A vacation in the North of Vietnam

Hey everyone,

While the temperatures in Shanghai are rapidly dropping and the rain is splashing against the window, I decided to start writing about my trip to Vietnam in an attempt to make me feel like it's summer again.

During the Golden Week, a week-long vacation that celebrates the Moon festival and the National Day, I was told it would be wise to get out of China, which is usually invaded by tons of tourist groups during that time. So I joined my parents and younger brother on their Vietnam vacation, starting in Hanoi. The first day we arranged a guided tour to the so-called Perfume Pagoda, which is located outside of the city. On our almost three hour drive we passed through many small villages. We were very lucky, because it was the time of the rice harvest and all the village streets were lined with tons of rice grains. Everybody in the villages seemed to be participating in working on the fields, spreading the rice for drying, operating grain machines, and many more activities. In hindsight, seeing these everyday-life scenes was the highlight of the day.

Burning the leftover hey:

Sweeping and packaging of the rice:

Then we arrived at a river and took a small boat to get to the trail leading to Perfume Pagoda:

After a couple of peaceful minutes passed, we noticed some water on the floor of the boat. Soon we determined the source of the water: four little holes that got bigger by the minute. It turned out that the boat owner had just 'glued' some mud on the holes before we started our journey. As soon as all the mud was gone and water was flowing in fast, we were handed a cup and had the task of getting rid of the water. When we arrived our feet were wet and we had learned our lesson on choosing the right boat...

After visiting an old rebuilt temple, we took a cable car up the mountain.

Some shots of the temple:

Finally we arrived on top of the mountain and visited the Perfume Pagoda, a sacred cave. It was however very touristic and not a great motif, so I won't include any pictures.

The next morning we took another bus (this time for five hours...) to get to the Halong Bay, our next stop. We had planned one of the infamous cruises that offered a 24 hour experience on board, cruising through groups of cone-shaped islands rising from the sea.

By then we were a little doubtful of ship-quality in Vietnam... But our cruise ship was very nice and made up for the experience from the day before:

After tanning on the sun deck and a mediocre lunch at the fancy dining room, we and our fellow travellers were dropped off at a little fishing village. At first we were a bit sceptical of the authenticity of the so-called 'fishing' village. It did turn out to be more of a tourist village, but we still had a great time. We did a little tour on a rowing boat (Thankfully it had no holes!) , slowly passing by some turquoise house boats and the iconic islands:

Then we watched the sun set and enjoyed the calm atmosphere of the surrounding sea:

After getting up early to watch the sun rise, we had our final stop and explored one of the several famous caves in the area. It was impressive, but at the same time it was much more crowded than the day before. When we reached the end of the cave, we had a nice view of the bay:

And then our 24 hour cruise was already over... After another 5 hour bus ride, we were back in Hanoi.

The next day, we spent sightseeing in the city center. Hanoi is a bustling and busy city. There are some historic or cultural sights to visit (we went to the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum, the Temple of Literature and the 'Hanoi Hilton'). Except for the mausoleum (which was terrible) the sights were interesting, but it was not the main reason why we liked Hanoi so much. The most interesting gain of our visit came from walking through the small alleyways and street markets of old Hanoi. Since the life of people is happening on the streets, we got a detailed view into the city's both restful and busy character: a group of workers sitting at a small cafe, three old ladies playing cards in the middle of the streets, a mom cooking dinner on a little gas cooker in front of her house, shopkeepers haggling, a butcher chopping a 'hot dog' (this was so disgusting that I don't dare put up a photo on this blog...) and, most importantly, the noise from the thousands of motorcycles. Here are some pics from the streets of old Hanoi:

In the evening, we watched a traditional water puppet show and the next morning our vacation was already over...

... and now it's time for my thoughts to go back to rainy Shanghai.