February 23, 2005

Vietnam

For those who don’t know anything about the geography of Vietnam (and I didn’t until I started researching this trip) here is a map with the main towns shown.

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The country is very long and narrow, and stretches from just south of the Tropic of Cancer in the north to 9° north of the Equator in the south. This means that the climate varies quite considerably from north to south.

We had been told that Vietnam is still not suitable for independent tourism, and it is impossible to hire a car to drive yourself, so we opted for the luxurious alternative of a fully escorted tour, booked through Trailfinders. This gave us the exclusive use of a vehicle, driver and English speaking guide for the whole of our trip. Our journey started in Hanoi, in the north, which was a three and a half hour flight from Singapore. On arrival at the airport (not as smooth and efficient as Singapore, but not bad) we were met by our guide, Ha, a young man in his mid twenties with excellent, though heavily accented, English. Our transport for the three days in North Vietnam was a smart saloon car driven by a slightly older man with an unpronounceable name which included ‘zoom’ – very appropriate. The 45 minute journey from the airport to our hotel introduced us to the amazing experience that is Vietnamese road travel.

In Melbourne, Sue’s husband Bob had given us some advice about riding in a taxi in Vietnam. He told us to buy a newspaper before boarding, no matter whether it was English or Vietnamese. Then to sit in the back with the newspaper held firmly in front of our eyes so that we couldn’t see what was going on on the road. This was probably good advice, but since we’ve come all this way to take in the sights, we decided to tough it out.

The roads in and around Hanoi are absolute chaos! Although they technically drive on the right, many drivers seem to ignore this. There are far fewer cars than we are used to in a city, but there are millions of mopeds and scooters (two million in Hanoi – a city of four million inhabitants, and three million in Saigon), which have taken over from the bicycle as the preferred means of transport. They are used to transport everything! It is not unusual to see a family of three, or even four, on one moped. Every sort of cargo is carried. We have seen long lengths of guttering, ladders, crates of beer (five crates of 24 bottles on one scooter), piles of vegetables and live pigs – two on one moped! These motorbikes weave in and out of the traffic, with an apparent disregard for personal safety. Crash helmets are rare, and babies and children are carried without child seats in most cases. Young women wear full face masks, rather like yashmaks, and long gloves to protect their skin from the sun – pale skin is considered most beautiful in a woman.

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In the city mopeds and scooters are parked on every inch of the pavement. There seem to be bike parks overseen by ‘officials’ who charge a small fee to mind the bike for the day. In this photo the woman in the yellow baseball cap is responsible for this bike park (simply a stretch of pavement) and arguing with a customer about the proper place to leave his bike.

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We were told that the Honda moped is the most fashionable and desirable, and in fact the generic term for moped here is ‘Honda’. A new Honda costs around US$5,000 (about £2,750). This represents a considerable investment, as according to Mercer’s 2004 Total Remuneration Survey, “The annual base pay for fresh graduates in Business Administration is at an average of US$2,476, while IT graduates can expect to receive an average salary base of US$2,801”. Since most of the population is engaged in agriculture, the actual average income is nearer US$500 per annum. Chinese made mopeds can be bought for $500, but are considerably inferior. There is apparently a roaring trade in stickers and decals to decorate a cheap Chinese moped to make it look like a Honda!

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Crossing the road on foot is a test of nerve, as there are few traffic lights or zebra crossings and anyway both are ignored – the phrase ‘give way’ seems to have no meaning here. The best way to cross is to walk steadily and purposefully across and hope that everyone avoids you. In addition to the cars and motorbikes, there are some lorries and a fair number of bicycles and handcarts – again used to carry goods in huge quantities. In the rural areas we have driven through you can add bullocks and oxen into the mix for good measure. To cap it all, everyone uses their horn ALL THE TIME to warn others of their presence, so the noise is tremendous! Very thrilling, but quite exhausting too. The constant noise of hooters is punctuated by the ringing of mobile phones – and the moped drivers frequently take and make calls while on the move.

We are having to get used to being seen as very wealthy (and by Vietnamese standards, of course, we are). The tour operator has booked us in to only the really classiest hotels, and the service and room quality has been impeccable. The level of staffing is very high, and there is constant bustle to ensure that our every need is met. We are not used to being in the very best hotel in every city, but that seems to be what has happened here. Our hotel in Hanoi was the Sofitel Metropole, which has a very French influence. Outside the hotel the bicycle taxis queued up for our custom (we didn’t use any), and there was a certain amount of pestering by hawkers as we walked around the city, but not too troublesome.

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(We didn’t take one of these cyclo taxis, and this couple look as though they wish they hadn’t!)

