Saigon, Ba Vi, Da Nang, and Beyond

Hello all. As of today I have a little less than 2 weeks left here in Vietnam. It's been a crazy, fun and eventful time here and I have really enjoyed it. It's been a great experience and I have learned lots about both Vietnam and myself here. This will be my last blog entry, and so I'll try to make it worthwhile.

The last thing that I talked about was Sa Pa. Two weeks after that my colleague Nathan and I flew down to Saigon to meet with some fellow SALTers from Cambodia. This was everyone's first time in Saigon except for me, though last time I hadn't enjoyed it very much due to being sick. This time however it was great. We toured the city one day, went to the Cu Chi tunnels another, and spent the last day just enjoying the city and going to the zoo. We saw some amazing roller-bladers who skated more like figure-skaters than roller-bladers, had the opportunity to (but didn't actually) fire some of the weapons from the Vietnam War, ate western food, sang Karaoke, and had a great time being Westerners after spending so much time immersed in the local culture. 

Fast forward about a month, and I went on a trip with my office to Ba Vi, which is a rural area just west of Hanoi where they produce much of the milk and yogurt consumed here in the north. We went to some farms in the morning to take a look, and then spent the afternoon walking in the countryside. It was a very pleasant time despite the torrential downpour that happened in the afternoon.

A research farm we visited. 

A Jackfruit tree

Buddha flexing some muscle

Ba Vi was quite fun and it was unfortunate that we only had a day to spend there, because it would have been nice to explore it some more.


Last weekend I got on a plane to return to Hue, and potentially Da Nang. I made friends with some locals there and wanted to visit. I ended up spending about 3 days in Hue, and 2 in Danang, and another in transit. While in Hue we ended up going to the beach, visiting pagodas, and mostly just enjoying the city. I should be noted that we enjoyed the beach Vietnamese style, which means that you go once the sun is almost down or on it's way up. On the fourth day one of my friends, Thang (pronounced Tang), went to Da Nang to attend a training course, and I decided to join her as it would give me an opportunity to visit Da nang. While there I enjoyed the sunshine, the beach and went to Marble Mountain and Hoi An.


Marble mountain is a series of large rocky outcroppings south of Da Nang. One of them has many caves. pagodas and temples and so I climbed and explored there one morning.

The biggest cave was quite dark and you could hear bats

There was a lookout up there, provided you climbed for it

Another Temple

Surprisingly arid at the top of Marble Mountain

A temple in a Cave

The whole setup felt a little Indiana Jones at times

Ominous stairs...

The mountains are surrounded by city, just like everything here in Vietnam

A large Lion statue that I purchased for my parents backyard

The city of Da Nang was quite nice, being bigger than Hue, but not nearly as bad in terms of traffic and noise as Ha Noi.

The Riverside at night

One morning I got up at 4:30 so that Tang and I could go visit a pagoda and go to the beach before class.

Vietnam really likes giant Buddhas

Da Nang at sunrise

All in all it was a great trip to Central Vietnam.

One last thing. 30 minutes ago I was told that I would be moving out of my host-families house the week due to them going on vacation, so I will be going to live at the MCC office. This will be both nice and a pain. It's further to the office and I will miss my host-family. However, it will be nice to be on my own again, at least for a little bit.

Sa Pa and Sunshine

Hello all and welcome to another peek into the various excursions I am having here in Vietnam.

