Going North

Alright, since last time, I wandered around Saigon, visited their zoo (they had a film fest going on there showing the best advertisements this year, plus a cool short film by Spike Jones called "I'm Here"). They had tons of exotic animals too, like giraffes, elephants, lions and the eerily sentient gorillas.



A nearby museum housed tone of random stuff, such as Ho Chi Minh's cane and some ancient Vietnamese deer that you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.



I left the big city on a night train and wound up in beautiful Hoi An.



Not a very happening place, but they had some really good restaurants and the nearby My Son ruins were worth a visit. The ruins aren't near as cool as Angkor, but our guide was hilarious.



Best quote: "Shiva is male and female. Female and male. What does that make Shiva? The first Ladyboy!"

My next stop was Hue, a really cool city (my favourite so far). Inside the city is an ancient Citadel: this was the Imperial Palace back before the French took over, and is also (I'm told) where the big firefight featured in Full Metal Jacket took place.



The Citadel's in pretty rough shape, but they're fixing it up and it's fun to explore the area.



Speaking of rough shape, I took a DMZ tour which took us to a bunch of famous American military bases (like Khe Sanh) around Hue.



Not much left to see, but the country side is gorgeous and it really helps put the Vietnam war in perspective - looking at the terrain, I'm amazed the Americans did as well as they did. (There used to be an army base on the top of this mountain, it could only be supplied by helicopter).



The nearby Vinh Moc tunnels (an entire underground city, with 41km of tunnels, up to 24m deep) were also really cool.



Did a boat trip to some ancient tombs, and then grabbed another night train to Hanoi. Got in this morning and realized that I'm sick and tired of the big city, so I'm heading out to Halong Bay tomorrow, and then north to the mountains around Sapa, near the Chinese border.

It's a little chilly up here (I actually had to put on pants!), but not so bad that I'd complain about it, it's actually a nice break from sweating all the time :) But that's all for now, take care and make sure you visit Vietnam, it's a fantastic country.