Ponytail helmet

In Hanoi, there were several women wearing what looks to be a very functional invention, the ponytail helmet. What, you have never seen one.

In Vietnam, helmets are required and there does not appear to be any manufacturing standards. Helmets are not only required but they are a part of one’s outfit. We spotted helmets being sold in a hat shop.

Ponytail helmets more than regular helmets are a mark of style.

Vietnam cover-up

In Saigon, Anita and I noticed many people riding motos wearing face masks; we assumed it was to filter out polluted air, even though the air seemed fine.

We wondered why the masks were so large, some continued down over the neckline onto the shoulders and chest.

In Hanoi, we noticed even more women wearing face masks than in Saigon.

Some of them were wearing not only masks, but also helmets, huge sunglasses and lightweight windbreakers with extensions to the arms, covering the hands.

We asked a young man traveling on our tour to Halong Bay if he could explain all the cover-ups. He responded women in Vietnam are serious about protecting their skin from the sun, they do not want to get dark skin. OK, that makes sense; all of the skin creams advertized appear to have a whitener in them.

Hanoi street food

There were several things we wanted to see and do in Hanoi, Uncle Ho's mausoleum, try several restaurants, and generally explore the city. First on the list was Pho at a local restaurant, we asked the desk clerk and he gave us directions to the most authentic and best local Pho spot in Hanoi, he said it was small and on the street. We walked to the area where we thought it was and found three people eating Pho sitting on the smallest stools I have ever seen.

The woman serving was sitting under a large umbrella, clients were sitting next to a building. After asking the price and joined the people other clients.

When lunch was served, we set the bowl of soup on one of the small stools using it like a table, this put the soup about ankle height which made us bending over to take a bite (slurp using chopsticks). The Pho came with a plastic bowl full of leaves that could be added to our soup, which we placed on another stool.

The soup was good. The other clients got a chuckle having us eat with them and take photos. 

On to Hanoi

Our initial plan was to take the train from Saigon to Hanoi, but the train ride from Saigon to Hoi An changed that. While in Hoi An we purchased two tickets on Vietnam Airlines from Hue to Hanoi in hope the flight would be more comfortable than the train.

The day after looking around Hue, we packed up early and went to the airport for a 07:30 flight to Hanoi. When we got there we found out that we only had one reservation. We asked about later flights that day, they were all full until the 10:00 PM flight. What happened? The reservation document we had looked official and it said two tickets. Somehow, there was only one reservation in the airline's computer.

After much discussion we decided to stay at the airport waiting for possible standby seats on the midday flight. Would we get lucky? I was told there were a lot of free seats on the 10 PM flight, we decided to not purchase the 10 PM tickets and try for standby seats on the midday flight. The mid day flight boarded, no seats for us!

After the flight took off, I asked about the 10 PM flight, I was told there are NO seats on it. WHAT, earlier I was told there was a lot of space. By this time we knew where the Vietnam Airlines management office was, I went there and asked what to do. After a long discussion, two seats opened up. One in coach and one in business class, I said we would take them. That meant that one of us would go business and the other coach. At least we would get there.

We called our hotel in Hanoi and revised our arrival time for the second time. This time we would arrive at 11:20 PM.

We were the first people in line for the flight. We hated to leave our airport home for the day NOT!!

At check in we asked if we could upgraded the coach ticket to business class, no problem, there's lots of space. We quickly upgrade and were finally on our way.

Incense along the road

In Hue, Vietnam, Anita and I decided to rent bicycles and look around, we headed south to the tomb of Tu Duc, the longest-reigning Nguyen emperor. On the map the route seemed short and flat, unfortunately, it was not flat, with a WHEEEE we went down the first hill and then realized we had to go back up the same amount we had just came down; with some effort we peddled up and were on the flat again. When we reached the top, we spotted a very colorfully display that we thought was incense, come to find out it was just the sticks the incense is placed on.

It was early morning and the shop keeper was not yet available, we went to the next shop to take a photo of her display and were shooed away. We were back on the bicycles toward the tomb, and found several more shops with similar displays. We met a woman who was setting up to make incense by hand. She had a large mass of incense on a slanted narrow table, she wrapped a little around the stick and then twirled the sick and rolled the flat device to pull the incense from the pile, all the time working to cover the stick. She was fast.

She spoke very little English but gave Anita a short course in making incense sticks.

Anita said she thinks she should stick to her day job, rolling incense sticks did not come naturally.

Train from Da Nang to Hue

I know you would think that we would NOT ride the Vietnamese trains after the last experience. But we decided to take the train from Da Nang to Hue; this journey is only three hours and goes along the Vietnamese coast, and really has spectacular scenery.

We arrived at the station early; I wanted to take a few photos of the train. The doors opened to the platform for a North to South train and I went out and started to photograph, always vigilant for guards saying No Photos. I walked to the end of the yard and back.

Yes, it is a government run train, there were many people standing around supervising. 

When I returned to the doors that I had come out of, they were locked and there was no one around! Hummm, I know the door will open when our train is called but I would like to go back inside and sit down. I was looking around and a vendor pointed to a door down the tracks a little, it was a small shop and inside there was a door into the waiting room.

We boarded the train about noon; watching vendors up and down the station sell everything from treats for the ride to gifts for relatives.

The seats were the same, way too small but I knew it was only a short journey. The scenery was spectacular. The photos were taken through rather dirty windows. The coast was beautiful, we were traveling along a single track that was at times perched on the edge of the hills.

The train descended and we rode past several bays where fish were being raised.

This train journey was ok, but we still decided to fly to Hanoi.

