Impressions of Vietnam

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

The Good, The Bad, and the Down Right Odd!

The Bad:
* People thinking that because you're a Westerner that equates to you being a walking cashpoint.

* Pavements: we've spent most of our time wallking in the gutter or in the road. Where there are pavements, they are used as somewhere to ride or park your motorbike; have dinner; set up your stall or put rubbish, making it near impossible to walk along the pavements.

* Rude Vietnamese people: They push infront of you, sweep the street onto you, put their seats right back, smoke too close to you and generally are quite self absorbed as shown by their driving habit of not looking around themselves at all.

*Phlegming: As in China, people are constantly clearing their throats and spitting on to the road. Yuk!

* Food: Whilst some food has been good we've been a bit disapointed with Vietnamese food. We were expecting great things but often only got average things. They also use far too much squid (or squit as it said on one menu) and serve up shark's fin soup in too many restaurants.

The Good:
* Vietnamese children. They are all so friendly and love to say "hello" or try out their other greetings like "good afternoon". We've had lots of smiles whenever we've encountered children in Vietnam, particularly the bunch we met in Hanoi at the Temple of Literature.

* Food: We've had some quite good food, including Cau Lao - noodles with beansprouts, pork and crispy rice cracker; Peanut toffee - they stir up lots of peanuts with ginger and carmel and then set it onto a rice cracker base - chewy & slighty spicy goodness; Ginger tea is also really good; we ate some tasty fish in Mui Ne and were ecstatic to find that the VIetnamese eat a lot of baguettes (there's no bread in China!).

*Mui Ne: We really enjoyed this sleepy beachside town. There were hardly any tourists and so not many people trying to sell you things. The weather was excellent - hot but cool in the shade, we had a pool and could see the sea.

*Diving & Snorkiling: we hadn't really planned on doing anything like that in Vietnam and it worked out nice and cheap compared to anywhere else in the world.

* Other travellers: We've met some really nice people as we've been going around - a Swedish couple on our boat trip, a German couple on our tomb tour; Vickie our dive instructor and a cool bunch of Ozzie & Kiwi guys in a Bia Hoi place in Hanoi. We've also enjoyed chatting to Vietnamese students who want to improve their English and love that we're English rather than a different nationality that speaks English.

* The Scenery: Vietnam is truly beautiful in places. The sun is completely round & orange as it sets.

The Odd
* The way the women dress: It seems that there are 3 different ways that you can dress if you're a Vietnamese lady. 1. In Western style clothes; 2. In traditional dress of Ao Dai - a beautiful and elegant long dress over trousers or 3. in pyjamas! Lots of ladies particularly in the South and particularly older ladies just wear pyjamas all day - sometimes they've even got cute kittens on!

* Trees: because of the Agent Orange deforestation, a lot of the trees are in straight lines and it looks really weird!

So all in all we enjoyed our time in Vietnam, but it definitely had its plus and minor points, with the money grabbing getting us down at times but the kids giving us hope! It's certainly worth a visit.