Hoi An - Vietnam's Most Atmospheric Town

Nov 29-Dec 2, 2013: It took quite a while for the bus to leave Hue, as there were more passengers than seats, but eventually it got sorted out! It took 4 hours to do the 139km to Hoi An at the usual average of 40km per hour!

Hoi An translates as 'peaceful meeting place', and used to be one of Southeast Asia's major international ports thriving from the trades. Luckily the river silted up in the late 19th century, so no ships can dock here anymore. Otherwise, it would have been a totally different place today.

We stayed 4km outside of town close to the beach, but unfortunately the weather wasn't with us, so we didn't go for a swim.

The Vietnamese basket boats were, for many years, the most common fishing boats, even though they seem too small to fare the waters.

They are circular and light, which make them convenient to move to and from the water. The frame is made from bamboo, and then it is slathered in water buffalo dung. Yes, you read right: they boat is covered in poop. Once it has dried, two layers of waterproof chemicals are added keeping the manure in, and the bamboo dry. A well-made basket boat can last up to a decade. A figure eight rowing motion moves the boat forward.

We rented bicycles at the Homestay, and biked into Hoi An. 

By Unesco decree, more than 800 historical buildings have been preserved, so most of the Old Town looks as it did several centuries ago. There are Japanese merchant houses, Chinese temples and ancient tea warehouses.

When we were volunteering in France, our host, Kiet, asked if we would deliver some photos and a letter to two aunts, who were living in Hoi An. Kiet and Sandra visited them 5 years ago when Dalai was a baby, but they didn't know if the ladies were still alive or living there. So we went on a mission to find the house, which we had a picture of for guidance.

Mission accomplished. 

The ladies were alive and well, very surprised to receive the letter and photos, and couldn't stop laughing.

Their house was close to the Japanese Bridge, which was first constructed in 1590 to link the Japanese community with the Chinese quarters across the stream.

There is a small temple on the bridge, and according to the legend, there once lived an enormous monster called Cu, which had its head in India, its tail in Japan and its body in Vietnam. Whenever the monster moved, terrible disasters befell Vietnam. The bridge was built on the monster's weakest point and killed it, but the poeple of Hoi An took pity and built this temple to pray for its soul.

There are houndreds of tailors, and they all seem to be doing well.

 

You can also buy fowl art - made of fowl feathers....

bamboo root art...

or have a massage by a blind person whom often has a greater awareness of feeling and touch. We did, and it was the best massage we had ever had.

We did a nice bike ride along the river out of town to a small fishing village.

There was also time to relax.... for $0.25 a glass.....

Our host at the Homestay offered to cook a meal for us the last night we stayed there, and that was a real treat.

We really enjoyed Hoi An. It was an easygoing town, and there was hardly any traffic or polution. Now, on to the coastal town of Mui Ne.

Hue - The Former Capital of Vietnam

Nov 27-29, 2013: In 1802 Emperor Gia Long founded the Nguyen dynasty, moved the capital from Hanoi to Hue, trying to unite northern and southern Vietnam, and started building the Citadel.

One of the beautiful gates into the Citadel.

The Citadel was closing when we got there, and the following day it was pouring down rain, so we never got a chance to see it.

We visited the War Museum to learn more about how the Vietnamese portrayed the war, and it was interesting.

As we already knew, the Vietnamese people are very resourceful: They used parts of a plane to make this operating table.

It was a happy time when families were re-united when the war ended in 1975.

Time for a coffee and to rest the brain and the legs - all patio chairs and tables were children-size for us...

We met a British couple and two Danish girls, all of whom we spent time with in Kopan Monastery in Nepal - it is a small world after all!

The Vinh Moc Tunnels

On the way to Hue with the Phong Nha Farmstay bus, we stopped in Vinh Moc village to see the Tunnels, which during the Vietnam War was strategically located on the border of North and South Vietnam. Vinh Moc is the remains of a costal North Vietnamese village that literally went underground due to heavy American bombings (9,000 tonnes of bombs were dropped).

The villagers didn't want to lose their land or leave the area, and the Viet Cong found it useful to have a base here, so they encouraged the villagers to stay. After 18 months of tunnelling, an enormous complex was established, creating new homes on three levels from 12m to 23m below ground. More than 90 families disappeared into the tunnels, and 17 children were born there during the six years the villagers lived in the tunnels.

They also dug 21km of trenches, so they could get to and from their rice and vegetable fields to get food as well as transport war materials.

Their longest sojourn lasted 10 days and 10 nights.

The tunnels were a success and no villagers lost their lives. The only direct hit was from a bomb that failed to explode; the resulting hole was utilized as a ventilation shaft. The Vietnamese are resourceful people.

The Things You Do For A Cold Beer

Ben, our host at the Phong Nha Farmstay is very entrepreneurial, so he has joined forces with the only place in the area which sells cold beer, and freshly slaughtered chicken for lunch. It just wasn't easy to get to!

We jumped on the back of the motorbikes, and went up a muddy track to the river.

We then had to cross the river, waist deep in water, brrrhhhh....

pick the chicken we wanted for lunch...

and have cold beer(s) while we waited for the chicken to be cooked!

It was an enjoyable afternoon, then across the river again!

The Ho Chi Minh Trail Challenge

From war zone to a tourist destination. Phong Nha is lying just 100km away from the former Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and was once one of the fiercest battlegrounds in the country. In 1972 life was counted by hours! 

The Ho Chi Minh Trail was used by the North Vietnamese as a route for its troops to get into the South. They also used the trail as a supply route – for weapons, food and equipment. The Ho Chin Minh Trail ran along the Laos/Cambodia and Vietnam borders and was dominated by jungle. In total the ‘trail’ was about 1,000 kilometres in length and consisted of many parts.

