Ho Chin Minh City (also known as Saigon) The 19th of June 2004 I arrived to Saigon with my two friends Paola and Pilar, and we stayed at a guesthouse in the Pham Ngu Lao whereabouts, a backpacker-catered area. The first thing that struck me of Saigon is the constant and flowing chaos displayed all about you. Sudden flashbacks from arab cities poured in my mind: hordes of 125 cc scooters, dry squid serving stalls perfuming the streets, overdose of humanity, unorganized and oversped urban growth, bin bags all over, etc. The fact is that Saigon has received millions of Vietnamese in migrants from other poorer regions in the country because this city is where most of the trading and commerce activity takes place, pumping its population to the 8 million mark. An average salary is between US$40 and US$50, and Vietnamese people need double that much to acquire a decent living, so they must find alternative sources of income to fill the gap, and Saigon is probably the best place for it. There are a lot of interesting sights around Saigon, and I proceeded to visit them during the following days. The most convenient way to do it is to book a seat in one of the multiple set tours offered at any guesthouse of travel agency. They are extremely cheap and a great opportunity to meet other travelers.
No traffic rules are respected in Vietnam. There are no traffic lights, so literally everyone is crossing at a junction at the same time, no matter what direction you come from.	Typical Vietnamese street scene: a woman wearing the conical hat and carrying stuff around on two baskets supported by crossing stick over the shoulders.
The first of them would be the notorious Gi Chi Tunnels, 50 km west of Saigon. The Gu Chi Tunnels became an important outpost for the Vietnamese guerrilla during the American War as it allowed them to control the rural surroundings of Saigon (US dominated city). The tunnels ran from Saigon to Cambodya's border, covering over 200 km worth of land! The US soldiers, suffering heavily from the hit and hide warfare game from the Vietnamese army, nuked the area thoroughly on a US$2 million a day budget bombing operation. As a reminder of this operation, countless of 10 meters diametered holes caused by the B-52 bombers can be spotted all around. The guerrilla soldiers lived and operated inside this tunnels during 3 years, eating a forest root called tapioca on daily basis (it's totally tasteless I reckon). The tunnels themselves are a meter tall in the upper deck, and even lower than that on the lower deck. We crawled for over 10 minutes just to cover a 120 meters distance. The feeling of crawling on your knees through a 6 meters low underground tunnel among bats and earthworms in absolute darkness is not very appealing. When we finally came out the other end, all our muscles were soaked in burning pain. The reason as of why they built those tunnels so tight and low-ceiling is so American soldiers could not maneuver at all inside them. They are literally Vietnamese-size, and anyone over 180 cm tall and 75 kg weight (my own body measures) would most likely block the tunnel entrance. Speaking about the tunnel entrance, they were very well camouflaged. You could be one meter away and not see it at all.	Crouching the way through the tunnels.
The forestay surroundings of Gu Chi. These trees witnessed countless of gun combats during the late 60s.	That is the Vietnamese guide showing us the camouflaged. entrance. This guy was shorter than 170 cm and weighted less than 60 kg, and he could barely squeeze down. Now imagine a burger-munching American soldier trying to pursue them down there. No wonder they had to resort to mass bombings.
After the Gu Chi tunnels, we visited a blood-freezing display of ground traps designed by the Vietnamese guerrilla in the American War. They are seriously frightening, thought out with the only porpoise to cause a carnage on the victim. Rolling blades, shooting spikes, poison-rubbed clapping traps, and a large selection of infernal devices. During the war, out the 50,000 Americans than lost their lives in Vietnam, almost a whole 20,000 of the casualties were caused directly by ground traps.
