Dalat, Vietnam

Dalat - Finally some cooler temperatures!

This city has a funny "microclimate" in the middle of highlands in southern Vietnam. Surrounded by mountains, the temps are much lower (70-85 degrees) and there is almost no humidity. Allowing for farms to grow things (like strawberries and grapes, aka wine) impossible in other places in Vietnam. I was excited about the wine thinking the Vietnam wine would be better here - and it was but only slightly. Since the Vietnamese don't care much for the taste of wine, I guess it's not high on their priority list for perfecting. 

The town itself has some pretty parts but also has some ugly ones. However the region was just beautiful! 

We fell in love with one restaurant in particular where we had fish in a clay pot and beef lok lak both times we went! We also met another traveler and had an interesting food night, trying frog legs, boar, snails, squid, scallops (but these were right out of the shell, not the type we're used to). 

Nicknamed "Crazy House", this hotel was designed by a high ranking official's daughter who fell in love with the arts at an early age. This place was just as it sounds - crazy - to walk around...very Alice in Wonderland-esque! 

We were also very active during the day. The first day we did a Canyoning Tour that was way better than we even expected - we went abseiling/rappelling down dry cliffs as well as through waterfalls, sliding through rapids, cliff jumping and some trekking, both on trails and some right through the river.  We have tons of pics but they are all on the Canon and we havent been able to sync it with a computer yet.  Hopefully we can get a few up soon since it was such a great experience. 

The second day we went mountain biking about 15km to the base of a mountain then climbed to the highest peak - Langbian Mountain 2,169 meters high. We got back to our hotel RIGHT as it started storming! 

One more from  the Crazy House

Hoi An - The Ancient City

Hoi An was one of our favorite place so far! It's a beautiful little town in the center of Vietnam, squeezed between a river and the ocean. There is not much to "see" there, it's more of a place you "experience" by walking slowly through town, which still holds it's old character in the architecture, having a drink on the river, or relaxing on the beach - all of which we did. Hoi An came at a good time in our trip too - we had been sightseeing and doing non-stop from the beginning so we thoroughly enjoyed slowing down a bit. We also celebrated our 1st anniversary here with more upscale accommodations than we're used to right on the river with a pool and a really nice dinner and a glass of wine (special occasion as it's so expensive!) :) 

The famous food here are the Wantons - shown here - and White Rose which is a small dumpling with shrimp. Both obviously really good! We got our first white rose from the restaurant that supposedly makes and sells them to all the other restaurants in town so must be the best. 

We LOVED the beach near Hoi An...nothing super special about it but it had nice sand, blue waters and a nice breeze. The road between Hoi An and Danag (the main city in central Vietnam) are full of current and future luxury resorts but our little beach was quite with very few chairs and no restaurants on the beach. These pods are what the locals use to go out and catch fish. The mountains far in the background are the ones we road our bikes over (ok where scott road his bike over and i road in a minivan). 

 

There was a family that owns the chairs which are free when you buy food or drinks from them. They bring it right out to you so it's like resort service without the cheesy scenery. And the food was GOOD and very cheap! ($2 for this plate, less than a $1 for ice coffee and fresh squeezed fruit smoothies)

This was taken from our motorbike on the way to the beach for dinner on the sand. 

Hoi An at night. It is a known as the city of lanterns for good reason. 

We arrived here for the Vietnam Independence (Unification) Day Holiday - the day the North won the war (also knows as the "American War") and unified North and South Vietnam, aka when they beat the Americans. I bring this up because we didn't realize that Vietnamese vacation to Hoi An so we had a hard time finding a place to stay. We were out on a little farming island about 3k out of town. Although a bit of a bike ride to the center, it wasn't bad biking through this cute area:

There were a few sightseeing spots we had to do but both were 1/2 day, slower adventures. The first was My Son which was the capital of the Cham Empire who ruled all of Vietnam and large parts of Cambodia before the French came in the late 1800s. We came back into town on a boat through some of the causeways that lead through Hoi An. 

We also went to see the Marble Mountains - originally 5 mountains that poke out of the otherwise very flat ground, of course made of Marble. Within, there are huge caverns and caves that various generations have used and added too. The most obvious is building temples and pagodas on and within including carving Buddha statues right out of the marble within the caverns. The Viet Cong also used these caves and caverns to store ammunition, hide and even set up a hospital within. The crazy part about that is "China Beach", right in front of the Marble Mountains, was an R&R spot for American soldiers. 

