Life in Hanoi

As tourists we’re drawn to the historical sites, museums, and natural wonders; all the places the guidebooks say we should go. But my favorite moments while traveling are those in which I witness the everyday played out in new and interesting ways.  We arrived early in Hanoi off a night train, so we spent time wandering the city and soon found ourselves at Hoan Kiem lake where hundreds if not thousands of Vietnamese were exercising.  Actions such as rubbing the belly or poking fingers in the ears derive from traditions of Chinese medicine, which many Vietnamese practice.

Lining up for some morning exercise

After 8 weeks of travel, we were a bit fatigued by historical sites and museums so we spent our time in Hanoi instead wandering, eating, drinking 25 cent beers and doing lots and lots of shopping.  Enjoy the photos below:

Street corner breakfast in Hanoi

Typical Hanoi traffic

Amazing what you can carry on a scooter

Pour me another please

Bia Hoi - $.25 beers!

Shade from the morning sun

Old friends

Temple of Literature: okay, so we did fit in one site!

Floating Mountains: Halong Bay & Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam

Early morning rain on Halong Bay

The creative director of the move Avatar must have been inspired by Halong Bay in Vietnam as there are few other places in the world where mountains appear to float weightlessly. While the imaginary planet in Avatar has mountains that suspend mid-air, Halong Bay’s mountains soak in pools of blue. Sunsets soften the edges of the sharp cliffs, color the sky and offer reflections that make sky and sea indistinguishable.

Sunset on Halong Bay

It’s no wonder the bay is one of Vietnam’s most visited attractions, with hordes of “junks” that float its waters on packaged cruises. We tend to loathe organized tours and try with all our might to travel independently, but there are some places that cannot be seen without a guide. Halong Bay is one of them. So when we searched for a tour operator, we looked for one that cruises away from the frequently touristed areas with only a small group while treading carefully on the environment and local community. Ethnic Travel fit the bill, and one of the highlights was that its boat cruises both Halong Bay and the less touristed Bai Tu Long Bay.

One of the many limestone cliffs of Halong Bay

Sunset swim in Halong Bay

It was a beautiful, albeit hot, day sailing Halong Bay. After feasting on a meal of spring rolls, breaded tofu, grilled squid and sauteed shrimp, we relaxed on the deck of the boat and took in the scenery. In the late afternoon, we visited a “floating village, a town built entirely on a string of floating decks. There’s even a floating school! Later, we took a swim in water but the dim light of the evening did not hide the trash that would float by in clumps. It quickly shook me out of the daze that Halong had seduced me into and thrust me into the realization that Vietnam like much of Asia seeks money and advancement at a cost. Despite being a UNESCO world heritage site, I was hard pressed to see what the title has done to help protect the Bay from the impact of tourism.

A floating village in Halong Bay

Our transportation in the floating village

It rained hard that night and into the early morning. At 5am, Ben woke up, looked out the window and rushed out with his camera. The rain was falling in patches that were hit by the rising sun in such a way that it looked like it was raining gold. After so many lost sunsets and mornings when we overslept, Ben was giddy to have captured the perfect moment on film.

Sunrise on Halong Bay

We kayaked in the morning then sailed back to get on yet another minibus to go to Bai Tu Long Bay, just an hour away. Apparently the junks don’t sail fast enough to sail between the two bays.  But the bus ride was worth it; Nary a tourist at this bay’s port and few boats in the bay itself save a lone fisherman or two.  Though the rocks don’t have the scale of Halong Bay, Bai Tu Long Bay has the advantage of its serenity.  Long placid waterways flanked by jagged black rock sprinkled with greenery set a much different stage.   We spent the evening on Quan Lan Island at a “homestay”, which was really more like a non air conditioned basic B&B with hosts that barely spoke to us.  After a restless hot night, we got some pho and headed out on some rented bikes for a tour of the little island and a dip at the beach.  It was raining by the time we returned to the boat but the mist atop the water made our sail to shore even more beautiful.

Lone fisherman on Bai Tu Long Bay

The cliffs of Bai Tu Long Bay

Misty morning on Bai Tu Long Bay

Quan Lan island

Merchants & Emperors: Traveling in time in Hoi An & Hue

Hue's Citadel

The shopkeepers and emperors of old Vietnam had it made. A pharmaceutical salesman resided in a intricately carved wooden storefront with a lush atrium and lacquered inlay furniture while his emperor had an entire landscape of temples built for his final resting place, with room to spare for his wives. Such elegant use of space is on display in both Hoi An and Hue, two stops along our journey from South to North Vietnam.

Wooden chairs at a Chinese assembly hall

Exquisite courtyard of a merchant's house in Hoi An

Hoi An is so quaint and so fittingly “Asian”, it feels like a manufactured version of itself for the benefit of tourists.  But I was perfectly happy to live in the illusion of lit paper lanterns, swept streets, and excellent restaurants.  Days are spent eating, shopping and strolling through old merchant houses and Chinese assembly halls that make you feel so elegant you must dress the part.  So we visited one of the many tailor shops that have made Hoi An famous for the trade and Ben ordered two shirts and a pair of pants custom tailored to the tune of $50.

Diners enjoy a riverside meal of Cao Lau in Hoi An

Chinese lantern in one of Hoi An's many assembly halls

Vietnamese flags hang from most shops in Hoi An

Perhaps one of the highlights of Vietnam is that its skinny width and long coastline means you are never far from a great beach. Just north of the Hoi An town center is An Bang beach, a poorly advertised getaway of white sands and pristine blue waters that was nearly empty when we stopped for a lunch of grilled squid and Larue beers. It was the perfect respite from the heat, which was nearly unbearable in mid-day.  We were sad to leave Hoi An, and in retrospect, would have gladly spent another day, but we had a tight schedule to meet. Our next stop was Hue.

An Bang beach outside of Hoi An

Hue, which lies smack dab in the center of Vietnam is just as known for its ill-fated location during the Vietnam War as it is for its imperial tombs which dot the outskirts of the city. We chose to see the latter and spent one day on a motorbike getting lost between them.  As usual, the motorbike ride was as interesting as the stops, as it granted us lovely views of the Perfume River and surrounding mountains.

Hue imperial tomb

For more pictures, click through the slideshow below:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Dunes & Fish Sauce in Mui Ne

Cows on the Beach

Craving some more beach time, we headed to Mui Ne, a small beach town along the coast of Vietnam. It appealed to us more than the more popular beach town of Nha Trang for its sand dunes and fishing village along with its quiet beaches.  We spent our first afternoon lazing by the beach watching the kite surfers who travel from all over the world to catch winds that build to 20 knots.  An evening dip in the hotel pool up on the hill above the ocean was the perfect closer.

Cows in the way

Stunning dunes of Mui Ne

At breakfast, we met a US Vietnam war veteran who we joined for a motorbike ride around the area. He’d been to Mui Ne before and still remembered enough of his State Department taught Vietnamese to order the right amount of condensed milk in our iced coffees.  Off the coast, we visited beautiful white sand dunes flanked by natural spring fed lakes then closed the day with the red sand dunes closer to the ocean.

Vietnam or the Sahara?

The next day we awoke early to meet the fishermen bringing in their catch, which in Mui Ne is mostly small sardines that are steamed, dried in the sun and fermented in vats for fish sauce. I’ll let the photos below tell the story.

Waiting for dad

Colorful Boats

Pulling boats in to shore

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Cities in contrast: Phnom Penh & Saigon

Family on a motorbike

I’m quite behind on travel blog posts, but I’ve committed to catching up and so though I’m writing in Washington, DC, on the blog I’m still traveling between Cambodia and Vietnam’s largest cities: Phnom Penh and Saigon.

I first fell in love with Phnom Penh after a chance encounter with the crispiest tastiest grilled squid on earth during a bus stop between Siem Reap and Kep. Upon returning to Phnom Penh, we visited the central market again for the heavenly dish, served with cold cucumbers, herbs and a dash of homemade chili sauce.  This was a no frills spot; just a small roadside stand with food served on melamine dishes.  Yet the taste and the service was five star.  It’s a microcosm of Phnom Penh, a shabby city upon first glimpse yet one oozing with character. Despite being Cambodia’s capitol city, Phnom Penh’s demographic is decidedly rural in nature, in large part because of Pol Pot’s reign of terror over the wealthy and educated classes.  So scenes of life in rural Cambodia are often played out in city streets: people commuting by bicycle, carrying livestock, and selling fruit from bamboo baskets. PP feels more like a small town than a capitol city and in some ways, it seems as if time stands still.  One night we ventured to the local mall, where the top floor contained a roller rink packed with Khmer teens doing tricks and drinking soda pop from glass bottles.  It was as if we were transported back to 1950s America, when life seemed so simple and wholesome.

The Royal Palace of Phnom Penh

Monks flood the streets of Phnom Penh

The Russian Market in Phnom Penh

Man sharpening knives at the Russian Market

One of many street side barbershops

Despite its renewed character, Phnom Penh is still deeply haunted by the days of Khmer Rouge, when an estimated 2 million people were brutally killed.  We visited Tuol Sleng (S21), a former high-school turned prison and place of torture for the Khmer Rouge.  After the regime fell in 1979, 14 bodies were found.  Photographs of the bodies as they were left are hung on the walls of the cell in which they were found along with the bed and shackles to which they were chained.  The stark images are a sobering reminder of the capacity for human beings to be unapologetically inhuman.

S 21 cell block

Portraits of prisoners at S 21

S 21 cell

We continued our journey to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, still regularly called Saigon today.  It never ceases to amaze me how different a place can be just a few miles across a land border.  A bustling sprawling behemoth of a city, Saigon is everything that Phnom Penh isn’t; It’s a city on a race for advancement.  Streets are nearly impassible due to waves of motorbikes speeding in every direction and construction is everpresent. But the most significant difference were the people, who on the outset were much more cold and aloof than the Khmer, Lao and Thai.  We had only a day in Saigon and it wasn’t an especially memorable one thanks to buckets of rain and a few attempts by locals to rip us off.  But we kept up our hopes high for better days in Vietnam, and fortunately there were many. Stay tuned!

The chaotic traffic of Saigon

Pepper and Beach: Kampot to Kep

Palm trees and rice paddy, the quintessential Cambodian landscape

Little compares to Cambodian bus travel. It takes at least two hours longer to arrive at a destination than estimated. Nine times out of ten a tire blows out and needs to be replaced.  Rest stops are taken at illogical intervals, usually at the whim of the driver who will sit down for a three course hot meal as little as 10 kilometers away from the final destination. Passengers (er, Cambodian passengers) also get a whole lot of say for when the bus stops. One drunk man halted the bus at least five times to take a piss on the side of the road.  Yet the real clincher has to be the deafening tune of Cambodian karaoke DVDs played on repeat.  After a few 8 hour rides, I’d memorized several of the songs, all a variation on the same melodramatic plot-line of unrequited love.

Cambodian rice farmers

Yet the real highlight of bus travel in Cambodia is that it offers a fascinating glimpse of daily life. Westerners tend to live at the end of long driveways, behind fences, walls and in the privacy of homes.  Cambodians carryout their daily life out in the open, often alongside the curves of the country’s main thoroughfares. We see them caring for their children, tending their rice fields, showering, and gathering for a meal.

A view of Kampot province

Aside from the landscape — flat rice fields dotted with coconut and palm trees (opposed to the mostly hilly landscape of Thailand and Laos) — the most obvious scenic difference in Cambodia are the homes.  Few thatch roofed and bamboo houses here. Even the poorest villages are checkered with elegant yet simple Khmer wooden houses with striking carved wooden detail decorating their eaves.

