C & C globetrotting around the world…

After 4 months of travelling, we needed a vacation. Although we weren’t at work, constantly packing, unpacking and taking trains and buses gets tiring after a while. So we decided to take a little vacation on Phu Quoc Island in southern Vietnam to relax and enjoy some beach days. Phu Quoc Island in the Gulf of Thailand is a little piece of paradise that hasn’t been developed too much, yet. They are building an international airport and 5-star resorts are supposed to mushroom in the next few years, but for now the island relies mainly on fishing (70% of the population are fishermen). There is also a fish sauce factory, a pepper farm and a pearl farm. It’s interesting that they want to develop the tourism industry so much, but don’t even have enough power. The island is not connected to the mainland power grid, so they use coal generators for power. This causes power shortages with electricity being shut off during the day.

We arrived by plane, flying over Saigon and lots of flooded land on the way. Only the fields seemed flooded, not the roads and houses, so we think it’s maybe controlled. On Phu Quoc we hadn’t booked anything since we wanted to see the place beforehand. The first night we stayed in an ocean-view room close to Duong Dong town, left our luggage there and went to explore the beach resorts. One resort had rooms and bungalows at acceptable prices, so we asked to see them. The guy at the reception walked us through the resort and showed us a bungalow, pointing that it was it. When we asked to look inside, he said no. Way to show us a room! We continued a bit more and finally found a nice place with good Tripadvisor reviews and at a good price: $10 a night. On the way back we walked on the beach, which is beautifully lined with coconut palms. There are people on the beach, but it’s not crowded at all and in the evening the restaurants offer BBQ dinners on the beach. We walked home with our feet in the water watching the sunset, which was really nice after a hot day.

We hadn’t decided on how many days to stay on Phu Quoc, but ended up staying a week. Vacation feels good! We did the typical beach vacation activities: sunbathing, swimming, chilling in the shade when the sun was too hot, reading and walking on the beach. Watching the sunset was always a great part and having wine and cheese on the beach in the evening while planning the next few weeks in Cambodia and Laos was fun. One evening we also walked along the beach into town to the Night Market, a street with lots of food stalls and a few souvenir stands.

One day we took a tour to the An Thoi archipelago in the South of the island. On the bus ride to the harbour, we stopped at the Pearl Farm where a lady explained us the process of farming the pearls and showed us the harvesting before we could look around in the pearl jewely shop. Unfortunately it’s not in our budget, but there were definitely some nice pieces. We then boarded the boat and off we went to tour the islets. We passed colourful fisher boats and stopped to fish ourselves. We caught 2 small fish and were happy about it. At a spot of crystal clear waters, the boat stopped for us to go snorkeling or just drifting around. On board we had a seafood lunch and a platter of fresh fruit. Some also tried boiled sea urchin for a little extra, but we didn’t venture that far. We also stopped at a picture perfect island, where we swam some more and chilled on the white sand beach under the coconut palms. Back on Phu Quoc island, we went to Sao Beach, a more secluded beautiful beach before heading back to our resort for sunset. For dinner we had BBQ fish dinner on the beach, the perfect end to this wonderful day.

Overall, Phu Quoc was amazing. We relaxed, sunbathed, swam, planned and had delicious fresh fruits every day, as well as great seafood BBQ. What more can one ask for? We hope development doesn’t come as early as planned and this little gem continues its slow-moving lifestyle for a while…

We booked a tour to the Mekong Delta, although we generally prefer to do stuff on our own. The Mekong is one of the largest rivers in Asia, originating from Tibet and winding its course through China, Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, forming a delta before emptying into the South China Sea after its epic journey of nearly 5,000 km. Our first stop on the tour was the city of My Tho, from where we took a motor boat and drove around Dragon, Unicorn, Turtle and Phoenix islands. On Unicorn Island we stopped at a bee farm where we enjoyed honey tea, as well as candied banana and ginger while listening to a performance of folk songs. We were also served tropical fruit, which was refreshing in the humid heat. We also took a short trip by rowing boat along a small canal, which is the way we had imagined the biggest part of the tour. It was very nice, but too short and we were constantly asked to give money, which was not too pleasant. This bothers us in Vietnam, that everyone sees you as a walking ATM and wants to extract money from you. From My Tho we drove to Ben Tre, home of the coconut. There we visited a coconut candy making factory and also got to sample the various flavours they make, as well as rice wine, coconut wine and banana wine. Everything tasted good, but we restrained from buying anything.

