Vietnam!

Sam enjoying a local beer

Trying Pho!

After a great time in Laos, we headed off to the last country of our trip, Vietnam! Our first stop would be Hanoi. We arrived late at night and we were starving so after checking in to our hotel we decided to get some of the infamous Pho of Vietnam. It is basically a big bowl of noodles and broth with either beef or chicken (in my opinion it tasted a lot like chicken noodle soup with way too many noodles.....). It is a cheap and filling meal that Vietnamese people love! We walked around a bit and really got to see the culture of Vietnam in action. In Cambodia and Laos, the traffic was pretty bad but the worst of all drivers lies within Vietnam. Mopeds everywhere and people just honk and honk and honk!
 

Enjoying our lunch on the boat.

    After a good night of sleep we

 got ready for a boat cruise in Halong Bay. Halong Bay is quite a ways from Hanoi so we had about a 4 hour drive to get there and then we would get on our boat. We had been very fortunate with the weather until today. It was rainy and humid but we could still enjoy all that Halong Bay had to offer.

 



We finally made it to the port and got on our cruise boat. We were immediately served a Vietnamese buffet style lunch. It was pretty good and we got to meet some people on the cruise with us. After lunch, our boat was out to the main viewing area. Halong Bay was recently counted as one of the 7 natural wonders of the world and it was amazing to see God's beauty at work once again. Tons of limestone rocks that jut way out of the water with green tops and cliff edges. It was so amazing. We got an opportunity to kayak through them which was really something. We felt so small amongst the cliffs and we got to go through caves. It was an amazing experience! We finished the boat tour by seeing a cave that was really cool and then we had another 4 hour van ride back to Hanoi. Our tour guide mentioned that if you go to Vietnam and don't see Halong Bay then you haven't truly experienced Vietnam. So, make sure you don't miss it if you ever plan on going to Vietnam!
 

 

 

At the Hanoi Hilton

The next day would be our last day in Hanoi so we had a lot of sight seeing to do. We got breakfast at the hotel and then took a taxi to the Mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh was buried. The guards are very strict upon entering and seeing Ho Chi Minh's body and Sam and I got shooshed multiple times. We also got to see where he used to live, work and meditate. It was a beautiful area. After seeing the Mausoleum, we went to the "Hanoi Hilton" which is where they kept Vietnamese and American

soldiers. The Vietnamese soldiers were treated awful and were from the south b/c they were fighting against communism. The American soldiers were pilots that were shot down and captured. They were not treated as badly as the Vietnamese prisoners which is why they call it the "Hanoi Hilton". Among the American soldiers held captive was John McCain! We did a bit more sight seeing of random sights in the city and then we got another massage! It was a great way to end a long day of walking and sight seeing and also kill some time before our train ride.

The train ride ended up being an experience all on it's own! We rode it through the night which we were a bit nervous about but the train ride really wasn't that bad. After we got some air flow in our small cabin, we were able to fall asleep. We had to share the room with two other people which wasn't ideal, but not awful. I had to use the restroom during the night and once Sam showed me where it was I made a point of holding my bladder until we reached our destination. Train toilets are not something to be desired...they are metal, stinky, they don't have toilet paper, most people forget to flush and when you're on a bumpy train there is nothing more unappealing than waste being sloshed from side to side. No thank you!!

We got up very early so we could get off at our stop and packed our things. We waited by the door only to realize that the door we were at didn't open!!! I started freaking out and yelling help to the people outside b/c I didn't want to miss our stop and we were going to have transportation waiting for us so everything would have been messed up if we missed it! I may have woken up a few people and Sam was laughing at me the whole time.....

 



Our sleeper cabin!

We eventually realized that we had to go on the other side of the cabins and we were able to get off the train just fine. The only thing was that the car that was supposed to pick us up wasn't there! A nice man lent us his phone and we were able to call the contact number and we realized that we were at the wrong stop :(  To add insult to injury, I now had to go to the bathroom extremely bad and there was only one restroom available. Of course this restroom had to be a squatter bathroom......Some guy that was guarding the entrance made me take off my shoes, and then I had to go and squat somehow. For those of you who don't know, women are not really meant to squat. It just ends up messy and it's real awkward. Somehow I managed and slathered a gallon of hand sanitizer on my hands. It made that train bathroom not seem so bad anymore.

 We ended up having to get another train ticket, get back on the train and go another 45 minutes until we got to the right stop! It was quite the morning and was definitely a memorable way to spend our first train ride together :)

After we got to the right train stop, we were welcomed right away by our driver and a tour guide who would be taking us on a tour through Dong Ha which is near Hue City. Our tour guides name was Tam and he was very young when the war in the Vietnam went on so he had a lot of interesting stories for us. We saw the DMZ, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, different camps where the American troops camped at, a museum that gave us a lot of history and insight from the war and also got to walk through tunnels that the Vietnamese people made and hid in to protect themselves from the bombs. At the end of the tour, our driver took us to Hue city and we had a wonderful evening in Hue City exploring and giving in to the busy night life.



Ho Chi Minh Trail

DMZ bridge that connected the
north and south.

