SE Asia 2007 - Vietnam - Hue, Hoi An, Lang Co, Nha Trang

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Day 7: Sun 1 July - Hue

I woke up about an hour or so before and everyone was already awake. It was about 8am, and I woke up surprisingly refreshed which I didn’t really expect from sleeping on such a rocky train. My breakfast noodle box was very similar to those I was used to back in Australia with 2-minute-style noodles and dried meat and vegetable, except it was even more tasty than back home, but you’d except that in an Asian country. There was an urn full of boiling water at the end of the carriage and Jackie Chan said it was safe to drink as it had been boiled, so I used this for my noodles.
We arrived in Hue where another minibus was waiting for us at the station. The way Jackie Chan pronounced Hue was unusual. It didn't sound the way it was spelt, but sounded more like Hway, as if the H and W were one letter and had a wispy sound to it. Jackie Chan led us through a crowd of locals shouting at us trying to get us to come with them in their taxi or book into their hotel or guesthouse. Again it felt good to have pre-arranged transport and accommodation and to be part of a group instead of being more vulnerable to getting hassled as an individual. Hue was much more laid back than busy Hanoi, and already I was noticing the place was a bit cleaner and the streets weren’t packed with motorbikes. This was the former capital of Vietnam hundreds of years ago, but it definitely wasn’t large or busy or noisy enough today to come close to that. It was more like a small country town. We had a good quality hotel just off the main street, and I saw Intrepid tour signs in the foyer so it seemed like we were following the Intrepid tours around the country. Jackie Chan wanted us downstairs fairly soon after we arrived to take us on a tour of the city, which was actually included as part of our tour so there was no need to pay any extra.
Our tour of Hue first took us to the Imperial Palace, a place where the Vietnamese government had lived hundreds of years ago. The buildings were spectacular, and the place was similar to the Temple Of Literature in Hanoi except on a larger scale. The area inside the main building had a large polished floor with tall pillars with a statue of a Buddha inside. We were able to climb to the top and see a wonderful view of the whole grounds. Other buildings included a large theatre holding a carriage for royalty to sit in while four people would carry it around. It was a bit sad to see a larger part at the back totally destroyed by conflict in the Vietnam War, and we were asked not to walk back there whatsoever as there was the possibility of finding unexploded bombs. I had my photo taken with a dragon carved meticulously out of stone.
Next stop was the Tu Duc tomb, which was a large burial area for the Emperor Tu Duc of the 19th Century. It was surrounded by a large stone wall, which meant by entering the gate we had to pay an entry fee of 55000 Dong, which was the same amount we paid to get into the Imperial Palace, but this was still only about $4 for each entry so it wasn't a big issue. After we got inside we followed a large stone walkway taking us towards a large pond full of pink lotus flowers and white waterlilies, which was built in honour of the Emperor. After a few photos we walked up some steps to a large wooden hut like the ones I’d seen in the Temple Of Literature in Hanoi. Inside we found paintings of the Emperor and beautiful landscapes of the countryside as well as a Buddha shrine. Walking through the other side we found a large garden with steps heading up to a building with a very high roof. Inside the building we found a huge tablet covered in Chinese and Vietnamese characters. Up another flight of steps behind this was a small courtyard with stone walls. On the inside of the stone walls was an intricate mosaic of tiles coloured orange, red, jade green, and grey, with various patterns imprinted on them. A lot of effort was put in just to celebrate the passing of an Emperor, and it definitely showed.
I asked Jackie Chan if we could visit any other tombs similar to this, but he said we didn’t have the time to do it. This probably meant the tour only allowed for a few stops along the way and it would’ve cost a lot of extra money to let the driver take us anywhere else. He did ask though if anyone was interested in a cruise down the river in the middle of town, and not having anything else on offer to do I agreed to come along, although he told us it would cost us an extra 20,000 Dong each, which was a bit disappointing to hear, but it was only an extra $1 so I went for it. The rest of the tour joined in, and we boarded a wooden boat with a roof and no windows so we could rest our arms outside and take in the cool air. The boat moved very slowly down the river and was quite boring, with not much scenery on either side or much activity from passing boats either. I was over it in about 10 minutes so I stood up on the end of the boat to see if I could see much else, but it wasn’t much more interesting.
The boat eventually docked at a place called the Thien Mu pagoda. At the entrance was a flight of steps heading up to three or four tall free-standing pillars which were quite colourful and carefully designed, almost like a totem pole except curved on the edges. Passing through the pillars we came to a few more of those wooden huts we had seen everywhere, except this one had several Buddhist monks inside with shaved heads and orange capes just like the monks we had seen in Hanoi, and they were chanting very loudly. We were allowed to look inside but weren’t allowed to enter or take photos, so we watched from a distance. A few steps away from there was a small shrine built for a monk who was famous in 1963 for protesting against the Vietnamese government by setting himself alight and basically burning himself to death. The monk’s name was Thich Quang Duc. The photo of this was displayed inside the shrine and it was quite graphic and unbelievable to see. The same photo can be found on the self titled debut album of American band Rage Against The Machine, a band famous for its protests and uprising against the government.
After our tour of the pagoda and surrounding grounds, the bus took us back to our hotel. On exiting the bus Jackie Chan asked us to hand him a tip of US$15 for the drivers and other tour guides in Vietnam which he said was mandatory. I didn’t really question this and thought it was a reasonable request so I handed it to him, and so did everyone else. This would become an issue later on in the tour but for now I didn’t see anything wrong with it at the time.
The rest of the day was quite uneventful. I spent some time at the free internet terminals in the hotel's foyer, I met up with a few tour members to go out to dinner with, and then a few of us wandered around the town of which there wasn't much to see. Remarkably though as night fell the main bridge of the town had been lit up with various bright colours, and I only wished I'd brought my camera to capture it. It was a nice ending to the day.

