"...take, but not hold..."

After leaving Sapa on a 10 hour (and hard seated) train, we spent a few days getting to know Hanoi. The old area of the city had small streets completely filled with motorbikes and lined with shops. At each intersection, dozens and dozens of these bikes lined up to wait for the light to change and then took off like buzzing insects. Crossing the street was like playing an advanced real-life version of "Frogger"; inching your way across bit by bit and hoping not to get pummeled by a bike.

From Hanoi we went on an overnight boat tour to Halong Bay where we cruised around karst formations that poke out of the sea. We spent an uneventful night on Cat Ba Island and returned to the city the next day.
This tour marked only one of many available in Vietnam. In my opinion, the country is a tour-lovers paradise. Public transportation is either not available or not convenient and absolutely everyone tries to sell you their "family's" hotel, restaurant, mode of transportation, etc.

Although not as bad as Hanoi, this was also true in our next two stops; Hue and Da Nang. The former was a previous capital of the country. It boasted some old tombs, a citadel and an emperor's palace (to be visited on a tour or with the help of taxi drivers, of course). The latter proved to be a shit hole but was home to an interesting museum filled with Cham sculptures (former people found in SE Asia). This museum was actually a perfect prelude to one of the experiences in our next destination, Hoi An...

Hoi An is small town on the Eastern coast and is a clothes lovers/cheesy tourists paradise. There are dozens of shops selling custom-fitted clothes and cheap bicycles and motorbikes are for rent at every turn. A decent beach is a short bike ride away but proved to be no refuge from the annoying vendors attempting to strike up the same conversation in order to befriend you into their shop ("Hello! Where are you from? Where are you going?..."). I feared that some would wade into the water with me. Craziness! This repeated line of questioning certainly brought out the worst sort of sarcasm that I could muster...I told a man that I was from Uzbekistan and couldn't speak English.

We did have one fantastic morning - we took a tour (grrr...) to a nearby Cham temple built in the 4th century called My Son. Absolutely amazing. The buildings reminded me of a smaller scale (and poorly preserved) version of Angkor Wat. Not surprisingly, we learned that the Khmer people are also descendants of the Cham and built Angkor Wat using a similar method to that seen at My Son. We were also saddened to learn that much of it was destroyed by the Americans during the war - they targeted the site because it was being used by the Viet Cong. Hhhmmmm....

To summarize my feelings about Vietnam so far I'd have to say, "ho hum". Interesting and boring all at once. Super touristy but also reserved and traditional. One of my biggest pet peeves has been an apparent lack of understanding regarding the word, "reservation". As Seinfeld once joked, the hotels seem to be able to "take a reservation but not hold a reservation". On numerous occasions we, or others, have made bookings on the internet using the usual methods and arrived to find that there are no rooms available.
In one particular incident, we left our Hanoi hotel on their Halong Bay tour. We made a reservation for a four person room for the two nights following our return. We returned to find that we had a two person room with a single mattress crammed on the floor. When we asked for either another room or a discount we were told that the two person room was more expensive than the four and we were already receiving a discount on it because they were charging us for the room we wanted! Unbelievable. Enough tourists zip through that there is little need for decent customer service.
Aside from this and the usual tourist annoyances we have been having a great time and have been thankful that we could spend a wonderful Christmas together. Alex and I miss our family and friends but are still excited to be here and are looking forward to seeing everyone this year!