All around the mountains are tons of shops showcasing all sorts of marble statues - including the Lady Buddha seen here: 

This stall in the Central Market became our go-to lunch spot...we ate here 4 times! The owner was great to us. The Mi Quang, specialty in central Vietnam, was the best here. The avocado shake from the stall next door was also Scott's favorite..."pure joy"

Sunset on the beach: 

Buckets of cocktails with our new kiwi friends Marc and Talia who we met in Halong Bay and saw again in Hoi An (and Siem Reap!)

Happy Buddha!

Phnom Penh

What to say, what to say...hate is a strong word, but I think its safe to say that we strongly disliked Phnom Penh.   

I do not like you Phnom Penh.  I do not like you here or there. I do not you anywhere.  I do not like you in a house or with a mouse. ..you get the picture.

Disclaimer:  Our perspective is a little skewed because Kerry's cell phone was stolen here (damn you teenagers on the moped).  Pur impression-the city was hot, dusty, dirty, and seemed to be in a strange state of flux with abandoned buildings next to shiney new high-rise construction projects. Overall less than appealing. 

That being said we made the best of our time there with some visits to the historic highlights (see below for the short history lesson) and enjoying some decent eats and cheep beer (which...go figure...included a locally brewed stout).

The border crossing, which we expected to be a shit-show (as they generally are) was actually very organized and our bus company took care of everything.  You never can shake that unnerving feeling you get when you hand over your passport and visa money to a total stranger, assuming his broken english means that he will take care of everything.  That juxtaposed with the "I knew it would work out okay" and "thank goodness" feelings you have when you get your passport back. 

                                                                     

Fast forward to our history lesson: Pol Pot was a son-of-a-bitch!  Cambodia's recent past has been marred by the rise of the Khmer Rouge and the systematic killing of over 2 million people during their 4 year reign.  It was quite a sobering experience visiting the school (nicknamed S-21 Prison) that the Khmer Rouge converted to a torture and detention center and the "Killing Fields" where locals were brought for...you get the picture.   Pretty terrible stuff, but interesting from a historical perspective.  Class dismissed.  

We biked around town visiting some local temples (go figure) and the royal palace (less impressive version of its neighbor Thailand's palace in Bangkok).  Like I said earlier the city was less than impressive and we were ready to head to Angkor Wat. 

Buddhist temple

Another temple (Buddhist in case you were curious)

Hindu version of Neo from the Matrix

Part of royal palace

View from second floor of S-21 (the Khmer Rouge put up the barbed wire to keep detainees from jumping)

Cell blocks in S-21

Sugar cane (makes a tasty drink when crushed and the juices are extracted)

Memorial for those who killed during the Khmer Rouge (it contained thousands of bones from the Killing Fields)

Grounds of the Killing Fields - and yes those are bones! They continually surface (along with tattered clothes) during the rainy season...very disturbing

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Welcome back to a city! It had been awhile since we had been in a real city, so it was both nice and a bit overwhelming at the same time. Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) is very different from Hanoi...much more "modern", much more like other cities around the world (a McDonald's and a Starbucks were within 3 blocks of the place we stayed). That being said, it still had its own charm. Tons of (vietnam) coffee shops and young people - what I imagine Seattle is like. It also still had the street vendors with plastic chairs and tables serving coffee in the am and dinner in the pm. We liked the city a lot! It's a place (one of many in Vietnam) I could imagine living.  

So here are modern "the sights" of HCM city. The first is the most obvious - Bitexco Financial Tower is the tallest building in HCM by a long shot at 262.5 metres (861 ft) and 68 floors. It was elegant looking over the rest of the city with its helicopter pad around 50 floors up. 

Interestingly, there is a church that is known as Notre Dam Cathedral and is a dead replica for European churches, though not quite the Notre Dam in Paris as its built of red brick. But it definitely stands out in this Asian city. And I can't lie, it was interesting to set out to see a church instead of a temple. 

The central post office in HCM looks like an old train station in Europe, very different from the typical Asian architecture. 

