M + M TRAVEL ADVENTURES: Vietnam: March Break

Meg and I hadn’t gone on a trip since Singapore and we were definitely feeling the travel bug as March Break approached. The teacher culture is unique here: as holidays approach, we’re all asking each other “Which country are you travelling to?” Hong Kong, Phillippines, Thailand are popular spots. This time Meg and I would be jetting to Vietnam.

In preparation, we watched Oliver Stone’s 1986 film Platoon to get a feel of the country during the War. Megan had only really seen the Vietnam War through the eyes of Forrest Gump. Platoon was two birds with one stone since it was about Vietnam and also a Best Picture winner (to scratch it off Megan’s list).

After a late night birthday bash for Megan (more on that in another post!), we woke up at 3am, caught an airport “limo” and caught our flight to Hanoi around 6am. We had applied for ‘Visas on Arrival’ beforehand and paid for the service; what we didn’t realize was that there was a processing fee to actually get the Visas after disembarking from the plane. No, they didn’t accept credit. No, there wasn’t an ATM around anywhere. Luckily we had enough joint American/Malaysian money to pay for the visas. Otherwise, we may have been sent back! Not bringing the local currency may seem reckless, but our SE Asia adventures have consisted of always arriving in the country and getting that country’s currency from the ATM. Pretty posh. Next time we’ll read the fine print and bring enough extra dough for those extra fees.

Hanoi, Vietnam: the capital. This is one busy town. Our hotel was in the Old Quarter of the city. The buildings come right to the street and there are no sidewalks to speak off. When I say Old Quarter, I mean old; this was one of the original neighbourhoods of Hanoi dating back to 1010 (the city itself dates back to 3000 BC!). There was an old building made by the French originally called the Hotel Metropole; it’s a nice colonial building facing a major roundabout; now, it lodges restaurants and bars, as well as a KFC. How times have changed.

We were staying at the Dragon Rising Hotel; there are a lot of hotels named Dragon something-or-other, so it’s important to know exactly where your hotel is. There seems to be no law and order when it comes to traffic. Everyone honks at everyone which seems to defeat the purpose of honking since it becomes almost white noise, but the kind of white noise that can make you go absolutely bonkers. Motorbikes are everywhere and fly through intersections honking at people and things to get out of their way. Intersections involve vehicles inching their way forward from all sides, creating a slowly moving gridlock of sorts. It was a headache to walk these streets. I had the morbid fantasy of clothes-lining some of these motorbikers off their bikes, to which Megan gave me an eyebrow raise of concern. We couldn’t stay in this city long.

Exercising.

Our first full day consisted of walking around Hanoi and visiting a few of the major sites. We first went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. We waited in line for roughly an hour, had to check our camera and water (who checks water? We picked it up later), and eventually strolled past the embalmed body of Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh. Like Mao and Lenin, he is encased in glass, looking like a waxwork statue. No pictures were allowed, unfortunately. People just silently did the route around the body and exited right. Megan later asked me ‘who was that?’ I explained to her. She had misunderstood the reason for the visit. “I knew it was called the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but I didn’t think we’d be seeing his creepy dead body.” We laughed about this confusion.

We later went to the Ho Chi Minh museum (no dead bodies), and later the Temple of Literature. This was recommended as one of the hot spots, but it was a real letdown. Very small and crowded. Maybe I worked myself up by the name ‘Temple of Literature.’ Sounds like a place I’d want to visit and hang out in forever, right? Well, the answer is no.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Statue of Ho Chi Minh.

The Temple of Literature.

We strolled down to the former Hanoi Hilton (Hoa Lo Prison), the prison-turned-museum. The prison used to contain Vietnamese Communists when the country was ruled by the French and later American POWS when it was ruled by North Vietnam. One of its famous occupants was Senator John McCain, whose plane had been shot down in North Vietnam during the war. He was a prisoner there from 1967-1973; during his imprisonment he was tortured; his wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

Hanoi Hilton.

Before leaving Hanoi, we visited the Water Puppet Theatre, which consists of having puppets dance upon the surface of the water. The puppeteers are hidden behind curtains. It’s a cool effect, but Megan didn’t love it. To tell the truth, it was a bit hot and cramped in the theatre which caused us to be slightly drowsy. A fun event, nonetheless.

Halong Bay. We booked a one night, two day trip aboard a boat to the much visited UNESCO World Heritage Site of Halong Bay. We shopped around for a good boat: lower cost would definitely produce a lower result her; we got a good deal for a honeymoon suite on one of the ‘junks’ that had a balcony. Halfway on the bus-ride to the boat, our tour guide tells us we can’t have our suite. I say ‘no way, we paid for it. Fix the problem.’ It seems like they had overbooked it, which wasn’t surprising. He came back and told me the problem was fixed. Apparently, he fixed the problem by telling the other couple who had booked the balcony room that they couldn’t have it; they passively accepted this. Lovely. Dog eats dog world.

