Vietnam!
To start, at the border from Lao Cai, I went towards Sapa, which was fairly interesting because of the hill tribe people wearing funny clothing and constantly trying to sell me stuff. I didn't even make it into town before people on motorbikes were following me, desperately trying to get me stay at their hotels.
After leaving Sapa, I spent the next 4 days on a roller coaster up and down climbing the same 40m about 100 times through northern Vietnam. The first day out of Sapa I stopped at a restaurant around 5pm (since it's dark at 5:30) and fumbled through ordering. I was then invited to sleep at the restaurant, and a short while later tons of people started showing up and I was treated to a second dinner for free.
So far in Vietnam Everyone has been friendly and generally interested in talking or asking questions, and I have had only minor trouble ordering food. I can read the script, but can't even begin to pronounce it. I think the first 10 times or so I tried to order Pho I ended up with something that was definitely not Pho, but was still delicious.
I survived the army of motor scooters in Hanoi, and wandered around the old town a bunch:
I found that the annoying thing about the roaming vendors selling food out of the back of their bicycles/motorbikes is that if you really like what they're selling you can never find them again.
Hanoi has some interesting museums, such as the army museum, which has lots of american fighters and tanks:
The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum was disappointing. It was a dead body. In a glass case.
Since I knew I would need to book a tour to see Ha Long Bay anyway, I decided to leave from Hanoi rather than riding to the bay first. Ha Long Bay is basically the Li river in China but it's a bay instead of a river and all the bottoms of the limestone formations are further eroded by the water.
As part of the tour we got to visit a floating fishing village. The village farms pearls by manually inserting plastic beads into oysters, then hanging them in a net underwater for a few years.
From Hanoi it was several days south to Hue along the QL1, mostly following the coast. This part of Vietnam is not too exciting because it's all entirely flat, with nothing but rice paddies still full of water. Hue has a large citadel full of the old imperial palace:
More interesting than that was some of the tombs built for the emperors, the last of which was finished in 1931.
From Hue it was a few days to Hoi An, where I've been waiting to get my visa extended before continuing. Hue has tons of old Chinese buildings that were used as meeting halls when it used to be a major port, and it has an interesting waterfront.
To start, at the border from Lao Cai, I went towards Sapa, which was fairly interesting because of the hill tribe people wearing funny clothing and constantly trying to sell me stuff. I didn't even make it into town before people on motorbikes were following me, desperately trying to get me stay at their hotels.
After leaving Sapa, I spent the next 4 days on a roller coaster up and down climbing the same 40m about 100 times through northern Vietnam. The first day out of Sapa I stopped at a restaurant around 5pm (since it's dark at 5:30) and fumbled through ordering. I was then invited to sleep at the restaurant, and a short while later tons of people started showing up and I was treated to a second dinner for free.
So far in Vietnam Everyone has been friendly and generally interested in talking or asking questions, and I have had only minor trouble ordering food. I can read the script, but can't even begin to pronounce it. I think the first 10 times or so I tried to order Pho I ended up with something that was definitely not Pho, but was still delicious.
I survived the army of motor scooters in Hanoi, and wandered around the old town a bunch:
I found that the annoying thing about the roaming vendors selling food out of the back of their bicycles/motorbikes is that if you really like what they're selling you can never find them again.
Hanoi has some interesting museums, such as the army museum, which has lots of american fighters and tanks:
The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum was disappointing. It was a dead body. In a glass case.
Since I knew I would need to book a tour to see Ha Long Bay anyway, I decided to leave from Hanoi rather than riding to the bay first. Ha Long Bay is basically the Li river in China but it's a bay instead of a river and all the bottoms of the limestone formations are further eroded by the water.
As part of the tour we got to visit a floating fishing village. The village farms pearls by manually inserting plastic beads into oysters, then hanging them in a net underwater for a few years.
From Hanoi it was several days south to Hue along the QL1, mostly following the coast. This part of Vietnam is not too exciting because it's all entirely flat, with nothing but rice paddies still full of water. Hue has a large citadel full of the old imperial palace:
More interesting than that was some of the tombs built for the emperors, the last of which was finished in 1931.
From Hue it was a few days to Hoi An, where I've been waiting to get my visa extended before continuing. Hue has tons of old Chinese buildings that were used as meeting halls when it used to be a major port, and it has an interesting waterfront.
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