Vietnam

Our introduction to the Vietnamese traffic system was a harsh one – a taxi from the airport to our Hanoi city centre concrete block hotel. Despite its precocious entrance they had won our enduring recommendations within five minutes by checking us into a used room. Nice.

After an extended nap we spent a happy-ish afternoon pottering around the sweaty city.

It took us a good 10 minutes to cross the first road we came to. The traffic is absolutely incredible - a continuous stream of mopeds going in all directions at once with absolutely no apparent system for indicating. The resultant sensory confusion is exacerbated by the continuous din of blaring hooters. The only way to get avoid wasting days waiting on pavements is to hold hands, close your eyes and walk really slowly so that they just go around you.



We walked past Hoam Kiem Lake which is essentially unexciting and into the old quarter having successfully wardered off 600 offers for cyclo rides and xe-om taxi trips. The old quarter is mish mash of crumbling buildings, littered streets, shops spilling their wares out onto the pavements and people all tumbling over one another and everything. Plants seem flourish in every conceivable crevice and birdcages dangle from every ledge.

We wandered from one street to the next past crowded Bia Hoi – the locals bars where men sit out on small plastic stools along the pavement sipping the local house brew.

As N’s craving for beer began to take hold we sought out establishments to have dinner and eventually ended up at a fantastic Vegetarian restaurant called the Tamarind followed by beers at a horrible little dive across from our hotel with the dubious title of the “Relax Bar” and an appropriately dodgy clientele.

Halong Bay was the highlight of our stay up North. We did a 2 day tour out to Catba Island which involved far too much time on a bus. After a brief period of hanging out with our guide Hoi (which means festival) we set out in a dubious looking boat for the five hour trip to Cat Ba Island via the Surprise Cave (Oh my!) and a swimming spot.

Halong Bag is often referred to as the eighth wonder of the world and after two days on a boat, starring out at a handful of over 1969 islands – it’s hard to disagree. Local legend tells of a celestial dragon and her children, sent by the Jade Emperor to stop an invasion. The dragon spat out great quantities of pearls in the path of the enemy fleet and these formed islands and razor-sharp mountain chains. After the victory, the dragons, enchanted by their creation, decided to stay on, giving rise to the name Ha Long (“dragon descending”) and to the inevitable “sightings” of sea monsters.

Incredulously, despite the 1553 square miles of water in the bay there seemed to be designated swimming spots. We wouldn’t have seen other boat for ours, but stop to have a swim and three more slide up and belch out their tourists.

Our first stop, The Surprise Cave was hardly surprising. It was – as expected a cave with modern lighting and many forms of rock formations, little pools, and loads of camera totting tourists. Nice view out over the bay though, only slightly marred by the stench of the toilets perched on the edge of the harbour.

The hotel on Cat Ba Island had a beautifully decorative but completely dysfunctional aircon so we immediately made our way down to the harbour in search of light refreshment. We skipped the “team” dinner and gathered two Aussie recruits (Kim an Katherine) to head out to a floating restaurant for dinner.”

It literally was set up on the slightly rickety wooden, verandah of a family home. The adjacent pool like area turned out to be the Vietnamese equivalent to a deli cabinet – pick your own “live” dinner. And was literally swimming and crawling with all manner of shelled and scaly creatures. Despite our hesitations about our dinner having spent some time in the waters of the harbour we still managed to gorge ourselves.

N can’t bear the way they row in Vietnam, which is actually forwards so that they are pushing on the oars rather than pulling. Our 15-year-old rower (looked 9) will never know how narrowly he escaped a three-hour rowing lesson from the expert!

On the way home we stopped off at a few more beer places (“bar” would be an inappropriate use of the term) and finally went to check out the famous Cat Ba disco that was embarrassing empty. We were hustled to a table near the front for prime view of both dancers and a spluttering candle was dumped onto the table in front of us. We beat a hasty retreat.

On the way back we bumped into our tour guide Hoi (meaning “festival”) who was staggering his way home. He tried very hard to confirm the time for breakfast with us but we went off to bed with very little clarity on the whole issue and as result overslept only to be awakened by his pounding on our bedroom door.

