Vietnam

 

This year I went on holiday to Vietnam with the same company I went to South India with last year _ Intrepid https://hazeldurbridge.com/seeing-bigger-picture-addiction-travel/

There were two semi significant learning opportunities not related especially to the country. It was the first time I went on holiday on my own for over 30 years and I finally learnt to eat with chopsticks. I am pleased with both things.

I loved Vietnam. I am interested in the communist influences – the giant propaganda posters everywhere, the busyness of it – everyone seems to work, even if some activities, such as maintaining the parks, seems people heavy. The cities were polluted – mainly because of the enormous number of motor bikes, but the litter gets cleared up, more so than in the country side and unfortunately in the sea. Halong Bay had its fair share of floating plastic.

The group tour began in Ho Chi Minh city where I saw the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace. These spots were the beginning of my education in the Vietnam War and the terrible destruction of the civilian populace and the environment by the use of chemical warfare. The children of US soldiers also suffered birth defects as a result.

On the second to last day in Hanoi Prison Museum I was approached by a young British man in his 20s and asked by him to explain the Vietnam War which I was able then in some part to do. It amused me to be asked. Does age make you more approachable? Did he assume I was old enough to remember?

From Ho Chi Minh we went to the Mekong Delta to stay in a Homestay. The delta is a verdant paradise. I am not sure I buy in to this Homestay business because increasingly on these tours they become ever more luxurious and tourist-focused and less renting out a spare room for an additional source of income, but I was immensely impressed by the area’s ability to turn everything they did in to a tourist attraction AND it was interesting AND it was not gruesomely hard sell.

So, for example, we went by boat to an island that grew fruit. They cut up all the different sorts of fruit on a plate and you could try it. Then another place where they made coconut sweets where they demonstrated how they broke the coconut down in to its constituent parts and what they did with it. Another stop off for honey products, rice products etc. it was really interesting and educational.

The place has millions of natural and hand-made irrigation channels and though the water is brown/green and murky it is thrashing with fish – huge fish. I found that extraordinary. The place is a garden of Eden.

After the Mekong Delta we headed up to Nha Trang. This coastal resort was cited as a favourite spot for a lot of the group. It is top heavy with Russian tourists, but the long beach is beautiful and it is not over developed or too pricey. I liked the custom of wherever you went they offered you ice tea.

The next stop was Hoi An. This is now a World Heritage Site and a tourist mecca though when we were there there was a monsoon deluge so it was less busy. Some of the group got clothes made here. I will remember it for the preserved buildings and exquisite food, especially the output from a famous Vietnamese chef called Ms Trin Diem Vy who has four restaurants there. We visited two.

I also went to My Son which is a Vietnamese mini Angkar Wat. Many centuries old national treasures were bombed to the ground during the war, but the Vietnamese are doing a brilliant job of restoring them. The cultural and historical tourist attractions are user friendly and accessible.

After Hoi An we went to Hue which I didn’t like so much. I kept getting lost there, but we did go on a motor bike ride out to see the Kings’ Tombs and other places in the rural areas. In Hoi An we went out on bicycles. It’s great fun and easy because it is so flat.

In some of the cities and on some of the trips we were joined by students who are learning English. They provide extra support to our guide in return for English practice. In the cities they asked to film you having a conversation with them which they then had to translate back in to Vietnamese as a class exercise. I did three of these during one lap of Tay Ho lake in the centre of Hanoi.

After Hue we went to Hanoi. There were three overnight trains on the trip which were far superior to anything I experienced in Cameroon or India. Flush toilets, freebie water and biscuits, little TV screens showing the history of the railway etc.

I loved Hanoi above all the other cities. Our guide said we would get lost in the old quarter but I didn’t. The tourist/locals mix felt integrated though we did experience the only scam of the tour – four of us found ourselves locked in a cab on a return journey from Hanoi ‘Hilton’ Prison Museum where he tried to charge us 275,000 instead of 35,000 dong which we had paid on the outbound journey. We held our ground and rang the guide, but still ended up paying 60,000. Be warned.

Halong Bay was ethereal. No other comment necessary.

I lucked out with my ten travelling companions who were mainly from Australia and New Zealand. Gutsy, travelling women with big hearts and five my age. I was intrigued by their take on Australian politics.

One last little cultural quirk. Engaged couples get set one of wedding photos taken three months before the wedding so little albums can be displayed on the tables. These are taken in cultural hotspots. One couple we saw were having their photo taken on the top of a derelict gun tower on the top of Hai Van Pass.

Go! Before it gets too developed.