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Published: November 30th -0001
The beautiful lamps of Hoi An
when i could drag myself away from the shoes!Hello!
Well after recovering from my childcare experiences in Cambodia which confirmed to me that I should never be aloud to have children I headed excitedly (partly due to the fact that I could leave Phnom Penh and NEVER go back!) for Vietnam.
We arrived first in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City, take your pick), I must admit after the previous big Asian cities I wasn't holding out much hope for this one, but as it turned out, I absolutely loved it!! It was noisy, dirty and busy but there was something about it that made me want to walk around and explore! However, we decided that the most important thing was getting our Chinese Visa, after finding out that the only way to get a multiple entry one was to get a business visa, we were a bit worried about our chances if we just rocked up at the embassy, backpacks on, probably looking like we needed a decent wash, so.... Instead we decided to entrust our passports to a very nice lady in a travel place, who assured us there would be no problem in obtaining one. We did however leave feeling a little skeptical as to
whether we would ever even get the passports back, let alone with a Chinese visa - not helped by the fact she kept calling it a Cambodian one, didn't ask for a single photo or ask us to fill out any forms! But being the trusting things that we are we left Saigon and our passports (gulp!) and headed north to Dalat in the central highlands, to get away from the heat and do a bit of trekking.
Dalat is a strange place, the surroundings are beautiful, but the city itself is a bit of a dump. For some reason the altitude seems to have gone to the residents heads and they have decided to try and be a bit quirky with their architecture and ever tour seems to include a trip to see the 'crazy monk' - we couldn't find him! or the 'crazy house' or any thing else they can think of putting 'crazy' in front of. It's all a bit forced and 'crazy really seems to mean someone who is making money, but if you take it with a pinch of salt, it's all good fun. There's a bizarre hotel which opens its doors to visitors
Temple on the Perfume River
We actually went in this one! everyday - don’t think I'd fancy staying there! as people traipse around bedroom which have been designed to look like something straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Truly bizarre place, but fun to look around. The next day we decided to climb the local ‘mountain’, after negotiating for what seemed like an age with some moto drivers, we finally arrived - back at the 'crazy house' apparently my signing of mountain looked like house to them (I'll keep it in mind next time I play charades!) so after a few more impressions we finally headed off in the right direction. When we arrived, much to our surprise they began to drive up the mountain with us on board, the plan was definitely to walk but not one to worry about missing out on exercise, I was more than happy to stay on the back! Unfortunately my joy was short lived, as the roads got steeper and steeper, the poor little moped engine struggled and struggled, and eventually before I knew it, the engine cut out and we were rolling backwards instead - I immediately hopped off and left the driver to lose his flop flops and deal with the ever
increasing speed of the now downwards heading bike! After he had recovered himself, on I hoped again (stupid I know!) this time to head back down (forwards too!) so we could make our own way up. Unfortunately more confusion came about, as they thought we would go on one of the Jeep rides on offer, obviously not knowing our tightness! So after a bit of arguing they agreed to wait for 2 1/2 hours, which meant hot footing it up the 2000m and back down again in record time. After assuring them it wasn't a problem we near ran up the first portion of the hill, that is at least until we got around the corner, out of their view and I could wheezingly come to an abrupt halt! None the less, we rose to the challenge and pelted up there in about an hour and a half, leaving us all of five minutes to enjoy the view! Then headed straight back down, just as it decided it would be a great time to absolutely chuck it down with rain, after about 5 minutes we were totally soaked through, but no where to hide so trotted down to the entrance
with 10 mins to spare - haha weren't expecting that, they were huddled inside having a cup of tea!! After being wiped down by a sweet old lady we were handed tea and sat out the rain, trying to avoid buying jumpers from the women to replace our wet clothes!
From Dalat we headed to the coastal resort of Nha Trang, although not as pretty as the Thai beaches, it was a good base for us to while away some time whilst we waited for our Chinese visa to come through, we managed to do another couple of dives, though they were definitely a bit chillier this time (Emma actually turned blue!) and not as much to see, but we enjoyed being back in the water, and were sad that this would be our last dive of this trip - I feel like I've grown my own pair of fins, what will I do with them now?! It was nice to spend a few days on the beach again (though we did come away with the unwelcome addition of hundreds of bed bug bites, lovely!!) but it was soon time to cross our fingers and head back to Saigon
Dalat
Legging it up the mountain as worth it for the views - even if it did rain! to pick up our passports and hope no-one had escaped the country pretending to be two lost English girls.