And of course, we were also offered the possibility to shoot at the firing fields for the affordable price of US$1 per bullet. Colts, M16s, M60s, and the Hollywood's favorite AK-47 were all available to us, rich phat tourists. I didn't go for it (never been passionate about weapons), but one of our friends went for the M60, a massive automatic machine gun usually attached to choppers. In a most-refined Ramboesque fashion, he shot his bullets upon a tiny target placed 30 meters away. The sound was deafening. I hadn't expected it being so ungodly loud. I can't help to try to imagine the noise levels in a real, close-quarters firing combat. Just for the records, he didn't score a single target hit. He reckoned it is more difficult than it seems, and the gun's push back motion is brutal indeed. Also interesting was the War Museum in Saigon, a visually shocking exhibition of war photos and army vehicles. Those pictures show how war brings the worst of human beings. Pictures of torturees, of deadly injured soldiers, of blown out tanks, of newly born children badly miss-shaped due to orange agent's chemical havoc , etc. Disturbing shit, but incredibly lecturing on what should never be allowed to happen again.	American chopper at Saigon's War Museum
Unfortunately, the trip was coming to an end for my two spanish speaking friends, and having very few days left they'd decided to spend them at the southern beaches, while I'd continue my journey up north by myself. Good bye, Paola and Pili. It was a pleasure! So, the next day over I booked a seat in a one-day tour to the Mekong Delta. The Mekong is a mighty river flowing across the whole Siam peninsula before pouring into the China Sea. Supposedly, this is one of the vastest deltas in the world, but I wasn't too impressed by it. Or rather by the tour itself, you know, too touristy visiting cheesy fishing villages (which surprisingly seemed to have more souvenir shops than fishing boats) and stuff. Anyway, these sort of tours are good chances to get to meet other travelers such as Toby and Lisa (from UK), Molly and Ziggy (US and Australia respectively) or Carol (UK but with Chinese roots). Actually, Vietnam is a great country to make friends on the road, even better so than Thailand, because of the country's vertical and narrow geographic distribution. All the cities are laid out in a south-north straight line, so there's a very clear travel route everyone follows, either southwards from Hanoi to Saigon, or northwards from Saigon to Hanoi. This means that you keep bumping into the same people at every town, and thus you end up making lots of acquaintances quite easily. Actually, now that I think about it, Vietnam is the country where I have made more friends of all the countries I have been in during this journey so far. Cool beans indeed.
Mekong Delta picture.	Rowing by the side channels.
Mui Ne Couple of days latter I took a bus to Mui Ne, couple of hundreds km north of Saigon, and I met again Molly and Ziggy there. Mui Ne is a small coastal resorty area, with lots of bungalows, beaches and a laid back feeling to it. There's not much to do or see there, other than a good old beach and sun action. However, Mui Ne hosts a rather surprising microclimate that has flourished a dune desert few km away from town. Can you believe it, a dune desert in the middle of rainforesty Vietnam? Anyway, Molly, Ziggy and moi went to the white dunes to practice the local favorite sport: sand boarding (sliding down the dunes on a plastic board). Fun!
Ziggy and Molly, crazy and cheery as usual.	Nop, it ain't Egypt, it's central Vietnam!
We also got to see something terrifying as we were hiking our way up a hill. There are still bombs out there from the war, and many of them have yet to go off, meaning they are still explosively charged. Still, now a days, a number of people get killed or badly injured by them. Picture on the right of a 35 years old bomb laying hidden on the ground, awaiting...	We shat our pants when we saw this...
We also visited a genuine fishing village. The way fishermen operate is by anchoring the fishing ships (dozens of them) with theirs fishing nets extended about 50 meters off the shore, and loading the fish back to land on small, round, saucer-looking rowing boats on regular basis. The three of us asked a fisherman if we could join him along in his next trip to the fishing ship in one of those floating donoughts. Well, we did indeed and we almost sank the blasted boat in! The thing is that we were supposed to stick to the center of the boat body, but we spread ourselves on the edges instead. Of course, the boat started rocking nastily and water quickly flooded in. Couple of other fishermen had to assist us with buckets pumping the water out or else down we would have gone. Despite the pathetic sight we made of ourselves, we could not help ourselves laughing our tits off silly as we were bucketing the water off. Oh well...	Rowing the saucer towards the anchored ships
