Last Day In Vietnam

We had a great time in Ha Long Bay. Really amazing rock formations. We kayaked through caves, visited little floating villages and ate huge seafood meals. We returned to Hanoi yesterday afternoon. The weather is great and Hanoi seems like a different place than our first time through when it was rainy and cold. We had a great meal on the street last night at a tiny little plastic table where we cooked our meal on a stove right on our table. Hanoi is such an interesting city. We are all sad to be leaving tonight. We get on the plane at 10 PM, arriving in Seoul at 5 AM. We will spend the day in Seoul, then do the 11 hour flight to Seattle tomorrow night. We spend a night in Seattle, then home. We are off to the big Hanoi street market for a last buying binge this AM.

Boat Trip

We flew to Hanoi last night after a day of bike rides (Tim & Keith with Aaron, Eva, & Tate on the back) and shopping in Dalat. We are staying at our original hotel - Rising Dragon. Hanoi looks very different after 2 weeks of adjusting to Vietnam - plus it isn't cold and rainy. This morning we leave on our 3 day boat trip to Halong Bay. We hope to be able to kayak and enjoy the scenery from the deck of the boat. The kids are excited about a new mode of transportation. We will not have internet access so will post when we return. Max has posted a bunch of new videos on his you tube channel - tjmaxa.

Dalat - Saturday and Sunday

We've spent the past few days in Dalat, a town at 4600 feet in the central highlands. We took a bus here from Nha Trang. It was a 4 hour ride over a major mountain pass, unfortunately at the top of the pass it was a very foggy and we couldn't see anything.

Dalat is a beautiful, hilly city filled with French architecture, flowers, great food and wonderful people. It is known as the honeymoon capital of Vietnam and is a popular destination for Vietnamese on their honeymoons. There are bakeries and coffee shops everywhere, along with the usual great Vietnamese food. Have we mentioned the baguettes we eat for breakfast everyday? We can get 8 of them for $1.

We spent yesterday seeing the city sights and today we hired a car and driver to take us on a trip around the countryside. We visited two different buddhist pagoda's complete with giant buddha statues. We went to a waterfall where the main attraction was a luge rollarcoaster ride down a steep hill to the waterfall viewing area. The kids loved it and rode it twice. We also made them hike down the hill to the waterfall. We visited a coffee plantation and a silk making factory where they do the complete process from the silk worms to weaving the silk into cloth and dyeing it.

The market in Dalat is great. All kinds of interesting stuff from dried fruits of all kinds, beautiful vegetables, fish,meat, tons of clothes, etc. The night markets are the best. They block off the streets to traffic on Sat and Sunday evenings and everyone from little children to teens and adults are hanging out in the streets shopping, eating street food, and visiting. We've had fun buying both souvenir type things and also everyday stuff. Tonight all the kids picked out hats (warm ski type hats), socks (at 25 cents a pair we decided to stock up), and custom made beaded bracelets.

We have not met any Americans traveling in Vietnam at all. We've met a couple of Austrialian families with children, but our group with 4 kids definitely makes us stand out. People love the kids especially Aaron and Eva and want to kiss them and take pictures with them. Today Aaron was swarmed by a group of Vietnamese Buddhist nuns on holiday from Saigon.

Tomorrow we will hang around Dalat, catch up on journals, homework. drink coffee and see some more sights and then fly back to Hanoi in the evening. We decided to change our plane tickets to fly from Dalat so we didn't have to travel back to Nha Trang. Vietnam Airlines is much more pleasant than Alaska Airlines - the fee to change all for of our tickets both date and departure city was $35. The 650 mile trip costs about $250 for all of us.

The trip is going by too fast and we are very sad that it is going to end. We will come home with lots of stories.

Pictures from Vinpearl Land

Vinpearl

Yesterday we all went to Vinpearl, Vietnam's version of Disneyland. It was a rainy, windy day, but we all had a great time. Vinpearl is on an island, and we took an aerial tram across the two miles of ocean to get there. With the wind, it was the scariest ride of the day, although I'm sure the new, Swiss-engineered tram is quite safe. Amusement park safety standards are pretty lax, so we used our discretion and passed up several rides. There are all kinds of huge, scary waterslides and we all had a blast climbing big towers and sliding down at high speed. We all had various bumps and bruises but we survived the day. We had vowed to find a boat to take us back to the mainland, but the wind let up and we took the tram.

