It is just that it did not immediately start out that way.
Coming to Vietnam
and fish farms as we headed towards the coast.
We were a little underwhelmed by the beach, but it is winter and in any event, the best part was meeting a family who live in Hanoi. A vigorous soccer game ensured.
Our first stop was the Tiger Arena. The custodian let us in, 
The last fight was in 1904. And the fights were never fair. The Tigers -- they symbolized revolution -- were always drugged and declawed so that they would be defeated by the Elephants, the representative animal of the ruling Emperors. After the fights, the victorious elephants were lead to a quiet watering hole (an elephant spa to recuperate?) and were worshipped at a temple.
As the morning of pagodas and fixed tiger-elephant fight venues gave way to afternoon, we were soon famished. I gently cajoled the kids through the heat and hills towards our next stop, a massive summer palace (for use during Emperor Tu Duc's life) / mausoleum (for his use in whatever follows). Thankfully, we stumbled on an oasis - a restaurant / hotel that was a far cry from some of the street stalls we had noshed at. The guard at the gate seemed a little leery of us and demanded to know where our guide was. However, he did let us in and we had a good solid lunch in the shade by a lovely pool (with enormous goldfish that Tom got to feed).
We were all glad that we soldiered on to see Tu Duc's humble 19th century summer pad after lunch. It is amazing what a lot of forced labour can do; for example, the digging of massive canals where once there was nothing but a small stream in the countryside. 
Tu Duc led an absolutely surreal life - he had the Imperial Palace in the city of Hue (see infra), this sumptuous summer palace, many wives and over a hundred concubines, watched over by eunuchs. When he died, the 200 servants involved in his burial were all executed so that they would never divulge the exact whereabouts of his body and his buried hoard. Small wonder many of the people of Vietnam turned to what Ho Chi Minh was offering in the 20th century.
After our swim, we hopped on the hotel's bikes and headed out for an early evening cycle. The country road was a bit rough, but it was beautiful
We got back in time to watch the sunset over the fields, had a good meal and then, to round out the experience, I sat in the outdoor lounge with fellow guests and watched Michael Caine in the movie of Graham Greene's "The Quiet American".
The next day, it was back on the bikes, but this time in a different configuration. Kyra and I pedalled while Lord Thomas was transported in style on the back. 
Dear reader, I can assure you that neither Sarah nor I initially intended to bike the 65km road that looped through the Phuong Nga Park, over a steep mountain pass on a hot, sunny day - especially me, biking on that ridiculous contraption shown above. But it happened. We were just too excited to see all the beauty of the mountains and the pristine looking jungle. 
I was awe-struck by the cave itself (our tents are seen below; and no, I was NOT photoshopped into this picture!)
The next morning, we were able to fully explore the cave, finally arriving at its massive exit...my picture does not do it justice.
That evening, we were reunited and the kids and Sarah regaled me with their tales of Paradise Cave. Their pictures speak for themselves.
However, heavy fighting both with the French and Americans inflicted a lot of damage in most of the complex and it remains in ruins although the horse seems happy with it (excuse the fingerpad).
The museum across the road still gloats about captured American hardware. But despite everything, it seems that the Vietnamese people have left the American War in the past.
Planning a "world trip" is a challenge that we love to face although, predictably, since the opportunities abound, reaching consensus on all destinations can sometimes be difficult. In our case, the Trip Planning Bureau ("TPB") swiftly reached absolute agreement on Turkey, the Netherlands, Denmark and New Zealand. However, that was not the case with our travels to Vietnam. It was more my desire, less of Sarah's. I believed that Vietnam would be a safe, friendly and beautiful country where we would cycle alongside verdant rice patties and traipse through jungles and mountains. I also hoped that in visiting this developing nation, my kids would gain at a least a small glimpse of, and some appreciation for, how most of the world lives. Happily, all of these beliefs and hopes were borne out in the fullness of time.
