From Vietnam to Cambodia over the Mekong Delta

My return to Ho Chi Minh City was really just to sign up for a tour into the Mekong Delta that would also end up taking me into Cambodia. I figure that it would be easier to do the border as a group than on my own. Plus, if I did it on my own, I still wanted to do the Mekong Delta and that would require coming back into Ho Chi Minh City anyways.

My time in HCMC was pretty laid back. I spent much of my time kicking back in the Vietnam version of Starbucks, Highlands Coffee. Iced coffee was amazing there and I ended up getting lots done on my Geocaching KMZ file(still not done but it’s building slowly). I was in the city when Vietnam beat Laos to win their Grouping in the Southeast Asia Games for football. I also took in a traditional Vietnamese Water Puppet show. I had no idea what was happening but it was still cute and fun.

Vietnamese Water Puppet Theater

What A “Hue” to Get Around

A long, and rather gruelling, 14-hour overnight bus ride from Hanoi brought me back into Hue. The last time I was here I only stayed for a day and a half as I was with Frank and Po at the time. This time I was alone, in a private room hotel. As I had already seen the Citadel the last time around, I decided to skip that, rent a bicycle for a few days, and take in the Royal Tombs that lay just south of the city.

The Capital Often Overlooked

**I am going to try something new with the photos on my blog, making them bigger in the first place so you don’t have to click for a larger image. Please let me know if you prefer this or the previous way I did things**

Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. Even though it is also the second largest city in the country, few people seem to come to Hanoi for little more than to escape to either Ha Long Bay or Sapa, or both. There are plenty of museums(none of which I actually went to) and things to see, but the two outer excursions tend to overshadow the city.

I found myself drawn into Hanoi as a place to relax before and in-between my trips into Ha Long Bay and Sapa. And with the help of an iPod app, I managed to meet a couple really cool guys to hang out with on my down time.

The Minority Villages of Sapa

Besides Ha Long Bay, Hanoi is a great jumping off point to explore the highlands around Sapa. Every hotel and hostel and guesthouse in the capital city are falling over each other to sell you tours to both these places. And while it could be argued that to really see Ha Long Bay with ease, one must go with a tour, Sapa can just as easily be done while on your own as on a tour. I opted to go for a tour as I was unsure of the ease of doing a homestay in the villages surrounding Sapa town on my own. And the homestay is essential I think to really get a feel for the area, and to see even more than you would.

Ha Long Bay

Ignoring, for a moment, the justifiable controversy surrounding the selection of the “New 7 Wonders,” Ha Long Bay still stands out as an amazing place. Of the seven places that have been named onto the new list, this one is one of the few that is actually deserving of the title in my opinion. I had already done a one day tour of the UNESCO World Heritage Site with Po and Frank a few days earlier and it’s very apparent that four and a half hours is not nearly enough to really appreciate the beauty of the area. So, with that in mind, I set out to book a three day, two night tour of the bay.

Latching Onto Strangers

I feel kinda bad about my last post where I pretty much slammed the town of Dalat. At least it seemed that way. I was more slamming the tour I was on. Dalat itself seemed like a cute little town. I know the one thing that stuck out in my mind was how clean the lake in the middle of the town looked and how well groomed the walking trails were. Perhaps if I had gone to Dalat with a better attitude I would’ve enjoyed the town more. Check out Dyanne’s blog, the geocacher I had met in Sapa, for a better idea about Dalat once she moves there to teach English.

Leaving Dalat was an adventure in itself. The bus was . . . run down to say the least. Fumes filled it for the 4+ hour drive to Nha Trang where I had already reserved my seat on the bus to Hoi An. I would only have an hour changeover to make that bus. When the bus heading to Nha Trang pulled over with a flat tire, things looked dire.

Haha, I just rhymed!

Disinterested in Dalat

I left Nha Trang in a pretty down mood having had money stolen from right beside me on the beach. I had already booked a quick little trip into Dalat already so I was just happy to be getting away to maybe clear my head and get less angry at the people around the beach. I had purposely left Dalat off my Open Tour Ticket as I was getting many mixed reports on the bad weather it was having(i.e.//non-stop rain). When I got to Nha Trang, I checked again and it looked like there would be a slight break in the weather long enough for me to check it out.

Statistics and You

Vietnam has really hit the mark when it comes to [pandering? helping?] tourists. Case in point is the plethora of options available with their “Open Tour Bus” routes. These buses are a hop on, hop off style bus ticket. You purchase a ticket with a certain number of stops and go at your own pace, reserving your seat the day before leaving. I ended up booking my ticket through The Sinh Tourist.

That in itself is an interesting story as The Sinh Tourist, formerly The Sinh Cafe, was the original company to offer this. And they did so with such professionalism, and gained such a good reputation, that dozens upon dozens of imitators sprung up. And without any sort of major copyright law, they all had the same name too. Finding the real Sinh Cafe/Sinh Tourist proved to be a challenge, but I managed. And for only $23 I got a four stop ticket from Ho Chi Minh City, stopping in Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi.

First stop: Nha Trang.

City of Motorbike Madness

With my non-visa visa for Thailand about to expire, I had to make a decision as to where I was going to go to next. Was I going to go into Cambodia first and go overland through to Vietnam and into Laos, or start in Vietnam first? Even now I’m not entirely sure why I chose to head to Ho Chi Minh City first, but I did.

I landed, interestingly enough, on the day that news broke back home that Bangkok was flooding(it wasn’t yet, but media tends to hype these things up ahead of time). Without a proxy server on my computer to access Facebook, I had a friend, who informed me of Bangkok’s plight, to let people know that I wasn’t actually there anymore. The wonders of technology!

War and Religion in Western Vietnam

One of the most popular, and common, day trips out of Saigon(aka Ho Chi Minh City) is a quick tour of the infamous Cu Chi Tunnels and the Cao Dai Temple. Although, in retrospect, the Cao Dai temple is really only a popular/common trip as it is usually rolled up in the same package tour as the Tunnels.

It is an interesting mix of sites when you think about it. First you have the wonder and curiosity of a religion that mixes many different major religions into one. Then you have a sobering tour through a major Viet Cong stronghold from the Vietnam-America War. I don’t think it would be too bold of me to say that it was this area that really began the slow loss of the war by the Americans. And it gives an interesting insight into some of the thoughts of the locals.