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Voyage to Vietnam
I felt it a bit ironic that we spent the 4th of July, independence Day, making our way to a country who fought ours for their own independence, a war that ended back when I was still in diapers.
We boarded a train in Guilin, China at 2:30 pm and were woken by Chinese authorities around midnight. We got our exit stamps and went back to sleep for a few more hours before being woken again at an immigration check point in Vietnam. We went through the process, bleary eyed in the dead of night, with a small group of other travelers making the same journey. We all had to get our temperature taken at the quarantine counter to make sure we didn't have SARS. The slip of paper handed to us, I presume, declared our good health. We were back on the train close to 4:30 am and arrived in Hanoi 4 hours later.
I'd been looking forward to Vietnam for some time. Our last few weeks in China were restful, particularly because we spent most of them (10 days) in one place: Yangshuo. While a beautiful place, the daily rain showers and boredom of immobility was starting to get to me. It's funny: a 10 day vacation used to seem so luxuriously long and perfect, back when a 10 day vacation was a long time to travel. The first time I had a full 10 days off work, I was close to 30 years old, and we went to Hawaii. Now, 10 days is too long, I think, to be in one place -- an ironic sentiment considering the total length of this trip.
I will miss the beauty of China: the verdant mountain landscapes, the mysterious mist, the tiled rooftops of villages, the patchwork blanket of ochre and green farming plots, the undulating hills and valleys, rivers and streams... I will miss the kindness of the people we made friends with... I will miss the amusement found in Chinglish and the odd-ball fashion statements... I will miss the ease of travel. China is an easy place to travel, despite the language barriers. What I will not miss: the food, which was always edible but not always pleasantly so... I will not miss the cities, with their ugly white tiled buildings... I will not miss the generic and overdone "tourist attractions"...
It's always something to move from one country to another. There is new currency to convert, there is a new language to learn, there is a new 'everything'. Despite this, it's interesting to see the influences one place has on another. When we arrived in China, I saw bits of India everywhere, in the temples, in the art of Kung Fu... Now in Vietnam, although my stay here, so far, is brief, I see influences of both India and China and know I'll see more as we continue to travel beyond Vietnam. It's as if we are following some path, where influences of the previous places continue to build on one another... the path, set by pilgrims and traders back in the olden days, is the highlight of my travels thus far. It's fascinating to see how cultures -- over time -- absorb and reinvent traditions and beliefs brought to them from someplace else, somwhere so different, so long ago...
We boarded a train in Guilin, China at 2:30 pm and were woken by Chinese authorities around midnight. We got our exit stamps and went back to sleep for a few more hours before being woken again at an immigration check point in Vietnam. We went through the process, bleary eyed in the dead of night, with a small group of other travelers making the same journey. We all had to get our temperature taken at the quarantine counter to make sure we didn't have SARS. The slip of paper handed to us, I presume, declared our good health. We were back on the train close to 4:30 am and arrived in Hanoi 4 hours later.
I'd been looking forward to Vietnam for some time. Our last few weeks in China were restful, particularly because we spent most of them (10 days) in one place: Yangshuo. While a beautiful place, the daily rain showers and boredom of immobility was starting to get to me. It's funny: a 10 day vacation used to seem so luxuriously long and perfect, back when a 10 day vacation was a long time to travel. The first time I had a full 10 days off work, I was close to 30 years old, and we went to Hawaii. Now, 10 days is too long, I think, to be in one place -- an ironic sentiment considering the total length of this trip.
I will miss the beauty of China: the verdant mountain landscapes, the mysterious mist, the tiled rooftops of villages, the patchwork blanket of ochre and green farming plots, the undulating hills and valleys, rivers and streams... I will miss the kindness of the people we made friends with... I will miss the amusement found in Chinglish and the odd-ball fashion statements... I will miss the ease of travel. China is an easy place to travel, despite the language barriers. What I will not miss: the food, which was always edible but not always pleasantly so... I will not miss the cities, with their ugly white tiled buildings... I will not miss the generic and overdone "tourist attractions"...
It's always something to move from one country to another. There is new currency to convert, there is a new language to learn, there is a new 'everything'. Despite this, it's interesting to see the influences one place has on another. When we arrived in China, I saw bits of India everywhere, in the temples, in the art of Kung Fu... Now in Vietnam, although my stay here, so far, is brief, I see influences of both India and China and know I'll see more as we continue to travel beyond Vietnam. It's as if we are following some path, where influences of the previous places continue to build on one another... the path, set by pilgrims and traders back in the olden days, is the highlight of my travels thus far. It's fascinating to see how cultures -- over time -- absorb and reinvent traditions and beliefs brought to them from someplace else, somwhere so different, so long ago...
posted by Cheryn at 12:09 PM
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