Vietnam, Part II (photos)

December 18 - January 6

Ok, so I finished the last one with lunch near the tunnels in the dmz.
From there, we went down to Hue, which has a temple that we didn't see and some other stuff that we didn't see and I can't remember what we did there. I do remember a grand night out at the DMZ bar, which ended with Lisa riding off on a rickshaw. It was a pretty non-descript town though, but it broke up the bus rides, which, I think Dara mentioned, or I mentioned were painfully long. On one ride, my foot swelled up like an eggplant and I was convinced I had deep vein thrombosis, but anyway...
After Hue we went down to Hoi An, which is known for its tailor shops. It seemed the entire town was dedicated to selling tailor made clothing to foreigners. I had a tough time getting in to it, but eventually did. Despite being the kind of person whoe wears shorts and T-shirts to work, I bought a dark grey three-piece suit of Italian cashmere and a more modest brown suit, seven shirts and some pants. Dara got a pant suit and some blouses. We wanted to have a formal party with some of our friends (surprisingly, a number of previous acquaintances converged on Hoi An at the same time) but we shipped straight from Hoi An to the states, thereby getting rid of a lot of stuff we had been carrying.
So, after a grueling day of shopping, Paul (remember him?) and I sat at a bar and drank beers while Dara and Lisa (remember her?) went off shopping for tailor made shoes. While we were sitting there, a Chinese guy came up and asked if he could take a picture of me with his friend. This is the second time this happened. I agreed, only if I could get a picture of myself with his Chinese friend. Not much else happened there except that I bought the final elements of my coffe making kit, which I don't have a picture of but have to demonstrate at some time, since it is the only "cooking" that we are able to do. Oh yea, the guesthouse had a pool, which was nice. I think the rooms were expensive, maybe even over five dollars a night.

From there, with Christmas rapidly approaching, we stopped next at Nha Trang, which was our first beach town. It was nice enough and we had some fantastic seafood dinners, with Lisa and Paul and Christmas music playing everywhere. "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, the very next day, you gave it away" That one got pretty annoying. So, we used an internet place across from our guesthouse run by a guy named, or rather, a guy who called himself, Phil. On Christmas Eve, he had free drinks and wrapped presents (I got a roll of Mentos) and there was an English (Manchester) guy there dressed as Santa. I think he stayed up all night because we saw him staggering down the street Christmas morning. We hung out there for a while, where this photo was taken (a photo of a photo sitting on a keyboard), and then we had slightly below average Christmas dinner at an English run cafe and then went to "The Sailing Club" for a night out. So that was our Christmas... pretty weird.

From Nha Trang, we headed down to Mui Ne, another beach town. The first night we stayed in a standard bungalow, but then Dara and I used a "Honeymoon Wildcard" and upgraded to a resort with a pool (since there wasn't much to do other than sit around). The beach was interesting, and as Dara noted, there were fishing villages interspersed between fancy resorts. Here is a boat and here are some cows walking along the beach. Here is Dara trying to decide if she should walk towards them. It was their aloof attitude that was frightening. Mui Ne is the place where we discovered the glory of the motoscooter. We rented one for a day and enjoyed the freedom so much that we rented it each day from then until we left. We rode up the the edge of town, which afforded this view of the boats in the harbour. The half-spheres in the foreground are also fishing boats. We also took a ride out to see the dunes that were nearby. Here is the two of us at the dunes. Some kids were there that rented sheets of plastic for sledding on the dunes. We didn't rent them, but we hung out with them for a bit. They were fascinated with my chest and belly hair. I have video of that... it's pretty funny.
We were in Mui Ne also for New Year's Eve. We had a good time on the porch in front of our room with our neighbors who were from Sydney and with Lisa and Paul. Eventually, our neighbors went to bed, Lisa fell asleep on the tiles and Dara went to the room. Paul and I decided to stay up for New Year's in London, which was 6am our time. We made it, and at sunrise, we went down to the beach where a group of people were pulling in a huge fishing net from the shore. There were two ropes coming in to shore from either end of the net with two lines of people, about 20 meteres apart, pulling in the ropes. Paul and I both helped, and since I didn't have one of the straps you used to lash around the rope, I was put in back, anchorman, with the rope wrapped around my waist. At first I pulled hard, but that annoyed the others, and I soon realized that you had to be slow, strong and consistent. The sun had risen a bit when the net came in and they all crouched around it to see what they got. There wasn't much. One large squid, a bunch of small fish and a handful of shrimp. They seemed pleased and I felt that it was an awful lot of work for so little payoff. A lady handed me a shrimp and I didn't know what she wanted me to do with it. At first I thought she wanted me to eat it or maybe just look at it, and then she made a throwing motion toward the sea and I realized she wanted me to throw it into the ocean, which I did. I was feeling pretty welcomed. Then, one of the older men was motioning to Paul, saying something that sounded like "twinkie". Neither Paul or I knew what he was talking about and then he wrote "20" in the sand. He wanted us to give him 20,000 dong. It ruined the mood for us so we left. I hate to say it, but that was what Vietnam was like. We were nothing but money to a lot of people. The experience was worth 20,000 dong (15,000 is a dollar), but we were helping, it was ten or twenty minutes of fairly hard work. I went to the room and went to bed, not making it for New Years on the East Coast. (by the way, I didn't have my camera for this)

Not sure what it was, probably too many nights of holiday cheer, but I got pretty sick after Mui Ne. We went next to Dalat, where I stayed close to the bathroom. I read "The Tunnels of Cu Chi" which was a non-fiction acount of the role of the tunnel system in the Vietnam war and then read "The Killing Fields" about the Khmer Rouge's revolution in Cambodia. Dara did some sightseeing. She went on a moto tour and saw the crazy house and got some good views of the valley. It sounded pretty fun.
Next stop was Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC, or Saigon. We spent a number of nights there and enjoyed it. Dara already mentioned Thong, the precocious Rock-Paper-Scissors player. We also ran into our Sydney friends from New Years and met up for dinner. Here we are with Lisa, Paul, Connel and Karen on our last night in Vietnam.