Early start to presidential (reunification) Palace.
Reunification Palace – headline picture, above and the rooftop helicopter pad belowGed fancies himself as bunker command (above), Daisy seeks solace in a wok below
Then on to history museum…
…where we saw a water puppet show…
…and then to Chinatown (Cocholon) to Than Thienh Pagoda…
…followed by lunch at Vy (duck!).
You’re going to eat that and then crawl through tunnels?
Then out to Cuchi– Got to see the place at agonisingly close quarters!
You think that’s back breaking? Try these tunnels.Ah, once we’d crawled a bit I was back in command in Cuchi.
…and out to Blue Ginger (Saigon Times Club) for dinner – another promenade and Home
Fashionable folk promenade and bike around
All the photos from the part of the journey that featured Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam & then Thai resorts can be found through the Flickr link here or below.
Rose early – went on a boat trip along perfume river…
…stopping off at Thien Mu Pagoda (Buddhist haunt)…
and then Minh Mang’s Tomb (old and very impressive) followed by short boat ride to other side and tomb of Khai Dinh…
Above – Minh Mang’s Tomb. Below – the main man with the Minh Manh mandarinsAo Dais clad women by Minh Mang’s TombKhai Dinh’s Tomb outside (above) and inside (below)Khai Dinh himself (above) and a more modern symbolic message (below)
…then on to good lunch and cyclo ride around Huế for best part of two hours before setting off for airport.
We loved this marathon cyclo ride -it was an unexpected highlight
Arrived in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] quite late – dinner at hotel (Floating!) and Sunday night promenade and then to bed.
All the photos from that Central Vietnam part of our journey can be found through the Flickr link here or below.
Drove from Da Nang to Huế – beautiful drive including Hai Van Pass and Lang Co Island.
Vistas on the way to Huế
Arrived in Huế – unloaded/rested then good lunch followed by tour of citadel, Thai Hoa Palace, mandarin halls, dynastic urns etc.
Then on to Tu Duc Tomb – (1864-1867). Excellent home/tomb with ponds etc.
A tomb with both a view (above) and a theatre (below)
Spent the late afternoon by the pool etc. – evening meal in restaurant
I think we stayed at the Century Riverside and we probably ate in the restaurant there…actually, on reflection I think we ate in Lac Thanh, following the strong recommendation of the guide book.
All the photos from that Central Vietnam part of our journey can be found through the Flickr link here or below.
Rose very early [in Hanoi]. Flew to Da Nang. Met by Ky. Saw Cham Museum, marble mountains/caves and China Beach
Marble Mountain (above) and Buddhist Temple thereupon (below)Me & Ky at China Beach
Ky was a terrific guide. Very young, as were all the guides in Vietnam during what was, after all, a “young tourist industry” phase for that country in 1996. But we could tell straight away that Ky was a “Mr Fixit” who would work well with and for us. I wrote him a commendation after the holiday, as I was (am) wont to do when we get exceptional service. As chance would have it, when we arranged to go back to Vietnam 16 years later our (different) UK agent was using Vidotour, the same local agency as Asia World had used in 1996. It transpired that Ky was, by then, Director of Marketing for the whole company. We had a really enjoyable reunion with him, getting to meet his family as he insisted on taking us out for dinner. He told me that my commendation had really helped him at that very early stage of his career, as we were amongst his first guests and glowing commendations of that kind were highly valued.
Then on to Hội An for good lunch then walk town and early return to Da Nang. Lazy afternoon and evening at hotel.
Hội An is truly stunning
I got ever so excited when I spotted the above door, because I could see that it was the very door depicted on the cover of my Lonely Planet Guide (Vietnam 3rd edition 1995). The woman of the house got ever so excited too, as she had no idea that her house was on the front cover of a guide book, although surely hundreds if not thousands of tourists must have walked past her house with that book in hand by 1996.
My copy is more dog-eared now than it was in 1996
Then we strolled the marketThen down to the waterfront befor heading back to Da Nang.
All the photos from that Central Vietnam part of our journey can be found through the Flickr link here or below.
We’ve visited a fair few beautiful places in the world. Hạ Long Bay is well up there with the most stunning.
