Parting is such sweet sorrow

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I've managed to occupy myself for three hours now, and i've got another one before i can check in for my flight to london, so now seems like the ideal time to blog my last week in SE Asia.

I finished my last blog with just enough time to go back and pick up my luggage before heading to the train station for the overnight train to danang (en route for hoi an). It was with a certain amount of trepidation that i climbed onto the train... I'd read that theft on overnight trains was not uncommon and that you shouldn't accept anything offerred by fellow passengers cos it could be spiked to make you sleep while theives go through your luggage. To mitigate such risks I booked the most expensive ticket available, figuring those that could afford such tickets shouldn't need to steal. But still, I had to share a fourth berth cabin with who-knows whom, and the signage at the train station was only sporadically in english. But i eventually found where i was supposed to be and you can imagine my relief when i was greeted by two english woman (a mother/daughter duo; Angela and Jenny) apologizing for the smell created by their blue cheese baguettes.

After about half an hour of optimistically believing we might have just the three of us in the cabin, the fourth bed was occupied by what at first glance looked to be a fairly harmless vietnamese women and her small son (maybe five or six?? who would know)... this relief lasted about half an hour until this child started screaming... and wouldn't stop for the 17 hours we were on the train. Given that neither the women nor child could speak a word of english, Angela, Jenny and I bonded over our mutual hatred of this heathen, eventually deciding that it really wouldn't be fair to take matters into our own hands, three grown women against this little ****, he wouldn't stand a chance.

When the train pulled into Danang station we thankfully parted ways with the mother and her spawn, but I shared a cab to hoi an (about 40 minutes) with angela and jenny and after they decided that the hotel i had booked was up to their standards, we all checked in, showered, and then went to a look around town.

The attraction of Hoi An is two-fold. Firstly, it has delightful old architecture, set on the banks of a river, which warrants it's Unesco world heritage site status. And it really is lovely, but of more interest to someone like me is the second attraction - the shopping. It's the regional capital of tailor-made clothes (particularly suits) and shoes. And hoowee is she a shopping mecca!

Ofcourse to really make the most of such things you need two people who, travelling solo, I sorely missed - a mother who knows about fabric qualities and other such practicalities, and a giggling girlfriend to get really excited about it all with. In Angela and Jenny I found both. Angela, having been some sort of IT consultant in England for many years, help pick out the styles and fabrics for the two and a half suits i had tailored, and jenny Insisted on a fashion show when i picked them (and the six pairs of shoes, three tops and an overcoat i had made) up. It was great fun.

Unfortunately Hoi An reputation for shopping has meant more and more shops, thereby increasing competition, creating the rather unpleasant side effect of touts. We'd barely set foot outside out hotel and we were accosted by women trying to be friendly with a view of dragging us into their shops. And some of them are so persistent that they really start to wear you down after a while, which is a shame because that really puts a damper on the whole experience.

But the main point is i bought alot of stuff... and given that i was having excess baggage issues as far back as siem reap, this posed a problem. My solution was to by a wheelie suitcase which was just within the dimensions allowed as cabin baggage as stipulated on the british airways website. Unfortunately this was not as crafty a solution as i had hoped, but i'll get to that later.

So after two nights in Hoi An, it was high time i high-tailed it out of that money guzzling town, so back to Danang to fly to Hanoi (on my lonesome this time, Angela and Jenny were following in an overnight train, getting in at 4.30 the following morning). I had organised for the guesthouse i had booked to pick me up from the airport, and this was how i met alex - a brit. We established we had similar itineraries for the remainer of our stay in vietnam, so we organised a tour to halong bay for the following day (i also arranged for angela and jenny to be picked up at the train station and booked them on the halong bay trip as well), and then went to explore Hanoi's old quarter. We asked the guy at the guesthouse what was good to see around the area - hoan kiem lake he said, you can't miss it he said... we had missed it for about 45 minutes until we sat down in a cafe and studied various maps for a long time and finally figured out we'd walked in completely the wrong direction. So we back tracked for a while and eventually found said lake, together with a glorious sense of achievement.

Then at dinner we met another couple of brits - Lauren and Andy, who were just starting the SE asian leg of their RTW trip, so Alex and I got to play travel guru's and impart advice on how to handle the region. Although Lauren and Andy had come from a month in India so they thought the touts and pestering and ripping off that is so characteristic of the vietnamese was a walk in the park compared to where they'd been.

So dinner turned into drinks, and drinks turned into a search for a bia hoi (sort of random street stall with a tanker of beer and plastic cups) and that turned into more drinks at a local ex-pat hangout - half man half noodle where we met a number of other colourful characters and all left with t-shirts warning "drink here, or we'll shoot the puppy" which turned into signing pledges (on said t-shirts) about whether we would, or would not, eat dog... and we rocked up to the guesthouse at about 4am.

So you can imagine the state we were in when we had to check out of our rooms and get on the road to halong bay at 8am.

Halong Bay is lovely, it reminds me somewhat of Milford Sound (from pictures you understand, having never been to Milford Sound), and the boat we stayed on was great. Unfortunately one of the main drawcards (for others) of Halong Bay is the seafood, so pretty much all meals had a heavy seafood element to them, which didn't make for a full Stacey, but that was fine, it's too hot to eat much and my skinny jeans are waiting for me in london. The important thing was the scenery was pretty and the company was good.

When we got back to Hanoi yesterday Angela, Jenny and I promptly made our way to a western restuarant and devoured nachos and hamburgers till we could barely walk. Unfortunately we didn't have room for the New Zealand Natural Ice Cream that featured on the dessert menu. I consoled myself that I would soon be in London, where they sell Ben & Jerry's.

After that I met up with Simon's parents for a drink (or three) at Le Pub - a restaurant owned by one of the rowdy crowd we met at half man half noodle. It was nice to talk to people who have at least some connection to my home-crowd. But it wasn't as late a night as tuesday because i really needed to get up early to do some last minute shopping before i head off the london.

I would be more sad about leaving here if I was going straight to finding a job, but more adventures await in Europe and there are a number of things i won't miss - the moment of anticipation when you enter public toilets - will they be western style or squat? the beggers and touts assuming that because you're white you have lots of money, not knowing (and giving up caring) whether that is sweat or condensation on your face, the omnipresent language barrier (although won't be completely missing in europe).

But then I looked at the temperatures in London and it scared me... having acclimatized (to an extent) to the tropics, I think it will take a while to get used to having to pack a jumper.

Which brings us up to now... there's 15 minutes before my boarding call and the usb port on this computer is not immediately apparent, so i'll upload some photos when i get to London.

Adieu Asia! Hello Europe!

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Photos

Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake
in Hanoi

Lauren and Me
TOO late in the evening/morning

View from the mouth of Amazing Cave
Halong Bay

The Crew
Chillin on the "sun" deck

Floating Village
In the shadow of massive limestone cliffs, Halong Bay

A Vietnamese Woman
Sells her wares to the boats at Halong Harbour