Traditional Khmer house

We made our way to Kampot and Kep, two small towns within a short 30 minute ride from each-other. The former is known for its pepper plantations and friendly provincial town while the latter is known for its ocean views.  We spent a day in Kampot riding around its surrounds by motorbike past salt pans, Cham Muslim neighborhoods and rice fields, to caves with a fifth century Hindu temple.  Nearly every turn provided sightings of smiling locals waving and saying hello.  During a stop for a snack of spicy papaya salad with what we believed to be raw (eek) crab, we were even invited to join some locals for a celebratory birthday drink of homemade palm wine.

The path to the cave, mine free...

The old bridge in Kampot, with the Elephant Mountains in the distance

From Kep we took a choppy boat ride to the quiet Rabbit Island, a favorite of locals.  Two days by the water doing nothing but swimming, drinking coconut water and reading a good book did the trick to cure our travelers’ fatigue.  At night, once the generators died and the island turned pitch black, the ocean became phosphorescent.  Breaking waves looked like lines of stars and a sweep of the arm spawned a trail of diamonds.  Two of the adorable stray puppies that populated the island guarded the door of our simple thatch bungalow that night while another slept under our bed.

Sunset on Rabbit Island

Early morning on Rabbit Island

The beach puppies that stayed with us all night

Our ride back to the mainland

Enamored by Angkor Wat

Dramatic carvings and sky at Banteay Srei

I’ll still never forget the first time I saw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, gazing at it while sandwiched between hundreds of strangers.  Chatters from the tourists were only amplified by the cavernous chapel, creating a wall of noise. “Silencio”, barked the guard, his pleas going unnoticed. So vast, so detailed and so impeccably to scale were Michelangelo’s paintings that they had an almost transcendent quality, capable of silencing the buzzing of tourists that Italian guards could not.  It’s been almost ten years since I visited the Sistine Chapel and few places have had a such a transfixing effect. That is until we visited Angkor Wat, a stunning 12th century temple complex in Cambodia.

Angkor Wat at sunset

Cows come out to graze after the tourists leave

I’d seen the temple complex in photos before — the imposing towers of Angkor and the smiling faces of the Bayon — but the sheer scale and ambition of the place was unknown to me until I visited.  We were among over one million tourists that visit per year, many of them coming in busloads from China and Japan.  Yet despite these crowds, it was still very possible to take in the temples and to feel at times that we had newly discovered them hidden in the jungle.  Some of it was due to visiting in low season, some due to timing the predictable schedule of the tour buses. But much of it was because of the seductive quality of the extensive bias reliefs that wrap Angkor Wat, the soothing smiles of the Bayon towers, the intricate carvings of Banteay Srei, the tree-laced ruins of Ta Phrom and the 9 square kilometer scale of the ancient city of Angkor Thom.

The smiling faces of the Bayon

A massive tree grows out of Ta Prohm

Roots digging their way into the stones at Ta Prohm

Banteay Srei is full of well preseved delicate carvings

While capable of quieting the crowds, the awe-inspiring temples did not shadow the immense poverty that circled them daily.  Beggars deformed and amputated by the Khmer Rouge and landmines from war reached out for coins while children in tattered clothes aggressively sold trinkets and postcards. “hello suh, one dolla, one dolla, you buy, you buy.”  When we asked why they were not in school or playing with their friends they became quiet and persisted in their sales pitch. Our guesthouse owner, Ponheary Ly, a CNN hero for her work with children in Cambodia has urged tourists not to buy from children as it offers incentive for them to drop out of school to continue selling. Hard as it was, our policy was to purchase only water from adults and to save our money to give to Ly’s foundation, which provides school supplies, bicycles and teacher salaries in order to keep Cambodian children in school.  We reasoned that the money would be best spent by a reliable foundation instead of by handouts, which can promote begging and end up in the hands of scammers.

