Ha Noi - Businesses #2

Our laundry shop.
Produce seller.

Where I ate lunch and Peter had a beer.
Musical instrument shop with one-stringed violin?

The noodle making shop.

Typical restaurant across from our hotel.

Ha Noi - Businesses #1

Sorry that the captions don't stay with the pictures, but you can figure them out. There will be a quiz! Ha, ha.

The ladder business.

The fabric shop.

Live chickens on the way to market.

The marble statue shop.

(Sidesways) the shrine business.

Tourist cafes.

Ha Noi - Street scenes

A small street.

Clothes drying.

The watch-repair is in the back.
Saleslady.

Sidewalk parking lot.


This door has a buzzer - top left, and peep-hole where the knob should be.

Throughout South America and Asia, sidewalks are the same concrete squares - the easier to repair.

The ramp is for motorbike storage within the shop because people live therein.

Lady in the pyjama dress.

Across the street from our hotel - typical.

Reflections from Asia

Tuesday, March 15.
I will do a picture essay on Ha Noi and make a number to theme postings. I will leave you now with some final thoughts.
Ha Noi is the grubbiest city we visited, but has a real vibrancy in the little we saw of it. We walked the Old Quarter, finding lanes too small for cars, but, as in Hoi An, motorbikes going in both directions amongst the bicycles and the pedestrians. Again, as in Hoi An, it is “drive-up” shopping on the streets around the market.
On the drives to the airport and out-of-town to Ha Long Bay, we see wooden-shacks often with small, but tidy, gardens beside three-story, double or triple lot luxury homes. Although the speed limit, governed by the traffic, is never more than 30 km/hr in the city, on the major highways, of which Ha Noi has many, the taxi manages 40 km/hr.
In our five days in the area, we never saw the sun - not even a disc attempting to penetrate the smog. Perhaps this is why we are left with an impression of filth.
Yet, in the north of Vietnam as apposed to the south, Cambodia, and Malaysia, we never have children attempting to sell us tourist junk. The vendors are always adults. I wonder why?
The only scam we come across are some smartly dressed women and men posing as Red Cross canvassers - they flash a laminated-identity card - who want your name and country in their scribbler and a minimum $5 donation! The lady is miffed when I scratch out the bit of my name I have written in her book. They hang out near the Hoa Lo prison, better known as the Hanoi Hilton of prisoner-of-war times. I assume they feel visitors to the prison will be soft touches. They do have lots of names in their books.

Reflections on Asia:

- We always felt safe, even in busy, crowded areas.
- Peter is right when he comments: people are just going about their business as we are in Canada, working to support their families so their children can do better than they have.
- The work is still labour intensive. Even in grubby Ha Noi, there are street sweepers, garbage collectors, recycling collectors, who are constantly working to clean the place.
- Rice fields are everywhere! In the city, on the edges, and throughout the country, there are paddies in various levels of wetness.
- Especially in Ha Noi, but also somewhat elsewhere, it is necessary to check the restaurant bill carefully as there are constant errors, and not in your favour! Also, again especially in Ha Noi, you must check the change of all purchases. I think the vendors, especially the younger girls, know most foreigners don’t understand the money and are an easy mark. I get the feeling that it happens too often to be just by chance. At 20,000 dong to $1, you can understand why some people don’t get it!

Kuala Lumpur is just plain rich in comparison with the other places we visited. Yet, we sat with office workers in the lean-to restaurant and were well fed for very little.

Siem Reap is quite small, very poor, but a lovely place. We hope that the money from the influx of tourists helps to raise the standard of living for the residents.

Hoi An, I think, is my favourite spot - if I have to pick one. Maybe because it is small with very few cars, lots of bicycles, lovely beaches, and many historical buildings. Only, the fabric market is too aggressive , so I simply leave when I may have bought some had I been left alone to look. Anyway the made-to-measure stores are numerous and excellent.

Na Trang, for a bigger place, left me with good feelings. Again, it is an easy city to walk around, day or night. Maybe, also, because of the wonderful development - still ongoing - of the waterfront so all the citizens can, and do, use it.

