Digital Wanderer

We live as long as we fly

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Vietnam — 16, evening in Ha Long

 2011-06-05

Why is April 30th a major holiday in Vietnam? Because it's Reunification Day, when  in 1975 the North Vietnamese, commonly known as the "Viet Cong," captured the capital, Saigon, which at that time was ruled by an American puppet government.

And why is May 1st a major holiday? Because it's Labor Day, and the country is socialist (after all).

Unsurprisingly, during these days Ha Long hosts the so-called Ha Long Tourism Carnaval Festival, basically a Brazilian-style carnival. The event is serious and colorful, broadcast in prime time on TV, the whole nine yards. We saw a rehearsal during the day, a bit closer to the evening. Anyone who has seen the pretty good cartoon "Rio" doesn't need an explanation.

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Floats
A large parade float featuring a bright yellow dragon, decorated with red panels and stylized clouds, sits on the road. In the background, a modern building is visible against green hills.
Little dragon

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Vietnam — 15, a boat trip to the islands and a cave

 2011-06-04

We came to Ha Long to see the famous 3,000, or maybe even 6,000 islands. For this, you need to buy a tour ticket. Touts are selling them everywhere, boats leave periodically, there are hundreds of them. So look around, haggle, and ye shall find. The pleasure costs 20-50 bucks for a 2-4 hour trip. We paid something like 25 per person for 3 hours. Make sure to ask if the tour includes a visit to the cave (it almost always does). The cave isn't included in the price, but you can live with that, since the ticket costs somewhere around 2 bucks.

Ha Long also has a supermarket, so you don't have to overpay hustlers for soda. They have a fridge in there, canned coffee, and an endless amount of all sorts of grub like ice cream, dried fruits, plain sweet potato chips, nuts, and other Asian joys of life.

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Vietnam — 14, heading out to Halong

 2011-06-03

The next day we headed to the famous Halong Bay. It was April 31st, a big holiday in Vietnam, and in a resort town like Halong, huge crowds were expected, so Thuy advised us against heading out there. But we didn't really have a choice, so we barged ahead, getting up at 5 in the morning and taking a taxi to the station. Thuy had told us in advance which company's bus to take, but the ticket counters were still empty, and the rest of the people didn't really speak English or burn with the desire to help us at 6 AM. We had to hop on the first bus we came across, good thing there were heaps of those heading to Halong. Special managers hustle you in there — generally, Vietnamese buses have managers who lure in passengers, collect ticket money, hand out slippers, and so on. The bus, by the way, departed not on schedule, but when it was completely full. What does "completely full" mean in Vietnam? It's when there are plastic stools standing in the aisle, with people sitting on them. At least they don't ride standing up.

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Vietnam — 13, First Evening in Hanoi

 2011-06-02

From the bus station, we made our way a few kilometers to Thuy's house through crazy traffic, which you could see in the video. There, Thuy found us a hotel on the internet called New Sun Hotel (the site is down, per Vietnamese custom), located at 9B ngo 67 Van Cao, Ba Dinh district.

By the way, there are "only" 6.5 million residents in Hanoi, and even then, the majority are in the surrounding villages. The city was founded in 1010.

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