This is another of those days when the words in my log are few, the photographs many and really you don’t need many words:
Stunning scenes on Hạ Long Bay, headline picture, above and below.Health & Safety had not got started, let alone gone mad at that grottoInside (above) and outside (below) the grotto
Went on a cruise at Hạ Long Bay on “Yellow Dragon” boat – misty but pleasant – went to “new grotto” [i.e. newly discovered in 1996] – very slippery climb due to mist– went into grotto etc. Super lunch on boat – then long drive back to Hanoi. Overnight in Royal Hotel
Lunch on the boat, me & Thung (above), then return journey to Hanoi pictures (below)
Our two day/one night trip to Hạ Long Bay was incredibly picturesque, with the possible exception of our short stay in Hạ Long itself.
The agency and the guide book had warned us that, at that time, Hạ Long was not well served with Western-standard accommodation.
We chose to stay at the best available at the time, the Hạ Long Hotel, which is depicted above. That picture was the best possible angle one could find of the place.
The hotel, which had probably seen better days even in the early post-war period, had been a favoured haunt of Soviet tourists. The signage and information in all of the rooms was in Vietnamese, French and Russian only. I derived what little instruction we needed from the French versions. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
It’s a shame I didn’t photograph the room, which had a rudimentary look to it. But the biggest shame of all is that I didn’t photograph the refectory-style dining room, with long tables and benches. It reminded me of an austere English public school refectory; or perhaps a well-appointed prison dining hall.
The place was almost completely deserted when we were there in March 1996, giving the “refectory” an especially eerie feel. Had the place been fully occupied, dinner time might have looked more like this:
On looking up our Hạ Long Hotel in the old 1990s guide book and then Googling the address, I am pretty sure that the site is now the rather stunning-looking and very well-reviewed Ha Long Plaza Hotel. It must have had a comprehensive makeover since our visit, for some obscure reason. So I’m guessing that the old dining hall is now lost for ever in the mists of time.
But let us now put all of that to one side and return to the stunningly beautiful journey that was our two day/overnight visit to Hạ Long Bay.
This was one of those picturesque travelling days, for which I wrote few words but for which the pictures can say far more than words ever could.
Breakfast then off to Highway Five towards Haiphong – stopped in Tongs [Hải Dương?] Province for tea and green bean cake – then on to Haiphong for lunch and then looked at communal house (Hang Kenh) and on to Hạ Long Bay via ferries etc.
Haiphong (above) Communal House (below)We got on the above ferry after photographing it, but missed the one belowArrived in Hạ Long at dusk
Stayed in Hạ Long West – took the ferry to Hạ Long East for a walk before dinner and early night
Rose very early – flew [from] Chiang Mai to Bangkok then on to Hanoi – arrived 1215. Fought through bureaucracy – got taken to hotel– Changed/freshened up…
Quite a fight it was too, on arrival at Hanoi. I cannot remember all the details of it, but it was to do with filling in a form upon which you declare the address where you are going to stay.
Given that we were to be staying at several places in the space of a week and I had the local tour agent, Vidotour’s, address, I presented the form with that. Not good enough. If we were staying at several addresses I needed to list several addresses.
So I tried to write several addresses on a tiny form. The official claimed he couldn’t read my handwriting. “Do you know who I am?”, I felt like saying, but didn’t. He was quite cross and suggested that I had deliberately written illegibly.
So he called a more senior official, who suggested that the name and address of our local tour agent, Vidotour, would do. Good idea, Sir.
Welcome to Hanoi, Sir, have a nice cup of tea (Indochine Restaurant, later that day)
I should add at this point that we had a marvellous time in Vietnam; that hoo-ha on arrival was the only inhospitable moment during our stay.
In fact, the ability to get a temporary pass to enter Myanmar from Thailand at that crossing, just for the day, had been reinstated just the day before we arrived. We thought it only polite that we should take advantage and pop in.
Mae Sai monks
– on to a jade factory in Mae Sai then on to Doi Tung Temple etc…
Doi Tung Temple above and headline image at the top of this piece.Vistas on the way down from the temple.
Arrived at the Chiang Mai quite late – changed – went around night market and got a light bite there – then returned (saw end of the cricket!) & slept
We stayed at the Dusit Princess if I remember correctly.