We have had a great time here in Nha Trang, staying at Carlos house, just a couple of blocks from the beach. It is a narrow, three story house with twelve foot ceilings on each floor, three bedrooms and four baths with two big verandas that overlook several soccer fields where dozens of people are playing in multiple different games, often to rousing Communist marches blaring over the tinny PA system.

At dawn there are hundreds of people of all ages, including the elderly out along the beach doing Tai Chi and calisthenics as the sun rises up out of the S. China sea. I go out first thing in the mornings in search of Vietnamese coffee and French pastries, both of which I have become addicted to. There are so many great restaurants here including French, Indian and German when you need a break from Vietnamese cuisine. All of them are ridiculously inexpensive.

Carlos had his driver take Jeannie and Heidi to the big outdoor market and buy big prawns and loads of produce. Carlos brought home a bunch of fish from his operation and we had a great barbeque feast. Today we are going to jump on a bus and head up into the mountains to the city of Da Lat.

Tuesday - Nha Trang

We dragged out of bed at 4 AM today and got a taxi to Da Nang, where we caught a Vietnam Airlines prop plane flight to Nha Trang. It was a good flight and Max and I had a great view of the mountainous jungles of the Central Highlands on our side of the plane. Its such a beautiful place - its hard to imagine the brutal combat that was going on there when I was in grade school.

My friend from his days in Juneau, Carlos Massad, met us at the airport with two vehicles to bring us the twenty miles back to his house. We dropped off our bags and headed out for a massive breakfast and coffee at a great little cafe run by an ex-pat Australian who is a friend of Carlos'.

(Jeannie taking over for Tim on the post) After breakfast we walked to the beach and spent a few hours enjoying the warm water and sand. We went to a "private beach" where we rented chairs. There was also a beautiful pool to swim in to rinse off from the ocean.

We went out for a huge seafood dinner with Carlos, who ordered for all of us in vietnamese. We had asparagus and crab soup, seafood fried rice, morning glory greens (kind of like spinach), giant prawns (4 or 5 inches long) that we dipped in lime juice and pepper, and a grilled whole fish that we ate in chunks wrapped in rice paper with lettuce, mint, & cucumber.

This morning Tim and Keith got up early to go with Carlos so his fish farm site. He is the general manager for the operation raising 1500 metric tons of 2 types of fish for the high end international market. The site is about 30 miles north and the a 30 minute boat ride.
Heidi and I will take the kids to a mud bath today about 20 minutes outside of town.
Be sure to look at the phots from Hoi An on the previous post - I did 2 this morning.

Photos - Hoi An

Here's a few photos from the last couple of days in Hoi An. Tomorrow we are up at 4 am to drive 30 km to Danang to the airport to fly to Nha Trang (about 250 miles south of where we are now). We'll be to Nha Trang by 7:30 am.

I lost my internet connection before I could finish this post 2 days ago.

Sunday - Bike ride on Cam Kim Island (by Aaron)

Today we rented bikes - Max and I rode on the back of Mom and Dad's bikes . We rode through town to a dock on the river. A ferry was just about ready to leave, so we jumped on with our bikes. This wasn't a ferry like we have in Alaska. It is a boat that has a small space under a platform for people to sit and on top it is full of motorcycles and bicycles and packed with people. We will post some pictures soon. It was very loud. The ride to the island took about 15 minutes.

When we got to the island we rode our bikes around, it was really really hot. We rode through a giant field where they were growing rice, corn, and peanuts. Amazingly there was a paved path through the field for us to ride on. Daddy's bike got a flat tire (probably because he went off a big bump with Max sitting on the back). Then Daddy and Mom walked the bike back to town and Max rode the bike with me on the back. Max was a crazy driver, but no one got hurt luckily.
The first place we came to in town was a motorcycle repair shop where a man very very quickly repaired the tire. After that Max rode with Mom.

