Vietnam

After almost 3 weeks in Vietnam we are now looking back on our time here. We had a bit of a rough start but ended on a high note! Below is our finished itinerary for Vietnam: (it evolved a bit)

Hanoi-2 days

Sapa-3 days

Cat Ba Island-6 days

Hoi An-6 days

Ho Chi Minh-3 days

Our rough start began at the airport flying from Tokyo to Hanoi. We knew we needed visas for Vietnam so we did a bunch of research ahead of time to see if we needed to apply in advance or if we could get “visa on arrival”. Everything we read, including the US Embassy website, said we could get visas on arrival, no problem. Well, that wound up being a problem! We got to the check-in counter in Tokyo and the staff were asking us if we had our approval letter for Vietnam. We had no idea what they were talking about. Well, it turns out “technically” you can get a visa on arrival, but you have to have an approval letter ahead of time, which we did not have! We asked the staff what we could do and our only option was to apply for a rush order letter on this website and it would cost $250 each! We were pretty pissed but there was nothing we could do so we sat our butts down in front of the check-in desk and applied for the worlds most expensive “approval letters”. By the time the approval came through, we had just enough time to check our bags, get through customs and hurry to the flight. By the time we got to Hanoi we were exhausted and starving! We had been up since 4am and hadn’t eaten. We checked into our hotel and asked for a recommendation for some good Pho. For those of you who don’t know what Pho is, it’s a soup made with bone broth, rice noodles, thinly sliced beef or pork and served with bean sprouts, mint, cilantro and other fresh herbs. It is a traditional staple of Northern Vietnam and is usually eaten for breakfast. The hotel sent us down the street to a small shop and it did not disappoint! We ordered spring rolls, pho and beers. The food was amazing and only cost $9 total…score! That night Ross went and got a haircut and I got a pedicure (my 1^st one in almost a year!) Walking around the city was absolutely insane! 1^st, there are no sidewalks. If there is a sidewalk, it is full of parked motorbikes so no matter what you just have to walk along the side of the street. 2^nd, there are no crosswalks. 3rd, there are a million motorbikes! I am not exaggerating…they are everywhere, coming at you from all directions! They zip around each other, go the wrong way on the street, and carry 4 people at a time! There are also bicycles and cars and busses. Crossing the street was a suicide mission! You just had to muster up some courage, take a deep breath, and go for it! If you hesitate or stop in the street, you are screwed…you just have to go! Somehow it works! The cars and motorbikes, and bicycles just go around you! On a positive note, both Ross and I survived the street crossings and got super cheap haircuts and pedicures. 

Ross enjoying his $2 pho 

Side note: The traffic is so crazy in Vietnam and crossing the street is so insane that our hotel in Hanoi had a laminated “how to cross the street” note in our room which included tips like, “walk confidently” and “don’t stop or turn back” haha!

The next day we had to just explore the city before catching our overnight train to Sapa. We had a pretty leisurely day. We had breakfast, walked around the lake by our hotel, people watched at a coffee shop, went to the gym and then chilled by the pool until we had to head to the train. Hanoi seemed like a pretty cool city. Very busy and chaotic, but a lot of character. I would have enjoyed maybe 1 more day there. We headed to the train station around 9pm. Since it was an overnight train, we had booked 2 beds in a 4 bed room so we could try to sleep a bit. The train was an interesting experience. Our 2 bunk mates were a really nice, younger Dutch couple. We chatted with them a bit while everyone boarded the train. There were tons of vendors trying to sell us beer, water and more beer. The room was ok. Clean but very small and the beds were rock hard! The train was also very loud and rickety (definitely not like the trains in Japan haha!) The first part of the trip, getting out of the city, was cool. There is a street in Hanoi that the trains pass through. It is full of little cafes and bars and people can sit outside and have drinks and watch the trains go by. The train comes so close to cafes and bars…I have no idea how it is legal! The street is actually a famous spot for tourists to go and take pictures on the tracks. Once we were out of the city we tried to get some sleep…it didn’t go well. First, the beds are rock hard! If I laid on one side my hip would start to hurt and I would have to switch sides and then back the other way an hour later. Also, the train was so creaky and loud! It swayed back and forth the whole time and made so much noise…even with noise canceling headphones in it was loud. 8 hours later we finally arrived at the station outside Sapa where we then took a bus up the hillside for about an hour to Sapa town. The ride up to Sapa was very windy but very pretty. We drove by tons of rice paddies and green rolling hill sides. Unfortunately, Sapa was not quite as nice. It looked like a very poor, run down town. The only people around were local villagers and their children begging for money or trying to sell you cheap trinkets and lots of tourists. The weather was also really bad. It was raining off and on and super foggy! It was so foggy that we could barely see across the street. We checked the weather and, to our dismay, it looked like it was going to be like this the whole time we were in Sapa. We were really disappointed because we had plans to do a 2 day hike up to Fansipan, which is the highest point in Indochina, and to also do a few day treks to the local villages. We decided to stick it out a few days and see how the weather would be. 