Inside the tunnels!



Just outside the Imperial City

Outside of the Royal Empire

We had about a half day to explore Hue city and Sam really wanted to see the imperial city. We took a nice walk in the city and enjoyed the beautiful day. We eventually made it to the imperial city
 which is completely walled in. It is really cool how it works and inside the walled city is another walled city that is the Imperial Palace. The Marine Corps had fought here during the Vietnam war and had won and took over the city so it was neat that we were able to come here. We had wished we could see more of the city, but we had to get back to our hotel so we could check out and get ready for another train ride.....

Waiting for the train

This train ride was going to be a long one......18 hours!!! The first seven hours would be spent on the regular seats which were cheaper and not very comfy. The last 11 hours of the ride would be in the sleeper beds which wasn't so bad. This train ride was about 150% better than the first one :)
We finally arrived in Saigon (a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City). The city was first named Saigon and used to be the capitol of Southern Vietnam during the war. After communism completely took over, the city became Ho Chi Minh City after the emperor.

Sam finally got some McDonalds!

We were super tired after another night on the train, but we had to kill some time before we could check in to our resort. We decided to get massages while we waited which was amazing and luckily we found out a cheaper and better way to get to our resort than we were planning on.  We walked around the city for a bit more, found ourselves the first McDonalds of the vacation and then we took a bus to the Grand Ho Tram Strip Hotel. 

Book, food, pool :)

We were so excited to stay at the resort and just relax after being go-go-go and seeing so many sites and places. We arrived and knew immediately that we were going to have a great time. The hotel is only a year old so it is so nice. We were lucky enough to meet the only American man that worked at the hotel and he showed us around a bit. Once we got to our rooms we were so excited at how nice the room was and the amazing view. What was even more awesome was that we got a call from the front desk only moments later saying that we had been upgraded to the grand suite (thanks to the American man)!! We were so excited and the room was phenomenal! We had a small kitchenette, a living room, a huge bedroom and a bathroom that you can only dream of! Our stay at the hotel was amazing. We lived at the pool, got to relax in our room, took advantage of our free credit at the casino (which helped us to win $700 at a slot machine!!!), got couples massages and enjoyed some wonderful food. It was the perfect way to end an amazing vacation! We will let the pictures speak for the beauty that we got to enjoy:



First night out!

               

We won on the slot machines!!

View from our room

Breakfast buffet every morning! 

 



Gorgeous view!!

Another night out!



Sam's favorite spot at the pool :)
The swim up bar!



 We were so relaxed after 4 days of staying at the resort but our vacation wasn't quite over yet. We still had a full day and a half to see Ho Chi Minh City! We took the bus back to the city and checked into the last hotel of our trip. It was pretty late so we got some food and toured the city. It has a very active night life with a lot of shops and cheap things to buy. We had a little bit of time to kill so we figured we would get some massages again (this would be our 6th massage of the trip, lol). We went back to the hotel and enjoyed our last night in Vietnam.
The next morning, we got breakfast at the hotel again and got ready for a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels near Ho Chi Minh City were one of the main tunnel systems that the Vietnamese used during the war for protection as well as defense. We had quite a drive to get to the area which wasn't the greatest (Asia will forever be known to us as the continent that doesn't know how to drive!). Once we got to our destination, we began our tour right away with a video. It is interesting to see how awful they portray Americans. They make it seem as though the war was our fault and at various times during our tour they would tell us, "Be careful, you look like an American soldier when you do that!" They had a very different outlook here than Tam had for us when we did the DMZ tour back in Hue. 

Going down the tunnel!

 We got to see many different tunnels, trap systems that they used, guns, tactical vehicles and other interesting things. Sam went in one tunnel that was so small and completely dark! He had no light and had to find his way out and got stuck at a dead end at one point with bats flying around his head!!! I don't know how he did it but I get so claustrophobic just thinking about it! We had another opportunity to go in tunnels again that were a little bit  bigger, but I got in just a little bit and went right back out. Those tunnels are not made for Dutch people! Way too small and with a group of 15 people all in a line and no way out it causes a lot of anxiety....



He could hardly fit!

                               



Inside the tunnels. So small!

Crazy rush hour traffic.....chaos!

Enjoying our last night :)

After the tour, we went back to the city which took awhile. Rush hour is like nothing you have ever seen!! I think we were stuck in the same spot for about half an hour. It was nuts.  Somehow we made it back and went to the same McDonalds from the first time b/c we hadn't eaten for about 6 hours.
We cleaned up, packed up our things b/c we had to get to the airport for a very early flight. We were going to have to stay up until 2:00 am which is when our flight would take off.
To no one's surprise, we got massages, which brought our total up to seven :) We went out to eat, did some shopping, got a few drinks and just enjoyed ourselves as we reminisced about all of the things and places we had seen.

It is amazing to look back and think about all of the places we have gone. God has truly blessed us here in Okinawa and in His great providence He has made all of these things possible. Never in a million years would we have imagined we would see these countries and places and once again we are reminded of how God's plans are so much better than our plans.

      "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." -Ephesians 1:3