While I was in Hanoi, I booked the package tour through my hotel which includes hotel, all means, train and bus transportation, and 2 days of hiking to rural minority villages.  I don't remember what I paid since I did it as sort of a package deal with Halong Bay but I think it was around 75-80 USD.  Well worth it.

The train was an overnight sleeper that left Hanoi at 9:00PM and arrives in Sapa around 6:00AM the next morning.  Not the best train in the world but I had a soft sleeper car so it was comfortable enough.  From the train station, it's then another 1.5 - 2 hour bus ride up all sorts of mountainous roads with breathtaking views until finally reaching the main town of Sapa.  Since Sapa is very high in elevation the temperate is actually very cool compared to Hanoi and Saigon.  There is virtually no humidity which made it quite a change from the rest of Southeast Asia.

The hotel I stayed in was called the Royal Hotel and my view overlooked one of the numerous valleys.  The room was extremely nice like most of the hotels I stayed in Vietnam.  The room had old hardwood flooring and a brick fireplace which gets used in te winter when they occasionally get snow high up in the mountains.  The entire place has a sort of cosy small town feel to it where after a while every local remembers your face and will greet you by name. The included food although very few choices (could only choose from a set menu of 4 things) was excellent and the portions were very large unlike Ha Long bay where the food was pretty horrible and was basically re-heated Spring Rolls.

There are a handful of ethnic village tribes up here that don't really fit anywhere else in the world but here.  They're not Vietnamese, not Chinese, or Laos.  They're just what they are; they've lived here for thousands of years and they don't really fall into any boundary of any country.  The tribes here though are probably most closely related to the Chinese minority tribes than Vietnamese.  In fact, some of these villages here use supposedly speak a dialect of Mandarin (or another Chinese language) and don't speak Vietnamese at all as you get closer to the Chinese border.  All of their clothing is made entirely by them.  Everything is extremely colorful and dyed with indigo. I've got some fantastic pictures. What I found most interesting was the Black H'Mong tribe (as seen in many of my pictures) spoke better English than almost all of Vietnam even though they claimed they didn't go to school for it and learned it entirely from tourists.  Most of the girls all wear their traditional clothing and hike up to the main town every day to sell clothing, bracelets and handbags made of hemp and dyed with indigo to all the tourists.  Even though they live in the villages their entire lifes most of them still have some sort of western influence.  Even in the remote tribes, they have televisions with satelite. I also saw one of them with a cell phone of all things and some of the younger girls even have email addresses! Not too bad for a small little minority tribe.   Still their culture is pretty unique.  I don't know enough about it to explain but it definitely warrants more reading into.  They have no religion and basically worship living ancestors, when people die, they're forgotten about.   Men can have wifes and girlfriends at the same time.

I could have definitely stayed in Sapa for a week, I actually felt bad for leaving and didn't feel like I had seen enough.  The people weren't pushy or aggressive like lots of the Vietnamese people who try to sell you stuff in the markets.  Their smiles were genuine unlike most places in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam who see you as a walking ATM machine.  One of the girls actually gave me 2 free bracelets because I was talking to her.  In return, I gave her a bracelet I bought in Cambodia; sort of a trade I guess.

Anyway, I got back from Sapa this morning at 5AM on the train and walked around Hanoi until 11:30AM to catch my flight to Bangkok.  Now i'm back in Bangkok. My AirFlight took 2 hours, passed through Thailand immigration without any problems. For some reason, it just feels like i'm coming home.  This was my first place in Southeast Asia I traveled and stayed the longest. Coming back to it has a good feel.  It's funny, if you read my first post about Bangkok, I mention that I thought it was extremely dirty, crowded and polluted.  After traveling much of SE Asia, I have to say Bangkok now feels very clean, modern and certainly less polluted than Saigon. Bangkok is certainly less crowded than Saigon which has 8 million people and 6 million motor bikes.  Bangkok travel and congestion is nothing compared to the small side streets of Hanoi. Bangkok looks like a sterile hospital compared to Phnom Penh.  Basically, you get my idea.  After revisiting this place, it just feels more impressive than it did 3 months ago when I first arrived.

