Hoi An, Hue, Hanoi & Halong Bay

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Ok i know its been a while since i last blogged but if i'm honest its beggining to become a little bit of a chore, i will do my best to keep u updated tho.

i had heard that Hoi An was a little expensive but luckily i bumped into a moto driver who took me to a hotel that was only $7 and clean, i checked in and went for a wander around the old quarter. Hoi An is a world heriage site and is therefore preserved to keep an original look about it which, similar to Luang Prabang in Laos, means wooden shuttered fronts on shops and engraved wooden plaques above the doors for the names and addresses. the only problem was that there wasnt really much variety in the type of shop, half were tailors, a few sold wooden carvings at an extortionate price and there were the usual souvenir type shops, other than that there wasnt really much to Hoi An. there was a market and a load of restaurants which probably made up another 20% of the buildings there and a few temples and cultural buildings that i just couldnt bring myself to pay for (ive seen more temples and cultural buidings in the last 4 months than i ever thought i would see in my whole life). that said if all u want to do is chill out next to the river and eat some good food and arn't bothered by the fact that Hoi An has lost its native feel and is now not much more than a center for tourism then its all good . . . . . or if u want a tailor made suit for less than 50 quid of course!

not far from Hoi An is a place Called My Son which is the location of the oldest temple ruins in South East Asia so i decided to get a motorbike and drive there myself rather than be limited by a tour. so after a very long drive down a dusty highway dodging cargo trucks that overtake in ways we have never dreamed of in the UK i realised i was in Danang, another place i was considering visiting if i had time but miles from my intended destination. so after asking for directions i found out that i was around 80k off course and stopped in for a coffee at a road side cafe and spent an hour or so talking to their daughter who was learning English and told me of a beach near by to go to. so there i sat on the beach reading my book while all the locals who i'm assuming take their holidays here ran around and did their thing. as the sun went down i set off for home back down the dusty highway to do battle with he cargo trucks again, only this time with the added obstacle of darkness. i finally made it back to Hoi An after havin to ask directions a couple times and parked up to get some food when Duncan and Andy came walking round the corner. so we sat and ate and were handed a flyer about a bar offering as much rum as u could drink for free between 10 and 11pm. needless to say at 10pm sharp we were at the bar and swigging back the rum relentlessly. i dont remember parking my bike up outside my hotel but it was there in the morning LOL, (dont worry Hoi An is a ghost town after midnight so the most i would have crashed into was a wall.......... but i didnt so its all good). the next day i went on the tour to My Son and saw the ruins of the temple that was originally Hindu just like Ankor Wat in Cambodia but was now Buddhist. it didnt have the striking scale of Ankor but it was clearly very old (7th or 9th century) and was definately worth a visit. i took it easy that night and was up early for my coach to Hue in the morning.

Hue is a nice enough place, it has less focus on tourism and is much more your every day vietnemese city. i made a point of having a very chilled one in Hue and just spent my time checkin out the local market, which i visited more than once to purcase more bits and pieces to send home, and spent more time haggling than i ever wanted to in my entire life. i also took a boat ride down the perfume river which was very chilled, and visited a number of tombs of old Emperors and the odd temple that were all located in some very beautiful scenery. not much other than this happened in Hue, i was only here for a couple of days and then it was off to Hanoi.

Hanoi is generally more expensive to find accomodation in and i ended up on the sixth floor of a hotel that didnt have a lift as it was around $3 cheaper, it dosnt sound much but $3 will get u a slap up meal so i opted for excersise with the reward of good food as oppose to a lower room and noodle soup ( Pho Bo - beef noodle soup, can be very good however, it also only costs around 60p) it also meant i could indulge in the many 'rum fruit fusions' they had at the Roots Reggae Bar! (located half way up Ma May, the road opposite friendly hotel and tours) highly reccomended for both music and drinks! the kind of place i wish i had round the corner back home.
so after a stroll around the lake that is central to the old quarter of Hanoi i bumped into a guy who offered to buy me a cup of tea, and dispite my suspicion i did fancy a cup of Vietnemese tea so i agreed. it turned out that he just had a friend that he wanted me to speak English with for practice so a couple of cups of tea and a hit from one of his mates baboo pipes that contained some kind of tabacco that made my head spin later, he was trying to convince me to come to the snake village to drink the live beating heart of a cobra. the thought of consuming the beating heart of any animal let alone a reptillian one was not my idea of fun so i took his number and said i would give him a call if i changed my mind, needless to say i didnt.
i booked a 3 day trip to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island shortly after which only cost $60 or 30 quid for 3 days all inclusive (nice!) Friendly tours on Me May were reccomended to me and i reaffirm that rec. just remember to smuggle any drinks in your bag as the drinks are rediculously pricey even water was $2 but this is the standard price for all boat companies, so this is a heads up.

