Heat Index: 104

Postscript

Well, we finally made it home. Heathrow was a mad house and 14 hours on a plane with no reading material other than the infight magazine was pretty brutal, but I'm home on my sofa drinking non-Vietnamese coffee with the cats all around me and VN is already starting to seem VERY far away. It's not so close to real-time anymore, but I'll post some highlight pictures from our last few days....

Me on a bike! Historically I've refused to cycle with William so this was a big day. The map in the guidebook was completely wrong, but we had fun winding our way along the dirt path and finding unmarked pagpdas and a VERY rickety looking bamboo bridge.

We had to pay a random lady 10,000 VND for "maintainance" of this bridge. There were 10 inch gaps between some of the bamboo slats!

This tomb was huge, and not on the regular tour route (because it was being restored, I think). There was a nice security guard/guide there, though, who showed us around. The place was huge--a temple in the middle and 2 separate structures for the tombs of the emperor and empress.

It was amazing to be in a place like this with no other tourists--totally different experience, magically silent.

Poster on the street in Hue. Something to do with bird flu?

Crazy carp feeding frenzy! At the citadel in Hue, you could buy food and drop it into them. It was a little scary.

citadel

Then we went to Hanoi. This is typcial architecture... tall narrow buildings, quite French-y at the top with some kind of shop front at street level

Bia Hoi (fresh beer), Pho Bo (beef noodle soup) and plastic stools

In the Temple of Literature, a Confucian temple where mandarin candidates would come from all over the country, the names of the successful were written on these stelae. Not sure why the tortoises, but they were cool.

Temple of Lit courtyard

Uncle Ho loves everyone

Someone's eaten these poor bunnies by now, I'm sure.

We went for drinks at the Sofitel Metropole pool bar. Very Colonial.

My drink matched my outfit!

In the evening, around Hoan Kiem lake, Hanoians come out and play badminton, football, chess...

Traffic by the lake.

The courtyard of the cool restaurant where we had our last dinner in Vietnam. (I'm not counting the "hot dog" I got at the airport).

And that's about it.... I'm going to keep the blog up for a while, though, because it looks like we may be going back for the baby as soon as October!!

It figures...

So we're on the way to the airport in Hanoi, ready to start our marathon flight home, when a friend (thanks, Angela) texted William to tell him that Heathrow is closed because of some stupid would-be terrorists. I'm glad they caught them, but now we're not sure exactly how long this marathon will be. William is on another computer in this internet cafe madly trying to reroute us through Frankfurt. We'll see.

It's sad to be leaving Viet Nam, but this ten days of travelling was a good sort of transition for me, sort of halfway between home and here staying in hotels where people speak English and there is Western pop music in the bars. Today took a day trip to Ha Long Bay; while we were waiting for the boat we had a last nuoc mia and listened to VN music on plastic stools. It felt like a nice way to say goodbye.

Might as well put up some more photos while I'm waiting here...

oops, gotta go check in! maybe from Bangkok!

Hue

I've noticed my viewer stats have dropped dramatically; understandable, since vacation shots probably aren't as interesting as my crazy life in Da Nang. Sorry, guys. We've been having a great time, but there haven't been too many madcap adventures or heartwrenching orphanage stories to tell. It feels kind of weird getting back in tourist mode again. I'm enjoying the room service and the cocktails by the pool, don't get me wrong, it just makes me appreciate that I got a little closer to "real life" last month than I would have if we just toured around.

I got a sweet email from Missar warning me to wear my hat because it's hot, and to be careful now that I'm in "a strange place." It does feel further from home here; Da Nang really was starting to feel like home there for a while. It's funny how at first it was so unappealing to me. I still wouldn't call it a charming city by any means, but its lack of charm meant that there were virtually no tourists there. We could go whole days without seeing other Westerners. Here in Hue and definitely in Hoi An, there's more of a tourist infrastructure, and therefore more of a wall between us and the life of the place.

That said, we're having a great time. Yesterday we took a riverboat tour to a bunch of the imperial tomb sites that Hue is famous for. (It was the ancient capitol of Vietnam, and the emperors all built very impressive tombs for themselves in the area surrounding the city). Today we rented bikes and cycled to a couple of the more out of the way tombs, which was really fun. Very peaceful and romantic with no tour guides hurrying us along. William was thrilled that he finally got me on a bike, and I was proud that I cycled 10ish miles on a bike with no gears...

Guardian of one of the tombs View of the river from the Thien Mu (sp?) pagodaThis is a pavilion in Tu Duc's tomb. He used to come here and mope and write poetry while he was alive. Apparently he was quite a melancholy emperor, despite his 104 wives. He had no son, so had to write his own eulogy, which I guess would be something of a bummer. Even the minor wives got a templeroof tiles, I think still at Tu Duc'sroof dragonIncense for sale on the road to Tu Duc'sDetritus of offerings to a dead ancestorOutside one of the tombs, I met an itchy cow, who folllowed me around. The guard joked that we'd have to buy a ticket for her if she followed us into the temple Photos from the bike trip aren't up yet... tomorrow!

My Son

Just a few from our day trip to the My Son ruins near Hoi An. They are the remains of a Cham holy site, like Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Unfortunately, nowhere near as impressive, thanks to the war. Thanks, America. Not sure how old this stuff is, but very I'm sure. No one knows how they got the bricks to stick together with no mortar. Spooky. Apparently there was a 30 meter tower that survived at least until 1920.

Bomb crater