Vietnam Trip Day 2

On Day 2 we took a 2-hour drive to Hoa Lu which was Vietnam's first capital. Since everything was still new for us, it was so interesting to drive through the rural areas and see the people and the homes.  There were rice fields everywhere.

One thing we kept seeing along the road were these little cemeteries - just a few headstones grouped together here and there.  They were family burial grounds.  Our guide told us about the interesting tradition for the funeral and burial of the deceased.  One thing you should know is that the Vietnamese (80% Buddhist - and this may be a Buddhist tradition) worship their ancestors.  When someone dies, the family keeps the body at their home for a day and a night while friends and relatives come to pay their respects.  The family members wear white robes and headbands.  The deceased family member is then buried in a coffin.  After 3 years the family member is dug up.  Prior to the digging up, a fortune teller is consulted who tells them exactly when to dig the family member up, based on the birth date of the deceased.  The family has about an hour to wash and dry the bones and put them in a ceramic urn and rebury them.  Three or four people usually help the son with this process.  If there is not a son, then the family member is not dug up.  A ceremony then takes place in the family home, where multiple generations live together.  Our guide told us that he did that with his dad.  Very interesting.

The scenery around Hoa Lu was really beautiful but the day was so overcast and it was rainy.  We would have had some beautiful pictures had it been more clear.  In this first photo taken at Hoa Lu, you can see fishing nets in the middle of this little lake.

We visited the temples dedicated to Emperor Dinh Tien Hoang of the Dinh Dynasty (968-80) and Emperor Le Dai Hanh of the Le Dynasty (980 - 1009).  Two separate temples.

At the entrance there are usually two posts with one of their traditional symbols, the unicorn, on top.

In every temple there are one or more Buddhist statues where they worship and make sacrifices.  In the one below, you can see fruit (a very typical sacrifice) and if you look closely in the bottom left corner, you can see money.  It's not actually real money.  They buy this fake money to sacrifice and then it is burned.  Several times, while walking down the street, we saw people burning something in their yard.  Our guide told us it was the fake money that they were burning as a sacrifice.

Here is a copy of the traditional shoes that these emperors wore.  We saw actual photos of some of the more modern emperors in their traditional dress wearing shoes like these:

At the same location, there was the ancient Hoa Lu Citadel (Palace) which was mostly destroyed.  At one time it covered 3 square kilometers (or 1.89 miles).  Huge.  This was all that was left....we looked down into this deep hole (excavation area) to see basically just a few stones remaining.  There were some original dishes and bowls in a glass case around the big excavation area.

After viewing the temples we went to Tam Coc Town, had lunch, and then had a boat ride in this waterway surrounded by large limestone karsts that jutted out from green rice fields.  The boats were called sampans, but they were basically rowboats.  Here we are at the starting point waiting to board our sampan.

We could see these little statues along the way:

Really pretty and so calm and quiet even though there were a number of boats on the water.

We went into about 3 of these caves.  It was really dark.

We would see a few homes along the waterway.  We could also see people working in the rice fields.  We even saw some mountain goats on top of some of the karsts.

Of course, at the end of the waterway when we turned around, there were the ladies in boats selling souvenirs.

 

Here we are in the boat.  I didn't get a good photo of us.

After the sampan ride, we went to a local market.  So interesting.  The red fruit in this photo is called Dragon Fruit.  We saw it everywhere.  The inside fruit that you eat is white with black dots.  Very interesting texture.

Meat is just laid out there on tables:

And they really do eat dog:

Our guide told us that the market is really busy in the morning and the afternoon.  People go to their gardens and fields very early, pick their produce and then bring it to the market.

Or they catch what they sell.  I think these eels were still alive:

After the market, we had about a 2 hour drive back to our hotel in Hanoi.  Again, a really nice day.

Love to you all!
Karen

Vietnam Trip Day 1

We had a wonderful time on our first trip to Vietnam.  I posted a lot of pictures on Facebook so I'll try to include a few different ones here.  Technically our first day was a travel day and since we got to the hotel so late and didn't have time to do anything but go to sleep, I won't count that day.  We arranged our trip with a company called Exotissimo.  They specialize in trips in Asia.  I highly recommend them as everything from the planning stage to the end of the trip was fantastic; very well organized and executed.  If you want to see a lot in a short amount of time, this is the way to go.  We had a driver and a tour guide the entire time (except when we were on internal flights).  We started in the north of Vietnam in Hanoi and worked our way south.  Our guide and driver met us at the airport each time and transported us to our hotel.