The boat and room met our expectations; we could have travelled on that boat for years. The scenery was gorgeous despite their being a lot of other boats in the area and a fair share of garbage floating on the water. We explored some caves, travelled through a floating village by kayak, and jumped off the top of boat. Megan worked herself for the jump; I went for extra.

Engine Trouble.

Waiting on the Engine Trouble.

We met a nice Dutch couple named Neils and Roos, who felt like kindred spirits. We ended up playing a board game named Carcassonne with them while the crew pained our ears with screeching karaoke. Sleeping on this boat and waking up to the view of the island peaks was divine. We simply didn’t want to leave.

Roos and Mark

Meg and Neils

We returned to Hanoi and went souvenir shopping; Megan haggled down a painting using her mad skills. Her story was that she only had a specific amount of money left since we were going home and that we didn’t want to take out more. They agreed to the lowered price… did we get a good deal? Hmm…

Buying a Painting

Our painting: bottom-left

Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. We took a domestic flight in order to save time travelling from north to south and arrived in a completely different city than Hanoi. Saigon is a completely westernized setting. They have sidewalks! We felt relaxed and able to wonder around comfortably. Here, we woke up at 5am in the morning (thanks to the hotel wakeup call) and went jogging around a park located next to Reunification Palace (formerly the Presidential Palace). We had also jogged in Hanoi around the Hoan Kiem lake in the Old Quarter. In both cities, there were so many people up at this hour exercising, but almost none of them were jogging. Most walk or do cardio dance moves to music. It’s a great feeling to wake up that early; you see a completely different side of a city. It may become a new hobby. However, we still stood out as foreigners since we were the only people jogging.

Cu chi Tunnels. About 30 minutes outside of Saigon, there is a replica of the old Viet Cong tunnel systems that plagued the American army. The system is quite extraordinary. They had nearly everything underground: even a kitchen. The smoke from the kitchen would be pumped out a ways away so that the Americans couldn’t accurately locate the tunnels. There were terrifying booby traps whose only goal was to maim and kill. At one part, our tour guide stopped and asked if we saw it. We couldn’t. She then swept her foot and revealed a tiny lid in the ground; underneath, was a tunnel! Both Megan and I tried it out, descending down into the entrance, but I forgot to keep my arms straight up since your shoulders get stuck in the entrance if you don’t. For a second, I thought they’d have to dig me out.

The entire time in this jungle was spent listening to thunderous discharge of machine guns at the gun range. It felt like being in the War. Meg and I both thought it wasn’t appropriate to get our kicks at a gun range in a spot where so many people had died, so we declined. However, we did accept the offer of travelling 100 metres underground through the tunnel system. Only 3 of us did the full 100 metres which was the longest option; the tunnels were widened for tourists; I can’t imagine what they had been like before. The tunnels were quite an experience; I can’t imagine being in them with an American army above the ground looking for you.

Back in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), The War Remnants Museum was quite a traumatizing experience for two reasons. One, the pictures of citizens affected by Agent Orange during the War were horrendous. The images seemed right out of a horror movie. Second, the propaganda in most of the exhibits was nauseating. The atmosphere was so one-sided and anti-American. It was a messy war, yes, which is a bit of an understatement, but the museum only depicted the North Vietnamese as heroes fighting the evil American empire. The Americans did commit atrocities, but what about North Vietnam? Nonetheless, there was a great photo exhibit, assembled by objective photographers that had no propaganda; it detailed the photographs taken by journalists during the War. Quite a powerful exhibit.

Some Propaganda

On our last day we visited the Mekong Delta. The Mekong was an old friend. We had travelled down it on a boat for two days in Laos; we slept beside it for a few nights in Don Det. And here was its end as it spread out into the South China Sea. Meg didn’t feel great, so our exciting fun was limited this day. We visited Handicapped Handicrafts, an interesting play on words, where persons with disabilities put together crafts. We drank honey tea, ate coconut candy, took a nap in a hammock and were ferried down a tiny river by guides who kept asking for a $5 tip. I poked my finger into a bee hive to get that juicy honey and also wrapped a giant snake around my body like a flamboyant fashion accessory. It was quite a day! We also saw a school group all wearing the same neon blue Playboy t-shirt; it was strange and hilarious seeing tweens wearing a Playboy t-shirt so innocently.