Vietnam

Well, it has been a while, but things are going well on my end. In Vietnam, I have been to visit a bunch of different cities via an open bus ticket. I got to visit Saigon, Mui Ne, Nha Trang, Hoi An, Hue, and Hanoi.

Saigon was nice a huge city with lots of motor bikes. I got to see some tunnels there and check out some of the French Pastries and ride in a cyclo.

Mui Ne is a smaller beach town just north of Saigon. It was fairly boring with not much to do. Their claim to fame is their Yellow and Red sand dunes. They were nice and presented a good opportunity to do some Sand Surfing on pieces of sheet metal you rent from the local kids. The one down fall of Mui Ne is it claimed my camera. I was at the last sand dune when I pulled out my camera to take a picture and the lens wouldnt come out. So that was a bummer. I was pretty upset. But luckily I was able to get it fixed in Nha Trang.

Nha Trang was a good time. It is a much larger beach town. There I met up with two American girls studying in Hong Kong. We went on a island tour off the coast. It was fun although it rained for most of it. But it still was a good time. To wait for the rain to pass at out point, the captain tethered our boat to another one and they had a band play on board. It was a fun little dance party. The one boat was all Westerners and the other were locals; it made for an interesting mix.

Hoi An was very beautiful. There was a lot of flooding in the area because of all the rain, but still it was worth a stop. Most of the buildings were made of old yellow cement and had these old wooden French shutters on them.

I ate lunch at a restaurant there and the patron tried to marry me off to her daughter. She told me to come back that night and she would give me Vietnamese lessons. I left town.

Hue was a bigger city. The main attraction there was an old citadel in town. It was nice but nothing spectacular.

I got to go on a tour of the former DMZ. Most of it was overgrown with vegetation and is now farm land so you arent really looking at anything very distinctive. I did get to see some old helicopters, jets, weapons and things which were worth a visit but overall it was kind of lackluster. The exhibits in their museums are so poorly put together. They are all unattended and if you want to could just pickup these old M16s and RPGs they have laying around.

But North Vietnam has been the best part. Hanoi has been OK but it has been my launching point to head to Sappa and Halang Bay. Sappa was beautiful I went on a 2 day trek there. I signed up for this tour and it turned out I was the only one on it. So I went on this hike with a guide who was a 22 year old Vietnamese girl who didnt even speak English and didnt really know the mountain well. I had to ask other people to translate for me to try and figure out where it was she was taking me. I wasnt sure Id make it back. But I did get to do a homestay with a Vietnamese family in the valley of Sappa.

At one point, we came to a part in the valley below Sappa where they were building a Hydro Electric Damn. We were walking past a bulldozer that was moving dirt into a dump truck to be taken wherever. As we were walking past the bulldozer, the operator put the bucket on the hill we were standing on and motioned for me to get in it. I hesitated but eventually got it. It was pretty cool he spun me around 360 degrees in the bucket about 15 feet off the ground. At home if I would have gotten in the bucket the operator would have yelled at me to get out. In Vietnam, they asked me to get in.

On the way back from Sappa, I met a German guy and girl and an English girl on the sleeper train and I ended up spending Halloween with them. We met up with three more of there friends and all 7 of us went out as Zombies that night. It was pretty good. We just got a bunch of bandages from the local pharmacy and some makeup and made it work. No one celebrates Halloween here so it was entertaining to watch the locals reactions. Simultaneously the streets were flooded in Hanoi as a result of some of the worst rain in 20 years, so keeping all of the bandaging dry became quite a choir.

I just got back from Halang Bay. I was on a three day trip out there. I spent one night on a boat and another one on an island. We had a group of about 15 of us. We got to do rock climbing during the day and kayaking as well. Good food. Good people. Good times.

Recently, my camera cable crapped out on me so I cant upload my pictures, my camera is been going through a lot lately, but I thought these photos were good substitutes.

Me trekking through Sappa.
A clean-shaven version of me hanging out with Matthew Broderick.

Me chilling out at my bungalow.


Me on the beach in Nha Trang.


Me and the gang.

Tomorrow at 7pm I head out for Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia.