After a week in Bangkok at the tallest hotel in the world (Baiyoke Sky) we made our way to Hanoi. Our stay in Bangkok was mostly clerical, though we did find out that someone had stolen our credit card number and ordered over ten thousand dollars worth of computers for shipment to London. We received an email from our aunt (bless her soul) who is managing our finances from home, that we needed to call American Express immediately. Upon doing so, we were informed that someone had tried to make this large purchase. We cancelled the card and we were able to pick up a new one 12 hours later in Bangkok! Amex rocks in our book! We also managed to take our camera in (the one that was dropped in the water in Nepal) to Canon and had it serviced for $20 and it's like brand spanking' new.

We arrived in Hanoi and had no problems with our visa or getting a taxi to the hotel of our choice. The trip from the airport took us through farmlands that were exactly what you'd think of when picturing Vietnam. The fields were multiple shades of green, with people in conical hats working in the rice paddies. It was a beautiful introduction to the country. Our hotel was decent and inexpensive though the people at the desk were not the most outgoing souls we have come across. Not rude or anything, just there to answer questions, no small talk. An interesting thing about Vietnam is the insane level of counterfeit goods. I'm not just talking about the Nike, Armani, and Rolex stuff either. They even infringe on their own stuff. The main bottled water (and probably the first) is called La Vie. There are no less than 20 brands that have the same font and coloring as this brand with such names as La Viel, La Ve, La Vi, and the very original La Vu. One major scandal going down while we were in the country was concerning a salt company. There is a problem with a lack of iodine in the Vietnamese diet and iodized salt is an important source. This company was selling non-iodized salt as iodized under a very similar name to the national brand and had been caught.

We went to the water puppet theatre for the evening. This is a very old art form that depicts the lives of the farmers in the rice fields. Inside the theatre is a large waist-deep pool for a stage, with a screen and some small buildings for a set. The puppets are at the ends of long poles that are controlled from behind the screen by people standing in the water. Some of the puppets were very elaborate, dragons with fireworks, boats with oarsmen, and fish that seemed almost real in their movements. The music is performed live by artists using traditional instruments. It was very fun and well worth seeing.

The next morning we got up early and took a trip to the Perfume Pagoda. This is a temple in the mountains that is so named for its proximity to the Perfume River. We took a mini-bus to a town called My Duc, south of Hanoi. From there we rode in a small metal rowboat (very similar to a makoro on the Okavango) for an hour and a half to a trailhead. The wooden seat in the boat was pure torture and it was raining. Once at the trailhead and with dead-butt syndrome from having sat in one position for so long, we hiked uphill for an hour to the pagoda. Though the trip along the river was very beautiful, we had expected to see a temple building of sorts. With very steep green hills all around us, it left us feeling so isolated. What we found was a large cave, used since the 15th century as a temple, with large stalactites hanging from the ceiling. It was nice in its own way, but I think with all the rain and sore butts, we were hoping for an Angor Wat or something. We did get an excellent lunch, but by the time we got back to the bus after the long return boat ride, we were absolutely drenched. We got back to Hanoi, only to witness a traffic jam like nothing we have ever seen. It was 90% bicycles and mopeds, but as far as you could see, it was shoulder to shoulder. For those of you familiar with Critical Mass in San Francisco, this made it look like a weak effort. We got a picture that we promise to post, if it came out. We got back to our room and ordered in and relished our hot showers.

One thing we can definitely recommend Vietnam for is clothing. We had been told that they were inexpensive to have made, but until you get there, you just don't realize. I think all of our travel in the same clothes, day in and day out, finally caught up with us and we went for it. I had two suits made, one cashmere, the other a wool/cashmere blend. I think I will be the best dress un-employed person in all of the Bay Area. Becky had a few dresses made and some travel clothes as well. We think this could be a yearly trip. We could come to Vietnam and have a years worth of clothes made, and not spend as much as we do on two trips to Nordstrom back home!

