Adventures By Design

In which the travelers swing with Nathan and Amy

Wow, today is day 100 of our trip. One hundred days sounds like a really long time, and thinking back we have done and seen an awful lot in the past 100 days. On our computer, this travelogue now comprises a document of over 100 pages (104 to be exact), surpassing anything we ever wrote in university (Gin’s thesis was 80 pages).We’ve had a great time exploring southeast Asia and writing about it for our loyal (two person) audience. Still, the milestone seems less relevant considering that we are finished our trip in just three more days!!

This morning when we woke up (Gin well after Ric again, even though she told him to wake her up earlier) we went to knock on Nathan and Amy’s door and see what they wanted to do for the day. However, there was no answer at their door and we couldn’t hear any noises from within (embarrassing or otherwise). We figured they were sick of us and had taken off, so we headed down for breakfast at the restaurant in our hotel where we could watch the door and ambush them when they returned. This restaurant also served a dish called ‘bun’ (known in Canadian Vietnamese restaurants as vermicelli) which is Ric’s favorite and for some reason really hard to find in Vietnam; it seems to be a regional specialty or something. Happily he ordered it, but when it arrived at the table it was disappointingly different from what Ric is used to. Instead of a bowl of delicious noodles, veggies, meat and sauce, this was a plate with noodles, some carrots, fish cakes, and rice paper wrappers to make your own spring rolls. Of course Ric ate it and it was good, it just wasn’t what he was hoping for.

Later, when Nathan and Amy finally came back (they’d actually just gone to the restaurant next door and for a short walk through the neighborhood) we made plans to go for lunch and then to see the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ (more about that momentarily). For lunch we found a restaurant called ‘Bun-ta’ which seemed to serve the ‘bun’ that Ric was looking for, yay!! We went in, were greeted with pleasant staff and fridge-like air conditioning, and had a great (but expensive!) lunch that finally satisfied Ric’s vermicelli craving.

After lunch we headed to the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ which is properly known as the Hoa Lo Prison. It was originally built and used by the French colonial government to imprison criminals, and then Vietnamese independence activists. The conditions at the prison were quite poor and many prisoners died in custody. The museum features several displays depicting the imprisoned Vietnamese revolutionaries teaching the masses and honing their debate skills, and asserted that despite being shackled, malnourished, and tortured, their commitment to the revolution never wavered. The prison celebrates several daring escapes that took place there in the 1930s in which hundred of prisoners crawled through the prison’s sewers and escaped to continue the revolutionary movement among the peasants. There are also a couple of rooms dedicated to the time the prison was used to house American POWs during the Vietnam War. The prison earned the nickname ‘Hanoi Hilton’ when many pilots who had been shot down were kept in custody there. According to American history, the conditions for the POWs were atrocious and violated their human rights. According to the displays at the museum, the POWs had access to volleyball nets and basketballs, lots of reading material, good food, and a tree and presents at Christmas time. The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle but we’re not sure where exactly…

After rushing through the museum a bit, we hurried back to the hotel so we would have time to shower and change before checking out. Then we had 3 hours to kill so we had a few beers (draught beer for under 50 cents!) and had dinner before heading to the Kangaroo Cafe for our trip to the highlands of Sapa. We had to leave the cafe at 8pm, then catch the train at 9:15. We’ll arrive in Sapa tomorrow morning at about 5am (bleh!). Before getting on the train we wanted some snacks and water so Ric went with Nathan and Amy to pick that up while Gin used the washroom at the cafe.

While we were buying snacks, Ric heard some screams on the street outside, and looked up to see two young man riding right behind a pair of women on a scooter; the passenger man was snatching the purse off the passenger woman’s shoulder! The women lost control of the scooter and crashed into the side of a parked car, while the thieves sped off at top speed. Passersby yelled at the thieves, but it was too late and they were long gone. The women were shaken up, but other than some scratches to their arms and legs seemed unscathed. While purse snatching happens in many cities, this incident only strengthened our fears of Hanoi’s lawlessness.

Our snacks in hand, we set off to catch our train. We piled into a minibus and drove to the ‘private entrance’ to the train station. We waited for twenty minutes or so for the train to arrive, got on the train, and found our private compartment with four bunks. We chatted for a while, and Ric entertained us with his mad rope skillz. He tried to make a tightrope across the cabin, but that didn’t work out. However, he did manage to make a swing that hung from the top bunks. Although it wasn’t very comfortable, putting a pillow under your bum made it bearable, and all four of us took a turn swinging across the cabin. Amy wowed us with some swinging skills of her own, and flipped upside down! After all that excitement, we were exhausted and went to sleep.