Vietnam

147 days on the road came to an end with four nights in Saigon. If you read my above entry on central Vietnam, you can understand if I was on a bit of downer heading into the city. The end of any trip is always tough, but central Vietnam did little to impress me, so I really was hoping for good things in Saigon (I just dont like the HCMC name).

Saigon delivered big time. As with Hanoi, I got mostly mixed reviews of Vietnam's largest city with many people citing the traffic, pollution, and sheer intensity of the place as negatives. Well, I guess I just enjoy big cities more than most. I found Saigon a perfect blend of west and east. I stayed over in the backpacker distract near De Tham, and while this particular area ranks low on my list of neighborhoods, it is cheaper than everywhere else.

A key ingredient to my enjoyment was that I met a group of local ex-pats my first night in town. They subsequently invited me to dinner parties and nights out on the town, allowing me to see local restaurants, a rather swanky art gallery opening, and a big club on a Friday night. I spent most of my time away from the De Tham area and felt as though I was seeing a good cross section of the Saigon the locals see. My takeaway is that Saigon is perhaps the most liveable town I saw in s.e. asia outside of Chaing Mai. It is a vibrant place where commercialism is starting to take hold, but still competes with old school Vietnamese markets. I found the residents to be a bit warmer than their counterparts in Hanoi, and I thought Saigon held itself out to travelers as a city that is increasingly aware of its place as a key cultural town in southeast asia. The art galleries were impressive, the food was top notch, and the attitude of the residents was generally welcoming.

I did the obligatory stop at the War Remnant's Museum, a sobering and down right embarrassing place to go as an American. I took a day trip out to the Mekong Delta because I wanted to get out of the city on my third day there. The tour was nice, but as with other tours in Vietnam, it held very little in the way of substance. Lots of stops to go 'shopping' or pointless breaks to eat local coconuts. I mean, this is Vietnam's continual problem = the lack of interesting side trips or excursions beyond the main tourist areas.

In the end, I made some good friends and had some eventful nights out in the city. I left the town on a high note. I strongly recommend it and hope to return soon.

I will not beat around the bush; central Vietnam is a difficult and arguably disappointing place to independently travel. Perhaps my expectations were to high, or perhaps the central area simply paled in comparison to previous destinations in Laos, Thailand and New Zealand. Ultimately, I look at what I did, think about what I did not do due to time constraints, and conclude that the vast amount of opportunities available to you as a backpacker are things you could do when you are traveling later in life. To travel in your 20s and 30s is to challenge yourself and to explore, there is little to do in central Vietnam that rivals the challenges I found elsewhere.

Certain facts are indisputable -

- the geography puts all travels in a north-south or vice versa trajectory. While not a negative alone, the fact is that the feeling of being forced into a stream or pattern of traveling is ominipresent. From Hanoi you go to Hue, from Hue to Hoi An, from Hoi An, Nha Trang -- maybe a stop in De Lat or Mui Ne. I met travelers in Hanoi and would randomly see them in Hue and then 5 days later in Nha Trang. Everyone is doing the same thing, and the question that I kept asking is, why?

- Vietnam is not nearly as developed or 'open' to travelers as one may expect. Call me naive, but I was led through initial online researching and second hand stories from other travelers to believe that Vietnam was open and ready to be explored. It is true that the coastline offers many interesting places, but off the coast and into the hills you see a country that is generally not prepared or perhaps not willing to invite travelers into its less populated areas.

- The tour agencies, bus routes, and general guide book induced travelers are all telling you to do the same thing. I have personally stayed as far away from tour groups as possible during my five months on the road. I generally find that they over promise and the feeling of being held captive in a tour bus all day is not my way of spending time abroad. That being said, you are left with very few alternatives in Vietnam's central area. The DMZ tour was high on my list of to-dos and, although I do not regret going, I am thankful I went on a rainy day, for the tour was essentially a waste. In other areas like Hoi An and Nha Trang the predominance of multiple tour companies offering the same exact itinerary was further proof that Vietnam has things to do, but it does not have variety. You either go on the same tour as everyone else or you sit around in a restaurant all day reading a book.

I will say that options such as guided motorbike tours for a few days into the hills were the exact thing I should have done if I had more time. It seems like there are a few ways to get off the beaten path, and this was certainly one of them.

