8th - 16th December - Vietnam

Colombo - Bangkok - Hanoi
Wed 8th
3am flight to Bangkok getting us in at 6am then waited around the airport for our 12.30 ish flight to Hanoi.
Finally arrived in Hanoi about 6 pm local time. Straight to a great little hotel - bargain at 20 USD per night.

 9th + 10th
Hanoi on foot. Huge French influence on this 100 year old city. Wide tree lined boulevards with beautiful colonial style buildings intermingled with brand new high rise towers.
Ho Chi Minh Complex - Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh who is still revered by the Vietnamese and you wont go more than 10 m anywhere in the country without seeing a pic of him somewhere.

Sally decided she couldn't take the museum so we skipped that opting for Uncle Ho's house instead. This is a very basic stilt house that the authorities like to hold up as proof that the founding member of their party was a simple man of the people. The number of Mercedes AMG's parked outside the nearby Communist Party Headquarters would suggest the current head shed have different ideas!

Spent the rest of the day wandering around the numerous markets and enjoying the thrill of crossing the roads!

Lovely temperature in Hanoi this time of year -about 25 deg with a cool breeze, so again set out on foot to see the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Actually a pretty good museum within part of the original building built by the French in the 1860's.
The museum presented a rather Vietnamese view on history but the main thing that shone through was that they are a fiercely proud and independent nation who were going to oust all colonial powers no matter how long it took. The Americans hardly even register in their historical perspective - they were fighting with the Chinese for 1000 years, the French for 100+ and the American incursion hardly raised an eyebrow!

For some reason in the evening I was persuaded that going to watch puppets would be a good idea. well it wasn’t but it kept Sally amused and gave me credit for a few days later!

11th Halong Bay

After a rather sardine like experience in a bus for 3 hours we arrived at Halong Bay. They claim this is one of the seven natural wonders of the earth but i'll have to look into that later, anyway if its not in the 7 it should definitely be in the top 10.
The pictures will hopefully do it justice but if they don’t, take my word for it , it is a truly beautiful place.
Huge limestone karsts vertically burst out of the millpond sea in all shapes and sizes and appear ghost like out of the sea mist. We cruised in and out of the small inlets and passages for a couple of hours before stopping off to see one of the larger caves. After following a few French families around the caves (who seemed to be on to some kind of buy one get one free offer on Vietnamese babies??) we were set loose in a kayak to explore ourselves.

12th
Cross decked to another boat for a trip to Cat Ba island  - the largest of the Bay islands, then a trek up to the top of the National Parks highest hill. Great, except for the 38 other people at the top.

After a few arguments with the tour guide and watching a mental French woman nearly cut the poor guys throat, we hired a couple of mopeds and did an improvised tour of our own with a Kiwi chap we picked up on the way. Most notable was the cave that VC used as a massive hospital during the wars.

Turned out we weren’t staying the night on the boat again but in a hotel, anyway it all worked out in the end as by midnight we were drinking rice wine and goat testacles.

13th - Back to Hanoi, no tip for Mr. guide. then flight to Hue,

14th  Hue
This is the old imperial city of Vietnam and the residence of the Emperor
Pleasant walk around the town visiting the Purple(Forbidden) City and after lunch a trip up the Perfume river to see the Tu Dam  Pagoda. Here they had the car that took the Buddhist monk who set of to Saigon in 1963 to protest against the southern regime.....by burning himself to death in the street (fans of rage against the machine - pic is on their first album cover).

Hue was completely smashed by both the Americans and the North so they are currently undertaking a massive rebuilding of the old citadel which is returning the centre to its former splendor.

15th DMZ tour
With Water Puppet credit in my account, i cashed this in with Sally and persuaded her to join me on the 9 hour DMZ tour. It turned out to be an interesting, very informative and at times slightly emotional trip.

Our guide was a South Vietnamese 2Lt at during the war who worked with the US Marines as a scout and interpreter.

He took us to the various bases he was stationed at and told us some pretty shocking stories of his imprisonment after the war and how his daughter would not speak to him for several years when she found out his past.

We visited the Con Thien firebase where General Westmorland (i think) commanded the siege of Khe Shan; Highway 1, VC War Cemetery, and the Vinh Moc tunnels.

The tunnels were particularly impressive being on 3 levels reaching down to 22 m deep. Here the VC smuggled in Russian & Chinese weapons and other materiel and was effectively one of the starting points of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

It was indeed a long day and there wasn’t a huge amount to see, however the first hand account from our guide and the historical significance made the day well worth it.

16^th Dec Hoi An
Late check out then a 4 hour bus ride down to Hoi An – Asian buses are definately made for Asian sized people!  We also seem to be plagued by drivers who have serious nasal and respiratory issues and for our next long distance ride we will be carrying out sniffing, hocking and phlegm screening.