Day 8: Mon 2 July - Lang Co beach, Hoi An

After spending only one night in our hotel in Hue and after a lacklustre breakfast including stale bread and tasteless fried rice, we were back on the road again in the bus and heading off south again to the town of Hoi An. After leaving the city and surrounding villages outside Hue, we came closer to the coastline, and eventually we could see beaches to our left and big green hills to our right as if the coastal road was dissecting them. It was a rather pleasant view on both sides, apart from when we briefly went inland passing through several towns which all seemed to look similar to each other. After about an hour and a half we stopped off at a beach called Lang Co, and Jackie Chan gave us an hour to have a swim or do some sunbaking or just relax. I decided I’d get in the water and swim around, which was pretty fun. The sun was burning my naked feet and the temperature outside was quite warm on such a sunny day, so I made sure I was in the water as much as possible. Only a few in our group went for a swim, with some just sunbaking and the Polish couple walking around happily taking photos as they had been doing so far for the whole tour. After a while we were joined by another group of people. I chatted to a few of them and found out they were on an Intrepid tour. We just can’t seem to escape Intrepid tour people. They seemed to be more social and comfortable with each other than my group, and when they got out of the water they showered and dried off and went inside a building to have lunch. I was actually a bit hungry by this stage and wanted to do the same, but Jackie Chan said we had to get dressed and back in the minibus. At least we had a good hour at the beach.
A few minutes down the road we started climbing up through the hills and we came to a point where the road was crossed by a train line, and the crossing gate was down as a train was approaching. This gave us a few more minutes to get out and stretch our legs, and it was a great spot to do it as it gave us a great photo opportunity of the beach and the coastline below. The train eventually came after about 15 minutes and we were on our way making a climb up through the hills hugging the coastline. As we climbed further the coastline became harder to see and eventually it disappeared over a mountain, until we reached the top where we stopped for a few minutes and could see an amazing view down both sides of the top of the mountain. The place we stopped at was called the Hai Van Pass, and apparently it had been used in the past as a strategic point to stop invasions from opposing parties. Down the other side we could see the huge crescent-shaped cove of Da Nang beach and also the city of Da Nang itself. It was a spectacular view, but as we were trying to take photos and soak up the view we were being hassled by old women trying to sell us things from their stalls. Even on such a beautiful place like this the desperate locals can find a place to hassle passers-by into trying to buy their food and drinks and random useless souvenirs. There were also a couple of men trying to sell us things through the windows of the bus and one of them even opened our bus door as we arrived to try to sell us something. I know these people are desperate to sell, but when you deploy sales tactics like that you have to realise that people are going to get offended and will turn away.
We descended down the mountain towards Da Nang, which was just as scenic as the road up the mountain. As the road winded further down towards Da Nang we passed a few watch points where a Vietnamese soldier would be standing with a rifle waiting for something, but they didn’t stop our bus so obviously they weren’t waiting for us. Da Nang looked picturesque from above, but as we got down to the city itself it looked cluttered and rundown and not very exciting, but luckily we were only passing through on the way to Hoi An which was only half an hour away. In the middle of nowhere in town the bus stopped while Jackie Chan went into this shop to pick up our train tickets that we would be using to get down to Nha Trang in a few days. It wasn’t a friendly-looking travel agent that he went into to collect the ticket, it was more like a boarded-up disused store, so it looked a bit dodgy, although the tickets he picked up were valid as we found out later when boarding the train. We were putting our trust in Jackie Chan, and as far as transport went he had everything sorted out, so I guess we had to give him credit for that.
Hoi An was a quiet town, somewhat smaller than Da Nang, and had a similar atmosphere to Hue. The streets were even less crowded than Hue, and once we reached the main road we had moved through the town in only 5 minutes before we arrived at our hotel. We were only 5 to 10 minutes’ walk away from the town centre and we were in a very quiet area, although the whole town seemed very laid back. Jackie Chan told us this was a great place to get any clothes tailored for us at a really good price, so a few of us were keen to see what we could find. We arrived in the afternoon so we still had a bit of time to explore the town before the shops closed for the day, so after settling into our rooms a group of us walked into town. Jackie Chan told us that the main thing to do here outside the town was visit the My Son ruins which was an ancient town built out of stone that had been rediscovered recently and was described as a smaller version of the Angkor Wat ruins, but he quoted us US$30 per person for a day trip out there. We thought he meant US$30 for the whole group, but he wasn’t joking when he said it was for each person. We thought this was a ridiculous price, so went into town to find a better price. There were several travel agents around the town, and the first one we went to quoted US$4 per person for the return trip with a guide, a US$26 saving! It seemed obvious that Jackie Chan was trrying to rip us off, so we ditched his tour option and convinced almost everyone in our group to take the US$4 bus tour.
We found out that Hoi An had its own signature dish to try here that was hard to find anywhere else in Vietnam, and it was called Cau Lo (or something similar to that). It was basically strips of braised pork in noodles with a few green vegetables and a pork soup with pork crackling to top it off. I ordered some at a nearby restaurant for a mere 10000 Dong (about $1), and I got served a huge bowl of it and it tasted absolutely amazing! It was by far the tastiest thing I’d eaten in Vietnam, it just melted in my mouth, and the pork crackling was a nice crunchy addition to it. I finished it off fast and if I wasn’t almost full I would’ve bought another one. If I knew their secret I’d make it at home.
Walking through town I noticed almost every store on some streets were clothing stores with kind staff members waiting to measure customers up for clothes. Most of the clothes they were offering to tailor were suits and jackets and dresses, but I wasn’t interested in any of that. Several places had corduroy material so I kept that in mind thinking about whether I wanted to get some corduroy pants made.
I wandered around the town some more before walking back to our hotel, and I tried to find out if anyone was around ready to go out for a meal but I could only find the Polish couple, so we went out and had a reasonably good meal with a few beers and that was pretty much our night. There was nothing in the town that excited me too much and there was only a handful of bars, but I wasn’t really in the mood for a drink by myself so I watched some English-language TV in my hotel room before falling asleep.