Dalat Dalat is an interesting town. It's in the country side, away from the sea, and at 1,500 meters altitude. This high altitude grants Dalat with a lovely cool weather. I found myself appreciating wearing long sleeves for the first time ever since Turkey, 4 months back. Dalat has a clear European feeling to it thanks to its french heritage. The streets, the buildings, the lake, and even a Eiffel Tower replica is there. In fact, the more you move northwards, the less South East Asian the cities look and the clearer the French (and also Chinese) presence can be noticed. The town market is extremely busy, with hundreds of vendors selling absolutely everything you can imagine from eels to dog's head for supper. Gross uh? I met a cool guy from Holland called Martien, and we quickly became good friends. Actually, Martien was to become my travel companion for the rest of Vietnam during the following weeks. We also met a friendly australian couple, Matt and Emma, and the bunch of us, along with Ziggy and Molly went for a few dinners together and had a great fun. By the way, we got to -over- enjoy the local Dalat wine, which is surprisingly sweet and tasty. If you guys ever hit this town, give the local wine a go or two, for my sake :) Dalat is also re-known by the waterfalls nearby. Martien and I rented couple of motorbikes and decided to explore the region. According to the Lonely Planet guide, there are supposed to be five or six remarkable waterfalls, being the ones furthest away 75 km off Dalat. Well, we made to see the first three, but we somehow got out of the local map we were carrying and thus lost beyond recognition. We drove so far off the beaten track over hills and valleys that we'd cross on the road more cows and sheep than actual vehicles. It all being good fun, exploring and adventuring and stuff, till it started to piss rain on us so hard that Moises himself would have run under cover quicker that you can say "wet knickers". There we were, in the middle of God knows where, almost a hundred km from home, and soaked till the bones. The first half of the day was a total delight, but rest assure that riding those 100 km back on a 60 km/hour scooter under heavy rain was not pleasant. Did you not want some adventure Hector? well here you go double portion of Camel Trophy rally! Our last night there, the family running our guesthouse prepared a typical Vietnamese meal for us, and we sat on the table with them and chatted for a long time with their two young daughters, who spoke a very good english. The dish was sort of a rice pastry stuffed with pork. Delicious. Oh, and we tasted their home made blackberry wine!
Rice field scenery in central Vietnam	Waterfalls near Dalat
Another typical agricultural scene	Left to right: Molly, Matt, Martien, Emma and Ziggy
Nha Trang Nha Trang is Vietnam's main beach destination for local tourists. Something like the Miami Beach of Vietnam. It's a bustling coast town with long sandy beaches, palm trees, bars, and the whole enchilada.
Nha Trang beach gets busy!	Sunset at Nah Trang
I must acknowledge that we (Martien and I) didn't explore much of Nah Trang. We spent three full days there and all we did was playing pool, eat, sleep, and of course check out the town's night life. There I met again old friends like Lisa and Tobi, Carol or Molly and Ziggy, but also new people like Yoon from Korea or Amra from UK (but with Pakistani roots).
There are two places we'd visit repeatedly night after night: the Crazy Kim Bar and the Sailing Club. The Kim at the Crazy Kim Bar is a forty something years old Vietnamese woman dedicating her life to two porpoises: one is running her bar, and second to stop child pornography. She even designates a share of the money cashed at her bar to children foundations. So, if you get pissed at her bar, you are basically not getting wasted, but actually contributing to a fine cause. Waiter, can I have another gin tonic for the kids's sake, please? Shame we did not get to see much of this city cause it did look like an interesting place. For the better or the worse, we got sucked into its kicking nightlife for the three days we spent there. Hehe speaking about getting sucked into it, Ziggy and Molly cancelled their bus off Nha Trang four times so they could go out one more night before leaving. We eventually left before them (even though they had arrived a day before us) after having cancelled their bus ticket for the umpteenth time, and we never saw them again in our consecutive destinations in Vietnam, so for all I know they might still be hanging out at the Sailing Club now a days... Oh man, crazy Ziggy and Molly :)	Martien after a night out in Nah Trang... I know, I know...
Just as a side note, I will comment that taxi drivers would also offer prostitution services to male customers, and they'd refer to it as Massage Boom Boom or Happy-ending Massage. I laughed my butt off the first time I was offered a "massage boom boom"! Of course, taxi drivers get a commission from the prostitutes for every new customer they bring in, most likely in kind rather than cash.
Anyway, one day we managed to wake up before noon and went on a one-day boat trip around some nearby islands. We had a great day indeed. At one time, the boat crew set up sort of a floating bar on the sea, with free wine being poured in plastic cups for us all to drink while effortlessly floating about with life jackets put on, sun bathing and overall enjoying the moment. I remember Martien saying at one point: "Man, it's about 8:00 am back in Europe. My friends there must be now getting ready to go to work in another rainy and boring day. And here we are, floating about in a tropical beach, drinking wine for free, among a good bunch of friends... life sucks!" That very sentence could very well be the motto of this journey around the world. He was so right! Another night I went to have dinner with Toby and Lisa. Toby had never eaten lobster, and since I am a seafood lover, we ordered a huge grilled lobster with some side dishes of crab. We ate like kings for dirt cheap. By the way, Toby's become a lobster freak himself since that night!
