IndoChina - Vietnam - January 2012

This is a continuation of our IndoChina trip and follows on from the Cambodia notes.  We reached the border crossing between Cambodia and Vietnam at the town of Bavet. The crossing into Vietnam was pretty uneventful.  We already had visas so it was just a case of walking from the Cambodian side to the Vietnamese side, getting a stamp in the passport, getting the bags x-rayed and then getting back on the bus.  

We continued on towards Saigon or rather Ho Chi Minh City as the Vietnamese government like you to call it now.  To the locals it is still Saigon.  

We seemed to be going through the built up outskirts of Saigon for a long time - it is certainly a very large city (some 9 million people).  We eventually made it to the bus station where a taxi driver tried to take advantage of our lack of familiarity with the Vietnamese Dong on the ride to the hotel.  Fortunately we got away without being fleeced too much. Tourists are always easy marks and I am always suspicious of those taxi drivers lurking at bus and train stations as we naive and innocent travelers seek help.

Hotel continental, Saigon

We were staying at The Continental which is one of the older hotels in the middle of town.  If anyone read The Quiet American by Graham Greene (or saw the film with Michael Caine), then The Continental is where a lot of the activity took place.  I have had a desire to stay there since seeing the film, and I finally made it.  Alas the hotel is getting a little long in the tooth now, and while not as old as the Raffles in Phnom Penh it hasn’t been kept up quite as well.   Nevertheless a nice hotel in a great part of the city. 

The first thing that is noticed in Saigon is the traffic, some cars, but lots and lots and lots of motorbikes and scooters.  The whole population seems to be on a motorbike, and just like Cambodia not just one or two passengers per bike, the whole family is on there 3,4,5 even 6 people.  And all this traffic just flows along arbitrarily following some kind of traffic rules - more suggestions than rules.   But it all seems to work, when you cross the street you get used to just launching yourself into traffic and walking across and magically the traffic parts and swims around you.   The only rule is - don’t back up or make rapid course changes - the flow of traffic doesn’t expect that and can’t accommodate it.

Saigon Street - Motor Scooters

It was a couple of days before Tet so Saigon was decked out in all its New Year’s splendour.  Lots of flowers, balloons, lights everywhere and signs wishing us Happy New Year - or Chuc Nam Mong Noi as we say in Vietnam.  After dark, the downtown streets were just spectacular - decorated with lights and thronged with people and of course the roads were just overflowing with motor scooters.  The thing to do apparently was to pile the whole family on your motor scooter and then drive laps around the city center - a lot of fun.

Saigon - Tet Decorations

Saigon at night before Tet

We finished the evening off with a drink on the rooftop of the Majestic Hotel - one of the finer older hotels with a great view over the Mekong River.

The next day (Saturday) I set off to see the sites of the city. Nancy had already seen the city so she did the shopping thing - surprisingly there are some very fine shops in this very capitalist looking city in this now not so communist country.  Within the city, there are a few things to see - the Cathedral, the old Post Office, the Government Palace, the War Museum, etc.   I did them all.  The Palace was the site of the capitulation of the South Vietnamese government to the victorious Viet Cong back in 1972.  A tank broke through the fences of the palace, the Vietnamese flag was planted and the rest was history - Vietnam was unified as a Communist State. There were quite a few instructional exhibits that while a bit propagandist in their approach were nevertheless quite helpful in understanding what the Vietnamese have been through (and what those poor young American soldiers of my age/generation must have gone through too).

That night we did more people watching as we walked around.  The venue for drinks was the Rex - a fine modern hotel right in the center of town.

Monks in Saigon City Center

On Sunday, the 22nd January, it was New Year’s Eve, so things were getting ready to be shut down for a while.   Tet can be up to a week’s holiday in some parts and it is the time that most Vietnamese go home to their villages and families.  The morning started for me with a trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels (again Nancy had already done this).   This is a village some 30 km from Saigon where they have preserved some of the tunnel network that the Viet Cong used in their war against the South and the Americans.  

Cu Chi tunnels

During the war there was a very extensive network of tunnels (100’s of miles of tunnels across the entire area outside Saigon).   The VC lived down there and came out to wreak havoc on the enemy.  Now there is a small section where the tunnels have been preserved and it has become a tourist destination.  There are displays of how the VC lived, fought, and how they were victorious against the US with their very simple low tech devices (various man traps with nasty bamboo spikes).  Just to make the trip worthwhile they add in a shooting range where you can sign up to shoot all manner of weaponry - I didn’t do that bit.

