Beautiful Vietnam

Vietnam is very beautiful and reminds us of British Columbia. The
fields here are full of crops, mostly rice but some other things as
well. I'm not sure if this is because Vietnam receives more rain than
the other countries we visited previously or we are approaching the
time of year when the previously visited countries have crops as well.
One of our friends form Harmony Farm said that everybody works in
Vietnam. From what I have seen I think this to be true. There is very
little begging or poor people in the places we have traveled through.

After leaving the Mekong delta we took a night train half way up the
coast to Hoi An. Hoi An is a very nice little town with french
buildings in the old part of town. It is surrounded by neon green rice
fields and just a few kilometers from some very nice beaches. We
enjoyed browsing through the old part of town and looking through it's
many local art shops. The streets in Hoi An are also lined with
tailors ready to make custom garments. Marina and I both had a pair of
pants made as they tend to be a difficult garment to find in our size
here. We could have defiantly spent more time in Hoi An but that has been
true of most places we have visited in Vietnam or even South East Asia
for that matter. We had read about Bach Ma National Park and after
looking into our options decided the best place to visit the park was
from Hue. We hired two moto bike drivers to take us from Hue to the
park gate and from there we walked in to a waterfall and swimming hole.
Bach Ma is a very beautiful park with all kinds of different plants
and insects surrounding us as we walked through the thick jungle.
Normally you can pay to catch a ride up to see the top of the Bach Ma
mountain but the road was under construction so this option was
unavailable. Given that the road was closed this made for a very nice
and quiet day of walking up to the hike starting point and then
walking to the falls. Very few vehicles passed us on our way to the
hike and we only saw one other group on the hike. This area saw heavy
fighting during the American war as the Americans set a base
on the top of the mountain. I would not have guessed from what we
saw that the area had seen heavy bombing. Either the jungle has been
persistent or the area we visited was passed over. Along with the
enormous human tragedy of war nature is another causality.