Hanoi Airport - December 18th

Today is the final day of the first part of our trip.  Today is similar to yesterday; we do a mixture of shopping and sightseeing.  The main sight we go to see is the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, and the main focus of our shopping was going to be the central market, but this turns out to be a wholesale type of market with not very much of use to the tourist.  So we head back to buy our presents in the main part of town.  We get everything we need except for a small statue of a phoenix on a turtle which turns out not to be available in indoor sizes.  Because we were able to use our hotel as a base we actually have a quite relaxed final day as we sit in the bar posting photos and blogging while waiting for our taxi to Hanoi airport.

Normally the airports shouldn’t really get a mention, but I will mention one thing here, there was no queuing system in place between the immigration desks and the security checks in the airport, which makes it chaos trying to get in.  But eventually we do get in and have a stressful time looking around the shops for the phoenix and turtle, and some biscuits, as we are trying to get rid of all our Dong.

As is usual in this blog at the end of a section of the trip there is also a general discussion about the country we have just left.  I’m not going to do categories like before, this time I’ll just do a more general discussion.

I think the single best thing about Vietnam was the food.  Not only was it very high quality (as far as I know nobody on our trip got sick) but the variety was amazing as well.  We had 5-7 courses on a number of occasions, and even with this many tastes we could have gone 3 weeks without ever having the same dish twice.  We did of course have some things twice, as pho is too good to only have once.

As a close runner up the views of the countryside and especially the various coastal areas were amazing.  Not quite as good as Montenegro, but still pretty good.  Had the weather been better the beaches would have been amazing, and cycling past them would have been a chore.  Still overall it is a pity that the weather was not as good as it could have been.  But as it happened we had some good beach days in Phu Quoc and we didn’t really have a chance to use the beaches once we were on the cycling trip, so we didn’t miss it as much.

Another really good thing on our trip were the hotels.  Now I have to say we did pay a bit more for the hotels on this trip than in the other countries, both independently and through our trip, but the hotels were of a very good standard.  The best part were the toilets, which were always immaculate, and in fairness most of the restaurants we were in had very clean toilets as well (but I will give a mention to the Hanoi restaurant where they were washing their trousers in it).

I cannot really comment on the transport options in Vietnam as we really didn’t use too much public transport, it was mostly part of the trip.  But the trip was very well organised.  The one train trip we had was not as good as the Indian ones, but it wasn’t bad (and I think as I was more used to sleeping on trains I got a better night’s sleep).

If I was to say what the worst thing about Vietnam was I would say it was the historic sites.  Obviously the war was a big part of its history, and unfortunately it has destroyed some of the sites.  The citadel in Hue was really badly damaged, and could have been beautiful, up there with any of the other palaces we have seen.  However other sites, like My Son, even if they had been unscathed from the war would ultimately not have been that impressive.  However this is not what made the sites bad, it’s the propaganda that accompanies them.  The emphasis on blaming the Americans, the French, and others for their problems is a bit annoying.  While we all know it happened, there is little point in dwelling on it too much.

Having said that it should be noted that this is only a problem at government sites.  The individual people in Vietnam do not appear to have a chip on their shoulders.  Actually they are generally very friendly, they do not hassle tourists too much, and they are relatively clean.  They have made us feel a lot more welcome than India.