Dave Says:
So, Hoi An famed for all things cultural lives in the shadow of its low culture while supposedly high couture main source of income. Tourists love a bargain and word of the bargains in Hoi An spread through the grapevine as far north as Sapa. In fact, on route to Sapa was where Archer (please refer to Sarah’s previous post) first informed us that, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, our fortune awaited us in Hoi An. (more…)
Dave Says:
Mike works at our hotel in Saigon. He is twenty six and like many amiable young
people in the big cities of Vietnam, sees a career in the booming tourist trade
as a way to make a little for himself and make a little of himself.
Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived today so we waited in the usual
Vietnamese hotel lobby containing only the essentials: the reception desk and
the tour booking desk. The only chairs are the ones by the tour booking desk
making it impossible not to interact with the friendly face beaming at you from
the otherside. Mike was today’s face although when I earlier mentioned he
“works at” our hotel, I really should have said “works outside” our hotel.
Mike is hired by the travel company in the basement to bring in tourists using
any means he can. I suspect he wasn’t really meant to be in the lobby but it
was hot today and the lobby had A/C. (more…)
Dave Says:
There are three things the small coastal town of Hoi An is famous for:
1) it’s speciality seafood
2) custom made clothing
3) it’s listing as a World Heritage town of cultural interest (more…)
Dave Says:
Hanoi is three cities in one, three distinct phases of human necessity squeezed into a few square kilometers of the Old Quarter. From the early morning to mid-afternoon the streets belong to regular commerce. Store fronts are packed with goods to sell. Unlike western shopkeepers, having a differentiator seems to be bad for business. All the shops that sell shoes, for example, are situated on the same street. Store after store of the same shoes, cheap Chinese imports and knock-offs of popular western brands. The same is true for all things the average Hanoi resident might need to either survive or portray a greater sense of wealth than their neighbor. It is often easier to name the street by what it sells rather than by the name on the map. There’s Towel Street and Bag Street, Lamp Street and Candy Street, Shoe Street and Washing Powder Street - every store selling exactly the same goods as the one next to it, stacked on the sidewalk in the same manner. (more…)
Sarah says:
sometimes i have to take a deep breath in hanoi to keep from going insane.
it’s just that sometimes the incessant assault of 2 million honking scooters,
or that one street corner that i pass everyday where motorcyle repair shares the same slab of cement with the chopping of raw chicken
or constantly being chased up the street with, “you buy something from me? madame, hey, madame, banana? pineapple?” (more…)
Sarah says:
we have just experienced something truly amazing and exactly one of the reasons we’re traveling in the first place. Since tourism in Vietnam is fairly new, there are only a few “must-see” tourist attractions and anyone who comes here as a tourist does all of them. The thing is, though, as we’re discovering, because Vietnam isn’t yet an easy or typical tourist destination, it doesn’t attract the typical tourist and it doesn’t provide the typical attactions - or so we’ve seen yet. The tourists we’re meeting are all *amazing* tourists, people who’ve been around the world 2 or 3 times, couples cycling through southern Vietnam with small children, 71 year old men with hip-replacements out climbing Vietnamese mountains. It’s been inspiring to meet the people we’ve met so far and we’ve loved every second. (more…)
Dave Says:
There are those in the traveling community who frown upon package tours. In fact, Sarah and I being of independent mind and spirit also believe that one gets to experience a little more of the host country when one can interact with it the same way it’s people do. However, there are times when logistics dictates a package tour may be in order. Navigating to a remote part of north east Vietnam is one of those times.
This particular tour is a three day two night trip to beautiful Halong Bay, a series of over three thousand little islands purportedly created by the tail of a rather angry dragon as he made his way to the sea. $55 USD buys you three meals a day, a night on a boat, a night in a hotel, hiking, kayiking, site seeing and swimming if it were not quite so cold. What it doesn’t buy you is any drinks - not even water but then trading water seems to be an integral part of the Viet economy; In America its oil, in Vietnam its water. Shows you what a country thinks is important I guess. (more…)