Citadels, farming and chilling on the beach

saarisweg
Nov 4, 2014
2 min read

It took us 15 hours to cross the borderthe border: in 12 of them we covered about 400km (potholes) and the other three were spent at the actual border where we were extensively surveyed on the purpose of our trip, had the visas checked 40 times had were tested on Ebola. All this while the borderpatrol stared and laughed. Anyway, arrived in Vietnam! So we thought naively that we could do some decent Asian moped-driving, but here everything turns out differently. You can basically do all silliness (overtaking and ghost riding mostly) when you honk your horn loudly enough. And the main road (read: highway # 1, and there is actually only one) is as wide as 3 lanes in two directions, but it is used as 4-lane, and there are no marks on the road. Very interesting, but a couple of heartattacks later we're still allive and well! We started in Hue, which has a beautiful citadel in a citadel in a citadel (they don't take half measures here) and we met our favorite Italian from Battambang (Cambodia) again. Then off to Hoi An, a charming fishing village at the mouth of a river where you can get tailord clothes for close to nothing and the Chinese influence is enormous: many family temples with red, gold, dragon figures and beautiful porcelain. We went along with a one day with a bike tour of local students. Helped on a farm with a lettuce field construction and learned how to make made rice paper and noodles. Then to the beautiful beach for a couple of beers under a palm leaf parasol, also important :) We wanted to take a bus to Dong Hoi yesterday but it didn't go for some reason. It was terrible weather and we were in a hotel with a pool, pink fluffy towels and movie channel, so we entertained ourselves. This morning around 5 am there was suddenly a bus anyway and now we are in Dong Hoi, which was totally bombed by the Americans and thus consists of new construction between ruins. That should not spoil the fun, incidentally, because around here is a huge national park with the largest caves in the world, where tomorrow we will moped to, risking our lives again ;) And then it's turn for an unofficial world wonder: Ha Long Bay. Probably the most expensive and touristy part of our trip (along with Angkor Watt), but from what we hear around us still very worthwhile: a huge bay dotted with limestone islands. We really doubted whether we would skip it, but eventually decided to just try it. Anyhow, Vietnam, much more than the other countries we have visited so far, adjusted pretty well to tourism. The country is richer, everything is pretty well organized and the prices are slightly higher. We give about 2 million per 2 days (one American dollar is 20000 vietnamese don) and this convertion is very confusing to me. Meanwhile, we also reached the halfway-point, 5 weeks on the road and 5 to go ! Of course we enjoy ourselves here a lot but have slowly been starting to talk about winter in Switzerland, and I must honestly say that the snow is beginning to call for us.