Hoi An and the My Son Ruins
The journey to our first destination after Hanoi, the town of Hoi An in Central Vietnam, was the nadir. We left the steel grey winter skies of Hanoi for an 18 hour journey on a "sleeper bus". Our travel options were limited because the Tet holiday -- the celebration of the Lunar New Year -- was fast approaching and the entire nation was on the move. We arrived the next day, about 19 hours later - so basically on time and the kids and Sarah did sleep. No pictures were taken of this bus (let's just say that the bus' internal configuration was unorthodox) and fortunately, dear reader, you cannot experience through this blog its rank smell by the journey's end.
But the worst part of the journey for me came in the early hours of the next morning (grey again) at a dreary roadside stop with six hours still to go. The ditches were teeming with garbage and the food on offer.... well, we are not picky eaters, but nothing looked clean but for the sealed tubes of Pringles (we bought two for breakfast). As we were about to reboard the bus, the family approached me and asked me why the TPB had ever sanctioned a visit to Vietnam and said that the last month of this incredible voyage would go down in infamy.
Dear reader, do not despair. We were not traveling into the heart of darkness. Things were looking up as we finally arrived in Hoi An with its core of picturesque streets, now protected as a UNESCO world heritage site (no small feat given the wars that Vietnam has had to withstand its relatively recent past).
To boot, we were greeted on our arrival with the full force of the town's brightly coloured flower market. The people of the town were buying up huge quantities of flowers for Tet along with kumquat trees (on left side of the picture below) and pink peach boughs. (I also liked the colourful billboards of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, trying desperately to compete against the likes of Samsung and Coke.)
Hoi An was getting set to celebrate the Lunar new year and the kumquats, for example, symbolized hopes for a prosperous and successful future. The trees were then hung with Lucky Money in colourful envelopes. The hotel even bestowed some of the good fortune on our kids.
On Tet-eve, we set out to explore Hoi An's riverside celebrations in honour of 2016, the year of the monkey. 
Our kids, in addition to behaving like a bunch of monkeys, joined in the celebrations by floating a candle down the river.
(Fortunately, most of the paper candle containers caught fire and burned up mid-stream so as not to choke the waterway with litter and none of them ignited the moored boats along the river banks).
Now that the festivities of Tet and Hoi An's charms had brightened our moods, it was time to focus on our primary objective: to get on some bikes and out into the countryside. While I investigated potential bike tours, Sarah and Tom headed off for a morning of Vietnamese cooking classes. One thing I love about Tom is how intensely excited and interested he can get about things. On his return, he breathlessly told us about his trip to the market,
the chickens he saw,
the boat ride to the island where the cooking class took place
and proudly relayed the details about all the great food he and Sarah had prepared.
My investigations did not generate much excitement, however. Hoi An is a pretty touristy town, which did come in handy during Tet; many restaurants were still open for business even though for the people of Vietnam Tet is akin to rolling the Christmas and New Year hoilday season into a huge party that lasts for four consecutive days (at least). On the downside, it quickly became clear that most tour companies were closed and those that were (nominally) open had little interest in actually leading any bike tours whatsoever. So, we took matters into our own hands, secured the four most road-worthy bikes from our hotel's modest fleet and placed our trust in Google Maps to guide us. Our destination was the ancient ruins of the My Son temples.
I knew we could do it. Based on some initial reconnaissance by Jacob, Kyra and I, we knew that (a) Google Maps had apparently captured pretty much every path through the rice fields (Google, I know that you are reading this) and (b) the rice paddies were verdant, lush and that the countryside was indeed a joy to bike through (smooth, flat surfaces and traffic-free).
I don't dispute that it was long day of riding. Kyra later wrote about the trip from her bicycle's perspective: a fixed gear, well-used bike unexpectedly commandered from its usual dalliances around town and put through its paces for a 75km round-trip to jungle ruins. But for us, it was a challenging and very rewarding day. We enjoyed returning the happy (and amused) greetings that we received as we pedalled our beater bikes through the fields and hamlets, all wishing us "Chuc Mung Nam Moi!" ("Happy New Year!").
When we (finally) reached the My Son sites, we were amazed by what we saw emerge from the jungle. Temple ruins that dated from 4th century to 14th, deserted by their builders (the Cham people) in 15th century and then essentially forgotten and returned to the jungle until they were again "discovered" by French archeologists some time before WWII. A major religious site for a millennium, abandoned and lost in the mists of time.