We got accosted by a friendly lady as we got off the bus and agreed to head to her house for a cheap place to stay. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly designed for girls with backpacks so after climbing the first ladder (!) the second was a bit tight and resulted in me crawling up on my knees, poor em managed to get wedged half way up and had to be pushed from behind by the friendly lady! By this point, whatever the room had been like I think we would have stayed, there was no-way we were going to attempt the trip down again so soon!! Luckily the place was lovely and the lady gave us free iced tea every day, yummy! She had two wriggly little Chihuahua’s which she delighted in making Emma 'dress', very funny as she couldn't get a grip on them at all and the jumper invariably just got thrown over its head and 'mama' had to come to the rescue! (I'm easily amused)
To our relief the next day our visas were ready and
waiting when we got there, and they were even for the right country - bonus!! So we had a few days of wandering around Saigon stress free - visiting the Mekong delta and the Chu Chi tunnels of the Vietcong - sooo tiny we had to squeeze ourselves along them, in my wisdom I was wearing a skirt, so tactfully placed Emma behind me so that no-one else had to face the prospect of me flashing them for the entire time - these tunnels were scary enough without that!
So from Saigon, it was back up the coast on a mammoth 24 hour journey to Hoi An, where we spent a few days delighting in the shopping opportunities, though I was disappointed by the lack of space in my backpack, they will make any shoes you want, to fit your feet perfectly, sod the walking boots, get me some heels!!! Unfortunately the idea of tottering around the Himalayas on my newly purchased 4 inch heels made me come to my senses and I left shoe-less, but determined to come back another time!
Before we spent any more money we headed to Hue and a Perfume River trip. Due
to our tight fisted nature, we only visited one of the temples, though thoroughly enjoyed the boat trip, and I often Gave Emma a leg up onto the walls of the other temples so she could have a peer in and see if we were missing anything, all fun and games until someone catches you...how embarrassing!! We left Hue with high hopes for Hanoi, as we had loved Saigon so much. As it turned out, Hanoi is a dump, and nothing like Saigon, it is dirty, noisy and doesn't even have a shop open past 9 pm - for a capital city it is an embarrassment! the most annoying thing was that we were going to have to pass through here 3 times to reach our other destinations, with no chance of growing to love the place we decided to spend as little time there as possible. The next day we headed to see Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, it was a strange experience, after queuing for hours in the rain we got to spend a brief 10 seconds looking at the strangely illuminated and amazingly preserved body of Ho Chi Minh. His body is sent to Russia every year for
'preservation' work, it is seen as a sign of love and respect for the man, but seems a cruel punishment to me, especially as he specifically asked to be cremated!! Oh well, that’s Asia for you!
Scurrying away from Hanoi as quickly as we could we spent the next few weeks exploring the beautiful Hillside town of Sapa, and the not so beautiful sea-side resort of Cat Ba - though my view may be clouded as they had just had a typhoon there and the apparently 'azure waters' were in fact poo-brown and full of scum - not exactly the beach paradise we had hoped for!! So it was back to Hanoi for one last time before making our way into China, a country we had heard so many bad things about, we were starting to dread the though of, but we had our visa and there was no backing out now - our train booked, we were off to Hong Kong via Guangzhou.....
Take care, keep praying for that sunshine!
Sarah xxx
P.S I know the second half was very brief, but it was over a month ago that I was there and I'm rubbish
at keeping up to date! If anyone wants to know any more, look at Emma's blog, she much better than me! www.travelblog.org/bloggers/EmmieLou
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Sue Olushola
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Hello Sarah, I have been receiving your travelblogs for a while now... and I have been truely amazed at the things you and Emma have been up to... But just to put your mind at rest life does go on for the rest of us in civilisation.... including the latest office move.... I have been on leave for a month and just about to go back after the bank holiday, schools will be back a week or so later, so it's back to grind stone. Take care, looking forward to the next journal....... Sue O