Train car for our trip to Sapa

Our second day looked ok weather wise so we decided to try and take the cable car up to Fansipan peak, since we couldn’t hike it. We took a cab to the top where you catch the cable car. There was an area where you could walk around a bit and it was packed with people and local performers playing music and doing elaborate dance performances. It took us a while to make our way inside to where the cable car was and when we got in it was absolutely crammed with people! I mean, so crowded we couldn’t even see down the stairs to where the cable car was. There was no organization, no lines, and nowhere to go…it was wall to wall people. The line would have taken hours to get through! We were pretty annoyed because we had spent quite a bit of money on the cable car tickets but it looked so miserable that we decided to just bail! We ran into a couple later that day that we had shared a taxi with to Fansipan and they said they waited hours and never made it all the way to the top, so I am happy we decided to just leave. We also found out that it was a Vietnamese holiday that day and tickets for locals were half price…no wonder it was so crowded! So, Fansipan was a total bust, we couldn’t do the hikes we wanted, and the city was not nice at all. We decided at that point to call it a bust and leave earlier than we had planned. We booked a train out for the next day and decided to head to Cat Ba Island a little early.

Insane crowds at Fansipan

I think the worst part of Sapa was the massages we tried to get. There was a massage parlor across the street from our hotel. We should have known it was going to be horrible because it was really really cheap! I think we paid around $15 total for the 2 of us…not a good sign. We walked back to the massage room and it looked like a third world prison! The “massage beds” looked like rickety old examination tables that had pillows and blankets on them that I am pretty sure had never been washed. The room was freezing too! Then, our 2 “masseuses” came in…they looked about 12 years old. The girl working on Ross looked like she had just woken up from a drunken nap. Her hair was all messed up and evidently her breath was foul! The best part was she had the hiccups. She literally hiccuped through his entire massage! Needless to say, the massages were terrible and we couldn’t wait to get out of there and take showers hahaha! Lesson learned…you get what you pay for!

The next morning we woke to pretty nice weather. Our train wasn’t until 9pm so we decided to go and do a day trek to one of the villages. There were local guides you could hire to take you trekking to the villages. I had read online that the local half day hikes are pretty easy to do alone so we decided to save our money and go it alone…how hard could it be??? We decided to do a trek that would take us from Sapa Town, down through the Muong Hoa Valley, to the Village of Ta Van. We headed out of town, found the trail and started on our way. At the very beginning of the trek there was a coffee shop up on the hill over looking the valley. We decided to go up there for a coffee and some nice views. While we were there we ran into this Malaysian couple, Azmi and Izy, who was also wanting to do the trek without a guide so we decided to team up and go together. We started down what we thought was the path and soon enough, we were lost in the rice paddies. We had seen tons of people walk the same way we were going and we could not figure out what path they stayed on. We needed to get down the hillside where we could see a pathway, but we had no idea how to get down there. We eventually gave up and just started hiking down the rice paddies. It was definitely the wrong way to go but wound up being so much fun! We basically followed a “path” that the water buffalo had formed down the hillside. At one point we even saw a couple of the buffalo and were basically following them down their path. We were slipping and sliding in the mud and by the time we actually reached the path we were covered in mud and burs! We did not take the easy way down but we had a blast doing it….non stop laughter! Plus, the views coming through the rice paddies was amazing. There were no other people around…just the 4 of us, the rice paddies, and the water buffalo. Once we got on the path, the walk was pretty easy. It took us about 2 more hours to get to the village. We walked along the river for a while, passed some locals in their small huts, crossed a few bridges and saw so many rice paddies! The grossest part though was when we passed a group of children playing on the path. Turns out they were playing with water buffalo poop! As soon as they saw us they put their poop down and ran over to us to try and sell us stuff. All I could think was, please don’t touch me with your poop hands!!! As we were coming into the village we had to cross a few bridges. As we went to cross the first bridge we saw a huge water buffalo just chilling on the bridge, blocking the way. We were all very nervous to walk past him but since we was blocking the whole bridge, we didn’t have a choice. We just tried to casually and calmly walk around him. Thankfully it worked…he didn’t seem to care about us at all! The random stuff you see in Vietnam haha! 

