Vietnamese Vacationing

Northern Vietnam is such a fantastic destination for a holiday.
Pity I was sick as a dog for most of it (but better off than the roasted ones in the markets....) A great time of year to travel: sunny weather after the end of the wet season; the rice harvest underway. Sooooo many photo opportunities. Fun withdrawing a million dong dollars a time at the ATMs too.

Hanoi in the north
Flying into Hanoi was lovely – a patchwork of ripening rice fields and villages, with lots of cathedrals. The frenetic motorcycle and bicycle traffic in Hanoi takes a bit of getting used to, but the French architecture, baguette stalls on street corners, the bicycles, colours of the fruit and rose vendors, iconic Vietnamese hats, French-style coffee houses and especially the chocolate éclairs made this a wonderful place to visit. The streets in the old quarter are named after the merchandise sold there – our hotel was on the shoe street. We (my travel friends Kate and Kris and I) scored the penthouse (5 storeys, no lift) with our own courtyard overlooking the roof tops. On the last day when we were in Hanoi a friend of a new Vietnamese friend I made on a bus (he works in community development projects in the northern mountains) took me for a motorcycle tour of the city, capping off a great stay.

old classy buildings; banana vendors everywhere

a tomato vendor; Hanoi streetscape

gigantic grapefruits and baskets of other fruits; rose vendors

a cucumber vendor

Halong Bay to the east

We spent 3 days in the world heritage area of 1996 limestone islets, cruising around on boats, eating big seafood meals and enjoying the scenery (and dodging the litter). We walked and kayaked through caves, slept overnight on the boat, rode bikes through island villages and enjoyed the sunshine. It was so lovely to spend some time on the coast. Luckily for me we headed back to Hanoi when we did because a head cold turned into an acute eye infection -not good but could have been worse.

local fishing boats and chinese-style junks in Halong Bay

taking it easy and enjoying the sunset on Halong Bay

thrils and spills from the top deck; kate the kayaker

nearby Ninh Binh to the south
We then headed south to a nearby town to visit "Halong Bay of the rice paddies" and were not disappointed by the scenery. We signed up for some daytrips of the local area, to see more limestone caves, more boating, some temples and pagodas, and a trip to the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre at Cuc Phuong National Park.

Rowing through the river grottoes at Tam Coc; group photo looking over the rice paddies

a local rower in a sea of boats at Tam Coc; a birds-eye view of the boats and scenery at Tam Coc

one of the extremely endangered locals at the Primate Centre

rural villages & rice harvesting
We picked a fantastic time to be in northern Vietnam. The rice harvest was underway, and the farming methods in the local villages are a lot more traditional than in Thailand. Every farmer has a water buffalo, and we watched the various stages of hand harvesting, machine threshing, drying of rice and hay on roadsides, haystacking and tilling for new crops. The locals were really friendly too - lots of smiles and greetings. Very memorable.

drying rice on the roadside for 3 days; water buffalo in action

the locals watching us watching the tilling - so friendly!

Last account to give, was that I saw my parents at Bangkok airport on the way back yesterday - our flights arrived at the same time. They'll be travelling in Thailand for a few weeks, and I'll see them here in Chiang Mai on the weekend. I had a very amusing account at the final screening desk at the airport holding an opened large jar of vegemite upside down to prove that it wasn't a liquid......had to be there for that one.

So now I'm back in Chiang Mai, still with a headcold, 3 days into the hard antibiotics and hoping I'm not developing an ear infection. Fun and games.

Seeking sunshine and sand

Tomorrow I'm heading to Bangkok to catch up with some other volunteers, then on to Hanoi, in the north of Vietnam, to travel for 8 short days with a Sydney friend Kate who has been translating in Tokyo for a couple of years. Many adventures await! Hopefully including lots of boats on water in karst country (then it's back to work for a long while to replenish my leave days bank - not to worry).