Ho Chi Minh city (Sai Gon is now used for the whole metropolitan area) is so wonderfully vibrant - like Southern California. Perhaps the temperate weather mixed with the freedom-loving people and the extensive parkland within the city make for an active lifestyle for both young and old. You can actually see old ladies in their pyjama outfits walking down the street purposefully swinging their arms or lifting their knees, twisting and stretching as they go - all with no embarrassment, but simply to keep limber.

After just four weeks, I feel we have no more than a taste of Asia. The cities are tiring but exhilarating. The small places are welcoming and relaxing. I could easily spend two or three months traveling in South East Asia, but I would stick to the luxury buses - they stop at the restaurants that have clean washrooms!

A Quiet Day in Hue

The breakfast room and the Royal Restaurant of our hotel.


Friday, March 4.
The staff of this hotel are quietly and friendly efficient. Because I usually mile and say thank you to staff, I get the most beautiful smiles from the workers. But, it must be a prized place to work for the locals. This beautiful setting would be welcome to hotel personnel in Canada.
Hanging flowers and the Perfume River.



The elevator and the mural of Hue beside it.

After a late breakfast buffet, we have a wandering, do nothing day. Peter is attempting to buy runners to no avail. European size 43 seems to the largest size carried in this country of little people. By North American standards, I’m now on the small size, but here I feel like an elephant! Especially amongst women my age. The guide, Sun, said yesterday that I am strong for my age as his grandmother is a year younger than me and she is - and he bends forward to imitate someone with osteoporosis. I tell him that his grandmother has had a much harder life than I have had. This was the dividing area between the North and South during the Vietnam war, and she would have been a teenager. Not a pleasant thought.
After almost an hour of side-street searching, we go to the City Tour office and reserve our taxi for the ride to the airport tomorrow for our flight to Ha Noi. We return to the room and Peter reads and sleeps for a few hours. A few days rest should do him good.
At dinner, we are invited to a table with an Edmonton couple. We compare notes on our travel and Peter gets an e-mail to send them information about our South American travel. Although he is still yawning, Peter is feeling better. We’re all packed and ready for our final stop.


The sidewalk parking lot as is normal in Vietnam.

The teacher's college and the bronze plaque in honour of Uncle Ho Chi Min's first protest against the French taxation system.

Hue

Wednesday, March 2.
We are now in what was North Vietnam. Traveling from Hoi An at 40 km/hr in a “sleeping” bus during the day is a new, and not the most comfortable, experience for Peter. Thinking of the South American sleeping buses, I’m thinking seats upstairs and down. The downstairs ones are fine for sleeping, but feel inclosing if traveling through the day. Therefore, when given the choice, I choose an upper “seat”.
In Vietnam, the first action on a sleeping bus is that you must remove your shoes as you get on and put them into the plastic bag provided. Remember, wear socks for stinky feet and don’t embarrass your mother by having holes in the toes. Also, the sleeping bus has upper and lower berths and you sit with your feet up, like on a lounge chair! They are also designed for Asian-built men - not your tall, sometimes overweight, white folk. Peter is not the biggest on the bus, but it is a squeeze for him to climb the ladder in the narrow aisle and attempt to get comfortable. I am feeling badly about my choice until I realize that the guys on the bottom bunks are flush with the floor. There is no way Peter would be able to get up and down in such a confined space. I also realize that # 21 seat and # 26 are the coldest on the bus. I am in #21 and have the air-conditioning outlet from both sides blowing directly at me. At the second stop, I pull my jacket from its storage space on the outside/back of my pack and my trusty cotton tie-dyed wrap from inside and swaddle myself for the rest of the journey. It is only four hours!Our first stop is fifteen minutes at Marble Mountain in Da Nang. If I had known there were caves to explore and the stop was going to be over a half an hour, I would have gotten off, but it looks like a marble knickknack place. Peter and I stay on the bus while many of the occupants rush off. The Australian group are busy buying, but one guy who appears to be their leader comes back huffing and puffing as he says he has run to the bottom of the caves and back. An experience lost. I’m sure there were lots of others we have missed along the way.
As we pass through Da Nang, I see a school with a class seated in the yard watching intently while the teacher instructs them in rifle shooting. There are three rifles propped in tripods on the ground and a picture of a man on the wall about 50 feet in front of them. Shall we lobby for rifle skills to be taught in Canadian schools? I bet many boys, and some girls, would pick that option over cooking classes.
The number 1 highway follows the ocean wherever possible, but must take a few dips inland past cliff areas. The overhead lights switch just before we enter a tunnel. It goes on and on. The good thing is that it is constructed with markers that stop passing. I’m sure there would be carnage if these poles were not in place. It is the Hai Van tunnel, opened in 2005 and 6.28 km in length. For more information view Wikipedia.
Except when going through the tunnel at 50 km/hr, we continue our slow-boat-to-Hue journey. Except when on the rise or fall of the mountain passes, the entire roadside is inhabited. I assume that is how you squeeze 87 million people into a space 1/3 the size of B.C.

