The Journey South

The bus from Hanoi left at 19:30, an overnight journey that should arrive in Hue at 08:00 the next morning. They have this thing called a "sleeping bus" here in Vietnam. I've never seen anything like it before but in principle it sounds like a very good idea. Instead of seats you have three rows of bunk beds, so you're almost lying flat while you travel - hence sleeping bus. The bus only takes around 35 passengers so you pay a premium over the regular "sitting bus" tickets. As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought my sleeping bus ticket (to take me in stages from Hanoi all the way to Saigon) from the back-stabbing snakes at my hotel in Hanoi, and later learned that I was (a) overcharged and (b) given a booklet which contained tickets for the "sitting bus" only.

For some reason my ticket was not checked when I boarded the bus in Hanoi and so I only discovered their deception when I was in Hoi An trying to board the next sleeping bus a few days later. When I tried to contact the hotel in Hanoi to complain, they suddenly forgot how to communicate in English and hung up on me. Long story short;
• I took an overnight journey from Hanoi to Hue on the sleeping bus
• Then a 4 hr journey from Hue to Hoi An on the sitting bus
• Then an overnight journey from Hoi An to Nha Trang on the sitting bus
• In Nha Trang I paid a further fee to convert my final stage to a sleeping bus from Nha Trang to Saigon.

Although I was on the sleeping bus on my journey from Hanoi to Hue, there wasn't a lot of sleeping going on as you may deduce from my vivid recollection of the entire trip. The road in Vietnam is something else, and from my position (top bunk, 2nd row from the front) I had a good view out of the windscreen. There seems to be a single road running from North to South, one lane in each direction. The road is choked with slow moving trucks carrying freight, throw in the ubiquitous scooters, and intercity buses and you have a unique type of mayhem they call the national highway. The bus driver was on the horn every two minutes (often more frequently than that) to warn traffic of our approach and all the traffic around was doing the same. The air-conditioning on the bus had two settings - freezing, and freaking cold - and I was unable to close or change the direction of the two vents turning me into a snap-frozen tourist. There are different sized bunk beds on the bus but the one I had been allocated was very cramped and uncomfortable. They showed a movie on the bus (DOA - based on some computer game), but it didn't have Vietnamese subtitles so there was no sound track. Instead it was dubbed over with Vietnamese folk music. Then it moved on to euro-techno music (similar to the stuff on the Halong boat trip) accompanied by fashion show clips. This "entertainment" would be repeated at least three times on our journey to Hue. There was also a very annoying person near the front of the bus who seemed to receive a call on his cell phone every 15 mins, and who would shout excitedly into his phone to be heard over the music and hooting traffic around us.

Between the music, cell phone man, traffic, bumpy bus ride, cramped bed, freezing cold air-conditioning and two stops along the journey (23:00 for supper, 05:00 for breakfast), I probably had about 30 mins of sleep which I snuck in during our breakfast stop. We finally arrived in Hue at 11:30 and after being screamed at by the bus driver to get off the bus (evidently I wasn't gathering my bags fast enough in my semi-comatose condition) I checked into the first hotel I could find and slept through the afternoon.

Hue was an interesting town. It’s nestled along the banks of the Perfume River and the old town centre is still surrounded by an ancient citadel wall - it looks quite medieval. There wasn't a huge amount of things to do there but I was unwilling to book another tour after my experience in Halong Bay. Instead I hired a scooter for the day and trundled around the city by myself. There are a couple of temples and tombs that were identified in the advertised city tours and I only saw two of them and got lost several times but I didn't really care. I was just good to be out and about in the fresh air. I actually saw very little, but not fabricated, not touristy ... I thought it was great. It was also an eye-opener to how much I had been overcharged by taxis as I had to fill the tank on the scooter and was amazed at how little it cost to fill up. The fuel in Vietnam is heavily subsidised by the government and they also set the national fuel price. Everyone was up in arms because the government had increased the fuel price twice this year, which I suppose comes as more of a shock because it jumps up in large amounts.

My next stop was Hoi An, a small village whose main claim to fame is clothing. Virtually every store in this town makes clothes. Ladies you would be in heaven here. Shoes, dresses, skirts, business suits, shirts, ties, handbags ... everything. They are extremely industrious too and are willing to whip up a dress or shirt in a matter of hours for you, made to measure and very cheap too. I met a couple from Australia who had just been measured up for a wedding dress. I found it incredibly hot there though and for the first time on my trip through South East Asia so far I found my body losing the battle to regulate its temperature properly. It was hot - 37 degrees in the shade - and I found myself walking for short intervals before ducking into a shop for a drink or just sitting on the pavement for a while, sweat pouring from every pore. On my final day I rented a bicycle and went to have a look at the beach. It was quite pleasant, although there were one or two jelly fish in the sea which made me a bit cautious about staying in the water for too long.

After a couple of days in Hoi An I hopped on the bus again to go to Nha Trang (when I discovered that I didn't have the correct ticket for the "sleeping bus"). Bundled onto the "sitting bus" on an overnight journey I didn't think that I would sleep, but I actually did manage to nod off for a few hours. The bus driver thankfully didn’t play music and the roads were less congested.

Nha Trang was larger than I expected. A large amount of money has been pumped into this region to develop it as a premier tourist destination. It had also just hosted the Miss Universe beauty pageant so all the roads and gardens had been spruced up and there's alot of development going on with new complexes going up everywhere. Unfortunately this unchecked development is occurring at a cost of the environment in the region. The beach was littered with rubbish and the nearby bays were choked with green slimy algae. Despite this, of all the places I'd been to so far, Nha Trang was probably the nicest - lots of restuarants, hotels, a large beach and activities (watersports, scuba diving, boat trips). There's a theme park visible from the shore which you can visit using the purpose built skyrail/gondola called Vin Pearl with an attached 5 star resort. I did spend one day at the theme park which was very expensive (by Vietnamese standards) and once there I found that there were only a few rides. Indoors there was a gaming hall (air-conditioned) with lots of arcade type gaming machines (free for ticket holders) and around the corner there was a small water park. They also have a newly built aquarium (designed by the same people that built the one in Auckland).

I ended up spending around a week in Nha Trang, intending to go scuba diving but unfortunately I became ill with an infected cut on my leg. With a visit to the pharmacy and a handful of antibiotics and iodine disinfectant I set about remedying the situation. So while the leg healed I hired a bicycle and cruised around the city or spent a few hours at the beach. Against my better judgment I booked another tour - this time a snorkeling boat day trip out to the islands. It was touristy, overcrowded and lame. While out on the water we saw thousands of jellyfish - an indicator species and a sign of an ecosystem in distress. A couple of people were stung while swimming despite the boat operators trying to find a sheltered bay for people to swim in. The snorkeling masks provided were about three sizes too big for my my face with heads straps two times too small for my head - so I just went for a quick swim to cool off.

On my last day in Nha Trang I booked a dive trip but it was quite disappointing. After the spectacular diving I've enjoyed in Australia and Malaysia, the diving really wasn't worth doing in Vietnam. This region, I think, suffers from massive overfishing and although we were in a Marine Park there was very little to see. The few fish we spotted were quite small compared to the fish in Malaysia. The diving industry in Vietnam is vigorously controlled by the government and the dive operators in Nha Trang were only permitted to dive three sites (of a potential 25) around the island. I also forgot to bring my socks with me (a trick I learned in Malaysia) so I suffered with blisters on the sides of my feet from the swimming fins provided.

Diving ticked off the list, I would head next to Saigon.

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