Hoi An Like I said, after three days going out in Nha Trang, Martien, Yoon, Carol and I took a 12 hours night bus to the next city, Hoi An, right mid-way between Saigon and Hanoi. Hoi An is a different city from the rest of the Vietnamese cities. Like Dalat, it does not resemble to the rest of them. Hoi An is very neat and clean, with a profound mixture of colonial French and Chinese influence. It is only fair to say that it's also very touristy and commerce-orientated, with hundreds of tailors, craftsmen souvenir shops, etc. Hoi An is a shopping heaven for retail shoppers. We actually did order few pieces of tailor-made clothes. I got a white shirt and a blue jeans, tailored under my body measures, for less than 15 euros both pieces. A high quality, carbon copy suit of any Armani's catalogue model would cost around 40 euros. Good deal! Also worth to mention is that Martien and Yoon became boyfriend and girlfriend in Hoi An. Woohooo congratulation guys! Anyway, apart from the shopping and wandering around its charming streets, Hoi An doesn't have much to see or do, so we only stayed there a couple of days.	Martien and Yoon posing with style. We were eating fish hotpot, by the way. Quite a tasty dish: it's a boiling soup on a small stove where you dip the fish in and let it cook to your taste.
Hue Vietnam's third largest city, it's not a pretty one I am afraid, lacking the punch of Saigon and the appealing of Hanoi. Hue is just another functioning city where regular people go about on their regular business. We did try though to explore the most interesting sights in here, but helplessly turned out a waste of time as the city simply sucks ass. There are a couple of tomb-palaces, the Imperial Palace, some towery pagoda and whatnot, but like I said it was all pretty uninteresting, so we did not stay long. The Imperial Palace in Hue. Nice frontside, but nothing really to see inside.	Yoon wrote on the wall of a bar in Hue: "Martien and Hector and Yoon were here July 4th 2004. We'll meet here again 2010, July 4th". Who knows Yoon, we might indeed...
Crossing a dodgy bridge with the scooters	Nice view over the Perfume River after a short hike up the hill
Hanoi And finally we arrived at Vietnam's capital, in the northern part of the country. Just as Saigon wombs most of the ongoing country's economical panorama, Hanoi is the heart and soul of the political and cultural scheme. Heavily influenced by its french inheritance, but also by Chinese geographical closeness, Hanoi feels way more refined that Saigon or Hue. But do not fool yourself: Hanoi is not a very pretty city, for it suffers from the same illness of other Vietnamese towns: chaotic traffic, noise levels, dirt and smells... All travelers. must pay a visit to the Ho Chin Minh Mausoleum, where a biographic museum can be found should you want to learn more about Vietnam's national hero. Ho Chin Minh was the political/military leader of Vietnam during the war in the 1950s that concluded liberating Vietnam from the french patronage or colonization, however you wanna call it. In fact, Ho Chin Minh (or Uncle Ho, as they dearly call him here) was a very interesting character, extremely lectured and overall far ahead his time and social environment. He had been sort of a backpacker himself, having traveler during his youth to a number of places like Russia, India, New York, London, Paris, China or Madagascar. He heartily fought all his life for the development of Vietnam and its people under communist dogmas such as Lenin's, Engel's or Marx's. Three cheers for Uncle Ho! Of all the places I have traveled to, I have only met one other character as revered in his land as Ho Chin Minh in Vietnam: Ataturk, the so-called father of modern Turkey. Not far away, I also visited the charming Literature Temple, dedicated to Confucius and later on reconverted into an university. It's a simple but gorgeous typically Chinese-styled temple, with its gardens, ponds, red-colored curved roofs, etc. A quite place to wander about.	The man himself: Ho Chin Minh   Big ass drum at the Literature Temple
Ho Chin Minh Mausoleum
In Hanoi, Martien, Yoon and I met up again with old friends like Carol, Amra, Dave (USA) or Martin (another Martin, this one being from Germany), and we went out clubbing to a local disco called The New Century. We had a good laugh and stuff. It was shocking how strict the security fellows were, not letting you walk around with your drink in your hand (had to stay on the table) and silly rules like that. The night before I had gone out with Carol to drink some Martinis and play some pool (you still got to run around the lake as the loser's fee Carol, I haven't forgotten!). We also meant to see again the australian couple we met in Dalat, Matt and Emma, to go out for a dinner and give Hanoi's local wine a go (since Matt had proved being very interested in wine-related matters), but unfortunately we couldn't match our respective travel schedules. Hope everything went great for you two guys! Picture on the right: Clubbing in Hanoi - left to right: I, Carol and Martin (not the one from Holland, this one was from Germany)
After few days in Hanoi, we booked a two days boat trip to the world-class Halong Bay, probably the number one sight in Vietnam. Halong Bay is very similar to Thailand's Phang-Nga: over 3,000 enormous limestone pillars mushrooming out of the sea everywhere around you over an incredibly extensive landscape. There are also beautiful caves to explore in some of the islands too. The scenery was outstanding, but the tour itself gets the thumbs down. If you reader go to Halong Bay one day, skip the organized tours and set up your own expedition. By the way, the myth has it that an ancient beast has its dwellings within these waters. Something like Asia's Loch Ness. Please allow me to show you some random pictures of Halong Bay.