Marble Mountain and some marble statues.

Peter tries to get comfortable!

Finally, we are in Hue. The bus turns off the main road onto an impossibly-narrow street and spews-out the teeming hordes, tossing luggage amongst the crowd which is now doubled by men asking “Need a taxi?” We thought the South American bus depots were a jumble. They are extremely organized in comparison. Later I realize that the people of Hue pride themselves on the safety of their city, so they don’t expect our stuff to get stolen.
Our sixty-dollar a night hotel is serious four star, right on the river, and close to the tourist downtown area. I could get used to simply walking from the taxi and having everything taken care of until I am in the room. Peter has created a monster!We wander down the street for a little lunch, across the bridge to the market where I manage to get a nail emery board for 10 cents and practise my Spanish with a stall vendor who wants to sell me something. We carry on to the supermarket - yes, a real one! - to get water, beer, and crackers, and where I have a conversation with Yen, a brightly-smiling grade 12 student who wants to practise her English. She is hoping to go to university to study economics next year. She attends school in the morning and goes back in the afternoon to study more courses outside of what is required. She says she very much appreciates the hard work of her parents which allows her to attend school. I have a new pen-pal!
We have opted to take a tour tomorrow with a private firm instead of the hotel. It is half the price and we feel it is reputable. A long day!

Not our hotel but the Morin, the old colonial relic.

Peters goes to the modern supermarket.

The Perfume River.

Thursday, March 3.
We are discovering how difficult it is to understand English when you remove all the “r”s. Because of my ESL experience, I’m not too bad, but Peter is having some problems.


Making incense sticks.

Our guide, Sun, and driver arrive with a spotlessly-clean SUV at 9:30 sharp. Our tour begins with a stop at an incense-making (and tourist stuff) stall. I buy some as a gift not realizing I will need some for offerings at the temples. We carry on to the Tomb of Te Duc, the longest ruling emperor of the Nguyen dynasty who had 104 wives but no children. Our guide explains that he had had a childhood decease that left him impotent, but that he was both a poet and a scholar. There are many kilometres of tunnels under the tomb and he is buried at an unknown location within the tunnels. Sun sounds very broad of this ancestor.



The entrance to the tomb of Tu Tuc.


Where he "cried" and wrote poetry.

Next we visit the Citadel and Imperial City. Built in the early 19th Century by the Emperor Gia Long. It is fashioned after Beijing’s Forbidden city. Much has been destroyed - stolen by the French the guide suggests - there is constant reconstruction. By the back gate, guards still fish in the pond. Sun says that the last, 13th, emperor was the son of the 12th emperor’s most senior mandarin and one of his wives as he was gay - didn’t like women! While in the Royal Traditional Theater, we become the oddity for two little girls visiting with their family from Hoi Chi Minh city. I manage to get a picture of the two little dolls. This is when I wish I had something Canadian to give as a gift.

Two sweet kids from Sai Gon. Tourists like us!

Statue at the Citadel.








