The Journey South

Saturday 10th October to Friday 16th October

Having descended Fansipan, cleansed ourselves with the vigour of the obsessive-compulsive at our hotel, stuffed ourselves with cake and coffee, and caught the night train back to Hanoi, me and Coop was due to leave the north and start the long journey southwards down the coast of Vietnam, following in the footsteps of many a backpacker before us. Our bus to Hue was due to leave at 5.30pm on Saturday, giving us a further day in Hanoi to mess around in. Coop went off shopping in the morning and then to the Army Museum which I had visited earlier in the trip, whilst I decided to wander round the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake and take some photographs. This small lake in the centre of the city had been my my favourite part of Hanoi, especially jogging about 6am in the morning when all the locals are doing their weird version of Tai Chi (a version which seemed to involve doing a lacklustre version of the Timewarp rather than any actual exercise), and I was sad to say goodbye to it.

Later in the afternoon I went to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum, which had housed hundreds of American POWs during the war (including John McCain) and was nicknamed the 'Hanoi Hilton' by the troops. Like the Army Museum, it was a fascinating experience, but also an incredibly frustrating one. The prison had originally been constructed by the French to hold Vietnamese dissidents, and the majority of the museum emphasised the apparently brutal and inhumane treatment of the prisoners held there under colonial rule. At first I thought it wasn't going to mention its role during the American war at all, but the last room or so finally mentioned its later use. However, it put this period in a VERY different light. The American prisoners were not treated badly, oh no. The display was full of photos of them playing cards and celebrating Christmas and writing letters to the American government about how lovely the Vietnamese were and how bad the war was. It was surreal. Whilst obviously biased and one-sided, the frustrating thing about it was not knowing HOW truthful it was. At least with the Army museum I knew enough about the war to be able to spot the propaganda. Here, American prisoners may well have been treated well, but I couldn't bring myself to trust such black and white condemnation and praise. I wonder what John McCain thought of his time there? I guess diplomacy won't allow him to say. Schade...

All such moral philosophising was brushed aside however, when me and Coop came to get on our bus. We had decided to go with one of the inescapable tourist buses that traverse the length of Vietnam from Hanoi to Saigon, as they were cheaper than the trains, more convenient, and useful for me as I could buy one ticket from Hanoi to Saigon, but get on and off at stops along the way. When we embarked however, it was with a certain level of horror. The bus was the spitting image of the Goa bus of death that we had experienced in India - bunkbeds of ridiculously short and narrow bunks (when I say narrow, I mean NARROW), and already truculent drivers. Thankfully the driver did not appear to be drunk, as in Goa (that time Coop actually had to break up a fistfight between him and an irate passenger), but we decided our best defense was in fact to drink ourselves, so I bought some warm bottles of beer from a nearby street stall and we smuggled them aboard. Actually though, after a long and involved discussion about Australian/British/American politics, Plato's theory of the state, anthropology and other such wanky topics that probably made everyone else on the entire bus hate our guts, I fell into a fairly deep sleep (probably with mouth open, I am resigned to this by now). Unfortunately, whilst I was drooling, Coop was stumbling off the bus every toilet stop to throw up.

By the time we arrived in Hue early the next morning she was feeling pretty shaky, so after a colourful shouting match with a tout (I'd so missed being able to yell at people in England - of course, I had the urge to a lot less) I steered us to a nearby hotel and put her to bed. Coop slept most of the day away, whilst I ventured into Hue. The city was the capital of the Nguyen Emperors (i.e. the last ones), and a World Heritage Site, famous for it's citadel and Imperial Palace. Despite its former importance, the city was surprisingly small, and felt more like a country town than a capital. I decided to leave the Palace until Coop was feeling better, and instead wandered over the Perfume River and into the Citadel, a 4km square walled compound filled with gardens and lakes and small streets of houses. Again, felt really peculiar to have in the middle of the city, though I enjoyed the small alleys full of curious kids and the way the tops of the citadel walls had been made into small allotments by the inhabitants. I headed back to the hotel at lunchtime, and finding Cooper still drowsy, decided to indulge and pay to use the neighbouring hotel's outside swimming pool, as it was scorching. I think the first time I've used such a pool since the heady and long-ago days of Majorca. Ah, bliss.

