Head in the Clouds

Current Location: Hanoi, Viet Nam

I went to Hue for two simple reasons.  Fist is that it’s on the backpacker circuit so I figured there must be something there worth seeing.  More importantly Fatty’s mom said I should go see what is there.

In the end I’m really glad I went, more than the citadel the genuineness of the people there are what sold me in the end.  I met up with a couple other backpackers on the bus from Hoi An and we decided to split the cost of a room and hang out for a few days.  On our first night in the city we wandered outside of the backpacker area to look for some food.  We ended up finding a bbq meat stall that smelled amazing, they could sense our hesitation and offered us some meat to sample. After that we were sold, it was probably one of the best dinners to date in Viet Nam.  They were incredibly friendly and kept looking our way.  Luckily I learned to kinda say delicious in Vietnamese which I find comes in handy.

I’ve found that the best experiences come when I get out of the tourist area and into the real city.  I relate it to other people like a bunch of zoo animals escaping from their cage and the natives are mildly amused that the animals have wandered into their area.

On another occasion we wandered further away from the area to find a stall next to the river and sat down.  We were then invited by a bunch of guys to eat and drink with them.  After a minutes hesitation we decided we couldn’t refuse their offer and sat down with them.  We ate some delicious meat and drank heaps of beer with them all the while we had a stilted conversation about ourselves.  Lots of beer and laughing make up a great dinner here in Viet Nam.  They then paid the bill and left, leaving Jergen and I a little dumbfounded.

I kinda skipped through Hanoi on my way north to Sapa figuring I’d be back through on my way back south.  I met up with some guys I met down in Hoi An and we went to pay our respects to Uncle Ho.  Side note, why do communist leaders always put themselves on display after they are dead?  So far I’ve visited Ho Chih Minh and Mao Zedong, I only have to visit Lenin to get a full set of communist leaders on display.

I made it to Sapa only to be enveloped by the clouds for the entire day.  Quite a disappointment after seeing pictures of the area that are absolutely stunning.  The second day was a bit better but still half of the day was spent in the clouds.  Found some other backpackers heading into the hill tribe area on their own and wandered around with them.  The scenery is amazing to see, it must take tremendous amounts of effort to shape the hills into rice paddies and maintain those fields.  The costumes worn by the hill people are very colorful but I still couldn’t bring myself to take pictures of them, though I did see people unabashedly shooting to their hearts content.

We had a few conversations between us on what the area would look like in 10 years.  Construction of homestays is furious in the area and I wonder how focused they are on rice production any more, it seems they are far more interested in selling trinkets and clothes.

Now that I’ve made it all they way to the North of Viet Nam it’s time to go all the way back down to Saigon.  Fatty’s mom will be here in a few weeks time for a wedding which I’ve been invited to in Saigon.  Also coming is Ray and Sonya on a cruise a few days later so it’ll be nice to meet up with people I know.    I expect picture taking will slow down as I’ll have visited most of the areas already.

On that note I posted a few pictures from the last few days.