Peter is not allowed to use the Emperor's door.

One of the gates at the Citadel.

Peter listens to Sun's story.

Building in the Forbidden Purple City.

Peter is feeling a little under the weather, so after a coke while I have a small lunch, he heads back to the hotel and I carry on to the Thien Mu Pagoda. Built in 1601, it is still a religious community. The seven-tiered tower in front of the pagoda, built in 1864, is a symbol of Hue and of Vietnam. We must take incense to offer here as well. I also get to put my left hand on the stone elephant in one of the small towers and make a wish with my eyes closed. Sun is Buddhist and believes in the myths and rituals. Also, he proudly tells me that Buddhist people do not eat dog like the much disliked Chinese people do!
Consistently through Vietnam, we meet people who know we are Canadian, but who tell us of their dislike of the Chinese and French whom they say stole from the country, but their admiration of the Americans who left an infrastructure and did not steal from the Vietnamese and who helped with the reconstruction of the country. The Americans we speak to carry a sense of guilt, but the Vietnamese seem to carry no animosity. Maybe it has to do with their Buddhism belief.
Peter is feeling a little better when I return, so after a short snooze, we head out for dinner at a little courtyard restaurant I saw last night. Turns out it is part of the City Tour company we used for the tour! My duck cooked with garlic and lemongrass is the first spicy - delicious - Vietnamese food I have had. Peter has French (?) onion soup (to be noted!) and trusty grilled chicken. As in Mexico, you always get the hind quarter.
We have nothing planned for tomorrow, so, hopefully, Peter will be feeling better. He has his yawning sickness which he seems to get a couple of times a year.


The temple area of the Thien Mieu Pagoda.

A happy guardian of the pagoda - that's real human hair!

The seven tiered temple.

Our driver and Sun, our guide.

Hoi An City - A World Heritage Site

Saturday, Feb. 26 to Tuesday, March 1.
On the way to the airport in Nga Trang, we see a Miami-style development, called Venetia, advertised in this very sandy area by the ocean. It is probably a good investment for someone who has time to sit on it.
At the airport, for the first time in Asia, we have a curt, unfriendly lady at the check-in counter. Maybe she didn’t like that so many people got there before it was time for her to begin. Maybe she is from China. Whatever!
The security machine finds the very small, almost minute, pair of scissors I purchased in Ho Chi Minh city and promptly lost, as well as my short, but metal, nail file I have had for five years! Damn, I hate flying out of small airports.
With each move, I always feel a sadness to leave a place we are just getting to know and an anxious anticipation of the next adventure. It’s an emotional roller-coaster.
The flight to Da Nang is only an hour, but I note first that Nga Trang looks as lovely from the air as on the ground. Then I see that every major highway below has continuous housing along it. The ground is a patchwork of small fields, mostly rice, with an amazing number of rivers of varying widths snaking through towards the sea. It is hard to believe they are reporting drought in the central and northern parts of the country. Like the rivers, the airplane dips and dives its way to the airport. Peter suggests that there must be a cross-wind. The remnants of the American military presence is seen around the airport in thick concrete storage buildings.
We have used Sinh travel for our arrangements, and their driver is awaiting us, laughing at his colleagues as we are one of the first couples to emerge with our luggage. Little does he know that this is a first for us.
There are many new resorts built and under construction along the beach road to Hoi An, including a Colin Montgomery designed golf course. Again, the two cities are linked by continuous humanity. The odd field breaks the chain, but it is like the river of motorbikes - never ending.
Hoi An is completely different than any other place we have visited. The closest in feel is Cusco, except that was at 4,000 metres and this is at sea level! You walk everywhere. The narrow streets make dodging the motorbikes a synch.
Now, dodging the merchants is another story! All the main streets and most of the side streets are stores, with living quarters in the rear or above. When I buy my Speedo knock-off, I try it on in the children’s bedroom! But, what a fun, safe place to be. The guide book says to have an extra chip for the camera, and it is true. A camera buff could take a thousand pictures here and each would be unique. Do I sound like I like Hoi An? The fact that Peter can’t stop buying me clothes adds to the enjoyment.

