1. In addition to our own suitcases, each one of us brought pre-established notions with us, when we arrived into Vietnam. Hubster thought it would be even cheaper than Cambodia, Daughter thought it would be even more loving and I thought it would be as warm (climatically & personably speaking), since it's still just next door to China, not really China itself (You can tell how I've been prepared for China already by the rest of Asia) Of course, all three of us were wrong!
Breaking News - Vietnam is not as cheap as Cambodia. Expecting the Vietnamese to be as nice as the Khmer, is pure arrogance with respect to their history and political alliances. Plus there's something about having more money that makes one lose their innocence perhaps? And Northern Vietnam, especially Ha Noi and the foothills of mountains near it, are much colder than most of SE Asia. Something I had totally skipped in my pre-travel research. And for starters, our hotel charged us a whopping sum of 82 USD for an airport pick-up, which we thought was for free until we checked-in; an unheard of scenarios in any of our travel itineraries thus far. Welcome to Vietnam, we told ourselves!
While we overlooked the above, we did do our homework when it came to certain other facts - Vietnam's strict communist regime, it's North-South divide stemming from it's troubled past of war within and of course it's limited, hesitant American-isation as compared to other Asian cities; a still lingering effect of the US-Vietnam war! Also most Cambodians we had met, did not think highly of the Vietnamese. According to them, if seen on the map, Asia starts getting ruder, meaner and more selfish as one inches closer towards China. Since Vietnam borders China on its North, the people act and even look more Chinese. An interesting fact, that an Asian traveler learns very early on, when traveling in the non-Chinese parts of Asia.
2. Ho Chi Minh City (aka HCMC, lovingly referred to as Saigon even today) was our first stop in the country. We brought in the New Year here.
Saigon is Vietnam's largest cities, which had to embrace communism and a new name - HCMC, after it lost in war to Communist Northern Vietnam. On an urban level, Saigon is divided into several Districts, District 1 being the main CBD area, where most tourist destinations are located, within walking distances of each other. My research appropriately pointed out that a day and a half is more than enough time to see/ savor this city.
The first thing the Hotel concierge told us when we were ready to step out was, to avoid carrying a sling bag and a huge camera, for fear of pick-pocketeers. A small Q&A session later, I decided to take his advice, thrusting cash in my shorts' pocket and convincing myself an Iphone camera will do! Of course a few hours later, I felt as though I could've totally overlooked what he said, but it's an important tip all the same, to keep in mind when one is here.
Our over-the-top gaudy 5-star hotel (We went with Hubster's 5-star preference over mine this time) - The Windsor Plaza, in Saigon, was located in the Heritage district/ Chinatown area of the city. Instead of resorting to the hotel's buffet breakfast, we decided to take a walking tour of the area and grab breakfast like the rest of the city; at a local 'Pho' restaurant. Needless to say, it was the most delish Pho we've ever had. The daughter, like us had never had Pho for breakfast before and when she slurped it down to the last drop, we knew this was going well.
Coffee however took some getting used to. I must confess that living in Singapore, I've still managed to steer clear of 'Kopi tiams', the only reason being I am not into as much sugar. For some reason, SE Asians love their sugar so much, they start their morning with dark coffee in sweetened condensed milk. Vietnamese coffee shops serve you the above (only in a fancy drip-coffee apparatus, where the black coffee drips drop by drop into sweetened condensed milk), when you order a coffee with milk. Ordering it 'black' with milk on the side, is not an option, since they rarely stock regular milk (forget fat-free). Though I haven't ditched my java completely, this is another reason why after having moved to Asia, I prefer herbal tea over coffee.
3. You know how I wrote in my last week's post about the whole city of Phnom Penh coming at you on two-wheelers? Well, that times 2 in the case of Saigon. So much so, that it's impossible to cross the street here. I finally understood what my expat friends in Mumbai went through, the first time they tried to cross a street there. Only, in Saigon, it's so bad that even a oversmart Mumbaikars such as Hubster and I, found ourselves cluelessly playing dodge, with the traffic, that too with the daughter in a stroller.
