Day 1: Cuong’s jeep tour of Vietnam

When researching what to do in Hanoi, I came across this tour where you visit small Vietnamese villages, stay in homestays, and get to see a side of Vietnam that you otherwise are going to miss. And you get to do all of it in an old Vietnam era US army jeep!

I went into this with rose-colored glasses and it largely lived up to my imagination except for the rain & the hard beds and the long days. The views were outstanding, we did get to see some beautiful countryside. Wearing ponchos while we rode!

It took about 2 hours to get outside of Hanoi. The traffic is pretty busy and there wasn’t any 4 lane hi-ways the way we were going.

As we got out of the city limits and saw the rice paddies, we noticed a lot of graves throughout them. The guide said that many years ago (most 50-70 years), these weren’t rice paddies and people just buried their relatives wherever they could find ground. Over time, the land was developed, but they didn’t relocate the graves, so it’s kind of cool / eery at the same time.

The way they move water is pretty ingenious / cheap  with no electricity here was a water wheel that transferred water from the river below up to bamboo piping 10′ higher:

It was a long day. We were picked up at 8:30, had a 1 hour lunch, stopped for a few photo-ops, but largely didn’t stop and arrived at 5pm at the homestay. It was a large complex, owned & operated by the village doctor (he oversees 163 families in the village – telling us proudly it should grow by another 30 or so by next year).

The inside is rather large, but no real walls. You can see individual bed areas with mosquito netting with the kitchen / cooking area to the far rear / right:

Here’s what Jack looked like in his mosquito netting when he woke up the next morning:

They gave Michelle and I some drapes around ours to give us more privacy, but the beds were hard and the pillows were small.

Fortunately dinner was fabulous – spring rolls, goose, sausage, sweet potato greens, rice and mangos for dessert! We enjoyed all our meals and they always gave us way more food than we could ever eat!

The floor / walls were all bamboo. You can see through the floors. It’s like they take a 20′ long piece of bamboo, split it and flatten it out so they had these long pieces which were actually segmented about 12-15″ wide. Kind of spongy to walk on. They said this house is > 50 years old.

Day 1: Thurman & Jack riding a motorcycle up the mountain

When I first was booking this trip, I was really tempted to ask if I could just ride a bike, taking one passenger & having the guide take whoever I didn’t take. In retrospect, I’m glad we have the jeep. As wet and tired as we ended up being on the jeep, I know that riding motorcycles would have been even more draining, especially with no recent off-road experience to get the muscles in shape.

As it was, during our briefing I did mention that I rode, and the guide said he’d bring an extra helmet for me. When we did one stop, the rain seemed to have stopped for a bit, so I asked to ride and I was surprised when Jack jumped out of the jeep and said me too. We rode the final 1.5 hr up to where we were staying:

 

There was one picturesque hill we climbed and it was really nice. Although, the 125cc was barely enough to get Jack and I up the hill! Mom joined us for the photo op!

There was one really long bamboo floating bridge and the guide said “go across you can do it”. I took one look, said no way so he got on and tried to ride across with Jackson, but quickly abandoned that idea as it was just too slippery. For another suspended bridge, I had Jack ride across in the jeep while I did the bridge solo:

 

I’m glad I rode across on the bridge, because the river was probably too deep for the bike as you can see Michelle and Jackson crossing in the jeep:

 

Here we are overlooking the homestay as we approached it:

 

Day 2: Cuong’s jeep tour around Vietnam

We awoke to the local rooster, but then after it settled down, we were able to sleep in till 7:45, and breakfast was ready. Banana pancakes – they were more like crepes. Yummy! Also some eggs, bacon, bread & coffee. They cook it right there on the floor next to where we slept!

We went on a small hike around the homestay. They really have some picturesque views.

We then saddled up into the jeep & backtracked down the mountain to a real road again. We visited a chop-stick factory which was kind of interesting, although everyone was on their break. According to our guide, this site produces more disposable chopsticks than any other site in the world. When all you can see on the mountains in any direction is bamboo, you begin to think “good location” for a factory that uses bamboo. This little manufacturing place was one of about 30-40 in town. It’s major industry here.

We stopped for a bit & had some raw sugar cane. Sweet, but messy! You break a small piece off with your teeth, chew to extract the sugar-water then discard the pulp/bark and repeat. Our hands were sticky by the time we finished.

Our driver then mistook a goat trail for something that a jeep can go on (lol), and we spent the next hour and a half going up & around a mountain to another village where we would be spending night 2. We dropped our gear, and rested for an hour then headed into town where their specialty is hand-sewn scarves/table runners / bedspreads. We bought 2 table runners for 180,000 dong, or about $7 each.

