Vietnam, Part 1

Crossing the border from Laos into Vietnam went smoothly, and after about 5 hours we arrived in the city of Dien Bien Phu. An unremarkable town at first glance, but very important for the Vietnamese: they won a decisive battle against the French in 1954, which set in motion the entire decolonization of Indochina. We quickly made plans to conquer the north of Vietnam, and took a bus to the capital, Hanoi.

Night buses in Vietnam – just wonderful! The sleeper buses also drive during daytime. The buses are usually filled to the maximum.

However, the nightly road was a small nightmare. We didn’t realise that with the mountain roads, it would be hard to stay in our seats (seat belts didn’t work) and Alena also developed some car sickness. Add to this some crying babies that the moms tried to calm down by shouting back and you can imagine the athmosphere.

The road took us 10 hours, and broken and still sleepy we arrived in Hanoi, where we quickly booked a hotel and slept for a bit. In the evening, we began our visit with the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Once in Hanoi, we quickly realized that plans would have to change, since we forgot to check the weather in the north … it never occurred to us in hot Laos that it could be winter somewhere … not our winter, of course, but we were not ready for 13 degrees. Since the cold period does not last long, there is not even a hint of heating, so the hostels are very cold. Having bought a plane ticket to the south, we went to explore the city.

One of the attractions of the city is the railway, which runs right in the center of the city, passing through the narrow streets of Hanoi.

Wout risked using the services of a street barber, the experiment was a success!

Wout was very interested in the Air Force Museum. The museum is far from the city center, so we walked through some non-touristic places in the city. It’s like the war just ended yesterday.

Note from Wout: I’m an absolute pacifist, and this conflicts with my interest in fighter jets… I just really like the engineering and the design!

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

During our journey, we have sailed the Mekong river a couple of times. In the south of Vietnam, we finally reached its delta. It’s considered one of the widest of the world (4th biggest).

The best way to see it is to take an organized tour of the river, with a visit to the floating boat markets and a noodle factory. Small detail: the tour starts at 5 AM to avoid the heat. Fruit and vegetable vendors come from everywhere to the city of Can Tho. To show what they have to sell, they put up samples on a stick above their boat. By trading on the river, they can avoid to pay for the spots on a market somewhere. It’s mostly wholesale here, the restaurants and smaller shops come here to get their goods.

On the tour you can also see the houses of the poorer class, built on stilts on the waterfront.

During the tour, we visited the pasta factory, where we were given to try to make rice pancakes and skip through the pasta.

The tour passed by a noodle factory, where we could try to make rice pancakes and put them through a shredder.

Many boat drivers are women who, while they’re riding the boat or waiting for the tourists, make bamboo decorations as a gift. We were lucky with our driver, who made us ‘just’ a bracelet and a bouquet. On the way, we saw other tourists wearing crowns on their heads, and we considered ourselves lucky.

The picture below is a 360 photo, click and drag to look around, scroll to zoom!

To be continued in Vietnam Part 2…