Hoian, the peaceful

The road trip from Hue to Hoian is impressive and the coast, the beaches and the mountains offers always a great panorama.. We stopped at Marble mountain where we visit three caves....if you think to join up with us in a relaxing vacation....well think again!
In Hoian, Just to make our vacation a little more challanging we booked one night in a hotel and three nights at another. Of course we don't get what we booked but in the second hotel we actually get an upgrade! With the Vietnamese you always have surprises but they don't understand why you just don't accept your fate!

In Hoian is pouring, I mean tropical storm and we have to move to the Hotel, the taxi drive a 1 meter of water and the kids find that hilarious. Once settled we manage in between a storm and another to go in town and find the cozier restaurant with amazing food. Finally after a long lunch that we streched as long as the rain lasted, we start exploring the city.

Hoian has a lot of charm, the pedestrian area is very pleasant lined by one-floor old houses and trees with chinese lanterns. There are a lot of interesting stores and art gallery so we buy some affordable paintings.

Next day bright and not so early we visited Myson, an ancient religious site with tombs and temples, almost totally wipe out by American bombs, you still see the craters left by one bomb. Along the path we find a little river where the kids and I recuperate our good mood by immerging our feet in it and Oscar basically his all body.
We spend the second half on the day by alternating swimming pool, beach, swimming pool....otherwise social service will start looking for an adoptive vietnamese family for our kids. We have to pace ourselves we have another month of this tourist life.
 

Once upon a time a capital, Hue

it is particularly warm in Hue but we rewarded ourselves, for acting as the perfect tourists, with a great accommodation. Too bad the other guests did not seem very cool, but the huge swimming pool surrounded by a luxurious garden was our big objective after the visits. We saw the citadel, a Vietnamese mini version of the forbidden city, the temples are beautiful, some were destroyed by the various wars but you could feel Vietnam rebirth by the huge efforts of restoration. The 2nd day is still warm, we try to minimize the kid's complaining by organizing a boat trip on the river to visit the temples and then a van to pick us up for the inland sites. Everything work out except that the boat was too noisy and one of the plastic chair broke and the angry boat lady wanted reimbursement. Not cool most of the chair were half-broken. With Vietnamese you never get exactly whst you ask for, so after a while you adapt to the local surprise. We promise the kids it would be a last quick visit they still manage to climb stairs and visit a tomb that took 12 years to built for a megalomaniac emperor just at the beginning of the century.

On our way to Hue

I can believe we are traveling two nights on the row in the train!
We are on our next destination to Hue where finally we can get to have a break!
Every train station can always be a little apocaliptic expecially when it is cowded, it is hot, and you have two tired kids. Eventually with the help of our hotel guide we made it through the crowd. The train is very basic and we try not to be germophobe, more than anything it is old but we are so destroyed that we end up following asleep.
Next morning, I can't believe I manage to get decent coffee with tons of sugar in a little railway station, a vietnamese-american man offers to get out the train with me, I figure that if I have to get stuck in a little village I might as well have someone who spoke the language.    

More villages

It was finally a beautiful sunny day, besides meeting three un-cool buffalos our walk in the montains was really pleasant. We went through villages not exposed to tourists so we could just wave hello at half-naked kids without being assaulted by the women vendors. 
We have lunch at our favorite restaurant where at this point  we are well known and the woman chef cook looks like a model, let's say she is better than a model because she also know how to cook in a sexy outfit (every man's dream!)
We are back on the train for the night, the kids are very excited but they fall asleep once the train leaves.
The minorities of the mountains don't have much to do with the viet, they do not like them but they have something in common is their dislike for the chinese. After 1000 years of domination they were invaded again in 1979 in response to Vietnam invasion of Cambodia. The mountain people felt they pay a price for a war in which they did not feel concerned.

