Summary of our Vietnam Trip Sept 2006
Vietnam Trip Sept 2006
Sept 2nd.
Well the day has arrived for the big trip, we have been to New Zealand a couple of times and our traveling companions Ken and Janette Shalders have never been out of Australia so this is our first trip to a non English speaking country.
Was picked up at Diane’s home at North Haven at 12 midday and taken to West Beach Airport in a limo for a 3.15 departure ( they certainly did not want us to miss our flight ) The flight was OK not as tiring as we all thought it was going to be arriving at Kuala Lumpur 7 hours later.
The Airport here has to be seen to be believed, it is just enormous even to the extent that the departure terminals and the arrival terminal are close on 1km apart and all the passengers have to travel in a electric train to the opposite terminal to what you arrive at. It is double storied and the shops etc are something else, it is some distance from the city and passengers who are going on to other countries do not get to go in to the city as there are hotels at the airport.
Drama’s started early in the piece, there is always some who know everything and we had a couple of people, ,part of our group, who had done a fair bit of traveling and they knew all the ropes and the procedure at the airport, the only trouble was they did not tell our guide what they were up to and 1 hour elapsed before he found them and got the group back together again, lesson learnt this did not happen again. this plus the fact that Malaysian Airlines did not organize a bus from the airport to hotel and this caused a further problem but was eventually sorted out.
Next morning we all traveled to the airport again and sat around for a couple of hours before we boarded the plane for Saigon. Only a 2 hour flight so went very quickly, was met at the airport with our Vietnamese guide who was a great young fellow who had a good understanding of our language and had a terrific sense of humour.
As we were a little early for going to the hotel to book in our guide decided to start our tour before lunch so the first port of call was the Thein Hua Pagoda which was very very old with heaps of history attached to it but even though (OOT our guide) explained it all very well not too much of the info sunk in but for all that the architecture was interesting. The poverty in this area is quite evident, the houses they live in are very substandard and the filth in the gutters is hard to believe, stagnant pools of water lying around and the footpaths all broken up and quite dangerous to navigate, to quote from a brochure “People lived together with animals so the smell of pigs and chicken excrements was absolutely terrible. I am a retired doctor 80 years of age and I knew very well it was unhygienic but we still lived like that to make ends meet”. This standard appeared to be worse in the South of Vietnam ,the further North we went it seemed as though the standard of living was better although the amount of rubbish ie garbage bags, lying on vacant blocks has to be seen to be believed, most depressing.
From here we went to the Wholesale markets called the Binh Tay Market and this was an eye opener, you could not believe that there could be so much merchandise packed in to one small area but of course we were not allowed to buy anything.. We also visited the Ben Thanh Market which is the retail markets but once again no buying time only a look see so that we would know where to come when we had some spare time.
Tonight we dined out at a Vietnamese Resturant which while OK was not my cup of tea but as the majority of the group were happy with it I will have to go along.
Monday
Today we went about 70 km North to the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong fought a lot of the war with the Yanks in 1965 – 1975, was quite amazing and hard to believe that there was 200 km of tunnels that the Viet Cong constructed by hand and where they lived and fought the Americans and the tunnels were never ever discovered by the Americans. Some of the booby traps were quite gruesome in their concept and it must have been quite petrifying for the allies creeping thru the jungle and all of a sudden the ground would open up and you would find yourself impaled on a set of needle pointed stakes and other fatal devices.
Spent about 4 hours on the trip returning to the markets in Saigon where we all bought some goodies ie watches GENUINE Rolex watch for $20!!, DVD’s for $1.50 shirts and shorts for roughly $6 each and shoes for $15.
The Vietnamese Money is quite worthless $1 Aust is 12000 VND which is called a Dong 100.000 dong is A$8.20.
Tonight another Viet Resturant, ah well!!!
Tuesday
Today we went to the Mekong Delta, which is about 75km South. This was a great trip as it was a varied day with what we saw. This province is where most of the rice is grown which feeds the whole of Vietnam, they are great workers the Asians, and the method of farming is at least 100 years behind Western methods, they still plant and harvest their crops the same way they did for generations and they never ever seem to be in a hurry.
Our guide told us that they seldom ever get angry and time is just not important. Our guide told us that he had 7 brothers and sisters and he is the youngest and it falls upon him to look after his mother and father in their retirement, this is the rule in all Vietnamese families.
We boarded a boat? To cruise the river which is very wide and DIRTY and there are lot’s and lot’s of boats with families living on them and of course their toilets discharge straight in to the river and also all the grey water as well, rather crude!!. We went across the river to an island and we then boarded a boat which held 6 people and 2 rowers, well we paddled up this little tributary through a lush jungle for probably 30 minutes to a area where we disembarked and walked in to a little settlement where we had fruit and tea and bought some coconut confectionery and other types of confectionery. The young people then performed a dance for us and sang some traditional songs, very good entertainment. Rather a long day arrived back at hotel at 5 and out for dinner again and guess what!! another banquet and we are also having one at lunch each day as well.
