Spectacular Hoi An (and Hué, Halong Bay & Hanoi)

If we were to move to Vietnam, we would live in Hoi An- hands down. It's a quaint and picturesque fishing village on the UNESCO heritage list, so all of the buildings have character. It was tranquil and a great place to slow down a bit and relax. Hoi An is the tailoring mecca of Vietnam- if you can dream it up, someone here can make it for you....overnight. Suits, blazers, coats, pants, shoes, hats, scarves- you name it, they can make it in any fabric combination you can think of. Not sure yet if you get what you pay for (prices varied wildly), so we'll have to see what we got in the few things we had made- only time and North American drycleaning will tell :) In addition to tailors, Hoi An has incredible art galleries (photography, carvings, lacquer paintings) and in particular, the most incredible brocade embroidery we have ever seen that you swear is a photograph right up until you get close enough to touch the canvas. At night, lanterns light up the village and the waterfront streets close to vehicles. If all that wasn't good enough, the homemade icecream on the waterfront was phenomenal! Stand outs in Hoi An are just too many to list....

After Hoi An, we continued on to the city of Hué, the former capital of Vietnam. Many of Hué's buildings and monuments have been damaged during previous wars and are in various stages of reconstruction. We opted to visit the Tu Duc's Tomb (the Fourth Emperor of Vietnam) and the Imperial City- home of the Purple Forbidden City where the king once lived. Both were pretty amazing despite the numerous temples we've seen at this point. Stand outs in Hué: François getting nearly trampled at the Tu Duc ticket booth by a mob of feisty little old ladies, the ruins of the Purple City, deciding to take a cyclo-rickshaw tour of the Citadel instead of hiking around in the mid-day swelter.

One last overnight train ride eventually brought us to Halong Bay. The train cars had collected enough daytime heat to double as a sauna for most of the ride which made for a slightly less than awesome travel. We got on a luxurious boat in Halong Bay and spent the afternoon exploring huge limestone spires all over the coastline and feasted on a fantastic seafood lunch.

Following our sejour in Halong Bay, we arrived to our final Vietnam destination in Hanoi. The sense in Hanoi is very different: the communist feeling is the most prevalent here of anywhere we've been. Every day starts with propaganda playing over the public loudspeakers on most street corners. When we visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, the number of military guards almost equaled the number of tourists. Even more bizarre, you were strictly instructed on how to walk, where to place your arms and hands while inside the mausoleum and the exact path you were permitted to walk around the grounds. "Uncle Ho" had just been returned from his annual freshening up vacation in Russia, so he looked quite good considering he's been on public display over 40 years now. Wierd....

Highlights of Hanoi (although few) have been: cooler temperatures, the water puppet show and Shark Week on Discovery channel (we've watched more tv in Hanoi than in 6 months at home!).

Tomorrow we leave Asia and head to our last continent on this trip: New Zealand. It will take us a day and a half of travel to get there, but we're looking forward to a change of scenery and pace.