We stopped for a soda. I got a sprite - it came in a big glass bottle, but was warm. We sat by a little shack in the shade and had our drinks. The adults all drank beer and got sleepy and didn't want to leave. But we rode around the island some more before taking the ferry back to Hoi An.

The best thing about our hotel is the swimming pool. We were having diving contests for a long time until the manager came and told us to stop jumping and diving and be quiet. It wasn't much fun after that so we got dressed and went to eat a very late lunch. My Dad went to get a massage and my Mom is making us take a rest so we can go out tonight. I have been falling asleep when we are still eating dinner and waking up at 5 am.

Time to go rest. Love Aaron

Hue to Hoi An

Yesterday we got up early and walked the half mile bridge over the Perfume River to Hue's huge outdoor market. The bridge is for motor scooters and pedestrians only. We shared the ped lane with a line of vendors carrying produce counter-balanced in baskets on long poles over their shoulders.

The market was amazing. The vast variety of fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, spices and foods we couldn't identify made us wish we were staying someplace with a kitchen so we could take advantage of it all. Save for the occasional scooter weaving through the crowd with six hogs split length-wise riding behind the driver, the scene was timeless. We never saw another westerner at the market. Aaron and Eva had to endure being taken by the hand and hugged and kissed on the cheeks by women vendors.

We left Hue mid morning, heading south along the coast, traveling in a van that we hired along with driver for the four hour trip to Hoi An. It was a great trip, first across broad deltas along tidal estuaries, through small towns, with a stop to get our first look at the South China Sea. The ocean was very rough and brown with churned up sand. The kids, of course, had to at least get their feet wet. Tate was promptly decked by a sneaker wave. We wound up a steep road through the mountains with great ocean views, and then dropped back down into the sprawling ocean city of Da Nang. The once- pristine white sand beaches near Da Nang, including China Beach of the American war fame, are unfortunately being heavily developed with huge resorts.

Twenty miles to the south of Da Nang, we arrived at Hoi An, where we are staying for the next several days. It is a wonderful town, spread across islands and wetlands about 3 miles inland from the ocean. Heidi planned our arrival here for the monthly lantern festival, that occurs on the 14th day of the lunar cycle. It is a Buddhist day of worship and people throughout town are burning incense, placing offerings of food on altars and scattering handfuls of rice into the street. On this one night each month, all of the lights are turned off in the old part of Hoi An, and throngs of people turn out to launch candles in little paper rafts on to the Thu Bon River. All of the shops along the river are lit with colorful silk lanterns. It was a beautiful sight that we will always remember. We launched a candle raft in memory of Dean Blust, may he rest in peace.

Today we got up and rented bikes ($1 USD per day) and explored all over. Keith and I, with Aaron and Eva riding on back of our bikes, rode out to the beach this afternoon. Keith and Heidi are off on a date tonight and Jeannie and I are taking the kids out to dinner.

Aaron's post and photos

Hi 2/3 class and Jess
I am having a ton of fun in vietnam!!!!!!! We got to go see a water puppet show where there were a whole bunch of puppets that would come out from behind bamboo screens. They came out from the water.

The streets in Hanoi are so crazy with so many motocycles, cars, bikes and buses. No one stops they just honk their horns. There are no stop lights or stop signs. We had to hold hands and all cross the street in a big group.

We are going to go to a market this morning to look around so I have to write more later. We are just getting up and you just got out of school yesterday. We are 15 hours ahead of you so it is already Friday here.
Your friend Aaron

Here are a few photos from the past 2 days. Our days (and nights) have been so packed it is hard to write about everything we have done.




Our whole group in front of the Ho Chi Minh's former palace. We also visited the mausoleum and had a chance to see the real (preserved) Uncle Ho. He looked pretty good for someone who died in 1969.

We took an an overnight train from Hanoi to Hue. It was really fun except for me barfing about a billion times. Luckily I felt a little better in the morning.

When we arrived and got off the train we realized it was very long train it had 15 or 16 cars we were at the very end.


