Let the harassment begin OR How we like Vietnam

This is Vietnam in a nutshell: really, really annoying but also beautiful sightseeing and first rate food. Now, for the details.

We flew into Hanoi from Luang Prabang in a prop plane. The flight lasted an hour and yet we were still served beef sandwiches, orange juice, another beverage of our choice and a cake for dessert. So for everyone who wonders what the hell happened to American airline food service, the answer is that it ended up in Southeast Asia.

Hanoi is without a doubt the fashion capitol of Southeast Asia. Every street is clogged with fashionable clothing or shoe stores. We even passed by a section of town that included shops of the Hermes and Burberry caliber. Whereas we were warned by the Lonely Planet guidebooks that we should dress somewhat conservatively in Thailand and Laos, Vietnam is totally the opposite. It would be hard to walk down a street in a Vietnam city and not see one booty called local chick on every block regardless of the time of day.

We had high hopes of seeing Ho Chi Minh's sarcophagus in Hanoi but the first time we went it was mysteriously closed for no apparent reason. The second time we thought to go, we checked the guidebook and realized it was close (it was noon). The third time we tried to go we checked the guidebook it happened to be closed because it was Friday. Oh, well. Who really gives two cracks about Ho Chi Minh anyway? The whole sarcophagus thing was just copying Lenin after all (albeit, against his will).

So we had to be satisfied with seeing the single columned pagoda in the Ho Chi Minh compound. It was a pagoda supported by a single column that ran from its middle to the ground. Wow. Impressive. I'm not even posting a picture of it for fear you'll fall asleep right now.

Next stop, Sapa, a small town in the mountains of northern Vietnam very close to the Chinese border. We got to and from Sapa via overnight train cabin style, because we are rich Western folks. There were 4 to a cabin and we made it there with drama, but not enough to dampen our spirits.

Around Sapa, the hilltribes, or Montagnards as they are also known, are plentiful. You can easily single them out from the mainstream Vietnamese because they are even shorter and are clothed in hand dyed black or deep blue, multi-layered outfits embroidered with red and white thread. The women are bedecked with heavy silver necklaces and large circular earrings. They follow tourists doggedly wherever they walk throughout the town of Sapa and try to get them to buy handicrafts at inflated prices.

On our second day, we decided to go for a trek down the mountains through the valley and back again. Not really being the tour booking type, we set off on our own equipped with a camera, sun protection, water and a snack. It was amazingly windy and at some points we had to stand still on the side of the mountain and brace ourselves against the wind.

Foolishly, I let Amir choose the path of our descent and he immediately opted for the scantiest trail available that led straight down the face of the mountain at a steep angle. If I wasn't ready to kill him, I would have been laughing at the sight of myself on all fours at some points trying to prevent myself from slipping all the way down to the valley in one go.

We made it to a more well traveled trail which I immediately dubbed the Hmong Superhighway after passing three or four Hmong hill tribesmen and women no more than 5 minutes into finding it. It led us down to the river at which point we stopped, cooled our feet, lost Amir's socks to a gail, and set off again back up the Hmong Superhighway through the valley, past a hill tribe town called Cat Cat and back to the town of Sapa. It was awesome!

Within hours of arriving back in Hanoi from Sapa, we hopped on a minibus which took us to the dock of Halong Bay where we jumped on a junk (boat) for an organized tour (the first and the last). In a few short words, Halong Bay is east of Hanoi on the South China Sea. It is sprinkled with 1,996 islands (yes, I remembered the exact number) that are really tall, shrubbery covered rock formations of varying sizes and shapes.

The highlight was kayaking after a few drinks amidst some islands and a fishing village, which was a bunch of wooden floating houses that were actually inhabited by fisher-people. The next day (it was a two day tour) we sailed back a different way amidst kilometer after kilometer of floating trash. Obviously they save the best for the last. Amir got into an altercation with the boat captain over bringing liquor on board and refusing to pay the "bottle fee". I would have got into the altercation if he didn't because the bottle fee was one of those "surprises" that the Vietnamese love to spring on you after it's too late to do anything about it.

