Taking trains through SE Asia have been an adventure. The train is a triple-decker bunkbed. We scored the top bunk, which is adequately comfortable as long as you are sleeping! You are about 3 feet above everyone's heads below. Daytime rides are not quite as fun as their is no sitting up room...
We scootered to a royal tomb outside of Hue (pronounced "way"). It was really beautiful, but like all things SE Asia, there is someone living in a crappy shelter around back with chickens and trash everywhere.
The Hue Citadel is a neat site. It has ancient history and Vietnam war scars from bullets and mortars. The Citadel is enormous, with various city walls encircling smaller and smaller royal areas. It is mostly in ruins now but still neat.
Crazy scooter traffic on the bridge! At least we are back to the right side of the road.
Hoi An - The best place to buy souvenirs
Hanoi has a great night market for clothes, food, souvenirs, chopsticks, etc., but Hoi An has GREAT stuff. Tailored clothes ($70 for a suit), shoes ($30-100 for leather business shoes), chinese lanterns ($2-6), tea sets ($3-10), funny shirts ($1-5), laquerware ($1-20), you name it. It is prolific and cheap here, and you can get quality stuff that is more than just magnet tourist crap. I didn't buy the Chinese lanterns here, my largest regret of the trip!
Nasty HUGE cicada!
I LOVE THESE LANTERNS!
Night bus to Nah Trang!
I wasn't feeling so hot one night, so Austin went out and bought us pizzas and soda. Mine was really delicious! Don't ask me why they provide ketchup packets with your pizza. gross.
The beach at Nah Trang was gorgeous. However, if you aren't staying at th nice resort, you can't use the scenic chairs! We were also kicked off of the grass, so we just laid in the hot sand like fools.
We had to beat the heat one night, so we went to a movie! Don't worry; this popcorn was the XL. seriously. We each got one and almost went back for more!
A mass in HCMC! Notice the neon Jesus in the back. Awesome.
We went on a Cu Chi tunnels tour which includes a mandatory stopover at a laquerware factory. It was pretty cool to see the process of taking a wood chunk and making it a shiny and textured piece of art. They use eggshells and sand for texture. Pretty cool. It was also very humbling: this particular factory employees people with disabilities, particularly those affected by agent orange (still wrecking havoc among the population :( ), UXO (unexploded ordinance, aka bombs leftover from the 60's and 70's that are found the hard way), and birth defects.
The Cu Chi tunnels were a system of tunnels during the French/Vietnam and American/Vietnam wars used by the Vietcong. The tunnels are so incredibly small that they had to expand them by 100% in order for "western tourists" to experience them! Here is Austin attempting to fit in an original size hole.
Expanded hole...At the height of the tunnels, 15,000 people lived in this particular system! They ate, went to school, made bombs, slept, etc., all in the tunnel system. After the war, there were children who finally saw the light of day for the first time in their lives. WOW!
Austin finally got his dream of climbing all over a tank.
The original tunnel was only half this tall. AHHH!
The propaganda at this museum was unreal. The whole point of the displays were to show how the Vietnamese outwitted the Americans every step of the way and to glorify how many Americans each bobbytrap killed. There were some Canadians in our group who told me they were really glad they weren't American; they would be really angry with the way information was presented. We weren't mad, just quite amused, but it was really really interesting how communist governments present information. EVERYTHING is propaganda, and every employee is considered a government worker. I just hope visiting tourists from other countries have a wider view about things.
Austin getting his tailored suits and shirts! I forgot how handsome my man was! Smallest, hottest shop ever. (suits: $60-100, shirts $15)
Carl's Jr. anyone? I was real sick in Vietnam...
Beautiful French colonial buildings everywhere in HCMC
This museum used to be called the "Museum of American War Crimes." Yikes! It was really interesting, but presented some interesting facts. Ex.: This weapon (in display) destroyed 33,000 American aircraft.
Hm. I don't think we ever had that many aircraft. Like ever. haha
Boy that war was awful for EVERYONE involved. America didn't handle itself very well for sure and is guilty of many things, but it really was hard to see my country spit on.