The contrast between our hotel, and therefore lifestyle, and the lives of the residents of Hanoi is very marked. Westernisation has been slow to make its mark here, and this is particularly apparent in the approach to retail. Many traders sell their wares directly on the pavement, carrying it there in two baskets slung on a kind of yoke.

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Shops are tiny, with the shopkeeper living above the shop. We were told that property owners in Hanoi are taxed on the width of their property – hence you have buildings only 2 – 3 metres wide but very deep and built of three or four storeys. The construction is of brick with cement render, and the fronts are very ornately decorated, while the sides and rear remain plain grey concrete. They don’t put windows in the side of the building, as the next door owner might build alongside and cover your windows. Apparently mortgages for home ownership are unknown, so children live with their parents until they can afford to pay up front for a house. Ha explained that his family had lived in the same house for 14 generations, and that he would inherit it, being the only son. (He also mentioned that, being the only son, he was excused from the usual two years military service.)

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On our second day we were driven from Hanoi to Halong Bay. This drive took about three hours, and we passed many paddy fields. In the Hanoi area this is the time of year for planting rice, and the fields were full of women in conical hats planting the rice seedlings. We were told that the women tend the fields while their husbands go into the city to seek work as day labourers. Some fields were being tilled – this time by men – usually by plough drawn by ox, bullock or water buffalo. Occasionally we saw a motorised plough, but these were very rare. This was such a medieval scene, it was strange to be driving by in an air-conditioned car, discussing the DVD screen on the dashboard which the driver had purchased for US$70.

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We also drove through a large area where open cast coal mining is carried out. The air was thick with coal dust, and the little towns were filthy. Ha explained that the Vietnamese do not have the technology to mine coal, so only open cast mining is used.

Although the local currency is Vietnamese dong, most traders prefer US$, and in the hotels and tourist areas the prices are only quoted in dollars. On our way to Halong Bay we stopped at a tourist trap – an area selling handicrafts, pottery and lacquer ware. This was an enterprising complex, with café and western ‘restrooms’, run to provide employment for disabled people. I was saddened to see that most of the workers were very young, most with lower limb disabilities, and many with poor prosthetic legs. Land mines are still a real problem in this area, and, in addition, many children have been born with severe birth defects as a result of the widespread use of Agent Orange (dioxin) by the US forces during the war.

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The ‘American war’ is ever present here. Although our guides are totally professional and very discreet, so do not pass comment, most descriptions of places tell us how things were before the Americans bombed the hell out of the place. We were shocked, therefore, to see a party of US tourists with their bags ostentatiously labelled ‘Battle Tours’. Apparently there is a fairly thriving tourist business bringing US veterans and their families back to see the sights of their military career. This seems intensely insensitive, given that there are many Vietnamese here who remember the war first hand and are living with its aftermath.

Halong Bay is a vast sea area full of thousands of tiny limestone islands, the peaks of submerged mountains. These rise sheerly out of the sea, and the area is very beautiful. We were taken on a boat trip around the islands. The boat was crewed by three people and could easily have seated thirty to forty passengers – and there were four tourists aboard. Ha explained that we should have gone on a slightly smaller boat, but he teamed up with a fellow guide and his two clients (a young Australian couple) so that we could have a more comfortable boat with an upper deck. A delicious seafood lunch was cooked and served on board, and we disembarked from the boat to view some spectacular limestone caves, with stalagmites and stalactites. Unfortunately the weather was very hazy that day, so although Halong Bay was atmospheric, with its floating fisherman’s villages and traditional boats, it wasn’t as beautiful as pictures we had seen.

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That night we stayed in Haiphong, again in a splendid hotel. Haiphong itself is not a pretty city – very industrial and very polluted. Ha warned us not to stray far from the hotel, as ‘Haiphong not like Hanoi’. Whether or not this warning was necessary we don’t know, as we stayed in the hotel for the evening.

Next day we returned to Hanoi, back to the first hotel, and were taken to visit a number of temples and a museum. After a while one temple blends into the next, and my grasp on the different religions – Buddhism, Confucianism and ancestor worship – is a bit sketchy! However, we were still interested to see the local people and to walk through a local market. We were also treated to a show of Vietnamese water puppetry. The puppeteers stand thigh deep in water, and operate the puppets with their feet. These puppets ‘dance on water’ and depict traditional folk tales and scenes of rural life, all accompanied by traditional Vietnamese singing and music. It was a bizarre theatrical experience, not improved by the style of singing which, to our ears, seems to strip the enamel from your teeth!

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(The musicians accompanying the water puppets.)

