Hanoi

Hanoi is awesome. Getting off the bus from Vinh, I was a little disappointed by the lack of obvious sights to see, or beautiful buildings... But this is just hidden behind some crazy neighborhoods and a bunch of cheap plastic signs. The city is full of narrow streets going in every direction. Every sidewalk is either covered in hundreds of parked scooters, or in street food stands with tiny tables and chairs made for 4 year olds. The tiny tables and chairs, are not just at some, or most street food stands, but at EVERY stand, along with most cheap restaurants. It is kinda fun, but also a little ridiculous eating with your knees over your food, and sitting 6 inches above the ground. The food is amazing, and cheap, but almost exclusively Pho, or Vietnamese noodle soup. We did our best to locate everything that wasn't Pho, but youhave to be really committed and very brave. Then you have to point at exactly what other people are eating, and explain that you don't want Pho!
We stayed in the old quarter on both our trips there. At first, the old quarter doesn't seem all that old or fantastic. The streets are really narrow, and very chaotic, filled with cheap lighted signs, tons of scooters, dirty food stands, not so special stores, and millions of power wires.
My favorite thing to do in the city, besides eating, was seeing Ho Chi Minhs body on display. Probably one of the strangest things i've ever done, the experience was entirely surreal. We were hurried in to the large marble mausoleum, and watched extra closely by the armed military guards in their best uniforms. Uncle Ho is lying in a glass case in a high ceilinged room, looking white as can be, and with extra long pointy fingers in an extremely Mr. Burns-esque manner. We were rushed through the room, and no cameras were allowed at all, so it was hard to get a real grip on what I saw, but I do know that it was strange, damn strange! There are rumors that he has been replaced with a fax model, madame tussards style, and I would say that those are extremely well founded. If he is real, then he definitely will not be brought back to life anytime soon, but probably more likely to be made in to a really fancy candle.
We saw the "hanoi hilton" and the hanoi hilton... I have pictures to prove it. It was surreal seeing where McCain was held for so long, and thinking that 30 years later, I was wandering around the streets outside with Mercedes and Gringos aplenty... and yes there is an actual Hanoi Hilton Hotel.
After our 3rd day of wandering around, and our second trip to the city, we finally found the fancy part of the city, or embassy area. This is the old French style I was expecting and is extremely nice. The area is really nice, and has some awesome bakeries, great parks, and some really cool old buildings that really bring you back to the Colonial days.
The old quarter is really cool, and if you can get past the obvious ugliness, and wander down some old alleys and look behind the plastic signs, you will see some really cool buildings, and get really experience the classic Hanoi. The city overall is tons of fun, and has lots of great sights and beautiful buildings. The traffic is truly awesome, and is a sight in itself. The food is great, cheap, and its really silly sitting in a chair for a 4 year old and eating some Pho with fresh hot peppers and a plate of mint leaves. Overall, Hanoi is the best city i've been in since Hong Kong or Beijing, has the best street food of maybe anywhere we've been so far, and is entertaining if doing nothing but just walking down the street!

Vinh

Vinh. It was our first taste of Vietnam, and is not even in our Lonely Planet SE Asia Guidebook despite having around a quarter of a million people. There isn't much to the city, but that perhaps is its best asset. There are zero tourists there, and as long as you dont plan on doing much, it is a great place to relax for a couple days. The streets are wide, and long, and there is almost no sites to see. However, we did find some awesome food to eat, and a great, super cheap hotel to stay in. We ended up staying for a couple days, just to relax, do some laundry and chill after having no AC for our entire stay in Laos. We basically just ate cheap street food, got lost walking around and finding nothing, saw some old Soviet style architecture, watched a few movies on HBO, and did a whole lot of nothing. Not a bad way to spend a couple days after 2 full days on the road from Vientiane.