The evening we arrived back in Hanoi after Halong Bay, we hopped onto an overnight bus to Hue and proceeded to spend a miserable night being tosses back and forth over bumpy roads while listening to the driver lay on his horn for most of the night. Hue is the old Imperial City of Vietnam. The highlight was visiting the Forbidden City which was originally constructed by the Chinese sometime around the 1820s. Many of the buildings were rebuilt after being destroyed in the Indochina (Vietnam) War and many of them were still in ruins. But the stuff that was standing was great, although slightly decrepit, in contrast with the carefully maintained Buddhist temples of Thailand and Laos.

After a few days in Hue, during which we largely relaxed and recouped from our whirlwind Sapa and Halong Bay trips, we took a day bus to Hoi An, which is a sort of beach town south of Hue (which is Central Vietnam). I say it's a sort of beach town because it is a beach destination for some but it isn't actually on the beach but rather about 5km from it. We never made it to the beach because we both came down with different illnesses (montabuddhas revenge and the common cold) at the same time and spent 2 1/2 days straight in bed.

Let me interject here that at every single place we have been in Vietnam so far, we have been shouted at by the local vendors to "Buy from me!!!" (The exclamation points are not exaggerated, either.) The phrasing changes slightly depending on what they want from you but the message is the same. We've had some time to reflect on it all and have come up with a made up theory in which each hawker wants access to our Vietnam War Retribution Fund Bank Account. So when they are saying, "Buy from me!!!", what they mean is, "I'd like to make a deposit from the Vietnam War Retribution Fund Bank Account please and in exchange I will give you this bracelet that is worth approximately one tenth of my withdrawal, a.k.a. your deposit."

We felt well enough finally to hop the overnight bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang, a true beach town, where we spent a few days burning ourselves to a crisp. Nha Trang has a beautiful, long stretch of beach that is dotted with palapas that you can rent for a mere 30,000 Dong per person per day. We figured this out on the second day, being too cheap to rent them the first day when we got fried.

Sunscreen, you ask? Well, our sunscreen supply had gotten very low so we only had enough for faces basically. We went to buy another bottle but it was like $10US and we figured we would be better off spending that on drinks or a nice dinner and instead staying in the shade. There was a nice cluster of palm trees we lay under for several hours, staying in the shade for all but 30 minutes of water time, at the most. Somehow, the shade must have been dotted with sunshine because we both roasted. Amir's shoulders looked almost purple they were so burned and my bottom lip got all swollen and started to crust over. Gross, right? Hence, the palapas the next day. We even splurged for a mini container of sunscreen to get us by until we can find cheaper larger bottles.

The big tourist attraction in Nha Trang is a gigantic Buddha sitting perched atop a 25m hill at the outskirts of town. I dragged Amir to see it and then we gave up on all further touristic proclivities.

Today we hopped another bus from Nha Trang to Dalat, a smaller town in the hills of South Central Vietnam. This is where all Vietnamese wine originates from. Amir maintains that it tastes of feet, but I find the white wine palatable, at least. The town wasn't quite cool enough to keep us more than an afternoon and evening so we hop another bus to Saigon (a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City) tomorrow morning. The highlight of Dalat was by far the karaoke bar we found and entertained ourselves in for 1 1/2 hours singing Queen, U2, Bangles and Journey classics, among others. We had to make a bit of a run for it when we had a disagreement about the agreed upon price compared to the actual bill, but all's well that ends well.

We'll let you know about Saigon, but right now I'm really getting excited to leave Vietnam just to get away from the constant harassment. to remind you...yhe words "buy from me" are never far away. Amir is excited to spend St. Patty's in Saigon, though, so we won't be leaving for Phnom Penh until the day after. More to come but at least now we're caught up...finally!