By early evening Coop had revived, and, finding it was too late to go to the palace that day, went for another stroll round the citadel. Then we repaired to a local bar and proceeded to get EXTREMELY drunk with a Aussie guy we met and his 15 year old daughter. Well, more accurately, we proceeded to get the guy very drunk whilst the (underage and sober) daughter looked on with increasing horror. Ok, ok..... *I* proceeded to get myself and the guy extremely drunk whilst the daughter AND a tipsy Coop looked on with increasing horror. Whatever.

The next morning I woke up hungover, again. I am not liking the fact that this is getting to be a pattern. Given that we had to catch our bus to Hoi An just after lunch we set off sharpish to the Imperial Palace, which was nice if rather decrepit. Most of it was grass-grown, and whilst piles of rubble and tools everywhere showed restoration work was in progress, not much seemed to be happening whilst we were there. Nevertheless, it was pleasant and quiet and free of motorbikes, which pleased me at any rate.

Our next destination, only about 5 hours away by bus (a step up the road in Vietnamese terms) was Hoi An. Yet another World Heritage Site (UNESCO really has a jones for Vietnam) this small town was an important trading port for centuries, visited by Dutch, Spanish, British, Indian, Indonesian and of course French traders, as well as being an important expat community for Chinese and Japanese settlers. The architecture of the (remarkably preserved) Old Town is heavily influenced by this, with old merchants houses a catalogue of archetypal Oriental architecture, Japanese bridges, Assembly Halls for the various Chinese communities (sort of temples cum social clubs) and so on. It's also remarkably pretty, it's riverside location, lack of traffic and mustard coloured buildings giving it a Provencal air.

Having arrived, checked in, had dinner (with the rare treat of a bottle of decent wine), and moved onto a cocktail bar, we discovered the three insane Scousers from our Halong Bay tour, and 'renewed our acquaintance', as Miss Austen would say, although mostly through consumption of the alcoholic kind rather than a turn around the Bath Tea rooms. The night gets kind of blurry from here on, but after the bar closed we all got a minibus to some club somewhere on the beach a few kilometres up the road, where they sold buckets (yes, buckets) of vodka orange for less than 2 quid. More drinking ensued, along with dancing and swimming in the ferocious waves. At this point it all went, well, a bit wrong. I foolishly decided to go for a little walk up the beach, but, upon returning, couldn't find the bar again. At all. Cue several hours of me stumbling up and down a deserted beach in the dark, with no shoes, no money, no nothing (having been sensible and stowed all valuables in a padlocked bag behind the bar before going swimming). Coop meanwhile, is at the bar, equally drunk, near-hysterical, convinced I've been swept away to sea and drowned, and convincing the (equally drunken) Scousers and acquaintances to send out search parties for me. Eventually, at some godawful hour of the night (or morning, it was getting light by now) one blessed soul who was still searching found me on a deserted road and took me back to my hotel, the club having long-since closed. Thanking him profusely (seriously, those guys were wonderful) I suffered a severe tongue-lashing from Cooper, narrowly persuaded her not to walk out on me there and then and go back to Hanoi, and finally collapsed into bed to contemplate my own absolute and total idiocy.

From the Night of Death (NOD), two conclusions have been drawn. A) I am a monumental twat and am never allowed to go near alcohol again. B) One should never ever try to match drinks with Scousers.

To draw the curtain on this unfortunate episode, I should relate that I got up early the next morning and caught a xe om back to the club, where my bag and valuables were totally safe (though the awesome Tokyo boots are gone forever, weep), and that yes, Coop is still talking to me, thank god. Now, let's never mention it again, ok? It was in such a spirit that me and Coop set out to explore Hoi An that day. It really is a remarkably pretty little town, and we bought a combination ticket that allowed us into one assembly hall, one museum, one old house and one temple, as well as entrance to a 'traditional music and dance performance'. The temple and assembly hall were as interesting as one can expect them to be in our fragile states, the old house was genuinely quite cool, and the museum held displays that looked like they'd been pinched from an 11-year old's (stupifyingly boring) history project, but it was the cultural performance that made the day. It was introduced by a woman who managed to speak English but in an entirely unintelligable (and really fairly hilarious) manner - I think she must had learnt the whole thing phonetically - we genuinely couldn't understand anything except the occasional "lay deeesan zentl" (ladies and gentlemen). Thus enlightened, we were entertained with some music and some singing, three girls dancing around with pots on their shoulders and clearly trying not to wet themselves laughing, and one genuinely quite disturbing girl who looked to be having a very angry epileptic fit; growling, grimacing and rolling around on the floor in a manner that caused me and Coop to bite our lips very hard and determinedly avoid each other's eyes for quite some time. I think it was meant to be an exhibition of Vietnamese acting... all I can say is that they must like their emotions diluted.

