Vietnam

"School's out for summer" echos the old rock-n-roll song, and at the end of Jessie's third grade we headed for Vietnam with Alex and Stacy Heihn and their two children Preston and Elise.  We left Bengaluru the day school was out to maximize trip time as upon our return, the Thorne's in India were in Bengaluru for four days before heading to the USA for six weeks, and Stacy and Elise left the Vietnam trip early to spend three weeks in the USA.  So, it was important to maximize our trip time together.  The trip was coordinated entirely by Stacy, and we had a wonderful trip - Thanks Stacy!

We left late on a Friday night (March 27) for a short overnight trip to Bangkok, Thailand.  Not so short was the ride to the airport.  For whatever reason, traffic that night was all hosed up, and the drive took 30 min longer than usual.  Bengaluru airport was under heavy security alert as there was an explosive device discovered on a plane, which turned out to have been planted by a disgruntled employee.  Nevertheless, getting through security that night was painful.  We flew on Thai Airways, and the personnel at the check in desk scrutinized our Vietnam visas, passports, and all other important documents quite intensely.  So, with security and intense scrutiny, and oh yes, the traffic getting to the airport, we were on a tight timeline to actually get on the plane.  However, prior to any international flight out of Bengaluru we must have Pizza Hut pizza, or so insists Jessie.  We did, and the trip began.

It was a short overnight trip to Bangkok, Thailand where we had a similarly short layover before continuing on an even shorter flight to Hanoi, and both cities are in the same time zone.  Bangkok has a huge airport, and we were glad to find Dairy Queen, Starbucks, McDonalds, and Burger King.  We got primed on US junk food before we went to the land where "wokking the dog" has alternative context.

Day 1, March 27, 2010

Arriving into Hanoi it took us a few minutes to figure out the immigration process, but once we maneuvered through immigration our trip went like clockwork.  The other issue at the Hanoi airport was that some "star" was arriving, which caused a huge stir in the airport with security all over the place.  We never did figure out who the person or persons were, but confusion reigned for a bit.  

Vietnam has two methods to resolve immigration requirements. You can apply for a visa by sending your passport to an embassy, or you can purchase the right to a visa on arrival through the internet, which is what we did.  The visa on arrival process has forms that need to be completed, and those forms require passport pictures.  There was a batch of old European ladies in front of us that had done neither, and how they even got to Hanoi in the first place is a mystery.  But, they were ahead of us, and we had to endure a wait while they worked through the language barriers, the official forms barriers, the photo taking barriers, and the general sessions of kevetching and grumping that old people do when stressed.  Finally with processed visas in hand, we were ready to clear immigration and customs.

The taxi service was waiting to take us to our hotel, and we were off on the adventure.  The hotel in Hanoi was the Hanoi Elegance Hotel, and it was superb and it's staff were most helpful for our entire visit to Vietnam.  The hotel is located in the very walkable old quarter of Hanoi, and while we did utilize some taxis and bicycle rickshaws, we  walked everywhere.  We arrived at the hotel early and had some time to kill before check in time; so, with the aid of the hotel staff a walking trek was quickly devised, and we were off.  

First, we needed money, so we needed to find an ATM.  The currency of VN is the Dong, and the conversion rate is about 19,000 Dong to the US dollar.  Thankfully, Stacy had created a laminated chart to help us with the conversions as we shopped and ate.  It's a little difficult to swallow when you get your first restaurant bill for VND 2.5 million only to realize that it's a little over $100.  My first trip to the ATM was a bit naive as I got 1,000,000 VND (a sizable amount of money, right?), and the ATM only gave me two 500,000 bills - not very reassuring when you request a number like 1,000,000 and you only get two bills.

So, money in hand, food was next on the agenda.We started out with VN noodle soup, Bun Bo, at a street place. Normally, you would not find any of us eating street food, but this place was on a recommended list.  The kitchen was street side, and you ate in the back.  Some locals were at the first set of tables, so we had to walk past the guy washing dishes on the floor with the hose to the next set of tables.  Wondering how the meal was going to fare in the lower quadrants, we sat and awaited delivery of the Bun Bo.  It was wonderful soup - even the kids ate it.  Refreshed and energized by Bun Bo, we plodded out into the cacophony.