Anyway, feels good to be back in Thailand.  Though it's much more touristy, the people are friendly, you don't get hassled as much, and of course Thai girls are just beautiful to look at.  Staying here until the 4th and then I fly to Australia!    I'm off for some Beer Chang! 8% alcohol.  Stay turned for updates from Sydney

 I just got back from a 2 day boat trip tour to Ha Long Bay.  So far this has been the highlight of my Vietnam trip.  I'd go as far as saying the scenery in Ha Long Bay is some of the best in the world.  No words really can describe it but i'll try my worst to convey what it was like. The pictures can't really capture the magnitude of the bays and cliffs. The entire bay (scratch that), hundreds of individual bays are enclosed by huge towering limestone cliffs that completely encompass the surrounding emerald green waters providing for an extremely calm place for boats to dock and for visiting communities to live.

Besides the fanastic scenery, these bays are also home to many small fishing villages or floating towns on water.  From the looks of it people spend almost their entire lifes living in floating wooden shacks to fish.  Even in this place though, they're not without modern amenities.  Almost every shack has an electric generator, a radio and a television complete with Vietnamese karayoke which the every Vietnamese person seems to love.  I've got some really nice pictures of some of the floating houses and some of the little kids having water fights and being pushed off their boats by other kids.  It was pretty amusing to watch.

Our boat consisted of about 16 people. The trip included breakfast, lunch and dinner and a one night stay on the boat in basic but cramped rooms (exactly what you'd expect on a boat).  For our first day we sort of drifted around going in and out of the various bays taking pictures, later on we visited several massive limestone caves.  The caves are pretty unique because although they're existed for millions of years, they were only recently discovered in 1993. At night, a caravan of about 50 boats all docked in the same bay for people to sleep.  We had dinner there and later went on the roofs of our respective boats to relax and drink. The sight of about 50 boats all with lights enclosed in a bay surrounded by limestone cliffs with a crystal clear sky showing all the stars was also extremely impressive.

There's really not much else to report about Ha Long Bay.  It's probably one of the most beautiful places in the entire world (definitely south-east asia) and everyone should see it if they decide to go to Vietnam.  It would be an absolutely tragedy to miss it.  In the morning we went swimming and rented a kayak for 2 hours where me and another person discovered a small tiny island with a perfect beach. We..okay.. we didn't discover it butwe were the only two people adventerous and foolish enough to paddle to the island. It literally looked like something out of a Corona commercial.

I'm currently waitiing for my overnight sleeper train to leave for Sapa tonight. Sapa is one of the remote places in North Vietnam very close to the Chinese border.  It's very mountainous and is very highly elevated so the climate will be much colder than the rest of Vietnam, something i'm desperately looking forward to.  Can't wait to escape the humidity of Hanoi. The town like Ha Long Bay is also famous for it's breath taking views and colorful minority tribes which inhabit the area.  I will be staying in Sapa for two days for trekking until I go back to Hanoi on September 2nd which interestingly enough is Vietnamese Independence Day so I would imagine Hanoi will be a mad house.  Supposed to be lots of parades and Vietnamese people here on holiday to see Ho Chi Minh's tomb.  Just hope I can make it to the airport in time to catch my flight to Bangkok.  The next time you hear from me again I'll be back in smelly old Bangkok for a couple daying recouperating for my flight to Sydney, Australia!

Before I left Hue I took an all day tour to the DMZ "Demiliterized Zone" which pretty much covers the majority of the famous war sights from the era such as Hamburger Hill, The Rockpile, The Ho Chi Minh Trail (now called Ho Chi Minh Highway), Ben Hai river which basically marked the division of North and South Vietnam almost directly at the 17th parallel, Khe Sanh military base and the town of Dong Ha which has approximately 17,000 people was basically the head of the U.S. marine division during the Vietnam War.  The tour left approximately 6:00AM in the morning and got back around 5:30PM at night.

It started off on Highway 1 which is the main road linking Saigon to Hanoi.  We eventually crossed Ben Hai river and stopped on the Northern side of it to see a small monument and large Vietnamese flagpole.  The monument depicts a Vietnamese mother and son on the south side of the river waving at the father (who is persumably a North Vietnamese soldier) on the opposite side. After this we moved along to our first destination, the Vinh Moc tunnels.

