Tours through Vietnam: Easy Riding, Cheap Suits and Vietnamese Vomit

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Hello! Time to blog again: this time you find us in the Vietnam capital Hanoi, where we are hanging around sweaty style before the next leg of our trip and a 24 hour journey (inc 11 exciting hours in Bangkok airport) to Bali.

Our last update was from a soggy Mui Ne - where we succeeded in getting up for our 5am Sunrise trip to the dunes - which is more than we can say for our driver Carlos (I have no idea how to pronounce, let alone spell, his real name) who was "almost apologetic" when he arrived at 5:45. Anyway, we sped off to the dunes in our 4wd to see a "little bit after the sun had risen but still quite nice" sunrise over the red sand dunes. Very nice bar the 10 kids surrounding the 2 of us and trying to sell us a piece of plastic to sledge down the dunes on - sort of ruins the moment. With "you want go mister, pay whatever you want" still ringing around the ears we headed to the yellow sand dunes: more impressive, much higher and this time we did relent and did some good sand sledging (the clothes will never come clean!). On the way back we stopped at a fairy stream (no fairies but really interesting sand formations caused by rainfall) and a fishing village (a lot of fish and a lot of villagers).

We then headed to Dalat, a city nestling 2000 meters above sea level in the central highlands of Vietnam. Our bus turned up and suffice to say, it was small - a little minibus with about 12 seats i think. Well that's what we thought until the driver decided to sell a couple of seats on the sly (to a vietnamese family of 4) and fill us right to the brim. So our sardine can of a bus set off on the 4 hour journey, winding it's way 2000 meters through cloud, hairpins and ominous rain. This all would have been fine had the vietnamese family not turned out to be susceptible to the effects of a winding bus journey. The signs were on the wall when mother grabbed a handful of bags on entering the bus: and she was the first. About 30 mins into the journey mum (sat on a half-seat thing next to me) grabbed a bag and proceeded to fill not only one but 3 plastic bags with vomit (how much did this woman have for lunch?) - pleasant. Not to be outdone the son (sat behind) decided to join the fun and fill his own bag. If we thought that was the end, the little girl had other ideas, and proceeded to re-produce the orange juice she'd just drunk (was that a good idea?) in the stairwell of the door! Only dad from the Family Vomit restrained himself and it was with some relief we got off the bus in a very very wet Dalat.

I wish we could tell you more about Dalat but I really have little to say as we saw not very much of it - when we were there it was very misty (low cloud) and very wet (from the aforementioned low cloud). Anyway we decided to take a trip with the Easyriders (a group of guys with motorbikes and a good knowledge of Vietnam!). We were going to take a one day trip around the Dalat area but ended up on a 3 day tour through the Central Highlands ending in Nha Trang (down on the East Coast some 550kms away) - and we're very glad we did. It was 3 really good and interesting days (if you ignore the very numb backside) and we had a really good trip with our drivers/guides/riders Rene and Stephane. It was with some trepidation that we started our adventure, with the rain pouring in Dalat: our bags were cocooned and strapped to the back of the bikes while we were similarly wrapped in 2 raincoats and waterproof trousers a piece. We visited a couple of places in Dalat but then wound our way through the hills of the central highlands and soon we were skimming the bottom of the clouds and were out of the rain. From here we could really enjoy the beautiful scenery of the central highlands; lush jungle, farmland, valleys and hills make up this part of Vietnam. We stopped at a variety of places over the three days: silk factories, silkworm farms, coffee and rubber plantations, rice-wine making "huts", minority people villages, people working the fields, rock quarrying (if you can call one man and a hammer that), lakes, streams, waterfalls and saw some fantasitc views (check out the sunset over Lak Lake). As we straddled the back of our bikes (wind in our hair etc. etc.) it really felt like we were seeing the real Vietnam, off the beaten track and life as usual. The people were fantastic and the usual "hello", "how are you" (the only English they know) and waving from the local children greeted us - at one stop i nearly got married off to a woman's youngest daughter!. We also saw some countryside destroyed by Napalm and Agent Orange in the war. This combined with our guides' experiences and willingness to tell (Stephane had served 6 years in the Southern Army during the war in countless operations, been shot at, watched friends get killed and then put in a concentration camp for 2 years at the war's end!) meant the trip was more than just your average guided tour. We also had some really good (and cheap) authentic food as we dined with our guides for breakfast, lunch and dinner and by the end of the trip. Despite spending more than we have been so far (the trip was quite expensive by our travelling budget but when you work out they're on 30 pounds a day including all expenses and fuel it's not that bad) it was well worth it (if not just to avoid another bus journey!!)