Today's trip actually happened about a month ago, but for various reasons I have not updated this. As you all know, my position here in Vietnam is voluntary. I get paid nothing for the hours of work I put in every week other than gratitude and the occasional treat courtesy of The Gioi. They are under no obligation to do anything for me other than provide work. However, The Gioi is very generous in that they provide the SALTers who work there a free three day trip Sa Pa, which can be taken at any time. Being relatively unorganized fellows, Nathan and I procrastinated in setting a date and organizing the trip right from the start. We originally planned to go in March, but that never got settled and it wasn't until we did our Cao Bang trip that we began to get into gear and start to work on this trip. We decided to do it in the middle May as Nathan's parents are coming in June, and we had other trips planned before that. Sa Pa is in the North West of Vietnam and is famous for it's cool climate and having been a resort place for almost a century. It's deep in the mountains and the whole town is build on the side of a mountain. The French came here as occupiers to escape the brutal Hanoi summer and so we decided to follow suit. To get to Sa Pa, one must take the train. Having done the train before, I knew what I was getting myself into. It was a long 10 hours in the sleeper train, having left in the early evening and getting to the nearest station to Sa Pa around 4:30 in the morning. Getting off the train we found a minibus to take us to Sa Pa, which took another hour. We arrive at 5:30 to a rather ghost town Sa Pa. Nothing was open and we were told that we couldn't check in to our room until 6:30 at the earliest. We wandered around town a little, eventually found some tea, and just generally enjoyed the clean air. We eventually checked in and took a much needed shower. After that we walked to one of the minority villages nearby. Sa Pa was established by the French, but there are many small villages nearby with minority people. It was  a nice walk, but already we began to understand that we might be in for a couple exhausting days. Everything was on an incline and so everything we did was tiring. In the afternoon we went for a walk in a park/garden.

Plant pot holders

This was the best looking garden that I have seen in Vietnam

A view of Sa Pa

Nathan insisted on climbing that rock just to pose

The second day we rented some motor bikes and went up into the mountains to find the Silver Waterfall. After about 30 minutes of riding, we found it.

Convenient Internet access right at the top of the waterfall

Sa Pa is on the far side of this valley

After seeing the waterfall, we decided to go check out this national park that was a little ways further up the road. After paying half price to enter because we didn't want to do much there, we went in search of the "Golden Stream Love Waterfall."

The path was a under construction

I guess it's sort of golden

On our way to our bikes, we got waved over by a couple Vietnamese people to eat some delicious barbecued pork and drink tea. After we going back to Sa Pa for a proper lunch, we decided to drive off into the villages west of Sa Pa. We had met an interesting old guy from New Zealand the night before who lived in one of the villages and ran a cafe and so we decided to try to follow his convoluted directions and go there. We failed and never found it, but we did see some amazing scenery along the way.

Nearly every inch of land has been turned into a rice paddy

Sometimes they just let waterfalls drain right across the road

To this day Nathan and I are unsure of which was more beautiful scenery, Sa Pa or Cao Bang. Were it not for other factors, Sa Pa might just win it.

The third day we woke up to this:

No, there is no error with your picture. That is what we could see. Sa Pa is a notoriously cloudy and foggy place. We had been very lucky to enjoy two whole days of sunshine and only had to deal with this for one day. We spent the day while we waited to go to the trail wandering around the town. We must have done at least two laps around the whole place.

An amazingly decorated Vietnamese tomb

10 points to the people who can see the hidden image

To say that we were bored by the end of the day was an understatement. We couldn't really go anywhere, and there was nothing to see. Eventually we found a soccer field being grazed on by horses and the sheer novelty of it enraptured us for at least half an hour.

Around 4 pm we got on a minibus and went back to the train station and got on the train to back to Hanoi. All in all, the trip was a success and really fun.


Now that all that is said, we can talk about the worst part of the trip. As I mentioned earlier, Sa Pa has been used as a tourist place for almost 100 years, and that means that the locals are very much geared towards the tourist trade. I've been in places like this before, but this was my first experience with it here in Vietnam. It is terribly frustrating when you are expecting people who engage you in conversation to be wanting just that: conversation. However, the locals in Sa Pa are a bunch of incredibly pushy saleswomen who try to sell you something anytime they see you. While it didn't ruin the whole experience, it was the main difference between Cao Bang and Sa Pa. In Cao Bang, you were either treated normally, or as an anomaly as not foreigners go there. Sa Pa was very much a tourist trap, which made an otherwise amazing experience somewhat less than that.

Well that's all for tonight. Tune in next time as I regale you with tales of Saigon.

Going a-"Hue"

Just to clarify, you pronounce it "Hway", not hue as in a colour. Glad we have that out of the way.

It seems that this is the spring of travel. Two weeks ago it was Cao Bang, this past weekend it was Hue, and in three weeks I'm headed for the mountains and a town called Sa Pa. After that, who knows what. Though it is still spring here in Hanoi, Hue was very much in summer mode.