Cambodian child sits at Angkor Wat

Click through below to see more pictures of Angkor Wat:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Overland Travel Stops: 4,000 Islands & Kratie

First sunset in Don Khone

The land border between Laos and Cambodia is just a dusty little town filled with dollar noodles and stalls selling batteries and flip flops.  Yet just beyond in each country are two little gems worth a day or two stop whilst traveling overland.  Southern Laos possesses the 4,000 islands, also known as Siphandon. A riverine archipelago in the Mekong, most of the islands were submerged due to heavy rains. Yet the three largest and only inhabited islands remained, all encircled by cheap waterside bungalows adorned with hammocks.  A good book and a fruit shake were the order of the day, a welcome retreat from weeks of daily activity.  Of historical interest, Siphandon was the French’s last attempt to create a trade route between Southeast Asia and China. Some signs of their efforts remain, including an abandoned railroad and bridge connecting the islands of Don Khone and Don Det, which can be viewed during a bicycle ride around the islands.  Relaxing alongside the racing Mekong was a fitting way to conclude our visit in Laos, a country so firmly connected with the mighty river that runs its length.

Second sunset in Don Khone

The bus ride to Cambodia was excessively long, thanks to a two hour stop at the border and a blown tire.  Cambodia’s landscape differs greatly from Laos and Thailand with flat rice fields extending for miles dotted by coconut and palm trees.  Most striking are the acres of burned tree-stumps, a harsh introduction to destructive logging in Cambodia.  After hours on a bus blasting Cambodian karaoke dvds, we arrived in Kratie, Cambodia (pronounced Krachay) with a pink sunset as our much deserved reward.

Kratie locals watch the sunset over the Mekong river

Boat coming in during sunset in Kratie

Tuk tuk driver enjoying the sunset

The riverside town of Kratie is famous its endangered fresh-water Irrawaddy Dolphins, of which less than 75 remain. In early morning, we ventured by boat to their feeding area, where we turned off the motors to wait and listen for the spray of their blow holes and the flash sightings of their flippers or distinct flat-nosed heads.  The game of waiting for the dolphins to appear in the quiet of the river was enchanting. We were surprised to have seen so many given their dwindling populations yet we only managed a few fleeting pictures of them below.

Searching for the Irrwady dolphins

The Irrwady dolphin. Elusive in photos

Vientiane: Moving at the Speed of Laos

Old and new

The world is changing fast, especially in Asia. Yet Laos seems resistant to the pressures of modernization and globalization; its capitol city Vientiane as evidence. There are no high-rises or mega malls, and few if any movie theaters (that I noticed). Entertainment is mostly limited to karaoke bars and bowling lanes and the city has a curfew of 11:00pm. Lao women working or entering government buildings are required to wear a traditional sarong and most ride on the back of motorbikes side-saddle. It’s a quiet city in which you can wander into the courtyard of a nearby Wat and hear little more than the sounds of monks shuffling by. Along the Mekong overlooking Thailand, a new waterfront has been built where teens brood and smoke cigs, children play soccer, and hilarious public exercise classes are held – imagine jazzercise from the ’80s. Most park their motorbikes to look out on the glassy blue waters on their commute home from work. Our guidebook tells us the riverfront once teemed with food vendors but they’ve now set up shop across the street in a small margin of sidewalk. A billboard visualizing dam and condo projects looms as a backdrop; a sign of change to come.

Vientiane isn’t an especially pretty city but it still has it’s charms; wide Parisian-style avenues, a replica arch de triumph, a few stunning wats and most of all a very relaxed atmosphere.

Mekong sunset

Frogs being sold for dinner

While in the neighborhood we stopped by the COPE museum, which details the continuing devastation caused by unexploded ordinance (UXOs) remaining in Laos after the United States dropped over 270 million cluster bombs over the country during the Vietnam War. About 30% or 80 million did not explode on impact, and instead, continue to kill and maim Lao people today. The COPE museum was established to bring awareness to this issue and to raise money for the center that treats victims. We left the museum heavy-hearted yet overwhelmed by the resilience of the Lao people, who fill craters with fish ponds and shell casings with flowers.

