and they use loads of skin bleaching products. All the deodorants and skin moisturisers are advertised as ‘skin whitening’. How the whitening chemically work – or if it works, I don’t know, but it sure doesn’t sound like a comfortable process. Jacko would know more about that.
Talking about beauty, I chatted with my Vietnamese tour guide about the traditional Vietnamese beautiful female costume and how I wouldn’t mind getting me one. She took one look at me and said that they only look good on skinny people. Touché!
In another occasion, she said that she has heard that in America some people find fat people attractive and she doesn’t understand that at all I told her that in another ten years one cannot fit a whole Vietnamese family on one scooter anymore. Haha. And talking about scooters – my Cambodian tour guide told a joke few days ago:
Q: Why do Vietnamese boys kiss their girlfriends one eye open?
A: They are keeping an eye on their scooter.
Scooter thefts are big indeed. Foreigners are not allowed to buy a scooter in Vietnam. People want to do scooter tourism (no idea why, tho, the traffic is horrid) and have witnessed countless scams from people. You simply cannot leave a scooter out of sight if it is not guarded at all times. 35 million scooters create loads of possible thieves looking for spare parts. Funny.
In the evening I participate in a Vietnamese cooking course in a local ‘Hong Phuc’ restaurant. I am a rubbish cook, so I am very excited to learn to cook something that tastes nice. Tonight we will make several courses consisting of:
- Deep fried vegetarian spring rolls
- Grilled fish in banana leaves
- Stir fried squid with lemongrass, garlic and chilli
- Deep fried wontons with vegetable oil and sweet and sour vegetables
The recipes attached below for adventurous people with their original typos:
We gather around a big table and the fresh ingredients are put in front of us. First I grind spices, next round I get to cut squid, then I grate vegetables and all the time I can see what people around me are doing. In the end we take all the materials to the kitchen in the back of the restaurant where the leading matron shows how the food is cooked correctly.
Our cooking teacher tells us that Vietnamese restaurants often use MSG (Monosodium glutamate) in the food processing. Some people in the trip have complained about mysterious headaches and suspect the common MSG additives might be causing them. The food I have eaten during the trip is much better than my cooking so I get less headaches than when eating my own stuff. The food we make during the cooking class is absolutely fabulous.
Well, it tastes even better, because I skipped my lunch saving myself for the evening, but the cooking class definitely is an investment worth while. Check out the first big fat springroll I rolled myself. Quality.
Hoi An, Money tips for Vietnam
Early morning again. The bus is outside waiting and I get to leave the dungeon room. Someone has managed to repair the internet overnight: for the first time the wifi is working. And I am leaving. We head to Ho Chi Minh airport and take an internal flight to Danang. From there we take another bus and drive to the city called Hoi An known for its superior tailoring services.
Hoi An, Originally known as Fai Fo, was founded as a port in the 15th century and established as a trading center dealing with merchants from China, Japan, Holland, France and Portugal. Some of the traders even settled in the town, building houses, pagodas and other monument. The town remained a flourishing and very busy port until the 19th century at which time it was eclipsed by nearby Danang as a center of commerce (Intrepid guidebook). It has currently about 88 000 inhabitants.
We arrive to our hotel after the midday and the town is already boiling hot. The temperature is in +35 celsius, the sky is bright blue, there is no shade from the sun and no breeze. We have a lunch in a restaurant and I suddenly realise I cannot understand anyone’s talking anymore. My body is shutting down. My American friends tell me to go dip my head to the sink and by doing that I manage to finish my lunch. But when we take a walk around the city after the lunch I start seeing things. It is like the scene from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly when Clint Eastwood is walking through the desert without the water. When other people go get measured for tailoring and are getting new clothes specially tailored for them, I am fighting to get back to the hotel.
I reach the hotel (I don’t quite remember how) and go straight to the bath tub for cold bath. The water is not cold enough and every part of my skin burns. It is not sunburn but deeper heat. I pour the cool water over me and sit in the tub for an hour semiconcious, then lie under air conditioning for the rest of the day. An hour under the sun in +35 degrees has completely destroyed my body’s heating system.
