293: Hanoi

We made it team. Touched town in Hanoi at 1:20am and got to our hotel at 3 am. In total, we lost 3 days to Philippines which was time for Hanoi and middle Vietnam. Thus we powered through HanoiOkumaya devam et
We made it team. Touched town in Hanoi at 1:20am and got to our hotel at 3 am. In total, we lost 3 days to Philippines which was time for Hanoi and middle Vietnam. Thus we powered through Hanoi today.
For breakfast, ate obligatory pho and spring rolls; also ordered local Vietnamese wine to celebrate arriving. Walked around Hanoi Old Quarter and visited Ngoc Son temple. We then visited Hoa Lo Prison that held revolutionary political figures who fought against French Colonialism in Vietnam; this is also where they held John McCain and other US Air Force pilots during the Vietnam War. We wanted to visit the Vietnam Military History Museum but it was closed.
Quite sad because we hoped to gain perspectives on the Vietnam War from northern museums and southern museums. We knew that the south and north view the war differently, but were not prepared for how the north reveres Soviet culture and government. There are huge, brutalist statues everywhere including a Lenin; you’ll often find a Soviet hammer and sickle flags every few streets, and then the prison museum focused mainly on the great successes the north had against the USAF.
After chilling in a park outside the military museum, we visited the famous Hanoi Train Street and had an egg beer. Got bahn mi and walked along Beer Street until we found a bar that didn’t heckle us to come inside. Enjoyed a televised rugby game and some craft Vietnamese beers.
Hotel: Golden Lotus Spa & Hotel
Food:
Pho
Spring rolls
Bahn mi
Octopus
Beer
Spots:
Hanoi Old Quarter
Hoàn Kiếm Lake
Ngoc Son Temple
Hoa Lo Prison Relic
Lenin Park
Train Street
Beer StreetOkumaya devam et
Part of the Typhoon Kristine Philippine stress was that we booked a 3 day 2 night cruise in Lan Ha Bay (the less popular Hą Long Bay) that started on October 28. Luckily, the cruise operator Sunlight Cruises was willing to move our reservation to October 30th.
We learned after the fact that the October 28 cruises were cancelled anyway because Typhoon Kristine moved onto Vietnam 😭 So today we officially started the cruise with food and activities covered for the next few days (yay no planning, only following).
Got picked up from the opera house at 7 am and bused to a ferry terminal in Haiphong. We shuffled off the bus and rode the ferry across the bay; the bus didn’t make it on the ferry so we had to wait for the next one.
Folks will typically book a one night stay, but since we booked two, the guide told us we would stay on Cat Ba Island for night 1. We were the only ones shuffled off the bus which confused the other passengers #bye
We learned that a really terrible typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam a month ago and it was the worst in 70 years. Cat Ba island was hit fairly hard. You could see the trees down on the mountain side and roofs blown off of houses.
In the afternoon we were picked up along with a flight attended from Ecuador who lives in Qatar now for Qatar Airways! We loved learning more about the airline industry from her and how it’s like to be a flight attendant on red eye flights. She said the worst flights are between Qatar and UK/Spain because they have to work 24/7.
The three of us were dropped off in Cat Ba National Park where we were paired with another girl from Canada who is teaching civics in Malaysia! We hiked straight up to a Navy look out for a very nice view of the national park. Afterwards, we trekked inside a cave where there was a mixture of flat stone and limestone fixtures.
Ate dinner at the hotel and took some sleeping pills to prepare for the next day.
Hotel: Sea Pearl
Food:
Not sure
Spots:
Cat Ba National Park
Đỉnh Ngự Lâm
Trung Trang CaveOkumaya devam et
Top 10 Day of Gap Year for sure!
Woke up for breakfast (more pho) and the bus picked us up at 11:30am so a nice relaxing morning. We arrive to the pier and are placed on a tiny boat with a French couple Mattias and Cami. Our little cruise boat is max 16 people!
We start with a lunch while the boat cruises through Lan Ha Bay. We learn Mattias and Cami are only traveling in Asia for 6 months and are teachers back home. They were also just in the Philippines!
After lunch, we lounged upstairs until the boat arrives to a place to kayak! There were caves with bats and the mountains had sheer faces. The best part was kayaking into cave and coming out to secret coves on the other side.
After kayaking, the cruise opened happy hour and found a swimming spot where people could jump of the boat. Our tour guide started swimming with a bucket so we followed him. Ends up we could go hunting for clams!!!! We dug into the sand and found so many; Cami and Mattias joined us and the other folks on our boat came along. 8 in total digging for clams!
We get back to the boat and learn how to make spring rolls. While cooking, the chefs made our actual dinner. We sit at a table with Cami, Mattias, and two Germans Barbara and Max who work for Audi. It was so nice to be surrounded by fellow travelers who appreciate sarcasm and discussing life back home!