4. Once we'd learnt the art of navigating ourselves with stroller through two-way traffic, we were the kings of the road. We went sight-seeing everywhere possible on foot and ended up at that spatial type which gives me the biggest high - Markets. Saigon has a large central market called "Old Market" and the afternoon was spent walking through it's various stalls selling spice, coffee, tea, fruit, meat, vegetables, flowers, jewellery (Lovely additions to the global trinkets box were made here), artifacts etc.
5. Traveling with a baby entails stopping at local supermarkets at times, (another spot to soak into local life), to stock up on those essentials that might not be available in temple-shops, mountain-top shacks or street-side local vendors (where we usually eat when on the road), such as Pure Milk. You'd be surprised how rare it is to find 'Pure Milk' tetra-packs (the to-go kinds with straws stuck on their backs) while traveling in Asia or even in the States for that matter. Unsweetened, unflavoured, just regular, Plain Milk (not fat-free or 1% or 2%) - Jeez, that certainly isn't asking for a lot now, is it? But most of the world (Singapore, Mumbai and some other parts of Asia thankfully excluded from this list), believes in drinking altered or flavored milk, on-the-go. Its a good thing we gave up on using just 'organic' in her case a long time ago or we'd have to end up flying with extra luggage each time.
6. We decided to ditch our hotel's elite roof-top New Year's eve soiree, for a randomly chanced-upon, last minute dinner place we found through our research, called Monsoon. This restaurant, first established in Yangon, Burma in 2004 had recently opened in Saigon, earlier this year. Specialising in pan SE Asian cuisine, they serve a delectable variety of dishes from the regions of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar & Thailand. There could not have been a more appropriate last dinner of the year for us, going by the current travel agenda of our life. The daughter, as she cleverly does on certain important occasions, called it a night early, leaving Hubster and I to celebrate our phenomenally dynamic year (year-end especially) over a brilliant dinner and some rare, good Asian wine! As was becoming the norm with us on this trip, what with a non-traditional Christmas day spent biking in the Cambodia countryside, we thought why should the first day of the new year be any different? So the plan was to take another similar early am trip, through the Vietnamese countryside, the next morning.
7. January 1st, 2013 saw us rising at 5:30 am, when most others perhaps go to bed; for a day trip to the Vietnamese part of the Mekong River Delta & the village of My Tho. We boarded the bus from the city centre, the first stop of which was at - a Buddhist temple called the 'Vin Thrang Pagoda'. The temple complex welcomes one with a spectacular, towering, huge statue of Buddha. Once one decides to take eyes off of it and look to it's left, one sees another similarly towering, stark white statue of the Laughing Buddha, a few metres away (The Hubster was templed-out by the end of this trip, I think). But humongous Buddha statues have a draw about them, one that even non-religious 30-somethings such as us, cannot be spared of. To top it, the daughter's insistence on wanting to go see what she thought was the "Moon" from far, as she pointed to the shiny, round white, bald head of the Laughing Buddha (I swear this has nothing to do with the way we talk about bald people at home), left us with no option but to inch closer to the statue. At some point the Hubster had to drag me by the hair, back to the bus to stop my portrait-shooting frenzy.
The tour group moved on, to board the bus which took us to a ferry next, to sail through the extensive network of rivers and waterways, which are a result of various headwaters throughout SE Asia, that ultimately reach the South China Sea. This region, we were told harvests three different kinds of rice annually and its rice production is more than that of Japan and Korea put together!
Afternoon lunch was with local farmers, at a village eatery where we visited an in-house factory that made products from all parts of Coconuts. Post-lunch was spent playing with the village's pet python (Well the Aussies among us did) and drinking our soothing herbal teas.
While Hubster once again proclaimed his 'Been there done that'-ness to me (he's grown up seeing coconut factories, rice-fields etc in his native village, thus seeing these on our Asian adventures seems mundane to him), the daughter seemed to have taken our 'going local while going global' mantra to a whole new level. We found her sitting in the lap of a random village woman, happily being fed, what was supposedly lunch meant for her own children. The woman's poor kids gave me a "What just happened.." kinda look, which in turn made me wonder, if I should be feeding them lunch now, in what would only seem as an appropriate and fair exchange. Thankfully before I could consider this seriously, the local farmer band appeared out of nowhere and decided to belt out some folk-lore, happily distracting the daughter away.
