The Vietnam I know comes from watching Rambo movies with my cousin Matt in the 80’s. After meeting Mark I moved on to Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now and Platoon (the latter of which he knows by heart – way too many movie quotes on this leg of the trip) – so, I guess you could say I came into it with a skewed view.

Side note: the girls have also become familiar with some of the movie quotes, they’ve learned in improvise to edit out the swearing. I think their Dreamcoat Theatre directors would be proud of their memorization skills. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard this Martin Sheen quote from Apocalypse Now:

“Saigon. Shit. I’m still only in Saigon. Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the jungle……..every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.” So many times!!

Immediately upon crossing the border, which once again came on foot, there was noticeably less trash strewn about and the transport vans and bus station were way more dialed. Vietnam is a more organized Southeast Asian country. Because we had the visas ahead of time there was less paperwork to fill out, so crossing the border was simpler than in Laos or Cambodia. Vietnam still shocked us and shook our sense of “ordinary”, but the transportation was smooth and, for the most part, on time.

Our bus from the border to Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) was our first semi-sleeper. There were 3 columns of seats running the length of the bus. Each column had an upper and lower seat which reclined to almost flat. It kind of reminded me of a dentist chair. Our feet were tucked into a compartment that was under the seat in front of us. We all had a top seat which was fun, but a little hard to get up and down for Mark and I (the ladder rungs are made for tiny feet I think). About 10 scenic hours later we arrived on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh at a bus station. Asian buses love making pit stops. No matter what country, all the buses we’ve been on stop for washroom and snack/meal breaks minimum every 3 hours for 15-45 minutes. This really adds on to the trip time and cuts into the Gravol induced haze.

We haggled with a cabbie and made our way to District 1 at the centre of Ho Chi Minh City. Even at midnight on a Monday the streets were packed with people and motorcycles. Our guesthouse was down an ally way off a square that was as bustling as Times Square in NYC. Down our street it felt like the quietest little village. Ngyuen Shack was a tea museum as well as guesthouse. They had all kinds of herbs and traditional medicine ingredients to make tea for whatever fit your needs. The breakfast was good (and included in the price) and the room had lots of space. Overall, it was pretty affordable and was in the perfect spot for what we wanted to see.

With over 7 million motorcycles registered in a city of 8.6 million people, to say the streets of Ho Chi Minh are busy is an understatement, but somehow it just all seems to work out. Mark compared it to blood flowing through arteries. Sometimes you think it’s impossible for things to move, but motorbikes squeeze into openings and just keep moving. No one really looks when they merge, they just ease in and keep going. We decided the only way to see the city had to on a motorbike. No, we didn’t go on our own, that would have been a huge mistake, probably ending in serious injury or worse. Que the “Back of the Bike Tour”. I can’t say enough great things about this tour, it was one of the best things we’ve done on our trip.

We were picked up by four female university students at 8am. They zipped us around the city telling us about it’s history and people. We stopped at a local coffee shop to learn about Vietnamese coffee and the traditions that go with it. It’s common to see people, mostly men, sitting on sidewalks outside coffee shops on small stools, facing the street, talking and drinking coffee or tea at all times of the day, but especially in the morning. So, when in Rome…..we learned how make the coffee and had a few iced coffee type drinks while the girls educated us on daily life in the city.

The tour covered most of the main places we wanted to see, plus a local market where they bought us all kinds of fruit to try and explained the workings of the market:

The tour was the perfect introduction to the city and gave us some good background knowledge as a starting point for learning about Vietnam. Plus, the girls gave us a list of suggestions for places to eat different specialty dishes, this was a huge bonus for Mark’s guts.

After our bike tour we had our first of many bowls of Pho for lunch and walked to the War Remnants Museum. As we approached the gates of the museum we could see the large silhouettes of military vehicles. Tanks, helicopters and guns left behind by the Americans when they left are all on display outside the building. People were happily snapping pictures and posing beside them. We did as well. After our visit, we concluded that these people, like us, must not have been inside yet, because after seeing the displays there is no way any human could possibly smile and pose for photos. We were ready to leave, feeling sad and shocked by the horrors of the Vietnam War. We don’t regret going, feeling uncomfortable is ok sometimes and seeing a different perspective on something you know little or only one side of is an important part of learning.

Visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels was another lesson in our Vietnamese history class. A driver took us (foreigners can’t rent cars in Vietnam) the 60-ish kilometres to the tunnels that are open to visitors. We chose leave at 7am and to go to the tunnels that were a little further away to avoid large groups of people. The network of tunnels is vast and has been said to have played a major part in the success of the Viet Cong. I won’t go into detail with all the history, but you can read about it here if you want more info. We heard stories about Vietnam’s history and went into the tunnels to get a glimpse of what life was like for soldiers during the war. They lived underground for up to a month at a time, avoiding the conflict that went on above and strategizing. We crawled on all fours through the tiny underground tunnels and saw rooms that were used for different purposes (planning, hospitals, eating, sleeping, cooking). The Vietnam government has preserved sections of the tunnels as war memorials and education centres.