After dinner we fished for squid. Didn’t catch any but the little girl on our boat and Cami each caught one.
Major thanks to Mattias for sharing his drone footage.
Food:
Squid
Spots:
Lan Ha BayOkumaya devam et
Early start with breakfast at 7am. We rode the tiny boat back to the island and picked up bikes to cycle to a small village. The views were spectacular and we got to ride through a cave. Once we arrived to the village, we went into a small restaurant to learn about island life.
There was a cute dog and the guide quickly grabbed it and put it in Mary’s backpack. At the restaurant, our guide taught us about different drinks which included a poisonous snake wine, flower wine, and herb wine. We took the three shots! We also did the official foot bath where little fish come and eat your dead skin.
The biking was fun except Cami had a habit of getting close to talk and almost crashed with us. We cruised back and enjoyed the few precious moments we had left with our squad. We agreed to meet Barbara and Max down the road in Hoi An.
After arriving to the pier, we took a bus back to Hanoi and jumped on a night train at the recommendation of Barbara and Max. It was pretty swanky.
Food:
Beef Noodles
Spots:
Lan Ha Bay
Việt Hải Village
Dong HoiOkumaya devam et
We arrived in Dong Hoi around 6am and found a taxi for the 45 minute drive to Phong Nha. The drive up was through the country side. Vietnamese houses in the countryside are so cool because they have big openings for the living room and kitchen on the first floor with no real windows and then bedrooms are on the floor above. As we neared Phong Nha, sharp mountains came into view and we got excited.
Quick shout out to our hotel at Son Doong Riverside because they let us check into our room at 7am, provide free breakfast, free pedal/motorbike rentals, and will organize your bus to the next location. Also the owners have a really really cute puppy that greeted us first thing!
After dropping off our bags, we selected one of the pedal bikes and biked 10 KM to the Duck Stop farm. We were greeted by Nhatvuong and his adorable 3 little cousins. They sat next to us and held our hands while we tried to communicate our most simple English and Vietnamese phrases. Resorting to farm animal noises worked best and the girls loved it.
Eventually we started our farm tour learning about how the family grows black pepper, turmeric, and ginger. Onto the main show, we are taken to see their ducks and get to feed them. The farm’s a little weird and offers duck massages which is just placing food in your hands, feet, and legs while the ducks nibble. They were so cute.
After duck time, we learned to make a traditional dish Bahn Xeo. In total the farm experience was $8 and we had a great time. The villages around this area were super friendly and little kids / locals would greet us with Hello while we biked around.
After recovery napping from our 20 KM bike ride, we visited 1 of the 300 cave system in Ke Bang National Park. This cave is only accessible via boat and you try to group up with others to split the cost; we found a French couple from Nice to split. Definitely the biggest cave either of us have visited! Vietnam actually contains the largest cave in the world and they only offer 500 spots per year to visit. After caving we enjoyed a delicious dinner and returned home.
Hotel: Son Doong Riverside Home Stay
Food:
Bun Bo Hue
Bahn Xeo
Spots:
Phong Nha
The Duck Stop Farm
Phong Nha CaveOkumaya devam et
We worked with our hotel to order an 8 hour bus to Hoi An and the owner’s husband dropped of us off downtown. Before we left, she quickly grabbed us chips and water for free. Absolutely loved loved loved this hotel and top 5 hotel experience across Gap Year at Son Doong Riverside.
Anyway, we hop on our bus to Hoi An and these buses are 10x better than the South American night buses. They actually enable you to lay horizontally on the bus in your own cubical with a curtain and provide big blankies to sleep.
Vietnam has blown all expectations away in terms of the friendliness of the people. We were nervous at first because articles noted that only 6% of travelers said they would return to Vietnam while 25% said they would return to Thailand. The country can be fairly touristy at times, but if you can get away from those main streets, it’s one of the most welcoming places we’ve ever visited (up there with Armenia.)
For instance, Kieran found a great little hotel off the main tourist area for Hoi An in a more residential neighborhood. The owner was super nice and offered to sew any clothes if we needed it 😭 We walk around the island and hit a local restaurant where the owner was super excited we picked her place and brought us free tea. A lot of these smaller restaurants are ran out of people’s homes! Our taxi driver Duc told us places to visit and offered his phone number for rides so he could give us lower prices and we could pay him directly instead of the apps. We just feel a lot of love here from Phong Nha to Hoi An.
Later that night we met up with Max and Barbara from our cruise in Han La Bay! There’s a real friendship there and we were so happy to eat dinner with them and walk around the night market for a bit. Max and Kieran chatted non-stop about football, video games, and life. Max and Barbara are interested in taking a Gap Year so we shared lots of tips and things we wished we did differently.