Unlike the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon, the Vinh Moc tunnels are unmodified and have not been made enlarged to fit fat western tourists.  They were built entirely by the Vietnamese people to escape the constant shelling and bombing in the area. We spent about 20 minutes walking inside just a small percentage of the kilometers of tunnels present.  They're very dark and cramped with the exception of a few lights guiding the way.

Although the DMZ was essentially declared a fire free zone on both sides of the border this was far from what actually happened. The DMZ was one of the most heavily bombed and mined areas in Vietnam.  According to our tour guide approximately 10 people/per month just in the town of Dong Ha still die from landmines. All along the border, craters are still evident in the rice paddies beside the roads while in Dong Ha you can see huge eucalyptus groves which are also remnants left over from the war.  It's a pretty strange sight.  All over the mountains you can also see huge patches where trees and foliage once grew but are now baron due to the chemicals such as Agent Orange which were used for defoliating the hills so the Viet Cong and NVA couldn't hide out.

Later on we passed some of the other famous war sights such as the Rockpile, another famous helicopter/artillery base though there's not much left of it these days. Lastly, we headed to the Khe Sanh Combat Base. One of the most remote and famous military bases for the U.S. marines.  During January 1968, American intelligence had assumed the Vietnamese were planning "another Dien Bien Phu" (famous battle where the Vietnamese ultimately defeated the French in 1954) when N. Vietnamese forces began increasing around the base and they were determined that the base would not fall.  As a result, the base was heavily armed and occupied to prevent it's takeover.  Later on it was learned that this was a major error in U.S. intelligence. With the help of this massive diversion, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive overrunning Saigon in 3 days until it was later re-occupied again by the Americans and the South Vietnamese army.  Eventually after heavily fighting and bombing the Khe Sanh base was later abandoned in June of 1968.

That's about it. Along the way back we also passed a few minority tribe villages where the bus was surrounded by about 20 little kids trying to beg for money.  The tour itself was pretty impressive if you're interested in the Vietnam war.  It quite strange to hear it from a Vietnamese perspective rather than reading about it from my Political Science books.  Highly recommended if you like that sort of thing but it could also be pretty boring since it's quite a lot of driving before you get anywhere.

I left Hoi An after having 2 suits made, 5 dress shirts, 2 pairs of designer jeans and a pair of Puma sneakers.  Hoi An absolutely ruined my budget.  When I left I had an entire new wardrobe.  I now have so much clothing that I needed to buy a completely new suitcase. I managed to haggle down a ridiculously fancy but nevertheless fake hard-shelled polo suitcase on wheels for about 20 USD with enough room to fit all my clothing.  I guess this makes me no longer a "backpacker", I moved slightly up in the ranks/class system and could accurately be described as a "suitcaser on a backpacker's budget" whatever that means.  I'm trying to slim down whatever extra baggage I have for Australia/New Zealand so I'm going to most likely be shipping my backpack and some extra shirts home so I won't have a problem flying.

I figured this would be better for traveling if I managed to stay in one place for a longtime, plus the Polo suitcase is executive size and will fit almost everything I own, allowing me to take it as a carry-on.  That means no checked bags! Another bonus since I hate checking things.

Anyway, I used three main clothing shops for all my purchases.  The first being Kim Huong which I originally described as a good shop from my first post.  While the quality here is still great, after going around numerous other places and learning a bit more I quickly learned that you get what you pay for.  The prices here are low but you need to be extremely specific about what you want otherwise it won't get done.  For example, the lining which I thought was silk ended up being synthetic and the shoulder padding isn't as thick as some of the other suits I've seen elsewhere.  Nevertheless, it still came out great.

I also had them copy/design 4 dress shirts, two long sleeve shirts and two short sleeve shirts. All four are of decent quality and fit extremely well but you can see in some places where the fabric may have not been the best quality.  The tailoring itself is superb though.  For the short sleeve shirts I had them copy one of my 50 USD Topmann shirts and they did it to a tee with all the details.  All and all, Kim Huong was a good shop; you just need to be very specific and specify exactly how you want stuff made. I.E. pleats, cuffs, double stitching, real silk, lined pants. etc.