Prosthetic legs at COPE

In the evening, we wandered to a couple of riverside bars overlooking the Mekong. At one, we met an American ex-pat working on an education project. He invited us to join his NGO friends for dinner, some of whom had been living in Laos for as long as seven years. Nostalgia for home ran deep, with one gal getting up to the mic to sing John Denver’s Country Roads. When open mic night at the expat bar got too grating, we left and continued down the street until other music perked our ears. It was live Lao rock streaming from a riverside bar teeming with buzzed locals drinking Beer Lao. At the front of the bar were two men with angelic voices and masterfully playing the guitar. One looked like karate kid while the other had the kindest face that begged you to hug him. It was a beautiful way to cap off a rainy evening.

Thousands of tiny Buddhas at Wat Sisaket

Dogs wandering around a temple

That Luang, the holiest Buddhist site in Laos

Buddha in Wat Sisaket

Food stalls along the river

Jewelers in the morning market

I did not go tubing in Vang Vieng

Wherever we’ve gone, we’ve seen young European travelers wearing the same t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Tubing in the Vang Vieng,” an activity travelers through Southeast Asia have deemed a right of passage.  But floating down a  river among drunk backpackers and stopping at riverside bars was not a passage I was interested in taking and so we had planned to skip Vang Vieng altogether.  I’m glad we decided not to.

“Highway” 13 in Laos, the main road connecting North to South, is extremely thin and winds through mountain passes which are prone to landslides. Consequently, buses barely go more than 40 km per hour. So the nearly 400 km journey to Vientiane can be a bit too long and tiring. We decided to break it up by taking a bus 7 hours to Vang Vieng then another 4 hours to Vientiane. The first leg was absolutely stunning. I was occupied for all 7 hours simply staring out the window of our mini-bus as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains and passed through hundreds of roadside villages. In the course of our ride, we witnessed an entire day in the life of a village. Families cooking lunch, men coming home from work in the fields with baskets over their back, and villagers soaping up and showering in the small waterfalls of water that stream down from the mountains.

The view on the journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng

We would have liked to have the opportunity to stop and take pictures but I don’t think we could have managed the drive on our own. On several occasions, I was white-knuckled with fear that our minibus driver would hit a small child running in the street or careen over the edge of the mountain due to fog that appeared suddenly and blanketed sight of the road. But he drove carefully and attentively and everyone arrived safely, albeit late, in Vang Vieng.

The view from our sweaty mountain hike

We stayed at a cheap guest house across the river from Vang Vieng town center, which we were desperately trying to avoid because of its reputation for cushion-padded bars screening re-runs of Friends and drunk shirtless dudes stumbling down the street.  Life across the river was completely quiet and untouched by backpacker raunchiness. We woke up early and started to walk down the main dirt road that passes through the human and natural wonders of Vang Vieng: flat green rice paddies nestled below jungle-carpeted limestone cliffs, blue-green lagoons and buddha-filled caves. We hiked up one of the limestone mountains, which turned out to be a slippery steep scramble in unbearable humidity created by the tightly packed greenery.  The view was stunning but we were too exhausted and bothered by giant ants to really enjoy it so we came back down and recouped with bottles of water at a nearby stand. We proceeded to spend the day walking, stopping at roadside stands to have a bottle of water, a beer lao or a bowl of noodles. And we’d just watch life around us: a 5 year old child carrying his 1 year old sibling, a dumb cow being taunted by a pack of dogs, and naked toddlers jumping in the creek.  At the end of the long road was an amazing cave with dripping stalactites and containing a bronze reclining Buddha.  We were tired and daunted by the muddy walk back so we hitched a ride by tractor — really the only feasible way to pass through the slippery road.

Limestone cliffs and rice paddies, a stunning combination

Cave at the end of our walk.

A Buddha lies in the cool of the cave.