HOI AN Old Town

What we end up saving from places is what we lived while in them.

Actually, we didn't know almost anything about this vietnamese city. Is for that reason that it surprised us!

After spent the day in Hue, we took a bus to Hoi An. When we arrived, we found a lot of people offering their hostels to us. So, you are not going to have any problema to find accomodation! You don't have even to look for it! They will go to you! 

As I said before, Hoi An was an excellent suprise for me. I'm going to tell you a bit more of this amazing city.

About 25km southeast of Da Nang, the ancient town of Hoi An nestles on the Banks of the Thu Bon River. Originally a seaport in the Champa Kingdom, by the 15th century it has become a coastal Vietnamese town under the Tran Dinasty. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese came to explore the coast of Hoi An, Then came the Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, British and French.

Hoi An appeared in Western travelogues in the 17th and 18th centuries as Faifo or Hai Po. For several centuries Hoi An was one of the most important trading ports in Southeast Asia. By the beginning of the 19th century the mouth of the Thu Bon silted up an another port was built as the mouth of the Han River. Thenceforth Da Nang (a city a Little bit more to the north of Hoi An) replace Hoi An as the centre of trade.

In the early 1980's, UNESCO and the Polish government funded a  restoration programme to classify and safeguard Hoi An's old quarters and historic monuments. Hoi An was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1999.

We spent around 5 days in this city (one of them we went to My Son, but I will tell you about it later...). 

We just were walking, enjoying its quietly atmosphere, taking a ride by bicycle, going to the beach, eating, drinking, eating more!
What an amazing city to eat!!

Actually we planned to be there for 3 days or at least 4. But we spent one day more because of the weather. We wanted to go to the beach but it just started rainning at the momento we arrived to the beach.

And that is the way we spent the days in Hoi An, with a lot of smiles from the people and from us!

As I told you before, one of those 5 days, we went to visit My Son.

The valley of My Son, nestled under Cat's Tooth Mountain, was chosen as a religious sanctuary by King Bhadravarman I, and from the fourth century, many temples and towers were built in this área. These ruins are all that remains of the ancient religious capital of Amaravati, the greatest of the Cham states. 

During the Second Indochina War (1954-75), the Viet Cong based themselves in the temples, using them as  bunkers. American B52s bombed them thoroughly, leaving only a small vestige of what was once a magnificent ancient city. Traces of around 70 temples and related structures may still be found at My Son, though only about 20 are still in good condition.

So, after this sad and crazy information about the history of those champa temples, I will show to you what is still surviving. 

Hue, The Imperial City

From Ninh Binh we wanted to take a night bus to Hoi An, but we decided to stop first in Hue (we were going to arrive to Hue around 8am, so we could visit Hue during the day and arrive to Hoi An in the night). And we did like that!

The night buses in Vietnam are a bit strange. There are not the usual sits... but they have bunkbeds! Amazing! I could sleep all night long!

Hue is a quiet village, not too big and without too much traffic.

But actually, we only visited the Imperial City, an área with palaces and gardens with vietnamese architecture.

In 1802, after quelling the Tay Son rebellion, Lord Nguyen Phuc Anh proclaimed himself  Emperor Gia Long and founded the Nguyen Dynasty. He ordered the new royal citadel to be built along the Perfumer River, which became Vietnam's new capital city. Just 33 years into the dynasty's reign, the Frenck invaded Hue. They retained the Nguyen Dynasty with nominal governance over central Vietnam and northern Vietnam. Thanks to French manipulation of the dynsty, a quick sucession of emperors graced the throne ending with Bao Dai's abdication in 1945.

In the afteroon, we took a bus to Hoi An. I don't remember weel how long it takes, but not more tan 2 hours from sure!

When you arrive to Hoi An's buses terminal, there are a lot of people offering their hostels. We just ask a girl how much we had to pay for one night and we decided to go with her. Almost all the hostels costs the same, but you also can negotiate with them.

Ninh Binh, the other "Halong Bay"

From Halong Bay we came back to Hanoi and inmediately we took a train to Ninh Binh.

Ninh Binh is a village situated three hours to the south from Hanoi (I don't know how many kilometres).

In Ninh Binh we spent the night in "Queen Hostel Mini" (or something like that). It is situated in the same street as the train's station and the owner is soooo nice!! 

He gave us a lot of information about where we could eat cheap and good, what to visit around the city and how to get there. So the next day we rented a bicycles from him and we went away to explore the city and the nature around it.

Fortunately, we arrived to Tam Coc. It is an amazing place, really. In my opinion it is the "halong bay from the mountains" but with only local tourism -what makes it more special-. In Tam Coc you can take a boat and enjoy the landscape. You will see how they drive the boats with their feet!  The boat goes on the river between a lot of small mountains and througt some caves as well. It costs around 130.000 dong and it worth.