The traffic here in Saigon is something else, there are 8,000,000 people in Saigon and there are 3,200,000 motor bikes and it appears as though they are all on the road at once, there are traffic lights but they do not seem to take too much notice of them, it is quite a feat to get from one side of the road to the other and the general advice is to just walk out when it appears to be safe to do so and keep on walking and do NOT stop, they will go around you, well it sounds all right in theory but believe me it is quite daunting when there is traffic coming at you from all directions, There are 14500 people killed on the roads in Vietnam every year so you can imagine what it would be like if half of those motorbikes were cars.
Our guide told us that after the war in 1975 the Govt asked all couples to have more babies because of the amount of people killed in the war well after 20 years of heavy breeding the Govt decided that this was not the way to go so they then told them to not have so many children and to help the Govt gave a television to all the couples to give them something else to do at night and he said it appears to be working!!!
Wedensday.
Today we left Saigon and headed up in to the Mountains where it was much cooler, we went to Dalat, this city was formed in early 1900 by the French to give them a cooler climate retreat to get away from the oppressive monsoon climate of Saigon,a beautiful city Dalat and on the way we passed many tea coffee and rubber plantations and once again we could see the primitive way that they farm. We drove around the city and there were many examples of beautiful French mansions. Our Hotels have been just 100% and here was no exception , also the breakfasts have been exemplary, plenty of Western food , help yourself type meals. Another dine out at a guess what restaurant!! Met a lovely little Vietnamese lass selling prints outside the hotel, they are so polite and helpful although they are really in your face trying to get you to buy something, what they sell is dirt cheap in the first place but it appears as tho you are expected to haggle with them which is what you do and after it is all over you think back and you consider the poverty they live in and you have beat them down say 10,000 dong which is 82 cents and then you think what a lousy bastard I was, ah well you cannot help them all, no wonder there are boat people trying to come out to Australia, we do not appreciate how lucky we are.
Thursday
Today we went in the coach to the Emperor Boa Dai’s summer residence a 25 room villa constructed in 1933, it is filled with artifacts from the past and also of governments of the past. Beautiful scenery over the valley from the residence. The rest of the day was taken up with going around the markets looking for bargains and visiting a embroidery factory, now this was really something, it is hard to describe it as it is just mind boggling what these little girls do, some of the scenes that they sew take up to 12 months depending on the size to complete and they sell up to $1500 American Dollars, I managed to photo one scene of an eagle before they stopped me from filming so I did get one excellent example. We did buy some but a lot cheaper version at the markets.
Friday.
This morning we visited the Premm Waterfalls which are a major attraction up here, very nice but not as good as some that we have up in the Atherton Tablelands but for all that they were very pretty and worthwhile seeing.
From here we drove for another 6 hours or so to Nha Trang and on the way stopped for a meal at a little roadside eatery where we had rolls and fruit and it was great instead of more Asian Food, there was also the Cham Towers here which were built 1300 years ago but the Yanks bombed the bee jesus out of the area in the war and destroyed a lot of them, a pity as they would have been a sight to see if they were intact. Our hotel is right on the sea front and what a magnificent hotel the Sunrise Beach Resort is, only been completed about 12 months and is 5 star and for us poor people it was pure opulence. Settled in and went to the markets again and bought some more clothes, what for I do not know will not live long enough to wear them out and the old saying of nothing is cheap if you do not need it just flew out the window, ah well I won’t have to buy my clothes at Vinnies anymore!!! Went for a walk along the beach before dinner and the locals were all very friendly, actually the guides tell us that most places in Vietnam are safe to go walking at night and Saigon especially.
Tonight we had the most beautiful meal at the hotel, Western Food and boy did I pig out!! Hope we get more of them, even free beer to boot.
Saturday
Today we went on a boat cruise which really was a disappointment although the Aquarium we visited was very unique, it was built of concrete and was designed after the sailing ship Columbus, got some nice photo’s and was quite impressed with the setup. We then motored along for about an hour and dropped anchor while some of the party snorkeled and swam for awhile. We saw some more of the primitive methods of farming again today in the form of oxen pulling carts and also oxen pulling a plow in the paddy fields, to see mechanized farming is quite rare.
Upon our return to our guide had organized a rickshaw tour of the of the shopping district on our way to the restaurant where we were having dinner tonight. This was quite an experience 39 rickshaws on tour !!! the locals were suitably impressed with us, the tour took about 45 minutes.
