Vietnam

I feel like i've been traveling FORVER!!! From Hoi An, I took an afternoon bus (nice change!) to Hue, the old intellectual capital of Vietnam. It's a cute city that runs along the perfume river. (note: river does NOT actualy smell like perfume- actually, quite far from it!) The weather hasn't been so great since we've headed north- it's rained almost every day. It's weird to think that Cambodia and Vietnam have such different weather (completely different monsoon seasons.)
The first day I was in Hue, I wasn't actually in Hue! I went up to see the DMZ (de-militarized zone, khe sahn, and a couple other war sites.) It was pretty eerie to wander around sites that had been such household names during the war (even though I wasn't around then!) I was also the only American (that I knew of) that went along w/ any of the tours, which felt a bit weird. I tried to imagine what it would be like to come back to those places as a veteran. Listening to 60's & 70's anti-war music as we drove around to all of these sites gave me an uncanny sense of nostalgia for something that I wasn't even alive for...
After a day exploring Hui itself, I was back on another night train to Hanoi! This train was a LOT more crowded than the last one and a bit more...well...disgusting. I'm not quite sure why people insist on spitting on the floor or can't ever pee without hitting the seat!
Anyway, I liked Hanoi a lot. I stayed in old town which has all these really neat winding streets (w/ more travel companies than you could ever imagine!) After spending a day cruising around Hanoi, I went to Halong Bay and stayed overnight on a boat. It was cool, except the weather wasn't ideal -it rained a lot and since it was misty, you couldn't see the karsts that well. It was still beautiful though...
Well, then it was back to Hanoi before heading off to Laos for 6 days! I'm pretty tired of doing the tourist "thing" so i'm looking forward to carving my own path in Laos!

After a slight delay in Saigon (waiting for Sonja and being sick), I've continued up the coast of Vietnam. I decided the basic itinerary early on, but in terms of a time frame, things have been a bit on the fly. I have to admit, I didn't love Saigon- but to be fair, I'm not sure if that's Saigon itself of the fact that I was (am) missing Cambodia and a bit sick for most of my time there.
I took a bus from Saigon to Mui Ne, which is a really awesome beach town with the most amazing sand dunes I have ever seen. They call it the Sahara of Vietnam- several km's of HUGE sand dunes, to the point where you could walk a bit and feel like you're in the middle of the desert! Mui Ne was also a nice stop because it's a beautiful beach w/out the hassels and crowds of Nha Trang.
After a couple nights in Mui Ne, I took another bus to Nha Trang and immediately got on the overnight train to Hoi An. It actually sounds a lot worse that it was. There was a bit of confusion when we walked out to where you wait for the train in the dark and there were 4 tracks and no signs about which was which (even the locals were confused!) Luckily, we worked it out and were pleased to find a fairly empty car so we could sleep on two seats!
Arriving in Hoi An at 5am was quite the experience. It was still dark and I was quite tired from the...well, lets just call it the "less than perfect sleeping accomodation" of the previous night. Anyway, with a bit of wandering and a lot of haggling, we actually ended up at a really nice hotel (for our standards!). The town of Hoi An is quite cute- a small vietnamese city mixed in with a quintessential french town!
I can't get over how different Vietnam is from Cambodia. I remember leaning out the window as we crossed the border, trying to get a first look at the country. Immediately, I laughed at myself, thinking: "jo, do you REALLY think it's going to be THAT different just across the border?!" But it WAS!! It was almost as if people traded in their Kramas for triangle hats as they crossed! There are also drastic differences in terms of the poverty and development...Cambodia has a long way to go. On the other hand, momentos of war are impossible to miss. I find myself constantly reminded as an American (through signs, museums, memorials, etc...) of the atrocities caused by the "American War" (a lot of countries refer to it as this- but the vietnamese do quite fervently.) The "American War", the "Vietnam War"- neither of us seem to want to claim it...

It's been a while since my last post but I've been VERY busy! I had a good week w/ mom who randomly decided to visit for a week! It was nice to show her the sites around PP and then we were off to Siem Reap for a long weekend to see the Angkorian temples, which were absolutely amazing. I'll be posting pictures of them when I get a chance. The the following week I was busy getting ready to say goodbye to Cambodia! I can't believe time passed so quickly! I spent most of this week buying goodbye presents for people, setting up a party for the kids at the center, and cramming all my belongings into my 50 litre backpack! It was quite surreal on thursday morning to be sitting on a bus leaving Cambodia! Thursday was overall a pretty stressful day- first, as I was packing, a scorpion crawls out of a box I had on my shelf. I just picked the box up and it fell out and crawled under my backpack. So then I'm like "great, WHAT am I supposed to do now?" Did I mention that it was about 15 min before I had to leave for the bus? Luckily donnai came home a few min later and I went up to her and was like "donnai, in my room, BUG- SCARY BUG"- I finally drew her a picture and shes like "ohhhhh baaaad". So there we are standing on the bed in my room with a tiny can of buy spray and a 6 foot metal duster handle prodding at the backpack! Shes about to poke the backpack when she turns to me and asks "how big"? I demonstrate about 2 inches with my fingers and she heads back upstairs and comes back 2 minutes later w/ a 10 foot metal duster handle (much more suitable!)
donnai and jo: 1, scorpion: 0
So after that whole event was over, I realize that the text message in which jacqui sent the name of the hotel where i'm to meet her in Ho Chi Minh City, has been automatically deleted from our apt phone. Excellent! So an hour later I find myself alone on a bus to Ho Chi Minh City with a dead cell phone, a week-expired cambodian visa and not a clue where I'm supposed to be going when I arrive! I even used my best Khmer to borrow someones phone before we crossed the border but realized jacqui's phone doesn't work now that shes left cambodia (and she also hasn't had working email). Needless to say the day was quite and experience! I came up w/ a plan to go to the main backpacker area in the city where I figured I was likely to find an internet cafe, where I hoped I could check facebook and find a message from her w/ the hotel name. Thank god for luck, facebook, and globalization! I was able to throw on my backpack, find an internet cafe, get the name of the hotel from facebook, and ask directions to it in english! So here I am in Vietnam! More vietnam adventures to come...