With our super boat driver! 

After that, we took our bicycles again and we went looking for a temple. If I'm not wrong, the temple is called Bich Dong Pagoda and you can enjoy the views of Tam Coc from the temple (wich is on the top of the mountain after going up 400 steps!)

Thanks to Ninh Binh, our feelings with Vietnam changed and we started to enjoy and to love that amazing country. 

The next day, we took a bus to Hue, the Imperial City. 

Our trip to VIETNAM - Ha Long Bay

After six months in Indonesia we had to go abroad to renewe our Visa. So me and my two partners from Lithuania decided to visit Vietnam for a two weeks. 

From Jakarta we flew to Singapur and after 15 hours in the best Airport of the world (Singapur's) we arrived to Hanoi. 

In Hanoi we contacted with Dien by Couchsurfing and we went to have a dinner with his friends. We slept at his house and the day after we decided to go to Halong Bay, one of the most magnificent natural splendours of Asia. 

Halong Bay has around 3,000 limestone islands jutting out of emerald-green waters in the Gulf of Bac Bo. In an area covering 1,500 sq km sampans, junks, fishing boats -and many touristic boats- sail past a fairy- tale backdrop of mostly uninhabited limestone karst, which yield grot- toes, secluded coves, coral beaches and hidden lagoons. It is a Unesco World Heritage Site and it is amazing. 

The views are amazing, it is a really nice place. But I have to say everything about it. It is a very touristic place, the most in Vietnam and it brings also some problems. There are a lot of tourist agencies what make a lot of troubles because some of them are not official. We had the bad experience because we bought our tour in one non official. We paid $60 for two days one night tour but the people in our boat paid aroun $35. All that the promised us, was not in our tour (drinks, karaoke, party....). We were so angry in the end but we have decided to not think about it and enjoy the amazing views of Halong Bay. 

After two days we went to Ninh Binh, the Halong Bay hide in the mountains and not so touristic place as the first one. 

After 40 years...

After 40 years of Vietnam War, we are still seeing its effects.

In October 2014 I went to Vietnam. We were travelling throught  the country until arrive to Ho Chi Minh City. There, the first thing that we did was to go to the War Museum. I can not explain our feelings. 

Today, I'm going to describe some information about the chemical bombs that US army used to destroy Vietnam (people and environtment). All that information and pictures were taken in the War Museum.

"During the period 1961 throught 1971, the US army, not only used conventional bombs and armaments, but also chemical weapons to wipe out surronding natural resources and prevent the forward march of the Liberation Army of South Vietnam. The US army sprayed nearly 100 millions liters of toxic chemicals of various kinds,  including the Agent Orange which contained 366 kilograms of dioxin in Vietnam. It is estimated that about 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to the Agent Orange/Dioxin, and according to scientists, its aftermath could last for generations.

In that period, toxic rains poured down continously on Central and South Vietnam, defoliating mountains, plains and crops, destroying clean water resources and upsetting the delicate ecological balance.

Scientists have conducted many studies on the longterms effects of dioxin-contained in Agent Orange and other agent sprayed over the southern part of Vietnam during wartime- on the human health and human reproduction and the result of those numerous studies confirmed that:

- About 4.8 million of Vietnamese people were exposed to AO/D during wartime, with more than 3 million suffering from illnesses.

- Many million more of Vietnamese people have been directly exposed throught the breast milk from their exposed mothers, or throught the food chain when living around the dioxin contaminated areas where the USAF has stored barrels of differents agents, including AO.

- Dioxin can cause a wide range of illnesses including cancers and other diseases and birth defects.

- More tragically, these harmful effects can be trasmitted to many generations throught the damage to DNA molecules and genes caused by Dioxin once it enters into the cells of the exposed people."

After 40 years of this ecocide, people still are borning under the effects of Agent Orange.

The most incredible thing is that US people who were exposed to this dioxin, have or had some economical help from their goverment to paid some treatments. But nothing is for Vietnamese people, they are alone fighting with thmselves to keep the spirt to continue living. 

"On the occasion of the day of Victims Agent Orange in Vietnam, the War Remmants Museum in cooperation with Photographer Thu An, holded a photo exhibition tittled "Orange-Message from the Heart". The exhibition consist of 50 pictures regarding The Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin sharing, helping and loving each other in their battle against diseases in carving centers. With their daily outstanding efforts, they have overcome their pain and dreamed of peaceful and blissful world."

Here I leave you some pictures from the War Museum about the AO/D.

Maybe it is hard to see that pictures, but we should not fall in the ignorance and everybody should know everything about this war, about this illegal attack, about all the people who were killed without any sense. 

LOMBOK II: Rinjani and Gili Air

The second part of our trip to Lombok was in Mount Rinjani and Gili Air (one of the three island called Gili Air, Meno and Trawangan).

