Vietnam

Our trip started in the south, Ho Chi Minh City previously known as Saigon. Almost every street is littered with motorbikes and small shops. The city has many french influences, which can be mostly spotted in architectural features of buildings. Of course France was the colonizer of Vietnam and because of this many Vietnamese speak French and the influence of French culture can be seen in other areas too, such as food. The famous Bahn Mi sandwich is a baguette that comes with many variaties of toppings. Our first Bahn Mi was had in Ho Chi Minh City.

Ho Chi Minh City and the government of Vietnam is trying to make the city a modern city, idolizing Singapore. A whole new financial discrict with modern appartements, business buildings and foreign investment is sprung up in no-time across the river standing from the old center. According to our guide, not every citizen is happy with this development, protestingly calling the city the old name: Saigon.

The history it's most well known for is of course the Vietnam war. The War Remnants Museum in the city is an incredible, harsh, and confronting visit and comes highly recommended. The pain, suffering, opression, injustice and genocide is well documented and told in a variety of stories and perspectives.

The below photo was taken at night standing on top of a Japanese investor owned modern shopping mall. The shopping mall is beautiful, strongly air-conditioned and has a tasty western-style pizza restaurant on the top floor.

The famous Rex (King) Hotel was the accomodation for American journalists during the Vietnam war where briefings were held.

Having visited the city, our trip continued further down south to Can Tho and the Mekong delta. A sleeper bus would take us to the Can Tho bus station from where we would be picked up by our guide. Our guide owns a home along the delta and one of the rivers pictured below. The Mekong delta is known for it's vast river system, murky waters, rice fields, farms and floating markets. The soil is very fertile and therefore it supplies the rest of the country with food. Most is done through traditional farming methods. Rice fields are flooded, fertilized with geese, and regenerated by burning the soil.

From Can Tho we took a bus back to Ho Chi Minh City and hopped on a flight towards Da Nang, a large city just above Hoi An. Hoi An is an extremly touristic but cute town. It is full of shops, restaurants, river boat tours and Hoi An is particularly famous for it's tailored clothing. Almost every shop owner will try to reel you in to buying something and preferabbly hook you to get tailored clothing made. The Vietnamese are very entreprenourial and I believe there isn't one person who isn't running a business in some shape or form. If you own a washing machine you can start a laundry service.

Because of the tourists the photos within the Hoi An city center are not that spectacular, but the countryside around Hoi An is. It's very flat with wide views of the area.

Near the city of Da Nang are the Marble Mountains, which has a number of caves and temples and is a common destination for tourists. It's quite the climb but it's made for touristics, so it's well maintained and the cave system is a sight to behold. During the Vietnam war it was used by the Vietcong and the Americans bombed it. The largest cave therefore has a hole that lets in sunlight.

From Da Nang we flew up north to Hanoi. This city felt even more condensed and packed than Ho Chi Minh City. Narrow streets and even busier shops and scooter traffic. Hanoi is a great destination in itself, but it's also used as a hub to go to other places. From Hanoi we visited the Ha Long Bay, Ninh Binh and travelled by sleeper bus further north to Sa Pa. Our first visit was Ha Long Bay. A very long taxi ride took us to the cruise ship from which we travelled in luxury around the bay. Besides the view from the boat, the boat stopped at a viewpoint and large cave system.

Hopping off the cruise ship at Ha Long Bay, we arranged a taxi to take us to Ninh Binh. Initially the hotel was surprised we wanted to arrange this, because of the lengthy ride (4 hours from what I recall, and then roughly 3,5 hours to Hanoi). However, we did manage to visit what we wanted within this busy day and arrived tired but fulfilled at our next hotel in Hanoi. Upon arrival we received a free upgrade to a beautiful room which we only got to enjoy for 1 short night, as the next morning we had to wake up early to be on time for the bus to Sa Pa.

The most beautiful part of the trip was seeing the nature in the north. Sa Pa is close to the border with China and is a very mountainous area. Up north it can be much cooler however the stable factor in our trip was the hot weather. We had no less than 28 degrees and a maximum for 42 degrees Celcius throughout our trip, even in Sa Pa.

Upon arrival in Sa Pa we went to visit the Fansipan mountain and temples as we've heard it's so high up it's often cloudy and you don't have great views. That we could certainly imagine because the 6.3km gondola ride takes you from ~1700m to a ~3100m altitude. A cold wind welcomed us on top of the mountain and we surprised to see the massive temples to explore on top of the mountain.

Hiking in Sa Pa was something we really looked forward to, even though we didn't get the cool weather we hoped for, we still went hiking on the trails we planned despite the 30+ degree weather. Accept the heat and carry on.

The trails are not clearly marked and we relied heavily on our phone's GPS to navigate along a digital map of the trail. This however worked quite well and we only went in a wrong direction once or twice. Quickly glancing at the map however put us back on track. Sa Pa is full of farms, traditional houses and people seemingly undisturbed by the busy life.

Returning from Sa Pa we visited Hanoi with 42 degree weather. A physical challenge with the humidity levels, even when sitting down at the famous train street. It was however an enjoyable and fascinating experience to learn about the underground bunker constructed at the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long. The underground bunker was large with multiple rooms and a larger conference room. Outside the bunker at the surface level was a number of informative signs with historic photos telling the general story of the war and the Ho Chi Minh trail.