This shot was taken at one of the assembly halls in Hoi An. The assembly halls were built by the Chinese during the old silk trading days, and the Chinese influence was noticeable in architecture and styling. There were altars and incense bowls all over, and I was the only person in the hall so I had free reign of the place.

After visiting the Crazy House we headed up to the Summer Palace of King Dao. The palace is a gorgeous Art Deco building and is probably the coolest palace/historical buiding I have ever visited, not just because I loved the 1930s feel, but also because it was mostly empty of people during the visit, and instead of those pesky velvet ropes keeping you in the halways and out of the rooms, you could enter every room in the house.

These two photos are from the throne room. They have it set up so that you can dress up in fancy outfits, and sit in the chair posing as the Queen for a photo. When I wandered into the room the guy manning the room asked me if I wanted to do it, except he only said “Queen?” which caused me to say “what?” and after repeating ourselves severl more times, he pointed to a wall of photos of tourists impersonating royalty and said “Queen?” to which I said a very quick “no!” and probably looked vaguely horrified because he definitely got a laugh out of it.

The strangest thing was definitely the rows of worn yellow boots that they had for you to wear for the photos. No thank you!

You can view the whole slideshow from the summer palace here:

This is the Dalat Crazy House. What is the Dalat Crazy House you might ask? Well, it’s this hotel that is, crazy. It’s sort of a weird Gaudi/Dali-esque treehouse filled with intricately carved furniture and animal themed guest rooms. If you don’t want to stay there, you can still pay an entrance fee and visit the house. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen and was definitely worth the trip for the strange factor alone.

While we were there we saw tow separate groups of people who were on our flight into Dalat, and I also encountered an excited older asain man who spoke no English but really wanted to see my camera. He gestured to it repeatedly and asked to see it, I kept saying no and his friend, watched the exchange and laughed. The excited guy was sporting his own Nikon camera so I’m still not really sure why he was so insistent to see mine.

Tiny Plastic Chairs

Vietnam was a country full of tiny plastic chairs. All along the streets in front of shops, the sidewalks would be full of people selling goods and sitting in these little chairs. In Hanoi our hotel was near an intersection with corner bars which filled the sidewalk and street with plastic chairs at night and big groups of tourists and locals would sit drinking beer hunched into the kid sized chairs.

A horse themed post. Both of these pictures are from Dalat. The first was taken while we were walking around the lake to the Dalat Florwe Garden. We were enjoying our walk (unbeknownst to me I was working up an epic sunburn) and randomly a horse appeared on the side of the road! The horse was just chillin, he was tied up on a long rope nibbling on some grass and there was no one around. It was very random.

The second picture comes from inside the Flower Garden. This guy was walking around with the horse and for a small fee you could ay to sit on the horse and have your friends take your picture. I think it was a pretty slow day at the Garden, and this guy loked a little bored. Suffice to say, it was surreal to see a Vietnamese dude walking around a botanical garden towing a horse in western cowboy gear.

LIttle kids in Vietnam were really happy to see me. I guess it’s becuase I looked so, so different. It was really weird, but mostly just funny. This kid yelled hello to me about 15 times and smiled the biggest smile ever when he saw me with my camera. I took this on our second day in Dalat when Miles, Leanne and I wandered around town vaguely trying to get to the lake, but mostly just enjoying the cool neighborhoods we walked through and being happy to get away from tourist central.

Dragonfruit

Ladies Selling Vegetables

The food in vietnam was really great. There were so many amazing fresh veggies to be had, and I was so glad to not have to worry so much about not being able to find vegetarian food (Peru was a lot harder for that). There were a lot of familiar foods, but some, like the incredibly pink dragonfruit above, were more exotic. The dragonfruit, dissappointingly, did not taste nearly as exciting as one might assume from it’s hot pink exterior. It tasted a little bit like a watermelon/kiwi blend, and was stark white with small black seeds.

Sunrise in Saigon

Everyone who knows me knows that I am in no way shape or form, a morning person. But the crazy time difference between California and Vietnam, worked some serious magic in getting me out of be early. I took this photo on our first full day in Vietnam, from the balcony of the Liberty 2. It was probably just past 5am when I took this picture, and the streets were shockingly quiet. It was also already super warm, and it smelled a little like rain (from the night before) and the streets were still damp.

Leanne in our Hotel Room

I am going to try to post a photo (or two) a day from my trip to Vietnam. Some of them will probably have stories to go with them, others might not.