In the evening I join the rest of the group for the dinner in a local restaurant called Hoi An Cargo Club. I can only eat salad and ice cream, I cannot bear the thought of eating anything hot. When we leave the premises, a peculiar thing happens. I am still dizzy for the heat stroke so I am not following carefully, but this teaches me to be careful from now on: four of us have paid our shared bill, I watch two of us counting the notes. They say the money is more than enough and put the money in the notebook style of bill. One of us hands it to the waiter. When I leave the restaurant but get pulled back in. A big sum of the money has gone missing. So, either my friends (two of them!) counted the money wrong, the money vanished on the way to waiter or the waiter took part of the money and claimed it was not there. There is no way to prove the missing money was there at the first place so it turned not to be a cheap dinner after all.
Few money saving tips for people travelling in Vietnam. I am quite tired of the haggling and being cheated everywhere, but it is just the way the tourists get treated. I am learning slowly, but it is getting easier every day:
- Make sure that when you pay the bill, you will see that the money doesn’t get lost on the way to cashier. Cargo Club dinner incident taught me that.
- When asking for price of a product, never accept the first price. Start by offering around 40% of that. There is loads of air in the first offer. Decide what the maximum sum is that you are willing to pay, and if that offer gets refused, simply walk away. In most cases you get called back. In any case you can always come back later and give a new offer if you are interested.
- Never accept a service without knowing how much it will cost you – always find out the sum beforehand. In taxis make sure to use the meter (even though there are dodgy taxis who have really quick meters…)
- It is often good to ask how much it costs to buy two items instead of one
Chu Chi tunnels, Cyclo tour, War Remnants Museum
The second part of the Cambodia-Vietnam tour begins from Ben Duoc tunnels, part of the Cu Chi tunnel complex. We leave 7am to avoid the rush hour I hear, but where these millions of scooters already on the roads come from, I have no idea. We are already stuck in the traffic.
Ben Duoc Tunnel is a part of Cu Chi Tunnel system 70 km Northwest of Ho Chi Minh City. It is located in an area known as the Iron Triangle used by Viet Cong guerrilla soldiers during the Vietnam War. Viet Cong fought the United States and the South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959-75). The photo below shows guerrilla outfits that consist of a hat, a black outfit, a square patterned scarf and black sandals.
Parts of the tunnels existed already before Vietnam war, the build began in 1948 so that the French opposing Viet Minh could hide from French air and ground sweeps. Website www.cuchitunnel.org.vn.
Cu Chi is a system of tunnels deeply underground, with several floors, a labyrinth of intricate ways and windings over 200 km long, with specific sections for accommodations, meetings, hospitals, kitchens etc. The tunnels allowed Viet Cong to move seamlessly from Cambodia to the coast – they even managed to enter American bases in Saigon.
The leaflet describes: “The tunnel embodies the undaunted will, intelligence, and pride of Chu Chi people, a symbol of Vietnamese revolutionary heroism … tourists should visit Cu Ch Tunnel to learn about our long and arduous struggle, and understand our profound and true aspirations for peace, independence, and living forever in prosperity and happiness.” Ah the bold choice of words A revealed entrance to the tunnels below.
We begin the tour watching a black and white Vietnamese propaganda film that generously credits the heroism of Viet people during the war. It could use a lot of After Effects treatment. We learn more about the tunnel structures. They were dug at night, because Americans only attacked in the morning. The tunnels were divided to three different floors. Biggest rooms for accommodation and living were on the top and lower levels were used for fighting and escaping. The tunnels had not a single mastermind architect. Instead they designed by many different people. Only around ten people operated a certain area and there was not a map of the tunnels to prevent Americans using the tunnels in case they got hold of the map.
The tunnels were designed to last monsoon rains with deep empty wells gathering the rainwater. They had air vents that made sure air would not run out. When I see the first tunnel and get to try how it feels to use the tunnels I am puzzled. They are tiny. I had thought they would be big enough to quickly run from place to place, but they are only about 80 cm wide and 120cm high. I go and walk 20 meters of the tunnel. Inside it is dark, air is bad, I can’t straighten my back. I am wondering who would freely want to live in a place like this. I hear about a soldier who lived five straight years underground. His eyes never returned to normal, he is still alive but can’t see much.