The other main shop I used was A Dong Silk. They're a fairly larger shop with two locations and are rumored to do all of their work in house as opposed to farming it out to factories.  The prices were of course MUCH higher than Kim Huong $80 versus $110 and up for a suit but you could instantly tell the difference.  Everything was done without question and the shop girls were extremely specific by asking me exactly how I wanted stuff done unlike Kim Huong.  The shop itself also had a much larger selection of fabric to choose from, two floors plus whatever was present at the other shop.  What I have seemed to learn in my brief lesson in custom tailoring is that often the fabric makes the suit. The tailoring could be fanastic but if the fabric is poor, you're ultimately going to get something subpar.

The last thing I commissioned A Dong Silk to design was another copy of my Topman shirt though with a different color fabric and one of supposed better quality. Like I said in my previous post, the shirt came out even better than I expected and I couldn't have been more pleased.  Even though I liked the ones from Kim Huong, it was pretty clear which ones were better.  The bottom line is you may end up paying a bit more at A Dong Silk but it's well worth it. They also stitch all of their clothing with custom logos inside the jackets and shirts, something most of the smaller shops don't do here. The suit bag I was given also contains their logo.

Lastly, I found a place called CQ jeans and I had them copy my pair of Diesel jeans.  While every other shop "claims" to do "good jeans" this place specifically specializes in jeans. I gave them my pair of $160 USD jeans to copy that were ripped in Nha Trang and they reproduced them perfectly and beautifully down to the fading and the stitching.  Needless to say, I was very impressed and they only cost $30 USD.  Also, instead of being plain or having some generic logo, they also sewed their own custom logo on the back and inside.  The buttons too also have their name on them. A nice touch.  They're a bit more expensive than what some of the other tailors charge for jeans but they're worth it.  I had one other pair made at some random shop and the fabric is very plain and the entire pair looks very generic.

After my clothing adventure I decided to see a bit more of Hoi An.  I ended up befriending a group of Canadians at my hotel and we mostly walked around town and went to the beach. Though they were a bit older than me, mostly early 30s, they were a nice bunch.  Walking around the tailoring shops and stores really gives you a good feel of Hoi An.  On my 5th day I practically knew how to get anywhere in town.  It's a pretty small area and you manage to see the same faces over and over again.  This town is also a mecca for cheap art.  Lots of nice oil and color paintings here.  You can get very large and complex wall pieces for about 40 USD.

I mostly stuck to a smaller beach called An Nang which was just as nice as the bigger beach but with less tourists.  At one point me and the Canadian group were the only westerners on the beach.  As a result, we were surrounded by large groups of Vietnamese kids trying to sell everything from bags of peanuts to bracelets, hats.  It got extremely annoying after a while since we were the only people on the beach they could harass.  It was all in good fun though.  They weren't overly annoying and aggressive like the ones in Nha Trang and we ended up having a good laugh listening to them speak broken English and us speaking even more broken and limited Vietnamese. Still I do wish I could find a beach where I don't get bombared by people trying to sell me stuff every 5 minutes.  After a while it's something you learn to phase out though.

For one of my other days, I took a tour to a place outside of Hoi An called My Son which is famous because it was built by the Champa dynasty in Vietnam.  It is consisted one of the most important Hindu sights in Southeast Asia. The area itself is pretty unique; all the structures/temples are build mostly using some type of red brick unlike the vast temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  Though most of the structures are in ruin due to the Vietnam war, reconstruction and repairs are ongoing due to My Son recently being declared a cultural heritage sight by UNESCO in 1998.

It's funny but after coming here, you immediately get a better understanding of geography surrounding the area.  I had read many books for school and novels about Vietnam but at that point I could only identify it on a map.  Now after going to Hoi An, My Son, Hue and some of the other areas in Central Vietnam and actually seeing the bomb craters and building still being reconstructured you instantly get a better understanding of what took place here.   An example would be in My Son, right next to this beautiful temple was a huge impact crater from where a bomb hit.  As a result, it damaged most of the temple and it's now being held up by sticks and poles. I just finished re-reading some books from a political science class I took on the Vietnam war where it depicts American accounts of Hue and Hoi An and I now instantly understood what they were talking about.  It's a cool feeling.

Anyway, i've finally left Hoi An after 5 days of intensive shopping and beach-going and arrived in the city of Hue.  Hue itself is much different from Hoi An.  It's not very laid-back at all and instantly I can begin to see the increased pressure of the motodrivers and the cyclo drivers trying to take you for a "proverbial ride"  I've walked around a bit today along the Perfume River and captured some nice photos.  I don't really plan to stay here long though.