Sapa

We took the night train to the north. We are in a first class that feels likes been in a time machine back in 1955 Italy, however the bank bed is confortable and the rocking of the train has always that feels of other times. For the kids is their first night train experience. 
At the station we get with a mini van up to Sapa, up in the mountains... Even if is raining the view is not comparable to anything I have seen before. These rices field on the mountains give the image of a wavy green ocean.
After a well deserved breakfast in our retro hotel in front of the lake, we manage to see the market which it is way too pushy and busy. You have no other way but try not to create eye contact otherwise you are the sacrifical goat of all the village women that have to sell you something. The village women would revamp any failing retailing business, they speak all languages and the present you their baby, old mother or any good reason. It is the bad side of tourism were this false expectations are in place and you can not establish any pther comunication that it is not commercial. They tell you for you it is nothing and there is really not any good response. In the village itself is even worst because they follow you and asking questions about you and at the end of the walk they ask you for money. Today this angry toutist was annoying but she end up giving the money to be left alone. Sad situation.
The village is populated by one of the 6 minorities living in this area. Everybody is dressed in traditional dresses and the women when they get married they have to pull their eyebrow and the hair in the hairline. Men seem to be in the field or sleeping, children attend big buffalos.

We are staying in a hotel with beautiful view of the lake and mountains however the atmosphere is very stalinian, pompous without substance, cleaning lady that keep on cleaning the floor but there is not much for breakfast, and the dinner was the first bad meal in Vietnam. 
Today I ask for 2 bananas, which is widely produce in Vietnam, and after some discussion they told me they were sorry but they had only one. It is like in NY a deli selling one bottle of beer.
Our guide, Tom, is pretty nice, today we walk through muddy path, through villages where women wanted to sell their craft made in china. The life up in the mountain is pretty primitive but there is this influx of tourism that make thing very artifical, one oldre man seem not to be happy at our presence and I can see his reason, an old equilibrium is clearly broken. For M & O having a house with buffalos as pets was very cool.  
A very unusual habit is for men to wear women plastic shoes. I don't think they realize there are women's shoes, they must think they are practical for the muddy path!
    

Ninh Binh

If your daily job is to paddle up and down a river with your legs let me tell you, you don't need a gym. This incredible vietnamese women with a wrikled face and an unidentified age have the same legs of a sporty 15th years old. Even with the rain, this trip on a row boat in the middle of mountains was pretty spectacular. Not even the ammount of tourists could really ruin it because everybody was pretty quite.

Halong Bay

Halong bay is pretty indescrible, it is a maze of 3000 mountains -rock in the bay. We slept on they boat and to wake up in this overwhelming nature can be remember as a special moment. However, we are getting the full south-east Asia experience with the typhoon coming our way we have to skip the overenight stay on the island. Well who is complaining we got lucky to at least experience the bay for 24 hours. The kids decided to have their own cabin with their own key...the first sign of independence!
We have a guide speaking a terrible English and ehaving an even worst attitude, fit for the vietcong army but not for this type of business. He would reprimand us if the order were not executed within few minutes, unfortunately for him he had the wrong kind of soldiers.
On the other spectrum we have Jennifer, working at the hotel and the one organizing our trips. She is a spitfire that totally charms our men and she is bossy with a smile. Maybe I should ask her to move to NY and straighten out my all family or maybe not, her little vietnamese tunic fit her way too well!
Watch out people of world: there are 100 millions vietnamese , 50 millions vietnamese women whome ancestors have digged tunnel with their hands while on the others side of the world women were applying nail polish. We are talking about another breed of people and you can really feel it: they are strong, they know how to smile and they don't spend their life at the therapist!

Ha Noi

Pouring raining in Hanoi, actually tropical rain which makes it a lot more exotic. Last night we had a little walk in our neighbourhood, it has definetly the south-east asia flavor with the french twist. I would say Bangkok has more an American influence and Hanoi more French. The approach with foreigners is very different than in China, they are not impressed by the westerners b.s., for god sake we drop so many bombs on them that we are definetly nothing special!

There is an incredible street life, young people sitting on mini-plastic chair on the sidewalk enjoying some bbq snack. There are also millions of scooters and crossing the street might be ardous. Now we wait for our friend hoping at one point it will stop pouring!

It actually stopped and once the Saile-Sers arrived we were able to tour the city. At one point we see a bunch of very big expensive Suv, around the corner they were some embassies among which the Italian and the Palestinian one!
The city has a lot of charm and the vietnamese have a very gentle but direct attitude. We tour the museum of the revolution, on one floor was basically showing how the kick out the French, one how the kick out the Americans and then how they are doing so much better by themselves. No one can argue differently!

