Heading South

So my travel plans changed a little again as well, but this time it's Halong Bay to blame. After my amazing trip there I was supposed to be heading off to do some trekking in Sapa, which is a beautiful mountainous area northwest of Hanoi. However, this was not meant to be on this trip. After three luxurious days of sun, sand, and sea, I was so not in the mood to be hiking up in rainy mountains. I've heard they're spectacular, but I just spent a lot of time in rainy mountains courtesy of Laos, and really, right now, all I wanna do is get my ass down to a BEACH and soak up some rays. Sorry Sapa, I'll have to hit you up next time I roll through Vietnam.

Plus, the day after I got back from Halong Bay there was a huge national holiday in Vietnam where practically the whole country shut down. It's their Independence Day and because of that either tour companies were closed, or the trains to Sapa were booked up by locals streaming out of Hanoi for the long weekend. I bought my ticket down south and spent the last day hanging out with Clara and Maddie (the sweet German girls) and my new Aussie friends Jo and Damon who I met on my boat.

On my last night in town we all went out for a big dinner together, along with Macey and Beccy, and two of their new friends Karen and Jasper. We were a big gang of nine whiteys wandering the streets of Hanoi kicking it up. After dinner we went out for drinks at this funky club called...Funky Monkey...and then later the German girls and I went to another place called Linkin Pub after the rest went home to sleep.

One little side note that I forgot to mention before Halong Bay. Bars are supposed to close at 11pm in Vietnam, and one night before my boat trip we went out to this little bar for some drinks (myself, the German girls, and Mace and Bex.) Well 11pm came and went and we were still having drinks laughing it up in the pub with some French guys we met. It must've been around 11:30pm or midnight when all of a sudden the power was cut in the bar and we were plunged into darkness...

Turns out that many, many bars in Vietnam ignore the 11pm curfew, and instead just try and dodge the cops who patrol the streets looking for open-too-late establisments. Well when our power was cut it's cause the bar received a tip from someone up the street that the police were just around the corner! Our bar locked its gates and we all had to hide in the dark corners away from the door so that any police looking in won't see us. It was a bit exciting and were all giggling in the corner like schoolkids hiding from an angry mom at a basement sleepover, but then all of a sudden we saw this large dark figure of a man in the doorway. THE POLICE! We held our breath in silence, clutching our precious beer and martinis, afraid to move or speak for fear of giving away our presence, and then gave out a collective sigh of relief when a minute later the police moved on. Phew! So this is what a night out on the town is like in a Communist country, eh?

The next day we were hoping to catch some of the Independence Day celebrations, but most of them happened very early in the day (like 7am!) and we all slept in late from our night out. It was a hot hot HOT day in Hanoi and I spent it just hanging out with the German girls and the Aussies. Later that night there were fireworks going on but I had a train to catch so I missed out on the show.

I caught the night train down to Danang and was excited to see that I had a whole first class sleeper compartment all to myself. I arrived in Danang the next day around 1pm and took a taxi to my actual destination - Hoi An, a small town just 30 km. or so down the highway. I spent the next three days hanging out in Hoi An and it was a really lovely little place. It's a tiny town, and used to be a popular trading port back in the colonial days when ships from France, Portugal, Japan, and China would visit Hoi An to trade goods. Walking along the old wharf on the riverfront, and gazing at the old buildings that line the streets, you can imagine what all the hustle and bustle must've been like back in Hoi An's marine heydays. The architecture in this town is truly splendid, a mix of colonial and Vietnamese, and consequently the Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It was FREAKIN' HOT in Hoi An the whole time I was there and most days during the mid-afternoon I would hide indoors from the extreme heat, either reading at a cafe or chatting with friends online. Man, with this weather I *really* can't wait to get myself to a beach... But that'll be my next destination... Hoi An is famous for its many tailor shops who can make you an entire new wardrobe custom fit for like $100, but I wasn't really interested in spending my time in tailor shops (and then I'd have to cart around the clothes, or mail them home) so I decided to pass on them.

The German girls rolled into town a day after me and one morning we got up early to go on a tour of the My Son Champa ruins. My Son is a collection of temple ruins that used to be the centre of the Champa Kingdom. The Chams were a civilization that lived in Central Vietnam from about 3rd Century up to the 12th Century I believe, and their small but strong kingdom ruled for three times longer than Cambodia's famous Khmers. Not a whole lot is known about the Chams today as their kingdom was eventually taken over by the Vietnamese to the north and over the centuries they've been assimilated or their history has been lost. They even have a system of writing which bears similarity to Hindu, but the meanings have been forgotten and it now remains a 'lost language.'

My Son is a beautiful collection of temple towers and pagodas. Unfortunately, many of them lie in ruins. However, it was not the invading Vietnamese, nor the fact that they're well over 1000 years old, that has destroyed them. During the Vietnam War (or the American War as they call it over here) many locals hid in the shelter of the temples for protection. However, when the Americans found out about this they bombed the hell out of My Son to try and kill the hiding Vietnamese. It took *a lot* of bombing as they're all very large and solid structures, but eventually most of them were reduced to rubble in the jungle. A famous French museum curator found out about the My Son bombings, and wrote a letter the American President (Nixon I believe?) emploring him to not bomb the precious ancient temples. Amazingly, Nixon actually listened and ordered all the American armies to continue bombing in Vietnam, but not to bomb any more temples. It was too late to save My Son, but many other Champa ruins in Vietnam were spared because of this.

It was fascinating to wander through the My Son ruins. Several of the temples are still standing, but you can also explore the ruins of the ones that were bombed. Giant blocks of bricks and enormous pillars lie toppled in heaps, and scrambling through the remains you can imagine how majestic these temples must've looked. There is a lot of mystery which surrounds this place. Historians have no idea how these temples were built, as every single brick fits together so exactly perfectly without mortar, and they're so precise they have no idea how this was done so many centuries ago. Current archaeologists have even tried to recreate some of these temples but no one has been able to figure out how to build it the same way. Even with modern technology they can't get the bricks to fit together as perfectly as the Chams could! Many of the temples are covered in exquistive carvings, and no one knows how the Chams were able to carve these so precicesly without modern tools. On some of the pillars you can also see the Champa lost language, carved into the stone, which I found to be beautiful and hypnotic, and this added to the air of mystery surrounding this site. We even saw a team of archaeologists nearby who were busy excavating the foundations of an ancient My Son temple. What an amazing place!

That evening it was time to leave Hoi An, so the girls and I booked ourselves a bus ticket, and braced ourselves for another long bus ride as we headed south. Please let this bus ride be more pleasant than our last one...PLEASE!!! :-)