Enjoying the view on our day trek in Sapa

Day trek in Sapa

We finally reached the village and decided to just pay a local to drive us back into Sapa town because it would have taken us another 2+ hours to walk back. This was where things got crazy! The 4 of us jumped in this guy’s four wheel drive car, that was actually really nice. Our first obstacle was getting out of the village, which required us crossing a very narrow bridge over the river. This bridge was dodgy! I’m pretty sure it was made of rusted aluminum and was exactly the width of 1 car. Our driver had to back up and straighten out his truck multiple times to line it up perfectly straight so we could get across the bridge. I thought this thing was going to crumble for sure! We somehow made it over the bridge and that is when things really got crazy! We had to drive up this very steep hill to get to the town. The road up the hill was more of a mud path full of huge pot holes and massive rocks everywhere. On top of all of that there were motorbikes and kids running everywhere that the driver had to dodge. Plus, if he stopped moving the truck would get stuck!  We had almost reached the top of the hill when this lady on a motorbike drove right in front of us causing our driver to have to stop and therefore get stuck on the hill. He was pissed and yelling at the lady on the motorbike. He then had to back up down this crazy mud hill trying not to hit kids, pot holes, you name it! We finally got down far enough he could try again. He hit the gas and we started slipping and sliding back up the hill. Just as we reached the top a tourist bus pulled up and all the village kids went running in front of our truck to try and sell their trinkets to the tourists. Our driver was hitting the horn trying to get the kids out of the way. He finally said screw it, hit the gas and flew past the kids spraying them and the tourists with mud. We looked back and the kids were crying and tourists were just in shock. We were dying! We just started cheering on our driver…it was hilarious…only in Vietnam! We finally made it back to town, said our goodbyes to our new friends and headed back to the hotel to shower and get ready for our night train. We had such a good time with our new friends…they definitely made the day a lot more fun!

Hiking with our new friends Azmi and Izy 

Passing water buffalo on the bridge in to town

The night train was basically the same as the one we took to Sapa, just going back to Hanoi instead. We arrived around 5am and had to wait around until 9am for our bus to Cat Ba Island. So…what do you do at 5am in Hanoi??? Well, we went and sat in the park near our hotel we stayed in when we first arrived. It was still dark out and nothing was open but we knew there were park benches there. What we didn’t know was that tons of people would be out exercising around the park. They were out walk, running, doing weird arm swings and neck rolls, sit ups on the park benches, you name it. We just sat there and people watched for the next few hours…it was amazing. Eventually two groups of ladies came out and were doing Tai Chi in the park as well. Honestly, the best people watching of our whole trip haha! 

It was finally time to find our bus to Cat Ba. The bus was what we expected…tiny tiny seats. We were pretzeled all the way in the back. It was very organized though. We had to take a bus from the mainland to the island, then a boat to the island and then another bus into the city center on Cat Ba. All the transportation was ready to go when we arrived so we didn’t have to wait around much. The boat we took to the island was hilarious. It had definitely seen better days. It looked like a very old, rusted out military type boat. We didn’t sink though and in no time we were on the Island! We booked a hotel right in the city center, which isn’t huge, but super cute. Our hotel was right on the main road facing the bay and it was really nice! They upgraded us to a room with a view and man, what a view! We were on the top floor overlooking the bay…it was beautiful! Our hotel also had a roof top pool that had views of the bay. You could tell the town was a big party town in the summer. They had “balloons” you could buy at the bars (I learned that they were helium balloons that you suck on…didn’t know that was a thing) plus lots of places with 1 hour “all you could drink” deals. I think because it was the off season it was really quite the 6 days we were there, which was fine with me.

Sunset from our hotel pool

Happy Hour beers for 40 cents!

