Hoi An and afterwards... long time ago in Vietnam

[Kristina Hoffmann]

hi there everywhere!

 

i know - it's been longtime no news from me. and so many things have happened again. and i am already quite a while in australia.. but i'll tell you about this another time, now i'd like to finish telling you about vietnam as i stopped half-way i think. :)

if i remember right, i stopped in Hoi An where we didnt really do anything the first day, but ordered some made-to-measure clothes. which were actually quite nice when we picked them up.

 

anyway, no stay somewhere without visiting something at least. so we went to visit My Son - the rest of an ancient city of a minority from vietnam, the Cham culture. very nice indeed, even in the rain which fell heavily on our heads. but this way we had tested all our outdoor equipment by now. and it all worked well. :)

 

here in Hoi An, it's been also the first time that we really really wanted to eat something like at home... so we went - and had pasta. delicious!

and the next day - youpppieee - bus again. further south. 12h to Nah Trang where we didnt want to stay in the end, so we just took the next bus one hour later and arrived 6 hours later in Dalat. a nice little town, where there is actually nothing. just beautiful, nice landscape, very quiet.. and that's all.  but again - we want to see something at least. so we made a little tour again and it's been really good in the end.

we have seen one of the many waterfalls of this area, went with the cable car, saw the summer palast of the last king who fled to france after ho chi minh took over, the "crayz house" which could be described as a mixture between alice in wonderland and gaudi and is actually used as a hotel (great building if you like this style!), a historical centre to see the production of the traditional embroidery... all in all - a very good day with a fantastic guide.

i should mention that the english of the guide gets better the further south you come. at last, we can understand them.

 

and to change the subject a bit: did i tell you about the houses here already?  it's amazing. they build very narrow, but long/deep houses. if you have been in brussels and know the houses there, just imagine those. but then imagine them in the countryside - standing there alone. nothing to the left and right for a long time. as this would not be strange enough... they also only paint them from the fron, i.e. you see a long house from far away, but you only see long grey walls. and only when you pass the house from the front, you see the coloured wall with nice, wooden balconies and doors. and the choice of colour is very special as well: the love everything, but especially pastel colours. be it pink, light blue, green, .. or everything together. also as very bright versions. and no worries if the colours dont match.. it doesnt matter. (we would say it hurt our eyes, but they love it. really funny.)

 

well, ok. from Dalat we continued to get to our final destination here in Vietnam: Ho Chi Minh City (which is the official name, but everybody still calls it Saigon). the first two days we were so lucky to have Ly (the third girl in our "group") with us as we stayed with her family there. definitely one of the best parts of the journey - to see real vietnamese life, food, etc. even if we could not understand one word. we learned at least to say "very tasty"... very important. ;)

 

and we were eating and eating and eating there. incredible. but sooo good. and every morning the traditional vietnamese soup "pho". yummie. i miss it now. but luckily we found a vietnamese restaurant here in perth where it tastes exactly like in vietnam and therefore we have been there quite often already. 

apart from that a lot of fruits (most of them i've never seen before) and sweets (which, of course, i also didnt know.. but ate a lot from).

 

i had to get used again to eat with normal fork and knife, not to slurp my food and not to throw everything on the floor. which is common in vietnam.

 

and not only did we see the real life there, but also went a lot with them on the motorbikes. yeah! ... but it"s schocking as well, as they dont walk at all. they take the bike everywhere, even just to go around the next corner.

but so we also visited the Cu Chi tunnels: a underground tunnelsystem of about 250km length, built with 3 different levels underground by the Vietkong in the war. incredible!!! they lived there and therefore had thought about everything. and just imagine that the tunnels were barely bigger than my feet (and i only have european shoe size 37-38) - how small and thin they were. (and mostly still are) they had to make some parts of the tunnels bigger for the tourists. and even then it's been not so easy to "walk" in them. hot, sticky, narrow and going down down down.

 

we also got to know the "nightlife" - which ends at 22pm. :) 

but i found my knew favourite drink: sugarcane. i really miss it. and it's amazing how much juice you can press out of such a dry stick of sugarcane.  it's delicious and very refeshing!

 

after 2 days of eating, eating and more eating, we went back to Saigon to visit the city as well. many buildings were still from the French, so not of much interest to us. 

the war museum definitely sticks most in my mind. shocking. 

 

but we also enjoyed the beauty of the mekong delta for a day. before vietnam, i had never seen so much water which was still called "river". wow. 

a really nice day out in the sun and on the water.  

 

and even if we couldnt believe it - the time in vietnam was over. we had to leave. already. which i found quite sad and i'd love to come back one day. with more time. and see more. and also some other countries. and eat a lot again. :) 

 

but now, we had to go to singapore. what a shock. a perfectly organised, over-clean, western city with shopping malls everywhere. and christmas decoration and music. so.. i got to know the feeling of homesickness. the first time in my life.

 

we didnt really visit anything, but enjoyed having some "time off" and just hanging around doint nothing really. and after a couple of days, i.e. on 19 december, we had to leave.. for Australia. yes, time already to arrive on the other side of the world, on another continent again.. and still in summertime. :)

 

but about australia i'll tell you another time so this email doesnt get too long again. but i can tell you that i'm fine, looking for a job at the moment and will probably have one rather soon.. .although i enjoy the life doing nothing at the moment. 

 

anyway, i hope you are all fine. and i send you sunny greetings from down under. 

 

kristina

 

ps: thank you soo sooo much to all of you who sent me an email - you cant imagine how happy i have been!  i'll try to reply in person one day. promised. but jobhunting kept me busy when being in the internet here in perth. sorry for that!

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