Day 9: Tue 3 July - Hoi An

Today we were on a bus trip to the My Son ruins about an hour outside town. The travel agent we booked at told us a bus would be picking us up from our hotel. When the bus arrived it was a huge empty 50-seater coach, so it was pretty luxurious for a $4 trip. We wondered if this coach was here just for us, but we soon found out the answer to that. We spent the next hour and a half going around to several hotels and guesthouses and even a few hostels filling up the whole bus with tourists. At least it was interesting zig-zagging through the streets of the town getting to see the whole place, and at least being picked up first meant we got choice of seats.
Eventually we were on our way and only 10 minutes after leaving town we were into the countryside, past grassy fields and only a handful of houses bunched together. This was the least populated part of Vietnam I’d seen so far, apart from when we were climbing through the hills and mountains. One thing I found fascinating was that several villagers had handpicked thousands of chillis and had laid them out on a sheet in front of their houses for drying in the sun. Each one looked like a bright red blanket.
After about an hour we had reached the entrance to the My Son ruins, although in order to get there the coach had to park next to a gift shop and small outdoor restaurant while waiting for the guide to take us to the entrance. What a coincidence. Our guide told us a bit about what we were about to see them asked us to follow him down to a bridge across a small river. Over the other side was a minibus and a Jeep which we were told would take us down a narrow road to the ruins. I wished I’d taken the Jeep as the minibus was quite boring and cramped. We arrived and after a rather boring talk from our guide we walked down a path and found the first group of ruined stone buildings. It wasn’t a very large area, but we were able to walk up to and around about 10 different stone buildings, most of which were quite small and didn’t have anything inside them or weren’t open to the public. It was a bit exciting to see old ruins such as these, but after taking a few photos of the ruins I was feeling quite underwhelmed and went in search of the next group of ruins. I walked down another path which took me to a couple of very small ruins which looked more like piles of bricks than anything that could be described as ruins. I wandered around looking for other ruins but couldn’t figure out how to get to anything else, and I wondered whether this was the whole tour already over. I spent some time walking around searching for more but didn’t have much success, and eventually gave up and walked back to the minibus parking area. I suppose you can’t expect much for $4. At least we were able to do something with our day and get out to the countryside.
We then had an option to take the bus back to town or take a boat down a river back to town with a meal included in the price. For the price it was an offer I almost couldn’t refuse if it wasn’t for the fact that it sounded pretty boring. I didn’t have anything else to do back in town so I went for the boat. We got served the meal straight away, which was just a few pieces of meat with vegetables and noodles. It tasted alright, but the rest of the boat trip was pretty boring as I had guessed. Although I scored a good photo of a old fisherman tossing his large fishing net out into the water. Our boat stopped so we could watch him toss his net, and then he stopped to take tips from the others on the boat. One guy gave him a 100,000 Dong note! It’s only about $8 to us but it would’ve meant a lot to the old fisherman.
After a slow ride along the river we arrived back in Hoi An right near the town’s food and clothing markets, another strategic stop on the tour. At least people weren’t hounding us to buy things as we walked through the market like on the streets of Hanoi. There wasn’t much I was interested in buying and it seemed to be mostly full of vegetables for the locals, so I moved on. I wandered lost around the town for a while with Darren, heading back to the same restaurant as yesterday for another bowl of yummy Cau Lo, passing a few nice colourful buildings along the way and even walking into a few clothing shops inquiring about prices, and as we got to our final stretch towards the hotel it started to absolutely pour down with rain. I hadn’t taken my raincoat with me so I got completely drenched. On this tour we were extremely lucky with the rain, and this was our only major downpour other than for one afternoon in Hanoi. I actually welcomed getting soaked for once, although upon getting back to the hotel I noticed the receipts and the map in my pocket were destroyed. It didn’t worry me too much though.
Not long after being back at the hotel the rain stopped. It would’ve been nicer if it had rained after we got to the hotel but that’s just how things happen. I relaxed for a bit before a few of us regrouped for dinner. Leszek had found a nice place in a guidebook to visit for dinner, so we took his word for it and followed him into town. It was a fairly long walk and a bit hard to find, but it was worth it when we got there. I was able to score another bowl of Cau Lo which I had as an entrée even though it was the same size, and then for my main meal I had a huge piece of fish marinated in a light lemon sauce with rice laid out on a banana leaf, and it only set me back 60,000 Dong, about $4! This was an awesome town for tasty food. After a nice relaxing meal we wandered back to the hotel, and again no-one was really interested in going out for a drink so I watched a bit more TV before going to bed. Tomorrow we had a big day of travelling ahead of us.

