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Published: November 14th 2008
School Girls ride home
No school children are alowed to ride motorbikes, so bikes crowd the streets at lunch time“Hello. Moto?” Bitter, our moto driver greets us as we steep off the boat from Cambodia. After checking in we are picked up by him and his friend who takes us for a wild ride up to Sam Mountain to see the sunset. View from the top is Cambodia and rice fields. On the other side of the mountain is Chau Doc the small town we stay a night. Overhead, pulsing purple fork lightening cracks like we’ve never seen before. We don’t like being so close to the lightening so race back down for dinner on a floating restaurant for fresh prawns and scallop type things that taste like squid, all bbq’d at our table.
We get out of Chau Doc the next morning on a mini bus ride from hell. The road is heavy with scooter and bus traffic but it doesn’t stop the driver of the overfilled van traveling close to 100km/h while his buddy hangs out of the door screaming for more passengers like an excited Labrador; Horns, swerving and yelling….so glad we made it to Can Tho in one piece. Can Tho is a lively river town with great pizza.
At 5am we participate in
a private cruise exploring the Mekong Delta on a long-tail boat. Cruising past the ramshackle houses made up of mosaic corrugated iron in varies states of rust, all listing slightly into the river. The people in Can Tho are quick to wave their early morning hellos to us. Our boat takes a turn down the cannels, and the morning sun-rays streak through the palm trees offering a slice of serenity. The Mekong is filled with surprises including a floating dead piglet, a baby with a lifejacket bobbing around, a dog being skinned for breakfast, women doing their Sunday washing and beautifully manicured gardens.
That afternoon a near new 4x4 picks us up and we head to the Stalk Garden. We walked down a narrow path giving way to scooters and locals who wave hello and giggle, passed small homes filled with glowing TV’s and families cooking dinner. Above them the storks are flying home after a day of feeding off the Mekong. The smell of stork dung precedes their home, and as we near, we hear a noise similar to Donald Duck emerging from the bamboo. We cross a small bridge and climb up to a hide to view
1000s of stalks swooping, fighting and nesting in the trees. Andrea is in fits of laughter and we are amused for a good half hour by the silly birds playing, well worth the taxi ride and best of all its free.
Never post anything from Vietnam. It was the worst postal experience of A’s life and the most expensive in Asia. It took 45mins and they went through everything! Pulled books out of the coverings, and pulling our souvenir tickets and trinkets all over their counter not caring about re-rapping them the way they found them. I only yelled at them twice, and didn’t cry. I handled the situation very well. Lets hope it makes it home. Don’t do it folks.
We hired a local guide to take us through the countryside visiting joss-stick making, seeing school kids cycling home, ducks in baskets ready for the markets, brick making factory and women selling live birds on the road side. Lunch was divine at a local restaurant, resulting in the best dumplings. Our home-stay turned out to be more of a guesthouse than staying with the family. However, dinner was an amazing feast - beef, soup, make-ya-own spring rolls,
Mekong fish and banana wine. Banana wine is home-made and is a medicine for muscle aches and to aid digestion. Andrea wakes the following morning with no sore neck for the first time in months…we get more for our journey ahead.
Trung arrives excited to guide us around the local area and Veing Long. We cruise slowly and get a great view of the neighbourhood. We stop to see bonsai trees, play with a large pond fish and 2 pythons in a cage. Veing Long is a short ferry ride away and the markets are full of every animal and amphibian, skinned or alive, ready to be cooked and eaten, these people will eat anything. We finish the tour and catch a mini bus to HCM City.
The LP guides us to Giant Dragon Hotel in the tourist district and it turns out to be a good tip. We get a free upgrade to the Deluxe Room due to technical issues, it even had a couch - highly recommended. The Lonely Planet is invaluable while in Vietnam as local networks are not prevalent as in other countries.
We went to the Cu Chi tunnels. Dark, small tunnels
and herded around like sheep. Torin got to shoot an AK47...Get Some.