Day markets, night markets and food stalls filled the rest of our time in Ho Chi Minh. I feel like this is also the place where we learned how to cross seemingly impossible streets (don’t look, walk at a steady speed, definitely no stopping or speeding up – traffic will flow around you!).

Vietnam is a huge country and we had 30 days to move from bottom to top. It seems like a lot of time, but there is so much to see and do that losing a day to train or bus travel was not going to help. Lucky for us flights in Vietnam are really cheap!! Sometimes it was cheaper to fly than take the bus or train and if it wasn’t cheaper there was a difference of $10 max (well worth the time we saved).

Being in landlocked areas the past two months meant we were ready for some beach and ocean time. We flew to Nha Trang and spent 2 days relaxing after our busy time in Ho Chi Minh City. Nha Trang has a direct flight from Moscow, so it’s a favourite winter getaway for people from Russia. It’s quite evident once you arrive and see signs and menus in Russian. Our hotel was a good price and close to the beach. Would we recommend going here? No. There’s a better place further south named Mui Ne. It’s less busy and the beach is good. We knew about it, but would have had to waste a day on the bus to get there, so we chose to fly to Nha Trang instead.

From Nha Trang we flew to Da Nang and took a cab 30 minutes to Hoi An. Hoi An has a beautiful UNESCO old city and at night is decorated with colourful lanterns. We felt comfortable enough here to rent motorcycles and tour around the rice paddies and to the beach (it was better than the beach in Nha Trang!).

While lazing on An Bang Beach (near Hoi An) the girls spotted para-sailers being pulled up and down the shore by boats and asked if they could do it. We left the decision up to them if they wanted to use some of their own money. They forked over 350,000 dong (haha, dong, yes, this was an ongoing joke for a month) each ($20 CAD – Uncle Mike birthday money again!) and got suited up. I asked the operator if they needed any instructions, he shook his head. I asked him if they needed to hold on to the arm straps, by this time they were fully strapped in and the workers were straightening the sail, all I got was “move, move”. The next thing we knew they were in the air, sailing away from us. I was a bit panicked and hoped that they were having fun. Molly reported later that her legs felt too loose in the harness so she was scared to death until she shifted a bit and realized it was ok. Grace said to Molly in the air “if I die, bury me with giraffe (the blanket she’s had since birth). So, they definitely had a thrill.

Organic farming is popular around Hoi An and there is a farm co-op area that people can visit to see it in practice. Cooking classes are also offered at many of the farms and we decided to learn to make some of the food we had been enjoying so much. We practiced some of the farming techniques and had a tour of the gardens as well. Team Mom & Grace beat Team Dad & Molly at a trivia test about the gardens just FYI.

Motorcycle travel is number one in Vietnam. Some travellers rent motorbikes and travel the whole country. This was impractical for us with two people per bike and backpacks. But, there was a route that we wanted to experience by motorbike, Hi Van Pass. After spending a day in Da Nang and hitting up an amazing, un-crowded amusement park in the evening we found a company that would rent us bikes for the day and take our bags from Da Nang to Hue (the end point of the day trip).

The trip started out through Da Nang, but we were staying close enough to the outskirts that we avoided heavy traffic and enjoyed the scenery along the coast until we reached the road that wound up the mountain to the pass. Hai Van (AKA Mountain Cloud Pass) is also a political boundary between the north and south as well as sort of a geographical boundary between tropical and sub-tropical. The view on the way up was stunning with green cliffs leading down to white beaches and blue sea. The view at the top was another story…..mountain cloud pretty much sums it up. The clouds were so thick we couldn’t see anything worth noting. It cleared up as we switch backed down the other side. I saw on my MAPS.ME app that there was a spot marked “F*&king Awesome Viewpoint”, the clouds were too thick to enjoy this I’m afraid.

At the bottom, we watched huge waves crash onto the beach in the town of Lang Co as we ate lunch in a literal shack on the beach. Mark ate a whole fish.

The second portion of the trip was not as enjoyable. We did wind our way through gorgeous, green rice paddies and small villages, but we also had to ride on the National Highway for a while and came upon a motorcycle fatality (luckily I was the only one to see it). Riding into Hue was also a challenge. It was starting to get dark so we thought the most direct route to our hotel was best, unfortunately it was also the busiest. We managed to get to our hotel with only one small mishap which resulted in no injuries, but some rattled nerves (ask me about it sometime).