I returned to Saigon for our last afternoon in the city before boarding the train for Hanoi.  We wandered around taking in all the flower arrangements for Tet along the main street.  We also took a trip up to the observation deck of the Bitexco Financial Tower. This is a truly impressive building - one that would be appropriate in any modern western city not to mention a ‘Communist’ country like Vietnam.   The views from the top (47th floor out of a total 67 floors) were impressive indeed.

Saigon - Bitexco Financial Tower

That evening we had tickets for the train to Hanoi - for me one of the high points of the trip.  Not so for Nancy who was not impressed by the thoughts of a 32 hour train journey.  We had First Class Soft Sleeper seats - the best you can get - but to be honest it was a bit of a let down - not quite as clean and not quite as soft as we would have liked - actually quite primitive.   They certainly found some very old and well used rolling stock for this trip.   

We had to displace a family who were squatting in our compartment, and then I had to restrain Nancy who was ready to leave and take a flight.  We were joined in our compartment by a nice family traveling home for Tet (they had the top bunks we had the bottom ones) and as night fell we rolled out of Saigon and were on our way north.  At midnight the peace was shattered as they decided to announce the New Year with some extremely loud music over the carriage speaker system.  It went on for ages and ages and ages - repeating the same song interspersed with meaningless (to me) speeches.   I was ready to do some vandalism to the speaker when it finally ceased.

Saigon to Hanoi Train

In the morning our compartment friends left and we had the compartment to ourselves for the rest of the day.   The weather had changed overnight and it was grey and cloudy outside with occasional rain.   Not that inviting and we didn’t get to see a whole lot through the mists.  What we did see looked like it would be quite nice on a good day - lots of hills, lots of rice paddies, all very rural.   We passed through Nha Trang, Qui Nhon, Da Nang, Vinh - all the major towns up the coast, but alas we didn’t see much - just the landscape passing by through our somewhat dirty carriage windows.

Just before dawn of the next day we rolled into Hanoi and the end of our trip.  That was a 36 hour trip - a long time to be on a train.  While I kind of liked it, Nancy was not so enthusiastic.   Next time I might plan a stop in the middle somewhere.

At the station in Hanoi, it was still dark and raining.  We had another experience of a taxi driver trying to take advantage of us on our way to our hotel, The Metropole.  It’s hard to strike a good cheap deal when you are wanting a ride to one of the best hotels in town so I have some sympathies for the taxi driver.

The Metropole was another wonderful old hotel (Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard stayed there on their honeymoon) and even though we were arriving at 6:00 in the morning, they were nice enough to give us a room.  It was great to clean up after the train trip and experience the wonders of the breakfast buffet - the breakfast buffet is one of my favorite things to do in a nice hotel.

Hanoi - Bridge on Hoan Kiem Lake

Later in the day I took in the sites of the city.   There aren’t so many, but I did visit the Lake in the center of town, the Hanoi Hilton Prison, the Cathedral, Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum (alas closed on New  Year’s Day) and I wandered around a lot.  It was nice just to walk around the old parts of town and check out the life on the street.  Since it was New Year’s Day, things were a little quiet.   In Hanoi there did not seem to be so much hustle as in Saigon, and there was more evidence here that the country is a Communist country - things were just that little drabber, less prosperous and more disheveled than Saigon - of course the weather being cooler and greyer didn’t help.

Hanoi Hilton Prison

The next day Ho Chi Minh was open for viewing so we did the mausoleum tour.  Just like Lenin and Mao, poor old Ho is embalmed and exposed for the world to see in his mausoleum.  It was very busy (it’s the thing for all Vietnamese to do) yet quite reverent, the Army guards keep everyone in line and moving around the coffin.  He looked just like his photos but it could have been a wax dummy for all I could tell.  After the mausoleum, we paid a visit to his house and office complex.   He apparently remained a simple man living and working in a modest wooden house by a lake near where his mausoleum is now located.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

I didn’t bother visiting the lake where John McCain parachuted into during the war, but I did see his flight suit which is on display in the Hanoi Hilton prison.  For the remainder of the day we wandered around the streets of the old town. It is quite a nice walking city and there is an interesting mix from people cooking/selling/eating food on the street to chic shops that would not have been out of place in any city in the US.

Hanoi - Street Vendor by Hoan Kiem Lake

On our final day in Hanoi (Thursday), we had pretty much seen all there was to see, so we just did more walking around. We got to know certain bits of the city quite well.   Nancy bought a bootleg North Face back pack - the exact same design as you would get in the USA but with lower quality material and zips, etc.  For about $10 you can’t complain, unless you are North Face.  They even had the North Face label on the product - quite blatant copying.

North Face back packs - very well priced

In the late afternoon we made our way to the airport for the last leg of our trip the flight to Vientiane Laos.

There are more photographs up on Smugmug - the best ones are here and all the photos fit to print are here.