Ha Long Bay was beautiful. The night on the boat was very peaceful, even if the whole operation is designed to shovel tons of tourists through. I went overboard on photos, but I hope to have them up soon. I have my Vietnam photos up through Hoi An now on the website.

The last few days in Hanoi have been very nice. The temperature this time of year is very pleasant, if not a bit cool. None of the heat and humidity you’d expect for SE Asia. After two weeks of rain in central Vietnam, it hasn’t rained once in Hanoi. I hope that keeps up.

Last night I went to the Hanoi Night Market and wandered around for an hour. TONS of small clothing stands selling jackets for $1 or sneakers for $3-5. These aren’t rip offs either. They are the real things, which I can only assume come directly from the factories in Asia.

From everything I’ve heard, Laos is the cheapest place in SE Asia, which is saying a lot. My last six months has been a trail of getting cheaper and cheaper: Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and now Laos. Literally, each place was cheaper than the next. Thailand will seem expensive when I get back there.

The airport situation in Bangkok is cleared up, which is good. I was worried about getting a flight out. The next two weeks will sort of bring to an end this chapter of the trip. I’m looking forward to jumping to an entirely different part of the world and everything that entails.

My cab driver tried to scam me as he took me to my guesthouse.

The weather here is pretty cold for Vietnam. The temperature is getting down to 11C (low 50s Fahrenheit). Most of the locals dress as if it is freezing with scarfs, heavy jackets and heavy hats.

I haven’t had time to see much of Hanoi yet. It seems a bit more dreary than Saigon, but that might just have been arriving at dawn on a Sunday morning. I’m here for two days before going to Ha Long Bay, then returning to Hanoi for a few more days before heading to Laos.

Hue is a really nice city. The food is good and I’ve found it very conducive to walking (even when it was raining). At over a million people, it is a big city you never really hear much about.

I have another overnight bus trip ahead of me today. I’m only going to spend two days in Hanoi before going to Ha Long bay I think. Then I’m off to a quick trip through Laos and back into Northern Thailand. Hopefully the airport issue in Bangkok will be resolved before I get there.

According to reports, it hasn’t been raining up in Hanoi, so I hope the wet weather I’ve had for the last two weeks in central Vietnam will be gone. I’d really like to have good weather for when I’m in Ha Long Bay, as it should be one of the best opportunities for photography I’ve had on my trip.

The ancient city of Hoi An is an old trading port. The building styles you find are a mix of Chinese and French, and very different from what you see in the rest of the country. A lot like Penang in that the whole city (or at least part of the city) is the attraction. You can walk around the areas near the riverfront and pretty get a flavor for the places in a few hours. There are lots of good restaurants in the area.

The third location of my central Vietnam World Heritage trifecta is Hue. The citadel in Hue is probably the biggest historical attraction in the country. For the first time in ages, I actually have a room booked in advance (my current hotel did it for me, as they get a finders fee).

After Hue I have two options: 1) Take a 12 hour bus ride to Hanoi. 2) Take a bus or fly from Hue to Dong Hoi to visit Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park on the way to Hanoi. I’m leaning towards #2, but I’ll get more information in Hue.

It has been raining almost the entire time I’ve been here. The last few days I have been totally lazy. I’ve been on an anti-vacation. When you travel for a living, an anti-vacation is when you stay in your room, do nothing, and watch TV. Oh yes, and the World of Warcraft expansion came out and I took advantage of it. (I’m level 74 now thank you very much).

However, it is time to get moving. The really interesting parts of Vietnam are up in the Hoi An/Hue region in the center of the country where I’m going next. I assume I’ll be spending the next several days in tourist mode and taking photos before I head up to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay.

I got some new items for the contest which I’ll be showing off in a new video I’ll shoot when I get to Hoi An. Hopefully, it wont be as wet there.

The bus arrived after dark. I was able to whip out my trusty iPod Touch and found a place to stay on the cheap just a few blocks from the bus station.

A funny story from Mui Ne on the subject of guidebooks. I was about to leave my guesthouse a few days ago when a European couple walked in with their backpacks asking if there were any rooms available. The woman at the desk said “Yes, $20 a night”. The woman of the couple instantly pulls out her Lonely Planet and says “It says here $10-15 per night”. The woman at the counter responded “That was four years ago. We put in air conditioning and internet since then.” The man responded “but the book is from last year!”. I chuckled to myself and made a mental note to put that on the website.

When I arrived in Mui Ne, I walked around for five minutes, then went to one of the many stands which sold tours. I asked if they could get me a room for $20 a night with internet, and they said yes. They called around in found a place in 5 minutes and drove me there on their motorbike. Total cost to me: nothing and I got free transportation. They guys who found me the room got a finders fee, the guesthouse got a customer and I found a room. Everyone wins…..except the guidebook publishers.

I was also able to get some great photos of the sand dunes near Mui Ne. I hope to have those up later today. I was totally caught up with my photos when I left Mui Ne. That felt good.

The countryside from Mui Ne to Nha Trang was very beautiful. The bus made one stop at a restaurant which catered to buses. I’ve seen similar establishments all over SE Asia. As I was walking around, I took out my iPod to listen to some podcasts. One of the kids working there, I assume part of the family that owned the restaurant, got all excited and said “Is that an iPod Touch?!?” He knew everything about it, down the the specs, but had never seen one in person before. He offered to buy it from me, but I had to decline. Besides, I’m not sure it would do him any good without iTunes and it is tied to my account.