One of the best museums I have ever visited was the Ho Chi Minh museum in Hanoi. It wasn't necessarily the most objective, nor was it filled with great works of art, but the art of it was inescapable. Granted, it is full of communist propaganda and pro Ho Chi Minh rhetoric, but visually, it was fantastic. Rather than having row after row of artifacts, (Ho's toothbrush, his shoes, his yo-yo as a kid, etc.) the exhibits were very engaging, conceptual, and modern. One of the exhibits was made to represent the human mind, with interesting structures hanging from the ceiling and coming up from the floor. There was also an Edsel car coming through the wall that was to represent the failure of the American ideal in conquering the Vietnamese people. One of the more striking exhibits had a wing from a downed B-52 surrounded by real US military uniforms. Lying amongst pieces of artillery captured by the Viet Cong. It was very odd to be in a museum with such a heavy handed bent against the US. They constantly referred to America as "Imperialists", and "Fascists". Strong words for a museum of history. We also went to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, where "Uncle Ho" is normally on display. Unfortunately, he was in Russia for "maintenance". It is amazing how much reverence is given to Ho Chi Minh. True, he was the father of the modern Vietnam, but the image portrayed is almost Captain Kangaroo like. There were lots of images of him with children, giving speeches, teaching people, and the very common "Uncle Ho" titles. Of course, they don't mention the attacks on suspected "informers", and villages' accused of helping the South.

The next day, we took a trip to Cat Ba Island. This was something we should have skipped, at least during the rains. We took a four and a half hour bus ride to Halong Bay, where we were served a very terrible lunch. I've never had fish cooked in fish sauce, and I never will again. Not many things worse in life than fishy tasting fish, much less adding a fake fishy taste. Gross! The boat ride to the island was very picturesque. Hundreds of steep rock islands covered with lush, green vegetation, poking up out of the Gulf of Tonkin like fingers. After a five-hour ride we arrived in Cat Ba. We managed to get a room with a double bed that looks out over the water, but a street light kept our room well lit all night long. We were supposed to go on a hike into the national park, but Becky became very ill the next morning. We suspected the ice cream she had at dinner had been re-frozen, since everything else we ate was on the same plate, family style. I did get to practice a little Spanish at dinner. We met a couple from Spain that spoke very little English, and had great difficulty understanding English with a Vietnamese accent. I got to translate what the guide was saying in broken English, into Spanish, and back again into simple English that the Vietnamese guy could understand. It was quite fun! And, for once, our decision to skip something worked on our favor. The people that went for the hike into the national park came back covered in mud. The trails were washed out and they had to walk up slippery mud rivers to get to the top. None of them looked very pleased upon their return to our little hotel. Though we were supposed to stay in Cat Ba for three days, we headed back a day early. With all the rain, there just wasn't much to do, and even the beach was a soggy mess. We decided to go to the Museum of Ethnology to get a feel for the different groups that make up Vietnam. The museum was more of the row upon row of artifact types, but it was enjoyable. They even had full-size houses made in different styles on the grounds surrounding the complex. Our final day in Hanoi was spent killing some time before our overnight train to Hue. We saw the changing of the guard at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum which the Lonely Planet described as having all the pomp and circumstance of Buckingham Palace. Not even close! These guys were very loose, and very casual about the process. I mean, we almost had tears in our eyes when we saw the changing at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Washington D.C. This was more just a going through the motion type of exercise. We also went to the Temple of Literature, a Confuscious temple, which was a very quiet break in the middle of hectic Hanoi. Overall, we really loved Hanoi. We had the feeling of really being a part of Vietnamese culture, and the city was not just a big concrete jungle without character. There were very nice buildings, and the people were very nice. I have to say though, the postcard sellers and the conical hat vendors are tough to elude. They will follow you for blocks on end to get you to buy something. It can be very frustrating to have to say no more than 10 or so times, but you get used to it pretty quickly.

Hue (October 25 - October 26)
by Chris

There are five classes of train travel available in Vietnam. "Hard Seat", "Soft Seat", "Hard Sleeper", "Soft Sleeper", and "Soft Sleeper with Air-con". We decided to travel in style and opted for the "Soft Sleeper with AC". This is basically the same thing as "Hard Sleeper" with a five-inch thick foam mattress. Neither of us slept very well. The comfort wasn't an issue, but the train was about as loud as they come. I did manage a little sleep near dawn, but at 6:00 a.m. they started playing very loud Vietnamese music on the speakers. It must have been a wake up call or something, but the speakers were very crackly and did nothing to enhance the marches being blared at obscene volume.

When we boarded the train in Hanoi, a guy had asked if we would like to check out his hotel in Hue. We would get a free transfer to the hotel, and if we didn't like it, we could just walk away. Normally, we would have blown the guy off; thinking we would be charged "tourist" prices for dumpy accommodations. However, he gave us prices up front, and explained in very good English that reputation was very important, and it wasn't worth his time to get a bad one. It turned out very well for us, and we were very happy not to have to deal with the horde of hotel and taxi touts waiting outside the train station. We got a decent room with bath, TV, and a fridge for $10/night.

