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As well as being a country of incredible beauty and delicious food, Vietnam can be a frusturating place to travel. As with any developing country, there are always things that are just not quite right. Like when we arrived at the train station yesterday for our ride from Danang to Nha Trang, the train was late - fine, that's expected - but when the trains arrived - emphasis on train*s* - there were no signs on them identifying which trains they were. And as they pull into the station, all the staff magically disappears. So, we boarded the train that appeared to be ours, went to our seat, and someone else was sitting there. We got into a dispute about them being in our seats, other passengers came over, and then after a few minutes, it turned out we were on the train going in the wrong direction. A simple sign on the train identifying it would have, of course, avoided this problem, but no one had thought of that. We got off the train, and a few minutes later, our train pulled into the station. We asked about 15 people to make sure it was definitely our train.
The ride was pleasant enough - about 10 hours in an air conditioned car, nice seats and plenty of leg room. The views going past our window were often enrapturing. Vietnam must have 100 shades of green, from the bright neon green of sprouting rice plants to the deep olive green of the forests climbing up the hills which rise from the coast. The train also crawls past vast beaches, over impossible bridges, and through numerous small villages - the houses of which you can see directly into, given the open construction of Vietnamese homes.
We had booked our hotel from the hotel in Hoi An, which had promised us a good rate on a room with a view of the beach - something we definitely wanted in this town. When we arrived, they told us 'sorry, all sea view rooms full'. But we had a *reservation* and it was clearly written on the reservation 'sea view'. 'Maybe tomorrow someone check out'. So, we left this hotel and searched on foot, walking the city center's streets looking for a hotel that would have a sea view room available. However, at high season, most of the hotels were full. Frusturated, we finally settled on a cheap room with no windows at the back of a nearby hotel. We looked again this morning, but all the hotels (more than a dozen) were either full, or had worse rooms available.
Accepting that we had been screwed, we headed to the beach to relax this morning.
Nha Trang's sprawling public beach was moderately crowded, but we rented ourselves a couple of beach chairs, waded in the warm water, read our books while cooled by the gentle breeze, and forgot our troubles. In the afternoon, we found a cafe that served cappuchinos, fresh fruit juice and fantastic French pastries with ice cream. Set back from the beach, the cafe is arranged around a pool under coconut palms. We snagged deck chairs from a departing couple, ordered coffee and lemon tarts, and went swimming after eating. Lena was chased around the pool by a 5-year-old French boy with water wings who found it amusing to blow bubbles at her underwater.
Tomorrow, we do our first dive/snorkelling trip, out to the islands about 1 hr off the coast from Nha Trang.
Hanoi is a hectic city, with horns blaring and motorbikes racing everywhere you turn. You take your life into your hands - or rather the hands of 1000 drivers - every time you cross the street. It keeps you alert - there is no mindless meandering around this city. Our hotel room also, enjoyably, faces the street, which means we get a welcome 1000-horn wake-up call at 7am.
Today, at breakfast, we ate fresh rambutans, which are a scary looking fruit - small and red - the size of an apricot - with all sorts of spiny tentacles protruding. You cut it open and there is a white, grape-like flesh in the middle, which is the edible part. It tastes like a cross between a grape and a lemon, but very sweet. After trying several, I was able to convince a skeptical Lena to eat one and she ended up asking for more.
We started off the day by taking a walk around the lake that's at the center of Hanoi - an island of semi-calm among the bustling streets. There's an old temple on one of the islands in the lake, and many Hanoians were visiting it, making offerings, burning incense and bowing before the statues of Buddah.
Then we walked through Hanoi's old quarter to a traditional Vietnamese house which has been restored to how it was in the 18th century. We were served tea and witnessed the work of a calligrapher, from whom we bought a small picture.
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to escape Hanoi's opressive mid-day heat and humidity. For dinner, we went to a corner pho stall, where we sampled the cheap and delicious national specialty, in both soup and fried versions. Then, ice cream at a French cafe before attending a water puppet show at the Vietnamese art's national theater.