There are many stone statues along the canal. The houses close to the canal are typical of the town.

The entire town has been designated a world heritage sight - which is wonderful. The buildings are Chinese/French with Vietnamese thrown in. Many are dingy in appearance, but that just emphasises their age - as in Cusco. We are almost templed-out, but we do appreciate them from the outside. We walk across the Japanese bridge unsure if we are supposed to have a ticket. In the evening, the lanterns in the streets, on the river, and especially in the lantern stalls are all ablaze! Magical!
The specialty of the town is the making of garments in good quality fabrics - cashmere and silk or blends for suits, wonderful cottons for shirts, various silk and silk blends for women’s clothing - made-to-measure in 24 hours, maximum. You choose a pattern or bring a picture or garment, pick out the fabric, they measure, make, do a fitting for adjustments, and it is done. Total prices are about ½ of the fabric cost in Canada. Okay, I did get some clothes. Peter even got two pair of golf shorts. Not many of his cohorts have made-to-measure shorts.

The staircase in our hotel we get to climb each day.

A pagota doorway.



The Japanese bridge built by the Japanese residents in the 17th Century.

The stalls that sell lanterns.

There are two beaches not far from downtown. On our final day we decide to visit the non-tourist beach west of town. The gentleman across for the hotel who takes our laundry also rents bikes - $1 a day.
After breakfast, we start on the three kilometre trek past rice paddy’s to the end of the road - the South China sea. We pay the 10 cents to park the bikes (they are not allowed on the beach side of the road). In the a.m. the waves are calm, so I have a swim. This must be a calm beach, as there are millions of little shells in perfect condition where the high tide ended in the night. The fishermen’s boats are along the dry sand. These are the basket-shaped boats that are used close to shore. There is only one other person on the beach. We walk for a while so I can dry-off a bit. We see many hermit crabs scurrying from hole to hole, two dead chickens, and one unfortunate puppy who must have gotten caught in the tide. We head back as I have a fitting at 11 and Peter hopes to get shorts made.

The rice paddies on the way to the beach.

The quiet fishermen's beach.

The water baby emerges from the South China Sea.

A fishing boat - tub?

My jacket is perfect and Peter is fitted for shorts, so we head off on our bikes to the east to Cua Bai - otherwise, China Beach - which is where the tourists go. The four to five k. ride out is much busier than the eastern road, therefore, somewhat more exciting - especially when a car is passing side-by-side motorbikes, therefore has to use our side of the road.
Again, we need to park the bikes but this time it is 50 cents. As we have found with stores and restaurants, the more tourists, the higher the price. We walk on the beach a little way. The sand is like talcum powder, but this beach has lots of restaurants and more people. If we had more time, we would choose the other to visit again.
I pick-out my “Speedo” and we ride, slightly sore-bottomed, back to get Peter’s shorts. Success. They fit great.


The busy, tourist beach.

Peter on a bicycle!

Peter's perfect, made-to-measure shorts. The haircut's not bad either.

We have dinner at a Fusion - Austrian/Vietnamese - restaurant. The service is excellent and the food is very tasty but in small quantities. It is on the river across form the old town, so we can see the town lit up. This is a lovely way to end our visit. Now we have to stuff all our stuff in our luggage. Luckily, Peter is a strong guy and carrying it around the corner to the bus in the morning will not be too daunting.
Note: The Viet Nam News paper is creatively sold by maimed or unemployed young men in Hoi An. Somewhere, the price, 6,000 vnd, is carefully scraped-off and an official looking 30,000 d. is added in its place. Actually, you can dicker and pay anything from 10,000 to 30,000. I chose the comfortable figure of 20,000 ($1) as a fair price. My regular guy smiles and waves to me whenever he sees me in town. He appears to have cerebral palsy and is in a push/pull wheelchair, but also has an ingratiating smile.

This little guy is attempting to catch a coloured ball.

Evening magic.

The animal lanterns on the canal.