Quick Update!

Turns out our internet hotspot didn't work at all in Cambodia, but we are back online and bursting with things to share!  For now, though, three things:

1.  They use U.S. currency in Cambodia, but they will reject your bills if they are too worn, or discolored, or torn.  Check your bills before you leave home.  Also, the ATM's dispense $50's, which can be hard to change (although they will do it for you on the ship).  We brought 200 $1 bills from home and were very glad we did!

2.  Thanks to our miracle-working AMA Waterways tour manager, the Japan Rail passes are safely in hand!  Hooray!!

3.  You will be visiting schools and villages and it will be nice to have something to give to the children.  They sell pencils on the ship but charge $4 for a box of 12.  Bring your own school supplies, stickers, or other trinkets.  One lady brought little rubber "super balls" which were a huge hit!  Also, they desperately need paper, even paper that has been used on one side, for school.

More later.  This is the best trip ever.

Ever.

Day two: Ha Long Bay

We were up bright and early Wednesday morning and set out for Ha Long Bay, several hours' drive from Hanoi.  More later, but for now I have the following helpful hints about this excursion:

1.  Wear good walking shoes.  On the first afternoon at Ha Long Bay, you will stop at an island in the middle of the bay with something like 400 steep stone steps leading to a pagoda at the top with an amazing view!  On the second morning you will visit an amazing cavern with beautiful rock formations and more steep stone steps.  You will need good footwear for these outings!

2.  Although you will be encouraged to pack light, bring a complete change of clothes if you plan on climbing the 400-step mountain.  I promise, you will get sweaty and it's no fun to have to wear damp clothes all evening and stinky clothes the next day.  (Ladies, you'll probably want to bring a change of undergarments, too!)

3.  Don't worry too much about the baggage weight limits or even the number of bags for the flight from Hanoi to Siem Reap.  The weight limits appear to be like the lines painted on the roads -- suggestions more than hard-and-fast rules!

4.  When you leave Ha Long Bay you will have an opportunity to re-pack your bags if you wish when you stop for lunch between Ha Long Bay and the Hanoi airport for the flight to Siem Reap.  If you leave your carry-on in the baggage compartment under the bus, it will be treated as checked luggage and you won't see it again until you get to Cambodia.  This happened to me, and although it was surprising it wasn't really a problem.  Just know that if you want your carry-on with you on the plane, make sure you have it with you on the bus after lunch.

5.  Ha Long Bay is amazing.  We didn't really know what to expect and weren't all that excited about the overnight on the junk, but it was... amazing!!

This is the life!  The view from the sun deck!

Update on the JapanRail Pass saga

The package that was promised to be in Cambodia today is currently located in Singapore.  I imagine it will be here on Monday, by which time we will be long gone.  I am hoping AMA Waterways can help shepherd it to our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City so it will be waiting for us when we get there.  I also emailed my travel agent to see if possibly the issuer can replace them as lost and send new ones to HCM City.

Either way, it's kind of a drag.

Day one, afternoon: Hanoi

After lunch Gary took a well-deserved jet-lag-induced nap while Mary Lou and the rest of the gang assembled in front of the hotel for a rickshaw ride.  Most of us were a little trepidatious about getting into a tiny man-powered conveyance in the middle of all those whizzing motor scooters, cars, and trucks, but the drivers were fantastic and the street-level experience of Hanoi's Old Quarter was truly incredible!    Here I am in my chariot, and here is the parade of rickshaws as we set out!

Unfortunately my camera battery died as soon as this photo was taken, but where are some from CNN that capture the experience rather nicely!  It was exhilarating and just plain fantastic!  

 After we left the rickshaws it was time for the water puppet show, which kind of reminded me of what would happen if the residents of Mister Rogers’s Neighborhood of Make-Believe decided to put on a water ballet.  It was hot in the theatre and the show was perhaps not my cup of tea, but others in our group loved it, so this was definitely a YMMV type of cultural event.  Certainly it was worth seeing just for  horizon-broadening purposes!

 

Back to the hotel, where I found Gary refreshed and ready to go!  We set out in search of souvenir refrigerator magnets and ended up walking all the way back to the Old Quarter and circumambulating Hoan Kiem Lake.  The city was beautiful and night and as busy and bustling as it had been in the daytime! 

Then back to the hotel for a dinner of pho before falling into bed and sleeping the sleep of the truly overwhelmed!

Day One, morning: Hanoi

Breakfast?  Was awesome!

Good morning, Viet Nam!  Breakfast at the Metropole.

Have you ever eaten in one of those restaurants with bamboo ceiling fans and a French Colonial decorating scheme?  Maybe with a nice sun room and some tropical plants outside?  Well, the hotel restaurant in which we had breakfast this morning is the original Real Thing upon which all those pastiche-y places are based!  Amazing!

The morning's program, and our official AMA Waterways tour, started with a briefing by our tour manager, Son, who will be with us for the entire two weeks.  He is 30 years old and totally adorable, with a big smile and a nice twinkle in his eye.  We all assembled in a meeting room at the hotel and he gave us an overview of what we will be doing for the next two weeks, all of which sounds completely amazing.

We are divided into two groups of about 20 people, each led by a local guide.  We are the Orange Group led by the indefatigable Hoa (pronounced, approximately, “Wah.”)  After the briefing we piled into two waiting motor coaches and proceeded through town to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Hanoi traffic is amazing and consists mostly of millions and millions of motor scooters, some carrying two or even three people, and some carrying truly amazing amounts of cargo!