Sadly, this was to be Coop's last full day with me in Vietnam, as the following morning she had to catch an epic bus back to Hanoi to sort out her stolen visa and fly back to England. We celebrated her last night by eating cake, going to bed by 11, and very studiously avoiding alcohol, then said our goodbyes the following morning. My bus wasn't til 6pm, so I spent the rest of the day wandering around Hoi An, eating cake in cafes and typing up our adventures in Hanoi and Halong onto this flippin thing. :o)

Whilst Coop headed back north to Hanoi, I was going further south down to coast to Nha Trang, the Benidorm of Vietnam. Right on the beach, it's the place to soak up the sun, dive on the reefs, and party the night away. Unfortunately, I was off alcohol, and it wasn't sunny. I got into town in the early hours of the morning, spent some admirably cultured time visiting the cathedral and a gallery in the city, and then proceeded to pass out spectacularly on a sunbed on the beach. (It wasn't sunny, but it was still about 33 degrees) Waking up in the mid-afternoon, I booked some diving for the following day, had some lunch, and then passed out again in my hostel, not awaking until the following morning. Oh yes, what a wild and crazy life I lead. The next day however, was more eventful. Nha Trang is Vietnam's premier diving spot, and this was something I had never tried and very much wanted to. I had neither the time nor the funds to do the full three day PADI Open Water course (the first stage of diving certification), so instead I opted to do a half day trip with two exploratory 'Discover Scuba' dives.

Diving was really cool. I had wondered whether I would get claustrophobic with a breathing tank, but I had no problems, and finding myself 9 metres below water in the middle of a coral reef was surreal in the extreme. It was similar to what I had felt experiencing a desert for the first time in Jaisalmer in India. I was in completely unfamiliar territory, yet it felt like I'd been here before, in films, in BBC documentaries, even in those 'spot the animal' picture books I'd had as a kid. I even recognised and could name most of the fish and coral I could see. During the course of the two dives we saw turtles, eels, Finding-Nemo fish, a huge groper almost as big as me, with tiny fish swimming inside its gills eating the scraps, urchins, the electric stingy anemone that the Finding-Nemo fish hide in, and countless types of coral and fish. We went through an underwater cave (I am gradually kicking claustrophobia's ass), and swum through entire shoals of fish that ignored us as if we weren't there. I really enjoyed it, and would like to do some more, although it won't become my new addiction - lacks the adrenaline of white water rafting or canyoning or paragliding. In the afternoon after we got back to shore, I caught a xe om to Nha Trang's famous Cham Towers, which were like miniature versions of the Hampi temples, with linga and statues of Shiva. It was quite nostalgic to see Shiva's penis again, actually. Though it was pretty weird to see essentially Hindu structures being venerated by Chinese and Buddhists. Finally, I spent the evening shooting the breeze with a Devonshire chap called Gareth in one of Nha Trang's many bars, before heading home to pack for my early bus. The following day I was to leave the coast at last and head into the hills, on my most torturous bus journey thus far...


Stayed:
Hue - Halo Hotel. $15 room, in great location in Hue. Lovely proprietor, free internet, and you can use the pool of the hotel opposite for $2 per day.
Hoi An - Thanh Van Hotel. $15 room. With pool, free internet and breakfast included. Pretty good location too.
Nha Trang - Backpackers House. Standard hostel fare, mixed dorm bed $8. Right next to the Red Apple Club, though I didn't find it noisy. Free breakfast plus free drink coupons handed out on arrival. Free internet too.

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Part of trip: Japan and Vietnam

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