Natural Beauty of Northern Vietnam

Northern Vietnam has similar limestone rock formations to Phang Nga Bay we visited in Thailand, but at a far greater density and abundance. We spent two nights on the water among them in Halong Bay. Tall humps of white limestone and vegetation surround you in every direction. We visited floating villages of subsistence fisherman, and kayaked around the maze of giant monolithic rocks. We even paddled a hundred meters into a tight sea cave that turned several bends in complete darkness to reveal a serene lagoon isolated INSIDE the rock island. The way in was quite an adventure as my flashlight was one of only two among the seven of us and the path was wide enough for only one kayak at a time!

We spent more time around this same odd and beautiful landscape inland at Tam Coc. Here, the local women paddle tourists in small boats up a flat-water river surrounded by the tall rock formations and through three caves. Wherever the land is flat, it is irrigated with water and planted with rice - a beautifully vivid green grass.


We also visited Cuc Phuong National Park for a hike through the jungle. The vines there are amazing! Seeds from bird droppings deposited high in a tree somehow grow on a branch in the moist air. They drop a vine all the way down to the ground and then take hold by thickening and running hundreds of vines down the "host" tree until they strangle it to death - ultimately taking it's place in the jungle (even using the original now-dead trunk for structure of it's own).

But whatever you do, don't start your Vietnam trip in Hanoi! It was a crowded noisy chaotic city that we couldn't wait to get out of. The streets are a bit surreal - like a science fiction dystopia of the future (overpopulated, oil almost gone, bladerunner-esque).

I may have mentioned that drivers in Thailand didn't pay attention to the lines on the road. Well that was perfectly civilized compared to Vietnam, where they don't pay attention to the traffic signs or even the DIRECTION of lane travel. You really have to see it to understand: imagine a very busy street at home, now replace each car with 10 motorbikes. Now imagine it is a one way street so the traffic completely fills the road, but add one motorbike travelling against traffic - he weaves around the oncoming traffic avoiding one head on collision after another. Finally, add another hundred motorbikes moving against traffic, some hugging the side, some right up the center, and some turning across the traffic to cross streets. I know this is hard to imagine - I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself. Here is a video of one intersection (the really busy intersections were far too intense to operate a camera near)

Unbelievablly, the motorbike drivers never look when they enter the road or make turns. Eventually, I noticed that most do not have side mirrors - they don't care about anything but what is in front of them. No kidding: At a four way intersection, they slow down a bit as they approach, honk so people coming from other directions might hear them, and then drive right thru - adjusting their speed to avoid hitting the cross traffic.

While Vietnam seems to be missing the three wheeled cargo motorbikes, they certainly can carry a lot on the back seat of their standard two wheeled motorbikes: Trees (6 ft tall potted peach tree), oversized propane cylinders, and unbelievably even a full sized LIVE cow draped over the seat with his head tied down to the foot peg on one side and the tail on the other - not very comfortable for the cow (I may be understating that)! They carry the cargo balanced on the back of their seat, usually just holding on to it with one hand behind their back (the cow was strapped down of course).

In each country, we've have enjoyed learning just a few words of the language like hello and thank you. People always seemed appreciative of it, until Vietnam. No one here ever responded to our hello - they just seemed to ignore it. I even bought a Vietnamese phrasebook from a street vendor to no avail. Then we asked one of our guides why, and apparently the vowel sounds are subtle and there are like six different intonations for the words we are using to say hello. While it means hello when said one way, our guide told us it also means "give me a bowl of rice soup" if said differently. For some reason, we cannot really hear the difference when our guide says it each way. So we've stopped trying to speak Vietnamese.

During our brief stay in Hanoi, we visited the prison where POWs were kept ("Hanoi Hilton"). Today, it is a museum where they describe the horrible treatment the Vietnamese people received from the French colonists. They also mention that they were forced to hold American bomber pilots there, but they document with photos what great treatment they received - playing basketball, smoking cigarettes, preparing a group Christmas dinner. The obvious propaganda of it all was a bit sickening truth be told. John McCain crashed in one of the many lakes in downtown Hanoi, and it was only about a block from the prison - they have signs about him there.

As if we haven't learned our lessons on the bus in Thailand, the journey south is on a "sleeper" bus - 12 hours overnight to Hue...

