For the mid-year holiday, I traveled with 4 other ETAs to Vietnam and Laos. In a nutshell, we flew into Ho Chi Minh and spent a few days there, flew to Hanoi and went on a 3 day cruise in Halong Bay, then took a 30 hour bus ride to Luang Prabang, and then took another bus to Vang Vieng, and our last stop was Vientiene which is where we flew out of and back to Malaysia.
Here are some highlights of each place:
- Ho Chi Minh - We went to the Reunification Palace which was really fascinating. We learned all about the secret rooms where a lot of important decisions were made by the president of the south during the Vietnam War. This was also the place where the Vietnam War ended when a Northern army tank crashed through the gates. Later that night my purse was stolen by someone on a motorbike, which was unfortunate, but I didn't lose anything too important so I really was pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things. We also took a day trip to see the Chu Chi tunnels used during the Vietnam War-- we were even able to walk (crawl, really) in them. On the way we stopped at a Caodaoism temple-- a very interesting religion (google it!)
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| Caodaoism ceremony at the temple |
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Chu Chi Tunnels
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- Halong Bay - We took a 3 day/2 night cruise on Halong Bay with other like-minded travelers from all over the world. Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage site that has thousands of limestone islands and caves. The first night we slept on the boat, and the second night we stayed on a private island. Absolutely beautiful!! Pictures do it no justice.
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| Halong Bay |
- Hanoi - The town of Hanoi is smaller than Ho Chi Minh. I absolutely loved Hanoi, the streets are narrow and loud with motorbikes and scooters outnumbering cars. Vietnam is known for their baguette sandwiches, so I ate lots and lots of those. We met 5 Australian guys on the cruise who we spent a lot of time with once we were back in Hanoi. We all went out to a traditional Vietnamese dinner that night, where I was courageous enough to try pigeon head, pigeon toe, frog leg, and eel. GROSS!
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| I ate the back of his head! |
- 30 hour bus ride from hell - This is where the trip got bad, real bad. We thought it would be wise to save money and take a supposedly 20 hour bus ride from Hanoi to Luang Prabang, Laos. BAD IDEA. It started off by the bus driver speaking 0 English and all of the passengers bags being thrown on the top of the bus and tied down. Then there wasn't enough room for everyone, so some people had to lay underneath the seats. No AC, no lights, no windows, nothing. The AC stopped working at some point during the first night. The ride lasted 30 hours instead of 20 hours. Oh yeah, and there were no toilets on the bus as they had promised. NEVER AGAIN. I will always pay the extra money from now on to take a short plane ride.
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| Bus ride |
- Luang Prabang, Laos - A very French inspired town on the Mekong River, we even saw an elephant in the wild on the river. This is also another UNESCO World Heritage site due to the plethora of Buddhist temples sporadically placed around the town. We took a tuk-tuk (see pictures) to some waterfalls one day- gorgeous!! One friend I was traveling with fell up the stairs on the way to a temple, and I went with him on a tuk-tuk to the only hospital in town. Dirt roads, pot holes, animals in the road...we saw it all on the way to the hospital. The facilities were better than we had expected, and we walked out of their with it only costing $5 USD. YES!
- Vang Vieng - This sleepy little town is known for tubing down the river. Strangely, all the restaurants play Friends episodes over and over again, so we watched lots of Friends.
- Vientiene - This was our last stop where we flew out of. The highlight of this city is that we found a restaurant that served bagels. Yes, bagels. (They are non-existant in Malaysia so we've been craving them since we left the US). It was a real treat!
- June 9 (my birthday) - We flew back to KL, though I almost missed my flight due to my carry-on bag being over the weight limit and trying to get around it. Oops. Lesson learned.
Check out the rest of my pictures from the trip!
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