The tour concluded in private canoe rides, where being true tourists we all donned our Non la's (the conical Vietnamese leaf hats) as we sailed through a small tributary of the great delta.
On the way back to Saigon, the daughter had made enough friends on the bus (read babysitters, for us), so the return journey was a relaxed and a mostly seated one! After all, we had a plane to catch to Ha Noi after all this.
The first day of 2013 was not really planned such, but turned out to be spent on an extreme travel note - since it started off with us riding a car to a bus to a ferry to a canoe to a bus to a car to a plane and to a car again, finally until we reached our last hotel of the itinerary, in Ha Noi. They say what you do on the first day of the year is symbolic of how your year is going to turn out to be. Amen to that!
8. Non La's (the conical leaf hats) are omnipresent in SE Asia, more so in Vietnam. While they serve as intelligently and ergnomically designed, devices to defend against the heat and rain, they have adaptable uses; as baskets to carry light groceries, as hand fans if it's too hot and even make stylish hair accessories! They have become the quintessential souvenir, a must-pick-up, when one visits Vietnam.
9. Tired from our 12 hour long day trip, we barely noticed that most of our co-passengers on the flight from Saigon to Ha Noi, were carrying thick jackets. Once we landed at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, is when we realised that we were perhaps the only ones under-dressed in shorts and t-shirts.
All we could see around us were puffer jackets, gloves, hats, mufflers, boots hiding human faces behind them. On coming out of the airport and into the city, we realized these temperatures were pleasant, more like at the onset of Fall, far from the winter temperatures we are used to, having lived over a decade in North-East USA.
Interestingly, most of Asia feels cold really easily. I remember my Mom telling me last year, how she needed to take out her woollens/ shawls in the month of December, in Mumbai. I've jeered in the past, at women who've been on my flight to Mumbai in December and emerged from the aircraft wearing boots, as I strode past them in flip-flops. I mean, Really?
But one man's Fall is another man's Winter. As we walked around Ha Noi, baring our half-naked selves, we saw some locals sitting around bon-fires and others shivering underneath thick woollens. Startled shop-keepers, much to our amusement, tried to usher us indoors, to buy fake branded jackets. (We finally caved in and being precautious, bought the daughter one for the next day's trip up further North to Ha Long Bay. Of course she refused to wear it all the time there as her 'cold' quotient takes after the Hubster's. Both have eskimo-like tolerances to the cold).
10. Ha Noi is the capital of Vietnam and perhaps that is why, it has a more disciplined, two-wheeler culture, making it easier to cross the streets here.
The Old Quarter, which is the heart of the city, is a maze of streets, laid out in a millenium-old plan, lined with family-owned shops that sell everything under the sun. Bargaining is key here. One look at the market and Hubster knew his 'bargain-loving' wife is going to have a blast here. You bet, he wasn't wrong.
Most Old Quarter streets are lined with shops selling similar wares; so while one street sells only shoes, there was another that sold only curios and a third that only dealt with clothing/ fabric/ silk and so on. This is an interesting remnant of a historic event - When the emperor Ly Thai To moved his capital to Ha Noi over a century ago, a community of craftsmen followed him here and set themselves up in the format of each guild-per street. That explains the segregation of trades by streets, which makes for an interesting precursor to modern day commercial space planning.
While most of the shops have adapted to present-day needs and sell pirated goods, one can also find a few stores that sell 'rejected' export cotton apparel with labels such as H&M, Gap etc on them.
To think all these years I wore clothes that were tagged 'Made in Cambodia/ Vietnam' and here I was, in these countries, seeing them made at source!
The Old Quarter is merchandiser/ buyer/ shopper/ tourist heaven, especially as the ratio of the USD to the Vietnamese Dong is 1:20,000 making the dollar stretch very far, here too. However unlike Cambodia, Vietnam can also be more expensive, so one needs to be a little careful, especially if you come here after visiting Cambodia, like we did. Suddenly everything seemed expensive (If I had to do this all over again, I would probably visit Vietnam first and then go to Cambodia, to end my vacation on a pocket-pleasing note!)