I enjoyed Hoi An and Nha Trang where I was able to get a week in between floods and typhoons. Hoi An certainly has that comfort level thing down, with abundant cafes, art galleries, and markets, I thought it was the easiest place to enjoy yourself for an extended period of time, although it felt very western. But even in Hoi An, if you do not want to shop, there is little else to do.

In Nha Trang I was most surprised by the wonderful professionalism I encountered with Rainbow Divers, on a morning two dive session. Their boat and dive team far out-performed anything I saw in Thailand, if only the actual diving was a bit better. Nha Trang is a nice place, but as with other areas in Vietnam, the westerners are herded to one area of the city where you can find your english breakfasts and western bars. I rented a motorbike for two days and motorbiked over 100 kilometers in the surrounding areas as I was getting annoyed by the feeling that I was not seeing the 'real' Vietnam. My advice - do it. Get on a bike, take a map, and get away from all of these quasi-western areas within the tourist towns. I met locals, was invited into a private lunch in a farm town, and felt more satisfied with my experience by getting away from tourist land.

I saw the communities that are located in between the tourist destinations. They are poor, english is non-existent, and generally there seems like little going on in these places apart from a rural agrarian life style that offers little in the way of tourism opportunities. From a backpacker standpoint, its a shame you cant explore these areas with a bit more confidence, but I really did not see or hear anyone say they did extensive traveling in these areas and that includes the bearded backpackers right on through the lonely planet packs of 4 girls.

I am happy I saw what I saw, but I wont be coming back anytime soon.

- The coastal cities of Hue, Hoi An, and Nha Trang were generally overrated. (I realize this is not a fact,

I flew into Vietnam with very high expectations. Thailand and Laos were good warmups, and now I wanted to finish off the trip with a memorable 3 week run north to south in Vietnam. Hanoi was the starting point, and in short, I really enjoyed Hanoi. Most people I meet hedge their reviews of Hanoi - its too busy, too smelly, too dirty - you get the point, and I guess in a way it is all of those things. But Hanoi is also this very strange place that has seen countless empires rise and fall, foreign colonization rise and fall, and is home to a continuing interplay between communism and the country's modern balance with capitalsim. The underlying amalgam of hardships and political posturing is written all over Hanoi - on the walls, in the decaying old city, and especially on the faces of its residents. This gives an American like myself a lot to chew on.

I stayed in the old city which is one of the oldest preserved 'old cities' in any asian country. Its streets are narrow and the shops all moonlight as homes for the shopkeepers. During the day the sidewalks are filled with merchants, motorbikes, and food stalls - walking requires frequent detours into the street. The street. Wow, well Hanoi trumps everywhere I have ever been in terms of street chaos. Seemingly endless numbers of motorbikes twist and turn with little regard for traffic laws, which I have learned are loose to non-existent in Hanoi. But in all the chaos, I found an endearing order to the old city. Old alley ways were lined with food stalls and the locals sit on tiny chairs and eat their Pho (Vietnamese Soup). I was not harassed by too many touts, scammers, or street vendors, at least no more than what I am now accustomed to in southeast Asia. And as you move through the old city to the Hoan Kiem Lake the choas opens up into a more modern city with larger streets and a city plan that uses the lake as a central point.

From the lake I walked through variously nice and not so nice neighborhoods to view the french inspired colonial architecture, the "Hanoi Hilton" known here as Hoa Lo Prison - famous for holding American POWs and before that used by the French to hold Vietnamese socialists and communists - a scary place. I walked through a mediocre Botanical Gardens, saw the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (sadly, Ho was getting cleaned up this month so I couldnt view him). I took in the Fine Arts Museum which held a nice collection of art, even if the building reminded me of a portion of my high school, and I also saw a memorial to John McCain, the American senator who was shot down in central Hanoi when he was a fighter pilot in the war. He is actually revered in Vietnam for his eventual pro-Vietnam stance regarding the war.

Enough with the little details, the big point is that I think Hanoi is great. Its not western its not really that beautiful in a conventional sense. Nor is a hard city to learn or get around, as some people suggest to me. I found it largely walkable, and with the proper choices, transport never put me in a risky or fraud inducing situation. One night I ccoordinated to meet my friend Sophie, who was part of my group when I lived in Wanaka, New Zealand. She is traveling with her husband and we all met up for drinks and dinner. Apart from that I was solo the whole time and due to Hanoi's sensory appeal in terms of sights, sounds, and food....I thought it was a good place to travel solo.

The above description may suggest that Hanoi is bursting at the seems and difficult to