Day 10: Wed 4 July - day train to Nha Trang (worst travel day of my life)

Today was the most frustratingly boring day of my travelling life. I’ve had full days of travelling before where I was able to stop every 2 to 3 hours and take a break somewhere, even when doing all-day road trips in Australia, but today wasn’t the case. Instead of a night train down south from Da Nang to Nha Trang, we would be taking a day train, for at least 12 hours, maybe more! I didn’t read the itinerary closely enough to realise what was in store for us today, but I wished I’d planned for this in advance. I figured the train ride wouldn’t be too bad if there was something to do, but there was next to nothing. The scenery outside was nice for half an hour, but I’d seen it all before and there was nothing spectacular out that window anymore. Not being with a very social group, they were more interested in sleeping or reading or listening to music than sitting around chatting or playing cards. I walked up and down the carriages and there wasn’t even a dining car or a bar, it was all passenger carriages. At least on a night train there’s the opportunity to sleep, but when you’ve had a good long sleep the night before it’s hard to fall asleep again when you want to get out and be active. If I had known what the train was going to be like I would’ve considered looking into a flight, or even taken my own night train the night before. The only thing that cured the boredom was when we stopped at the occasional train station or when train staff came down the aisles selling food and drinks. Neither of these happened with any frequency. I had bought some munchies at Da Nang train station before getting on the train, just some chips and choc chip cookies and assorted things, and I found myself eating them just to kill the time.
I didn’t feel relieved or overjoyed when we finally arrived at Nha Trang station, I was feeling numb and disillusioned and mentally drained over the whole experience. It was around 10pm when we arrived to find a bus waiting to take us to our hotel. At least transport was still organised well on this trip. Our hotel was quite welcoming. It was high on the top floor with views of the town to the south and the west, and the beach and coastline to our east. The rooms were nice and cool also, with a strange picture of a naked couple lying on a beach hanging in our bathroom. I suppose it was some consolation after the hell on tracks we had just escaped from.
Just across the road from our hotel was a bar with neon signs out the front. Our whole group crossed the road to check it out, all 7 of us. This place had a nice homely feel to it. Loud catchy music, friendly bar staff, cheap drinks, a pool table and foozball table, and a complimentary cocktail for everyone! Nha Trang was a seaside town aimed at Westerners, and this bar was taking advantage of it, and we weren’t complaining. Something that caught my eye was that the music was being played straight from a computer, and we could select our own songs to play, and even download them if we could find them, and it was all free! This was pretty exciting as I’d never been to a bar that did this, anywhere! So music was selected by a few of us, drinks were had, pool and foozball was played, and for once our group finally got social with each other as a whole. This was the first time I had a chance to really drink in a group, so I had the most out of anyone, and when the bar closed we went back to our hotel to find a big gate locking us out. We couldn’t immediately see a way to open it, so in my drunken state I decided I’d climb it and open it on the other side. Then someone realise there was a side gate that was unlocked. Well, at least I had fun. It was about 1am, maybe 2am, and time for bed. After probably the worst day on tour we ended up with probably the best night on tour so far, so it evened out.

Day 11: Thu 5 July - Nha Trang