Each day on our tour we have been provided with lunch in a restaurant. This has been local food, which tends to come in a series of small dishes, one after the other. Each time we have been furnished with a menu in English, so that we have known what we were eating. Typically they serve soup to start, followed by two or three meat courses, noodles, rice and vegetables, but very little is served at the same time as we might expect in a Chinese meal. The flavours are subtle, somewhat like Thai food, and everything we have been served has been completely fresh and mostly delicious. While in Hanoi, Ha and our driver procured an additional treat for us, which was not on the menu – dog! The driver went to a dog restaurant and bought some meat, which was cooked and presented to us along with the rest of our lunch. The meat had been marinaded in spices and garlic, and was probably barbequed in some way. It was rather tough, but quite tasty, and we suffered no after effects. I don’t think I’d eat it again, however! Ha explained that it is considered lucky to eat dog in the second half of the lunar month, and that drivers in particular would eat the meat to ensure safety on the road. (Given the state of their roads, they need all the help they can get!)

After Hanoi we flew to Hué in central Vietnam, where we were met by a new driver and another guide, this time a woman in her early thirties called Yen (pronounced Ian). Again her English is excellent, and slightly more colloquial than Ha’s. Our vehicle this time was a Ford minibus, which wasn’t as comfortable as the car and which had no seat belts – slightly scary given the road conditions. The driver was also more aggressive than our first driver, so journeys here were less pleasant.

In Hué we were booked in to the Saigon Morin hotel. When we were shown to our room we couldn’t believe our eyes – a large suite, with two balconies, a drawing room with six armchairs, two seater sofa, large bookcase, large display case full of china and very large television, plus an enormous bedroom with more armchairs, desk, display shelves of pottery, second television and a vast bathroom including a Jacuzzi! Paul calculated that the area of the suite was 1,000 square feet! What a shame we were only there for one night!

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(This was just the drawing room!)

Hué itself is a much quieter city than Hanoi, with low level buildings and a very French influence. We visited the Citadel and Forbidden Purple City, and were fully briefed on the lives of the emperors (none of which I can remember!) These monuments were mostly destroyed, partly by the French in 1947 and finished off by the American bombing in 1972. Apparently, during three years of the war, the US dropped twice as much ordnance on Vietnam as was used in the whole of World War 2. The devestation has not yet been repaired, although much restoration is taking place in the citadel and Forbidden City. The weather was drizzly while we walked around the site, and it added to the melancholy air of the place. Yen told us that 15,000 Vietnamese were killed in Hué during the American war. I was surprised at my own reaction however – for the first time I felt that the destruction of ancient buildings and works of art was a greater tragedy than the loss of life.

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In Hué we went on a boat trip on the Perfume River, and visited a pagoda. From there we went to the mausoleums of two emperors, and then were driven over the mountain pass to Da Nang. This mountain road will soon be superseded by a tunnel due to open in May of this year. The road is 21 kilometers long, with hairpin bends for most of its length. It is fairly narrow, and the driving style means that everyone is overtaking everyone else all the way. Much of the traffic on the road is buses, which are crammed with people and carry the passengers’ bicycles and motor scooters on the roof, so they are heavily laden. Add to that the heavy lorries and the many motorbikes and you can imagine the drive. When we drove it the cloud was low, so for part of the journey visibility was very poor – altogether a hair raising ride! At one point in the journey we rounded a hairpin bend going downhill, to be met head on by a bus coming up the hill overtaking a truck. The whole thing happened very gradually, and there was plenty of time for all three vehicles to carry on regardless, but it was a bit nail biting for us. Our enjoyment of the ride was enhanced when Yen explained that, if a truck driver is involved in a crash which injures a pedestrian or moped rider, he will drive back and forth over the injured person to ensure that he or she dies. The compensation required for killing a person amounts only to funeral fees, which are cheap. If a driver injures someone he can be liable for hospital fees and payments to the family, which can work out much more expensive!

On that note, I will end this entry – more about our Vietnam experiences in the next entry.

Posted by Deborah at February 23, 2005 12:26 AM
Comments

Fascinating - don't apologise for the length of entry. I have learnt so much about the different places you have visited by reading your accounts - it has been really interesting. I am not sure how I view the concept of ensuring that anyone injured in a traffic accident dies as this is financially better for the driver! It appears they don't have laws about reckless driving etc!
love to both
Wendy

Posted by: Wendy at February 22, 2005 07:04 PM

The Americans insensitive, I can't believe it. I hope your not expecting the royal treatment when you return home only little me here.

Posted by: Adam at February 23, 2005 01:02 AM

Hi to you both. It sounds like you could spend a long time in Vietnam and still not see enough - facinating stuff. I always look forward to reading your journals. I don't know about the traffic there, but it sounds like you need to beware of the chickens! There's lots of news here regarding the pandemic that is about to emerge from Vietnam, with this Bird Flu virus. Take care. Enjoy the remainder of your trip. Look forward to seeing you and more photos on your return. Love Maureen.

Posted by: Maureen Dance at February 24, 2005 10:53 AM