Tomorrow i'm taking a trip north of Hue to the infamous/famous Demiliterized Zone (DMZ) to see more of the famous war sights such as the Vinh tunnels and the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  The Demiliterized Zone is famous because it served as the diving line between North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  You may also know it as the 17th parallel which was a "provisional military demarcation line" established by the Geneva Conference in 1954 which officially split the country of Vietnam until free elections could take place.   As you may now know, these elections never took place because the United States knew that it would instantly mean a victory for Ho Chi Minh thus they refused to recognize them or allow elections to take place.

Tonight I will work on finding an Internet cafe to upload some more photos from Vietnam.

Beer here is extremely cheap like most places i've been but even moreso here. Most places sell their own draft beer which they simply call "fresh beer" (bia hoi) and it's about 3000 dong a glass, or 19cents USD.  It's an extremely lite and low alcohol content beer so it can usually be drank anytime. An incredible value.  People seem to drink it like tea here.  The locals sit on the side of the road here and drink it with breakfast, lunch, diner or anytime night; they never miss an opportunity to drink beer.

The beaches here are also nice if not better than Nha Trang, they're certainly less crowded.  I spent the last two days walking around the main town, looking at all the shops, the central market and just exploring some of the sights along the river.  It's much easier to walk around here than other places, the people here seem be very friendly and there is much less bicycle traffic; No problems at all.  The only major problem is some areas around here are under major construction. They seem to be digging up parts of the road along town putting in new pipes/water lines which only leads me to believe that Hoi An will one day become very similiar to Nha Trang, a full blown beach resort destination.

The thing I like most about Hoi An is the fact that you can have any piece of clothing copied/made here for a fraction of the price that it would cost to buy at home.  Tailoring is huge here. I guess Hong Kong, Bangkok and Nha Trang are the tailoring capitals of Southeast Asia.  There are literally thousands of tailor shops that can make anything you want, custom designer suits, designer shirts, polos, pairs of jeans, winter jackets, handbags, sneakers, shoes. Anything that can be made with fabric or leather, can be made entirely from scratch here or elegantly reproduced from a magazine or replicated from a piece of clothing already in your possession. The best part is that this ready the next day (often less than 24 hours), give or take a few hours for alterations and adjustments.  You can generally pick any tailoring shop because the majority of them farm the work out to the same large factory, only some of the larger tailoring shops actually do the tailoring in house.

As a result, I'm having a field day over here designing an entire new wardrobe.  The hotel i'm staying at (along several other people) recommended a place called Kim Huong. I ended up having a entire suit made with Italian cashmere wool with a real silk lining (I verified this) with pants and a shirt for $85 USD. I was a bit worried at first because most of the places I reviewed on the Internet never mentioned this place and I'm almost positive they just farm the work out to a factory somewhere else.  Nevertheless, It came out extremely well and i've very happy with the design. I'm having them do a few more minor alterations and it should be ready tomorrow morning. The process was painless. Once I picked out the style and fabric I wanted they precisely took all my measurements checking them again several times to make sure they were correct. I basically already had an idea what I wanted and they filled in the rest.  If you have no idea, you can just browse through magazines and catalogs, point to what you want and they'll reproduce it almost perfectly.  I tried to be extremely picky about stuff I wanted them to fix and they seemed to have no problem making adjustments.  I'll admit I know next to nothing about suits but it looks good to me. Everything is double stitched, the seams are tight and straight with everything aligned perfectly. Nothing is uneven, buttons are sewn on tightly and more importantly, everything fits perfectly because it was tailored for me.  I guess the hardest part about me buying clothing is that i'm short so everything is usually too long on me or too wide.  Having proper fitting clothing is a first for me.  I guess I can finally take the smug satisfaction if someone asks me "Where did you buy that shirt/suit?" I can reply "Oh this old thing..it's just a little something my tailor designed for me....oh sorry? You don't have a tailor? Such a shame I say.."

