Southeast Asia Don has been able to extract some time from his tour to give us an update on his current adventures.
After Hanoi, there was an overnight cruise on a junk boat through the other-worldly landscape of Halong Bay. Peppered with hundreds of islands, the earth seems to rise suddenly from the water. Dramatic, but I’m not sure I needed an overnight experience, except to witness the sunset on the landscape and I guess the sunrise – which I missed because I slept through it. There were about as many tourist boats as there were islands, but they kept their distance from one another.
On our return to Hanoi, we were plunged into more tours (and temples) before boarding an overnight train to Hue. The 14-hour overnight train ride tested everyone’s patience since it was the second night in a row that we didn’t have access to our luggage (we were only allowed an overnight bag) as well as no access to a shower. The ladies were grateful at least that there was an option to squat toilets on the train. But everyone had to share four-person sleeping/berth compartments. It was unpleasant, but everyone made the best of it.
It was especially hard, since on arrival in the morning, we were immediately expected to tour more temples and other historic sites. The most important one was the Imperial Palace of this once-capital of Vietnam (before the French arrived). It is a vast complex that was heavily damaged during the “American War,” but is now being slowly restored.
After Hue, it was on to Hoi An. This is a former trading center town that now centers on being a beach town. The old section of the town, called the Ancient City, is where all the merchants of various nationalities clustered next to the river that carried their goods in and out throughout Southeast Asia and beyond.
Now, it’s repurposed as a tourist center with lots of “boutique” hotels, restaurants, tailor shops and T-shirt shops in the renovated shops. The most interesting part was looking at the architecture of the various buildings to see the influences of the original builders. Chinese over there; some Portugese here; British in another location; Japanese somewhere else — all within a maze of twisting and turning narrow streets. The rest of the town is a classic beach town. You could be fooled into thinking you’d been plopped down in any spot in the Carribean. The same drinks, same lounge chairs and umbrellas, same hawkers selling shell jewelry and other trinkets . . . Well, you get the idea.
