Vietnam was one country in our travels that was of least interest to me but of the greatest interest to Missy. I was more conflicted. I wasn’t ready to visit this country. As we are finalizing our plans, Missy’s sweet Vietnamese manicurist rekindles her desire to come here, our son, Kris, and family say they want to visit Vietnam and because of our objections to the genocide,  Myanmar is taken off and Vietnam is added to the list. There is much to see in Vietnam so we planned for five weeks and I’m really glad we did. We visited the site of the Hanoi Hilton and saw in pictures of death and destruction at the Remembrance Museum in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon). We visited the site where the last helicopter departed leaving behind loyal Vietnamese friends who faced death or relocation. I have to admit that visiting Vietnam was an amazing experience.

Having previously received our required visa letter and approval for a multiple entry, 3-month Visa, we arrived at the airport in Hanoi on May 20, picked up our visa and went to find the hotel’s driver. Having a driver is quite inexpensive. We chose a hotel in the middle of old town but was a bit disappointed to see that it was older and not well maintained. We had one of the nicer rooms which was ok. We normally reserve three nights, so when our time was up we moved to a much nicer hotels, only about 50 meters away.  Here we met a wonderful travel agent that helped us with our tour and planned our family’s 6 days marathon tour of Vietnam in the following month.

Our first night in Hanoi was an adventure. We needed money and SIM cards for our phones. T-Mobile service is not available in Vietnam. The streets are crazy busy and jam packed with cars, motorcycle, bikes, tuk-tuks and people. Crossing the street requires skills, something we had to learn very quickly. It was scary, confusing and exciting. Fortunately, it was Sunday night and a large section of old town was closed to autos, though not motorcycle and bikes. Still pretty crazy. We were looking for an ATM and Viet-Tel store for our SIM card. Suddenly there is this lady right in front of my face insisting on selling me some fried donut hole like thing. I didn’t have any money so I said no. I did ask her to point us towards the Viet-Tel store.  She did. I promised to buy some donuts from her when I had money. An hour later, having the money and SIM card to our surprise, the donut lady pops in front of us reminding me of the promise to buy some donuts. I really didn’t want donuts but I had promised. She starts putting the donuts in the bag and soon there is at least a dozen donuts in there. I say, wait, wait, STOP, that’s too many as she is looking at me with smiling face.  Finally she stops.  At this point feeling very confused with the sound of the horns and the noise of the street and being talked into this big bag of donuts. I ask, how much? She says 200.  I’m thinking, 200?. How much is that? I give her the 200,000 Dong bill. If it sounds like a lot I soon learned that it is. $8!!!!! $8 for a dozen staled donut holes. Welcome to Vietnam. She was gone quickly. Another donut vendor looked at Missy and motioned that she better watch over me. It took several more days for us to learn how to just ignore the street vendors. Hello mister where are you from? Hello come into my shop. Do you want XY or Z? it’s all just a start to get you to buy something or commit yourself to doing a tour, see a show  etc.

The next thing we needed to learn was how to cross the street. It seems the rule for driving in Vietnam is that there are no rules.  One t shirt read “ traffic rules in Vietnam, when green you can go, when yellow you can go and when red, you can still go” 🙂 So how do you cross a street?  It’s more difficult than you think. Wait for an opening? Wait and run? Hold hands and pray? Find an old lady and let her help you? No, none of these. You can pretty much cross any time but wait for a lull, if possible, that may take several minutes. Once you begin you look straight ahead with quick glances both left and right as there are no rules and a motorcycle can come from either side even in one-way street. You look ahead and walk. Steadily. Confidently. Don’t stop.  The vehicle WILL move around you. Somehow. It’s pretty miraculous. No close calls except a couple of times when I think they were trying to scare us.

The roads in Vietnam are some of the worst we saw in our trip. We were told that Chinese high speed train is scheduled to come to Vietnam, someday. Metro is also to be coming, some day. A north to south highway is coming, some day. Corruption is rampant. Everyone we speak to brings it up. How soon these projects will be completed? No one that we encountered knew.

Loved the street food in Hanoi! Tried a variety of Pho and discovered Egg Coffee…delicious!!

One of the highlights of our days in Hanoi was joining the beautiful Baha’i community for the celebration of the Declaration of the Bab.

With the help of the nice travel agent at the hotel, Lucy, we got seats on a 9 passenger shared taxi to SaPa, our next destination. As it turned out there were no other passengers. So we had a private luxury, large SUV for nearly four hours for $26 all to ourselves.  SaPa is in the mountains. Cooler and known worldwide for its beautiful trekking. Missy and I are very flexible with our travel plan, but I get nervous when I’m going to host others. So, in preparation for Kris’ family visit we wanted to check out SaPa. Really beautiful. We liked being there for a couple of days and know that the family will enjoy being here.

