Vietnam

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We touched down in Ho Chi Minh City after the three flights it took us to get there from Goa. Despite having slept on the floor in Bangkok airport we were still feeling excited to be somewhere new. Unlike our arrival in India, we were successfully collected from the airport by a man holding a card with Lucy’s name (which we were very excited by). We had arranged to meet up with Chad and Matt (our Canadian friends) who were also spending the night in Ho Chi Minh/Saigon. It was so nice to see some familiar faces, although we definitely missed not having working mobile phones when we were waiting around for them for about an hour unsure as to what was going on. We were extremely tired and didn’t end up having the big night out that we had planned but went for a little look round Ho Chi Minh and got our first taste of Vietnamese style food in an American bar. After this we bought some cans of beer for about 20p and went back to our hostel to catch up.

The next day we were seeing another familiar face- Katy who we had

met in Indonesia and seen again in Thailand. It was really good to see her and her two friends, Sandra and Jill. We decided to go together to visit the war museum in the city. This was a pretty harrowing experience because there were a lot of pictures and information depicting the cruelty of the Vietnam War. The mood was a bit low when we came out so we spent the remainder of the day booking a trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels and going out for a meal.

We had to get up at 7.00am for our trip so on the bus I slept through most of the talk on the tunnels, but I do know that the Vietnamese used them during the war, they are very small and people lived in them. I also had a picture in one that has been widened for Europeans. We had quite a good day at the tunnels and our guide was very entertaining. Despite this, the tour had been somewhat over commercialised and we all felt slightly surprised that you had the opportunity to shoot a gun at the end of the experience. This seemed a little ironic

considering we had spent the day being shown all the damage done through this brutal and violent war.

That evening was our last in Saigon so we went out with Katy and her friends and drank buckets of alcohol on the street for £1.20. We also got thrown out of a club for not buying a drink so ended up going back to where we started and dancing in what I think was a cafe all night. I did leave at about 4.00am because someone jumped on my toe and (I think) broke it.

The next morning was not fun because we had to be up at 6.00am for our trip to the Mekong Delta. Later on an Irish lad from our bus admitted that we had looked a little worse for wear when first getting on.

Our Mekong trip was really good and a complete contrast to Saigon. We had gone from a metropolitan city full of coffee and karaoke bars to the Vietnamese countryside. I immediately bought a rice hat so I could look like a native on the water.

The first part of our trip was to go on a motorboat across the Mekong River to a 'honey bee farm'. When we got there our guide pointed at a tree that had a couple of bees near it and took us for a cup of honey tea. Not exactly your typical bee farm. On the way back to our boat he showed us a couple of interesting things, including a gigantic lychee fruit. As well as this we went on a tiny wooden boat along a small side river which was really pretty. We looked the picture of Vietnam while doing this; all wearing rice hats. We had opted to stay at a homestay as part of our trip which we took another boat to get to. I’m really glad that we had chosen to stay here instead of a hotel; we were staying in cosy little cabins that you crossed a small bridge to get to. In addition this we were given an introduction to Vietnamese cooking through the opportunity to stuff and fry our own spring rolls. After eating these we were served the main course of fresh spring rolls; this involved making our own wraps from the Elephant Ear Fish in the middle of the table and adding rice noodles and vegetables from the other bowls. It was an interesting new novelty because we were eating the whole thing with chopsticks, including picking away pieces of fish.

The next morning was another early start as we met at 6.00am to go to the local market. This was really interesting because it wasn’t a tourist market, but a place where the locals went to barter in the early hours. While here we saw a live duck in a carrier bag. This was obviously quite a novelty for us and while we were staring a little boy thought he'd give us a bit of a show by jumping on the poor duck. We left the market and went on to a school where we saw little children arriving from boats to school with lifejackets attached to their bags- all part of living life along the Mekong River. Later that morning, we visited a floating market used by the locals which was extremely interesting; each boat sold something different, for example, pineapples, vegetables and they demonstrated what they were selling by tying it to a long wooden pole sticking up from the boat. This meant that we saw boats with poles sticking up that had onions, carrots and fruit on the end. It was a different experience entirely from the floating market in Thailand which mostly does a tourist trade, this market had local shop owners arriving in boats to buy produce in bulk. As well as this, while on the water, other boats sped up to us trying to sell us coffee, soft drinks and pineapple. Later on, we went to a rice factory, rice noodle factory and heard some Vietnamese music. We got back to Saigon at 6.00pm and waited for our bus to Muine at 8.00pm. We were very excited to get on our first sleeper bus, complete with beds.