This one is from our first day in Ho Chi Minh City. It was taken (IIRC) shortly after we checked in to out hotel, The Liberty 2. It was definitely the nicest hotel we stayed in on the trip, good sized balcony, big bathroom with a great tub and a separate shower.

After checking in, we went and wandered around Ho Chi Minh City, mostly we marvelled at the crazy number of motorbikes, and took forever to cross the streets for fear of getting run over. We also got followed around for like, 5 blocks by a guy with a bicycle rickshaw type thing, he really wanted to give us a ride, but a) we wanted to walk and b) those things are only big enough to fit 1.5 people, but that guy was really persistent!

The bay itself is beautiful, 1600+ small islands, each covered in a thick layer of jungle all surrounded by an eerily flat bay and enough mist to grey the distant islands out. We visited an “Amazing” (or “Surprising” depending on the translator) cave on one island and saw many rock formations inside which vaguely resembled bears, frogs, dragons, turtles, etc. After that we kayaked for a bit less than an hour, and visited a really cool cove sheltered almost entirely inside an island accessable only by small boat by going through a cave.

I should note at this point, that our boat was full of a great many characters, my favorite being Tripod Man. Tripod Man was from Venezuela, and my first nickname for him was Red Shoe Guy necuae he was wearing an incredible pair of bright red leather slip on boat shoes. His real name however, had to be Tripod Man because he came equipped with a full size giant tripod and one tiny Canon point and shoot camera. Lugged that ebormpus tripod and that tiny, crappy camera all over the place and painstakingly set them up at each point of interest so he could get a picture of himself on each place. We really hope that somewhere out there, Tripod Man has a blog full of nothing but pictures of himself, arms by his side, face slack in front of all of the world’s tourist destinations.

Difficult Guy was another key character on the trip. Difficult Guy, upon being told that he still needed to pay for the tour, and no the van was not equipped to take his credit card, complained loudly about that, the exchange rate, and any number of other things. Later, when we were asked to turn in our passports (as has been standard at every single hotel we’ve stayed in) Difficult Guy protested and asked quite suspiciously about entrusting his valuable US passport to the boat’s captain. Later on he told me that he lives in NYC and is “in finance” at “one of the world’s largest banks”. He was also reading what appeared to be one of those obnoxious books on Power Enough said perhaps. People like that are often quite difficult, ad he definitely lived up to his reputation.

After that we ate (or l watched actually) what looked like the worst food in the world (including squid WITH TENTACLES!!!! And a WHOLE fish and creepy WHOLE shrimp with awful black EYES) mostly I tried not to throw up at the table, really. And that was a close call.

In the morning, instead of keeping with the set itinerary of swimming or hiking up on of the islands, the tour company said that we had to check out of our cabins early and wait on the boat so they could go pick up new guests. It was incredibly lame and I was not happy. Unfortunately a boat tour is pretty much the only way to see Halong Bay, and there’s really no such thing as oversight or money back guarantees here. All I can say is don’t book a trip on the Marguerite!

After getting back to Hanoi we walked around a bit, found a tasty vegetarian restaurant, Tamarind Cafe, that served all day breakfast, and had French toast and omelettes for dinner.

The next day we got up early to check our Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum (which I keep pronouncing incorrectly) and we waited in what had to have been the worlds longest most crowded line. It was 10 times worse than any line at Disneyland, which I have always used as my measuring stick for lines. Also, people here have this amaIng threshold for pushing, crowding and cutting in lines. It was so hot and crowded and full of small children gaping at me (or shoving past me) that I very nearly had a panic attack. The visit inside the mausoleum was disproportionately short in comparison to the length of the line. His body, according to my guidebook, was expertly preserved (via secret methods no less) by the same Russian doctor who embalmed Lenin, and the mausoleum is closed for two months of the year so Uncle Ho’s body can undergo “maintenence”. The viewing itself was eery; soldiers herded us through the room, and his glass box encased body was lit by intense red-orange spotlights on his face and hands. A lot of effort for a guy who suppsedly wanted to be cremated because it “saves land for the farmers”!

After the craziness, I opted to take a taxi back to the hotel while M&L stayed out. Once I got back I realized that my near panic attack in line was probably more related to the fact that I was running a fever than that I am suddenly freaked out by crowds. I don’t know what brought in on, but I pretty much spent the rest of the day in bed, and I still felt pretty awful the next day (yesterday). Poor Leanne and Miles for having to put up with me!

We took a flight from Habii to Saigon tyesterday night so we could be up early for our day trip to the Mekong Delta today.