The second day of this our great, Halong bay adventure was slightly less exciting than the first. Mainly because there are only so many pretty little pointy islands that one can look at before they start to look the same. Also we soon came to realise we were in fact looking at the same ones as, like a horse set for home the captain was motoring it back through the islands the same way we’d come. In fact so determined was his course that we had to wake the tour guide and especially request a swim stop for which we paid the price being dumped in a particularly smelly area.

We skipped the lunch feed thing altogether and got some bits and pieces and went and sat down by the seafront to eat it in peace and quiet. I would hardly be mentioning this at all except that half way through our dried bread/chip sandwiches we were fallen upon by a large crowd of Chinese who wanted to take our photo. Well why not we thought? A little bit of smiling, a little bit of arm linking, you with me, me with you and before you know it, six spools and 35 minutes later we finally extricated ourselves from their clutches and spent the next few panicked minutes trying to get back to the relative safety of the travellers café without crossing their paths again.

On our return to Hanoi we stayed in a much cosier little hotel in the Old Quarter – although getting a room with a window that actually goes outside was a real challenge. It seems to be a characteristic of Vietnamese architecture - impossibly narrow, very tall buildings which only have windows in the front.

A celebratory drink was quite obviously required so we set off for a bit of a shop – no purchases though and a bit of “session”. We did at some stage of the evening have a lovely dinner in a nice-ish restaurant with all manner of wildlife running around. A rat up the wiring dangling down the walls, a budgie in a cage and would you believe, an entire colony of ants marching past along the picture rail. Eventually in a horrible stroke of fate we landed up in another dodgy establishment (how does N find them?) where waitresses in very short Kahlua and Tiger Beer dresses were serving 3 for the price of 2 beers which meant that we were getting them for the staggering cheap price of about 25p.

It took us awhile to find our hotel again after that lot because although we were on the same street it looked completely different. No lights, no people, no mopeds, no random animals. On the third pass we spotted the hotel – a huge steel garage door had been brought down the whole front effectively sealing everyone in and us out. Obviously Health and Safety building requirements are not as stringent in Vietnam. Eventually we were let in by a slightly annoyed couple who had been sleeping on the lobby floor.

From Hanoi we flew to Hue. The cab to the airport was not quite what we had been expecting. Aircon, for which we had paid the additional cost of $1, clearly had not been in existence in the year of this vehicle’s manufacture. It wasn’t too long before we came to shuddering halt in the middle of the highway. We gave the driver a full 15 minutes to try and resuscitate his vehicle before we managed to flag down another cab and convince the surprised passenger to share it with us.

Our accommodation in Hue was to say the least “Deluxe” and empty. Won over the by the pool we spent the rest of the time regretting the price we were paying and cursing the rude staff who were less than delighted to be playing host to two backpackers. Hue was amazingly enough even hotter than Hanoi (hence the pool-appeal) so after a swim we hired a cyclo driver to pedal us up to the Old Citadel across the river.

Hue’s Citadel was laid out in the early nineteenth century by Emperor Gia Long and hasn’t really been maintained since which means it’s a delightful place to explore. There’s a 10 km wall around the whole city but best bits the Imperial City and the Forbidden Purple City are contained in separate areas inside. The main entrance is through the old flag which has been restored to its the former glory.

Immediately after that you walk through to the Ngo Mon Gate into the Imperial City. It has five entrances. The central one was used exclusively by the emperor, the two smaller door to either side were for the civil and military mandarins and the giant opening in the wings allowed access to the royal elephants. There are Kylin on the stairs – mythical dew-drinking animals that are harbingers of peace.

Thai Hoa Palace was the throne palace where major ceremonies such as coronations or royal birthdays took place. Immediately behind it are the beautifully restored and originally name Left House and Right House and the Royal Reading Pavillion. These would have been used by the mandarins for preparations before audiences with the monarch.

We liked the Mieu best erected in 1821 for its gorgeous red roof and the Nine Dynastic Urns – considered to be the epitome of Hue craftsmanship. The brass urns are covered in scenes of rivers, mountains, rain, cloud, wildlife and bullet dents.