We came back to a wonderful dinner – cooked radish that was strung like you do spaghetti squash, a steamed fish with lemongrass – they said they steamed it for 5 hrs so most bones were disintegrated – my favorite meal. They also had some stir-fried chicken, stir fried pork, some baked chicken, rice and home made potato chips! We played a few rounds of Farkle & Leach with the guide & driver, then headed to bed on thin hard bedmats – but thankfully the pillows were a bit larger. I sure wish these homestays would discover the wonders of a latex mattress!

Day 3: Cuong’s jeep tour vietnam countryside

The homestay we were at tonight was along a road. The rooster started crowing at 6am, then just as it was settling down, very loud music started playing. Very. Loud. Good view out our window though!

At breakfast, they said the music was announcing they were going to slaughter a huge pig for the village as it is international woman’s day.

Breakfast was pretty simple – egg, bacon and a poor noodle/beef broth that didn’t have much flavor.

It was overcast, we visited a local history museum of the thai minority – not to be confused with Thailand. Some cool traps & baskets, money & information on their culture. Apparently there are 54 minority cultures within Vietnam.

On the road again, it soon began to mist. We donned ponchos and drove in a cloud bank for an hour. We skipped another little village because of the weather, and we were all tired & said the sooner we get back to Hanoi the better, so we ate an early lunch and drove onto Hanoi.

We were tired & cranky, but very relieved to get to our hotel, take a warm shower & rest in a bed that was more than a few inches thick.

Overall, day 1 was definitely the highlight. We had energy, riding with Ponchos in the jeep was new & interesting and Jackson & I got to ride the motorcycle for a bit.

Day 2 was some really rough 4×4 trails, the homestay food was again excellent, but the beds hard & we were woke up earlier than we wanted to be.

Day 3 started out OK, but turned to wet. 3 days is enough.It was good to see the countryside. I know it would have been better with warmer & sunny weather, but the beds still would have been hard 😉

We get on a plane tomorrow to Hoi An, so it will be a travel day.

 

Out of wifi reach for next 3 days

We start our 3 day tour of the vietnamese countryside in a old army jeep with Cuong’s Motobike Adventures tommorrow morning.

We will likely be out of pocket without wifi access, so I’ve left you a few new posts to read following this one on my favorite Vietnamese sandwich, and our visit to Halong Bay.

Upon our return, we’ll be flying to Hoi An, where I hope to catch up with pics from the jeep tour!

Banh Mi: the perfect sandwich

I need to gush a bit about the Vietnamese sandwich Banh Mi. This is such a great sandwich. Today, after driving back from Halong Bay to Hanoi, after checking in, I asked the hotel clerk for the best street food Bahn Mi in the area, and he knew just the place! It was about 5 blocks away and he pulled out a map and told us how to get there.

Note: We got to sample one on a food tour we did in HCM and we’ve been wanting another one ever since!

We arrived & all the signs for great streetfood was there for Banh Mi:

1. Small tables to either side of the cart to handle the overflow of customers

2. Lots of ingredients

3. Clean window on the cart

4. Tons of breadcrumbs

As this site does so much better than me in explaining Banh Mi, look at this picture:

Just before I left on our vacation, I noticed a new banh mi sandwich place around the corner from Fred Meyer on Cornelius Pass & Evergreen – a few doors down from Subway. I’m going to have to try it when I get back.

Yummy!

Halong Bay is heaven in more ways than one

We were so glad to be rid of Bangkok. The heat, the humidity, the hotel that tries to wring every cent out of you (they charged us 1,200 baht for a taxi ride back to the airport & it only cost us 275 baht to get from the airport to the hotel). Michelle & I both have a hard time sleeping well when we know we have to wake up at 4:45am to get our 7am flight and quite honestly, I thought we weren’t going to make our flight as the Bangkok airport was jammed packed at 5:30 and we were in this huge line. Fortunately, Asia Air has these attendants hold up placards for flights that are < 1hr from taking off & it allowed us to skip out of line. So, no more thinking 1.5hrs is enough ladies & gentlemen, 2 hrs from here on out. No questions asked.

Due in no small part to Asia Air we were able to escape Bangkok and get to Hanoi. We were met at the airport with our name on a placard again & driven a little over 2hrs North to the port city of Hai Phong to take a hydrofoil speedboat to Cat Ba island.  I had never ridden a hydrofoil & heard they were pretty smooth. It was nice & fast (60Km/hr) but a bit bumpy when the swells got going. So many moochers trying to sell you everything at the pier. We were so glad when they started to let everyone board, but then they let these peddlers on with us until 1 minute before the boat pulls away from the dock! What happened to the fact you need a ticket to walk down the gangplank?