I also went to another shop called A Dong Silk to have them design some new shirts for me.  I used one of my favorite Topmann shirts as a template and then I had two identical shirts with different color fabric produced.  The shirt originally cost me around $50 USD, A Dong Silk charged me $14 USD/each.  I picked these up today and they came out fantastic.  I can't wait to wear them. I can't get over how well they copied the design; all that's missing is an exuberant price tag.

Lastly, I was fascinated by the number of places here that can make or reproduce designer jeans.  Because my favorite pair of jeans were ripped/destroyed in Nha Trang I knew I wanted to have a couple knew pairs made for New Zealand. I ended up walking around town and found a shop called CQ Jeans which seems to specialize as you might have guessed only in jeans. I looked at some of their sample work and the quality looked very nice so I commissioned them to copy my pair of Desiel jeans that originally cost me about $150.  After they measured me, I picked out the fabric/style that I wanted and left my jeans there for them to copy.  According to them, they should be ready around 2PM tomorrow. At $30 a pair, if they come out good, I told her I would have them make one more.

So far I've already had 1 suit made, 5 shirts, and 2 pairs of jeans in progress. Basically an entire new wardrobe for about $185 USD.  Just my diesiel jeans alone cost $150. Amazing and i'm sure I could have gotten everything a bit cheaper too if I haggled a bit better though I figured I wouldn't try to nickle and dime and hope for quality.  I'll update here tomorrow and report on how everything else came out when I come pick my stuff up.  I'm debating on whether or not I should have a second suit made now too.

I've been here for 5 days and my bus to Hoi An leaves tonight in about 2 hours. I've had a very interesting time so far. I ended up meeting an English guy named Shawn and we went out on the piss and drank excessively for 2 nights in a row since it was his last few nights in Vietnam and it was my upcoming birthday. Beer here is a bit more expensive than Saigon especially at some of the nicer clubs/bars but it's still quite cheap.

The hotel I am staying at is 12USD/night but I ended up splitting it with the English guy Shawn so it only cost us 6USD/night.  For the price, this is probably the nicest place i've stayed in so far.  It has AC, two large double beds, satelite TV, closets, and an extremely nice bathroom complete with a bathtub.

For my first night here I sort of went on a pub crawl, drinking at about about 5-6 places in this area. The nightlife here is decent, lots of travelers and locals. Went to a really nice and small place called The Shamrock Pub (nothing is more Irish than Shamrocks) for a little while where the owner had a fanastic selection of MP3s on his computer and a good selection of beer.

There is another place here called Crazy Kim's Bar which is run by a former Vietnamese refugee from Canada aptly named Kim. Seems like it was made quite popular by Lonely Planet, nevertheless it's still a decent place. Her bar is somewhat famous too because she runs a volunteer English school to teach the local kids. Some of the proceeds in her bar go to helping feed the street kids and she is an extremely strong advocate against pedophilia.

Every pub crawl on the island invariably ends up at the Sailing Club. When every other place shuts down at around midnight or 1AM, this place stays open well into the hours of the morning. Infact, I don't remember it closing. It's essentially quite a fancy club that's located right on the beach. At around 1:30AM, the entire dance floor/bar is jam-packed and depending on your idea of nightlife, this can be great fun. Me, Shawn, two Kiwis girls, two English girls and a couple Irish guys ending up staying there until about 5AM in the morning. They actually stayed later than me to watch the sunrise but by that time I was too tired and had already left for the night. All and all, a good place to hang out and it's pretty much your only option after everything else closes.

The previous day we had booked a boat trip at a place called Mama Linh's boat tours for 4 USD which was pretty much gone the entire day and included an excellent lunch with fresh fruit. Rumor has it that it was something of a booze cruise but to be honest I wasn't sure what to expect. The next morning even though I was extremely hung over, I still managed to make it on the boat tour. Everything I had heard about it was completely true, the entire boat tour was one large party with music, a live band with drums, and large amounts of alcohol. I actually feel a little bad because there were a couple familes on the boat with kids while the rest of the groups were travelers just looking for a good time.

As the boats went from island to island, we were followed by a caravan of about 5 other boats all going in the same direction. Once we reached where we wanted to go, every boat would dock next to each other allowing people from other boats to move freely between the boats. At first it was just music and beer then out of nowhere, some sort of Vietnamese cover band made up entirely of members of the crew started singing cover songs. They were suprisingly good too.