We had one day to look around Hue before flying to Hanoi. The Thien Mu Pagoda, overlooking the Perfume River, is an iconic Hue backdrop and a symbol of the ancient city. We ran into many local students who go there hoping to chat with foreigners to practice their English. They often have set questions to ask and do a video recording to show their teacher. I think we each got interviewed at least twice each during our hour long visit there. We also saw the Austin car which Thich Quang Duc, the infamous burning monk, used to drive himself to the Ho Chi Minh intersection where he burned himself to death.

The next day our flight to Hanoi was only in the afternoon, so gym class was held at the stadium a short walk from our hotel. Walking down the street was a sweaty event so you can imagine what a little exertion does!!

Hanoi was our first taste of cool weather in a looooooong time. We landed to drizzly skies and temps of about 20 degrees. It was perfect for walking around Hanoi old city. Our time in Hanoi was short this time because we were leaving for Catba Island/Halong Bay and then Ha Giang. But we planned for a few days here before leaving Vietnam.

Our home base in Hanoi was a beautiful boutique hotel with the BEST breakfast of anyplace we have stayed in our whole 10 months of travelling. They were also kind enough to keep any luggage we didn’t want/need to take with us to Catba Island and Ha Giang as we were staying there when we returned to Hanoi. It wasn’t expensive and was right in the heart of the Old Quarter.

To get to Catba Island we rode a bus for about 2 hours from Hanoi and then took a 15 minute boat ride to the island. We took a day to explore the island before leaving on a 2 day cruise into Lan Ha and Halong Bay.

From the harbour we cruised on a junk (a type of ancient Chinese sailing ship) first into Lan Ha Bay passing through a floating village. These villages exist throughout the bay and have been there a long time. They make their living fishing and fish/shellfish farming.

As we cruised through the emerald green water we found ourselves surrounded by towering limestone islands covered in rainforests. The islands are too rugged for human to inhabit them. Our boat pulled into a secluded bay and we jumped into the COLD water from the top level of the sailboat (there was less trash here, but the people realize how important tourism is to their economy and therefore have workers who travel around in boats collecting it from the water using nets). After swimming we took kayaks through some caves that brought us into the centre of an island that opened into a huge lagoon.

We transferred from the smaller junk to a larger one for sleeping. This boat took us from Lan Ha Bay into Halong Bay where we spent the night (they are basically the same except two different municipalities are responsible for each with a random line as a boundary). Halong Bay has been extremely marketed and is, therefore, WAY busier. We were glad to be in Lan Ha for most of our two days.

I was worried about getting seasick, but the bay is fairly protected so there wasn’t too much rocking. All meals were included and were really good. There were 10 of us in total on board plus staff. We were lucky to be with 3 pairs of friends from Germany. All the girls were university students taking a break to travel. They were so awesome to our girls and such amazing role models. We’ve kept in touch with all of them and are hoping to see them in Canada soon!!

After Catba Island we made our way to Ha Giang, a province in Northern Vietnam, bordering China. It took us about 6 hours by van from Hanoi. Our mission was to complete the Ha Giang motorcycle loop, which promised mind blowing scenery and adventure.

Ethnic minority groups make up the population of the Ha Giang province. We got to experience something completely different than what we had seen in the rest of Vietnam. Women in colourful clothing carrying impossible bundles of sticks and vegetation in baskets and children playing and working along side them were a common sight. Westerners can’t even fathom the amount of work they do as a community just to survive. This loop is getting more popular but it is basically untouched compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. I don’t think we saw one other western child on the whole trip and I don’t think the people of Ha Giang province have seen many either. Our girls we so often on the receiving end of curious stares that morphed into huge smiles and greetings.

To start out trip we arrived at QT Guesthouse in the early afternoon, which left us plenty of time to get familiar with the bikes (semi-automatic – yikes – I had only driven automatic so far). Mark had read great reviews about the guesthouse and the partner motorcycle rental company. They set us up with a great itinerary and reliable motorcycles for our 5 day trip. We only packed what we would need into 2 small backpacks (there’s not much space on the bike) and left our large ones at the guesthouse.

The March weather in northern Vietnam can be unpredictable. It was pretty chilly when we left our first day. We ended up pulling over after about 20 minutes to put on another layer. Basically, every piece of clothing we brought were on our bodies. As we were leaving, we met a couple who had just finished the route and they gave us their full rain suits. We weren’t sure if we would need them, but thank goodness we did, not for the rain, but just to keep the girls protected from the wind.

Day one we planned to make it a lot further than we did. The cold temps and REALLY foggy, damp weather slowed us down. We got glimpses of some towering limestone peaks but mostly fog. We didn’t want to miss the great scenery, so we stopped after about 60km in Quan Ba, found a guesthouse, and tried to warm up. At this point we were wondering if we would even continue. But, after a bowl of warm Pho Ga, a good sleep and dry clothes, we set out for day two.