On the second day of the tour we hopped on a boat to see the Can Tho floating market, the biggest one in the area. There was mainly wholesale, with each ship putting up their produce on a stick so buyers can see from further away. Then potential buyers would approach the ships in smaller boats to negotiate and buy. Our boat pulled up to a pineapple ship that sold fresh pineapples cut up and ready to eat for $0.50, so we bought one and it was perfectly ripe and sweet. The “market” wasn’t as colourful as we expected, but still nice to see. We also visited a rice noodle factory and got to witness the process. First they make rice milk by mixing broken rice grains and tapioca flour to make a relatively thin white batter. They spread the batter on a hot surface similar to the one used for crepe (but larger) and cover it with a lid for about one minute. Then another person picks up the thin rice paper with a bat and puts it down on woven rattan planks. The planks are brought out in the sun for about an hour until the rice paper dries. Then, the rice paper is fed through a shredder which makes the noodles. A lady takes the bundles (each rice paper sheet makes one bundle) and packages them. The entire process from the rice milk to the finished noodles has to be done the same day, so it’s pretty interesting to see. From there we went to a fruit farm where we saw some exotic fruits: jackfruit, dragonfruit, kumquat and of course pomelos, mangos and papayas. We got to try some fresh papaya and mango, which were absolutely delicious. Because of the year-round hot climate in southern Vietnam, they can usually have 3 or 4 harvests per year. They also grow a lot of rice in the area, earning the name of “rice bowl of Vietnam”. The northern part of Vietnam also produces rice, but they use the dry method and only harvest twice per year due to the different climate, whereas the South can have up to 3 harvests of rice. Usually the country is the second-largest exporter of rice in the world, but next year they will probably advance to first place due to the floods in Thailand. We arrived in Chau Doc on the late afternoon and climbed Sam Mountain to watch the sunset from the hill-top monastery. From there you can also see the border with Cambodia one kilometer away.

On our third and last day on the tour, we took a small motor boat to a floating village on the Mekong River. Some houses were really nice and you could see that the people took pride in their homes. Some larger ones were floating fish farms as well, having a cage under the house where they kept 100,000 fish each. They feed them 4-5 times a day and in 7 months the fish reach 1kg, when they are sold to the fish factory to make frozen filets for export. They mainly farm catfish (pangasius) and tilapia here and received $1 per kilogram. We also visited a Cham village, the Muslim ethnic minority in the area. The Champa kingdom was controlling central and southern Vietnam, reaching from Hue to Nha Trang which got annexed by the Vietnamese in 1832. There we watched a lady weave a scarf and also went to the mosque. Overall the tour was good since we got to see the nice scenery of the Delta, try some fruits and handicrafts, but mainly because we met lots of nice co-travellers.

Saigon changed its name to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) after the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1975 in honour of Ho Chi Minh, who is regarded as the father of Vietnam today. Saigon is larger than Hanoi and the commercial centre of the country, driving economic growth forward. The motorbikes on the streets are endless and you feel the energy of the city. Pham Ngu Lao district is where all the tourists stay and the few blocks are bustling with restaurants and bars. Between the busy streets there are small alleys. It reminded us of the hutongs in Beijing, but the Vietnamese version is a lot crazier. Although most of the upstairs rooms of houses have been converted to hotels, people live downstairs in the lobby. They keep the door open, lie on the cold floor tiles while watching tv or sleeping, so you can see right in. Some also have small restaurants, although these are more common on the bigger streets or at the beginning of the alleys. What is interesting to see is that every house has a small altar with incense and food. Although the Vietnamese are Buddhists, they also worship their ancestors.

One of the musts of a tour in Saigon is a visit to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The communists reigned in China and northern Vietnam, so the Americans wanted to stop the spread further South. They therefore used an excuse to unofficially start war on Vietnam in 1965 to eradicate the Viet Cong (the communist guerrilla group). The Viet Cong (VC) fighters built the Cu Chi Tunnels in order to fight the US Army, a network of 200km outside Saigon. Their network was intricate and the soldiers only knew their specific zone, not venturing further afield. This was because the labyrinth was extremely complex with lots of traps and hidden passageways, but also because they wouldn’t be able to divulge valuable information if they were captured and tortured. The tunnels were usually 50cm high, while some were only 20cm high, so only VC soldiers could pass through. They also had 3 different levels at 3m, 6m and 10m underground respectively. They were built to withstand bomb attacks and had escape tunnels into the Saigon river. In and around the tunnels the Viet Cong built lots of traps using scrap from US bomb shells. They also wore their sandals backwards to disorient any Americans that would discover their footprints. Our guide showed us the various traps built and the actual size of the tunnel entries. Nowadays the tunnels have been made 50% larger for tourists to go through, but they are still very small. Since the VC could only operate at night, they spent their days indoors and had to be exchanged every month against another group due to lack of sunlight. Their system worked very well and they were even able to penetrate into the US embassy in Saigon, as well as a US base to kill soldiers and gather supplies. It was really impressive to see and to be inside the famous Cu Chi Tunnels.