Our next stop was a cruise in Bai Tu Long Bay. It seemed very inefficient to drive back to Hanoi so we asked if there was a bus and our sweet pregnant, front desk lady said there was a special sleeper bus good for the westerners because the seats are bigger and more comfortable than the bus for locals and it had fewer stops. Lucy in Hanoi said. Are you sure? I checked with pregnant lady again. Yep, sure. Bought the tickets. Took shuttle bus out of the mountains. It was late but we had time. We get off at the bus station and everyone goes in but we were lead off to a near by office. We asked if this was the bus stop to catch the sleeper bus to Halong Bay. We think the answer was yes. But it’s best to be patient. We waited. And waited.  And waited. Along with the office people we are the only ones there. We have no ideal when the bus will come so don’t want to go looking for food. A bus arrives. Tons of what looks like parcels, fill the luggage compartment. We take our stuff onto the bus. First time on sleeping bus. We are sleeping where??? I don’t fit. Too short. Foot holes too small. Bus freezing. Off we go. Get some blankets that were last cleaned when??? I had downloaded some TV shows so I was fine with entertainment. The sleeping bus seats seem like regular seats that lay pretty much flat. At 2 or 3 in morning we finally stop for bathroom and we hope get something to eat but everything looked pretty unappetizing. Bus is still freezing. People are getting off and on. All too often. We are sure now that we are on the locals bus. Hmmm!!!. We arrive way before sunrise. The bus pulls over and everyone sleeps. Why? Don’t know. Just sleep. So we try to sleep. Sometime around 5am the bus starts up again. He drives about 15 minutes and the bus driver motions us to get off.  Where are we?  This does not look like a boat harbor.  Don’t know and no one is around to ask. Luckily a taxi drives by. We flag him down. We get taken to the address we give him.  Where is that? Don’t know. We are supposed to be at the cruise-ship office but where? It’s just after sunrise. Nothing is open. No one is there. We did find some chairs in front of a coffee shop where the doors were open but no coffee yet. We could use the toilet. I stayed with luggage. Missy wandered around and eventually came back saying she found our cruise line. We went there. Texted Lucy to say we arrived. She contacted cruise line. Some people came. We then waited several more hours for the cruise to start.  All that to say that it would have been better to go back to Hanoi and take the cruise-ship dedicated bus. Oh well, but if we did that I wouldn’t have this story to tell  😊 😊

Bai Tu Long Bay is part of the Halong Bay World Heritage site but though equally beautiful it is less popular. This means fewer tour boats. We had heard stories of party boats and pollution but we didn’t see either. The cruise-ship is a luxury boat that has about 45 passengers. Our room was awesome. Big. Great bathroom. Balcony. Food was excellent some of the best on our trip. Halong Bay is simply breathtaking. Words can’t describe it so check out the pictures. I could and did sit on the deck for hours looking at the view. We took the offered tours which were fine but the main event is the view that never got tiresome.  Those of you that have been on a cruise know that one of the best part of this kind of travel is meeting the awesome people from all over the world. 2 nights and our magical mystery tour of this beautiful bay ended.

Tam Coc near Ninh Binh is near two natural wonders. Both are managed by the government. There is a boat rower who takes you down the river through the most amazing land and caves. The rowing was done by foot in one and hands in the other.  We went on both rowing tours. The one where it was just the two of us was a lot more pleasant.

Our next destination was DaNang, a very long train ride.  To break the trip we decided to spend a couple of days in Hue(pronounced hweigh.)  Hue is nice city with a blend of old and new.  Perfume river lined by very nice parks gives the city an extra charm. The Citadel is the main attraction in the city.  Not far from town there are three ancient tombs that are well worth a visit.

The train ride from Hue to Da Nang, described as one of the prettiest drives, was beautiful.  We were so happy to see the joyful faces of our driver, Thien, and our instant Bahá’í friend, Mr. Vinh, our gracious go to for help, during our two week stay in HoiAn.

After 3 months of travel our energy levels had fallen and needed a reboot. We chose to get the extended rest at the ocean side of Hoi An city. We found what appeared to be a good place called “The Beach Little Boutique”. We were wonderfully surprised and loved the place so much that we extend our stay to two weeks. During this time we made friends with some of the wonderful staff and received a nice go away gift from them.

Hoi An is simply awesome. A World Heritage site it is now a premier tourist destination. I originally chose it because I always wanted tailored pants, especially linen pants. Why I don’t know but I did. Hoi An is a city of tailoring. Hundreds, maybe a thousand shops. We found a shop we liked. I ordered three pairs of pants that I love. They fit in all the right places. After some trepidation Missy also ordered some pants. They look great on her.

The other thing Hoi An has is restaurants. We ate some delicious food and some tasty simple sandwiches including a Banh Mi at a small sandwich shop featured in Anthony Bourdin’s “Parts Unknown” series.

Our hotel was at the beach. Actually one block back from the beach. The beach is lovely and we spent many days on sun beds at An Banh beach watching the waves, walking the long sandy beach and the changing people through out the day. Couple of hours before sunset several venders would show up to the beach bringing food (mainly BBQ) and spread out mats.  Soon after hundreds of locals would arrive, sitting in the mats enjoying the afternoon and evening eating and playing .

Our highlight and most memorable activity in DaNang was visiting the newly built Baha’I Center (first in Vietnam) and spending the afternoon with 22 Junior Youth and their animators attending the six weeks summer camp.  We loved joining them for the prayers, activities and service project (cleaning a local beach.)  Our other fond memory was visiting the home of our dear friend, Mr. Vinh, his wife and precious young daughter and having dinner with them.  It was heartwarming to hear of their after school, English and moral education program, in their home, in the small village, outside of DaNang.

We also attended the Feast in another community in DaNang and were warmly received by the members of that precious community.

Our last stop in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh city(HCM). Our hotel was average but in a prime location. The highlight was the War Remembrance Museum. Probably one if the saddest Museum visits of my life. Missy could only tolerate so much and she had to skip most of the heart ranching displays. To see the death and destruction we Americans rained down on these people still shakes me almost a month later. The pictures of the horrors still haunt me. I can’t imagine how these people have somehow found peace.

While in Ho Chi Minh, we had a full day trip to Mekong delta to visit a couple of temple and one of the few remaining floating markets.

We were blessed to join the third oBaha’i community in Vietnam at their center in Ho Chi Minh for Feast.  We consider this our spiritual recharging.  The open arms with which we have been received by the friends in Southeast Asia is indescribable and priceless.

Our next stop will be Bangkok where we meet up with Susy and Kahlil to begin our combined new adventures.

Following is a link to a few of the many photos of our five weeks in Vietnam: