The Red State

Well we made it to Hoi An in one piece. We just finished two water logged days in Hue. Although, it was initially a bit disappointing that it was raining I actually kind of liked it in the end (my feet did not however...). We were visiting the old capital of Vietnam and some Mausoleums of the kings that ruled from Hue a couple of centuries ago. The palace area was an imitation of the Forbidden City of Beijing (on a slightly smaller scale...but still huge). It had fallen into disrepair before the Americans bombed it during the war and now only about 20% remains. There are numerous ruins creeping through the grass that hint at its former glory and in a way I think the rain fit the attitude of the place. The rain came in waves. It would rain fairly lightly, then more heavily and then it would stop for about 10-20 minutes before resuming again. I thought it had passed a few times before realizing that it just was going to maintain this pattern all day. I really liked the Purple Forbidden City much more than I expected and I think Meg was quite surprised by its massive size. I'm looking forward to her reaction to the one in China when we get there next year.

This morning we went to the mausoleum of Ming Manh (I'm sure I spelt that wrong). It was easily my favourite place so far in Vietnam. It was a real pain to get to. Our problem began when we taxied to an out of the way temple with a well-known pagoda. I agreed with the taxi driver that he'd come back an hour later for us which he seemed happy to accept since I tipped him well. Of course an hour later he never showed up and it took us nearly an hour to find a way out of the area. The whole time being offered boat trips down the perfume river to our destination. We probably would have considered this option if we weren't on such a tight schedule and if it wasn't raining. I'm pretty sure the boat people have figured something out with the taxi people that keeps the taxis away because on of the women who kept trying to solicit us seemed to know our driver wasn't coming back and many people told us that taxis wouldn't come to that area (nobody would tell us why). It was a bit irritating trying to find a taxi for so long after spending numerous times each day telling taxis, cyclos and minibike drivers that you don't want a drive repeatedly as they follow you down the street asking again and again.

It seems like we can post our blog, but can't actually see any posts we make. I think the internet is heavily filtered here. I'd almost forgotten we were in a Communist country. I actually commented to Meg yesterday that this might be my first time in a Communist country. I thought it was strange that I'd never been in one before. I had this nagging feeling that I had, but then I couldn't think of one so I assumed that Vietnam was my first. Today I realized that this was of course false. Upon this realization I immediately turned to Meg and proudly told her that I was wrong, I'd been to a Communist country before...China. She just looked at me and said "Yeah I was wondering why you weren't counting that as a Communist country." I nearly kicked her. Then we talked about how we'd probably be visiting a large chunk of Red States in the next year. It's almost as if we're going on a Communist tour (Vietnam, North Korea, China & Russia). The idea seems very strange. I wonder how differently I'd feel about visiting these places if I'd grown-up a decade earlier. As it is I only have the faintest memories of disliking the Communists and viewing them as the enemy. As it is most of my anti-Communist memories come from Canada vs Russia hockey games over the past 35 years (Speaking of hockey it's a darn good thing I wasn't watching that Canada/Sweden World Junior game...I probably would have thrown my laptop across the room...).

Anyways it's getting late so I should probably wrap this up. Once I can post photos I will. I suspect this won't occur until we hit Camboda this weekend (or early next week). Of course by then I'll probably be obsessed with my Angkor photos and you'll never see any of the splendors we saw here in Vietnam. For those of your who know your Vietnam War history (or the American War as they call it over here) we're currently 30 km from Da Nang which was a major site during the war. We actually passed through it today and along the coast where I'm pretty sure numerous American troops arrived into Vietnam. I think we even passed China Beach. We saw a bunch of American tanks and weapons that the were captured by the Vietnamese yesterday in Hue. It seemed very strange to look at tanks that rolled through this area 30 years ago that had actually seen action and likely taken lives. Especially since perhaps the most common tourist items that I see Westerners wearing are the little Viet Kong hats and red shirts with the Vietnamese flag on them.