Upon arrival at the Mausoleum, we went through extensive airport-style security and finally filed past the perfectly embalmed body of the man Hoa described as the “father of all Vietnamese people.”  It was unexpectedly moving, not least of all because I saw my son the Marine in the face of each and every one of the young, white-uniformed soldiers guarding the site.  One of the ladies in our group had trouble with the many stairs inside the mausoleum, and the soldiers gently and politely took her arm and helped her up and down as needed.  I damn near cried.

The Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh.

After the mausoleum we went to the Temple of Literature.  It’s a thousand-year-old-plus Confucian temple that housed Vietnam’s first university, which was established by the king in 1076!  It consists of several courtyards leading to the temple itself. 

Inside the Temple of Literature

One of the courtyards at the Temple of Literature.

Apparently students come to have their photos taken here, and these two young fellows looked very dapper indeed!

And this young lady and her friends were as lovely as they were giggly!

Our last stop of the morning was the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” the prison where American pilots were held for years during what the Vietnamese call the American War.  We were amazed to find that it is right smack in the middle of town!  The visit was sobering, and not a little uncomfortable.  Let’s just say that history is written by the victors and leave it at that.

From the Hanoi Hilton, we went back to our hotel, where we had a two-hour lunch break.  We decided to take advantage of the sidewalk French café in the hotel, and got a table for two outside, with a great view of the park across the street.  Within minutes of sitting down, we were surprised to see a bride and groom, in full wedding regalia, walk by!  They stopped a few feet away from our table and were joined by a photographer and his assistant.  As we looked around, it became apparent that the park was crawling with brides and grooms!  We asked our waiter (who was only too happy to practice his English with us) about it, and he explained that the Metropole hotel, the park, and the surrounding buildings are the very most popular spot for pre-wedding photos because of their European charm.  He told us that the parade of brides and grooms is a daily event, and that on the busiest day in memory, the restaurant staff counted 140 brides!  Such enjoyable people-watching!

Not a bride, but so chic, so beautiful!

  

And in other news...

...thanks to the best BFF ever, the JapanRail passes will be delivered to our hotel in Cambodia in three days! 

*Very big sigh of relief*

It was a dark and rainy night...

... when we finally landed in Hanoi!   Our flight seemed to be less than half full so we breezed through customs and were on our way in no time.

Helpful hints:

1.  We got our visas on arrival from MyVietnamVisa.com.  They emailed our arrival letters back within a few days and there was no problem with them at the airport.

2.  We didn't realize we would need passport photos for the Vietnam visas.  It was no problem because we were able to pay $2.00 U.S. per person to get them taken at the Hanoi airport, but if you like to be prepared, bring extra passport photos for Vietnam entry.  (Although we paid $15 for two photos at our local post office for photos for the Cambodian visas, so I guess we ended up saving money doing it this way!)

3.  You will need cash to pay for your visas -- $25 U.S. per person for single entry, and $50 per person for multiple entry.

4.  The actual visa is a sticker that goes inside your passport.  I guess we were expecting it to be a separate document because we were a little confused when they handed back our passports and waved us over to the customs people.  Don't be confused when that happens to you: Yes, you are done.  The visa is in your passport.

After we were through customs (total about 20 minutes), we picked up our bags and met our nice young driver, whom we retained through NoiBaiTaxi.com online.  He was right where we expected him to be, holding a sign with our names on it.  He led us out into the rainy night and left us on the curb while he went to get the car.

We only had time to look around and observe that the weather in Hanoi was exactly the same as the weather we'd left in Los Angeles before our driver was back with his just-big-enough-for-us-and-our-bags car!

This isn't really it... the car we drove in was of similar size but was a little sedan rather than a hatchback.  Our two big bags filled the trunk and our two carry-ons rode shotgun!  The back seat was completely filled up by... us!

And what a ride!  Dark, wet, rainy, and FAST!  Don't let the lines on the road cramp your style... at most, they are suggestions!  Our driver made good use of the horn and the high-beams when it came to, uh, urging slower-moving vehicles out of his way!  It. was. awesome.

Also awesome was when we approached a very large, very beautiful building that was covered in little white lights for Christmas, and it turned out to be our hotel!!  (Turns out we just missed the lighting ceremony by a couple of days!)  The Hotel Sofitel Legend Metropole is old-world drop-dead gorgeous, with service and amenities to match!  We were particularly pleased when the charming young man at the front desk informed us that we would be staying in the newer part of the hotel, and personally escorted us to the check-in desk in the new wing, regaling us with tidbits about the hotel and its history along the way.

After that buildup, the room did not disappoint:

Room 287.  Gotta love it!  And how cool is the panorama function on Gary's camera?

So. Fab.

Gorgeous!  And would you like a closer look at the Christmas lights outside the window?  Here you go:

Can you see Santa and his reindeer flying over the pool?  And check out that banana tree in the foreground!

 Having settled in a bit, the first order of business is to dive into the welcome folder from AMA Waterways, featuring a map of Hanoi, helpful hints, and the all-important schedule for tomorrow!  Yay!!

I was hoping there'd be something like this waiting for us, and I wasn't disappointed!

Contents of the folder.

Oh boy oh boy!  Tomorrow it begins!