we left for Halong Bay and boarded our boat where we ate and i remembered why i dont like squid. soon after we set sail into the bay we were surrounded by masses of pretruding limestone rock covered in greenery, with eagles circling overhead, and water that goes from blue to green full of dinner plate sized jelly fish. i went and sat at the front of the boat and just chilled and took in the magnificence of my surroundings. we sailed for around 3-4 hours and i was told tht the boat was overbooked and i would have to spend the first night on Cat Ba and the second on the boat instead of the other way around as i was the only person who was alone. this didnt bother me and after dinner in the hotel me and my new Vietnemese room mate headed into town with another guy from manchester and an irish girl for some drinks. even still it was pretty well behaved and after a few drinks and some German Karaoke we headed back for some shut eye. in the mornin i was driven to the pier to wait for the others on my boat who took about an hour and a half to get there and then driven back to more or less where i had just came from to go trekking, the thought i could be in bed right now did cross my mind while i was waiting. the trekking was the nuts tho, we went up one mountain which had an amazin view and then up another which topped the previous one (see pics). it was baking tho, and by the end of it i was literally soaked from my own sweat so much that it was like i'd just been caught in a monsoon, well worth it tho, and the river that blasted cold spring water out of a pipe at the bottom was all the much more appreciated. back at the hotel i grabbed my stuff and loaded my bag with a bottle of red wine and 2 bottles of vodka as well as a bag of baguettes as i had been told that breakfast was a bit on the small side. so after buying a further 5 beers at the pier i boarded the boat and met a couple of Americans called Marty and Shaun who informed me immediately that "this was not the party boat" i then revealed the beers and vodka, got a couple of girls involved and pretty soon we were up on deck, and it was party time! at around 1am it was only me and the 2 girls still awake, the boys were both in bed after their run in with the crew ( they came running up the stairs to get me after one of the Vietnemese jumped on a table with a bottle in each hand and threatened to beat them after they tried to nick a bottle of water. no one could understand a word the other was saying and it was getting pretty intense when i suddenly remembered the Vietnemese for 'no problem' which everyone then started repeating and the situation was almost instantly resolved..........somehow?) anyway so we are on deck and an Ozzie guy from another boat calls over and says he is gonna jump in and swim over with 3 beers. so me and the girls go to lower the solid wooden ladder so he can get in, rather than tie it we decide to just hold onto it and as he starts climbing, it almost completly slides off deck and i'm left pretty much holding the weight of him and the ladder with some assistance from one of the girls. i urge him to climb onto the boat 'right now' and he clambers onto one of the girls and rolls onto the deck with 2 beers ( the other one fell in the sea, still how he swam with a beer in each hand is still a mystery) and we carried on until around 2am where i fell asleep on deck. luckilly i woke up b4 mornin when it lashed with rain and i had remembered to bring my bag down with me, however i didnt remember my trainers. i went upstairs and saw them sitting under one of the chairs and hoped for the best, but they were filled to the rim with water! the meager breakfast was served and i distributed the Baguettes which meant there was just about enough and we set sail for Halong Bay. we got some lunch and headed back to Hanoi. i checked into the Friendly hotel, again top floor was cheapest and headed for Roots. i sampled a selection of their rum infusions (large glass containers of rum with different fruits fermenting inside them) made my own playlist as i had got talking to the guy who ran it and just chilled for a while drinking good rum (passion friut was lovely) and listening to good music before almost gettin robbed on the way home. as i got to my hotel room a bunch of hookers came up to me and started grabbing me (in all areas) asking me if i want 'boom boom' after explaining that i am going to bed they still persisted and i suddenly felt one of them in my pocket. she clocked that i clocked and dropped my wallet on the floor and this is when i told them all to do one, they jumped on their motorbikes which a couple of guys were driving and i suddenly realised my camera was gone. i jumped in front of the bike and demanded my camera back and started frisking them while they were telling me i was crazy. i said that i will hold him there until the police come and started calling to the guy at my hotel, when one of the other girls who wasnt on the bike started pointing at the floor behind a parked van. i couldnt see what she was pointing at so i forced the bike backwards and there was my camera so i let go and grabbed it and off they went, with the cheek to tell me that "i no good" i cant repeat what i said to them but nevertheless i still have my camera and they are still scum.
i spent the next day just wandering around the old quarter, bumped into Marty and Shaun, had some of the best Pho Bo ive had and a couple of beer hoi (one glass 10p) and headed off for the airport to catch my flight to Bangkok.

i am not able to go to china as they are still not issuing visas without an unreasonable amount of data i.e 2 plane tickets, hotel bookings for the duration, an itinerary! etc. this is most likely due to them not wanting some kind of free Tibet protest kicking off while camera crews from every country in the world are recording. this would of course put unwanted pressure on them to do something about Tibets freedom, or lack of it. things are said to be returning to normal on oct 17th so i am currently in Bangkok, i have just picked up my Indian visa after spending the last 3 days in Beautiful Railay and the 2 before that buying and sending home a new wardrobe. my flight to Calcutta is at midday tomorrow and sparks the start of some serious travelling and adventure, from what i have been told my jouney so far wont even put a scratch on India, so i take a deep breath, wish u all Much Love and prepare for chapter 2.

P.S i had to hold myself back from spraying this on the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi so i write it here instead-

FREE TIBET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PEACE

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Photos

post office in Hoi An
this is pretty much how all the shops look