We got some mangos at a fruit stand but we didn't have a knife we were going to try to cut it with my little scissors, but luckily we found a plastic knife.


We had 2 bunk beds in our room. There was such clicking and clacketying that we though the wheels were going to fall off the train. It was hard to sleep.

A few pictures from our tour of the temples and citadel in Hue.


There was a giant fish pond and the fish are trained so when you clap your hands they stick their head up looking for food.

Here are a bunch of pictures of stone statues from the tumb of an emperor.

We left Hanoi last night after a quick dinner and a ride across town, which is an adventure in itself. We were in "soft- sleeper" cabins which turned out to be 4 rock-hard bunks in a tiny cabin. The old train bucked and jolted through the night. Aaron woke up throwing up and with bad diarrhea during the night so we had a pretty short sleep, except for Max who slept like a log. Keith and Heidi didn't sleep much either. At first light we were able to see out at the countryside rolling past. Miles and miles of small farms and rice paddies. Despite (or because of) the few inconveniences it was a great adventure and we all arrived in Hue at 8AM in high spirits. Aaron shook off his illness and was fine today.

We hired a car and toured three really interesting sites with temples, tombs and fabulous old buildings. One of the sites, "The Citadel" was about 1/2 square mile, surrounded by a moat and a high wall with dozens of interesting buildings. The last site was next to the
Perfume River, where we boarded a sampan-style "Dragon Boat" and motored back down the river several miles to Hue.

We had a great dinner with lots of local Hue dishes at a nice little restaurant. It was about $22 for the eight of us. We are back in our hotel now, dog tired and ready for bed at 7:30. We love our room. Big room with windows on three sides and a big balcony overlooking the city.

We have hired a 16 passenger mini bus and driver to make the three hour trip to Hoi An tommorrow.
Tim

Max's video blogs

Check out Max's video blogs of our trip. He's making them on his ipod and posting them to you tube. Visit his channel - tjmaxa or see link below. Enjoy the whole series of very short video messages from Max.

http://www.youtube.com/user/tjmaxa#p/u/0/y7uKFi9PvdM

First Day in Hanoi

We survived our first day in Hanoi. It was a full day - filled with trying new things, learning how to cross the street, and feeling slightly dazed from lack of sleep and jet lag. The kids did great and are enjoying all the new sights, sounds (except for the endless horns honking), and tastes. Among the new things we all found something we know and love to eat on the street - Aaron a pineapple, Tim a watermelon, Jeannie a mango, and Max a loaf of crusty french bread.

The day started out foggy and then it started raining hard around 1 pm and has been cold, windy, wet and stormy all afternoon and evening. We are all freezing and anxious for some warmer weather.

Arivle

We have finally arrived here in Hanoi after a grueling 16 hours of flying. We got off the plane in Seoul for quick 10 minute dash to our 5 hour flight. Luckily we slept most of the way. We arrived to a very foggy humid night.

Driving from the airport to our hotel in the dark foggy night was unlike any drive I've ever been on. There was the constant sound of blaring horns, scooters loaded high with hay, bananas, and unknown giant loads - and this was at midnight. They don't seem to have many traffic laws.

We straight to bed and slept fitfully until about 5:30 am. We've been watching the street below come to life from a tiny balcony. We are waiting to have some breakfast at our hotel before we head out to explore the city.

We can't wait to get started eating good vietnamese food.
Max

11 hour flight

We are just about to get on our Asiana Airines flight from Seattle to Seoul South Korea. It is an 11 hour flight with 1 hour in Seoul and then another 5 hour flight before we arrive in Hanoi. We will arrive in Hanoi at 10 pm on Monday night (6 am Juneau time).
The kids are very excited.
More soon

Leaving Juneau

We are leaving on our first family international adventure - a 3 week trip to Vietnam with another Juneau family. Our group of 4 adults and 4 kids will leave behind our familiar scenery and food for a glimpse at another part of the world.

Why Vietnam? No particular reason except it meets the needs of all eight in the group. The goal of the trip is for everyone to have fun and some new experiences and come home wanting to travel more.

We hope to post pictures and stories on this blog while we travel. Stayed tuned for more info.