Vietnam is a communist country.  After a few days, we found out that Facebook was blocked in Vietnam.  Our guide told us that it had been blocked for about a month or so.  Interesting with all the turmoil and unrest going on in countries around the world. They must be worried about something....

We woke up pretty early our first morning in Hanoi as Sakhalin is 4 hours ahead of Vietnam.  We walked around our hotel a bit and this the first photo I took.  It was so interesting to see the very tall skinny buildings side by side and the people on the street.

Our driver and guide picked us up and the first thing we did was to see the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, who is the father of modern Vietnam.  We actually saw his body in this heavily guarded mausoleum.  We were told that the school children out front were there as a reward for good performance in school.

 

Next, in this same complex, we saw the presidential palace.  I can't remember if Ho Chi Minh lived here or not, but if he did, it was not for very long.

  

Ho Chi Minh lived the longest (as president) in his next residence.  It is in the same area as the mausoleum and the palace. 

Finally, he moved to an even smaller home near his previous one.  It was very simple with just a few rooms and no bathroom.  He had to go to the above home to use the facilities.  You can see this final home in the background of this picture of Max and our first (and favorite) guide:

You can also see it in the background across the pond of this photo of Max and I:

 

It was cool and a little rainy this day, as is typical in the north.  You know who wore shorts the entire time.

Next up was the One Pillar Pagoda.  This is a very famous Buddhist temple where people go to pray.  It is standing on just one pillar in the middle of this pond.  Again, it is all in this same area.  This is a little different view from the Facebook photo:

The people going up these very steep steps see what's in the photo below.  You really can't go in:

Next up was the Temple of Literature.  This was Vietnam's first university and was built in 1070.  The entrance and gardens were very pretty.  

 

Vietnam has four very important symbols.  The dragon which symbolizes power and nobility, the unicorn (different than what we think of a unicorn) which symbolizes intelligence and goodness, the tortoise which symbolizes longevity and perfection and the phoenix which symbolizes peace.  You see these symbols everywhere including on top of the entrance to the Temple of Literature.

In the Temple of Literature, the names of the scholars who passed their exams were written (or carved) on the tablets with the base of the tortoise.  There are many of these tortoise tablets in the temple.

Next, we saw these ladies playing traditional Vietnamese music on instruments I had never seen or heard before.  It was so interesting. 

After that it was finally time for lunch.  We had one of our best lunches at this little local place.  It was so cheap..only about $1.00 each.

 

After lunch we went to the War Museum.  This museum wasn't specific to the Vietnam war, but to all of the wars that Vietnam has been involved in.  This country has been involved in a lot of wars, especially with China who occupied Vietnam for a while along with the French who occupied Vietnam for a while.  You see the Chinese influence with the Buddhist religion and the French influence in a lot of the architecture.

We climbed to the top of this tower which was just some old fortress in the city, but part of the War Museum.

In the picture below you can see in the courtyard a lot of vehicles, planes and helicoptors from mainly the Vietnam War.  Interesting that in Vietnam they call it the American War.  At the top of the picture you can see a display of a lot of bombs used in the war.  Beside the bombs is compilation of planes that had crashed.  Not all from the Vietnam war, but a lot.  Around the courtyard are buildings with exhibits from other wars.  There are more airplanes in another section.  

What we didn't know at the time that we took the below picture, was that Max was standing in front of the actual tank that crashed into the Presidential Palace gates in South Vietnam on the final day of the war in 1975.  I'll point it out when we get to the south in a few days (or posts) from now.

Our next event of the day was a Water Puppet Show which is specific to Northern Vietnam.  Very interesting.  The puppets are wooden and have long sticks attached to their backs along with strings that control their arms, mouths, etc.  The people operating them are behind the screen.  Traditional music was played by the band.  Very interesting and entertaining.

Our guide met us after the puppet show was over and took us on a walking tour of the Old Quarter of Hanoi.  We really loved it there.  The streets are narrow and crowded and people are sitting on the sidewalks selling everything from souvenirs to food and fruit.  Most people live in the tall houses above their shops.  They stay open from 7:30 in the morning to about 10:00 at night.

Finally, our guide took us to a little corner place as we wanted to have one of the local beers.  It was so cheap with beer only about 25 cents a glass, I think.  Everyone in Vietnam sits in these little plastic chairs, too.  They are everywhere.  Along with the motorbikes.  More about them later.

It was a great first day!

Love to you all!

Karen