Hoi An - Nha Trang - Central Highlands - Saigon

Hey everyone,

It has been a while since my last post but here it is!

HOI AN.
My first day in Hoi An started off with what might have been the best breakfast I have had so far in Vietnam. After breakfast I walked around and explored the town. Although I had heard that there are lot's of tailors in Hoi An, I didn't expect anything like this. Every second store is a tailor and you can literally get anything made. Besides the shops and a nice Japanese covered bridge there is actually not that much to see. In the afternoon I returned to the hotel where I found a very interesting book about Vietnam's history. So I just settled myself on the balcony with my new book. I knew that Tim and Sam would arrive this afternoon as well so it was also a good place to try and spot them as they would get out of the bus. Wen they arrived, they booked a room in the same hotel as me and we went out for dinner and some drinks. We ended up in a place that served free rum and coke between 22:00 and 23:00 hours which was quite interesting. As we changed bars later that night it was funny to walk into another bar and see some people you have met before.
The next 2 days in Hoi An were actually pretty similar. We spend a day at the beach and had good and cheap dinners and beers. On our last day here we booked a trip to My Son. These are some remains of the ancient Cham empire. Although the ruins were nice, I didn't find them very impressing. Later that they we got onto a sleeper bus to Nha Trang which was a 13 hour ride. In Hoi An I found myself, for the first time actually, not doing that much which was actually kind of nice. Although Hoi An didn't have that many interesting sights it is still high on my list with favorite places so far as it had a very relaxing atmosphere and the food and drinks were good and very cheap.

NHA TRANG.
I heard about Nha Trang that it was supposed to be the 'Salou' of Vietnam and although you could see that there are many big hotels at the seaside and they are building even more, I still think the place was pretty nice. As I took the bus here from Hoi An with the 2 English guys, Sam and Tim, we stayed in the same hotel again. The first day was, as it usually is, more about exploring the town than actually doing anything. We did have an amazing seafood dinner that night and went out for a couple of drinks afterwards. Second day was an entire day at the beach which was, again, very relaxing. In the meantime I had decided to book a trip with a group of motorbike riders that call themselves Easyriders. The concept is you hop on a motorbike with your guide and all your stuff and in three days he shows you "real Vietnam". My guide persuaded me with repeating his tag-lines: "Same-Same but different", "do something else" and "don't be shy, you be sorry". Even though the 3 day trip was a bit expensive, I have heard great stories about these guys so I just decided to do it. On my last night in Nha Trang we decided to have the same seafood dinner we had the first night and it was, again, breathtaking. Although we didn't plan to go drinking or do anything crazy we ended up being totally drunk after a few games of cards and some cocktail jars called 'why-not-buckets'. On the way home I ended up driving around a sleeping Vietnamese guy in his cyclo and we had some final drinks with some local guys on the street. Because I had to get up at 8 o'clock the next morning the drinking was probably not the best idea but it sure was one of the best evenings so far.

CENTRAL HIGHLANDS.
The next morning I woke up with a terrible hangover at 08:30 hours while I was supposed to be picked up at that time. In record speed I got dressed, packed my bag, paid the hotel and got out to meet my guide/driver. It really is a miracle that I didn't forget anything from the hotel that morning. The first day with the easyrider already showed that it was a good decision. We rode thru beautiful landscapes along the cost and later thru the first hills of the central highlands. The driver would occasionally stop to let me stretch my legs and take some pictures. He also showed me and explained me about lobster fishing, coffee plantations, a brick factory, rubber plantations and pepper plantations. After a nice lunch that made me realize how much I usually get overcharged my driver drove ahead so that I could stretch my legs a bit. As I was walking thru this village I saw a wedding going on at the other side of the street. When I tried to take a picture the people invited me in which was very entertaining. One Vietnamese guy was trying to pull me onto the stage while another was giving me a beer and offering cigarettes. I ended up playing some drums on the stage and talking with some other people. The funny thing is while I was completely hungover, these people just drank 30 cases of beers which were scattered all over the floor. After a while my driver came to check up on me and we drove on. We spent the night in a couple of bungalows in a national park that had lot's of waterfalls. After we had arrived I rested for a while and than I had dinner with my driver and 2 Vietnamese friends of his. Besides rice, noodles, some soup, pork, vegetables there was also dog meat on the table. One dish was some kind of stew from dog meat while the other was barbecued dog meat that we had picked up on the way. At the restaurant where we bought the barbecued dog meat the chef was actually roasting the meat while the dog that was going to be cooked the next day was in the same room. Although most pieces of the dog are kind of chewy, the taste is actually pretty good.

The next day we started of with walking around in the national park, visiting the huge waterfalls. During the rest of the day we had no less than 3 flat tires but we also stopped to see cashew trees and a mushroom farm. At the mushroom farm this old lady had a huge python which I could touch and actually held in my neck. As I am very scared of snakes it's a good thing that my driver, Huy, kept pushing me otherwise I would probably never have done it. Todays final destination was a minority village where we would spend the night with some local people. At this village I also got to ride on an elephant which was a lot of fun. Dinner was again amazing and we had actually quite a lot of rice wine to go with it.

The last day of my trip was less exciting and was more about getting to the final destination, Dalat. On the way I did see a lot of beautiful scenery's again as Dalat is at 1800m altitude. One funny event was a couple of Vietnamese guys transporting a calf on a motorbike. Obviously when we showed up the poor animal had just fallen of and we helped them to but the animal back on the bike. When we got to Dalat I quickly changed cloth and hopped on to a bus to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). I thought the bus ride was going to take 4 hours but I must have misunderstood as it took almost double as long.

SAIGON.
I got into Saigon at about 23:00 hours. I really hate it to arrive at night as you are tired everything is dark, the streets are hectic and you have no idea where to go. It is very obvious that Saigon is a much more economically developed city, some ways of telling are: more cars, more 'real' shops, more multinationals and more chubby Vietnamese people. During my two days in the city I visited the Independence palace and the war remnants museum which were both very interesting. Although it is a nice city I did not like Saigon as much as for example Hanoi. Maye it's because it is in some ways more similar to home but still a mess. Hanoi is also a mess but you have the feeling that it's a totally different place so that somehow justifies it I guess. After 2 days in the city there were 2 things left on my wish-list: the Cu Chi tunnels and the Mekong delta, the problem was that my Visa was running out fast and I actually didn't have time. After a consultation at a travel agency I was told that it is no problem to overstay your visa for 48 hours so I booked a 1 day trip to the tunnels and a cadoist temple and a 2 day trip to the Mekong delta that would end in Pnom Phen, Cambodia.

The Cu Chi tunnels were very impressive. It is hard to beleive that 1600 people lived in those tunnels for almost 26 years (during the French and US wars). At the tunnel complex they also showed us some traps, bom craters and other influences from the US-war. Finally I also paid to fire a AK47 machine gun which was an awesome experience.

I was glad that the 2 day mekong delta trip for me was partly sightseeing and partly getting to Cambodia because the sightseeing part, although we saw some nice things, was rather small compared to the amount of hours we were in a bus. The first day we saw a floating wholesale market, the coconut village (where they produce lot's of things from coconuts) and a part of the Mekong river off course. On the trip I met a nice German guy, Sebastion, who I spend the evening with in the border town of Chau Doc. The next day I got onto a boat that took us to a catfish farm and another minority village before it took us to the border. After having lunch there and filling out all the forms and formalities we got on a bigger boat towards Pnom Phen.

I am writing this whole story to you from Pnom Phen but you can read about that in the next post.

Cheers for now.

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