The next day, we felt very tired so we rested in the morning and went street market shopping for more hot summer clothing (ITS TOO DAMN HOT). Tried egg coffee, coconut coffee, and a few more local Hoi A dishes at another restaurant house off the main strip. Once again, 10/10 food and an incredible cook/owner. While grabbing our bags at the hotel, a cute doggo followed us and we obliged it with very good pets.
We texted Duc for a ride to the airport and he took us along the beaches in Danang while chatting about his experience in the Vietnamese army and avoiding the draft by paying the doctors lots of money 🤣 he also told us to be very careful in Ho Chi Min (Saigon) and proceeded to show us pickpocketing crime videos on his car TV. Shout out to Duc for showing us his country and for fabulous car conversations! We have his number if anyone is planning to visit Hoi An.
Hotel: Cherry Garden
Food:
Bahn cuon
Cau Lao
Bon Bue Hue
Spots:
Hoi An Old Town
Hoi An Street Market
Thu Bon River
DanangOkumaya devam et
Super weird and complicated emotional day in Ho Chi Min/Saigon. As mentioned before, a goal for our trip in Vietnam was to see the war through the lens of the people and museums. Our feelings are conflicted so going to try to express the emotions felt today as objective as possible. Our two activities included visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels created by the North Vietnamese Viet Cong and the War Remnants Museum.
Quick (hopefully unbiased) historical context of the war: Vietnam was under French colonialism until Japanese occupation in 1940-1945 and French colonialism again until 1954 fighting for their independence. With help from the Soviet Union and China, a Vietnamese communist party was formed in the North with the goal to achieve Vietnamese independence as a communist state. The US did support Vietnam financially to escape Japanese occupation but also provided funding to the French during this time to fight against the Vietnamese communists. At the 1954 Geneva Conference Vietnam achieved independence, but was split in half. US assumed the Southern half to support it financially.
Similar to North Korea and South Korea, Soviet Union and US set up their respective governments which would eventually oppose each other; with Soviet and Chinese backing, the North initiated war against the south to start its path towards communism under one government. Through this proxy war, atrocities were committed by both sides with entire villages being wiped out, massacres against civilians, and conflict spreading to Laos and Cambodia. And while both sides committed major war crimes, US was especially complicit with mass bombing campaigns using B-52s and napalm, which has horrible side effects for at least 4 generations. With the war lasting 22 years and waning American support due to falsehoods surrounding the Golf of Tonkin incident and the military harming civilians, US and Allied troops pulled out and south Vietnam fell to Northern Communist rule. Massacres continued as the North captured the city and it was eventually renamed Ho Chi Min city.
While communist rule was oppressive following the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese leadership eventually realized that more democracy and a bit of free market capitalism is necessary to flourish. The country eased up on oppressing its people and normalized relations with the US and allies in 1995. Vietnam is a success story in overcoming some of the totalitarian communist tendencies that plagued China, North Korea, and Russia, but it’s still oppressive in jailing political protestors and maintaining a one party system.
That being said, the North still won the war which means the North also wrote the history books and museums….so onto our weird day.
Visiting the Cu Chi tunnels, we expected to learn a lot about the Viet Cong’s experience using guerrilla warfare and dealing with US troops. The soldiers built extensive tunneling systems, air ventilation systems, and whole underground communities only using bamboo shoots and shovels. Whole families lived in these tunnels and groups would manufacture weapons, food, shoes, and even wine. When fighting erupted, of course the Viet Cong would hide and ambush troops, run, and ambush again. Attendees were encouraged to crawl through these tunnels and climb into the holes to see how they fought. We also saw the creative traps set by the Viet Cong soldiers and bomb craters. While trees surrounded us today, there were no trees initially after the war because the US carpet bombed the hell out of it.
What we weren’t prepared for was the on site shooting range where attendees had the opportunity to fire American guns like the M16 and Carbine. We were the only Americans in our group of Europeans so we opted out of the shooting range. And after touring all the tunnels, here we are sitting at a souvenir shop with bullets, hats, and patches while gunfire is shooting off loudly and constantly.
It finally hit us that the Cu Chi tunnel tour is a celebration of the North’s success in the war and the ingenuity to defeat south Vietnamese, US, and Korean troops. The shooting range is a way for locals and tourists to shoot the guns for fun and join in on the celebration. We felt extremely guilty about the war crimes the US committed in Vietnam, but also there is blatant absent representation of the South Vietnamese people and soldiers who where killed and fighting for their own independence against the North communists.
This same theme persisted into the War Remnants Museum. Before the US and Vietnam normalized relations, the museum was called the “Exhibition House for US and Puppet Crimes,” then the “Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes”, and then the “Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression.” It was renamed to its final form War Remnants Museum that we visited today, and to be honest, we left it very conflicted. Found an article that encapsulated our feelings called “Remembrance and Propaganda in Vietnam.”