A lot of older people speak French, the younger generation English but there is no submissiveness, it is just culture and business. For the time here we decide that for our stay in Vietnam we are a German and Italian group who have not bad history in this part of the world.

Culture of bidet:
So now it is official only the Anglo over the centuries have not developped a need  for the bidet. Even in this "backward" part of the word, they always have a little hose close to the toilet...even in public toilet. Is it that the Anglo might have a different biological-hygienical function? I guess it will be one of this thing that after many years will continue to puzzle me!

Bye Bye Bangkok

Today starts with the usual re-packing ... (thank god I have my packing cubes) and we are off to catch our flight to Hanoi.

Means of transportation:
JFK needs a major facelift, anyone leaving from Beijing or Bangkok landing at JFK would think he landed iin the 3rd world. Let's not even mention Beijing subway, you probably could eat on the floor. The west is clearly decling. We invest in wars instead of infrastructures....can we please at least repair the pot holes in NY streets! 

Touring

Today we plan to visit a park where a millionaire decide to reconstruct 2/3 of the real size the most important landmarks in Thailand. With children and few days in Bangkok, it is a nice and easy trip. We rented a golf cart which make it really a senior citizen vacation. However the kids enjoyed the driving!
Besides the temples, palaces and floating market the park has deers...that was actually our selling point to the kids.
Valentine told us of deers going around freely in the park and we were almost having a crisis when finally we spotted the deers that are now enclosed.... I guess we saved our parental credibility. 
At night they took us to a super nice restaurant while the kids were off to the movie with the best babysitter. Maybe social service will wait for us at the airport if they knew that my eight years old sons had a night out in Bangkok!

Thai safari

We join up with Valentine and her family for a World Safari expedition. The kids are thrilled ...well yes we can not really escape the animals. We arrive a little late so at least we escape the crowd. Our friends give us  some insight about Thai culture, they have been leaving here for 15 years, and they give us an understanding of this society....what it is really behind the famous smile. It is a pretty close society and proudly self-sufficient. It is also very spongeous to the American culture...the shopping and ammount of mall are unbelivabe they could put New Jersey to shame.
The other evident aspect is prostitution, I have a new found respect for prostitutes in the west at least they don't pour milk in the customer coffee like a benevolent girlfriend!
The language is another interesting aspect: there is no separation between the words and everybody is free to add few more letters just because it looks good. So I ask my friend how do you know where the word end and the other one begins, the answer is : they know. The pleasant part of having local friends, beside the good company, is to be taken to the nice restaurants,  and in our particular case having their 18th years old son as the best babysitter. Honestly, you can't beat that! (In this precise moment I feel a rampant wave of jelousy from the mohers of the world).

Hello Bangkok

Bangkok is a really messy, wild, sticky city however people are agreeable and no one is loosing his temper...quite a change from NY. We see our local friends that totally set up a three days program for us, it feels like a vacation not to have to figure out what to do.
We go to see the laying down Buddha, the kids are impressed, however there are so many Buddhas a kid can look at! In the afternoon we meet our friend in a super american mall, in Bangkok you have either markets or malls...and malls are the only place where you can walk. The streets are chaotic, the sidewalks narrow and the traffic unbelievable.
The big change besides the multiplication of condos comparing to our last visit, 15th years ago, is the sky train that clearly improve transportation but in terms of aesthetic is pretty horrible to have cement also on top of you.

Bye bye Beijing

A last visit to Mao mauseleum or most probably the waxed version of him. I guess we had to do it before even the waxed version decompose!
After so much communism a little visit to the Lama Temple,  where there is the biggest buddha of all and many minor one. I have the feeling there are going to be a lot of buddha statues in this trip.
Today is our last day, I really hate to leave a city, I have always the feeling to not have lived the city enough, that I need at least three monthes to explore the city little corners. There is always that feeling to have outlined the city and not have really a good story to tell. We also try the subway today which is so clean and new, I am reminded of the decayed subway on 7th avenue.
We are at the airport, incredible new terminal 3, waiting at Starrbuck for our flight to Bangkok, I am really getting a kick out of this vacation.