I was also stunned to learn about My Son's more recent history. In August 1969, the US Air Force decided to carpet bomb the area, destroying the majority of the site forever. Locals report that the most stunning and intact temple was finished off by a helicopter gunship (FN: Lonely Planet). In the picture above, Tom is standing directly in front of one of the many bomb craters that mar the site.
I grew up watching movies about the travesty of the Vietnam war (or American war, as it's called in Vietnam); I must have seen Apocolypse Now at least a half a dozen times. In watching those movies, my attention was squarely focused on the fate of the disillusioned US soldier, trapped in the insanity of the war - be it Captain Willard in the Coppola film or "Cowboy" in Full Metal Jacket. On this trip, I started to gain a more fulsome perspective, to appreciate the scale and scope of the destruction wrought on Vietnam because there was an indigenous desire to forge an independent, colonial-free nation. It just wasn't how the Americans wanted the Vietnamese nation to be forged. The best book I have read on the subject is "the Best and Brightest" by US journalist David Halberstam. In the book's foreword, US Senator John Cain, a former POW and republican establishment nominee for President (who even selected Sarah Palin as his running mate) endorses the book's analysis that the war was a complete moral failure on the part of the US government. So I am not simply regurgitating the turgid prose we read about the "American Imperialists" in the Hanoi Museum.
The return journey from My Son back to the hotel had to be a bit more direct - the sun sets quickly in Central Vietnam. We arrived before sundown and enjoyed a meal on river banks as the Tet celebrations continued around us.
The next day, emboldened by our self-guided biking success we set off again, this time to a local beach, An Bang. Fortunately, even when travelling on the roads, there was never much car traffic. Vietnam moves on scooters. On this outing, it was just the cows
Obviously, developers have big plans for the beach. It lies south of Danang, a city that seems to have grown like wildfire (there are shining new buildings and cranes everywhere). I was struck by how the Communism slogans on the coastal highway contrasted with the massive hotels and golf courses being built to cut off all public access to the seaside (were comrades Nguyen and Tam consulted? Are exclusive golf courses for rich tourists part of the fatherland's Five Year Plan for the people?)
We rode home a quieter way, enjoying the sunset over the river delta.
Hue - The Imperial City
After four nights in Hoi An, it was time to board the train to the Imperial City of Hue, the last bastion of the Nguyen dynasty (from very early 1800s until they had to turn over the keys to Ho Chi Minh in 1945).
We enjoyed the train ride - it was no "sleeper bus" - and the train hugged the coast providing us with beautiful views of the sea crashing on the rocks as it ambled along, playing Abba's "Happy New Year" over the loudspeaker when we pulled into the station.
The sun was shining and the city sat majestically on both sides of the wide Perfume River. To explore Hue, it was back on the bikes, still fixed gear, but for $2 per day I was not going to complain. Tour buses just won't work for our restless kids. We concocted our self-guided trip by reading the online descriptions of what the Hue tour companies offer, used Google Maps to navigate between the sites and then read about the sites in situ from what we could glean from any reputable online source. Sometimes the Internet is a good thing.
showing us where the tigers were caged before being released into the ring to fight elephants.
On a more global level, I had to wonder -- how did these rulers get away with this stuff? On this trip, we have seen several completely over-the-top summer palaces of European monarchies (e.g., Schonbrunn palace on what were the outskirts of Vienna and Frederick the Great's Sansouci palace in Potsdam both )mere retreats from their larger imperial palaces!. And why would the tradition of having eunuch-monitored concubines simultaneously exist for the Ottoman Sultans at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey and for the Nguyen Emperors in South East Asia? Were these ruling elite talking to one another, comparing notes?
Needless to say, while I really enjoyed Hue, it was time to get the family to a National Park, away from all this wanton excess.
Phong Nga Ke Bang National Park and the Caves
I first read about the caves of the Phong Nga Ke Bang National Park in the highlands of Vietnam's Central Region a few years ago in National Geographic. I remember showing the kids the pictures of these huge caverns that had been created over the ages by pernicious water erosion through the region's limestone rock. Some British explorers had recently discovered what is now considered the largest cave in the world. Manhattan city blocks, skyscrapers and all, would fit within. Flipping through the pages of the magazine, I never imagined that I would ever actually go there. But now the caves beckoned - half a day on the train followed by a 30 minute minibus ride and we could be there. So we did it.