We got a cyclo back across the river and then had a beer at a lovely old imperial hotel on the banks, uncovering yet another strange Vietnamese tradition. No one ever clears away the beer bottles! As a result businessmen in suits will be sitting around at a table looking very respectable apart from the fact that their table is absolutely groaning beneath the weight empty beer bottles.

Spent the evening at the DMZ (horror zone) bar which was full of a loud group of mixed origin and sexual orientation. We finally left when two enormous whale like Australians were beached at their table by cyclo.

Once again, we found ourselves dining in the front room of someone’s house. The odd child wandered in and out, the staircase was littered with tiny shoes and there was underwear drying in the bathroom. Despite the dirty plastic table clothes, used plastic chopsticks and the fact that we were only the only customers in the restaurant, the food was divine.

The next day we hired a boat to take us up Perfume River at our own pace. It was obviously owned by a family, all of whom were on board. Having persuaded us to order our lunch as soon as we stepped on board, we shortly stopped at a floating market and the mom got off stepping from one boat to the next to go and procure the necessary ingredients.

Its one of Vietnam’s busiest rivers – rowing boats drift past loaded with vegetables heading for Dong Ma market and workmen and women use anything from complicated machinery to woven baskets to collect building sand off the bottom. People also still live on the river and its canal’s despite the government’s efforts to resettle them.

The first stop was the Thien Mu Pagoda which stands on the site of an ancient Cham temple. It was built on the site in 1601 but gained notoriety as a centre of Buddhist opposition to colonialism and in 1963 one of its monks, the Venerable Thich Quang Duc, burned himself to death in Siagon to protest of the excesses of President Diem’s regime. The powder blue Austin he drove to Saigon in is now parked in the grounds.

We also stopped at two of the magnificent Royal Mausoleums built by the Nguyen Emperor’s in the valley of the perfume river. It often took years to find a site with the right aesthetic requirements to satisfy the cosmologists charged with interpreting the underlying supernatural forces. Artificial lakes, waterfalls and hills were added to improve geomantic forces.

To get there we had to go on the back of two tiny mopeds along a rough jungle track. At one point we reached what to all appearances was a “handmade” bridge spanning a stream, the concrete remains of its predecessor strewn beneath and were instructed to dismount while our drivers rode nonchalantly across.

The mausoleum of Tu Duc is set in a twelve-hectare park and was built in only three years meaning that the emperor was able to enjoy it for a full 16 years to lounge around in it. You walk past lakes covered in water lilies, through enormous yellow doors past rows of loyal stone mandarins and elephants. Interestingly Tu Duc wrote his own 4000 word eulogy that is carved onto an enormous stone slap standing near his tomb.

The Mausoleum of Khai Dinh has only one main structure but this is set up on a hill looking out over the wooded valley below. The approach is by a set of grandiose dragon littered stairs leading with tiered courtyards on which complete army of mandarins stands guard. The temple at the top is excessively gaudy and disconcertingly modern (completed in 1930ish) but when one hears that Khai Dinh was rumoured to have brought back a string of fairy lights from France and worn them until the batteries ran out, it all makes sense.

We also stopped at the Hon Chen Temple but apart from the view out of over the river and loads of incense sticks in sand bowls, it had little to recommend it.

That night we got a cab to Hoi An as it was supposedly only a two hour drive but it took well over four, the traffic was unbelievable, the roads were terrible and we took one look at Da Nang and decided we never wanted to go back. This was our first encounter with Highway 1.

Visitors to Vietnam should be cautioned to avoid applying any of the usual characteristics associations with the term highway to Vietnam’s Highway 1. Despite being the county’s main arterial traffic route running from the border with China in the North right down in to the Mekong Delta in the south it is more like a dirt track in some places and where it is tarred it’s completely choked with trucks and cyclos and a wide variety of animals.

In Hoi-An we found a fantastic hotel with a large shady pool in the middle and settled in before going to the Treats Same Same Café (which it later emerged was a copy of its twin in the city centre). After a late sleep the next day and breakfast in the hotel, a bit of swim and some admin N announced that the “Holiday had really begun”.