Friendly Laos

Leaving Thailand, we debated making a stop in Laos. While we were worried that it might be more of the same, many folks told us it was a highlight of the region so we decided to risk it. Our turbo-prop landed in the remote town of Luang Prabang, Laos. It was definitly the most beautiful city we'd seen so far: French colonial buildings with an old world feel with lots of fine stained wood and very clean streets. The local people are always smiling, and often laughing - a genuinely happy place. And perhaps because tourism is so new in the area, folks were unusually friendly. For example, our host at the hotel said he wanted to treat us as family guests, and shortly later offered us his cell phone to use for the day.

There were no 7/11s in Luang Prabang - or any other familiar franchise. Just a simple city still somewhat untouched by western influences. That's not entirely true because there are a lot of tour operators in town that cater to tourists - mostly Australian, German, French, but almost no Americans. And it was bizarre to see western style marketing emerging: man on the street handing out fliers heralding 2 for 1 drinks at the nearby restaraunt/bar.

Laos is a Communist country, but the only obvious difference we could sense as brief visitors was the curfew - everyone had to be inside at midnight. I wanted to go outside and see if the streets were really empty, but didn't. It is a very poor country, and they said the average wage was about $1 per day. Folks in town drive motorbikes so they are earning more than that. But if an hour-long skilled massage at the "spa" costs $5, the staff can only be earning a couple of dollars an hour - maybe a few thousand per year.

We enjoyed kayaking down the famous Mekong river, a scenic trip that included another elephant ride along the river at the lunch stop. This time we felt a strange sensation emanating from our elephant - I wonder if elephants can purr? It was like he was vibrating us with an inaudibly deep tone. This was our first female elephant, and they are gentle enough that you can pet them, unlike the males which you do not get near (unless you are on top!).

Another day we visited the Kouang Si waterfall, a surreal multi-terraced waterfall cascading emerald green water inside the dense jungle environment (each adjective totally necessary). Then we biked 20 miles through the countryside back to town. On the way, we'd hear little kids excitedly shouting "Sabadie!" (hello) to us from their windows as we biked by. One boy walking on the street even put out his hand to slap me five as we rode by. Did I mention they were enthusiastically friendly?

For the complete best-of photos (eleven), click here (F11 for full screen). Next stop: Hanoi, Vietnam.

Tigers and more...

Our last stop in Thailand was Chiang Mai. It is a reasonably large city surrounding an inner "old city" of one square mile which is encircled by a moat and remnants of an old wall. Getting around was easy - either walking or by the ever-present "tuk tuk." And while the traffic was haphazard and relentless (no chance to cross ever), we did get out the bikes for a few days of riding. One day we took them in a taxi up into the mountains outside town to the Doi Suthep temple to enjoy the mostly downhill (brake melting) bike ride back.

On the way back to town, we passed the public zoo and thought it might be interesting to see inside. While not up to the high San Diego standards, it was quite nice, and most of the animals had spacious enclosures. There were a few differences however: In many places, it was possible to pay a small fee to feed the animals. I took advantage of this opportunity to feed a jaguar. There were two in the large enclosure, and when they saw me talking to the guy who sells the meat on a stick, they made their way right over. Once I picked up the stick, they got fierce with each other growling and swatting to jockey for position. Not wanting them to fight, I quickly shoved the pound of droopy raw meat at the smaller one, who grabbed it and carried it off to eat. The other difference was just how active the animals were - for some reason they all seemed to be moving about unlike American zoos where they just lie around, sometimes hidden from view.

Another day we rode around the Mae Sa valley, where there is a great concentration of interesting "attractions" along the rural road: Tiger sanctuary, snake wrangling, orchid and butterfly farms, monkey "shows," and even the Four Seasons Resort, complete with beautifully landscaped (but artificial) rice field terraces. Our first stop was "Tiger Kingdom." This breeding facility actually lets you get inside the enclosure with the tigers. We had twenty minutes inside with four 3-month olds, where we pet, played with, and snuggled actual tigers - I won't forget that soon. Here's a few seconds of video we took. Eileen and I are both allergic to cats, but it was only as we exited the enclosure that we realized we were sniffling and sneezing - allergic to tigers too!

