Vietnam: same same, but different

Hi there!! Simchao! It’s been a while…

I’m sorry, I really needed to use this phrase for one of my blogs. If you’ve been to Asia, you’ll know why. Everyone uses this quote and it’s quite impressive to how many situations this can be applied. (I thinks it comes from a movie or something?!) I’ve got a couple of days left in Nam, and it has been quite amazing so far. Vietnam is… same same, but different from the other countries I’ve been to. It’s the country of the motorbikes, French baguettes (bahn mi), great noodle soup (pho), cheap fruits and conical hats. The people are a bit different.. let’s say I have met friendlier people while being in Asia. Here, they say yes when they mean no. Sometimes they won’t even look you in the eye and try to understand what you’re saying. The other day a woman at the market just waved me away with her hands when I tried to bargain for some strawberries. Well, her loss. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish whether they act like that because of me being a tourist or because it’s a different culture. I guess it might be a combination.. I mean I can’t blame them, they have endured quite a lot. The French, Americans, Japanese.. It seems like the whole world invaded this country at some point?! But I don’t like to generalize: Of course I’ve had a lot of nice experiences, especially at the end of my trip, and those are the ones I will take home with me. And the nature is spectacular!

My plan was to stay here for three weeks and then go to Cambodia. But the distances in this country are so big that I’ll probably be leaving one day before my visa expires (it’s a one month visa). There are two ways of travelling in Vietnam: from north to south (Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City) or from south to north. I arrived in Hanoi, so I’ve been making my way down to Saigon (also known as Ho Chi Minh City). Which means the temperatures are getting higher every time I exit a bus.

My first thought when entering Hanoi: why do we have so many cars in the rest of the world? It’s so unnecessary, when you can transport everything by motorbike! Your whole family, your groceries, pieces of furniture, a refrigerator and even your dog. They are so innovative. Quoting one of my tour guides: “If Vietnamese guy have new motorbike, he get new lady. If Vietnamese guy have second hand motorbike, he get second hand lady”. So yeah, motorbikes are a real thing here. Where we have parking attendants for cars, they have parking attendants for motorbikes at every single shop or restaurant. Pavements are not meant for walking, they are meant for selling food, eating food and parking the bikes. And then there is the first time crossing the street: how the hell am I going to get to the other side in this ocean of motorbikes? After being in Vietnam for a while, you know the best thing is to close your eyes (or well, just look forward) and keep walking at the same pace. The bikes will make sure not to run you over. At some point it gets even fun to do!

Hanoi was very overwhelming, so much traffic and so much stuff going on in the narrow streets. I really liked the combination of the Western cafes and the Asian street life in the Old quarter. You get a little bit of both worlds. One of my first days I went to visit Ho Chi Minh. Yes, literally the person Ho Chi Minh (you know: the former president who defeated the French and made Vietnam a communist country) in his mausoleum. Didn’t know what to expect exactly, when I suddenly saw a dead body. Fun fact: during three months a year you can’t visit the mausoleum because the body goes to Russia for maintenance. Most Vietnamese consider him as a hero, but also a bit controversial because of the communism he brought to Vietnam. But the woman who started worshipping him, definitely liked him I could tell. I walked a lot in Hanoi, I went to see the beautiful Temple of Literature, the Vietnamese History Museum and I saw the Water Puppet Show. The latter one I would definitely recommend: the show contained a lot of humor, traditional Vietnamese instruments and some surprising special effects (fireworks)! I was kind of happy to get to Sapa, a town up in the mountains close to the border of China, out of the busy city life!