In water puppetry, the stage is a pool, and the puppeteers stand behind a screen, operating the puppets with long rods under the water. They can do some amazing moves, including fish jumping, kids piling up on top of each other, a full royal procession, a team of 12 dancers, and dragons spewing fire at each other. The performance was made up of about 15 2-3 minute-long vignettes, most seemingly related to some aspect of rural life, such as planting rice, fishing, swimming, and yes - ducks mating (who produced a jumping egg, which then turned into a small duckling). Lena has just informed me that they were not ducks, but phoenixes, but I thought they looked like ducks. All the scenes were accompanied by classical Vietnamese music, which is likely an acquired taste for non-Vietnamese, as it is made up of much high-pitched whining to drums and scimtar-type instruments.
You can see more picture from Hanoi at our photo album.
We started our trip to Vietnam today in the morning!
After a great breakfast consisting of rice cakes and fresh fruits, we left KL for Hanoi.
The flight took 3 hours and 20 mins, and though neither Ari nor I got the window seats we got to see some interesting views from the air.
Hanoi, I discovered is very different from both KL and Bangkok though it's still a South East Asian capital, first: traffic is CRAZY, no rules, no attention to traffic lights, just aim for the end of the street and, as Ari says, "let them drive around you"... I still shrug every time we cross the streets.
On the way to the hotel, we got to see this interestingly built houses, some very old and pretty, but only on the front, the sides were just plain concrete. Seemed like they were planning to build more of those kind, but just never managed to.
Also this is the place we first, and I would imagine the only place, we saw Jiguli ( the Russian car) and lots of Daewoo cars, like in Uzbekistan.
After having a hard time finding the place to eat, we finally stopped at this place called "Little Hanoi" which appeared to be different from the one we wanted to go to, with the same name though.... Food was good, and it was interesting to see two Russian girls also having lunch there. They both had hard time finding the right dish they wanted, and after the recommendation of the lady sitting next table, they both got springrolls...
We're heading down south the day after tomorrow to Hoi An, on the "zakaznoy" ( "special" ) as Ari said train, that supposed to be faster.
Slept late today and then had steamed Chinese buns for breakfast. Then we went to the Uzbekistan Airways office to change the dates on our tickets. (We originally had to buy 1 month tickets, as Lena can only travel to Malaysia for one month without a visa, but will actually return from KL in mid-Sept.)
We then found our way to the National Museum, which had lots of colorful displays of people in all sorts of traditional costumes, much as you would expect of a national museum, but was actually altogether pretty unremarkable.
Tonight we're going to a traditional Malaysian restaurant for dinner.
Hi all, we arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur this morning at 8:45am after the overnight flight.
After taking a long bus ride to the hotel in the Chinatown section of town, we checked in and then started exploring the city. Wandered a bit around Chinatown, Lena ate some springrolls, and then we headed by subway to the Golden Triangle, to a mall right under the Petronas Towers.
The Petronas Towers, we were informed, used to be the world's tallest building(s) until a higher one was built in Taipei recently. We were looking for a backpack to travel and so we explored the mind-boggling mall, but this quickly tired us, so we had to break for coffee. After an iced cappucino and an iced tea, we went to the visitor desk of the Petronas Towers.
We were told all tickets to go up to the observation deck on the 'skybridge' were taken for the day, but then someone cancelled and we were able to go up immediately. Though the skybridge is only about 1/3 of the height of the towers, we still got a beautiful, though hazy, view of Kuala Lumpur from above, and were able to examine up close the towers' beautiful architecture.
When we came down, went back into the mall where we had a Cinnabon. (Remember, we are coming from the consumerist void of Uzbekistan.)
Then we saw the movie 'The Island', which we both managed to stay awake through, before eating at a cool sushi cafe for dinner, then returning to our hotel.
