Eco-Hotel, Mekong Delta, Vietnam

A short interview with guests at an eco-hotel in the Mekong Delta.

The Underground

The Viet Cong underground who fought the US in South Vietnam literally lived underground in 200 miles of camouflaged tunnels. Check out this 15 second video.

Hoi An – A lovely old port town on the spice route.

Hoi An is a lovely little town preserved since the 16th century and now a heritage town The old town’s buildings are especially cute encompassing a three or four long streets. It’s like a super cute open air shopping mall as each of the buildings are fronted by a retail store. What is remarkable to me is that these storefronts are the front room of people’s homes. The store owners are the store managers and their home extends backwards behind the store but also includes the store. Families use the store at night as an eating room or a place to sleep. So this cartoon town is actually a residential neighborhood.

Most retailers sell tailored clothing. The photo below shows Eva and Daniela choosing cloth for  dress each. Their dresses cost $32 and $12 respectively. David had a pair of cotton trousers made for $14. Avia’s dress cost $10.

One photo below shows a group of people selling watermelon from their cart. Note the scale on the floor to the right. Cute!

Hoi An Tailoring

watermelon sales, Hoi An

Little Temple, Hoi An

Face Off

Vietnam has 54 official ethnic minorities. Here are a few of them.

Training

We took the overnight train from Hanoi to Denang. Beauti!
6 in a cabin/room. A little small to photo. Here are three.

Halong Bay

Hanoi

Hanoi bustling with life. I loved the streets of the old town, each one specializing in a different trade. There is the optometrists street, the florists street, the artists street and many more.

at an old traditional concert we tried to play
unusual instruments

Tam Coc

Alongside Tam Coc is a river which runs between flooded rice fields. Large limestone hills jut out of the earth and sometimes form tunnels over the river. The experience is very managed. After driving from Hanoi for two hours through villages in which people live above and behind their shop front or workshop you arrive at a large gate, like the arc de triumph. Between the gate and the river shops and tourist restaurants line the street. At the river’s edge you are shuffled into an awaiting row boat. A farm woman rows the boat with her legs. This is additional income for local farmers. Along the way she offers items for sale. It is a beautiful area.

Finally reunited in Hanoi

Vietnam’s Tube houses developed in the Le dynasty to fit as many shop fronts as possible in a street. The houses are often only 2 metres wide and sometimes 80 metres long and are now called rocket buildings since they were still confined by the original land area, but expanded into hight.

adventure in the air

After spending some quality time in the Hong Kong airport due to Visa issues, missed planes and mainly lack of communication, we finally made it to an aeroplane, where two men started a very polite fight which kept us for an other two hours in a rioting plane.