We took taxis to The Viet Nam Museum of Ethnology and water puppets.  The museum was interesting, and the kids enjoyed the ability to run about and burn off stored energy.  Viet Nam has a cultural art form in water puppets.  We happened to be on time for a performance during our visit to the museum.  A story is told in both the puppet presentation and the music supplied by traditional instruments.  The stage is a pool of water, and the puppeteers are "backstage" hidden in a hut.  The puppets are manipulated by underwater devices, and they move about the pool of water, which is about 30 feet square.  The play is generally a traditional story of history or conquest with metaphoric characters such as the turtle that symbolized the ancient wise ones.


After the museum, we all ran out of energy, and it was time to return to the hotel and then off to dinner.  We ate at the Quan An Ngon restaurant, which had very good food, and our first over 1,000,000 VND bill.  The real surprise came as we were leaving the restaurant when we spotted a rouse (rodent of unusual size) on the roof of the restaurant.  Big, 12 inches nose to butt.  The other surprise that night was the taxi ride to Ngon, the Thornes paid VND 14,000, and the Heihn's paid VND 28,000 - the Heihn's took a more colorful tour I guess.


Day 2, March 28, 2010
Day 2 manifested itself as a walking tour up to see another water puppet presentation at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. Following the puppets we engaged bicycle rickshaws to take us around Hoan Kiem Lake, which was just opposite the theatre.  We paired up two by two and were off.  The drivers took us around the lake, and about town to see some of the bigger sights in our area, and we ended up at the Hoa Lo Prison - the "Hanoi Hilton", where the drivers dropped us off and left.  

The Vietnamese tote stuff around using a couple of simple bamboo baskets on the end of a stiffer piece of bamboo which is levered across the shoulders.  You see a lot of these setups, and while we were on the rickshaws, I saw one lady who had a small table and chairs in the front basket, and a hot bucket of charcoal with cooking fish in the wok in the rear basket.  This was a fish restaurant in motion, looking for an opportune place to set up shop for the day.   


After touring the prison - a fairly interesting thing to do, we set out on foot back towards the lake to find a lunch spot.  The kids were quite growly by this time and needed tending to.  After lunch, we did some shopping on our way back to the hotel.  In this area, the streets are lined with shops, and Stacy was on the hunt for some specific items.


While we were walking along, Stacy and Alex paused to purchase a book from a street vendor.  Alli, having found a WiFi hot spot,  was doing email on her IPod.  In the street, two two-wheelers got into a wreck.  Traffic, which was quite thick, never stopped and just flowed around the new obstruction.  The two picked themselves up, dusted off, checked for major damages, said very few words, repacked the load, and rode off - all with heavy traffic flowing about them.  The whole situation happened within 3-4 minutes and was missed by all as they were busy with other affairs.


On the street by the hotel were several music shops where you could purchase traditional instruments.  Jessica bought a wooden flute, and she had a good time sampling all the other instruments on display.  The shop keeper was a happy person and enjoyed the opportunity to demonstrate her instruments to a foreign youngster.  Most of the instruments were traditional, which gave Jess a great opportunity to test them.


We hired a kid tender for the evening so the parents could go out for a quiet dinner.  The selected restaurant was back in the direction of the puppet theatre, and there was a night street market that Stacy wanted to check out.  The restaurant was The Green Tangerine, and we had a wonderful meal - once we found the place.  Larrie got turned around, and Alex stepped in to get us going in the correct direction.  The street market turned out to be like going to the Minnesota State Fair with nothing anybody actually wanted to buy, and all the food grilled on the spot.  An interesting note about the walk back to the hotel is that at night, Hanoi is a different place.  The shops pull themselves inside and lock up, and the street is almost not navigable due to missing landmarks.


The corner of the street to the hotel was marked by a shop selling snake wine, which is fairly odd to behold to a westerner.  At any rate, when the shop closes up, the landmark is gone, and Alex had to step in to aim Larrie down the correct street before he got lost again.