It is raining as I write this. When I left the hotel there was a minor flood on the street out front. The water was calf deep. There isn’t general flooding here, that part of the street is just in a slight dip. It was pretty neat to walk downstairs and see the street filled with water.

I think I’ll only be here for about two days. The things I really want to see are up near Hoi An and Hue, so spending more time here than necessary will just slow me down.

I’ve eaten better here than I have in ages. There are several seafood restaurants in Mui Ne which offer selections caught that day. Last night I had a grilled squid, a HUGE tiger prawn which was basically a small lobster, and two clams. With two drinks the total price was $8. The clams were 2000 dong apiece, or about 12 cents. The squid was 40,000 or about $2.30. Even in Phuket, I paid waaay more for seafood than I’m paying here. A meal like this almost anywhere else would be over $50.

I’m typing this at a bar with wifi about 30 feet from the beach. The waves are unusually strong today and no one is out kiteboarding. There are an abnormal number of people here with laptops. I think I counted a dozen in one bar alone the other day. A lot of Russians here also, which I haven’t encountered on my trip before.

I’ll be here one more full day tomorrow before heading up the road to Nah Trang for a few days.

I’ve been doing a lot of updates via Twitter while I’ve been here. If you want to follow along on the smaller things I have to say, you can follow me on Twitter or friend me on Facebook, where my messages show up as my status.

Another reminder about the contest. If you are reading this via email or RSS, please check below this post for how to send in your first entry for the contest. If you are not following via RSS or email, DO IT NOW.

It is like most any seaside tourist village. Restaurants, bars, hotels, tour booking services, and the occasional communist party flag. I wonder if Karl Marx was thinking of seaside time shares when he wrote the Community Manifesto?

The road of Vietnam is an order of mangitude better than in Cambodia. That being said, the buses are still really slow. Nothing really moves that fast on the road because the motorbikes slow everything down.

The bus I took from Saigon to Mui Ne is a sleeper bus. I’ve never seen anything like it. The “seats” are actually closer to beds. You lie down and at best can put your set in an upright position. It is very hard to get in and out of the seat. I was on the bottom bunk which meant that I was basically sitting on the floor. The top bunk looked to be even worse to get in and out of.

I went into Dong shock when I paid my guesthouse bill this morning. After whipping out my trusty iPod calcualtor, I realized that I was only paying $21 a night, and that included the price of my visa renewal and my bus ticket all the way up to Hanoi. It is just bizzare to have to pay over a million of anything.

After purchasing my new laptop, as if on cue, Wells Fargo suspended my debit card. Wells Fargo still sucks. (However, to their credit, this was the best experience I’ve had with them fixing the problem)

I am thinking of completing my life long goal of windsurfing while in Mui Ne, and by “life long” I mean I saw a sign on the way into town.

Oh, and for those of you who were curious, I have an answer for the age old question: Charlie does in fact surf.

In addition to all of that, the power supply is falling apart. Yesterday, I couldn’t get electricity to charge the computer. It had been getting to the point where I’d have to jiggle the cable to make it charge, but it finally just died.

I found an authorized Apple reseller just two blocks from here to check out getting a new power supply and battery. They don’t just do swaps for items which don’t work. I might be able to do that at a real Apple store, but that doesn’t seem to be the policy in Vietnam. The cost for a new power supply (the cord and the brick) and a battery were close to $400, which seems outrageous for what I’d be getting.

My hope was to keep my laptop hanging on till I got back to the US and get a new one, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. I was faced with the same dilemma you have when you have a crappy car. Keep pouring money into an old car, which you know you will have to replace, or get a new one. $400 for a power brick and a battery is almost the cost of a cheap windows laptop. I decided to bite the bullet and get one of the new MacBook Pros here in Saigon (oh yeah, I’m still in Saigon. I realized too late it would be easier to extend my visa here, so that took and extra two days).

I didn’t want to buy a new computer, so I wasn’t totally happy with the decision, but I sort of had to. The new MacBook Pros are nice. Many of the problems I had with my old one are addressed with the new design. The holes in my case wouldn’t exist with the new unibody “brick” construction method for the cases. My screen wouldn’t be as dirty if I had a glossy screen with glass. The keyboard wont get as dirty because the case seamlessly fits between the keys. The new trackpad, even though it has problems, should avoid the issues I had with my old one breaking. It is also faster and the hard drive is twice as large.

They also gave me a free 160gb USB external hard drive.

Most importantly it is slightly lighter and produces MUCH less heat. I used to almost burn myself if I had my computer on my lap. Now it just gets warm.

I’m going to send my old computer back home. It still functions and will function better indoors with less threat of moisture getting inside the holes in the case. It would work fine if you had an external keyboard, mouse and monitor…which is exactly what I might use it for in the future.

There has been flooding in Central Vietnam during the last week. I don’t know if this is going to hamper things. None of the flooding has been in the places I have on the immediate schedule. I don’t plan on spending more than 3 days in any city between here and Hue. I should be following the coast for the most part. I loathe really long bus rides, so by stopping along the coast, I don’t have one giant ride to Hue.

I’ll probably also need a 2 week extension of my visa, as it expires on November 14.

If anyone has been to Central Vietnam had have suggestions for unique things I can buy for the contest, let me know. I’d like to get a Vietnamese conical hate (called a nón lá) but it would be bulky to ship.