Trip Pics Up!

So we really fell off the blogging band wagon toward the end of the trip. Sorry!  But, we really only missed the Angkor Temples, and around (and those are best described in pictures anyway, right?).

Instead, we've finally uploaded our pics, in chronological order. See below:

1. Bangkok

2. Krabi

3. Chiang Mai

4. Chiang Mai Trek

5. Hanoi

6. Halong Bay

7. Hue & the DMZ

8. Hoi An

9. Ho Chi Minh City

10. Angkor Temples

11. Coming Home

12. Best SE Asia Food Shots

Thanks for following along with us!  We might keep things going with our upcoming Europe trip!

Hanging out in Hoi An

If you're looking for authentic Vietnamese culture, don't come to Hoi An. If you're looking for a laid back, quaint, touristy walking-town, then Hoi-An is the city for you. Tourists of all sorts, even Vietnamese, seemed to enjoy Hoi An's shops, walks along the river and restaurants. However, the prices in this town came to a complete shock to us. We had grown accustomed to $2 meals and suddenly the prices had doubled or even tripled.

Eli and Dave decided to spend the day apart - Eli to cooking classes, and Dave to historic sites. Eli took a class at Morning Glory, one of Vietnamese chef Ms. Vy's (quite the incredible entrepreneur) 4 Hoi An restaurants. It was a packed class, with probably 25 students. The room was set up so that we could watch the demo and then prepare the same dish. If only we could do that at Whole Foods in St Louis! There were probably 10 staff members in the room clearing dishes, assisting with cooking, and passing out salads, etc. While the class was excellent, Ms. Vy also kept many secrets to herself, such as the dipping sauces. One great tip learned was how to make rice crackers from sesame rice paper. It's on the to-do list for when we get home.

Dave visited the 5 big city sites and enjoyed his day.  Here's the most famous, the Japanese-covered bridge:

After a nice dip in the pool, Eli went to another cooking class, to learn even more Vietnamese dishes. Dave joined her to eat her dishes for their dinner. Some hits, some misses. Too much fried food all around.

The DMZ

After a 3/4 day trouncing through Hue on bicycles, we made the decision to do a demilitarized zone (DMZ) tour. The typical (and inexpensive) tour bundles you up into a big tourist bus, whisks you off to a dozen sites, and sends you back home over a 12-hour period. We were hoping to find something a bit different.
So we found Mr. Trung. He was a South Vietnamese officer who basically worked for the US army for 8 years during the war in their intelligence department. His knowledge of the war and the operations surrounding the DMZ was incredibly impressive. We reviewed him on TripAdvisor, so we won't go into what we liked/didn't like about him here :-).
The trip overall was a difficult combination of impressive, depressing, and important. So many people died for what seems like absolutely no reason. The ingenuity, and lack thereof, demonstrated on both sides is what was most intriguing.
Our itinerary:

• Hue to Horrible Highway: this is where an enormous ambush on US caravans occurred. The subsequent airstrike killed countless civilians. There is currently a buddhist shrine at the site.
• Church: Because of pressures of the Catholic church, the US did not bomb this church, and as a result, they failed to take the church by small arms after a month of fighting. There is an incredible amount of visible damage to what remains of the church.
• Vin Mon Tunnels: Entire city under the ground, including a maternity area (around 15 children were born in the tunnels). Although the entrances are clear today for tourists, it's easy to see how these tunnels were kept camouflaged.
• Museum: Lots of crazy propaganda - and incredible artifacts that the fleeing US army left behind.
• Fire Base: Unfortunately nothing more than a rock pile, because the US blasted it away after the retreat.
• Ben Ha River: The dividing line of north and south. Reminiscent for Eli of seeing the thin line between east and west Berlin.

Of course we had to throw in some transport setbacks - our driver's car got a flat tire on the way home. 2 hours and another driver later, we made it back to Hue.

Halong Bay

We decided to follow the tourists on this one, on a 2 day/1 night Halong Bay cruise.

• After a 4-hour drive through rice paddies, and complete with hand swept highways, we arrived at Halong Bay, which reminded us of the touristy Fisherman's Wharf in SF.
• Onto our boat!

   

• Despite the dense cloud cover, the mist made the enormous limestone edifices look quick magnificent, if not a little ghostly.
• After a 10-course lunch (with many veggie options and lots of grease), we stopped at Surprise Cave, with just about every other tourist in tow. We kayaked around the bay and explored a floating village.
• Back to the boat for hot shower and more food! Dinner was all about presentation :) Unfortunately the beautiful carvings and veggie decorations were left off the veggie plates, but it was fun nonethless.
• The evening involved karaoke - more for the boat staff than for the tourists. Thoroughly amusing. We hung out on the deck and went to bed super early, for the first time in a week.
• Excellent sleep and a morning wake up call through the loudspeaker! Broken english announcing breakfast.
• Boat ride back through the Islands, amazing scenery and super ethereal due to the clouds.

Honk Honk

Traffic regulations seem to be nonexistent in Vietnam. While Thailand had tons of traffic, they didn't really use their horns. Welcome, Vietnam. Horns galore! The traffic system seems to be: honk when you enter an intersection, and hope no one else is coming the other way. This makes for crossing the road an interesting experience.

Vietnam is obviously much less developed than Thailand. Poor roads, concrete buildings and much dirtier. Not the swish international airport that Bangkok has.

Communism is still readily apparent in Hanoi - green and red uniformed army - one size fits no-one uniforms, and Soviet concrete edifices.

Our hotel turned out to be a total-gem. They upgraded us to a larger room and gave us a honeymoon cake, which Dave ate. They even lit the cake like a birthday cake - very sweet. Unfortunately, there was no electricity for the day, which made it even more romantic with candles. We booked our Halong Bay tour and a flight to Da Nang and went off to explore the city.

• Check out the itinerary for our 10-hour walking exploration of the city.
• Highlights include these photos:

 

In case you were worried, we found a phenomenal bakery for David in the French quarter. Could have been right out of Paris, except the prices were amazing. We got there just as the bread went half price, and bought 6 muffins, a loaf of whole-wheat bread and 2 mousse pastries for about $2.