Vietnam
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Folks,
Hanoi rocks - mostly to the sound and smell of a zillion mopeds
that continually cruise the city by day and night and oh boy are
these guys horn-happy haven't resorted to ear plugs or a mask just
yet, sounds familiar Dave+dimple? Sore throats from the scooter
exhaust fumes - like we've been smoking for years. We are staying
in the Prince hotel, which is very nice.
Thankfully they picked us up from the airport, but hotel was overbooked
for the first night so we had a room without any windows in the
hotel next door. It's a bit of a come down from our luxury penthouse
room in Hong Kong, or the neighbour with 2 ferraris in Tokyo , but
it's still luxury by Vietnamese standards and we haven't seen any
rats like some of our fellow travellers.
Off to see Ho Chi Minh's tomb today and a couple of other sites
in town then off to visit Ha Long bay and the perfumed pagoda, there
is a big Christmas tree in the entrance reminding us it's that time
of year again...
Merry Christmas to you all! We did think a lot
of you all yesterday and the day before. Wondering what everybody
was eating (mainly) and doing also ehehehhe....
The Vietnamese, a bit like the Japanese try hard to make us feel
like it's christmas and put some interesting CDs (cover version
of G. Michael and other Jingle bells type songs) and hang some xmas
deco on the trees. It's weird!
We left the imperial city of Hue and its temples and tombs to take
a bus down to Hoi-An in the heart of the country but on the coast.
Here it's quite relaxed and we couldn't believe our luck by finding
a very posh hotel with a swimming pool with a 10 dollar room. Very
exciting!
Here the city is old and pretty and not as polluted as the rest
(we find). We are off to visit some old chinese houses, they look
really superb!
We also start meeting travellers and finding them again along the
way, which is cool... We are off to the beach today to check out
if it's a nice one. It's a bit cloudy but it should be nice anyway.
Hope you are all well and enjoyed the Christmas things with your
families and friends. Think about joining us somewhere along the
road this coming year. We would LOVE IT !!!!
Happy New year, we have arrived in Saigon yesterday
on my birthday. Saigon is... hot, sticky and busy, well... a big
city! (motorbikes are still on + few more cars since the South of
Vietnam is definitely richer than the North!).
It's soon the end of our trip in Vietnam and we are finishing off
with the Mekong Delta before going to the beautiful temple of Angkor
in a week's time! It's still very exciting and we now keep meeting
and meeting again travellers who are on the same path, which is
great for exchanging info and having a drink!
... Not going to ramble on about the town and the great things we
see, it would be better in photos, just wanted to say that we are
meeting Maya and Shai in Thailand, our first encounter with familiar
faces: think about it and book your trip for 2004! We think of all
of you loads and wish you the best for this beginning of 2004.
Just found a ADSL place here (there are quite
a few).
We just got back from an excursion in the Cu-Chi tunnels. Some tunnels
underground that the Vietnamese had built, first against the French
and then against the Americans. You wouldn't believe how small.
They must have had to literally crawl or lay down to go inside.
How awful!
They were about 200km of tunnels. We did only 100m underground and
they had made the tunnels larger for the tourist so it was roughly
60 x 80 cm! They had several levels of it and when B52's sent by
the Americans were falling, the 2 first floors would collapse and
they would be buried alive in the 3rd leve. Also they were all fighting
in there so there were booby traps everywhere and snakes and scorpions
etc...
Jason bought a book on the subject and keep reading to me the awful
bits, it must have been hell under there. We also - in a happier
note - went to see the temple of a "sect", well the religion is
recognized by the Vietnamese government but it's weird. It's a mix
and they worship Buddha, Jesus, and Confucius! They have funny saints,
including Victor Hugo (ahahah don't know how he got there!). The
place was so kitsch it was really cool.
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