It was a very war-filled day. After the tunnels we were dropped off at the War Remnats Museum, where we could read about and see the atrocities perpetrated by the US Army on the Vietnamese. The worst part was to see that they used a chemical (called Agent Orange) on the civil population, leaving many people with deformities, even generations later. We also passed by the Reunification Palace built in 1966 to serve as South Vietnam’s Presidential Palace. The first communist tanks in Saigon crashed through its gates in 1974 when Saigon surrendered to the North. The Post office is a nice building left over from the French colonial period, right next to the Notre-Dame Cathedral. We were inside the cathedral and saw a guy with a Canadian flag pin, so we asked him if the Governor General was coming soon (we knew he was also visiting Vietnam). About 20 minutes later Mr. David Johnston did indeed make a quick appearance and Christoph was able to shake his hand too. It’s not like meeting Henri, but still cool.

One day we had lunch at Pho 2000, a famous pho (beef noodle soup) restaurant where Bill Clinton also ate during one of his visits as President. We also went to the Ben Thanh Market to look around. There is so much stuff, but it seems to be all the same. Some things are nice, but you have to really look to find something, especially since they charge high prices because tourists come here anyway. Christoph got annoyed by the fact that the salespeople pull your arm to attract you to their stand, but it wasn’t working with us. Overall people in Saigon were nicer than in Hanoi and didn’t try to rip you off quite as often, but we enjoyed the Old Quarter of Hanoi better since it was more lively with locals, as opposed to the “backpackers’ quarter” in Saigon.

The Bay of Halong has just been voted as one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. This beautiful bay in the Gulf of Tonkin has around 2000 karst peaks scattered around in emerald water, forming a beautiful landscape. Cat Ba Island is the largest island in the bay and we stayed there for 2 nights. The best way to explore the bay is by taking a boat tour around, so we did. We chilled on our wooden boat the entire day, enjoying the breezy and partly sunny upper deck while relaxing and taking in the magnificent views of Lan Ha and Halong Bay. The first stop was at a beach on Monkey Island, but we didn’t see any monkeys. From there we went to Sung Sot (Surprise) cave, a very large, but unspectacular cave. Later we arrived at a spot in a sheltered bay where we got in kayaks and went to explore the area. We passed under a hole in the cliff and got to a beautiful and peaceful inner bay. It was just gorgeous and being on the kayak we got a different perspective and enjoyed the adventure. Back on the boat, we cruised around a bit longer, then it stopped for people to go snorkeling. After the great day, we got back to Cat Ba town on the big island just in time for sun set. Wonderful!

After having met Henri in Hanoi, we headed to the train station in the evening to catch our train to Sapa, 300km Northwest of Hanoi. The train tracks and hence the trains in Vietnam a narrower than the Chinese ones. We boarded the train for our 9 hour overnight train ride on a hard sleeper. People had advised us against it saying it was bad, but since we had travelled thousands of kilometers on hard sleepers in China, we wanted to try it out here. It’s funny that they are called hard sleepers. The only difference is that there are 3 berths on top of each other instead of 2 in the soft sleeper. You still get a mattress, a pillow, a blanket with new linen. The trains are worse than in China (but still ok), rattling and swaying a lot, which explains why they go so slowly. The trains are also not as tall, so the room between berths is not as big. In China people sit on the bottom berth until it’s time to go to bed, when everyone goes to their own berth. In Vietnam, you cannot really sit on the bottom berth unless you are a 5-yr old child, but since we took the train from 8pm to 5am, this was not a problem and we went to bed right away. The country is a lot smaller, so the distances are not that big and one can do well in smaller spaces. The people in our compartment were nice and Christoph tried communicating with them using the few Vietnamese words he learned, but Vietnamese is even harder than Mandarin. It has 6 tones, not “only” 4 to pronounce everything. They use our alphabet since it has been introduced by a French priest, Father Alexandre de Rhodes in 1651, which gives the false impression that it’s easy to read and pronounce. Cecilia decided to stick to “hello”, “thank you” and the numbers only, while Christoph is actually trying to pick up a bit more.