Chasing round China

Well, only around one province of China - Yunnan in the southwest.
For 12 days - visa runs are much less tedious with a holiday thrown in.
In Yunnan there are 25 ethnic groups, and I saw a lot of diverse landscapes, from the busy city of Kunming, to traditional Naxi farmers in the 4km deep Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Tibetan monks in Zhongdian, at 3300m altitude. Lots of travel too - more than 35 hours on buses......with travel sick locals, smokers, and "rustic" toilet stops as part of the course. And chasing men of all ages around the country side, as is apparent when you see the photos.
I spent 3 days travelling around Kunming on my own, and 9 days on an Intrepid tour (hi guys!), in good company with some avid photographers, so I've posted lots (incidentally major camera envy - impending SLR purchase on Oz return!). It was so nice to leave the humid tropics and head into the mountains for awhile.
Can't say I really learnt much more about the history while I was here, but some things reminded me of where I was. For example blogspot and news websites are some of many banned in China, I met a tourist who had his lonely planet guide confiscated at the airport, and found the subject matter in the national media to be... slightly off, shall we say.

KUNMING
Kunming is a bustling city with 3million residents, a good bus system, and manic drivers with major car horn issues. So many gawkers - OK, yes people, I'm not chinese. Only amusing for about 5 minutes - happily being neither famous nor beautiful I can now slink back to anonymity.
I was pretty brave on Day 1 - geared only with "Ni Hao" (when most people know hello as their only English word anyway), a sketchy map and a vague direction, I travelled on 8 different buses to get to see the Stone Forest and Dadieshui Waterfall. Eucalypts everywhere, with corn, tobacco, rice and sunflowers mostly. Lots of quarries. What did this place look like prior?!?

Diverse Kunming; dressed-up tourists at the world heritage Stone Forest park

impressive Dadieshui Waterfall from the cablecar


LIJANG
Our tour group of 16 met up and bused it north to the old town in Lijang, a major tourist trap, but very cute all the same. Lots of photo opportunities, taken. Getting used to toilets with no doors and leeches in the mornings.....


sights in and around Lijang

TIGER LEAPING GORGE
Big 1km vertical ascent on the first morning (confound this warm summer weather) provided it's rewards many times over on this 2 day hike. Absolutely phenomenal scenery. We ate our way through all the guesthouses, so it was a trek done in style. Our Aussie guide, Margo and pup were lots of fun, and we had remarkably clear weather, making for great views. Apparently stunning autumnal colour in October, and best seen before 2009, when a dam will destroy this beautiful stretch of rapids forever to form part of the 3 gorges dam system. We heard preliminary blasting taking place. So sad. So many local people up the Yangtze to be displaced.


I'll let these photos do the talking! They don't do it justice though


ZHONGDIAN
Regretfully leaving the gorge, we headed further north to the town of Zhongdian high up on the tibetian plateau. Once part of Tibet, the cultural landscape here is very distinctive to the other areas we'd been. Lots of solid tibetian houses. Think I had an altitude-related headache for a bit. Amusements included an incident with applying sunscreen in view of a curious bus driver, and chasing buddhist monks around the famous Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery.

pretty marsh scenery at the forced bus-sick stop (enter this jellybean-eating lady centre stage)




scenes from the Ganden Sumtseling Gompa monastery


DALI
We stayed in another old town, and filled in our time taking photos at a local market, and watching cormorants catch fish in the traditional fishing manner - a string around the neck prevents swallowing. A bit apprehensive about this practice, but the birds were well fed, happy enough, and obedient like hunting dogs. Very comical, likeable birds. A fun boat ride to boot.



From there we headed back to Kunming, said our farewells, and I spent the next 2 days walking and watching the locals in city parks and getting away from the city noise by walking in the Western Hills Forest Park and visiting Dragon Gate, a series of temples carved into a 300m cliff, with a stellar view across the massive lake and city area. A fun trip for the most part!

Gastronomic experiences - in a nutshell (haw haw)
- thousand year old egg
- yak steak and yak butter tea
- lots of yak and goat cheese
- lots of ginger tea with honey - fab!
- happily lots of banquet experiences in our group, so lots of local food - very fresh