After that we ended up moving to a different island for snorkeling. After snorkeling we were thrown tubes and handed bottles of wine for what they called a "floating bar". This consisted entirely of everyone from each boat floating around the water in a tube, drinking beer and wine.

At our last stop, some of the people from the other boats were so hammered they ended up dancing on the roof of one of the boats. I have an extremely funny video of it from my camera that I will end up posting on here in a couple days. Anyway, Mama Linh's boat tour was well worth it and I can highly recommend it to anybody that goes to Nha Trang. I had a fanastic time.

The next few days I ended up getting a couple massages at a really fancy hotel and spa for 6USD. I'm not really a big massage person but these were well worth it. The last massage I had was in Thailand on the beach and it was almost 2.5 months ago. These ones were on an entirely different level. For 6USD, you got to use the steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, and a pool. The massage itself was 60 minutes long. Absolutely worth it. Anyway, since my birthday was on August 17th, that was my birthday present to myself. I also had another massage this morning just for the hell of it. For 6 bucks, you can't go wrong.

Anyway, Nha Trang has been quite fun. I've had a great time and met another group of interesting people. Even though I had fun, I also had my first negative encounter in almost 3 months of traveling. I've been to a lot of dodgy and shady places in Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand but i've NEVER had anything stolen from me at all until Nha Trang. When me and Shawn (the English guy I met) were walking back to our hotel we ended up getting surrounded by a group of motorbikes. Basically these gangs consist of a bunch of girls on motorbikes who come up to you trying to sell you stuff or asking if you want to go with them. Obviously, they're looking to prey on drunk people. By the time, we had pushed them off us, Shawn had his camera stolen from his pocket and my pair of jeans were razorbladed and I ended up losing almost 40USD. They're fucking pros, I didn't even feel it happen. You get warned about this stuff but you never expect it to happen to you. Though it hasn't really jaded my experience of Vietnam yet but it has made me a bit more aware. Obviously, this could have happened in any big city like New York or London as well. I later learned when talking to other travelers that this is quite a common occurence in Nha Trang. The gangs aren't looking for a fight but generally an easy grab and go. Once they have your wallet or camera, they drive off on their bikes not to be seen again. If anyone causes trouble, just drive away.

That's my Nha Trang story.  Don't let the robbing fool you, this is still a fanastic place.  Vietnamese people except for a few bad apples and the folks trying to sell you stuff are still wonderfully friendly people.  Hell, even the people trying to sell you stuff generally have a sense of humor about it.  I'm heading on a night bus to Hoi An and should arrive sometime tomorrow morning. While i'm there I plan to have a couple professionaly tailored suits since they're rumored to be extremely cheap there.

 The bus ride from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to HCMC took five hours and for the most part was uneventful.  Custom and immigration took approximately 20 minutes, almost all of which involved queuing in line. Since I had previously gotten my 30-day Vietnamese visa in Sihanoukville, Cambodia my passport was quickly stamped and I was on my way.   On the bus ride, I happened to meet a former South Vietnamese soldier who now lives in San Jose, California as a math teacher.  We talked a bit about Vietnam and what he thinks of his former country; having been formally educated by the U.S. government his English as you might have guessed was excellent. In his mind, he considers himself an American now.  He has a family in the U.S. and of course has a U.S. Passport, that pretty much makes him Americanized. He's been living in the United States now for 20 years and this is his second trip back to Vietnam.  He says that he can hardly recognize Saigon anymore since lots of the streets have been renamed and buildings torn down. His opinion is that most Vietnamese share no hard feelings towards the war (maybe in the North, a little bit) and they like most foreigners (especially Americans) because they bring lots of money to the country.  This seems especially true when you consider that like Cambodia, the U.S. dollar is still one of the de facto currencies accepted though it's not as extreme as is the case in Cambodia where everything works in U.S. dollars.

Once the bus arrived in Saigon, I managed to follow him because he knew of a good hotel and he helped me bargain a room down to 5USD/night.  Something I'd probably have little luck doing since I don't speak a word of Vietnamese.   The hotel is close to a street called Pham Ngu Lao which is where the majority of the budget hotels and travel agencies are located in Ho Chi Minh City. There are also quite a few good bars and small little restaurants/cafes in the area.  In most spheres it's considered the backpacker ghetto of Vietnam, similar to Bangkok's Khao San Road but decidedly much cleaner and a bit more upscale in my opinion.