Sapa is known for the trekkings you can do to the hilltribe villages. The women of the tribes, wearing their famous traditional clothing, have learned how to make a living of the tourists. During the day they come down to the Sapa village where they will interrogate or try to sell something to every single tourist that passes by; ‘hello lady, where you from? You buy from me…. You already book trekking? You do trekking with meee?’ And they will offer you one of their colourful Sapa bracelet so you remember them. I've been wearing mine for over a month now. They are the most persistence sellers I have ever witnessed. If you start chatting with them, even if it’s just one word, they will easily walk with you for 5 minutes wherever you’re going. I found this quite amusing, because they have a funny voice and always keep smiling. The next day I had booked a one day trekking to one of the villages. Unfortunately I couldn’t do a two day trekking including a homestay, which is what most people do. I thought a one day trekking would be a good first practice for my ankle. The trekking was nice, and we had a lovely hilltribe lady as a guide. She was only 20 years old and already had two children. There were also more hilltribe woman joining us and they helped us cross some pretty slippery and high passes. Of course their sympathy had some higher purpose.. when we got to the lunch they attacked us with their selling tactics haha. This is were I saw the most funny bargaining ever, one 14 year old girl told one of our group members: ‘If you don’t buy from me, I will follow you your whole lifee…’. That’s very scary coming from a little girl. After seeing beautiful rice fields, and having a nice lunch, we got to see their village life. We visited a primary school and she showed us how they make clothes out of some sort of marihuana plant. She made sure it was only for the clothes, and not for smoking. During the night I went to have dinner with a nice group I had met at the hostel. Sapa had turned into some very mystical place, because it was incredibly foggy and you could only see 10 meters ahead of you. Pretty cool!

My next stop was Halong Bay! This was definitely one of my highlights so far I’d say.  You can see hundreds of limestone formations in the middle of the ocean. I had booked a too expensive tour with an overnight stay on a boat. My first night on a boat! The food was definitely worth it  though and the guides were very nice. One of them introduced himself: ‘My name is Thang. It means victory in Vietnamese. I really like my name’. In the afternoon we visited a very big cave and we did some kayakking. It was pretty amazing to kayak next to these enormous mountains and something I’ll probably never get to do again in my life. After a delicious meal, where we made our own spring rolls, I went up to the deck to see the view. In the night all the boats anchor next to the mountains. It’s a very magical thing to see all the little lights of the boats in de middle of the night in the ocean. On our way back, the next day, we saw a boat sinking at the harbor, so I was kind of happy the trip was ending.. Our guide told us the captain had probably fallen asleep. Asian always sleep..

Then I was off to Ninh Binh! A little backpackers town, but not that famous. I did some exploring by myself on a bicycle and it was pretty cool to see all the woman working in the ricefields. I really admire them, it must be hard work! I also did a little private boat tour, it was pretty quit on the river so at some point I could only hear the sound of the Vietnamese lady rowing. We also rowed into a little cave but we had to wait to get out because there was a lot of tourist traffick haha. I thought this was pretty impressive, until I got to my next destination: Phong Nha. Here I also did a boat tour, but a much bigger one with maybe 10 people. And we entered the enormous Phong Nha cave where you can only enter by boat. It’s incredible how big it is and much water there is. You can also walk around a little bit. In the evening I encountered a girl from my last year at university (yes, small world!) and the next day we rented some motorbikes with a group to do some exploring in the Phong Nha national park. And again, we had some pretty breathtaking views. Since I had an open bus ticket (a ticket you buy for a fixed price that stops at all the tourist destinations whenever you want to go), I decided to go to all of them. In Hue, a city where the motorbikes actually stop for the red light, I went to see the Citadel. The last emperor stepped down very recent at the end of WOII, so it was pretty cool to be able to see the pictures they had from the life in the palace. Here in Asia, they used to have a lot of elephants in the palaces. Where we had horses, they had elephants.

And then I got to my favorite place: Hoi An!! The best place ever. It’s a little colonial city next to a river with a lot of little cafes, bars, restaurant and it's also known for its tailor made shops! I couldn’t resist myself, so I had two things made. If only we had this in Holland for the same prices…. And then during the night the Old City lights up with all the colourful lanterns.. beautiful! The only thing is that there are sooo many tourists. But oh well, I’m one of them. And close to Hoi An there is also a beach, could it be more perfect? So I decided to stay a bit longer than usual. I met up with an English girl I had met in Laos and we also had some fun times with a nice Argentinian girl. We went to the beach, did some serious souvenir shopping and relaxed some more.. I also had egg coffee, a traditional coffee with the egg yolk and condensed milk. Yummy! I was sad to leave this place.. but I will be back one day!