We wandered around the old town of Hoi-An. It feels slightly like stepping back in time or at the very least into a film. The shops are hung with flowers and coloured lanterns and the streets are dust or cobbles. Children wind past on bicycles and women clip past with baskets on the end of poles, laid across their shoulders. In the shaded doorways, women sit on chairs, motionless in the heat, the soft whumping of fan.

We bought the tourist special “super” ticket that lets you into at least 5 of Hoi An’s top tourist attractions.

There’s quaint red Japanese Covered Bridge crossing a muddy little stream built to kill an earthquake monster whose heart lay beneath Hoi An in the mid-sixteenth century. Its stuffed with bizarre religious icons and a strange little temple.

The Chinese Assembly Halls and Merchant Houses are at least 200 years old and very beautiful inside. They’re built entirely of wood and some are still inhabited by the families who screen themselves from the prying eyes of the public with material curtains, flapping in the light breeze.

We also managed to find the “local” market down from the harbour. It’s a series of shops beneath plastic tauplins – a whiffy mix of fresh fish and vegetables and hand made clothing. N managed to pick up a T-Shirt for the bargain price of a pound which unfortunately spawned a shopping spree which ended £100 pounds later in the store of an extremely grateful and lovely young girl who wouldn’t stop touching me. Her “lucky charm”. We ordered suits and dresses and trousers and shirts.

Hoi An seemed to be in the midst of some sort of festival. We kept expecting it to happen but it just didn’t. On the river that runs through the middle, people were hovering around partially constructed dragons, gluing on flowers and folding bits of paper. The streets were full of bunting and flags.

We ended the evening with drinks at a bar on the corner and beef noodles and crisply pork and lemon grassy stuff at a lovely little restaurant sat on a floating pavilion in the middle of the river looking out at the brightly coloured dragons.

The next morning we hired a moped to get out to My Son ruins. My Son is Vietnam’s most evocative Cham site. Cham kings were buried here as early as the fourth century but the remaining tombs and temples are dated to the seventh and thirteenth centuries. They’ve survived so long because instead of the Cham’s technique of using a resin mixed with ground mollusc shells and crushed bricks.

Unfortunately however, mopeds in Vietnam to do not seem to come with a map and while we were assured that it was easy and were given a business card with a diagrammatic representation on the back, we still managed to get quite lost. All in the roaring mid day heat. After much heated debate – N wanting to continue over what increasingly looked NOTHING like a track and me wanting to back track - we were set back on track by a wizened old man who drew us a map in the sand and made all crystal clear without being able to speak a word of English.

Some sort of festival was on the go at My Son meaning entry was free but we were fleeced on the jeep ride up to the top to make up for it - $4 for a 10 minute return journey that we just couldn’t face walking to make in the heat.

The ruins themselves were absolutely gorgeous despite being damaged by bombs in the war.

Apparently successfully dodging trucks and dirt tracks does not mean an end to the dangers facing the My Son visitor. It is also inadvisable to stray from the paths due to the presence of unexploded mines (if they know they’re there why don’t they get rid of them?) and as we discovered, large green snakes, slithering about I the grass.

The trip back in the rain was considerably less fun especially since we were now in a hurry to get our clothes fitted, swim, shower, eat and get the first of our overnight buses – this time to Nha Trang. The relationship with the happy clothes girl soured considerably when it became clear that she had not done any of the adjustments to my stuff that we had requested that morning.

Our hotel in Nha Trang was an absolute monstrosity which threw N into a fit of abuse at Philip and his accommodation choices. Large room with an almost entirely glass wall looking out over the city, down the main boulevard. It was nonetheless exceptionally cheap for what we were getting and had a superb view out over the city and beach.

Getting out of Nha Trang proved to be slightly harder than anticipated. Mainly because the travel “sales” people were so completely and utterly useless and we had just about had enough admin to last us for awhile. I hated Nha Trang and wanted to get out and N was completely sick of rushing from one place to the next.