Day 3, March 29, 2010
Day 3 brought the transfer from Hanoi to Halong Bay for our overnight junk boat cruise.  We were moving early (8:30) as the trip takes around 3 hours.  Observations along the road include:

• Pigs are delivered live upside down on the back of a two wheeler.
• A number of garden centers, it seemed odd that there would be any, but there they were.  Houses along the roadways, cities, and villages all had quite a number of potted plants and ornamental shrubs.
• Most people on two wheelers and those walking wore face masks to filter out the pollution.  Hanoi and VN did not seem overly polluted to us, but then our frame of reference was Bengaluru.  However, India has birds - there are not so many birds in VN, and some places they were nonexistent.
• All houses were skinny, maybe 7-8 m wide, and tall (3-4 floors).  In the country, the ground level seemed to always be a shop of some sort.
• We were amazed to see Fords, and Chevy's, and other USA brands.
• The VN countryside is clean - a bit more garbage than Hanoi, but no where near India.
• Driving is well behaved, and the roads were sell sized.  We could actually get up to 70 mph without having to worry about running over or into something.
• We stopped for a break at an arts factory.  A number of persons with special challenges were employed to create various crafts.  Here too was marble sculpting.  Major pieces made to order, and priced as though New York was across the road.

On with the cruise.  By 12:30 we were on the Princess 2 preparing to set sail, which is a misnomer as modern junks are powered by diesel engines, and the sails are just ornamental.  

We had rented the whole boat in order to have privacy and not to disturb another traveler with our brood.  We got settled, set sail and were topside for beers and chillaxing.  Jessie and Preston took the extra room for themselves, and they spent considerable time nesting before appearing topside.  While we cruised to our first adventure for the day, the crew prepared and served a very nice lunch.  Oh, yes, the weather was a bit coolish, and we did have a couple of short sprinkles; so be fore warned, cruising Halong was not akin to the Caribbean.

Halong Bay is pretty much junk boat territory.  As VN has raised itself from poverty, it has utilized tourism as one of the major vehicles.  Like other areas of the world, destination venues have been created by the operators of the cruises.  Our first stop was one such place.  We stopped at one of the 'haystacks' had a large cave, which was reported to have held a fishing village of 40 families.  The families were relocated to a new floating village (our 2nd destination) to open the cave for exploration, and the cruise line added a kayak experience.  So, after touring the cave, we went kayaking.  Alli stayed on the boat for some 1:1 quiet time -  a nap.

The kayak trip was a circumvention of a haystack and back to the boat.  Jessie and Larrie were in one kayak, and finally worked out that Larrie was straight line power, and Jessie was turning power.  Once that truce was agreed to, the trip was proceeded well.  Along the way we found a rather largish jellyfish scuttling around - think dinner plate is diameter.  The waters of Halong Bay are green in color, and local peoples are strongly encouraged by the government to keep them pristine and clean, which they were.  Although the green color was not explained, it did not seem to be due to plant nor plankton.  Beaching the kayaks, we boarded the tender back to the boat and beers.  

The crew created kid friendly food for the kids, who ate early, and then entertained them while the adults had a nice dinner.  We anchored in a bay with other junks, ate dinner, and then slept to the gentle slaps of waves and fresh air.  The accommodations were very nice on the Princess 2.  

Day 4, March 30, 2010

Come morning, we ate a decent breakfast.  Although, it should be mentioned to future travelers that the Asian perspective of what to do with an breakfast egg is not what you are accustomed to, and some adaptation of perspective is required.

Since we would be disembarking, lunch came early,  Between breakfast and lunch came the visit to the floating fishing village where we observed several junk boat dogs, actual pets, and pearl seeding.  The entire village was afloat, including government offices and a school, which was the largest building in the village - creating the question of how you get a concrete cistern to float.  Various things that float were used to get around, and they used floating concrete cisterns for fresh water.  The visit to the village was very interesting as we learned about the people and watched a pair of individuals seed the oysters with pearl seeds.  It takes about 5 years for the mollusk to acrete enough lacquer onto the seed to create the pearl.  Again, prices for strings of pearls in the gift shop were like New York was across the bay.  Not sure if the they understood the notion of marketing.