Then I went further south in the 11 hour night bus to Nha Thrang. A city were there a lot of Russians. We had to get out in the middle night, which was actually quite funny. At 4.30 am this city (and probably a lot of cities in Asia) is so alive!! All the locals wake up for their daily exercise. We went off to the beach to see a beautiful sunrise. The beach was covered with locals wearing their lovely life-saving vests. They were swimming, jumping or doing some other weird exercise. It was a very funny sight. And then during the day the locals were all gone and the beach was taken over by all the tourists. One of my last stop was Dalat, here I stayed at a very nice hostel were they have ‘family dinner’ every night. The hostel would cook a meal for all the guests so it was a very nice way to get to know each other. In the evening we went with a group to the ‘100 rooftop bar’. To get to the bar, you had to go through a whole maze of caves, it was kind of creepy but a very cool concept! During the day I met up with Gabriella, a Dutch girl who I’ve seen several times now in Vietnam, because everyone takes the same route. We went to the ‘Crazy House’ . it’s actually a place where you can stay overnight. It looks a little bit like the Efteling. You have to see the pictures! Before getting to this place, we went to buy some fruits at a little market. The woman was very nice to us and at some point she started petting my skin haha. I guess I’m not tanned enough just yet (they like a white skin!). After Dalat came Mui Ne, a beachtown, without beach, but a very nice hostel with a pool! We booked a sunrise tour. We woke at 4 am and went to see the sunrise on the White Sanddunes. Incredible! I underestimated the way up a little bit, because you have to walk in the sand and you feet sink for a couple centimeters. So it’s a nice workout at 5 am. We also went to see the red sanddunes, they were beautiful as well, with the ocean in the background. At this point it felt like it was already in the middle of the day, but It was just 7 o clock. The next stop was a fishers town, with a looot of boats. They catch the seafood in the night and sell it on the beach in the morning. I have never seen so many different see creatures at one place! Such a nice smell. The final stop was the Fairy Creek, a small creek were you can walk with your bare feet in the water. Next to you are beautiful red hills, it almost looks a little bit fake. We also passed an ostrich farm, where you could sit on the birds just like horses.. it looked so cruel. They don’t really care much about animals in Asia.

Then I finally arrived at Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)! The feeling was less overwhelming than my first time in Hanoi, I think I kind of got used to all the motorbikes. Saigon is very different than Hanoi, more modern I’d say. But I liked both. The first day I just walked around a little bit and went with Gabriella to the cinema in the evening. Batman vs. Superman. The movie was cool, but it was less cool leaving my phone in the woman’s restroom. When I came back, it was gone of course. I would have preferred it if it was snitched out of my hand in the street or something. Then I would feel less stupid. Oh and I also lost my hiking shoes in Hoi An. So that stinks. But I guess that’s part of travelling.. From now on I’m not losing anything again! The next day we went to the Mekong Delta with Quang, a Vietnamese colleague of my dad’s. It was such a nice day!! He arranged everything for us. We had a whole boat to ourselves and he told us a lot about the life of the fisherman. The sea is just 50 km away so they sail up there in the middle of the night, sell their catch, and sleep during the day. We tasted the local fruits (while some group started singing traditional Vietnamese songs and one of them had the same melody as the Wilhelmus.. so weird!), I held a snake for the first time and we went to see how they make coconut candy!! So tasty. As a last stop we went to this amazing restaurant where we had delicious river food and other Vietnamese stuff. I loved it! And then on my final day in Vietnam we went to the Cu Chi tunnels (121 km long in total), a part of the enormous network of tunnels that the Vietcong built during the American War. Pretty impressive. And the tunnels are so narrow.. They even made them wider for tourists!! Quoting the guide: ‘Vietnamese men is small, if American get in tunnel he can’t get out’. Everything happened down under: women gave birth to babies, they had hospitals, living quarters and kept a food and weapon supply.

In the evening we met up with Amita, it was a very funny coincidence, I had seen here twice  during my travels, and we overlapped one day in Vietnam. So funny!

I’m gonna miss this country I think (especially peope calling me madame all the time), I had a really nice time and learned a lot about the history. But my next adventure is Cambodia! It's my sixth country and I've got six weeks left.

Love, Amanda

Ps. Sorry for the confusion: I wrote this blog a couple of days ago, so I have already been in Cambodia for some time. But I was too lazy to change it.