So I need to back up a bit here. It’s been a while since I booked this trip. Again, I have to give Holly applause as she pointed us to Eco Friendly tours but I honestly never really got any feeling for the size of the boat. All I recall is her saying something like “it was a really nice relaxing boat ride with just Sam and me”, and knowing my sister who is pretty frugal, I was expecting a pretty small chinese junk with a driver who cooks and hammocks to sleep in under a canvas tarp. My imagination began to grow after we paid the balance and a guy introduces us the guide and another guy introduces us as the cook! Ok, this is definitely looking up. We all board a speedboat at  Cat Ba island to ferry us out to the boat. I’m intrigued and then gloriously happy as we round a bend and we begin to slow down as the guide says this is our boat:

Holy smokes. I feel like I’m on the French Riviera with my own private yacht! And as we’re boarding the boat, all these limestone islands are just feet away from the boat and we go topside where there are 4 lounge chairs out and we enjoy the view. It’s a bit chilly as it’s only upper 70’s, but I’m still in my shorts with a light long sleeve pullover.

It wasn’t 30 minutes when they called us down for lunch. Papaya salad, fried fish that was to die for, spring rolls, a beef root salad thingy and rice. Too much food. Then it was back up top again, just soaking in the view.

Folks, remember the story about Phang Nga Bay down by Phuket? We saw many islands in distance and approached 4 very closely. Halong Bay has over 2,000 islands. I think we saw 300 or so today. WOW. We spent over an hour kayaking around a lagoon which we had to paddle through a 100yd cave to. It was so serene. Unlike Phang Nga Bay which is only 1-3 meters deep & is constantly brown because the tide is always mixing up the bay mud, Halong Bay averages 5 meters and has a sandy bottom, so you can see quite easily to the bottom in most places.

After our kayaking we pull into this secluded cove and darn if it just didn’t start misting a bit. We still enjoyed it. And then we popped a bottle of wine, played some dice (Farkel & Leach aka 10,000) and cards (go fish), and then dinner was served.

Fresh sautéed squid, bay clams, a whole fish that was done to perfection, french fries for Jackson (although he loved the fish), steamed shrimp, rice & dragon fruit for a fresh after dinner palate cleanser.

We finished the night off with more cards (Jack keeps winning) and a few more glasses of wine. Waking up in the morning to birds chirping & monkeys howling while having this view out our bedroom window is special.

In the morning we visited a fish farm & then motored around the bay some more but it was drizzly all day. We didn’t mind. It was very pretty & pleasant & lunch was fabulous.

We’re already regretting we only got this for 2 days and would love to revisit sometime in the future during October / November when it’s warmer & can do some snorkeling. (I can’t believe this entire excursion is so cheap for what we are getting).

Thanks again Holly!

Bangkok fail

The  Palace Prince Hotel, which houses at least 2,000 guests has no wifi in the rooms. Only the lobby. Fun times.

I thought Phuket was expensive, Bangkok is even more so. For example, the first day we got here, I was pretty beat and just wanted room service. Pad Thai, a small sushi roll, a hamburger for Jackson and some drinks was over 2600  baht, or over $80 USD.

That night we went out for street food & got 2 pad thais for 15 bat each + some fried chicken that was great for like 100 baht. Meaning our family of 3 ate for about $7 USD and it was much better food. We’re getting pretty good at getting street food. It’s fresh & super cheap. All our dinners so far has been off the street here in Bangkok.

We tried going to the emerald buddha & the palace yesterday, but after battling a 100 meter long line of 6 deep tourists, we didn’t even have the energy to get to the ticket window (500 baht each) and just said forget it.

Instead we took a 1 hr longboat ride around bangkok’s canals and headed over to Ocean World, which is a really nice acquarium in the basement of a really nice, posh shopping center (siam paragon). I’d have to say it was even better than Newport aquarium. Really nice. They also have a food court to die for which was pretty cheap.

It was a welcome respite from the heat / humidity that is bangkok.

So we’re just going to hang out at the hotel today & head to Hanoi tomorrow morning bright & early (flight is at 7am).  You most likely won’t hear from us for a while as we’ll be on a boat in Halong Bay and then on a 3 day jeep excursion to the countryside around Hanoi.

Elephant Nature Park (ENP)

I’d like to recognize my sister Holly for recommending this place.Holly and her son Sam visited ENP a few years ago & when we were planning our trip, she said she’d wished that she would have done the 2-day package where you spend the night. She recommended it so much, we actually formed a major part of our trip around this as even 2 months ago when Michelle was making reservations, it was getting booked full and the two days we are here were open.