Quan Ba to Dong Van was 85km of river valleys, terraced landscapes and small villages. It was so hard not to stop every five minutes to take pictures. I was getting more comfortable on the bike and the weather was better, so enjoying the scenery was much easier. We reached Dong Van in the late afternoon and found a place with a heater in the room!! QT had recommend the Green Karst restaurant so we tried dinner there….and ended up there for breakfast and lunch the next day too. Warm showers and a dry and toasty room (it wasn’t raining, but the air was damp) made us very happy campers.

Early on day three we were up and headed on a side trip to Lung Cu where there is a flag pole that marks the most northern part of Vietnam. It’s a spot that holds a sense of pride for the Vietnamese people and many young people make a pilgrimage here once in their lifetime. From the top of the tower you can see into China. The route to the tower was full of jaw dropping scenery and a few white knuckle moments as we wound our way beside the Chinese border to Lung Cu. We even stopped to dip a toe into China. There’s a spot where you can literally walk into China, sometimes there are guards there, but we got lucky.

After our side trip we rode to Meo Vac where we spent the night. Everything we read said this leg of the trip was the most scenic; it did not disappoint. Mountains towered above us, while rivers flowed far below. It took us hours to ride less than 50km. Wherever we looked the local people were farming every possible piece of usable land. They had cows plowing the soil on a 70 degree sloped mountain side. Absolutely unbelievable.

Meo Vac to Du Gia was Mark’s favorite part of the trip. We wound our way down into a deep valley where families we just planting their crops. The deep red of the freshly plowed earth combined with the bright green of the newly planted crops…..gorgeous. The air warmed as we descended lower into Du Gia and the bright green of rice paddies dotted the landscape. Du Gia Homestay provided us with a night in a traditional local home, a family style meal and great company. We played a game of Catan before dinner and got chatting with a couple from Great Britain (Michael & Steph) who were teaching in Ho Chi Minh City. The girls invited them to play a game and they jumped at the chance. Michael and his thick Scottish accent and wit charmed the girls and provided them with some quotable quotes.

On our last day we completed about 85km back to Ha Giang. 50km of that was a repeat of the first day, BUT this time not in the fog, so it was like seeing it for the first time. For a long stretch we rode along the valley floor with green fields and mountains rising upon either side of us. We had to slow down to cross some streams and to give high fives to the local kids. We arrived back in Ha Giang with sore bums and our memory banks full.

Five days on a motorcycle left us a little tired and ready for warm showers. We made our way back to the Hanoi Garden Boutique Hotel and their comfortable beds. Our beds in northern Vietnam were a crap shoot, but mostly the were really hard. In Hanoi; the beds were heaven!!

We had three days to explore Hanoi before out month in Vietnam was up. We signed up for two free walking tours. The first was a tour of the Old Quarter. Our guide met us at the hotel and took us through all of the main streets in the area. Each one is named after the businesses that were originally set up there. There were streets that specialized in cotton, jewellery, spices etc. All of them have kept their original names even if they don’t have the same commodities on sale (amazingly so still do – the spice street was our favorite). We spent the rest of our time wandering around the city.

Our second tour was, you guessed it, a street food tour. Once again our guide met us at our hotel and took us to 5 different street food locations, each specializing in a different dish. Our least favorite was chicken feet!! an unforgettable night for sure. We ate at places we would have never known existed. One of them was down an ally only big enough for one person at a time, that ended in a tiny alcove with a kitchen set up. Most of what we had was delicious and we didn’t get sick!!

Ho Chi Minh was the president of Vietnam from 1945-1969 and was one of the leaders who saw Vietnam through to it’s independence. The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is in Hanoi and houses his preserved body…..a body that is still intact after 50 years…we had to see it. Apparently so did about 10,000 other people that day (many of whom were school kids who were surprised to see 4 foreigners lining up- we got lots of cheers and “hellos”). We woke up bright and early thinking we would beat the crowds, ha. When we arrived we found ourselves at the end of a 2 km line up. Luckily the place is run with military precision. We were through the line and walking into the tomb within an hour. The guards are really strict no photos in line or inside. We had to stay in a line 2×2, walking at a set pace, no stopping. Inside was freezing, obviously part of the preservation process, and dim. We walked around the glass encased body and out the door on the other side. Kind of creepy, but also interesting to see the devotion of the Vietnamese people to the long dead leader.

There were some other war sites Mark wanted to check out, so we found our way to a B-52 that was shot down and it’s remnants were in a lake in the city. Our walk through the maze of ally ways to get there was more interesting than the plane parts in my opinion.

Hanoi ended up being one of our favorite cities in one of our favorite countries. The people and history of Vietnam are so much more than a war and the movies about it. We only scratched the surface of this diverse country and will have to come back. Cám ơn (thank you) Vietnam for allowing us to discover a whole different side of SEA.