Summer Palace

Today's clouds are welcome, we can actually enjoy this tour without sweating. The Summer Palace used to be in countryside now it is just the suburb of Beijing. The location is still magnificent: the park, the lake and the palace itself. There are about 700 meters of covered passageway all minutiously painted. 
When we arrive it seems some dignitaries were arriving. Security was all over, at one point some western looking people come out of a car with some Chinese counterpart greeted by a gracious Chinese hostess probably history professor turned guide. At the beginning we thought maybe the Australian ambassador (he did not look fat enough to be American), then we thought it might be a vulgar business man that the Chinese want to impress with the Vip treatment. 
We walk up and down and around, we hear some music so we follow the sound we get to a little open temple where an improvised crowd  with a little band was singing traditional  songs about the Yangtze river. The only way we manage this information is because an old Chinese man pretty toothless speaking a pretty decent English welcomed us to China and told us about the songs. It was a very sweet moment, this people were really enjoying themselves and they all had thick books with the lyrics. The  conductor was doing a good job to conduct musicians and singers.
At this point the kids are getting tired so we follow up on the promise that we will take on the battery powered boat around the lake. By 3 p.m. we are back at home, if we want to have a chance of the dinner out in our last night in Beijing we have to let the kids rest. 
The receptionist advices a little Chinese restaurant that it is located where there are a series of food street sellers. We snack dumpling and another tofu base thing not very good. The street is crowded, a group of Italian tourists are passing through looking with suspicion at any food that is not recognizable to them.
We find the restaurant and order this turtle base soup quite delicious and a bunch of other dishes that we manage to have the kids eat. Hope the stomach will take it!

Observations:
Public toilet
-I have never seen a city with more public toilets, they are usually Turkish style which I really prefer. I don't know if it is because traditionally they had only public toilets or a wanted to avoid people urinating on the street.
No diapers
-Kids don't wear diaper or underwear. I saw this baby that after finishing is bottle milk, the mom was hold in a sort of squat position and he was butt naked. I guess the potty training start early, no idea how the deal with accidents.
Chinese as Esperanto
-When traveling we always assume that people will understand one or two words of English. I guess Chinese assume the same with their language, actually they assume we get full sentences and they don't really use gesture or drawings for helping us understanding. They just say it! OK I guess we could have actually learn few words besides "thank you".
Mother of boy and Chinese characters
Our guide at the great wall explain us that the word for "good" in Chinese is composed by two character which one mean "mother" and the other "boy". It is going to be hard to change that. Even if in a rural society boys assure your survival it is not really true in an urban environment where actually parents of boys will have to pay for an apt. or at least a hefty 40% down payment when the boy get married. I will be ruined China considering that housing is not exactly cheap. 
An artist exposing her work in the temple in Tienanmen Square explains the meaning of some characters: the word "love" is composed by three characters hand, hearth, friendship. The character "Family" is composed by man, woman and children. The character for double happiness is for  newly wed to wish them ever lasting happiness.

Tiananmen Square

Finally we can get out at 9 a.m. so we don't have to suffer the midday heat. The power of Tiananmen square is its history and probably it's most recent. Of course there are temples, but there are the huge two communist style buildings, there is the omnipresence picture of Mao and the long line to see his body, most of all there is this huge patina of hypocrisy to forget the massacre. Every link on internet referring to the massacre is blocked, it does not even say blocked but that the connection has been lost. At the end of the story with the crackdown they were not even defending and ideal just protecting a cast of the new imperial court! People seems not to care about politics as long as they get richer...and that is how it goes. They will not be another Tiananmen for a very long time. 
Alain buys an umbrella just like the chinese the umbrella protects from the rain but also from the sun. However even with the umbrella we don't blend in!
We kept on walking along the wall of the imperial park and discovered a very peaceful surrounding where group of people hang out or improvise a dance.
I was also hanging out by sitting at the pedestal of a statue in the park. I see a group wanted to take a picture of the statue, so I moved, oops I did not realize that the statue they wanted to photograph was me! It happened again few minute later...this is so funny, maybe I should ask for money, but the way I never realize I was more interesting than a piece of art!
We are back home for a break, Oscar wants "spaghetti in the soup" and this food situation is becoming easier than expected.
In the afternoon we take a walk in the jishan park, which is the park part of the forbidden city where you have a magnificent view at 360 degree of all Beijing. You see the old part immersed in trees and after the 1st ring there are only building building buildings....why people forgot to plant trees! Unfortunately seems to be a reality in all modern cities.
We grab a taxi, fortunately cheap in Beijing, and take a walk in a hutong in Donsai....hutong are stil my favorite places, they maintained the secrecy of anoher way of life. 
At this point our plan to have dinner out is dismissed, we take a delicious room service.

