Vietnam surprise!

The Hanoi Flag Tower that's part of the UNESCO

World Heritage-listed Hanoi Citadel,  and located within 

the Military History Museum (aka Army Museum)

 Puppet Ponyo hanging out in Ha Long Bay,

another of Vietnam's UNESCO World Heritage-listed 

sites that she and I recently visited ;)

Hanoi's Temple of Literature is beloved by Vietnamese

and non-Vietnamese photographers alike :)

Yes, I'm back from a vacation -- and believe it or not, my destination this time was not Japan -- for a change!  More specifically, for the first time since 2010, I spent time holidaying in other than Japan, Malaysia or Macau!  

I'll be honest: I decided to visit Vietnam partly as an experiment -- because I really would like to visit Cambodia and Angkor Wat some day but have been worried about whether the travel experience would be too unpleasant.  Put another way: Vietnam sounds less intimidating to visit, even though it also has its share of detractors; so I figured to give Vietnam a try and if I didn't like it, decide that Cambodia would be too troublesome to check out.

On a more positive note, Vietnam also is one of those parts in the world which I'd like to see for myself since it's so much a part of the global imagination.  Of course, it tends to be associated with terrible conflict -- in particular, what the Vietnamese call the American War but also such as the battle of Dien Bien Phu which saw the Vietnamese forces triumphing over the French colonialists.  But I also have ideas of what Vietnam is like courtesy of having viewed Tomorrow Never Dies, even though that James Bond film's Vietnam scenes were actually shot in Thailand!

For my first visit to this Southeast Asian country whose per capita GDP is a lowly 167th in the world, I opted to visit its capital city of Hanoi, and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ha Long Bay.  Even while I knew there would be plenty of interesting historic sites to visit and natural wonders to behold on my itinerary, I also worried that my travel experiences would be marred by pickpockets, bag snatchers, touts, beggars, shopkeepers out to cheat me and such.  

Post visit, I have to wonder whether the people who wrote such as Wikitravel's Hanoi travel guide either are the kind of folks who tend to make mountains out of molehills, are truly inexperienced world travelers, or both.  

Put another way, my Vietnam experiences didn't involve a single pickpocket or bag snatcher, I found the sprinkling of touts I encountered to be pleasantly unaggressive (so all it took was a "no, thank you" to have them go away), only saw one beggar in five days in the country -- frankly, fewer than I regularly see in Hong Kong, never mind Beijing, Bangkok or Tanzania -- and the only salespeople I felt were asking for too much money were at the souvenir stores in Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport (where a box of lotus seeds that I had bought earlier in the day for 85,000 Dong was going for more than twice that price!).

Looking back, I have the happy students I saw posing for graduation photos on the lawn in front of the Hanoi Citadel's South Gate on my first day in the country to majorly thank for making me realize that Vietnamese people are, well, people too -- rather than violent Viet Cong or aggressive folks out to fleece foreign tourists.  In addition, there was the amazing Ha Long Bay cruise guide who, after I found that one of my cloth bags had a tear, came to the cabin with needle and thread and proceeded to stitch the tear!  And the hotel receptionist who asked me if Hong Kong was a scary place to live in since he's seen so much violence in Hong Kong movies!!

In short then, I did have good times in Vietnam -- and for the record, not only did Puppet Ponyo accompany me on this trip but I met up with my mother in Hanoi and we spent a few days together both in that city and, also, Ha Long Bay.  And lest there be any doubt, of course there will be more Vietnam-centric blog posts to come in the next few days. :)