from the west...: catching up part 2: vietnam

it seems like so long ago that pete, his sister erin, and i touched down in hanoi, vietnam after 17 hours of flying time. we arrived to our hotel quite late, so everything was dark, the shops were mostly closed up, and the streets were quiet. the next morning when we walked out onto the street, we all stopped dead in our tracks with wide eyes and dropped jaws...the streets had been converted to a cacophony of scooters, vendors, and tourists that was a bit overwhelming. but we managed to get our bearings, cross a busy street (not for the faint of heart), and find our way to the first of many, many temples. we spent eight days in vietnam and traversed the country from north to south. the hanoi highlights included our first taste of pho (delicious soup), the temple of literature, and water puppets.

this is a chain restaurant, but it is no kfc.
if only we could replicate it at home...

rising dragon bridge (ngoc son temple)

pete was a hit with the ladies at the temple of literature

temple of literature

an example of the stellar scooter driver skills the people of this country possess - those boxes are all filled with bottles of water!

water puppets!

our next stop was halong bay. we hopped aboard a junk boat for about 24 hours and embarked on a journey through limestone karsts that rise straight out of the sea. the air quality was pretty bad when we were there, but it was still an amazing place to see...especially the floating fishing villages.

our trusty boat, the dragon's pearl

we went ashore here for a cave hike and a bit of a kayak

smoggy sunset on halong bay

steaming through the karsts

early morning...pre-caffeine

woman at one of the floating fishing villages

pete decided his head was too big for this country

next up, hue! this was my favorite stop in vietnam. hue was the impirial capitol of vietnam until recently so it had a lot of character and many sites to see. the tombs and citadel were the highlights of our short stay here. it started to rain while we were out and about, but we fortunately got out 12 hours after it started. the monsoon lasted about six days and flooded parts of the city and delayed trains for multiple days.

on the train to hue (this photo was taken at the
beginning of the thirteen hour journey)

the happy travelers

i loved this guy...he was such a great sentry!

the elephant guard at khal dinh tomb

bouquet of incense sticks

imperial palace

scooter mania!

after hue, we took another long train ride south to the beach town of nha trang. our sole purpose of this stop was to dive on the reef. we lucked out with good weather and had a couple of interesting dives. lots of soft coral and some fish we hadn't seen before. the most notable part of our dive, however, was the exploding dynamite. we were diving in a marine reserve so it was likely detonated some distance away, but sound travels very well under water and in our chests it felt like it exploded ten meters away. why would dynamite be exploding underwater, you might ask? unfortunately, fishers still occasionally use this method to kill or stun lots and lots of reef fish all at one time. it is a terribly destructive practice and i was pretty sad that we had heard it first hand.

a lovely day for a boat ride...

and a dive or two.

these houses are for the people who help to regulate the harvest

of birds on these islands. the swiftlet is used for bird nest

soup, a local delicacy (that we did not try).

the other highlight of nha trang were the two giant buddhas. this reclining one was about half way up the hill from the pagoda

and this 27 meter high buddha at the top of the hill, overlooking the town

our final stop in vietnam was ho chi minh city (saigon). we filled ourselves up on the delicious food, enjoyed the botanic gardens, were slightly overwhelmed by the craziness at the jade pagoda, and disturbed after visiting the war remembrance museum, our only war-related stop on the whole trip. no matter the view point or the propaganda, the united states did some really terrible things to the people of that region.