We left the boat at 11:30 and were soon underway back to Hanoi.  We arrived back to our hotel where we holed up for a few hours before the overnight train ride to Sa Pa.  The train left eightish, and we took a couple of taxis for the short trip to the train station.

The VN train system was assisted by India in its creation; so, we were a bit skeptical about how to approach getting into our car.  The station was chaotic.  Quickly, Stacy took charge, and went in pursuit of someone at the ticket desk.  While Stacy was seeking resolution, the rest of us were hanging on curb observing the chaos in motion.  Several persons would surge towards the doors only to be repelled by ticket agents.  One person was on the phone and was very cranky that their experience was not living up to their standards.  Soon, Stacy emerged the chaos with an agent, and we went through the crowd like Moses parting the sea.  The agent navigated over tracks and other obstacles to our car, and we were quickly seated in our bunks.

Jess and Preston bunked with us, and after a rather eventful day it did not take them long to be snoozing once the train got to rocking-n-rolling.  Unlike our experiences with Indian train service, we were very surprised and pleased with the VN train service.  The train was clean, fairly new, and well tended.  Our trip was an express, and there were few stops.  We actually got some sleep on this train.


Day 5, March 31, 2010
The train arrived at 5:30 am into Lao Cai, and we trundled out with sleepy kids into the chaos of an unloading train of tourists having to navigate a busy rail yard and find the terminal.  We found the driver who was scheduled to pick us up and transport us to Sa Pa, which was about an hour up through the mist and mountains.  the road was not unlike other tight mountain roads we have been on, such as the road to Darjeeling or the Going to the Sun.

We arrived at the Cha Pa Garden in Sa Pa about 6:30 - 7:00.  One note about the Cha Pa before I get too deep into other segues, The Cha Pa sits up a hill - about 69 steps up the hill to the lobby, and then you have another 17 or so to get to the rooms.  Now, that might not seem like much to the younger crowd, but they don't realize that, unlike most hotels we have been to in Asia, there is no one to lug your luggage up the stairs.  So, when you consider the tonnage of baggage required by folks traveling for 10 days, well needless to say, medicinal beer was require to resuscitate the old horse hauling the bags.  So, be forewarned, and bring oxygen!


Stacy had arranged for us to get into one of our rooms early so we could clean up for the day; however, upon our arrival the hot water in that room had malfunctioned and created a problem for our whole stay at the Cha Pa.  Eventually, the malaise spread to the toilet, and the bathroom was not functioning until just before our departure.  So, we punted on the post train ride clean up and settled for oral hygiene only - the sink worked.


The Cha Pa only has four rooms, and it has a small area to eat, drink and be merry.  We immediately took advantage of this feature for a tasty breakfast before setting out on a trekking adventure.  It turns out the proprietor, who was from Norway and married a VN woman, not only tended the front desk, but served up the beer, cooked the food.  The hotel staff, a group of young Hmong girls, delivered food and dealt with the dishes as well as other chores.

Alli chose to stay back and deal with a growing inbox while the rest of us went on a 5 mile trek through a Hmong agricultural village area.  Stopping midway for a cool drink and a visit to the local one holer squatty that drained to the nearest paddy, we continued through paddys ploughed by water buffalo and hard working Hmong and a school to the pick up point, where we sat, and sat, and sat, and sat, waiting for the driver to pick us up.  Alex noticed another van from the same agency, and he backtracked a couple hundred yards to the dhaba to find the driver.  Since the other driver appeared to have abandoned us, the new guy took us back to the hotel, and on the trip back we saw our original driver with a new load of tourists.  Needless to say, that agency donated both rides to us as we did not pay for such poor service.  Our second opportunity for poor service would come later that afternoon.


Upon returning, Alli was ready to re-engage, and we all enjoyed a nice lunch at the Cha Pa.  For the afternoon, Stacy had arranged for a VN style cooking lesson at a location close to the hotel.  Leaving the Cha Pa, we zigged up the street and into a covered market area and found the cooking school, which is located within the Boutique SaPa Hotel.  Whereupon we were informed that due to a mix-up in scheduling, we had been canceled because a bus had arrived and booked the entire place for the night and our party was too small and in the way, so they mixed up the scheduling and cancelled us.  Well, Stacy and Alli went on the offensive, but to no avail and we were outta there.


Stacy marched right over to SaPa Rooms Boutique Hotel and booked us for cooking lessons the next AM.  The folks at the SaPa Rooms were most understanding and accommodating to our request.  Back to the hotel as it's about 6:00 pm, where we watched Avatar on video, had burgers and beers for dinner, and said good night.


The hotel had DVD players in the room, so we took Sherlock Holmes up to check out Downy's latest only to discover that our DVD remote was broken.  We borrowed Heihn's remote and started the movie only to discover that our TV was hosed.  So, down the desk to see what options we had, and at 10pm, Larrie and the proprietor carried the lobby tv up to the room and replace the non-working tv.  The movie wasn't worth all the work. Three strikes for that day, time to sleep.


Day 6, April 1, 2010

Up for breakfast and then off to cooking school.  This time class was one and the first task was to go to market to get the fixin's for the food.  Now, those who have never trespassed a VN market have not lived.  Let's see, there were live baby chicks, baby ducks, frogs, crabs, eels, fish, chickens, and in the meat market we had pork, chickens with their feet still on, dog, and whatever THAT was.  Three different egg types including quail, and a host of things we had never seen before.  Needless to say, if it's edible, there is a recipe for it.  Fixin's in hand, we went back to the school.  Oh, yea, the whole market experience was led and narrated by the chef teaching the class, and it was very informative and helpful while providing much depth to the experience one has in VN.


Back at class, which was mostly learning how to chop stuff, the gang started chopping away.  Early on Stacy nicked a finger drawing a drop or two of blood.  Quickly dropping the cleaver, kleenexs were applied, but not soon enough as she started to tunnel out.  Alli told Alex and the chef to catch her, and down she went - chopper down! Being the trooper with a quick recovery, Stacy was on to creating culinary greatness with no fingers in the Bun Bo.  At the end of the class we got to eat what we prepared - it was all good.


Stomaches full, we trudged back to the Cha Pa to check out of one of the rooms - the one with the bad plumbing, and then on to a walking tour of the town including climbing the other 99 steps up to where the main street was.  Have I mentioned that Sa Pa is quite up and down yet?  Rain cut short the walk, and we retreated back to the hotel to wait for the time to leave for the train in Lao Cai.  Now, with all the odd happenings in Sa Pa, the last odd thing happened.  The last room we had only had one key, and Larrie forgot to return the key to the hotel.  A fact he discovered on the train.


We had a pleasant overnight train back to Hanoi arriving at 4:30 am.  Hiring a couple of taxis, we went back to the 
Hanoi Elegance Hotel to shower and have breakfast before heading for the airport for the trip back to Bangkok.  However, before we left the hotel, Larrie did arrange to have the hotel key sent back to the Cha Pa, and we hope he got it.  Sorry, dude!  In all fairness to the folks at the Cha Pa, we had a wonderful visit.  the rooms were very nice, the grounds were quiet and relaxing, the service was prompt and to the point.  We caught them on a bad day with disgruntled plumbing, which is not their norm, and the proprietor was quick to adapt and make amends.  We would highly recommend the Cha Pa to anyone visiting Sa Pa.


Impressions of Vietnam
We were really surprised with Vietnam.  This is a country that has survived a long war, and 35 years later is a wonderful place to visit.  Young people are vibrant, all the people work hard, it is clean, the food is good, bargains are to be had, and has many cultural offerings to help one understand its people.  It is also the only place in Asia I have seen water meters used, which implies quite a maturation of social infrastructure.  We enjoyed Viet Nam and would recommend it (at least Hanoi, Halong Bay, and Sa Pa) to anyone wishing to visit a new destination.