Vietnam Day 2 and 3
April 30, 2006
So yesterday was our first full day in Vietnam. We took advantage of the great day to get the hell out of the city and into the "country-side". Our hotel arranged a trip to one of the old capitals of Vietnam followed by a 2 hour canoe trip through rice fields. The tour of the capital was what you would expect. A few temples, some open sky, mountains and old ladies pushing water and soda. It was, however, great to breath some fresh air.
The canoe trip was a bit more fun in that there weren't as many people pushing junk on us. The canoe that Mark and I rode in was powered by a 54 year old women and her 42 year old friend. The kept us entertained by teaching us a few Vietnamese words and telling us about their daughters that are apparently looking for husbands (go figure).
We had relative success with our tour yesterday, so we contracted the same company to take us to the Perfume Pagoda. It's not so much a pagoda as a couple of temples carved into the side of a mountain. Apparently during Tet the place is flooded with about 20,000 Vietnamese that come to pray. Judging by the amount of trash that's been disposed of on the side of the mountain, the number of Vietnamese pseudo-pilgrims must be far larger than 20K. The entire mountain is a vertible garbage dump. The only indication that the Vietnamese even care about keeping their environment pristine are the dilapitated signs urging hikers to dispose of their trash in the designated place. I guess their designate their trash areas with a few starter bottles and bags of junk. There certainly isn't any trash removal going on.
Oh well, hopefully Halong Bay will live up to its reputation for beauty. Maybe we'll get lucky and find that it lives down it's reputation for pollution too.
Last thought: Japanese tourists seem to be everywhere. I feel kind of guilty listening in on their conversations when they don't know that I understand what they are saying.