The day was saved by the discovery of a dive company, an excellent beach side bar populated by other backpackers, a strip of much more pleasant beach and the Nha Trang sailing club which was to become our haunt over the days that followed. The transformation that takes place on the beach in the evening is quite phenomenal. From being mainly deserted bar a smattering of tourists during the day, towards sunset it is suddenly overrun by everyone, their mates and their bicycles as what seems like the entire population of Nha Trang come down to the sea for a bit of a dip and then settle into the surrounding restaurants and bars for the evening. We stayed until after dark, sitting on the deck and watching the moon trail stretch out across the bay.

The Independence celebrations were in full swing along the beach front as we made our way back towards the hotel and stumbled upon an absolutely brilliant beachside restaurant and introduced ourselves to beef dipped in vinegar. It arrives with a pot of boiling vinegar or something and you cook your own meat with raw egg and then roll it up in rice pancakes with all sort of delectable spicy stuff and green crunchy bits. Truly divine.

The diving was rather disappointing. The visibility was really lousy below 10m and we were diving with two idiots – Tom and Jerry do underwater world. The presence of a completely typical South African arsehole detracted even further from enjoyment of the day. He wanted to know why I wasn’t back in SA helping to save the country etc etc. Luckily the snorkelling and swimming was good enough to make the trip worth it.

We had drinks and dinner at our Sail club again before going back to the hotel for a swim in the pool and early to bed.

Our plotting and planning to get the hell out Nha Trang had culminated in a private jeep trip up the coast, past the Ba Ho Falls to Doclet Beach a little further North.

Ba Ho Fall were pretty lousy. Completely and utterly overrun by sneaky touts who would precede you pretending to guide you – without you having requested the service and the path being so clear that a blind man would have found it - and insist on trying to a fee at the end of it all. I exploded and we got rid of all of the m by fall 1 but didn’t go much further. It was too hot and too sweaty and there were too many people around for it to be the genuine jungle waterfall experience you would dream of. In the end we settled for a dip in a little jacuzzi like pool of our own.

Doclet was a dream come true. Undiscovered tropical paradise with an enormous and yet fantastically empty resort. The only dodgy thing was the food in the restaurant which left us both feeling a bit worse for wear the next morning.

Interestingly the beach had a separate area for foreigners and it was only when we moved into this area that we were harangued for massages, manicures and hair removal (??) before a little man arrived and demanded payment for the loungers we were occupying.

There is no better way to start the day than with an early morning swim and follow it up with a lazy breakfast (pineapple juice out of the pineapple or coconut milk out of the coconut – the choice is yours), finally dragging yourself off to spend the day in the sun.

Another weird little observation about Vietnam – no matter where you go, no matter the number of stars in hotel title, every bathroom will have a little pedal litter bin with “Happiness to Everyone” written in red across the front and a dashing knight on his handsome steed rearing up to deliver it to you. There are also alarming quantities of scented loo paper in circulation. Why would you do that?

Another overnight bus trip and we were in Saigon in our usual post-bus trip filthy moods but the hotel was divine. We went to go and meet James’s mate Philip who was decidedly odd but who we now came to realise had managed to secure some fabulous bargains for us on our journey through Vietnam.

The War Remnants Museum – an enormous old house in the middle of the city Museum full of weapons and photographs - was excellent although it did take us a while to work out which one it was.

We eventually had lunch at some incredible, would you believe, Tex Mex, place which was over priced and did not deliver quality food. They did give us very nice iced towels though which made paying the bill that much easier.

The main shopping area of Ho Chi Minh is fascinating and it safe to say that I was by that stage, fully in shopping mode and regretting not buying stuff we had seen earlier in Hanoi which it was much cheaper. I solved this problem to some extent when N went to have a haircut and I got some shoes. The place he had his haircut was fascinating only because it was obviously some sort of “gentleman’s” club. There were a trio of round middle aged American men sitting at the back having pedicures and manicures and exchanging very expensive gifts with one another.

Sinh Café run a very tidy outfit in Vietnam from dominating the overnight bus market to some completely hilarious tours out of various centres. The first of these we booked ourselves onto was the ½ day trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

During the war Viet Cong in the area literally dug themselves underground. Now of course it’s a tourist attraction where you can get down on your knees and push the boundaries of claustrophobia in tunnels which have been considerably widened to accommodate the western midriff.