We headed out to the Citadel on our first afternoon. It was built in the 1800's for the emperor. Other than the walls, there wasn't a whole lot left due to the Tet Offensive in 1968, as Hue was where some of the worst fighting occurred. That night we had the horrible/excellent dinner. How could it be both? We were on our way to a place highly recommended in our guide and for whatever reason decided to stop at this small cafe with very few people in it. We both ordered roast chicken with rice. Less than five minutes later, the waiter sets down a half chicken with rice in front of Becky. We're, of course, very surprised by the speed of the service. I told her to go ahead and start without me, as mine would be out any second. It turns out her chicken was ice cold, and 25 minutes later I still had not received mine. Now, on the best of days, chicken will require some amount of cooking time over 5 minutes unless it's fried. Since hers arrived so quickly and mine was still being hatched from the egg somewhere in the back, we had to assume that hers had been sitting and waiting for the next person to order the roast chicken. Salmonella at home is not a good thing, but in Vietnam, NO WAY! We paid for our meals, even though I had not received mine, and left for the place we had originally been going to. It was excellent and well worth avoiding possible sickness.

Though it was pouring rain again in the morning, we decided to go ahead and take the boat trip along the Perfume River that we had booked. Our first stop was the Thien Mu pagoda. It is a very beautiful sight as you come around the bend of the river and see the 70-foot, octagonal tower poking up through the trees alongside the river. The boat stopped and we were able to walk around the site. There is a 4500-pound bell that can be heard some six miles away. But the place is most famous for one of its monks, Thich Quang Duc. In 1963 he publicly burned himself to death in protest of the policies of then President, Ngo Dinh Diem. The photograph of his self-immolation made papers around the world and inspired others to follow suit and eventually led to the assassination of both President Diem and his brother. We also visited a few of the Royal Tombs along the way.

Hoi An (October 27 - October 29)
by Chris

Once again, it was raining, as we left Hue for Hoi An by bus. We were beginning to miss the sun something fierce at this point. It took 5 hours to get there from Hue as we ran into a couple of mudslides. We did stop at China Beach along the way, but it was raining so hard you could barely see the sand from the little roadside eatery we stopped at. But we were offered very real looking 100 year old US coins for cheap. One thing you will be constantly asked for as a traveler in Vietnam is coins. They are masters at stamping out new ones, and do not care where they are from as long as they might be able to make a copy.

When we got to Hoi An, we were essentially held hostage aboard our bus. Anyone considering travel to Vietnam should be wary of this scam, and we intend to let Lonely Planet know about it. A friend that Becky worked with had recommended a hotel in Hoi An that sounded nice, so we had determined on our map where we needed to go from the bus stop to get there. As we are driving into town, I'm looking at the street signs and making sure I know where we are. I notice that we pass the bus stop listed in the Lonely Planet, and head further into town. After a few turns, the driver and co-driver get off the bus and another two guys get on and take over their spots. I'm assuming these are the drivers for the return trip to Hue and Danang. We drive up the street and the bus stops at a hotel. A person from the hotel gets on the bus and makes a pitch for rooms. The "co-driver" assures us that this is a good place and we are not obligated to stay, all we need to do is check out the rooms, and if we don't like them, they will take us where we want to go. Becky and I are very suspicious and Becky asked the driver to get our bags off the bus and we'd walk to the hotel we wanted to go to. The driver assured her that they would stop at our desired hotel and convinced us to remain on the bus, while about half the rest of the passengers got off to take a look at the hotel. While they are being led to the slaughter, we tell the "co-driver" the name of the hotel we would like to be taken to. He again says, "OK, we'll take you there". About half the people return from the hotel and get back on the bus. The bus passes the road that our hotel is on (which was about one block from where the first stop) and continues on to another hotel. Same pitch and again I tell him, "this is where we want to go". Same response. At this point we realize that we have been handed over to hotel touts with with a bus license. We lose another group of people and continue farther up the street, which is now getting to be on the edge of the map we have for the whole town! Another stop, same pitch, and now we're getting pissed. The guy assures me that we are going to the place I want, and now there is only us and another couple left on the bus and we're going on an hour of hotel hopping. We begin to head in the right direction, but the bus just keeps on going to the other side of the river! They stop at still another hotel, and now we've lost it. By now our bags are visible since everyone else had gotten off the bus, so we grab our stuff and start to leave and the guy is acting like he can't believe we are leaving. We tell him what a terrible way this is to do business, and that it is very wrong. The other couple gives up and just books at this hotel, which is now a pretty good distance from town center. We begin walking towards the hotel we want to stay at and of course it begins raining! To top it off, the hotel was full, and we ended up in a really crummy little room up the street, that had one window that looked out into the lobby of the hotel. We were sooooo bitter! And we were equally frustrated with the people that got off at these various hotels. I mean, I understand the ease of just taking a room. Rather than searching one out on your own, but they really make it difficult for the next group of tourists, because these guys will just drive you to the hotels paying the largest commissions, most of which were on the outskirts of town. It seems like a strange thing to take a stand on and walk off a bus into the rain, but we knew where we wanted to go. It would have been fine if they had said up front, "This is as close to that hotel as you're going to get, so get off now", rather than taking us more than a mile away and still trying to get us into one of their hotels. On the bright side, I was able to book a room at our original first choice for the next couple of days, and we found a really good place to eat called the Tam Tam cafe around the corner.