Headed Out

Ok, sorry for the slow updates... been busy not being online!
We are now in Ho Chi Minh City(Saigon)in SW Vietnam. We have been here for a few days already and are staying until thursday(wednesday night in the states) so I can get my Visa to Thailand. I didnt think i needed a visa for thailand, but if you enter over land, you only get a 2 week visa exemption, not an actual visa, thus it is impossible to get a visa extension. If you enter by air, you get a one month visa exemption upon arrival, but we arent flying anywhere. So, today we walked back to the Thai embassy to drop off my passport and get an actual visa, good for 60 days in the country.... On to Vietnam
So far, our Vietnam journey has taken us first to Vinh(from Laos), then north to Hanoi. From Hanoi we went to Haiphong, then took a ferry to Cat Ba island. We stayed on Cat Ba for a week(mostly because we were both really sick for 3 days), then went on a 2 day, 1 night Halong Bay Tour. The tour ended with a free bus ride back to Hanoi, where we stayed for a couple days. We then caught a 24 hour train to Nha Trang, on the beach of Southern Vietnam. After about 4 days there, we hopped another train to Saigon, where we have been for 3 nights so far.
Overall, Vietnam is pretty cool. The country is really pretty, but has way more people than Laos, and their impact is rather obvious. The infrastructure outside of Hanoi and Saigon is basically awful. The roads throughout the country are all only 2 lanes, one each way. This is despite the millions of busses that drive the obvious North to South(or vice versa) route from one beach town to another. Additionally, the power problems here are pretty obvious. Cat Ba Island literally loses power every day from 7am to 8pm, relying only on generators during this time. This seemed like something that would happen in a small island off the beaten path. Even more unexpected though was that Nha Trang, a city of around 400,000 has no power at all from 8am to 6pm every other day! This has made using the internet, or the AC, or chilling out and relaxing for a day rather difficult.
Now that we are in Saigon, things are much easier. The city is really large, but the downtown is rather small, and walking around is pretty easy. We are staying in the backpacker neighborhood, home of tons of cheap hotels, tons of great street food, even more fake books(yes, fake books, the ultimate in SE Asia backpacking ridiculousness), and near basically everything you'd want to do in the city.
Our hotel is really nice, we have a normal size room, AC, with a refridgerator, TV with tons of channels(at least 6 in english including ESPN, CNBC, NatGeo, Discovery, and some australian and euro channels,)a nice bathroom, and big fairly comfy bed. The hotel also has an elevator, which is a huge plus and is really secure.
Chilling in Vietnam has been fairly uneventful, and mostly just hanging out near or on the beach, lounging in our hotel(when we have power), seeing some cool sites, and taking in Halong Bay. I have managed to find and finish a bunch of great books, and also eat tons of awesome Pho! More to coom soon!

We Swoop on in to Nam! OK, Maybe not "swoop", but it sounds cool!

We left Lak Sao in Laos, and caught a mini bus towards the coast of Vinh, Vietnam.... not even mentioned in our shoestring guide to SE Asia! The entire city was destroyed in the war with French in the 50's/60's, then rebuilt, and then it was completely destroyed again in the war with the US, as it was apparently the starting point of the "Ho Chi Minh trail." Literally only two buildings were left standing, and we didnt get to see them. Our bus dropped us off, and we managed to stay in a slightly sleazy but very cheap room just blocks away. We nearly payed 15 bucks a night, but found a room with AC, cable(with tons of english channels, OMG, YESSSS!!!!), and bars on the window for 7 dollars a night! It was so nice(and cheap), we decided to veg out for a day and just relax and not travel, after having spent 2 straight days on the road.
There is nothing to do of note in Vinh, even after consulting google, so we just walked around and tried some random Vietnamese food, which is awesome. We got super lost, i sweated my shirt in to a swimming pool and we saw some interesting, "soviet style architecture." With wide streets, concrete buildings and a billion scooter parts stores, Vinh doesn't have too much going for it, but it was way better than people on the thorntree LP forum make it sound, and people were very friendly and nice to us. People online describe the Vinh posse as "hostile", but they seemed very friendly to us, and more just curious and excited about some actual foreigners making fools of themselves in their front yards.
After a day and a half we left our AC igloo of a room, and decided to splurge on a Super Nice leather bed bus to Hanoi. There was minubuses going on the 6 hour ride for 5 bucks, but they are prone to stopping at every last place to pick people up, deliver mail, drop off 100 cases of heineken(seriously), and fill up every last crevice on the bus with people... and that could have easily turned our 6 hour ride in to 3 week "oregon trail" like adventure. So, the 8 dollar VIP bus still went ultra slow on the 2 lane(1 on each side) road that goes North to South up the coast of Vietnam. I somehow imagined a faster system of roads since Vietnam has such an obvious one way up and down the coast route, but I was very wrong. Our bus gladly turned the 2 lane road in to a 3 lane road, driving down the center of the road, forcing every other vehicle left or right, but it still seemed like we went 30mph the whole way, which we basically did!
We got dropped off 10km outside of Hanoi, and I was so pissed I nearly killed our bus crew when I demanded a refund for our "expensive" tickets, and they laughed at me! the taxi ride in to town was looking to cost more than our 6 hour AC and leather seat bus ride! Finally, with Jin's cool headedness, we hopped a city bus in to town! I think we may be the only non Vietnamese people to ever take a Hanoi city bus, but it was surprisingly simple, and we found our way withing a km of our hostel!!!! Jin made some friends on the bus (as usual) and they said they'd help point us in the right direction towards our hostel when we got to our stop. Instead, when we got off, at 8pm, they called over a motor scooter taxi and tried to get me and Jin to ride backseat on a tiny motorscooter with 100lbs of luggage! Yeah Right! Plus, that isnt really our style when we can easily walk. They were in shock and told us to hold our bags very tight and looked at us like we were insane! But, after just 20 mins of wandering around, and only asking once for directions, we made it to our hostel!
We actually got sent to another hotel cause our hostel bumped us, but either way, we survived our first night in Hanoi(although I'm still a little upset after specifically choosing our fun hostel online, then getting sent to some ultra boring hotel upon arrival.)