So the museum included one exhibit on the war in general while the remaining exhibits focused on the American and allied war crimes. There was a section that featured the famous LIFE magazine photographs from soldiers in Vietnam as well as sections on napalm effects, different massacres, and then world support for Vietnam. The imagery and statistics were especially gruesome and the maps showing US bombing campaigns were upsetting. It was completely unnecessary, desperate, and inhumane the way the US fought the war and we appreciated how front and center this museum focused on those atrocities.
However, the museum is very very VERY heavy on Soviet and Pro-North propaganda and once again does not represent the South Vietnamese people’s experience and that was extremely hard to look past. So please bare with us for a few complaints:
1. The museum painted the North’s war initiation and communist oppression as the riotous
intentioned goal to unify Vietnam. The South was painted as a fake puppet government and the North was freeing its people.
2. The museum referred the event as the American War or the War of American & Allied Aggression, and is not treated as a Vietnam civil war between north and south. There is also no mention of how the Soviet Union and China supported the North in its war with weapons; the war is purely painted as a nation’s survival to independence and unification under one government.
3. There is zero mention of the countless war crimes, massacres, and torture committed by the North and Viet Cong against South Vietnamese. It’s just missing from the narrative overall.
To summarize, there were several moments for us to emotionally reflect on US involvement and US committed atrocities today yet those moments were interrupted by propaganda that so blatantly deleted and covered up the Southern Vietnamese experience, that it couldn’t be ignored.
We know from our own US experience that a country will tend to minimize or only briefly cover its crimes, just as we have with Native Americans, Hiroshima, South America, and slavery; we shouldn’t be upset or perturbed by the Vietnamese government behaving the same way. However, it was tough and emotionally complicated today. We are upset for the Vietnamese people as a whole, but are also especially sorry to the Southern Vietnamese who are not represented in their own museums and country.
FYI this is the article we found that helped put our feelings into words: https://separatepoints.com/2018/10/28/remembran…Okumaya devam et
Very last day in Vietnam and we are sad our time was cut short due to Typhoon Kristine! Definitely planning to visit again in the future to explore the country more.
We started our day walking around downtown near the city hall and Ben Thanh Market! Ate one more bahn mi, tomato juice, and coffee. We also grabbed a new pair of shoes for Kieran. At the market we were able to try coffee, cashews, dried mangos, and other little candies.
For our main event, we signed up for a Vietnamese cooking class! Mary’s coworker Jared bought us a gift card to use on an experience and since she forces her coworkers to eat all the Asian food with her, it felt appropriate to learn some recipes.
We were paired with some party hard Australian girls and another American boy from New York. This was important because we learned about the US election results 15 minutes into the class so we needed ample distraction and reasons to put our phone down. These girls were straight out of a Love Island episode and loved to drink, banter, and say the most batshit things; we ate it up.
The planned dishes were spring rolls, crispy shrimp/pork pancake, and chicken pho! Instead of everyone having their own station for every dish, the chef would assign one person to one job. For instance, Kieran was in charge of cleaning the chicken while the American boy crushed up spices.
The chef kept leaving and the Aussies would freak out and burn things. At one point, they were all cutting onions and everyone’s eyes were burning. At another point, the chef asked Mary to stir fry the meat. The Aussies thought they needed to do it too and turned on their burners and started frying garlic and pepper. It starts to burn and the chef comes running in to tell them that they didn’t need to do anything 😭
Halfway through the class, some of the girls left to grab us all wine. It required a wine opener and we couldn’t find one; one of the girls started using a pair of scissors until the chef came running in with an opener. Shit you not, the girls couldn’t figure out how to use it at all so we stepped in to help 🥴
It was so much fun though and we loved chatting about dating life in Australia and US and how one of the girls (originally from Kosovo) had her uncle set up her up with a Australian husband and they’ve been married for 12 years.
The chef had super patience and was a delight; she taught us how locals ate pho and other Vietnamese tips. The class also gave us each a recipe book; we have two now and Jared is required to accept the second one for Christmas.
As we walked home, the sad feels emerged and Kieran sighed, “This cooking class was perfect.” We talked about the election a bit while packing and sent an apology text to Germans Barbara and Max. They replied back their German councilor just ended their government coalition so fun times ahead.
We had a 3:00 am wake up call for a bus to Cambodia and could not sleep so gave up and watched Attack on Titan.
So thank you so much Jared for the cooking class! It was exactly what we needed and we will cherish the memories made with unhinged Australian party girls and delicious home made pho.
Food:
Bahn mi
Spring rolls
Crispy pancake
Chicken pho
Spots:
City Hall
Ben Thanh MarketOkumaya devam et