Sunday
Today we are flying up to Danang so we were taken out to the airport at about 9.30 for a 12 oclock take off, very hot out here with no airconditioning and not very comfortable seating to boot and to top this off when we boarded the plane Brode said to me “where is the camera and lo and behold it was left behind in the lounge at the terminal, well as luck had it the attendant on the plane radioed back to the terminal and they found it where I left it and rushed it out to the plane with about 2 minutes to spare, took a while to live that down!!!
Arrived at Danang about 2 hours later and was met by another coach and a new guide, a most attractive lass with a lovely smile and demeanor to match, very hard to determine the ages of these girls as they look no where near the age they actually are but I would guess she was about 30.
Visited another Temple and was fed another history lesson which no one absorbed but the tour organizers feel we need to be told so we were told!, we traveled to Hoi Ann a little village on the sea about 30 km from Danang and on the way visited a marble factory which you would have to see to believe there were just literally hundreds of statues large and small and all fashioned by hand and they were all simply magnificent, bought a small piece in the form of the 3 wise monkey’s on a boat, Ken from Loxton bought a large setting and had it shipped back home to Australia. We also visited a Silk Factory where they spun the silk and made clothing and also other knick knacks, very interesting, some of the group bought some clothing, We also visited another business where the owners were the eighth generation still manufacturing lace sheets etc. Dinner at a local restaurant with Asian food, boy am I sick of the food!!
Monday
Today we go to Hue which is a beautiful drive over magnificent mountains but before we left we visited anoth Cham site and the views were simply terrific, had a pit stop on top of the mountain and lot’s of laughs were had by the toilets provided, in a word had to be seen to be appreciated 4 posts and a bit of blue tarp and a hole in the ground!!! but no one complained it is all part of the culture and a way of life we have never seen.
Tuesday
A boat trip today on the Perfume River which was most enjoyable to a Pagoda which was very interesting as it was the home of Monks. We then went to The imperial city located in the citadel, t was built in the 1800’s and was modeled after the forbidden city in Peking, there are numerous palaces temples towers and a museum with in the walls. From here we went to more markets and this evening we went to a Imperial dinner and all dressed up as kings queens mandarins etc, a bit of a laugh and everybody got a laugh out of it.
Wednesday
Left Hue for Hanoi at 8.30 by plane arriving in Hanoi at 9.45 and we went straight to the hotel and settled in before being taken to another Viet Eating house for lunch. We then done a tour around the city in the coach before doing another Rickshaw tour of the CBD in peak hour traffic, this was a real experience the traffic coming at you from all directions was quite unnerving but most enjoyable and tonight we had a beautiful Western Meal at the hotel, this IS real food still around.
Thursday
Today we are going to Halong Bay where there are over 3000 islands, on the way we saw lots of farmers in the rice fields with buffalo pulling their plows and women paddling water along the channels with large paddles irrigating the fields. There was mist over the whole area which gave it a mystical appearance and it is claimed to be one of the wonders of Asia
We went out on a beautiful large wooden boat cruising among the islands and visited a magic cave which would equal any cave in Australia and it was only discovered 14 years ago by someone chasing a monkey, they have spent a lot of money with lighting and building walkways and access from the sea. Had a seafood lunch and after about 4 hours of cruising we boarded the bus for the return journey to Hanoi, a most enjoyable day .
Friday
Another day of sightseeing in the morning to Ho Chi Minh’s palace and the museum, he was very much admired by the North Vietnamese and lived a very simple life shunning the big palace in favour of a small elevated dwelling where he worked up until his death, it is in grounds of 583 hectares and is well worth seeing.
In the afternoon more shopping to buy some new suitcases which were very cheap by our standard but unfortunately one was damaged on the way home.
At 5 oclock we were picked up at the hotel in our bus to go to see the Water Puppets, this is an excellent hour of entertainment and well worth the visit , the skill of the people behind the curtains is unbelievable.
Sat
Well today we are going home , our plane leaves at 1.30 and we will arrive in Adelaide at 6.15 tomorrow morning , takes about 5 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur then 4 hours at the airport and then 7 hours flight home which is what happened leaving Adelaide at 10 oclock and drove back up to Mildura arriving at about 4oclock.
All in all a most enjoyable trip which I would recommend to anyone with the exception of too much Asian food and too much information about the temples but I am sure that the organizers of the trip think that is what is required from their research and who am I to argue with them. Incidentally the population of Vietnam is 83,000;000 . I took about 900 photo's of the trip and I have included on the site a selection of them of about 120, I hope you enjoy them.
The End
This is how the Vietnamese transport their stock to market, believe me this is a genuine photo