Planning my trip to Hue was difficult and filled with logistical problems due to us procrastinating in planning. Initially I planned to go with Nathan, and up until the day before I left that was going to be the case. He was in charge of getting us train tickets and I was in charge of the hotel. I emailed one hotel and was told that they had only one room left and not for the number of days that I wanted as there was a festival going on and the long weekend generally made everything busy. Nathan fared not as well. We had hoped to take the night train on Friday and get into Hue on Saturday. Nathan could only get the night train on Saturday, which coincidentally worked out for when the room I had got us was booked. However, he could only get us night-bus tickets for the return trip which meant a longer, more cramped trip. Despite all these setbacks, our trip was arranged and we waited for the day to come. One week or so before the trip Nathan fell ill and is still completely out of commission. It wasn't anything major, but it was enough to prevent him from going. Thus, I boarded the train by myself and headed to Hue alone.

The train ride was uneventful. I had the bottom bunk in a three level bunk bed which was nice. The air conditiong made the car cool, but not too uncomfortable. I left Hanoi at 11 in the evening and arrive in Hue around 11 in the morning the next day.

The first thing I noticed about Hue is that the sun was shining, which never happens in Hanoi. The second, is that it was really, really hot. After checking into my hotel, I decided to go check out the citadel. Hue was the capital of Vietnam and the home of the final royal dynasty, the Nguyen. The old Thang Long citadel in Hanoi may be nothing but a foundation, but the citadel in Hue is largely intact. The outer walls are massive and surround a portion of the city. Within these walls are another set of walls which enclose the Forbidden City where the king lived.

 Once inside this second set of walls there are palaces and other such buildings. The whole area is massive and takes a while to see completely. Some places were quite crowded, others were empty and I had them to myself.

Not all the buildings have been restored

A curiously modern tennis court in the venerable city

This fountain sprayed cool water, which was glorious

 Due to the extremely sunny conditions, I managed to develop a wonderful sunburn in just under an hour. The next day I hunted down some sunscreen, along with a motorcycle.

Just outside of the city is are the tombs that the kings were buried in. In order to get there, you either need to join a tour, hire a boat to take you, or find a motorcycle. My hotel was gracious enough to find the latter and I drove off with a map in search of tombs. I was just about out of the city when a lady pulled up beside me. She asked me where I was going and where I was from. It turned out that she is a farmer and lived quite close to the more important tombs. She offered to guide me there and I accepted.

Some of it reminded me a bit of Ankor

The servants entrance

The tombs were quite cool and afterwards I went to my guides tiny little house for tea and pineapple

 After returning to Hue and eating lunch I went in search of the Thien Mu pagoda, which was on the other side of the river from where I was staying. I've seen so many pagodas in my time here in Hanoi that they all start to look the same. Still, this one was neat in it's own way. It is an important place in Vietnamese history due to a certain monk in the Vietnamese war. During the war the South Vietnamese government was quite anti-Buddhist and to protest this a monk drove to Saigon and sat down in the middle of the street and lit himself on fire.

That evening I was invited by Thanh (pronounced Tang), a girl who works at the hotel that I was staying at, to go check out the food at the festival that was going on.  We went there with two of her co-workers and while the food did look delicious, we instead opted to eat noodles at a street stall as it was much cheaper.

The next day I was joined by Thanh in going to a famous covered bridge just outside of town. By that point I had done pretty much everything there was to do in town, so after that we went down to the beach. I wasn't prepared for spending the day at the beach and Thanh was not very keen on spending time in the sun so I got my feet wet and we went back to town.

Thanh and I

SO MANY DUCKS!

The ride home was not very enjoyable. As I mentioned before I was stuck taking the sleeping bus back to Hanoi. Here in Vietnam they have buses outfitted with bunk beds so you can actually sleep properly. While this sounds great, reality is not nearly so nice. The beds are the right size for a Vietnamese person, which is about a foot shorter than what would be nice for me. I lucked out in that I had the top bunk with extra leg room above the toilet, but it was still not quite comfortable. Additionally, the bus blasted air conditioning until the bus was cold enough that you could see your breath. Having been in incredibly hot Hue, I was not dressed for this and so the 15 hour trip was unpleasant to say the least.

All in all though, the trip was really fun. It was too bad that Nathan couldn't come, but it was still a great trip.