We see a kitchen has with cooking facilities where smoke is taken far from the oven with the pipes. When people cooked at night, the smoke blended to the fog of the rain forest. I see traps that the Viet Cong set to stop soldiers and they are like from Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones; klipping armpit trap, rolling trap, window trap, folding chair trap, door trap… Viet cong used the remains of the bombs dropped by American airplanes, melted the metal and made traps out of the material.
I hear stories how the entrances were always covered in bad smelling areas, because Americans avoided them. I hear how the American trained sniffer dogs that smelled the air vents were fooled by making Viet Cong soldiers using American soap for washing and therefore smelling American. There were also special trained soldiers called Tunnel rats, who were fighting Viet Cong in the tunnels. Brave and extremely dangerous because of the number of booby traps that varied from poison gas to snakes and scorpions.
Viet cong soldiers were craving for the American food ratios, because their own food wasn’t as good ( I get to try the tea made of local tree and the local sweet potato, I think they taste quite good. I decline the rice whisky, because it is not even 11am in the morning). I also get to see how the rice wrapper for spring rolls is made.
To fight against an enemy fighting in its own territory and knows it throughout, an enemy who uses the hot rain forest environment as a hideout, who appears and disappears without a trace… I wouldn’t have survived a day. It feels like fighting Predator, you don’t easily get to see who you are fighting against. The Viet Cong guerrillas managed to create such an ingenious system that they could have kept on fighting in there for years and years on.
In the afternoon we take a cyclo tour around the city. The monsoon rain is pouring down and the streets and I sit in my little nest under the covers listening to the rain hitting the canopy and feeling sorry for the bike rider who has to paddle through the wet roads. First we stop to see the gorgeous Post Office, designed by Gustave Eiffel you might have heard about – yes, the post office has curved steel structure.
Then we continue to visit the War Remnants museum dedicated to the Vietnam war. The rain is pouring down.
The museum was opened to the public in September 1975 and it studies, collects, preserves and displays exhibits on war and what it caused for Vietnamese people. It gets more than 400 000 visitors every year. Once again, when watching the black and white photos of the western papers it all feels so pointless. Sending American boys to fight in the jungles, badly or completely untrained, fighting against invisible enemy, it is nasty to look at the result. I learn that during the Vietnam war 3 million Vietnamese were killed, 2 million injured and 300,000 went missing (Vietnamese died in the both sides of the war). According to all knowing WikipediaThe US-supported Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) casualties are 314,000 dead and 1,490,000 wounded.
A distant relative of mine was a fighter pilot in Vietnam war and his plane was shot down. I have two American friends, whose fathers have been in Vietnam. When I visited their homes, I did not dare to ask about the war, but it is the biggest trauma of that generation.
Tour guide tells that people always ask her how Vietnamese feel about the war. She says people think it is a mistake and a bad thing in the past, but it is time to look forward and enjoy peace and prosperity.
Ho Chi Minh tour, Buddhist wisdom, New tour group
I have become good friends with a Californian couple from Berkeley, Oakland, also participating the whole tour from Bangkok to Hanoi. They are very smart and intelligent, well traveled and know many interesting things. The wife is a painter and the husband has recently sold his own restaurant, and now enjoys DIY and retirement. When they ask me if I would like to join them for a day to see Ho Chi Minh City with their local Vietnamese friend I am thrilled.
After a miserable search for breakfast (I only know hello, thank you and sorry in Vietnamese), our guide Hao picks us up from the hotel. He has a big car and a driver – in a city like Ho Chi Minh City a personal driver is probably the best investment money can buy. We hop into the car and go for a proper breakfast. A typical Vietnamese breakfast is a hot soup called pho, and after a bowl of hot soup and a cup of coffee we all feel ready to hit the city.
Ho Chi Minh city is the largest city in Vietnam with more than six million inhabitants. It only has about 300 years of history. We begin our tour in the big market called Ben Thanh in the downtown area in District 1. I have tasted many delicious fruits during the past few weeks, but still cannot believe the amount of different fruit available I have never tasted before. When we walk through the cloth stalls, I get to tell a lot about Finland to the Vietnamese saleswomen, who keep on dragging me into their stalls. They are all very interested in how much snow we had in Finland this winter.