We decided to stay at a very nice farmstay (but with a pool!) in an idyllic pastoral setting, about 9 kms east of the Park.
and very rural (I wondered if I could get one those rear cages on my bike for Tom when he gets too restless...the pig looked comfortable)
It is true that that copious amounts of very visible litter can blight some of Vietnam's most stunning natural features (because it is a rapidly developing consumer society with infrastructure that cannot even hope to cope?). But not here. And for historical content, we were also riding on part of the famous Ho Chi Minh trail (now paved for easier access).
Fortunately, a building mutiny by the kids was averted in time when we came across an "Eco-Trail" where we could eat and cool off with a splash in the mountain river. Kyra and Sarah nearly collided when they jumped off the bridge simultaneously. Life jackets were mandatory, interesting though that safety regulations apparently didn't apply to the condition of the bridge.
The ride home from Phuong Nga, past flooded rice fields and along the river, was beautiful too.
For the next day's adventure, we entered completely uncharted territory - for the first time while travelling this year, the family would spend one night apart! I had been able to book a trek to one of those caves that I had read about in National Geographic ("Hang En", the third largest cave in the world) with an overnight stay in the cavern by a subterranean lake. Since the tour company would not permit anyone under the age of 16, Sarah selflessly agreed that I could do the trip and that she would take the kids on a guided day trip of the spectacular "Paradise Cave". I really enjoyed the trek to Hang En. (I know the kids could have done it; the only real difficulty was crossing and re-crossing a river a number of times.)Back to Hue and Hanoi
While we would have loved to spend more time Phuong Nga, there remained much to be explored and the final weeks left for our trip were rapidly dwindling. We ended up going back south to Hue on the train even though our next destination was in the North, the mountains bordering China (via Hanoi). While not the most logical progression (probably should have spent a little more time consulting the map), it did work out well for us. First, we found out that morning while waiting for the train that Jacob's waiting list number had unexpectedly come up for his first choice for highschool. So we had most of the day and the next morning in Hue to flap around, worrying that we had missed his acceptance window while we were in the caves (with emails to Kate, calls from Kate to Wim, calls from Wim to mum, my emails to mum, calls to the school etc.). Fortunately, it all worked out! Second, very unfortunately, Kyra came down with a 24 hour flu that evening and spent the whole night being ill. We were grateful that we were in a hotel overnight rather than a direct night bus to Hanoi. Third, we then flew from Hue's small airport to Hanoi -- so easy and so much better than the bus - though a lot heavier carbon footprint...
We did try to make the most of our time before our flight, walking around the seat of power of the Nguyen Dynasty: the Imperial Citadel, the home of the Emperors, now a World Heritage Site. The Citadel's main gates had been fully restored to their past splendour.
Within, there were some tranquil courtyards and pools (the below was the domain of the Queen Mother).
That night, it was back to busy Hanoi to our now favourite place for a quick meal in the heart of the city (rice, mung beans and pork - difficult to explain, you have to try it)
Conclusion
Our journey is now through a rapidly developing consumer society of more than 90 million people. Some of the infrastructure is pretty antiquated (or downright dangerous even though we are visiting places that lie, for the most part, along the established tourist circuit). As readers of this blog will know, we had amazing bike travels in Central / Northen Europe, benefitting from infrastructure of high standard and good design. We biked through cities such as Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin and Copenhagen; all cities that score in the top 15 of the most liveable, best functioning cities on the planet (Mercers, 2015; I think the accountants are actually right on these high rankings).
Vietnam is different. Hanoi, for example, does not crack the top 150 major global cities in the same rankings. And it is true that I did not have to get my kids incoculated with special vaccines to travel up the Rhein River and down the Danube. Or buy antimalerial pills. But this is a beautiful country and the people are obviously very resilient as history can attest. We can at least try to emulate some of their patience and resilience on our travels, on this trip and beyond!