Walk walk walk

It started from climbing the steepy step of the drum tower followed by the steepy steps of the bell tower. So far so good, we have energy to spare. I really want to walk around the hudongs (traditional Beijing neighborhood with narrow alley and connecting courtyard). After, the usual morning research the area around the two towers have some interesting hudongs.. By the amount of rickshaw usually you can tell the touristic interest in the area. We walk and it is like China used to be, neighbors talking to each other, elderly playing some board game under the tree shade and an occasional Chinese botega were people are actually nice. So we keep on walking trying not to get lost. We end up in Beijing Soho version with design boutiques, creative art form and coffee place were hip Chinese are typing on their Mac...I saw also tattoo. Somehow the commercial street seems less interesting from a traditional point of view but amazing from another. All the stereotype we grow up with of Chinese been little people with boring clothes is difficult to see now. We stop for lunch, at that point overheated and starving. Incredible enough the kids eat spicy meat...that walk must had some repercussion on their appetite.
After the lunch break, we start walking toward the lake where we rent a battery boat...yes too tired to pedal. It is very peaceful on the lake, we dip our feet in the water and we get reprimanded by the guardian of the lake that he fears the we hurt our legs if another boat bump on ours. I think he has heard something our possible lawsuit because the Chinese seems to be able to dip their feet with no problem. So we tour this little island in the middle of the lake which is the resting place of swimmers. They seem to belong to a club or maybe they are high school friends, they have all similar swimming suite,  similar age and they are all men. Around the lake there is a very vibrant neighborhood, east village type. Probably even more vibrant at night. We leave our very slow battery-powered boat and continue walking toward the park. The park is not really that close and the kids remind us pretty frequently that we are still walking, we are just grateful that the Chinese in their frenetic of modernization did not cut the trees in this neighborhood which makes the walk pleasant. The park is very well maintained and it is known for its Tibetan temple,  so we climb more stairs, the kids complain, Alain encourage them: come on up to the top of mountain and Matthias : what! And next time is going to be down to the bottom of the ocean! This is not humor but extenuation.
After a promise of last walk, we exit the park even if before we are stopped by a Chinese family for the regular picture of our kids and their kids together, we repeat the same scene 100 meter later. We finally are able to grab a taxi, we are exhausted, we must have walk 100 miles and I only find the strength for a very well deserved shower!

Temple of Heaven

I wanted to discover this market, thinking it was a kind of flea market with all kind of "chinoiserie", it was more a jewelry, antiques series of store inside an enormous building. I manage to buy a little bracelet. They always ask you for some random price then you refuse and walk away they say : what is your price? Usually I go with what I was intending to pay without any regards with the asking price. (I realize later that the taxi took us to the wrong market).
We decide to grab a taxi and dedicate ourselves to more cultural activities. We get to the Temple of Heaven that really deserves its name. The day is clear and the blue, green, gold, red of the perfectly restored temple it is blending with the sky.  A cool-to-be Chinese young guy ask to have a picture taken with the kids. I am trying to imagine the same scene in the States! .....The kids submit to this ritual with resignation trying their fakest smiles.
Once we get out to the opposite gate we are across the street from Pearl Market mentioned by Alessandra has been the paradise of bargaining. I have to say it was a bit overwhelming especially the leather good section, I was grabbed by this lady who wanted to sell me real-fake Dolce and Gabbana. Then I felt really smart I say that iI buy that I would be arrested at the airport, AH AH it worked, they say: you are from France! Yes and this is a good moment not to deny it. I negotiate a communist canvas bag from 180 to 30 Yuans and a necklace from two nice non-aggressive ladies from 200 to 45 Yuans. 
On a personal note:
I like the life of not having to worry about cleaning up and pick up other people's mess, if the price for this luxury is not starting my day by drinking my supreme good coffee in the morning so be it...I will choose a good nescafé instead.