 

The ‘trail’ consisted of dummy routes that served the only purpose of confusing the Americans, but was, in places, 80 kilometres (50 miles) wide. It is thought that up to 40,000 people were used to keep the route open. The natural environment gave the trail excellent cover as the jungle could provide as much as three canopies of tree cover, which disguised what was going on at ground level. 

The American response to this was to use defoliants – the most famous being Agent Orange – to kill off the greenery that gave cover to those using the trail. However, while large areas of jungle were effectively killed off, the task was too great and the Ho Chi Minh Trail was used for the duration of the war against the Americans in South Vietnam.

 

One way for the Americans to counter the Ho Chi Minh Trail was to build large bases near to it. From these large bases, patrols were sent out in an effort to intercept anyone using the route. Regardless of this, it does seem that the task was simply too great for the Americans. Whereas the trail was based on deception and fluidity, the military bases built by the US were static. Therefore, once patrols left these bases, they were by themselves. While they could be supported by air, there would always be a time delay between combat on the ground and the arrival of air support. By the very nature of guerrilla warfare, this gave the North Vietnamese the advantage as they had the ability to disappear into the jungle.  

We walked, or rather climbed and crawled, 11km (return) of this very challenging trail.

It was raining all day and the trail was very muddy, so it certainly was a challenge.

We swam 200m into a cave in our hiking clothes and shoes.  It was really cool to watch with our headlamps on, the bats inside the cave, swooping down to catch the bugs, hovering just above the water surface. We were very wet for the rest of the hike back to the road. We could not bring our backpacks with dry clothes, because we were required to wear our life jackets.  To add insult to injury it also rained a bit on the way back. This also made the hike very challenging, especially crawling thought dormer shelters, as the life jacket got caught - another interesting experience!

We tried to dry out a little while we had lunch, but it was still raining, and there was no shelter.

We were very wet and tired when we finally hit a warm shower, and we now fully understand how difficult this most have been during the war. Respect!

The Final Flight...

... the flight home, has been booked! And it made me sad. When I pushed the 'Confirm payment' button, I realized I had held my breath, and the world froze for a few seconds. Oh, no!

Of course, I knew the day would come soon, it just came sooner than expected! We could not get our boarding passes to the flight from Sydney to Auckland without having a confirmed flight out of New Zealand within the next three months, so it had to be done. Andy was on the computer next to me, so we could coordinate the bookings.

March 4th it is, but you can only whisper it, as I don't want it to know! Until then, we are going to have a blast here in New Zealand.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park

The flight from Hanoi to Dong Hoi took just over an hour. Even though the distance is just over 500km, it would have taken us 10-12 hours by bus or train.  We were told that in Vietnam, the average speed by bus or train is about 40km per hour. The train trip would have cost almost the same as the flight, and the bus would have been much cheaper, but we just didnt feel like going on a sleeper bus, and wasting all that time.

The driver from Phong Nha Farmstay (PNF) met us at the airport, and took us the 35km to Cu Nam village. The Farmstay overlooks an ocean of rice paddies, run by a very nice Australian-Vietnamese couple, and a great base for activities in the park.

We walked around the village, and thoroughly enjoyed not being asked to buy anything; a very welcome change. A couple of children came running and showed us some crabs they had caught, and people shouted 'Hello' as we walked by. Rural Vietnam is great.

THE PARK

The park was designated a Unesco World Heritage site in 2003, and contains the oldest karst mountains in Asia, formed around 400 million years ago. There are 300 caves and grottos with a total length of about 70 km, of which only 20 have been surveyed by Vietnamese and British speleologists. In 2009, a team redisovered the largest cave in the world, Son Doong. It had been originally discovered in 1990 by a Vietnamese man named Ho Khanh, who stumbled on the cave , while looking in the jungle, for the rare and valuable wood of the Aloe tree. By law, the cave allows only 84 tourists a year. The price for a 6 day trip into the cave is a whopping $3,000, so totally out of our league! It is huge, it is over a kilometre from one side to the other, and can easily fit in several NFL size stadiums.

PARADISE CAVE

But the Paradise Cave was in our league! We were the only people going on the trip (luxury), and we agreed to do the 40km to and from the cave on the back of motorbikes. It was a fun experience. 

It was a bit Jurassic Park (without the dinosaurs), to go on the golf cart to the cave entrance at the base of the mountain.

This cave only opened to the public in 2011, and it extends for 31.4km. It is said to be the longest dry cave in the world. The cave is really breathtaking,with its cathedral-like space full of colossal stalagmites.

And glimmering stalactites of white crystal resembling ice sickles. 

When we reached the end of official part of the cave, our two guides gave us headlamps, and we went through the gate into the darkness leaving all the tourists behind. A couple of them wanted to join us, but they had not paid for this part of the trip! It was amazing walking another 3km into the cave being shown all sorts of amazing formations. 

Cave man......?

We then sat down for lunch, carried into the cave by one of the guides. The chicken, spinach, and rice were still warm. At some point, we were told to turn off our headlamps and keep walking; the darkness was claustrophobic, and we totally lost sense of direction, but what an experience. Due to heavy rain the river in the cave was too high, so we could unfortunately not do the boat ride another 3km into the cave on the river, so we headed out again.

It was the most amazing cave we have ever seen. We also realized that we had the inner portion of the cave totally to ourselves. This is very rare according to our farmstay hosts, as usually there are many tour groups, with lots of flashlights, in the inner portion of the cave. Lucky us!