I’m writing this off the back deck of our room where I can see 10 elephants within 50′ of our deck. So awesome! THANKS HOLLY!

The day has been great and as we were shown to our room, we were given a spontaneous unplanned show (that a lot of my family & friends were sent pictures of via my phone – but alas I’m still technically challenged to get the movies & pics off there, so you’ll have to live with the ones we got with our normal camera.) THAT story will come next!

So, we start the day off driving a bit over an hour, in a tourist van with a HUGE (21″  ? TV) where they show instructions on how to behave & a segment that some TV show did on the place. It’s a moving experience. ENP is a place where they take the old and the injured elephants and let them live out their lives not having to work anymore. As such, and as we went through the day, you see first hand multiple examples of land-mine injuries, broken hips, legs, blindness, and a lot of old wrinkled elephants that worked far too hard for far too long.

It’s an idyllic setting. They have 300 acres in this valley with a river going through it.

As we got there, no time for pleasantries, “Put your bags on this table & it’s feeding time!” We start hand-feeding the elephants. It’s an experience as you learn how to place food – just a few inches up from the tip of their trunk, and they wrap the trunk around it and take it from you. We were feeding them melons and bananas. A few large bars protect you from overzealous elephants.

They have a bit over 30 elephants here – and they comprise 5 herds, with one old loner who is her own herd, along with two dogs (she has a hip that’s out of its socket).

We got to see them bathe, come out & dry off, and some frisky play by the young one.

We were so close it’s hard to describe, but basically, you are standing next to them most of the time – except for a few who they warn you about. “That one is predictably unpredictable”. They are really good in telling us not to play with the young ones – as at 800lbs, they are a bit much and when they get excited, they really don’t know their own strength. They have a few young bulls they keep in an enclosed area.

Lunch was awesome – all vegetarian and all great. After lunch we changed into our swimming trunks and got to give a few baths by throwing water on them.

I’m convinced this is strictly show (unlike the morning where they get all in & thrash about on their own) as they are given baskets of food while we throw water on them. Regardless, much fun was had.

After the hordes leave, we’re in a small group of 10 who are spending the night – we sign some release forms, and are given the itinerary for the evening and are shown to our rooms. And then we are treated to a show of shows, complely unplanned!

Stay tuned!

What does a 6,000lb elephant do?

Anything they want!

We had just been shown our room, and it was a really nice room ,and we venture out to the back deck, and the elephant enclosure is literally 20 feet off our deck.

We’re leaning on the deck, and just watching them. There are a few volunteers idling about, and then a commotion starts. The entire herd starts trumpeting. Apparently one female really isn’t interested in going into her cage, and soon enough her and her mahout (companion / trainer) come around the corner. There is a gravel road that does a u-turn in front of the house we’re staying at, and she’s walking down and her mahout is walking along with her – each elephant has their dedicated mahout because there really is no way to contain an elephant and they’re in charge of making sure they don’t cause trouble.

Well, they have these concrete /rock pillars around areas they don’t want the elephants to go to, and this elephant rounds the bend in the road and instead of continuing to turn, angles towards the pillars right in front of our house! She puts one leg through and her mahout is trying to entice her back with a banana, and quite honestly, I’m thinking, she needs to turn back otherwise she’s going to get stuck but before you know it, she’s half-way and then all the way through! She comes right over to our deck, and we could have reached out & touched her, but we stayed back. By now, there were about 5 other mahouts around. But they really couldn’t do much.

The elephant continued on, between our house & the one next door & continued to the other side. We went through the house & started watching on the front porch. She proceeded to take out a tree, a  few planters, a 20gal propane cylinder, some TV cable, and was just wondering around. This lasted about 10-15 minutes and we had a great time watching the various people just watch her. Because there is nothing you can really do to stop an elephant.

Finally she saunters down the road, and I think the mahouts finally have her moving. So Michelle & Jackson go to get a beer & see the dog sanctuary, and after 20 minutes they return with even more pictures (sorry on her ipad  / phone that I can’t get) and she continued to cause havoc, eating & knocking over food baskets for the water buffalo.

During dinner that night, we find out that this was a fairly young female, who’d been at the park for 2 years and was really badly mistreated – often staked on 3 legs at night for years, and even staked during the day because she is so smart. Every month or so, she has one of these situations where she doesn’t want to go back into her cage – probably flashbacks from when she was mistreated.

Dinner was really nice, we chatted with the couple from Manchester all evening, having a few beers, sauntering back to our house at about 9:30pm and quickly fell asleep.