hoi an, hue and halong bay

we went to hoi an after leaving nha trang and it is the perfect little city.  hoi an is best known for custom tailored clothing at dirt cheap prices.  for example, pert got THREE suits, a sport coat and a peacoat for a little over $300.  I snagged myself a peacoat and two dresses for $100.  i also found out the tailor we went to ships overseas and keeps our measurements on file for two years.  this could be dangerous :(  but enough about the clothes.  the city is much smaller compared to hanoi and saigon which is nice because it's very peaceful.  there is an old quarter that is quaint and nice to walk around and not to mention a river that you charter a boat to take you down for an hour for about $1 USD a person.  i was sad that we couldn't spend more time there so next time, i'm packing an empty suitcase and dedicating more time here!

lady making terra cotta pots. NO electric wheel.

walking around hoi an

the place we got clothes made

hue about 3 hours north from hoi an and is known most for being the home of bun bo hue as well as housing the nguyen dynasty altars.  you come for the food and history.  we spent some time at the tu duc altar and his father's altar which were cool to check out but in my opinion, altars are all the same after you go to a few.  we had bun bo hue a few times which was a must, but i was disappointed.  the flavor wasn't as robust as what i had in saigon and apparently nha trang had amazing bun bo hue that the others tried.  if you didn't have very much time, i'd skip this city.

incense

tu duc temple--people were short!

car of the monk who burned himself in 1963

tu duc's dad's altar

karaoke

after hue was hanoi, about 18 hours away by bus (or 1 hour by plane if you're lazy like we were...).  we didn't have much time to spend in this city because we kind of napped the afternoon away.  oops.  but we woke up so early to take a flight and then we were subjected to trying turtle because lindsey's aunt graciously treated us to lunch at her restaurant.  i did notice that the vietnamese up here sounded extremely different from the vietnamese that i'm used to hearing despite not being able to understand anything.  from what i gathered from phong (who is vietnamese and had issues understanding lindsey's aunt), the north believe they are superior to those in the south.  they believe their dialect (i guess you could call it?) is more formal and the way that everyone should speak.  on top of that, she also believed that the cuisine up north is better which i have to disagree with!  everything that i had in hanoi was ok...but definitely lacking a lot of flavor compared to the other dishes i've tried in the south.  one thing that i did wish i could see but ran out of time for was ho chi minh's mausoleum.  they are IN LOVE with uncle ho there.

halong bay was our last stop in vietnam since we decided to skip out on laos.  typically you book a 2 day 1 night tour so that's what we did for onl $41!  phong and lindsey didn't come with us because they booked one earlier for $140 each.  yeah, not quite in my budget!  we got on a sweaty bus driving for 3 hours from hanoi before reaching the bay and then took off.  we saw some really cool caves that are in the bay but it was disappointing because they were decorated with horrendous articificial lighting in every color of the rainbow.  yeah.  other than that our junk (boat) sailed around the bay and stopped occasionally to let us swim.  we jumped off the roof of the junk which was really exhilarating!  i'm glad we booked a cheap tour because that gave us the opportunity to meet other backpackers on a budget.  we definitely made some great friends along the way (from finland, great britain, german, and belgium).  after halong bay, we spent the night in hanoi, then took a flight out the next morning to bangkok where we spent the day before flying out to the philippines!