Last stop, Saigon!

Our last open-tour bus ticket was really a large van that left at 7am instead of an overnight. It was a good 7-hour trip, and an overnight would have been much more ideal. Amy and I split from the pack and headed down to Saigon on our own. 


Saigon was hot and humid and that traffic was unbelievable - and I thought LA was bad. It's just that rather than cars, the streets were flooded with motorbikes. 

Bikes come at you from every direction. I exercised extreme caution while crossing, and Amy and I often held hands running across the streets, dodging motorbikes. I felt like I was ten again. Finally, we dropped our bags at a guesthouse and wandered around the city. We checked out the night market and enjoyed some pho. 

The next day, we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, shot some AK-47s and went to the War Remnants Museum - formerly known as the American War Museum. A lot of war-related sights for one day. in the morning, we checked out of our hotel and headed towards the Cambodian border.

We were a few hours into our first bus ride when we realized that our hotel didn't return our passports in exchange for the room key - 50% our own stupidity and 50% the hotel staff's. We scurried to the front of the bus and got the guide to work on sorting out the situation for us. We went on with our day, saw some floating markets went on a long boat ride up the Mekong, checked out a crocodile farm, a candy factory and spent a night on a floating hotel on the Mekong.

In the morning, we took a boat up to some village along the river - this is where, by some miracle, our passports showed up and we were finally reunited with them. 

We continued on the boat to the Cambodian border where we saw Joyce for the first time since Hoi An. We wouldn't let her go again.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

I haven't been too successful in keeping up with the blog as I had promised myself I would be. Vietnam, Cambodia and more of Thailand came and went, but I'm going to attempt to backtrack and document those weeks.

From Laos, Amy and I took a prop-plane by Lao Airlines to Hanoi.

We were conveniently greeted at Luang Prabang airport by a lady promoting a new hostel in the backpacker district - old quarter - of Hanoi. Although we were skeptical of her offer, as we are of most everybody's, we agreed to accept the $3 cab for a 45-minute ride into town. The cab took us to May De Ville Hotel with no obligation to stay, with a special offer of $18 per night, including a nice breakfast. The rate was discounted from the original $30 per night, but since we were picked up in Laos, we got this great deal. The "hostel" was really a fabulous hotel. We were more than pleased. The rooms were gorgeous, new, clean, white linens and towels, toiletries, flat-screen TV with every channel, hot showers, laptop with internet in the room, etc. It was everything you could hope for. We knew this luxury wouldn't come around often, and we cherished every moment of it. Breakfast was just as satisfying - eggs made to order, any way you want, including omelets with vegetables or cheese of your choice, fruit, toast, pastries, the works. The staff was also excellent.

We arranged our boat trip to Halong Bay through the hotel as well. It was $75 for two days and one night on the boat, including meals. The food consisted almost entirely of various fried seafood. It obviously wasn't ideal for me, so I stuck to fried rice for dinner, and some toast and fruit for breakfast.

Halong Bay was beautiful, the emerald waters were nice, and the limestone formations everywhere reminded me of Thailand's west coast islands. We went into some caves and kayaked around a floating village. 

Our company was less than thrilling. There were 13 of us - myself and Amy, a cool Indian-American couple that was picked up in Luang Prabang airport with us and a Chinese family of nine that spoke no English. It definitely wasn't the party boat, and we longed to be on one as our boat sat peacefully near Cat Ba island opposite the party boats. 

We didn't have great weather for our two days, but we managed alright and returned to Hanoi to finish sightseeing.

We walked around the lake, all across town and went to the Museum of Literature and to Hoa Loa Prison. In the evening, we walked through the night market and then caught a water puppet show, which was interesting and worth the $5. We didn't go to the Mausoleum as Ho Chi Minh's body had been sent to Europe for preservation a week prior. So I still have only one preserved communist leader on my list - Chairman Mao.

The madness of a big city was a nice change of pace after nearly two weeks in chilled-out Laos, but we were ready to move on after the four days there.

Next stop - Hue!