Jeff has just headed back yesterday and stopped in Singapore. We had a very full trip that began in Hanoi with beautiful weather. We took a day trip out to the Perfume Pagoda outside of Hanoi and hiked two hours to the cave pagoda. The highlight of the trip is the boat ride to get to the Pagoda path. I'll send pictures, as I can't really begin to describe it to you.
A couple of days spent in Hanoi, and I also met with some friends in the north. I saw a surprisingly well performed play in Vietnamese while Jeff got caught up on jet lag his first day in Hanoi. Another evening, we went to see the water puppetry, a traditional and ancient Vietnamese entertainment.
We headed to Halong Bay on Monday for a day trip. There are over 1500 islands that dot the landscape and small grottoes and caves worth exploring. The Vietnamese tourism has done some work to assist tourists, but they've only managed to make the caves look a little bit like the It's a Small World ride at Disney World.
Sapa Valley is a wonderful cultural exhibit and we went with a small tour (seven people total) where we had the opportunity to sit with some of the local ethnic minority families of the H'mong and Dzay tribes. It was like a field trip to the Museum of Natural History, only real and contemporary. We hiked three hours our first chilly day there, and five hours on our second day, which happened to be sunny and beautiful. Jeff and I took the overnight train back to Hanoi and I froze for the 10 hour trip in my bunk as it was only 12 degrees Celsius on the train and I hadn't a blanket.
In Saigon, Di 10 treated us royally and had wonderful meals prepared for us, as I had expected she would. All vegetarian / seafood dishes and lots of Nelly Natural Italian Ice Cream. Jeff and I spent a day going to Cho Lon (Sai Gon's Chinatown) where we rented cyclo drivers who took us around the city to seven different pagodas.
Mr. Ngoc & Mr. Thuong, directors of Saigon Mui Ne Resort paid same kindness and VIP treatment to us in Phan Thiet. They invited us for drinks at the bar, then dined with us, and Jeff was given all the free Nelly ice cream he could consume. They also gave us a sauna & massage treatment on the house, and a souvenir t-shirt to each of us. We again were met with great weather, and were able to take side trips to the Cham temple, the red sand dunes, and the Mui Ne bay.
After rest and relaxation on the beach in Mui Ne, Jeff and I headed back to Saigon and home where we had a very beautiful Thanksgiving seafood lunch ("like eating at a gourmet restaurant," Jeff says). We then headed back to the city to run our last errands, go on a final shopping spree, and eat auntie's great pizza and gnocchi at her restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner before getting home to get packed.
Friday morning we were off to the airport, and although I had hoped to get to Dalat to meet up with Chuong in the afternoon, flights were full and so I said goodbye to Jeff at Tan Son Nhat International and played hookey from work for the day. Our trip really seemed to fly by, and in some ways, it's hard to believe that Jeff was really here in Vietnam! It was wonderful to hear my native English and to be able to really go around Vietnam like a tourist with Jeff. I have lots of pictures to show for it!
Anyone else interested in visiting? I'm running out of time here (and mom and aunt 5 and aunt 8 are all coming in January)
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