This morning I slept in until midday as it was the first chance I was able to do this on the whole tour, apart from the day we’d just had doing nothing on the train. I didn’t really count that as a decent bed though. Surprisingly I didn’t have a hangover, but I was very hungry. As I was deciding whether to get out of bed or not, Darren came back into the room and we decided to grab some lunch. We wandered down to the beach, which was only 3 blocks away, and went to a rather classy looking establishment called Nha Trang Sailing Club. Meals were around 80,000 to 120,000 Dong each, even for lunch, but I was in the mood for a good meal, and most of them were very Westernised as I found was most of the whole town. I scored some battered fish and chips which gave me a welcoming feel of being back home, even though I’d eaten some very tasty Vietnamese food up to this point (as well as a few rather average meals). It was nice to relax looking out on a sandy beach. I noticed that the rest of our tour group was relaxing on deck chairs, except for Liam who was out just past the waves swimming laps back and forth. At one point he came out and started playing soccer (or football if you want to be correct) with some local Vietnamese boys, getting someone to take some action photos of him which actually came out really well.
After spending a couple of hours doing nothing Darren and I went for a walk along the beach. We could see a cable car off in the distance stretching across to an island on the other side of the beach, so we figured we’d walk over to it. It didn’t look too far away, but it was taking us ages to get there, even to the point where we ran out of beach and had to walk on the road. After a good hour of beach and road walking in the warm sun we reached an area of houses and shops with no tourists in sight and we wondered if we’d ever get there. Something like one and a half hours later, we got to the entrance of the cable car and there was a huge lineup of locals who had come off several tour buses. It took us another half an hour to get through the line to get onto the cable car, but eventually we made it. Just before getting on I saw a sign asking not to take several different items onto the cable car, one of those ridiculously being an atomic weapon. I jokingly commented that I’d forgotten to take one with me today. I guess you just had to be there to get the joke.
The view from the cable car was pretty spectacular. I could see the whole town of Nha Trang and all the way down the coastline, and down both sides of the blue sea to some islands way off in the distance. When we got over the other side we exited out into a theme park, complete with merry-go-round and rollercoaster. It was a quite unusual thing to find in a town like this. We weren't too interested in it so we walked down to the shore and caught a ferry back to town which we asked the driver to take us to, or so we thought. He ended up taking us back to the cable car entrance on the other side of the sea, which was one and a half hours’ walk away from where we wanted to be! We weren’t walking that again so we had to take a taxi back to town. When we got back we went back down to the sailing club and found Katarzyna and Leszek sitting there relaxing, so we joined them for a drink. For some reason I went for something on the menu I’d never tried before, a container of sake. The little bottle came out and it contained about 4 shots inside it. They weren’t as powerful as rocket fuel, but they were strong enough to give me a nice buzz! With that we walked back to the hotel for a bit of further relaxation before agreeing to meet up again later for dinner.
The rest of the group all met up and went searching for another place Leszek had found in a guidebook, but we went walking for about half an hour on the main boulevarde until I asked at a hotel’s reception if they knew where the restaurant was, but it had closed down. So we walked down another road back towards our hotel until we found a decent place to eat. We stopped at a place called Good Morning Vietnam that served Italian food. This sure was a Westernised town with a place like that. The food was pretty good though, and our night ended up back at the same bar we’d been at the night before. This was a quieter night though, and I only had a few beers before heading to bed.