11. I missed tuk-tuks here. Cyclo-rickshaws are more popular in Vietnam, the kinds driven by a cyclist driver; only unlike the cycle-rickshaws in India, the passengers sit in front of the driver in this case. That might be scary considering there's nothing between you and the traffic, but it seemed like a fun experience. We didn't end up taking one, as they are too small to accommodate two adults and a half.
12. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the Quang Ninh Province of Northeastern Vietnam, bordered by China on the North. A day trip to the Bay and back from Ha Noi, is a 12 hour affair, as it takes one 4 hours each way, to and fro, in addition to the 4 hours on a cruise ship/ kayak ride that winds through the mammoth limestone monoliths of the bay. (Another deja-vu occured with a similar day-cruise we'd taken a few years ago - through the Matanuska glaciers in Alaska. Except those were ice glaciers and islands, while these were limestone. And of course, that sail really required puffer jackets, for this one a thin jacket was plenty).
Lunch was a traditional yummy Vietnamese fare, served on a boat - a local fish steamed with scallions and garlic, pork shumai, fried tofu and a hot, clear sea-food and clam soup, with 'Hanoi' beer, followed by fresh watermelon, mangosteen and dragon fruit as dessert. (SE Asian beer of choice on this vacation was 'Angkor' in Cambodia and 'Hanoi' in Vietnam, although Cambodian local red wine is pretty good too).
The limestone monolithic islands have vegetation growing on their tops, as they make a grand emergence from the sea. Most islands hide hollow caves within, one of which is the Hang Dau Go - the largest grotto in the islands, with several stalagmites and stalactites within. Since this was my first stalagmite/ stalactite experience, I was excited to see this grotto, until we entered it and saw it lit up in multi-colored lights (The closest analogy I could draw was of a 'Ganpati pandal' in one of the Sarvajanik Ganesha's in Mumbai). Its a pity when man decides how nature should be presented to the rest of mankind. Lit up in a plain simple yellow neon, could have done the job too. Adding colour to the caves, honestly only took away from their largeness and surrealism.
It seems like the daughter didn't appreciate the color either as she napped on top of Hubster's head, while we explored the cave.
13. Being previous French-Indochine colonies, both Cambodia and Vietnam have colonial remnants. I found it interesting that in both nations, the older generation speaks fluent French, while the younger generation speaks the local language and gets by with broken English. Imagine if that would've happened in India? All our grandparents would speak impeccable English while we would be hard-core Hindi/ regional language speaking youngsters?
In Cambodia, almost everyone speaks broken English, whereas in Vietnam, almost no one does. Thus, getting around in Vietnam highly relies on how good you are at playing 'Dumb Charades'. After a point I found my subconscious hands doing a descriptive dance every time I talked, much to the amusement of the Hubster. That's how much sign language you will end up using, when speaking with locals in Vietnam.
14. I could'nt leave the country of 'Banh Mi' without having one atleast, (Yes I know my fellow foodies are going to be disappointed to know I had this just once in my entire time there. But one cannot afford to replicate one's lunch, in a land that has so much to offer on it's plate, quite literally).
For the few of you that don't know, the Banh Mi is the Vietnamese term for a single baguette, although it is used to describe the entire sandwich. The single baguettes can be bought off of street vendors and make great snacks to munch on-the-go, being crisp and freshly baked. A symbolic remnant of the French, the single baguette, is stuffed with delicious meat or vegetarian fillings topped by handfuls of cilantro, making for absolutely incredible sandwiches.
15. Our flight back from Ha Noi to Singapore was the sixth and last flight of this two week long itinerary. While we were happy to be back home, there was also the feeling that a lot still needed to be seen.
There are several other places within Cambodia and Vietnam we wished we could' ve visited. Hence going back there, at a later date in the future is unavoidable. Perhaps when the daughter is slightly older. Traveling with a baby on this trip and having only two weeks in hand, left us with no choice but to fly everywhere, as much as we would've loved taking the train or bus intermittently. We cannot wait until the daughter grows up a bit more, to begin doing the latter with her and hope to return to these countries as backpackers.
