Three days is not enough time for such a great country
Wednesday February 11th. We arrived at
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), also called Saigon, which is not the capital but is
the largest city in Vietnam and is located in the South. I was going to stay a very
short time in there so I tried to make the most of it. We had to wait longer
before debarking the ship because apparently the people going to Cambodia were
not supposed to travel independently in Vietnam because they needed our
passports to help us get the Cambodian visas; but we managed to get our
passports on time. With Vladislav, a friend from Switzerland, we left the ship
and started walking around the city. We went to a market called Trang Market where
we bought some shirts and elephant pants. And then we went to a café and drank
Guava juice, which was green (I had never seen green guava juice before, it is
always pink in Colombia) and was good but of course nothing can compare to our
juice back home.
The weather was really hot and it was a sunny
day. Wandering around was very nice, and crossing the streets was an adventure,
although it was not nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. Sometimes there
were no pedestrian crossings, or streetlights, but it was always possible to
cross the street. Five million motorcycles in only HCMC! Every time we crossed I
felt that no one had any intention of hitting us, in contrast with Shanghai. In
Shanghai it was extremely scary to cross the streets. Cars would cross on red
lights, as well as motorcycles and bikes, and they would not stop even if pedestrians
were very close to them. HCMC was totally different. Motorcycles always
slightly slowed down, and passed behind us or far in front of us. I felt safe. One
absolutely crazy thing were the roundabouts! Motorcycles and a couple of cars
coming in and out from every street and somehow everything worked out perfectly.
They all slow down and manage to get in, even the cars. Honking the horn is
very common too but it is a way of telling others that they are crossing, or
changing lines. It seemed like the ones that are in the front are able to do
whatever they want to, while the ones that are in the back are the ones that
have to be ready to slow down and move if another motorcycle cuts them off. But
I was really impressed how everything works out and is not extremely hard to
walk around.
We took a cab to the airport. The ride was
supposed to be 20 minutes long but ended up being 40 minutes long. Luckily we
had enough time. When we got to the airport, we were looking for the line we
had to be in and a guy called us and told us to go to a shorter line, and while
standing there another guy told us to go to an even shorter line, so we ended
up in a three people line to do the check in. They were very helpful and nice,
and I think it was just because we were tourists. Because of the Lunar
(Chinese) New Year, Têt, was coming, a lot of people were traveling. When we
got to the gate I ate some fresh spring rolls with herbs and a strange
peanut/soy sauce, which were good. The flight was a little delayed but we
finally made it to Hanoi, the capital, that night.
Unfortunately we did not have time to visit
Hanoi. The night we arrived, someone from the Hanoi Backpackers Hostel we were
going to stay at was waiting for us, and even though he did not speak English
he was very nice. The hotel was far away, and on our way there the driver was
in the wrong (left) side of the road for about 10 minutes, since no one was
coming from the other side there was no problem, until he finally made a left
turn. The hostel is located in downtown and there was a lot of nightlife going
on; locals and tourists sitting outside eating and drinking. Our hostel was big
and packed with backpackers from all around the world. The weather was much
colder than in HCMC, it was around 20ºC.
We had booked a tour to Ha Long Bay through the
hostel and the next day we ate breakfast at the hotel and were ready to leave
by 7am, along with 60 more people. There were nine more SASers. We rode a bus
for two and a half hours to Hai Phong, then we took a ferry to Cat Ba Island. On
the island we took a bus that took us to the other side of the island and there
we took another ferry to go to the hostel’s private island, Castaways Island. From
Cat Ba we could see the water was not very clean but very brown, eventually it
got dark greenish, which is the color that gives Ha Long Bay its essence. The
island is manmade, is a huge beautiful rock and the hostel consists of ten
bungalows.
We had lunch at the hostel and then took the
cruise around Ha Long Bay. The boat took us around the whole bay for almost
three hours. We saw the floating villages where all the houses are connected. Many
of them have dogs, and some have boats. I know there are also several boats
that visit some villages and some tours spend the night at the boat or at a
village. The whole time the view was spectacular. The villages are very
colorful, the huge rocks looked ke they were floating, the green water, the sunset,
everything was gorgeous. Around 5pm the boat stopped and we had the opportunity
to jump off the boat into the water. We jumped from the second floor, which was
probably five meters high. What an awesome experience. The weather was cold,
and the water was very cold too. When I got to the water it felt a little
different, it felt like the water was very salty. I immediately climbed the
ladder to get to the boat again and went to the second floor to jump once more.
By that time, the sun was hiding before the rocks and the view was very
beautiful. 
We went back to the island, had dinner, took a
shower and talked for a long time. It was cold, but we sat down in the sand,
next to the water, and enjoyed the extremely dark and calm night. The place had
loud music all night long until I do not know what time. Most of the people
that were there were from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and such. Most of
them travel to Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, and some make it to Malaysia and/or
Indonesia. It is common that they rent bikes or motorcycles and go all the way
through Vietnam.
The next morning I woke up by 6. Very few
people were awake and it was very tranquil. When Vlad woke up we went kayaking
for a while. Amazing view as usual, but, unfortunately, it was sad to see some
trash in the water. Because our flight back to HCMC was at 2pm, we had to cut
our trip short and go to the airport on our own. First we had to take a speed
boat to Cat Ba Island. We had been told we would have to pay for it, but
exactly at the time we needed to catch the boat, a boat bringing food to the
hostel arrived so they took us back for free. At the island, we took a
motorcycle that costs 1,000 Vietnamese Dong (about $0.05USD). The ride was very
interesting.
They gave us hamlets right away. I could tell that the driver was
very careful and probably more careful with me for being a woman. We had to go
uphill and downhill, but he was not going fast. At the hotel we took a bus to go
to the other side of the island and then took a boat to Hai Phong. On that
ride, we did not know how much it was and when he told us what we thought was
150,000 Dong per person, we paid him with Dong and USD. He came back two
minutes later and gave us our money back, without speaking any English he
apparently was telling us not to worry about paying for the ride. We finally
took a cab to the airport and we arrived ahead of time. Cabs in Vietnam are
usually nice big cars, and they use taximeter so we did not have to worry about
negotiating the fare beforehand. The only worry was to explain accurately where
we wanted to go.
We made it safely back to HCMC in the afternoon
and we took a cab straight back to the market. There were a lot of SAS people
so we met with some girls and went to have dinner. We went looking for a good
restaurant recommended by lonely planet guides and SAS and we found it on the
way to the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a huge restaurant and on the sides
people were cooking all
I was there for only three days but I enjoyed a
lot. Back on the ship I listened to other people’s experiences and everyone had
a great time there. It has been the favorite country for a lot of students and
had I spent couple more days there it would have been my favorite too. I want to
go back, rent a bike and go everywhere, including the Mekong Delta, Hoi An, Nha
Trang, and much more. Even though it is not the cleanest country, most people
would have a great time in this country and I highly recommend it.
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