Day 12: Fri 6 July - Nha Trang (night train)

I didn't really have a plan for today, but we had to check out of our rooms eventually so I couldn’t stay in bed all day. Liam told us that yesterday afternoon he had been using the internet terminals that we had all been told were free for hotel customers, but for some reason the guy at reception on that particular day tried to charge him a fee as he finished up. Liam said he got into a heated argument with the guy and both of them were shouting at each other, but eventually the reception guy gave in and Liam got off fairly, but he was still rather angry about it. This was just another case of the locals trying to rip off us travellers.
Today we were basically killing time until our next night train down south, this time to Ho Chi Minh City. There wasn’t anything I particularly wanted to do, and for some reason I wasn’t really up for a swim. After checking out of the hotel I had lunch with a few people who were hanging around at checkout time, then I spent a bit of time catching up on things at the hotel's internet terminals. However the highlight of the day was in the afternoon.
Liam had sold me on the idea of buying a nice seafood meal here after he said he bought a 5kg top quality lobster yesterday for only 500,000 Dong which was exquisite, so for dinner we went searching for a decent place. We found a restaurant on the waterfront with a menu that had no individual prices, only a price for each item per kilogram. I was a bit wary of this so we walked in to inquire. Basically the fish they had on offer were about 500 grams each, they had tiger prawns for 100 grams each, and crab for about 700 grams, so I scored myself a piece of steamed fish, 5 tiger prawns, and a steamed crab, shell and all. I'd never had a meal like this before as it usually costs too much back home for me to bother, so when the whole thing only added up to 300,000 Dong I was so proud of the opportunity to have such a lavish meal. The chef even brought out the freshly caught seafood for us to choose before he cooked it! Damn it tasted good too. The fish was so tender and flavoursome, the prawns just as good, and the crab meat was the best I've ever tasted. I was so proud of it that I took a photo before and after eating it. The plate was huge and filled up with seafood, and the shells I had left in the end filled up the plate just as much as when I started!
Darren and I realised we still had just under an hour to kill before the bus was due to pick us up to take us to the train station, so we went across the road to the same bar we’d been to every night we were in Nha Trang and had a few more bottles of Bia Saigon, our new favourite beer for the last couple of weeks or so. When the bus arrived we all piled in, said goodbye to Nha Trang and headed back towards the train station. Again we got there a bit earlier than we expected, but at least this didn’t mean we were arriving too late and missing the train, so earlier was better. When the train finally arrived it was exactly the same as the previous long-distance trains we’d caught in Vietnam, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if we’d been on this train already. We all boarded, found out which of our tickets matched the cabins we were in, and relaxed until falling asleep.

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