For now, it's time to begin the New Year on a new note. I see exciting time ahead, what with all this travel, a new occupation in the works and the baby starting school soon. More on that in the next update! Hope you've had a very happy start to the New Year too!
Love,
Shweyta
Breaking News - Vietnam is not as cheap as Cambodia. Expecting the Vietnamese to be as nice as the Khmer, is pure arrogance with respect to their history and political alliances. Plus there's something about having more money that makes one lose their innocence perhaps? And Northern Vietnam, especially Ha Noi and the foothills of mountains near it, are much colder than most of SE Asia. Something I had totally skipped in my pre-travel research. And for starters, our hotel charged us a whopping sum of 82 USD for an airport pick-up, which we thought was for free until we checked-in; an unheard of scenarios in any of our travel itineraries thus far. Welcome to Vietnam, we told ourselves!
While we overlooked the above, we did do our homework when it came to certain other facts - Vietnam's strict communist regime, it's North-South divide stemming from it's troubled past of war within and of course it's limited, hesitant American-isation as compared to other Asian cities; a still lingering effect of the US-Vietnam war! Also most Cambodians we had met, did not think highly of the Vietnamese. According to them, if seen on the map, Asia starts getting ruder, meaner and more selfish as one inches closer towards China. Since Vietnam borders China on its North, the people act and even look more Chinese. An interesting fact, that an Asian traveler learns very early on, when traveling in the non-Chinese parts of Asia.
2. Ho Chi Minh City (aka HCMC, lovingly referred to as Saigon even today) was our first stop in the country. We brought in the New Year here.
Saigon is Vietnam's largest cities, which had to embrace communism and a new name - HCMC, after it lost in war to Communist Northern Vietnam. On an urban level, Saigon is divided into several Districts, District 1 being the main CBD area, where most tourist destinations are located, within walking distances of each other. My research appropriately pointed out that a day and a half is more than enough time to see/ savor this city.
The first thing the Hotel concierge told us when we were ready to step out was, to avoid carrying a sling bag and a huge camera, for fear of pick-pocketeers. A small Q&A session later, I decided to take his advice, thrusting cash in my shorts' pocket and convincing myself an Iphone camera will do! Of course a few hours later, I felt as though I could've totally overlooked what he said, but it's an important tip all the same, to keep in mind when one is here.
Our over-the-top gaudy 5-star hotel (We went with Hubster's 5-star preference over mine this time) - The Windsor Plaza, in Saigon, was located in the Heritage district/ Chinatown area of the city. Instead of resorting to the hotel's buffet breakfast, we decided to take a walking tour of the area and grab breakfast like the rest of the city; at a local 'Pho' restaurant. Needless to say, it was the most delish Pho we've ever had. The daughter, like us had never had Pho for breakfast before and when she slurped it down to the last drop, we knew this was going well.
Coffee however took some getting used to. I must confess that living in Singapore, I've still managed to steer clear of 'Kopi tiams', the only reason being I am not into as much sugar. For some reason, SE Asians love their sugar so much, they start their morning with dark coffee in sweetened condensed milk. Vietnamese coffee shops serve you the above (only in a fancy drip-coffee apparatus, where the black coffee drips drop by drop into sweetened condensed milk), when you order a coffee with milk. Ordering it 'black' with milk on the side, is not an option, since they rarely stock regular milk (forget fat-free). Though I haven't ditched my java completely, this is another reason why after having moved to Asia, I prefer herbal tea over coffee.
3. You know how I wrote in my last week's post about the whole city of Phnom Penh coming at you on two-wheelers? Well, that times 2 in the case of Saigon. So much so, that it's impossible to cross the street here. I finally understood what my expat friends in Mumbai went through, the first time they tried to cross a street there. Only, in Saigon, it's so bad that even a oversmart Mumbaikars such as Hubster and I, found ourselves cluelessly playing dodge, with the traffic, that too with the daughter in a stroller.
4. Once we'd learnt the art of navigating ourselves with stroller through two-way traffic, we were the kings of the road. We went sight-seeing everywhere possible on foot and ended up at that spatial type which gives me the biggest high - Markets. Saigon has a large central market called "Old Market" and the afternoon was spent walking through it's various stalls selling spice, coffee, tea, fruit, meat, vegetables, flowers, jewellery (Lovely additions to the global trinkets box were made here), artifacts etc.
