Backpacking in Vietnam

Nha Trang is the stronghold of beaches. The city has a wonderful big beach with nice sand, waves, wind, sun and perfect temperatures almost for the whole year. Here you find everything, palms, Beachvolleyball on the beach, surfing, kiting, mountains and at the same time it is so cheap. The sea temperature never goes below 25° even in winter. The Russian people have early discovered this place. Vietnamese people approach us in Russian. By Russian I include Russian speaking countries like Kasachstan and others, because we couldn't know the difference cause of language similarity. There are huge skyscraper hotels with rooftop pools.  Our room was 24€ a night. This was the most expensive hotel we took in Vietnam, but totally worth it. Just take a look out of our window: We found a staircase to the roof of the hotel above the pool with a unused dance floor, scary but soooo cool. It looked like nobody has been there for months. Part of our included breakfast buffet, how beautiful is this...

Hoi An was the most touristic place we have visited so far. In older travel guides described as romantic fishers village it is now a flourishing, crowded and touristic city. As a result there are lot of museums, nice building and a lot of markets to buy souvenirs. At night the city center is full of Lampions, which creates a nice atmosphere. In this region there is a bigger influence of Chinese religion's which is reflected in the style and monuments of the buildings and religious places. In the streets there is a lot of handwork, workshops and craftsman. Not for the show like ones you find in Europe, but it's their real job and they make their living with selling their goods. Painters, wooden goods or as a tailor where Clarissa commissioned a dress. People in Asia are shorter than in Europe. In Hoi An they seemed especially short. And lastly Hoi An was our first time at the beach with >30°. With the coconut palms it's like you arrive at those holiday magazine front cove...

  (Just us coping the professional Phototeam that was there 1min ago) From Ninh Binh we went by train to Hue. In the train Joni could almost fit.  Hue was the capital of Vietnam around the year 1000. The gigantic Palais area of the dynastie is still existing, but buildings were mostly rebuild after the American Vietnam War. The gardens were beautiful, especially the Bonsai trees. For us the food in Hue was the best and the worst experience. The best were all the different tastes, herbs and consistencies. The worst was a dessert we got from a street shop, because the dessert restaurant was closed. 5h later the dessert was seen again and again and again. This is the culprit: Before: After: In between before and after we went to a local shopping hall where you could literally buy everything in any color, size,.. Task: Find the 3 sales-ladys. One is easy ;) And if you need a shoe, this might be the place to go:

You recognize that you are travelling and not on vacation after stepping out of the bus after a 11h ride and a night of 3h of medicore sleep to arrive at another amazing place. This place is Ninh Binh, the exact region where the movie King Kong was made. Ninh Binh is a city in the Red River Delta and has a special landscape being completely flat except the limestone mountains. Those mountains appear mystical especially in the dusty evenings. The flat land is used a lot for rice fields.  In the region there are a lot of temples which show the high spiritually of the vietnamese culture.  In every cave you can find at least on altar. The temples are mostly build into the mountains away from the city to encapsulate from the crowds and the noise. Spirituality and Religion plays a big role in Vietnam. Temples are visited frequently, worshipped and new temples are still build.  In our experience the visit of a temple is a daily break and meditation for a lot of people. People we...