Day 85 Rest Day 30 April 2012

Today we slept in and took it easy – it is a public holiday in Vietnam (Reunification Day) and in the Netherlands (Koninginnedag). We stayed in the hotel room and discussed our travel plans, watched some tv and headed out to Highlands Coffee for some food at 4pm. As we were getting dressed we decided that ‘No, a hotel room is not quite home.’ We miss the luxury of eating a peanut butter sandwich without exiting our apartment or getting out of our pajamas.

We ended the day wishing our nephew Cooper a Happy Queen’s Day – his first!

Day 84 No Ho 29 April 2012

Today after breakfast we set out to visit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum but when we got there it was closed and we found out that the last entry was before we even left the hotel. Oh well.

We stopped by the One Pillar Pagoda.

We had lunch at Koto, an NGO restaurant that teaches English and hospitality skills to children, increasing their potential in life significantly.

We walked around town some more – passing the Home Depot.

We came across yet another Highlands Coffee and just couldn’t resist. Their ice coffee (Martijn) and mango passion smoothie (Ana) really rocks!

We ended our tour by visiting a temple on an island in the lake.

During dinner Ana befriended the restaurant’s tiny dog, who would have surely joined us on our trip around the world if her owner didn’t catch her in time when we were leaving.

Day 83 Hanoi 28 April 2012

Ana woke up refreshed after a good 14 hour sleep. After breakfast and some relaxing we understood from the proprietor that we couldn’t go to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum as planned since it was closed, so we headed to a café instead, a favorite of Catherine Deneuve from the wonderful movie Indochine.
 

After lunch we continued to the Temple of Literature, a nice complex that started off as the first university of Vietnam.  

  

We continued wandering through the city to the Opera, because it had another Highland Coffee (we are great fans). We then headed back to the hotel, along the lake.  

But not before Martijn came across as a giant who could help a group of girls who threw their shoe in a tree. Unfortunately he couldn’t reach it- but he did entertain many onlookers. 

Day 82 Night bus to Hanoi 27 April 2012

The night bus to Hanoi was a new record for us: 18 hours on the road, from 5 PM to 11AM. Thank goodness Ana suggested to take the seats at the back of the bus because it made life a lot easier. It was a bit of a gamble but we were in luck and could share 5 reclining seats with just the two of us, allowing for a real stretch.

After refreshing we explored the city a bit and had a late lunch in our old time favorite (from Ho Chi Minh City), Highlands Coffee.

Fully satisfied we returned to our hotel where Ana promptly fell asleep at 6:45pm. Martijn however kept all the lights on, watched tv, called home, worked on the blog, read his book and wondered if we really weren’t going to eat dinner.

Day 81 Tombs and Citadel 26 April 2012

For a difference it was Ana who suggested to cycle to some of the attractions in Hue, including the royal tombs and the citadel. Martijn was sure glad he was not the one (remembering our tour at Angor Wat) since today involved a lot of bicycling (close to 30 km) while our thermometer keychain at one time showed 110F/43C.

 The cycling however was beautiful and led us to the tomb of Khai Dinh and the tomb of Minh Mang, which we visited and saw the most gigantic spider yet.

 Our way back was along the river through stunning rice fields swaying in the wind.

After lunch we continued to the Citadel, Hue’s main landmark, and explored the Imperial Enclosure.  At this point Ana was soaked to the bone with sweat - yes, it’s possible. Check out that wet hair- she did not just step out of the shower.

Here Martijn was a true romantic!

Martijn: Your face looks like my foot.

Ana: What!?!? (eyebrows raised)

Martijn: I mean that they are equally tanned. That you are taking care of your skin from the sun so well that it looks like my foot after close to 3 months in the sun.

Ana: Thanks, I guess that’s a compliment of sorts. (BIG SMILE)

Tired by all the bicycling we had some Italian food, refreshed ourselves at the hotel with a nice hot shower and waited for our night bus to Hanoi.

Day 80 Phong Nha cave 25 April 2012

After debating yesterday for a long time, we had finally decided (at 10PM) that we were going to visit the Phong Nha cave today. Why were we hesitating? Because it was a solid 8 hours of driving back and forth to the cave. In the end we were very glad we visited it, because the cave was gorgeous.

We entered by the worlds least convenient boat – even the Vietnamese have to walk completely bent, Martijn ended up hitting his head 3 times and cursing the world– for a 20min cruise inside the cave,  a truly special experience. After that we could walk around a bit, although we had to hurry since the minivan had to get back to Hue in time.

After returning we went to dinner with one of our group members, a Japanese lady, and had more self made pork spring rolls.

Day 79 Taking it easy in Hue 24 April 2012

After breakfast we enjoyed some tv shows, and then finally headed out to find a scorching hot sun burning down on us (it’s 37 degrees Celcius here). We fled into the nearest Italian air conditioned place to have some lunch and –refreshed- continued into town. After an hour or two we made it back without having seen many sights except a supermarket (which by itself is very rare here). We ended the day with a nice splurge: sushi in a nearby Japanese restaurant, that supports a street children’s project.

Day 78 Travel to Hue 23 April 2012

After some leisurely swimming and lunch at our hotel, we went by bus to our new destination Hue, only 4 hours away. To celebrate the new location, we tried some delicious local food. Our favorite was roasted pork, with greens wrapped in rice paper, that you dipped in peanut sauce. The whole shrimps (very crunchy) in rice cake was less of our taste.

Day 77 Hoi An Old City 22 April 2012

We headed out by bicycle to a restaurant at the riverside we had seen on our way back from the beach the first afternoon here. It advertised slow food for slow life.

We had a nice meal where we could roll our own springrolls with pieces of pancake filled with shrimps and an assortment of greens.

The old town has been preserved for about 200 years, and has a lovely charming feel to it. We visited the inside of two old houses, a temple, an assembly hall and a museum, giving us a nice impression of how life must have been like back then.

We ended having another dinner at Cargo Club, since it was such a treat. After completely filling ourselves with sesame crusted tuna, ham wrapped chicken and delicious ice-cream, we definitely needed to uitbuik (outbelly)!

Day 76 My Son Temples 21 April 2012

Apparently the cockroach from last night’s dinner made an impression on Martijn because he got up in the middle of the night shaking the blanket off and talking in his sleep that “they are all over me, the cockroaches are crawling all over me.” When asked this morning if he remembered that he did this he said no and denied ever talking in his sleep or acting crazy because of a dream.

A peaceful night like that was a good preparation for an early rise for our tour to My Son, Vietnam’s most famous (ruined) temple complex. The guide compared it to Angor Wat in Cambodia, but it falls a bit short. It was amazing to see that the restoration of 30 years ago was in worse shape than the original construction, the method of which remains a mystery.

Another mystery is where one of the deities came from which was half man and half woman; the answer here according to our guide was a ladyboy from Bangkok. He really cracked himself up with this tasteless joke. 

We loved the insects.

After our visit to the complex we took a boat trip back to Hoi An visiting a small fisherman/boat building village that suffers from high water during the wet season. Use Martijn as a reference.