Our journey to north began after a couple days of waiting for our tailored garments to be finished. Once they were mailed off to Canada, we hopped on a bus to Hue, a small town near the DMZ or the old border between north and south Vietnam. It is a very historical town as there is an ancient imperial city in the middle and plenty of mausoleums of emperors around the town. We rented a motorbike and followed our guide book to the furthest mausoleum from town, and ended up crossing a river on a little bamboo raft and winding down pathways. Here is Jake with the motorbike on the small raft. I like this picture because you can see the guy bailing out water behind him!
We only really knew we were going the right way beacuse people kept flagging us down and telling us which way to go. We eventually found the mausoleum quite literally in the middle of the woods. We walked to the front where there was a beautiful view of the mountains and the lush landscape.
When we started going up to the mausoleum we were disappointed because a dog came up and started barking at us, and we assumed it was a rabid dog and we didn't want to mess with him. But then a security officer poked his head out and waved us in. He then offered to take us to the tombs by jingling his keys and demanding money. We paid him and followed him towards the tombs but quickly became quite nervous as a guy with a giant gun started walking around and the security guy starting talking on his cellphone. We started thinking we would die along with those Ancient emperors, but nothing ended up happening... Thankfully! I just can't seem to get use to people having guns, especially when they seem to carry their biggest guns around just willy-nilly.
So we left that mausoleum and found another one (once again flagged down by a local) but it looked like it was about to storm so we just had an ice tea with the guy and chatted with him about Vietnamese food and then Went back to the city, just making it to the hotel before it started pouring.
The next day we took a cyclo taxi, the old traditional southeast asian way of transport.
We first went to the imperial city, a beautiful old fortress type building with a moat, a giant wall around it and beauitful old palaces and temples. Once again, I was amazed at how Chinese the whole place looked compared to other temples we'd seen in SEA, and it just made me even more excited to make it to China.
After Hué, we went to Hai Noi to see the capital city of Vietnam. We stayed in the Old Quarter, which was a beautiful old district section of Hanoi with all the colonial architecture still mostly intact. While here, we went to the H Chi Mihn museum and mausoleum. The musuem was interesting from an artisitc perspective as it was very contemporary and designed in a circle and felt almost like a giant group of art installations. From a learning perspective, the museum wasn't very informative as it really only had every single thing Uncle Ho had touched, wrote, signed, looked at, wore as wellas every picture he ever posed for. Sort of icoolif you know everything there is to know about Ho Chi Minh, but not so much if you are looking to learn anything about him to begin with.
The mausoleum was also interesting because he was one of those leaders who was embalmed. So we got in line with many Vietnamese paying their respects, and got ushered through a dark but heavenly air conditioned building past Ho Chi Minh resting in peace. Why did we go to see this? Who knows. Probably just morbid curiousity or to say we saw an embalmed communist leader. Will we see Mao in Beijing? Probably not. One embalmed body is a year is enough, and I heard Mao isn't keeping as well as his buddy Ho Chi Minh. (no picture of him sorry!)
We also met a nice french couple and spent some time shopping and drinking cheap, local, Bia Hoi (draft/fresh beer). They were very fun to talk to and we are going to visit them in Paris on the way from Germany to London in a couple weeks. That's one thing about traveling that I didn't expect; it's really hit or miss with the people you meet. We've met some amazing people along the way that we are still keeping in touch with, and then other people just suck. Either way ,it's cool to be constantly meeting people form all walks of life, and im so happy to have met people from all over the world who I never would have met if I didnt go travelling. Here is a picture of Pauline and Herve!
One thing that was really on my mind during out stay in Hanoi was wehther or not to go to Halong Bay. HB is a UNESCO world heritage site, and is essentially a bunch of Karsts in the water. I was inclined not to go because the energy and money levels are waning and I kept hearing from people that it really is jiust a "duck around" (Thank you apple autocorrect for that family friendly term). We've heard of people slepeping on dirty boats, going in a cave with weird neon lights, heavily polluted water and everything else you can imagine. And the people who said it was okay, were kind of lame anyway. So after debating and debating, we decided not to waste our money, time or energy and just spend more time drinking Bia Hoi in Hanoi. Here is a picture of the lake in Hanoi:
One excursion we did agree to was to go to the North of Vietnam to Sa Pa. We took an overnight train and made it to this beautiful town in the mountains, that felt like it was in the clouds. We took a trek with a local guide named Sam and her baby Dean (who i affectinalty called dino). Here they are:
The trek was spectaclur with views of rice terraces as far as the eye could see, lots of water buffalo, and little farmhouses. Here is a photo of clothes being made by the women who all weave, dye (including growing the indigo) and embroider their own traditonal clothing:
We also met a nice Irish guy named Michael. Cool guy! The trip was perfect aside from two things : 1. The sales women were pushier than any other of the sales people we had met. They would follow us the whole way on our trek, and then demand we buy things afterwards. And if we saw them earlier, they would guilt us into it and they would not leave us alone. Even the bracelet girls wouldn't give up. At one point there was about ten girls all surrounding Jake chanting "You buy bracelet, You buy bracelet" and they wouldnt leave no matter how many times he said no. 2. We had an amazing meal made by the local people, and they gave us rice wine after dinner. But then the other people we were with said that if the Vietnamese give you rice wine after your meal, it means you ate dog. Gah!
After Sa Pa we headed back to Hanoi, where we hung out on a rooftop cafe our French friends told us about. To get there, you have to go through a silk shop to the very back, and up three windy flights of stairs, through someone's house, up to a beautiful balcony overlooking the lake in the centre of town. The coffee wasn't the best, but it was worth the view and peaceful place to read and talk about our upcoming adventure to China.
We also ate a dish we called "The cat food dish" which was deep fried pork belly on rice with a deep fried boiled egg. NOM! Here is a photo of the resaturant where we got our cat food dish:
We also visited the women's museum, which explained had three main parts to it. The first part explained all the indigenous dress and traditions of the women from weddings. medicine, fashion, work and child birth. You can see a picture of the indigenous style of dress below. There was then I section on the street vendors in Vietnam, who move out of their rural villages to make money in the city. I just assumed all the women were city dwellers to begin with, but they usually move to the city if their husband or farm can't support them, and so they can send their children to highschool. So they work starting at 2 in the morning, and then until 7 or so at night, staying in a little room they share with ten other women each night. And after two weeks they will go and visit their children in the rural part of the country, where they bring home only about $20 for two weeks of work. Who knew so much backstory could be behind the women selling donuts, hairpins, flowers or fruit on the street! It reminds you that everyone has a story and things aren't always what they seem or what we assume them to be at first. You have to honour the hard work these women put in so their children can go to school and have better futures. Let's take some time to thank all the mommas out there for their hard work!
The last part of the museum was dedicated to the women in the war effort and women who helped build the underground communities and worked in the fields to feed the soldiers. It was a pretty cool museum and I feel I learned more about Vietnamese culture in general than just the woman, which was cool to see. We also checked out a prison where the French sent dissidents during the colonial days, which was then a prison for American soldiers during the American war (one of which was John McCain) and the museum made sure to make it obvious that the American soldiers were treated very well just in comparison to how the Vietnamese were treated. I just had to laugh at how blatant that message was.
I will take this time to say a formal farewell to South East Asia! Thank you for the food, beer, new perspectives, hospitality, beautiful views and to your bus drivers who kept me alive through the many death bus trips.
Thank you! Cảm ơn! Aw-koon! Jezu-bei! Kup Jai Lai Lai! Khop khun kah!