From there, we biked about a mile down the road to find a monkey show, where we got to see how working monkeys have been trained to retrieve coconuts from high in the palm trees. We also got to see other tricks like riding a tricycle and shooting a basketball (a surprisingly good free throw). It was here that we debated the possibility of animal exploitation - where is the line between educational zoo and freak show? I suppose it might have to do with how the animals are treated and where they come from. We were a bit uncomfortable with the monkey show and wouldn't recommend it for that reason.

Perhaps my compassion for snakes is smaller, but I wasn't so worried about their well being: We thoroughly enjoyed watching the handlers manipulate cobras and pythons at the snake show. Signs proclaimed that they do not take responsibility for any danger, and they often let the vipers and cobras escape from the ring just a bit into the stands before grabbing their tails to pull them back - scared me enough to climb up out of my front row seat more than once!

The food in northern Thailand is not as good as the southern dishes we are familiar with in America: coconut milk and spicy curries. So we were delighted to find a good burrito restaurant in Chiang Mai run by an ex-patriot from New Orleans. And there was a 7/11 mini-mart on virtually every block. In fact, this has been a frequent sight here in Thailand - even the smallest towns have one. I had no idea how global they were - all over Singapore and Manila too. Another oddity here is that Diet Coke costs more than Coke for some reason (twice as much in some cases)?

Okay, here's the slideshow of our best photos from all of Thailand (press F11 once it loads for fullscreen view, at least in Firefox).

Immersed in Thailand

The scuba diving in the nearby Similan Islands of Thailand is frequently listed as one of the top ten sites in the world, and it did not disappoint. We spent two days living on the dive boat, and saw a few things we'd never seen before, like a sea snake and the beautiful lion fish (poisonous). The water was very clear, and at times there so many small fish swimming in giant schools all around us that it felt like it was snowing fish! Living on the boat also gave us the opportunity to do our first night dive: dive lamps illuminating a path through the darkness in front off us like extra-terrestrial spaceships on patrol. Among lots of sleeping fish, we saw a really cool octopus and noticed that the fan corals seem to really open up at night.

After splurging on the dive trip, we decided to "go local" and use the bus to get to our next destination in northern Thailand. It took two different buses and two different taxis to get to Chiang Dao twenty four hours later. I must admit this was a low point of the trip for me personally, which I will describe in a comment below in case anyone is interested. But we shook that off quickly, and we've been having a wonderful time seeing and doing interesting things in Northern Thailand. Temples are everywhere here, and we've enjoyed their beauty and the ubiquitous tall staircases which seem designed to encourage contemplation during the long ascent.

We spent one afternoon walking through the cave system that the town is named after. A small portion of the cave has been wired with electricity for lights, but to go deeper requires a local guide with an gas lamp. Our guide spoke only a few words of English - they were: "watch your head" and "be careful, slippely." (sic) Another day, we rode an elephant up to visit one of the "hill tribes." This time our elephant was a bit more "reluctant" at times. It can be quite scary sitting 12 feet up in the air on the back of an unhappy beast - I began to wonder at what point we should be concerned about his grunting at the handler and his willful deviation from the trail. Would he buck us off to fall on the rocks below or roll over to crush us? Either way, there wasn't much we could do about it. In fact, the worst that happened was he pointed his mucusy trunk back up at us all (the handler was riding on top too), and to show his displeasure, blew - like a giant disgusting sneeze.

Later, we went floating down the river on a bamboo raft, which was interesting in part because we got to see the gravel mining operation: about 10 guys standing in waist deep water next to open boats a bit larger than canoes. They crouch down under the water to scrape their bucket through the gravel bottom to scoop it up and deposit it in their boat. When the boat is so heavy with gravel that the lip of the boat is just one inch above waterline, they walk the boat upstream to waiting trucks, where it is shoveled out and taken away, presumably to make roads or cement or something.

Along the way, we've discovered some more strange little differences in the world here. For example, napkins are always scarce for some reason. If a restaurant offers them at all, they are actually thin sheets of tissue paper - far too fragile to keep my grubby fingers clean when eating. Similarly, toilet paper is also unavailable in many public restrooms. But there's always a water hose sprayer attached to the wall next to a toilet - some sort of hand bidet I have been too timid to try.

That's all for now. Next time I'll tell you how we discovered we are allergic to tigers!