From Senggigi we took a tour to do Rinjani's trek.

We went by car to Senaru village (the village wich is on the foot of Rinjani volcano). We paid 1 million rupias each person for the trip 2 days 1 night until the rim (the antiq crater).

Rinjani is an active volcano situated in the north-east of Lombok island. It is 3.126 metres above the sea level and it is the second highest volcano in Indonesia. It has two craters, one, the old one called crater Rim and inside it has a lake and the new volcano formed by many eruptions called Mount Baru ("baru" means new in bahasa indonesia).

We did not have many days free, so we decided to do the 2 days 1 night trekking and it was enought to enjoy those views! They were amazing! 

When we arrived to Senaru village, we left our backpacks in the hotel (it is included in the price) and we went to visit a waterfall. You can get there one hour walking and the path is also very nice. 

The next day we start our trip to Mount Rinjani. We had a guide and some guys called "porters" wearing the food, tends, sleeping bags... everything! It was a bit crazy, each one brought 40kg and for sure they got a small money to do that. It is a kind of sad how that "touristic packets" work... One of the company get all the money and the others are used doing the hard work to get small money...  They couldn't speak in english and as I was the only one in the group who could speak bahasa indonesia, I could ask them about their conditions of their job... and in the end of the trip we decided to give them some tips (extra money to thanks them what they did for us!).  They were so happy! 

During the trek, we stopped many times to rest a bit and to eat lunch. Our porters cooked mie goreng (fried nodles) and it was delicious!

The way, in the beginning was a bit hard because of the sun (we started at 9am and at that time the sun is very strong!) but after a few hours was better (always going up and up..) but it was nicer, full of trees, plants, also some monkeys "pising" from the trees (yes, one of them tried to pis on me!). 

The last two hours were really difficult going up... I think, to get the top in every volcano, it is difficult because of the sand and the small stones everywhere what make you slide off all the time!

But, as I always say, it worth because the views are amazing while you are going up and up. You can see the clouds covering the mountains around the volcano. The cluouds under you what makes you feel as the "king of the world". 

And in the moment you just arrive to the top, you do not feel tired anymore. Somehow you get some extra power or energy to walk on the crater to look for the perfect view. 

We spent 8-9 hours  to get the top. I arrived 30 minutes before my sister and Andy, so I could relax and I could enjoy of the view of them, small as an ants, going up! 

The porters put our camp 100 hundred meters under the top (to be safe of the wind during the night) and there, we could enjoy of a beautiful sunset! 

The day after I went until the top to see the sunrise there and after an hour, we started going down. 

During the way down, we found some monkeys in the middle of the path, looking for food. One of them was a bit angry with us, but our guide knew how to solve the problem: "do not smile, if he see your teeth he will think you are challenging him!" And after that, the guide did something like: "Yes, I'm bigger than you. I'm the boss!". And the monkey went away! They had a very beautiful glance!

After that amazing trip full of challenges and some issues with the company, we went to the harbour to take the boat to Gili Air!

When we arrived to the harbour, there were a lot of people telling us that there was not cheap boat and that we had to take the fast boat paying 150.000 IDR (so expensive for 5 minutes trip!). We were very smart asking everybody and looking for the cheap boat (you have to walk to the right side, cross one building and after it you will find a small house selling the tickets! the boat will be in the sea shore). It costs 15.000 rupias and it spent 10 minutes to arrive to Gili Air. 

Gili Air was a small paradise! There are not cars, or motorbikes... only horse's carts and bicycles. We stayed in one very nice hotel near the beach, wich has the restaurant on the beach! We could order a beer and drink it on the beach!

Our days there were so relaxed! We were on the beach, snorkeling... One day we rented a bicycle and we went cycling all the day around the island stopping in some beaches to swim, refresh ourself and continuing our way. In the other side of the island we could enjoy the most beautiful sunset! The sun sets just behind the volcano of Bali! It was wonderful!

The last day in Gili Air we took a snorkeling packet and we went to Gili Meno, where we decided to stay. 

I have to say that snorkeling in Karimunjawa was more impressive for me talking about the corals and fishes, but in Gilis we could see turtles! It was a pity to not have a waterproof camera! They were so big and so beautiful! 

Gili Meno is more quiet island, with less people, also smaller and with amazing beaches as well. In Gili Meno we met with one girl from our village who was doing voluntary in Gili Meno Eco Hostel! 

The day after, this amazing trip in Lombok finished for me. I took the fast boat to Bali (400.000 rup) because the next morning I had my flight to come back to Jogjakarta. So, I spent the night in Bali's Airport. 

My sister and Andy stayed two days more in Gili Meno (where they got engaged!) and after that they continued enjoying their trip in Bali! 

It was an amazing trip! 

Terimakasih, Silvia and Andy!!