Fishing village Duy Hai

Anita and I signed up for a sunrise photographic tour of Duy Hai, a small fishing village, with Etienne Bossot of Hoi An Photo Tours. We were picked up before sunrise, on the ferry just about the time the sun came over the horizon. The boat ride was smooth and short. The photo below is later ferry, not ours.

Etienne was a very good leader, he gave instruction to those who asked for it and had his assistant David lead the rest of us to the most promising areas for photos.
Duy Hai is a village of about 2,000 people at the mouth of the Thu Bon river who's livelihood is based on catching and processing fish to be shipped to China.
Conical hats are an iconic image of Vietnam; I never had any idea how hard it is to photograph a conical hat. Because of the shape, they are almost always reflecting sunlight and therefore burned out to white. How then do I create a portrait of someone wearing a conical hat without having the hat overpower the face? After some trial and error, I came up with the solution, you shoot from below, get the face and the underside of the hat. In the portrait below shooting from below worked, unfortunately, the sky did not cooperate.

There were two other items that caught my attention other than portraits, coracles (the round boats) and

fish processing plant and drying process.

Lanterns

Lanterns must come from the Chinese influence, I saw two types of lanterns in Hoi An; decorative hanging and floating lanterns.

Lanterns decorate the modern bridge across the Thu Bon river, and many places in town.

There are numerous shops making and selling lanterns.

Every evening as the sun sets several floating lantern sellers congregate next to the river. You can purchase a lantern and set afloat downstream. Unfortunately there were never enough floating down stream to make a photo.

Old bridge in Hoi An

There is an old bridge in the old city, it is not large but the architecture and details are worthy of a visit.

For details of the bridge, click here.

The bridge spans a small canal that flows into Thu Bon River.

Looking onto the bridge from the old town.

Pagoda in the bridge.

Looking onto the bridge at night

Hoi An

The train stopped in Da Nang, we knew it was only a shot bus ride to our destination Hoi An. After Saigon we were weary of taxi's right outside the station. We were standing looking around getting our bearings and a man approached us and four more foreigners, all of were looking for the bus station. He was a minivan driver, he had to pay to park his van at the station but it was a block away and he would take all of us to Hoi An for a reasonable price. We all agreed and off we went. This ride would be about the same price as the bus and shorter.

The ride to the edge of Hoi An's old city was about 30 minutes; it was about a 15 minute walk to the hotel. As we crossed the bridge over the river that separates the old town from the new town, we were set upon by two professional hustlers. I took this photo and then the requests for money started. We hurried along to our hotel.

Anita would be in a class tomorrow from Tranh Diem Vy at Morning Glory Cooking School, we decided to go to the restaurant for dinner. Dinner was a great start to the Morning Glory experience, Anita and I were fighting over the stuffed squid it was so good.

After dinner we walked around the riverside area of the old town. There are several beautiful old French colonial buildings.

Vietnamese trains

Anita and I like train travel and the web site The Man in Seat Sixty-One had some very good things to say about Vietnamese trains. Our plan was to take the train from Saigon to Hanoi with intermediate stops.

The web site said you needed to book early, it was certainly right. I tried to book a soft sleeper from Saigon the Da Nang four days in advance and they were all booked. There were two top bunks available in a hard sleeper, I decided that we would take soft seats for this stretch of the journey.

We boarded the train about 23:00 and headed into the night, I soon learned that soft seat is not an accurate name, they are not soft and they are very short. I'm six feet tall and these seats are made from someone about 4 and a half feet tall. If I pushed back in the seat my head was a foot above the headrest. The other end was also a bit of a problem; my knees were in the back to the seat in front of me.

This was not a problem for the lady in the seat ahead of me, she gave her seat to her son and she curled up on the floor. I gave that a lot of thought but I decided against it.

It was a long night, the lights stayed on until about 04:00. I have been known to sleep in all conditions; this was a real challenge even for me.

There was an advantage on the train over the buses in Cambodia, the TV screen volume was not very loud.

During the morning part of the journey I walked around and looked at the soft sleepers. Another misnomer, hard rack would be more like it. The base of the bunk was metal with a 1/2 inch mattress on it.

There were other things that The Man In Seat 61 said that were not true on the trains we traveled on, leading me to believe that he has never been on a Vietnamese train.

Pho Vietnamese noodle soup

Pho is a national dish in Vietnam and is Vietnamese noodle soup, usually served with beef or chicken. The soup includes noodles made from rice and is often served with Vietnamese basil, lime, bean sprouts that are added to the soup by the diner. One of our goals was to try this meal. Guide books and the doorman at out hotel pointed us to one of the many PHO 24 restaurants in Saigon, "this one has the best pho in the city".

Traditional Pho is normally served with beef or chicken but at PHO 24 there are many options; Anita had a deer-in-the-headlights look when presented with all of the options. It was very helpful to have pictures of everything.

Pho comes with vegetables that can be added to the soup

It was great!

Wandering around Saigon’s ChinaTown

After visiting several pagodas, Anita and I happened on one of the numerous street market, which was very much like a street market in Cambodia, vendors hiding from the intense sun under huge umbrellas.

There was the standard sleeping vendor

Fish and fruit vendors

People making snacks, we stopped to watch a young lady make small white balls coated with a green sticky covering. Of course none of us spoke the others language so we do not know what it was called or contained. We watched as the young lady carefully cooked the green sticky covering on a banana leaf grill, yes the grill was a banana leaf stretched over a dish of hot water with a heat source below it.

To me the snack did not have any flavor but it was fun to watch her make them.