After Halong Bay, we came back to Hanoi for few more days. I was stuck there waiting for the Chinese embassy to stamp my passport out with the visa. Overall, I spent in Hanoi few more days than I had expected or even wanted. There's just not that much to see in there, but I finally got my Chinese visa sorted out. As a matter of fact, my original plans were to travel to Laos after Vietnam, and from Laos back to Bangkok once again where I would decide what my next world destination would be, but I received a nice surprise via email: both my friends Mark (met in Turkey) and Guillaume and Francois (met in Syria) were to spend July in China! I could not miss the chance to meet those lovely peeps again, so I turned my travel-planning up side down and decided to hit China up next in stead of Laos. Once again, flexibility has proved being a blessing when it comes to traveling. Anyway, China has always been one of those places I've been dreaming to visit ever since childhood, and I finally will fulfill such dream. I got the feeling that China will shock my socks off! In fact, I spent my last day in Hanoi alone as all my friends (Martien, Yoon, Carol, Amra, etc) had been leaving one by one during the last few days to their respective next destinations: some of them returning back home, some of the resuming their journey somewhere else. Indeed, that's the life of the backpacker: people and places come and go, sometimes faster than one would like them to, and the only thing that remains is yourself. Yourself and your own journey. In a way, that last day I felt sort of nostalgic, for it would be the last day of a stage in my trip, the last day of two months traveling around the South East Asia, the last day of uncountable nights out drinking and meeting other backpackers. China will positively follow a different travel pattern, probably closer to what the Middle East had been... more actual traveling and less socializing. The South East Asia has honestly been a pool of fun and I've met awesome people, but I am ready to move on. So, all being said and done, I conclude: China, here I come!
Once again, I must give the nod to the friends I have made on the road, a great bunch of people. Special mention goes, of course, to Martien. He's been my faithful travel companion across most of Vietnam, and I'll remember him dearly. Martien, if you're reading these lines, it's been a real pleasure mate. By the way, don't you forget Spain kicked Holland's ass at pool! HAHAHA! Party on buddy!
The county's geographical distribution (basically, a straight line south-north) makes possible to bump into the same people over and over all the way from Saigon to Hanoi, so you end up befriending them and hanging out together. Even better value than Thailand or Cambodya: I spent less money and ate, drunk and slept much better, thank you. Halong Bay's scenery is wonderful. Dalat: worlds apart from the rest of Vietnamese cities: cool, quite and European-resembling. Also renting the scooters and exploring the waterfalls by ourselves kicked ass (till the rain started pouring on us hehehe). Nah Trang's one day boat trip. I recommend the TM brothers agency tour. Nothing beats floating effortlessly on a sunny beach, drinking wine and joking about with your friends. Cuisine: Vietnamese food is very very good. Shopping top notch tailor-made outfits in Hoi An and paying peanuts for it.
Most of the cities were dull, dirty, stinky and all together uninteresting, like Hue for example. Bus rides: slow and wrecky, Vietnamese busses are eons behind those in Thailand. Organized tours. In most of the cities you can find organized tours offered by travel agencies and guesthouses to visit different sights, such as the Mekong Delta, Halong Bay, etc. I found them all boring to tears. There is no significant man-crafted wonder in Vietnam, but there sure are some beautiful natural views. Motorbike chaotic and ruthless traffic in the cities. A simple task like crossing the street delivers a cold shiver down the spine.