Sapa is a hill station founded by the French in 1922 in the Tonkin Alps at an altitude of 1650m and home to a multitude of ethnic minorities in Vietnam. Unfortunately 2 of our 4 days there it rained, so we didn’t enjoy as much as we had hoped. Even if the days were nice, the nights were very cold and damp. When the rain finally stopped, we went down in the valley to Cat Cat village, a village where people of the H’Mong minority live. We were disappointed because the village is not authentic anymore, with no specific architecture and with every house having a “souvenir shop”. The H’Mong people have an interesting custom where they organize a “Love Market” every week in one of the villages. This is a kind of speed dating for the young people, where they can meet other H’Mongs from neighbouring villages. Also, at these events young men can “kidnap” a girl with their friends and bring her home. They will keep her for 3 days, showing that they would like to marry her. If she agrees, the young men will ask her parents for approval and the preparatory wedding ceremonies will begin. Among other ethnic minorities in the region, there are the Red Dzao people, as well as a few others. What all these Montagnards (as the French called the hill tribes) have in common is that they came from China a few centuries ago, having similar languages and writing in Mandarin Chinese. Their clothing is also similar to those of ethnic minorities in Southwest China, except that the H’Mong and Dzao people wear a lot of silver jewelry.

On our second sunny day, we set out to walk to more minority villages in the area. We passed through Linh Ho village and continued on, seeing children play in the rice fields. We also came face to face with water buffaloes, who look a lot more intimidating than they really are. As soon as you come close, they move out of the way, but we were still a bit nervous in their presence. At some point we lost the main path and were wandering in the rice fields. Then the path stopped completely and we were practicing our sense of balance on the walls of rice paddies. Talk about being off the beaten path! After a few more muddy rice paddies, we finally saw a path which led to the road. There we were offered a motorbike ride back for $2 each and jumped at the opportunity (that’s the going rate). We were both behind the guy on his motorbike and it was a thrilling ride. Enough adrenaline for one day!

We are finally millionaires! Unfortunately, it’s not by winning the Lotto-Quebec, but by withdrawing some Vietnamese dong from the ATM (20,000 dong to $1, so just $50 makes you rich!).

On the way from the border to Hanoi, we saw women selling baguette on the side of the highway, a sign the French had been here. We arrived in Hanoi, a city of 3.7 million people and scorching hot. We checked in at our hostel and were offered a coffee right away. We guess you need it to bring your pulse in line with the city. We then ventured into the Old Quarter (just outside our hostel) to get a feel for the city and look around. The country’s capital is steeped in history, but is also pulsating with life. You feel this right away. Luckily we had been in China, where we got to practice with the buzzing traffic because Hanoi is the real thing. There are mainly motor bikes that zoom by in an interesting weave of people, cars and motor bikes. We had been told about it, but crossing the street is quite the experience indeed. The trick is to keep walking at a steady pace and the motor bikes will avoid you. It sounds pretty crazy when you see them coming at you, but it works. We are always happy once we cross the street. If you look up, you see many colonial buildings and funny “tunnel houses” called so because they are narrow and long, many of them very colourful. Back in the day they used to pay taxes on street-front space, so the architecture adapted to that reality. If you look down, you see lots of small street eateries with delightful food enjoyed by people sitting on tiny stool on the sidewalks. We had dinner at a small restaurant suggested by our hostel staff and it was delicious. After lots of fried food in China, it’s refreshing to have soups and lots of fresh herbs.

Unlike in China, there are loads of travel agencies everywhere and everyone is trying to sell you a tour. The commissions for booking train and bus tickets are very high, so we wanted to try on our own, as we had in China, so we set out into the bustling city. We were rewarded by paying only half of what they were charging us at the hostel, but had to go to the train station by ourselves. To get there, we followed the train tracks. People live right next to them and we saw dishes, children playing and daily life as we walked. After buying the train tickets, we walked through a neighbourhood and the local market and saw many colourful herbs, spices, vegetables and also dog meat for sale. Not for sensitive stomachs. Accidentally we stumbled upon the Temple of Literature, Vietnam’s first university and a jewel of traditional Vietnamese architecture in 11^th century style. There are five courtyards, as well as a statue of Confucius. It’s interesting to see this scholar’s influence also on other cultures, after having visited his hometown Qufu in China. There were also lots of girls who had graduated university and who were dressed in beautiful and vividly coloured traditional clothes. We then passed though the embassy quarter, a very nice area with mature trees and pompous villas. We also saw the German and Romanian consulates and residences, not bad places to live or work. Too bad it was Sunday, otherwise we could have paid them a visit. We also saw the Luxembourgian flag hanging from poles and assumed there was something going on, but didn’t know what exactly.