I've spent the majority of my time here sitting down in cafes on the street drinking beer watching people and talking to other tourists and local Vietnamese. Beer here is accordingly cheap.  There are about 5 or 6 different national beers.  Most cost about .65 cents USD for a large bottle of beer.  Draft beer is even cheaper than that. So far my favorite has been Saigon Beer, it cost about 10,000 dong (.62 cents USD).

Since Vietnam was once occupied by the French before the Americans, it still retains a lot of French culture.  For example, a good portion of older Vietnamese population speak French fluently while the younger generation tends to speak more English.   Walking around Ho Chi Minh City can be compared to walking around Paris in a way.   There are thousands of small little personal cafes where you can sit on the roadside and drink beer or coffee. In additional to the menus being written in Vietnamese, they're also written in French at most places.  Lots of buildings here, especially in the Saigon district are distinctly French in architecture.  Just sitting at a cafe here it seems you're most likely to encounter a group of tourists speaking French rather than English.  Apparently Vietnam has become a popular place for French to go on holiday.

Yesterday, I spend the day walking around District 1 touring the Reunification Palace (Formerly South Vietnam's Presidential Palace), the War Remnants Museum (Also called Exhibition House of American War Crimes), Municipal theater, Ben Thanh Market, and Notre Dame Cathedral, a French-built Catholic cathedral in the city centre.

The Reunification Palace was pretty interesting though a bit boring. The palace itself was fully restored to the 1960s era prior to the invasion of Saigon. Most of the rooms are roped off only allowing you to look inside, though all of the five floors are accessible.  In the basement, you can see all the 1960s-era electronic equipment such as radios, typewriters, and phones supposedly preserved in time. Lastly, parked outside the palace is tank 843 which crashed through the palace gates on April 30th, 1975.

The War Remnants Museum was slightly more disturbing.  Outside the museum itself were American-made tanks, American jets and "Huey" helicopters stationed out front.  The museum itself was mostly made up of gruesome photographs which depicted all the violence American soldiers committed in the war towards the Vietnamese.  Pictures of mass graves, American soldiers holding the remains of dead Vietnamese while smiling and smoking cigarettes.  There is also an entire exhibit decided to Agent Orange and the millions of deformities caused by the chemical. Though most of the signs are in French and Vietnamese, it's easy to understand what they mean just by looking at the picture.   There is also a small section decided to the American Anti-War movement, copies of magazines and pictures showing anti-war demonstrations explaining that it was the American government, not the people that were largely responsible.

That's pretty much it.  The rest of the sights are just buildings.  Not much to explain about that, pictures are enough of a description.   Notre Dame Cathedral was just a big church and the Ben Thanh Market was just a big market. It doesn't get any simpler.

A couple other things about Ho Chi Minh City. The traffic and congestion here is horrible. It seems the entire city population is dependent upon motorscooters.  It's an interesting sight seeing thousands of motoscooters weave in and out of traffic, narrowly missing cars, bikes and anything in their path.  The driving here is madness, even more chaotic than Bangkok or Phnom Penh.  The difference is the roads seem to be much better and cleaner.  The rules? There doesn't really seem to be any traffic rules, it's every man for themselves.  The amount of people trying to sell you stuff here is also maddening.  Anywhere you go, as soon as you sit down at a restaurant or walk down a street there will be people trying to sell you things.  Newspapers, photocopied books, zippo lights, fake designer sunglasses, Gucci wallets, anything and everything.   It starts to get extremely annoying, when a simple "no" doesn't work after 3 or 4 times you just need to learn not to make eye contact until they walk away or ignore you.  To be honest, I found it much worse in Cambodia but a lot of people think it's worse in Vietnam.  The difference here is people speak English better so it tends to seem more aggressive.

Anyway, I have night bus to catch at 8:00PM to Nha Trang which takes approximately 10 hours.  Nha Trang is the beach resort area of Vietnam and is supposed to have some very nice beaches.  Depending on how I like it, I may spend my birthday there since it's coming up on August 17th.  Otherwise, i'll continue heading north to Hanoi stopping in Hoi An and Hue along the way.