The tour really was a scream from beginning to end. You get herded up on the pavement and then into gigantic geriatric buses by a megaphone wielding megalomaniac. But firstly, the indoctrination, a 20 minute video showing just exactly how bastardly the American's are and giving a clear and coherent representation of the evil they wrought upon the innocents of Vietnam.

Next stop “real” bomb crater and then exhibit B – genuine tank. If you like you may even shoot a weapon, yes any weapon you choose, at the conveniently located shooting range. Excellent price of a dollar a bullet. Roll up, roll up. Then it’s in an out of the sweaty tunnels – revamped and modernised with truly admirable entrances. And behold the chimney cleverly disguised as a smouldering compost heap.

Finally a sample of the delicacies of tunnel life – tapioca roots and some sort of awful tea in a kitchen type structure before the penultimate delight of the souvenir shop where one can purchase engraved bullets amongst other delights.

Quote of the tour was the guide on the bus:
“So I want to know, who have lung disease & heart attack? (silence) Please no go underground because this makes big problem for me and driver”.

We spent the greater part of the afternoon at the Reunification Palace – N in absolute heaven. This place is the epitome of kitsch – a sensory delight. There are rooms for absolutely everything and would you believe a disco on the top floor and a room which is literally called “The room for presenting credentials”.

We were back in our corner bar for the rest of the evening and then dinner in, what became a firm favourite in Ho Chi Minh - Aliboo.

Our second Singh Café tour was a full day out to the Mekong Delta and despite being somewhat more prepared for the onslaught of a full day of tourism with the Japanese we were still in giggles for most of the day.

We started at My Tho the “floating fish market” that wasn’t. There was definitely something fishy though because you got a very strong whiff of it as you made your way out to the boat.

We chugged up the river on small motor boats round to the other side where we stopped for lunch and traditional craft shopping. Reroute, N developed a fascination with the Coconut Religion, a small sect that was established by the Coconut Monk on an island in the middle of the river. His name was derived from a three year stint of meditating and eating only coconuts eventually landing himself in jail under the unsympathetic communists.

After lunch we set off by motorised boat toward a small canal but enroute our engine exploded, with a series of loud repetitive bangs that sounded remarkably like we were being shot at. Yes, funny now, but not at the time. I started wrapping my valuables in plastic bags as we floated alarmingly quickly back down stream toward some extensive netting structure that had been strung up across most of the river. Two other boats eventually arrived along side and with minutes to spare we clamoured over into a new one and proceeded on our way.

At the end of the canal we stopped to visit a Bee farm, a trip which can only be described as chaotic. N managed to get stung (we were having our fingers poked into a honey comb and his was inadvertently poked onto a bee). We were then offered honey tea but boy you had to be quick because those bees sure do like their own honey. N managed to drown about 30 bees in his cup by the time we left and didn’t’ get anywhere near being able to drink a cup of tea. The musical accompaniment did not really fall within the traditional definition of “musical”.

After a short row back down the canal and to our boats, the next stop was a coconut making factory which was fascinating and encouraged us to spend too much money on a confectionary we tired of by the time we got back to the city.

After one final stop for “making of rice” photograph we were whisked back to the city and the all too convenient corner café. We did manage to drag ourselves off to find a brilliant Japanese sushi restaurant and ordered another suit for N.

Final day of shopping and just as well judging by the size of the backpacks. We got a taxi out to China town which was incredibly difficult to navigate around and to say the least disgusting. The main market there – Binh Tay Market – is an enormous multi-tiered, mustard roofed structure stalked by serpentine dragons. The inside is a chaotic mess of every kind of ware – from household goods to buckets of crabs and snails – hopefully not harvested from the stinking black river drifting by outside. The houses in the area are crumbling and overgrown with electric wires and wild ferns. And there’s an edginess to the place that soon had us hankering for the relative safety of the centre. N did manage to get some ointment for his foot (through shoe removal and demo).

Back in town we finished our seemingly never ending shopping spree at Ben Thanh market. Its also an enormous building belching stalls and traders from every orifice out on the pavements around. Inside you wander between swaying towers of material, handbags, shoes and clothes – continually extricating yourself from the grasp of traders, pleading for your money.