5. Traveling with a baby entails stopping at local supermarkets at times, (another spot to soak into local life), to stock up on those essentials that might not be available in temple-shops, mountain-top shacks or street-side local vendors (where we usually eat when on the road), such as Pure Milk. You'd be surprised how rare it is to find 'Pure Milk' tetra-packs (the to-go kinds with straws stuck on their backs) while traveling in Asia or even in the States for that matter. Unsweetened, unflavoured, just regular, Plain Milk (not fat-free or 1% or 2%) - Jeez, that certainly isn't asking for a lot now, is it? But most of the world (Singapore, Mumbai and some other parts of Asia thankfully excluded from this list), believes in drinking altered or flavored milk, on-the-go. Its a good thing we gave up on using just 'organic' in her case a long time ago or we'd have to end up flying with extra luggage each time.
6. We decided to ditch our hotel's elite roof-top New Year's eve soiree, for a randomly chanced-upon, last minute dinner place we found through our research, called Monsoon. This restaurant, first established in Yangon, Burma in 2004 had recently opened in Saigon, earlier this year. Specialising in pan SE Asian cuisine, they serve a delectable variety of dishes from the regions of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar & Thailand. There could not have been a more appropriate last dinner of the year for us, going by the current travel agenda of our life. The daughter, as she cleverly does on certain important occasions, called it a night early, leaving Hubster and I to celebrate our phenomenally dynamic year (year-end especially) over a brilliant dinner and some rare, good Asian wine! As was becoming the norm with us on this trip, what with a non-traditional Christmas day spent biking in the Cambodia countryside, we thought why should the first day of the new year be any different? So the plan was to take another similar early am trip, through the Vietnamese countryside, the next morning.
7. January 1st, 2013 saw us rising at 5:30 am, when most others perhaps go to bed; for a day trip to the Vietnamese part of the Mekong River Delta & the village of My Tho. We boarded the bus from the city centre, the first stop of which was at - a Buddhist temple called the 'Vin Thrang Pagoda'. The temple complex welcomes one with a spectacular, towering, huge statue of Buddha. Once one decides to take eyes off of it and look to it's left, one sees another similarly towering, stark white statue of the Laughing Buddha, a few metres away (The Hubster was templed-out by the end of this trip, I think). But humongous Buddha statues have a draw about them, one that even non-religious 30-somethings such as us, cannot be spared of. To top it, the daughter's insistence on wanting to go see what she thought was the "Moon" from far, as she pointed to the shiny, round white, bald head of the Laughing Buddha (I swear this has nothing to do with the way we talk about bald people at home), left us with no option but to inch closer to the statue. At some point the Hubster had to drag me by the hair, back to the bus to stop my portrait-shooting frenzy.
The tour group moved on, to board the bus which took us to a ferry next, to sail through the extensive network of rivers and waterways, which are a result of various headwaters throughout SE Asia, that ultimately reach the South China Sea. This region, we were told harvests three different kinds of rice annually and its rice production is more than that of Japan and Korea put together!
Afternoon lunch was with local farmers, at a village eatery where we visited an in-house factory that made products from all parts of Coconuts. Post-lunch was spent playing with the village's pet python (Well the Aussies among us did) and drinking our soothing herbal teas.
While Hubster once again proclaimed his 'Been there done that'-ness to me (he's grown up seeing coconut factories, rice-fields etc in his native village, thus seeing these on our Asian adventures seems mundane to him), the daughter seemed to have taken our 'going local while going global' mantra to a whole new level. We found her sitting in the lap of a random village woman, happily being fed, what was supposedly lunch meant for her own children. The woman's poor kids gave me a "What just happened.." kinda look, which in turn made me wonder, if I should be feeding them lunch now, in what would only seem as an appropriate and fair exchange. Thankfully before I could consider this seriously, the local farmer band appeared out of nowhere and decided to belt out some folk-lore, happily distracting the daughter away.
The tour concluded in private canoe rides, where being true tourists we all donned our Non la's (the conical Vietnamese leaf hats) as we sailed through a small tributary of the great delta.