Travelling in Asia requires wearing modest clothes; tops that cover the shoulders and bottoms that go below knees. I have specifically chosen comfortable and old clothing with me to avoid attention. Miraculously these ladies quickly manage to find from their stalls similar clothings to mine, they must assume I really like my ugly washed out style a lot.
We also visit a wholesale market area where I see a Vietnamese lorry (picture below).
It is not the time of the huge department stores in Ho Chi Minh City yet. People still buy their goods from small wholesalers. Similar businesses gather to same area. We go past textile stalls, hardware stalls, lantern stalls. Our guide teaches that every household runs a business in the ground floor. When there is enough money the family builds a new floor on top of the previous one. I wonder how the foundation of the flat likes this system but that is why the city looks so random, next to a two-storey bilding there is a five storey one. When business is good the building grows.
Our guide says it is a good time to travel to Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh city now. He estimates that in the next ten years the rugged and harsh edge of the city will be gone and American chain business have taken over. Mc Donald’s has not landed yet – and talking about the fast food, I have not seen fat people in Vietnam, everyone is slender. In Europe and Australia I am not tall nor heavy. I am almost 5’3’’ and weight close to 60 kilos. In here I am more the size of a Vietnamese man than a woman, an average Vietnamese woman is about ten kilos lighter than me, which makes me feel huge.
Our guide left Vietnam in the age of 16, lived in several different European countries for ten years and later about twenty years in the USA. He had a successful career in the Silicon Valley and he saw the raise of computers. He even worked together with Steve Jobs in Apple, and later in Sun Microsystems. He saw computer business before the graphic operating systems happened, when it was all about the punch cards. He also worked with Apple Lisa a personal computer with a graphic interface designed at Apple Computer. Not a bad CV.
One day he realised he had had it with the hi tech business. He had ran out of the interest and was tired of long working days (…aren’t we all familiar with those…) and realised it didn’t interest him anymore. He wanted to move to something that does make a real change. And he also said that he wanted to be able to retire before turning 45.
He packed his bags and moved back to Vietnam. When I asked why back in the, he said it is much easier to start a new business in Vietnam than in the USA. Now he runs a company that makes eco-friendly bamboo furniture produced with a method that doesn’t cause global warming. The factory uses bamboo, because it is is a fast growing local material growing up to a meter in a day. Currently loads of rain forest both in Vietnam and the surrounding countries, most famously Indonesia, gets cut for the industry. Hao said that all his business is environmentally friendly and no toxic glues or wasteful resources are used in production. Most of the exported goods go to Europe (France, Israel, Germany, UK) and smaller amounts to Australia and USA.
We have lunch in a really exciting restaurant Quan An Ngon. Rather than once central kitchen, the place has a row of independently-operated food stalls that specialise to one type of food only. When people order, the waiters go and get the food from that specific stall. Hao is treating us with mouthwatering Vietnamese specialities. For the first time in my trip I try desserts – I have always been too full after the main course to try one, but this time I won’t miss my chance. The desserts called Chè are unbelievably good liquid desserts, prepared with beans and rice, cooked in water and sweetened with sugar.Accents are missing from the following two dishes, but Chet Hoi Nuoc – bean balls in coconut milk sauce and Com Ruou - the one with alcohol are my picks of the day. The Vietnamese food is simply fabulous.
We continue to local art galleries, which mostly seems to copy European masters’ famous works. Numerous reproductions of Chagall, Rothko, Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Klimt, Lichtenstein… I even spot a reproduction of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. In one of the galleries I see how the factory works, there are several unfinished similar paintings. Note the size of the chairs, Vietnamese love their tiny chairs.
Couple of galleries have amazing paintworks done with a technique I am not familiar with called lacquer. Even after reading from Wikipedia, I still don’t quite know how it is made.
We stop to a Buddhist temple. Hao looks at me and says I have the high tech media problem. He predicts that one day I will get the same urge he did, to move to something that has more purpose. We are standing on the steps of a big Buddhist temple and I ask him what I can do to stress less and find more point in things I do.
He tells me: “Stop, breath, smile.”
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