Vietnam - Oy, Choy, Oy

I will try to shortly recreate some of my experiences in Vietnam as I promised. It is very hard to sum up a wonderful mouth in fascinating country as Vietnam. Each day was full of amazing experiences, everything was different & new.

Here is my path in Vietnam. There were at least another 3 places marked in my book, but I never got there. Which means there must will be NEXT time!
Hanoi > Halong Bay > Hanoi (boat cruise)
Hanoi > Sapa > Hanoi (train)
Hanoi > Ninh Binh
Ninh Binh > Hue
Hue > Hoi An
Hoi An > NhaTrang
NhaTrang > SaiGon
SaiGon > Mekong Delta > Saigon

Ninh Binh - breath taking country side.
The town itself described in the lonely planet as "sleepy town", which is perfect description, it i quiet and non touristic at all. Me & Sarah arrived in Ninh Binh around noon and just roamed around. People on the streets welcomed us with big smiles, inviting us for tea. Children gathered around us asking to take their pictures.


We used Sarah's Vietnamese phrase book to communicate with people, had beer in the local street stand by the river and later on that evening met Luang, a very nice young Vietnamese woman, who spent the all evening "talking" to us, using the phrase book.

The next day, Me & Sarah spent an amazing day on a motorbikes driving around Ninh Binh. Visiting Tam Coc - "Halong Bay on the rice paddies", Kenh Ga Floating Village, and more...

Hue - "Brown Eyes" (Love is in the air :-)...)
As I told you before, it is Sarah's second time in Vietnam and her heart was left in Vietnam last time with Fo, the owner of a dance bar called "Brown eyes". So we did a lot of partying in Hue, in "Brown eyes", they all very happy to see Sarah back again and we were accepted as old freinds. This was great fun, lots of drinks, and more....
(Bad picture of me & Sarah getting crazy)

Thanks to Gavin (who we met back in Ninh Binh), I did some non partying activities in Hue as well. He is old :-), so he didn't party with us. We book a motorbike tour to the DMZ (Demilitarized zone), that was established as a dividing line between North and South Vietnam, First Indochina War. It was a very hard day, both physically and emotionally. First, I got back from "Brown Eyes" at 06:30 am, slept exactly 10 minutes and got on a long motorbike drive to the DMZ. The all day was full with war stories & scenery, including a visit to the tunnels, which mad me feel very sad. Coming from Israel where people till today occasionally are in shelters, and the war is not a history but a present, it really got into me.


Hoi An - Magical town
"Hoi An is a small town in Central Vietnam famous for its wooden houses, for its family chapels, for its Assembly Halls and for its silk shops."- from virtourist.com. It is magical town!
I spent the first day without Sarah, as she stayed back in Hue for another night of "Brown Eyes" (love, love, love...). Me & Gavin found a really great hotel and I just roamed around most of the day.

The following day Sarah joined us, the crazy girls were reunited and we took a motorbike around Hoi An to a near by villages and the beach. It was amazing!



NhaTrang - Vietnamese version of Tel- Aviv
NhaTrang is a beach city, kind of Tel-Aviv but igger. In NhaTrang, Me & Sarah spent lazy days. One day we took a boat cruise to a near by islands and snorkeling. The owner day spent a lazy day in a hot springs complex. The highlights of NhaTrang for us was Louisiana brew house restaurant on the beach where they have the BEST chocolate & coconut cake :-)!!!

Louisiana brew house restaurant

all good with me :-) - boat cruise

SaiGon - Sarah's family
In SaiGon we met Sarah's Vietnamese family. Last time she was in Vietnam she stayed with a family, who became like her own family. It is very poor family with a small house (2 rooms, hall & kitchen) in one of the crowded Saigon's alleys. The mother Wav and the father Hen are war remembers, they have two children, their older son is disabled, and the younger always working to bring the food on the table. They rent the two rooms they have to tourists, to make some money, and the all family of 4 sleeps down in the hall space & kitchen on the floor. This time we stayed with them again. They were very happy to see Sarah again and she was happy to be back in her Saigon home. The house is in the heart of Saigon's poor neighborhood, so we could smell, hear and touch the "real life" of Saigon.
In Saigon I didn't do much tourist activities, I mean no museums, no temples, etc'. We just stayed on the streets, moving from one coffee place to another, from one restaurant to another. We went to see a movie, checked out all the recommended party clubs, and just wandered the streets.
From Saigon I took a one day tour on Mekong Delta, the same river I spent two days on from Thailand to Laos. Amazing scenery!
On the 11/11, at 08:00 am Sarah accompanied me to the bus station, we said goodbye, and I left to Phnom Penh...

Vietnam for me :
* Kind, carrying and loving people
* Beautiful landscape
* Crazy traffic! The first expression I learned in Vietnamese was "Oy, Zoy, Oy" (north) and "Oy, Choy, Oy" (south), which means O, My god. This was a very useful phrase every time I crossed the street or took a motorbike...
* Everything is on sale and everywhere:
-"Miss, Motorbike?" - motorbike drivers offer their service
- "Would you like to buy a book? Postcard?" - mobile books shops try to make their living
- Mobile cigarette shops who are also drug dealers
- Cyclo's everywhere
- People on bicycles with noisemaker, me & Sarah were very curios to know what all this about, we stopped one, and apparently it is a street massage, imagine this?
- And finally the most funny thing is a man with a mobile height-scale (yes, yes, not weight, height) that plays Chrismas songs every time somebody gets on it.

* And of course, always important part of my Vietnam will be Sarah & Gavin, I was lucky to meet them and it was great fun!!! We meet people for a reason, as Gav says...

Oooo, Vietnam! Vietnam! Vietnam!