On the way back to Saigon, the daughter had made enough friends on the bus (read babysitters, for us), so the return journey was a relaxed and a mostly seated one! After all, we had a plane to catch to Ha Noi after all this.
The first day of 2013 was not really planned such, but turned out to be spent on an extreme travel note - since it started off with us riding a car to a bus to a ferry to a canoe to a bus to a car to a plane and to a car again, finally until we reached our last hotel of the itinerary, in Ha Noi. They say what you do on the first day of the year is symbolic of how your year is going to turn out to be. Amen to that!
8. Non La's (the conical leaf hats) are omnipresent in SE Asia, more so in Vietnam. While they serve as intelligently and ergnomically designed, devices to defend against the heat and rain, they have adaptable uses; as baskets to carry light groceries, as hand fans if it's too hot and even make stylish hair accessories! They have become the quintessential souvenir, a must-pick-up, when one visits Vietnam.
9. Tired from our 12 hour long day trip, we barely noticed that most of our co-passengers on the flight from Saigon to Ha Noi, were carrying thick jackets. Once we landed at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, is when we realised that we were perhaps the only ones under-dressed in shorts and t-shirts.
All we could see around us were puffer jackets, gloves, hats, mufflers, boots hiding human faces behind them. On coming out of the airport and into the city, we realized these temperatures were pleasant, more like at the onset of Fall, far from the winter temperatures we are used to, having lived over a decade in North-East USA.
Interestingly, most of Asia feels cold really easily. I remember my Mom telling me last year, how she needed to take out her woollens/ shawls in the month of December, in Mumbai. I've jeered in the past, at women who've been on my flight to Mumbai in December and emerged from the aircraft wearing boots, as I strode past them in flip-flops. I mean, Really?
But one man's Fall is another man's Winter. As we walked around Ha Noi, baring our half-naked selves, we saw some locals sitting around bon-fires and others shivering underneath thick woollens. Startled shop-keepers, much to our amusement, tried to usher us indoors, to buy fake branded jackets. (We finally caved in and being precautious, bought the daughter one for the next day's trip up further North to Ha Long Bay. Of course she refused to wear it all the time there as her 'cold' quotient takes after the Hubster's. Both have eskimo-like tolerances to the cold).
10. Ha Noi is the capital of Vietnam and perhaps that is why, it has a more disciplined, two-wheeler culture, making it easier to cross the streets here.
The Old Quarter, which is the heart of the city, is a maze of streets, laid out in a millenium-old plan, lined with family-owned shops that sell everything under the sun. Bargaining is key here. One look at the market and Hubster knew his 'bargain-loving' wife is going to have a blast here. You bet, he wasn't wrong.
Most Old Quarter streets are lined with shops selling similar wares; so while one street sells only shoes, there was another that sold only curios and a third that only dealt with clothing/ fabric/ silk and so on. This is an interesting remnant of a historic event - When the emperor Ly Thai To moved his capital to Ha Noi over a century ago, a community of craftsmen followed him here and set themselves up in the format of each guild-per street. That explains the segregation of trades by streets, which makes for an interesting precursor to modern day commercial space planning.
While most of the shops have adapted to present-day needs and sell pirated goods, one can also find a few stores that sell 'rejected' export cotton apparel with labels such as H&M, Gap etc on them.
To think all these years I wore clothes that were tagged 'Made in Cambodia/ Vietnam' and here I was, in these countries, seeing them made at source!
The Old Quarter is merchandiser/ buyer/ shopper/ tourist heaven, especially as the ratio of the USD to the Vietnamese Dong is 1:20,000 making the dollar stretch very far, here too. However unlike Cambodia, Vietnam can also be more expensive, so one needs to be a little careful, especially if you come here after visiting Cambodia, like we did. Suddenly everything seemed expensive (If I had to do this all over again, I would probably visit Vietnam first and then go to Cambodia, to end my vacation on a pocket-pleasing note!)