We changed hotels the next day and our room was really cool. It was all carved, dark wood with a four-poster bed and a mosquito net. It looked very colonial. We spent our first full day in Hoi An having more clothes made. They are even less expensive here than in Hanoi. We also did some sightseeing. In Hoi An, the tourism board has set it up so that you can buy a ticket that allows you to see a choice of things in four different categories (museums, pagodas, etc.). One of the nicer places is the Fujian Chinese Congregation. There are some very nice statues and miniature replica of the Great Wall. Once it began to rain heavily, we headed indoors to the cafe and played Scrabble and drank Tiger beers.

Our final day in Hoi An was an interesting one. It had rained so hard through the night that the two closest streets to the river were flooded and you had to take boats to get to the shops. We wanted to go to the Tam Tam cafe for breakfast, but the street was under a couple of feet of water and I didn't feel like hiring a boat to go around the corner. Becky had wanted to get preened and a lucky lady happened to offer her a pedicure. We went back to her little shop and she talked Becky into having the hairs on her legs plucked with a string! She used a twisted loop of string like a pair of scissors and even did her eyebrows. I had my hair washed with a tamarind and lemon mixture, with a head massage. It was a good day for pampering. Hoi An turned out to be one of our favorite spots in Vietnam both for the friendly people, and the quiet atmosphere.

Nha Trang (October 30 - November 2)
by Chris

We took a hired car to Danang, where we caught our train to Nha Trang. We decided on soft seats with air-con for this leg since it wasn't a very long one. The seats were comfortable, but they reclined so much that the person sitting in front of you would literally be lying in your lap if they decided they wanted maximum comfort. We were starving and at about 5:00 p.m. they set out food trays for everyone. The separate dishes were in foil covered containers and the only thing either of us was willing to eat was the rice, as I still cannot say what was in the other containers. One had green leaves in some kind of strong smelling broth. It sort of looked like tea leaves in brown water, but I couldn't get past the fishy smell to try it. Another had strips of meat that may have been chicken, but was very, very pink for chicken. The last had something that looked like a small kidney, probably from the pink chicken. Anyway, we arrived in Nha Trang around 9:45 p.m. and checked into the hotel we had booked from Hoi An. It was clean, but was very far from the center of town where all the restaurants were.

The next morning we changed hotels to one a little more centrally located. We spent our first day on the beach under a nice, grass umbrella at the edge of the South China Sea. Nha Trang is not the most picturesque beach town you'll ever come across, but it's not too bad. The hotels lining the coastal street are big, ugly blocks of concrete for the most part. There is a wide road between the hotels and the beach with taxis and mopeds cruising up and down looking for fares. Thankfully, all of this is pretty much obscured by the palm trees on the edge of the beach, and looking up and down the coastline, you wouldn't know there was a large city behind you.

There was nothing you could not get on the beach, which added a lot to the Nha Trang experience. Person after person would come up offering everything from photocopies of books, fresh fruit of all kinds, boiled crab in big metal pots, and bread. Best of all was the massage. Becky had the string plucking thing again and a one-hour massage; all while the waves were crashing just a few feet from our feet. It was one of the more memorable beach experiences of the whole trip. After leaving the beach, we went to a bar for some beers and the manager, a Vietnamese woman, spent about an hour giving us her life story, including her family hatred of the VC. It was strange to have this woman railing against the communist government, when we had made great effort not to get ourselves into these types of conversations while in Vietnam. We just sat and listened to her tales of her father's hatred of the VC and his love of the US for trying to help the people of the south. Wild stuff.