Overnight bus from HCMC to Dalat. There is only one hotel open at 6am so they get our business, but we’re happy - there’s a Jacuzzi in our room and this is wine country! Dalat is a mountain town with a French influence, which meant lots of yummy patisseries and Eiffel tower look-a-likes dotted around the town. This is a couple heaven with a ‘Valley of Love’ which contained statues of dear and lions mating, swan paddle boats on the lake and love swings. Andrea loved it, Torin liked the ice cream. It’s easy to get around the town on scooters and we find waterfalls, botanical gardens and a giant Buddha. Horticulture is the village’s main industry and the produce market is buzzing, and we felt 3 days wasn’t long enough, thanks for the tip Steveo. We’ve also met solo travelers who have taken ‘Easy Riders’ and had one of the most memorable experiences through S.E.A.
Next destination - Nah Trang. It’s commercial and like a baby Surfers Paradise with a 6km sandy white beach, high rise buildings and amusement park. Vinpearl-Land is reached via cable-car
Nah Trang
View from the Cable-car over a 3.5km stretch of water. There’s a massive amusement and water park for us and about a dozen other visitors. The water park is awesome and the hydro slides are scared-Andrea-safe. We miss out on some of the rides because you need to have four or more people, but we do see a blue headed chameleon.
Day 2 in Nah Trang we have an early morning excursion to go snorkeling. A fantastic morning out, and we see many different fishes, eels and coral that we hadn’t ever seen before. Just the two of us floating in the ocean and swimming with the fishes.
In Hoi An and Hue it rained a lot. When we did go outside, we were walking in mid-calf deep water. We didn’t get to see much unfortunately. Other travelers have told us they’re beautiful towns. The Purple Forbidden City in Hue was under reconstruction as the VC had let it been over-run by nature with no maintenance since their last reconstruction in 1993. If you want to see a great Forbidden City, go to Beijing. However the LP led us to a Vege restaurant with amazing bbq tofu, even Torin enjoyed it. Hoi
An is great for tailored clothing and we fall victim to buying shirts, skirts and a little red riding hood jacket.
We took public transport to Halong Bay/City via Hanoi, trying to do some exploring by ourselves, as we had received a ‘tip off’ that it was easy and cheaper than booking in Hanoi. We thought the amount of junk boats lining the wharfs would all be competing for our money. Alas, there were only two guys selling us package deals for more than what it cost back in Hanoi. Finally we found one that we thought was a good deal - but later found out it was still US$15 more than what the others had paid coming from Hanoi. The ticket salesmen promised things which the boat operator wouldn’t deliver, yelling straight to our faces “you’ve been lied to!”
We were lucky to have a group of like minded people with us on the junk boat, all from Europe and about the same age. On the first night we got dropped off on Cat Ba Island and discovered a bar called the Flightless Bird. After sitting down and looking around, we realized it was a NZ owned
bar with NZ posters and All Blacks flags lining the walls.
The next morning when we went to do a walk in the Cat Ba national park, they took us to a part of it that not many people go to…this was through someone’s village and people fell over and cut themselves on the sharp rocks. In other words they took us through a back track so they wouldn’t have to spend money on park entrance fees.
Back on the boat for a night, we all get told that the following morning we only have 30min Kayak. Everyone (about 15 of us) were told we’d have 2 hours, so this was the final straw of being lied to. We stayed out for over an hour enjoying the peacefulness and beauty of the calm bay and limestone outcrops. Back at the boat, after the tour guide came searching for us, they ask us to pay more for extra time - WHATEVER!
Overall the North Vietnamese scam, deceive and openly hate the backpacker/budget tourists. We were not free to do any independent travel like in NZ (unless you wish to brave the roads on a bike or swim). You
have to book a tour if you want to go sightseeing, and you’re herded like cattle and treated terribly. The food in the north is too simple, and to get a wholesome meal you have to pay a lot - which we did due to both feeling undernourished and sick (from the high level of pollution). We recommend to other travelers to spend more time in South Vietnam and around the Mekong Delta.
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