11. I missed tuk-tuks here. Cyclo-rickshaws are more popular in Vietnam, the kinds driven by a cyclist driver; only unlike the cycle-rickshaws in India, the passengers sit in front of the driver in this case. That might be scary considering there's nothing between you and the traffic, but it seemed like a fun experience. We didn't end up taking one, as they are too small to accommodate two adults and a half.
12. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the Quang Ninh Province of Northeastern Vietnam, bordered by China on the North. A day trip to the Bay and back from Ha Noi, is a 12 hour affair, as it takes one 4 hours each way, to and fro, in addition to the 4 hours on a cruise ship/ kayak ride that winds through the mammoth limestone monoliths of the bay. (Another deja-vu occured with a similar day-cruise we'd taken a few years ago - through the Matanuska glaciers in Alaska. Except those were ice glaciers and islands, while these were limestone. And of course, that sail really required puffer jackets, for this one a thin jacket was plenty).
Lunch was a traditional yummy Vietnamese fare, served on a boat - a local fish steamed with scallions and garlic, pork shumai, fried tofu and a hot, clear sea-food and clam soup, with 'Hanoi' beer, followed by fresh watermelon, mangosteen and dragon fruit as dessert. (SE Asian beer of choice on this vacation was 'Angkor' in Cambodia and 'Hanoi' in Vietnam, although Cambodian local red wine is pretty good too).
The limestone monolithic islands have vegetation growing on their tops, as they make a grand emergence from the sea. Most islands hide hollow caves within, one of which is the Hang Dau Go - the largest grotto in the islands, with several stalagmites and stalactites within. Since this was my first stalagmite/ stalactite experience, I was excited to see this grotto, until we entered it and saw it lit up in multi-colored lights (The closest analogy I could draw was of a 'Ganpati pandal' in one of the Sarvajanik Ganesha's in Mumbai). Its a pity when man decides how nature should be presented to the rest of mankind. Lit up in a plain simple yellow neon, could have done the job too. Adding colour to the caves, honestly only took away from their largeness and surrealism.
It seems like the daughter didn't appreciate the color either as she napped on top of Hubster's head, while we explored the cave.
13. Being previous French-Indochine colonies, both Cambodia and Vietnam have colonial remnants. I found it interesting that in both nations, the older generation speaks fluent French, while the younger generation speaks the local language and gets by with broken English. Imagine if that would've happened in India? All our grandparents would speak impeccable English while we would be hard-core Hindi/ regional language speaking youngsters?
In Cambodia, almost everyone speaks broken English, whereas in Vietnam, almost no one does. Thus, getting around in Vietnam highly relies on how good you are at playing 'Dumb Charades'. After a point I found my subconscious hands doing a descriptive dance every time I talked, much to the amusement of the Hubster. That's how much sign language you will end up using, when speaking with locals in Vietnam.
14. I could'nt leave the country of 'Banh Mi' without having one atleast, (Yes I know my fellow foodies are going to be disappointed to know I had this just once in my entire time there. But one cannot afford to replicate one's lunch, in a land that has so much to offer on it's plate, quite literally).
For the few of you that don't know, the Banh Mi is the Vietnamese term for a single baguette, although it is used to describe the entire sandwich. The single baguettes can be bought off of street vendors and make great snacks to munch on-the-go, being crisp and freshly baked. A symbolic remnant of the French, the single baguette, is stuffed with delicious meat or vegetarian fillings topped by handfuls of cilantro, making for absolutely incredible sandwiches.
15. Our flight back from Ha Noi to Singapore was the sixth and last flight of this two week long itinerary. While we were happy to be back home, there was also the feeling that a lot still needed to be seen.
There are several other places within Cambodia and Vietnam we wished we could' ve visited. Hence going back there, at a later date in the future is unavoidable. Perhaps when the daughter is slightly older. Traveling with a baby on this trip and having only two weeks in hand, left us with no choice but to fly everywhere, as much as we would've loved taking the train or bus intermittently. We cannot wait until the daughter grows up a bit more, to begin doing the latter with her and hope to return to these countries as backpackers.
For now, it's time to begin the New Year on a new note. I see exciting time ahead, what with all this travel, a new occupation in the works and the baby starting school soon. More on that in the next update! Hope you've had a very happy start to the New Year too!
Love,
Shweyta
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