We also went to a bus station to buy bus tickets for our trip to Cat Ba, again on our own, defying the organized groups. The guy there hardly spoke English, but used Google translate to communicate with us. An ingenious idea! In the evening we went to the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. It is a fascinating art that started here in Northern Vietnam and that Christoph’s dad had seen many years ago. The show started off by a musical performance and then the water puppets emerged. It was interesting and fun to watch and the music was very pleasant. There were different scenes, depicting the life of the peasants, such as the water buffalo fighting, farm work and coconut picking. The final scene is related to the legend of Emperor Ly Thai To, who transferred the royal capital from Ning Binh to Hanoi 1000 years. The legend has it that upon his arrival in Hanoi, the Emperor saw a golden dragon among the clouds so he named this area “Thang Long” meaning “a soaring dragon”.  On the way back, we walked through the Night Market where it was loads of people buy clothes, jewelry and anything else imaginable.

People in Vietnam are a lot more open than in China and more speak English. At the hostel, in the stores and on the street people are generally very friendly and more considerate of others than in China, we feel. On the other hand, everybody tries to sell you something (in Vietnamese “rip you off”) and one starts mistrusting everyone. It’s funny that we compare everything to China now, but probably because it’s the most recent experience. We even convert prices to Chinese yuan (RMB) to see if it’s cheap or not (many times we get quoted in USD or dong, but converting it to yuan gives us a better feel for the prices we should be paying. We heard South-East Asia (SEA) is cheaper than China, so now we try to buy everything at Chinese prices or lower. Funny how our reference point has become China now.

We found out that the Grand Duke Henri de Luxembourg (Christoph’s uncle) is in town, so after breakfast we hurried to the Luxembourgian embassy. We arrived at the address and saw it was a hotel. We asked and they said the embassy was inside indeed. We also told them we came from Luxembourg and we wanted to see Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. They told us he’s in a meeting and they don’t know when he’ll be out and if we even get to see him because of security, etc. We couldn’t be talked out of it and decided to stick around since he would eventually have to come by. Our patience (or stubbornness?) was rewarded about 20 minutes later. The staff was getting agitated and winked at us, telling us that he might be coming. We got up and stood right there. And then we saw Him! Christoph cried out “Letzebuerg” and he immediately came over to us, shook our hands and started speaking Luxembourgian. Christoph answered in French, saying we came from Luxembourg, live in Montreal, that we are on a world trip and found out he was here so we wanted to meet him. He asked about our trip and then we took a picture together. He was accompanied by Mme Marie-Anne Jacobs, the minister of Family Affairs and minister of Cooperation. We chatted with them, telling them we were good Luxembourgians celebrating Luxembourg Day with our friends in Montreal (Stimmung! Party!) and watching the parade every year. He was very pleased to hear that and we shook hands again before they left. We were so excited our knees were shaking and we couldn’t believe that we actually got to meet him! He was very nice and our trip to Vietnam was already worth it! We left the embassy-hotel and still couldn’t believe our luck. The whole day we just kept saying “Wow”!

From there we walked towards Hoan Kiem Lake. The lake, epicentre of Old Hanoi, has a legend according to which Heaven sent Emperor Le Thai a magical sword he used to drive out the Chinese. These were our first 3 days in Hanoi and from here we headed to Sapa, a hill station in the Tonkin Alps 300km Northwest of Hanoi. From there we went to the Bay of Halong, East of Hanoi in the Gulf of Tonkin.

After Sapa and the Halong Bay, we went back to Hanoi for 3 more days. We walked through the narrow lanes of the Old Quarter again, sat in small street-side restaurants, people-watching. It is really fascinating to see what people carry on their bikes and scooters: 3 more passengers, 10 large boxes, pigs, chickens, you name it. And in the whole craziness that traffic is, nothing falls down and there are no accidents. Food in Hanoi was really good: fresh spring rolls (nem), noodle soup (pho), noodles with grilled beef (bun bo) and meatballs (bun cha). It’s really great because everything is made on the spot and served with lots of fresh herbs such as coriander, sage and mint. For dessert we went to Cafe de Paris to have some French desserts: mousse au chocolat and plum liqueur.

We also went to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, where he lies embalmed. He is a national hero for the Northern Vietnamese who won the war over the Americans and founded the Communist Party of Vietnam. In the same complex we visited “Uncle Ho’s” former house and saw the Presidential Palace, as well as the One-Pillar Pagoda, Hanoi’s landmark.

We had planned to go to Hue and Hoi An on the coast in Central Vietnam for some history, but unfortunately the area is flooded. Therefore, we’re flying to Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City – HCMC) and leave those for our next trip to Asia. We heard North and South Vietnam are very different due to their long split history, so we are excited to find out for ourselves.