The Great Wall

The "must see" is of course the great wall, and it is as impressive as you imagine it and as hard to climb...it would be better to visit it in a different season of the year (for people not linked to school vacation). The walk on the wall and the jet lag hit me I spent the afternoon sleeping, I can't shake of the jet lag. Our guide Ani thought one or two things about China, and it was more to learn in the half sentences...she was knowledgeable and really the result of her time: chairman Mao made few mistakes but did a lot for China, the real father of modern china is Chiang Kai Sheck and from 1980 it is all different. Married couples use to want: a sewing machine, a bike and a watch, now they want an apt, a car and a diamond. That's pretty much summarize it.

The Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is clearly impressive! Having the kids watching the Last Emperor was a good marketing strategy even if they complained at the time. It was warm today but we could walk on the shade of passageway between one temple and another. The kids got a kick out of it especially on the exhibit of weaponry.
Today is also the begining of the Chinese school holiday, there are a lot of Chinese touristsI A young girl approach me and ask if she could take a picture of me with his brother, a little boy of around 13 years old, I was not sure what she meant at first and she repeated the question again and ask me if I spoke English....finally I connected I had to be the model of the caucasian race. If I knew that would happen to me I would have try to take better care of myself. Then it happened  again but the model had to be  kids which seems a wiser choice. However, it seems they were Chinese from out of town, in Beijing they had it with foreigners!
On the way back we took a tuktuk, she wanted to overcharge us, 10 times the taxi...the convenience of not speaking is that there is so much you can argue, we gave a little more than the taxi and walk away.
Ok I would say it is official: the west is the outlet of the east. We went to this mall 1 bloc away from home, unbelievable one of the most sofisticated mall I have seen in a long time. Price are not competitive but they have every stupid brand on the planet. I realize that the reality of this neighbourhood does not reflect the national reality however we are in the People's Republic, it seems as elitistic as it can be.

First day in Beijing

We are trying to recuperate from our jet lag...well we wake up four a.m. Maybe the kids even earlier. By 7 a.m. we go to the downstairs restaurant for a mix of chinese and western breakfast followed by a little swimming in a nice pool. The weather is overecast so we plan an indoor activity.
Comunication with the chinese is very relaxing starting from the assumption that you don't undestand each other you resort to gesture or nothing. So far only one lady in the hotel speaks english and today I enriched her vocabulary with the word "earplug", she taught me how to say 1313 in chinese I repeated twice, I thought I would remember but I don't.
From the balcony of our room we see three cranes, it seems to be a pretty standard view in Beijing. Mao must considering reincarnating and moving to NY where everything seems a little ancient comparing to here.
In this gloomy-rainy day we might as well satisfied Oscar's desire of one more zoo and acquarium. How many are still there in the world????
The zoo needs a face lift and someone who actually care about these poor animals, the acquarium is more interesting. The kids are super tired and they take naps on taxi on the way there and back. We decide on a serious nap on the way back home...that jet lag really hit us!
By 7:30 we are ready to check out the Wangfuging neighbourhood. We take a walk in a large modern pedestrian avenue burstling with people that enjoy a chinese "passeggiata". Further down we take a narrow alley full of little stands selling all kind of food including crickets on a stick for food, it seems a little touristic but still with most of the people are locals except us andy 15 other caucasians. 
We also adventure ourself in the little grocery store close to the apartment to try to put together a dinner and a breakfast. A very challenging enterprise and forget about reading the labels! On the verge of giving up we find a pre-cooked duck, we finally figure out which one was the milk box and bread "bimbo" the same we were buying in Mexico! Something about globalization does not seem quite right...