And so we arrived in Nha Trang, and this is where I hand over, as Sarah wants a go....

Yes after Jonny having 3 goes at this and also not being able to resist starting this one I decided it was my turn to write something! However I write this with my first case of "the asian food affect" so forgive me if i disappear every now and again...

We had heard countless stories of people being mugged in Nha Trang and having their hotel rooms broken into so we were a bit apprehensive about going there! However we spent a pleasant enough couple of days there. We went diving on our one full day there which would have been good enough had the dive company we chose to go with not been trying to kill their customers. Wet suits had big holes in, air cylinders were broken and air gauges underwater showed you had plenty of air and then suddenly went down to nearly empty when tapped! Someone should tell them that air is kind of essential when diving. So if ever in Nha Trang don't go diving with Blue Diving Club! Despite that we saw some interesting stuff but not as good as diving in Koh Tao. After our stressful diving experience we were in dire need of a drink. In the bar we chose "a" drink consisting of a big jar of vodka, rum and mixer. Jonny had a few too many of these and you can see the effect in the accompanying photo!

The following night we had an overnight bus journey to our next stop of Hoi An. After our last two bus journeys with the company we were understandably a little apprehensive about this one, which turned out to be justified! The bus turned up late then stopped for ages with a puncture soon after starting and then when we finally got going sleep proved impossible as the horn, which the driver insisted on hitting continuously, seemed to be on the inside of the bus!

After a few hours much needed sleep, when we finally arrived in Hoi An we got up to explore the town. A pretty quaint town built on a river, very picturesque. A big thing to do there is have some clothes tailor-made so we did. An interesting experience pointing to what you want in a Next catalogue and seeing it replicated exactly in about 6 hours!! We ended up with 2 suits, a pair of trousers, 2 pairs of shorts, a dress and a pair of shoes all for about 90 pounds. If Oxford Street sold clothes so cheaply I would spend a lot less money! Most of this stuff we have shipped home so hope it turns up!

Next stop after Hoi An was Hanoi. Not being able to bear any more bus journeys we managed to get a really cheap flight instead. As well as sparing us a 5 hour bus journey followed by another 13 hour overnight one it also bought us an extra day. We used this extra day to do a 3 day trip to Halong Bay which was a fantastic trip. Halong Bay is a vast bay off the north-east of Vietnam with some 1900 limestone islands. We saw some beautiful scenery and some impressive limestone caves. The second day just the two of us spent the day kayaking around the bay and stopped at secluded lagoons carved out of the limestone and deserted beaches. Absolutely stunning.

Back in Hanoi we spent a day discovering the city. We wanted to see the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh's body is embalmed but as the queue was over 1km long with Vietnamese we decided we weren't that bothered about seeing a dead body that doesn't mean a lot to us! However we did see a couple of good things such as Water Puppetry which is as it sounds - puppets on water!

We weren't that keen on Hanoi as you get bothered a lot and everyone seems to be trying to rip you off all the time so yesterday we escaped the city to do the most authentic thing we have done so far - we went to a water park!!! We were the only foreigners there which made us an attraction in our own right and we had children following us round all day! A different but fun day.

And now we are waiting to head for Bali and with 24 hours travelling to look forward to I hope my stomach starts feeling better soon!

And as our South East Asian leg nears its close (apprently Bali is in SE Asia too). A quick but interesting tour of three countries where we've relaxed, treked, sweat, eaten, drunk (occassionally to excess), riden, swam, dived, bussed, trained, flown and walked (a lot) we say farewell.

Till the next time... and quite likely the next continent...

Jon and Sarah

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Photos

Lak Lake Valley
From the back seat of an Easyrider