Our final day was spent checking out a few of the temples in the area. We went out to the Giant Seated Buddha at Long Son Pagoda. The statue is visible from everywhere and is quite impressive when you finally make it up the 152 steps. The bright, white Buddha is about 50 feet tall and sits in a large lotus blossom on a platform. The platform had faces of monks that had burned themselves to death in protest of government policies. We also visited some Hindu temples across the river, but after seeing the temples in Nepal, these left us a little unimpressed.

We got to the train station with a lot of time to spare since the train was running late. We had booked a soft sleeper for the overnight trip to Saigon, but it was not nearly as nice as the trip from Hanoi to Hue. The sheets were very dirty, and the two Vietnamese men we were sharing the compartment with were smokers and had a bundle of very strong smelling food with them. After a few of these bad smelling food experiences, we were starting to realize the logic of some of the more common "rules and regulations" that almost every hotel will post on the door to your room. A few examples are...don't let prostitutes sleep in the room (we assumed that meant that you could bring them there, you should just be sure they didn't fall asleep), and to check all explosives, weapons and foul smelling belongings at the front desk.

Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon (November 3 - November 5)
by Chris

Let me start out by clarifying the Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon thing. Vietnam is still somewhat divided into North and South. As you make your way south through the country, things become a bit more liberal, and most of all, people begin referring to Ho Chi Minh City as Saigon. I will be using the name Saigon (which is actually the name of the central district of Ho Chi Minh City) in this update just because that's what everyone there was calling it so it ended up in my journal like that.

We arrived around 6:00 a.m. and took a taxi to the Rex Hotel. We had booked this place on the internet and got a great deal, but most of all it was very old world classy. It was probably the place to stay back in the 50's. It has grand entrances, rataan furniture, and huge ballrooms. We were able to see two weddings while we were there. We were so tired when we arrived that we immediately went to sleep for an extended nap. When we woke up we began our exploration of the city.

Our first stop was the War Remnants Museum. I cannot imagine a more in-your-face museum anywhere in the world. There are absolutely no punches pulled in describing the American War, as it is know in Vietnam. As a point in fact, the museum used to be know as the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes. How's that for a PR campaign for tourism? You enter through a large courtyard, where there are captured US tanks, helicopters, planes, and artillery on display. It was very humbling to see this stuff with US insignia still intact on display like a trophy room. But, by far, the most visually and emotionally intense room was directly beyond these huge pieces of military hardware. On display are progressions of the atrocities of war. Several photographs (most from US magazines and war journalists) of bodies, or what is left of them, after different acts of violence, are graphically blown up to poster size and displayed with captions. One showed a group of GI's holding up the head of a suspected VC informant, his body lying to left of the picture. Several pictures from the Mai Ly massacre are also displayed in poster size, showing the bodies of men women and children in piles. It was at this point that Becky left to sit outside. There was nothing that was off-limits; napalm victims, deformed children from Agent Orange, mutilated children, nothing. They even had two babies in jars of formaldehyde with birth defects. The museum is very one-sided in its view; conveniently ignoring the cruelty of the VC against suspected helpers of the south. Only slightly less shocking than the human devastation was the environmental devastation. They had before and after pictures of rain forest that had been hit with various defoliants. The before would show a large, winding river in a dense jungle, the after would show the same river, now cutting through what looked like the surface of the moon. I have never had an experience that brought home the brutality of war as the one I experienced in Saigon this day, though I would strangely recommend it to anyone visiting this city.

Our next day was spent picking up a few trinkets and checking out the large indoor market up the street from our hotel. We found all kinds of stuff to buy, but managed to keep ourselves tamed for the most part. We did have an extravagant meal for dinner though. We found a place that imported US steaks and we could just not pass that up after so much chicken. It was delicious!

Vietnam was wonderful in many ways. We preferred Hanoi to Saigon because of its charm and beautiful buildings. Hoi An was another favorite. The people are incredibly nice, and we felt no ill will towards us as American citizens. We are glad that we saw Vietnam now, especially after Bill Clinton made the trip, which will probably open the tourism doors fully. At the present time, Vietnam is still in the learning phase of tourism. The infrastructure is there as far as hotels and amenities, but it is pretty difficult to get off the beaten path. Everyone we met was doing the same circuit (Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Saigon) and we constantly ran into the same people, because the train is the main mode of travel, and these spots are on the route. You could probably make it further inland on your own, but whether or not you'd find hotels is another matter. If you've ever thought about going to this wonderful place, do not hesitate. It's an excellent place and it will only get more touristy with time. We thought Mr. Clinton was quite eloquent in his recent speech when he said "it is time to let American's discover Vietnam as a country, and not as a war".