Our first full day was super sunny so we decided to rent motor bikes and ride them to the National Park. I had never ridden a motor bike before but since the island isn’t super crowded and roads are relatively good, I wanted to give it a go. I took a test drive a few times around the street by our hotel. I was a little nervous on it but quickly started to get the hang of it. The ride out to the park was so pretty. Once you get out of the city the island is super green and lush. The National Park is really big and covers most of the northern portion of the island. There was a hike up to a view point that looked really nice. It was actually harder than we expected. It only took about 2 hours round trip but required quite a bit of scrambling up rocks, which was fun. The view at the top was so nice. You could see basically all of the park, which is made up of tons of forested limestone karsts. We stayed up there for a while enjoying the view and taking lots of pictures. When we got back to the bottom we went across the street to have a beer at a little restaurant. A random couple walked in and wound up joining us. We chatted a bit and they decided to order some food. They were looking at the menu and noticed one of the dishes translated to English…”Grilled Child!” Hahaha! What the heck??? Luckily, no one decided to order it but I am still curious what the actual dish was. The ride back to town was super fun. I was feeling a lot more comfortable on the bike and was able to relax. Ross took some videos of me scooting around and we even passed a herd of cattle on the road (only in Vietnam). We got back from the National Park and decided to check out our rooftop pool. The weather was so nice and the water felt amazing. Bonus…we had the whole place to ourselves! No one was up there! We stayed up there for a few hours and then caught the sunset as well, which was beautiful.

1st time on a motor bike...

Views from Cat Ba National Park

Beautiful hike at Cat Ba National Park

Grilled Child...yikes!

Side Note: There was a restaurant 2 buildings down from our hotel that we ate at almost everyday. They had happy hour draught beers for 40 cents and good/cheap food. Plus, they rigged up their TV to a computer so we could watch the Rugby World Cup 3^rd place game and finals. 

The next day was another beautiful clear day so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and do a boat tour of Lan Ha Bay and Ha Long Bay. We had such a good time! We took a bus up to the north eastern port and got on a pretty big boat. It took us cruising through Lan Ha Bay first, where we stopped to do some kayaking. The spot we got to kayak was pretty cool. There was a limestone opening carved through one of the karsts that lead to a secluded area that we got to explore. We then cruised on to Ha Long Bay to swim and snorkel. The snorkeling wasn’t great because of the visibility but it was fun jumping off the boat and swimming around. We even swam to a secluded isles and sat on the beach. Cruising through the bays was amazing! There are thousands of limestone karsts and small isles everywhere and the water is so calm. Evidently we got lucky with our good weather. I had a few people tell me that most days are pretty cloudy and foggy around there. There were quite a few younger couples and groups of friends that we got talking to. We wound up chatting with a couple (American & Hungarian) quite a bit on the tour. They were traveling around SE Asia for a few months and were a lot of fun to talk to. As much as we love spending time together it’s nice getting to talk to over people as well.

 

Boat tour in Ha Long Bay

Lan Ha Bay

Kayaking in Lan Ha Bay

Our “good weather” luck ran out for the next 2 days and it rained off and on the whole time. It wasn’t so bad though. We were able to fit in a few workouts, catch up with friends, and read books on the covered patio by the pool. Plus, the Rugby World Cup 3^rd place game and finals were on! We got super lucky being able to watch the games at one of the bars…plus the beers were 40cents! Our time on Cat Ba Island was really nice. We spent a few days more than most people suggested but were glad we did. Honestly, I would rather have been there during the rainy days than Sapa.

Had the pool all to ourselves for sunset!

After 6 days on Cat Ba Island we headed to Hoi An for 6 days. We had been back and forth on splitting time between Da Nang and Hoi An and in the end we decided to spend all our time in Hoi An. Everyone was saying how much they loved it and we figured we could just take a day trip to Da Nang if we wanted. I 100% think we made the right choice! We absolutely loved Hoi An. Definitely our favorite stop in Vietnam. Our hotel was about a 15min ride from the city center right near the beach. Our hotel had a free shuttle to take you in to town and also free bike rentals, which we used quite a bit. The first thing on our agenda was a street food tour because so many people had told us how fun it was. We had really wanted to try all the local dishes but obviously we couldn’t order from the locals food stands. Plus we didn’t know how to eat a lot of the dishes. The street food tour was phenomenal. Our guide, Michael, was really fun and we loved just hanging out with him. We went to 9 different spots and tried tons of food! Here is a list of what we tried:

-Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwich)

-Banh Xeo (Vietnamese savory pancake)

-Banh Bot Loc (sticky rice dumpling)

-Banh Dap (“breaking cake” rice crackers with fish sauce for dipping)

-Thit Nuong Hoi An (Hoi An BBQ)

-Kep Trung Da Lat (Vietnamese pizza)

-Trung Cut Nuong-Format (grilled quail egg)

-Kep Bate (pate wrap)

-Me Den (sesame soup)

-Cao Lau (noodle soup)

-Com Ga (chicken rice)

Eating Banh Xeo on food tour

Hoi An BBQ

Michael, our street food tour guide

Some of the places were seriously dodgy looking. I swear, the one stop was in the back ally of these peoples’ house. They had trash cans, crates, and other miscellaneous stuff piled up in the back, right where they were cooking. There was even an old lady chilling in the back, outside on a beach lounger, watching tv. It was kind of weird and I was a little nervous about how sanitary everything was, but we didn’t get sick, so, there you go. The funniest/strangest stop was where we tried the sesame soup. We basically walked into the house where the people lived who make the soup. They had a little museum about the history of making the soup in the front sitting area with the old tools originally used to make it plus lots of pictures of the couple who started the business. As we were looking at the pictures Michael was telling us that the couple is still alive and 104 and 96 years old! Then he says, “and they are lying right in there,” and points to a little room off of the sitting area where we were. There, lying in 2 beds were the husband and wife and they looked like they were barely alive! It actually scared the crap out of me! For a minute I thought they were dead and that their bodies were lying there, preserved! It was quite a shock. We ended the tour at a local tea and coffee house where we had this homemade infused ice tea that hit the spot! My favorite dish was trung cut nuong and Ross’s was cao lau. After our food tour we walked around the old town area and the bridge of lights. The area was so picturesque! At night they light thousands of colorful lanterns hanging above the streets and around shops and restaurants. They also have small boats that go out on the water at night. It is Vietnamese custom to light lanterns and release them on the river to ask for good fortune, especially during full moons. There were tons of people out on boats lighting lanterns…it was a beautiful sight. On the other side of the river there was a big night market and tons of bars and restaurants playing music. We decided to sit down for a beer and just enjoy the last bit of the night. So far, we were both in love Hoi An!

“Dodgy” Street Food stop

Some of the different dishes they were cooking

Infused Tea at Mot

Our hotel offered a free bike tour so we decided to take advantage of it the next morning. The tour took us through the country side and rice paddies and out to some local farms. It was a lot of fun. The roads were not the best. We were biking through mud, pot holes, and flooded areas quite a bit but it just made it that much more fun. We stopped at one of the rice paddies where our guide was saying hi to his friend out working the fields with his water buffalo. The guy offered to let us ride him so of course I had to give it a go! He was massive and surprisingly soft. Our next stop was at the local farmers’ gardens where our guide showed us all the different types of herbs and produce they grow to make local dishes. The weather was perfect, we got a bit of exercise and we learned a lot…plus it was free! That afternoon we decided to take the bikes up to the beach. Our hotel was “technically” on the beach, but the beach where we were staying was awful. It was super shallow and absolutely covered in trash. I hated seeing that and really struggled to turn a blind eye to it. It was a sad reminder of how much people are polluting the Earth. On a happier note though, the beach up the street was really nice. Not the white sand and blue water we love but still really nice.

 

Free bike tour to the local farms

Riding a water buffalo!

Touring local farms

Super dirty beach by our hotel...so sad

The next day was the big day for me…I was getting clothes made! Vietnam, as with a few other SE Asian countries are known for very good and very cheap custom tailoring. As you all know, I have the hardest time finding clothes to fit, especially work clothes. We went to a very highly recommended tailor called BeBe so I could get fitted. I wound up getting fitted for a 3 piece suit, a pair of pants, and a dress and I am in love with them all! The prices were a little higher than other places but the quality of service and quality of fabric was worth it, plus, it was still so much cheaper than anything I could have had made back home. The best part is that now that they have my measurements on file and I can email them for more clothes in the future. I know it may sound silly, but this was the highlight of my trip! Ross also wound up getting a suit made that was really nice! After our fitting we headed back to the beach for a few hours and then back into town that night for dinner. A bunch of people had recommended a place called Morning Glory for dinner so we decided to check it out. It gets fully booked later for dinner so we went early and no one was there. The food was absolutely amazing and we had wonderful views overlooking the river and bridge of lights. This was our “splurge meal” of our trip. We had a starter, 2 mains, and a beer each and it was $30…only $30!

Lanterns at our favorite restaurant, Morning Glory

Bike ride into town

Getting custom made clothes!

The next morning we spent at the beach. We hadn’t had warm, beach weather in quite some time so we were trying to take advantage of it. Later in the day we went back into the city center to do our final fitting for our clothes. We decided to walk around the city for a few hours and then have dinner again at Morning Glory. While we were walking around we heard someone yelling our names. We looked around and sure enough, we saw our friends from the boat tour on Cat Ba Island! We walked around with them a bit and had a drink before parting ways. It was really good running into them. After leaving them we went back to Morning Glory for dinner and it was just as good as the day before!

Walking through old town Hoi An

Beautiful lanterns in Hoi An

Bridge of Lights

Lantern Boats

Side Note: We noticed tons of couples walking around in matching outfits. Either matching shirts or girls in dresses that matched their boyfriend/husband’s shirt. We thought it was so strange. Turns out it is a Korean thing to let people know they are a couple. Glad it is not something we do in the US or Northern Ireland haha!

We had wanted to spend a day in Da Nang but it just didn’t really work out. We had done so many activities and decided there was enough to see and do in Hoi An and we would skip it. I do have to say though that there seem to be quite a few cool things to do in that area.

Our last day we signed up for a cooking class through a restaurant called Red Bridge. It had come highly recommended and we thought it would be fun to try our hand at cooking some local dishes. We started in the local markets where our guide took us to pick out fresh fish and meat to cook. He showed us how to pick the freshest fish and beef, which was very interesting. We also walked through the local spice market to see what we would be using that day. After the market we took a boat down the river to the restaurant. The grounds were so pretty. There was a garden on the premise that they used for fresh herbs and veggies in the dishes we cooked. The restaurant was right on the water and to the left side was the area for the cooking class and to the right side was the restaurant. They had a table up front where a chef 1^st demonstrated what we would cook. We would then go around the sides where we all had our own private cooking station to cook our dishes. We cooked a few starters to enjoy first and then cooked our mains that we ate later in the restaurant. The chef was hilarious, constantly cracking jokes and the class was super efficient and organized. I loved it! The food was a lot easier to cook than I thought it would be. We made fresh spring rolls, bahn xeo, cao lau, homemade rice paper, seafood & papaya salad, and a few other dishes. They were all super tasty! Unfortunately, Ross had to leave during our trip to the market because he had not been feeling well. I felt so bad for him that he missed it because it was such a cool experience. The cooking school was so nice though and they cooked all of Ross’s food for him and sent it back with me so he could at least enjoy the dishes.

Picking out meat at the market for our cooking class

Red Bridge cooking class

Homemade cao lau!

Side Note: Ross has been trying to convince me for 2 years now that he can cook…I have yet to see it. Plus, he conveniently “got sick” the day we were supposed to be doing the cooking class. Something fishy is going on here….

The next morning we were up and off the Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon. Ross still wasn’t feeling well so he stayed in the hotel and rested that evening. I went out exploring on my own and found this really cool food stall market just down from our hotel. For my friends in San Diego, it sort of reminded me of Liberty Public Market. There were 4 or 5 rows or food stalls that were about 10 deep with stalls cooking all different types of food. They had everything from ice cream, to bbq, to Vietnamese, and Japanese food. You just ordered from the stall you wanted and then found a seat at the communal picnic benches. I spent a good 20 minutes just exploring all the stalls. I finally picked my meal and found a seat. I got lucky and another girl, who was alone, wound up sitting next to me and we started chatting. She was from the Philippines and was in Ho Chi Minh for work. We wound up talking for at least and hour! I felt bad Ross wasn’t feeling well but I actually had a really nice time that night. 

