Mui Ne - Beach Time.

Dec 4-7, 2013: We took the bus for five hours from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Mui Ne. Even though is was a daytime journey, we were in a sleeper bus. It is a little bit cramped on the sides, but being able to stretch out your legs more than makes up fot it!

Mui Ne has 15,000 inhabitants, used to be an isolated stretch of sand, and is now a string of resorts. They are mercifully low-rise, and set in pretty gardens by the sea.

We stayed at the Mui Ne Backpackers right on the beach, and fell asleep and woke up to the sounds of the waves - bliss. The ocean was peaceful in the morning, so the perfect time to go swimming. Around noon the wind picked up, and all the kite surfers came out .

We biked to the original fishing village at the north end of the beach.

and along the narrow streets among the fishermen's homes to the park at the end of the peninsula.

In the evening all the food vendors opened their on-the-sidewalk-restaurants, and you could have BBQ crocodile....

and various types of seafood.

The Vietnamese people have a great sense of humour. The majority of the tourists were from Russia, thus the sign in Russian.

After all the rainy weather in northern Vietnam, it was wonderful with three days of sunshine.

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!