HCM also has more parks than we've seen since coming to Asia so of course we loved that. One was a large oval in the middle of the busiest road in downtown HCM near the Central Market (also crazy) which made a nice track. While running, I saw tai chi morning classes, lots of walkers, people working out on the public workout machines (think metal elliptical and other structures you find in parks) and best of all, multiple groups doing what looked like dance classes. 

We also went to see "The Lunch Lady" made famous by Anthony Bourdain. The place is tucked away off the main streets and is like so many other eateries basically glorified street food with a tarp over the small area where the food is made and plastic chairs and tables on the street out front. She only makes one Dish per day - some form of noodle soup - and it's served with spring rolls. It was good food but doesn't beat our favorite noodle soup in Luang Prabang, Laos.

Randomly we found a Czech Brewery called Hoa Vien Bauhaus. They brewed a few different types of beer including s dark pilsner that Scott liked and of course the classic pilsner was good for me. It had the feel of a Czech place with lots of wood and long tables. It brought back memories of Prague! 

Ok now for the very interesting but not quite so "fun" stuff. We visited the War Remnants Museum which is all about the Vietnam War, aka the American War. Along with history, it had some pretty graphic photos of the affects of agent orange and a great photo exhibit made from the photos, quotes, journals, etc of photo journalists covering the war from all different nationalities on both sides. It's interesting to read about the war here in Vietnam as its the other side than we are used to hearing/learning about. The museum also has a bunch of American planes and tanks out front. 

The Cu Chi Tunnels was our out of the city excursion. These were the tunnels dug and lived in by the Viet Cong during the war. We walked through just 100m of the tunnels, which have been made wider for tourists, and it was quite claustrophobic. Now, they have the top of many of the "rooms" dug up so you can see from the ground. It was quite an intricate labyrinth of tunnels with things like a weapons room, hospital, kitchen, offices and meeting places. Their use and reuse of EVERYTHING, including what the Americans left behind, was really quite remarkable. 

Our tour guide of the tunnels was born and raised in the Mekong Delta at the south of Vietnam. It was awesome getting a chance to talk to him about the war as the propaganda in all the museums paints the Americans coming in and setting up a complete puppet regime and tricked southern Vietnamese to fight for them. I don't agree with the Americans getting involved but I had a hard time believing no Vietnamese supported what was happening. Our guide confirmed that the south wasnt supportive of communism and the reasons made sense. The south is very fertile and surrounded by water therefore plentiful of food - farms and fishing always available. They had a good life before the war whereas the northern lands had been somewhat destroyed, they were much more poor and hungry. They didn't like/need communism. They went on to continue to fight for 2 years after the Americans left but couldn't hold out without the help. It was interesting hearing the other side for sure.

Nice sculpture in the park

Bomb fragments

Military equipment

Notre Dame Cathedral

Old post office

Famous "Lunch Lady" (on Anthony Ordain)

Small pagoda

Street life

Tunnel entrance

Fighting trenches

Bitexco Building

Independence Hall

Nha Trang

Think Miami beach in Vietnam.  Lots of high rise hotels along "the strip," which fronts a gorgeous beach.   We only has plans to stay here 1 full day so headed straight to the beach for some sun.  This area has become a huge Russian tourist area so many of the signs and menus not only had Vietnamese and English,  but also included Russian. 

Highlights: gorgeous beach, rooftop bar overlooking coast (experience outlined below), Louisiane Brewery's dark lager, solid gym workout, mexi and margs for proper Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Skybar:

The Good: On top of the Sheraton (~25 floors) there was a roof top bar that provided a beautiful view of the city and coastline, especially at night. Decision made. 

Even Better: There was a buy one-get one happy hour.  We expected the prices to be a bit high given the ambiance, but the the vodka prices seemed reasonable (probably due to the large Russian contingent) so we order some vodka tonic.

The Fail: So little did we know...as mentioned the vodka was pretty cheap,  but who knew the mixers were charged separately!  A can of tonic - 75,000 dong (abt 4 usd)...outrageous I say! While the views were nice, it left a bad taste in the mouth (not literally as the drink was fine) to have paid $4 for a can of tonic, in Vietnam no less.   Live and learn.

Beach time

Palm trees in the breeze

We found a  dark beer!!

First sip...yum

Our very own Cinco de Mayo celebration

Awesome inline skaters doing tricks in the park