Yummy dinner at food stall market

The next day we went out to tour the Cu Chi Tunnels and then came back into the city to see the War Remnants Museum. We booked a private tour through our hotel so we had a guide pick us up, drive us out the the tunnels and then back to see the museum. Our guide, Steven, was fantastic! He was a younger, very outgoing guy who talked to us about everything! The drive out to the tunnels took over an hour. It was pretty far outside town and it didn’t help that it was pouring rain that morning. The traffic was insane! Hundreds of motorbikes trying to get around cars, other motor bikes, and people. They were just driving up on the sidewalks and in between cars. It was absolute carnage! I still do not understand how they don’t have more accidents in Vietnam! We finally made it out to the tunnels where Steven showed us maps and recreations of what they looked like inside during the Vietnam War. I was shocked at how much ground they covered in the jungle! There were hundreds of tunnels everywhere and they were really organized. They had tunnels for supplies, sleeping, collecting rain water, etc. We also learned that all the tunnels were booby trapped. Each soldier had their own entrance and they were the only one who knew where that entrance was and where to booby trap was. The tunnels were also incredibly well hidden. We walked around parts of the jungle where the tunnels were and Steven would point out the hidden entrances to us…I would never have seen them! Plus, they were tiny! I mean tiny! They had one tunnel they had made bigger for westerners to fit in and I couldn’t even get my butt in and Ross could barely squeeze in. We got to crawl through one as well, which was tough. I had to crawl on my hands and knees through the whole thing. The booby traps were the most impressive part to me. The Vietnamese were incredibly creative. They were taking stuff left over by the Americans (plastic, wire, bottles, cans, etc) and turning them into various types of traps. They even took bombs, disassembled them, and turned then into new weapons! They also made sandals out of old tires and would wear them backwards in the jungle to confuse the American soldiers. I know this will be a very sensitive topic for a lot of Americans, especially those who had to fight in the war, so I don’t mean to offend anyone…I am just stating what we saw. Sadly, I can see why America lost the war…I don’t know how we could have been prepared to fight this kind of fight. 

 

Crazy traffic driving out to Cu Chi Tunnels

Side Note: It is called the American War in Vietnam…makes sense.

On the drive back into town I was asking Steven a lot about the Vietnamese feelings towards Americans now. He said that the younger generations consider it in the past but some people in older generations still have bad feelings, which I understand. I think it is a similar sentiment in the US. War is terrible and sad. Our next stop was the War Remnants Museum. We learned that it used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes but President Bush was able to get Vietnam to agree to change the name when trade was opened back up with them. The exhibits are blatantly one-sided but still really tough to go through. No matter what your feelings are on the war, it is obvious that America did some horrible things to the Vietnamese. Killing innocent people, dropping agent orange, it wasn’t good. It was heartbreaking going through the museum and seeing what happened to the people back in the 70s and what is still happening today due to agent orange, which is expected to cause birth defects for 4 generations. There were a few times that I was really emotional walking through the museum. Bottom line…it is important that we learn these things so history does not repeat itself. 

 

Original size of tunnel

Climbing through one of the tunnels

Different types of booby traps made by the Vietnamese

Ross trying to fit in one of the enlarged tunnels...be barely fit!

One funny note on the museum. Some of the wording on the signs was very subjective. They really loved to use aggressive negative adjectives about America and extremely positive ones about Vietnam, which at times, was kind of funny. They used wording like “the repressive and murderous U.S. forces” and “Vietnam completely and utterly smashed the Dien Bien Phu group.” I know I was at a Vietnamese museum so the history was worded in favor of them, but I loved the way they described things at times.

Our last day in Ho Chi Minh was a lazy one. We went to the gym and laid by the pool. That night I took Ross to eat at the food stall market, which he really enjoyed. Overall we had a great time in Veitnam. Our next stop is Cambodia!

Overall Thoughts: I think I enjoyed Vietnam a bit more than Ross did. He is sensitive to “smells” so I think at times the trash and street conditions got to him more than me. I struggled at times with he trash and poverty and had to turn a blind eye from time to time. We both loved Hoi An though and it was definitely our favorite stop. Everyone said 6 days was too much time there but I could have spent a few more days. I would love to go back and see Hue, Ninh Binh, and Dalat in the future. 

Negative: Sapa was our biggest disappointment. We loved the day trek we did but we did not enjoy the town at all. It was very poor and way too touristy for us. The weather definitely had an affect on our mood but I still think it would have been our least favorite stop.