We got to Muine at 1.00am and luckily they dropped us right outside the accommodation we had booked. The next morning we woke, excited to go and see the beach that we had heard wonderful reports of. Unfortunately Muine was a wash out, literally. It was so wet that we sat inside most of the day, eating and drinking Vietnamese coffee. The most exciting thing we did here was to take a local bus where I gave the Vietnamese a laugh by wearing my rice hat.

From Muine we went to Dalat which was one of my favourite places in Vietnam. The journey getting there was horrendous; we were all crammed into a minibus with our luggage stuffed into the aisle so that I couldn’t move an inch. However the beautiful mountain scenery along the way partly made up for it.

Dalat in is the mountains and, weirdly, has a very French feel to it with many French cafes and even its own mini Eiffel Tower. There is also a big lake in the middle with peddalos on and a huge market close by. We had heard that there are beautiful waterfalls to see so went to book a trip to them. Whilst in the tour office, Groovy Geckos, we were convinced not just to see the waterfalls but to abseil down them.

This activity was called canyoning which basically involves making your way down river in every way possible. We began by abseiling next to a waterfall and landing in the water below; this was exhilarating enough because when beginning this abseil you don’t realise that at a certain point you go off the edge of a sheer drop. After this, we moved onto rock slides which were brilliant fun- we slid from the rocks into a pool at the bottom, initially legs first, then backwards, and then Gwend, Luce and I went down holding onto one another. We also did a cliff jump which I was terrified of but managed to force myself to leap off.

My favourite abseil came next; this was down a twenty five metre waterfall. We were hooked into a metal loop at the top and had to slowly lower ourselves down through the fast gushing water. The scariest part about this was that if you slipped and lost your footing it was really slippery and difficult to get back on your feet again. This abseil also involved a jump four metres from the bottom where the rope ran out and you had to let go. It was very scary but also a lot of fun. It was even better as we ate lunch at the bottom of the waterfall and were able to watch a group of Vietnamese coming down, entertaining us as they let go and dropped. For anyone who’s seen Takeshi’s Castle, it was a similar viewing experience.

The last abseil we did was called the ‘Washing Machine’ because you begin walking down rock which suddenly drops away from you leaving you to lower yourself down a rope into a waterfall that spins you round as if in a washing machine. I went down this first which was brilliant because I was able to see everyone’s faces as they emerged from the water. Luce came second and we had climbed onto a rock to watch the others. When I climbed onto this at first I had completely lost my footing and come slipping back down to land on my back like a little bug in my life jacket. Even better that this however, was when Luce went to get off and in some sort of comic slow motion scene went sliding down the rock, landing on top of Gwend, completely taking her out. I was laughing so much, especially when their two helmeted little heads, resurfaced, bobbing out of the water.

After returning to our hotel from an amazing day in the water, we were completely shattered but went to see another waterfall, called Elephant Falls which was magnificent. It was bit tricky to get to, climbing across some slippery rocks but was well worth it, especially as when we were there a rainbow came out making the whole scene look even more spectacular.

That night, we decided to go to a restaurant called ‘V Café’, recommended by our hotel where I had the best meal of Vietnam; a delicious hotpot. There was also a Filipino man singing there who was fantastic and we ended up being the last ones left, singing ‘Wonderwall’ along with him.

As well as canyoning in Dalat we took part in another extreme sport; tandem bike riding. This was potentially one of the funniest things we have done on the whole of our travels. I will never lose the image of us making our way shakily around a busy roundabout, constantly stopping and with locals asking us if we needed some help. I couldn’t even get our tandem going and Gwend had to go on the front but somehow we eventually made it to our destination; ‘Crazy House’, a popular building in Dalat which has been designed by an architect, to be used as a tourist attraction but also a hotel. It looked as if the entire place had been carved out of a giant tree. On the way back we had some downhill tandem riding which was hilarious and once again had to get on the roundabout to take back the bikes. I am so surprised we didn’t get honked/run over here because we had little to no control and pulled out in front of about four motorbikes, wobbling along laughing our heads off.

We arrived in Nha Trang after another hellish bus journey from Dalat. Despite this, we were excited because we were back by the beach and had also heard there was a good nightlife in Nha Trang, something that we had been missing out on since Thailand.

The beach we immediately went to was stunning and a massive contrast to the mountain location of Dalat. There were lots of people selling things on the beach, including lobsters for £1.50 which they cooked for you there and then. While we were sunbathing a man approached us and asked if we wanted to go on a booze cruise. The boat left at five and came back at ten. This was when my night ended; John was not exaggerating when he said it was all you can drink. The only problem with Nha Trang is that it is quite small so I had the unfortunate experience of bumping into the people from the boat who had seen me disgrace myself in falling asleep while still at sea.

I took it a bit easier the next day and re-cooperated by going on an inflatable playground in the sea with Luce. We went out again and had the good fortune of meeting two other Welshies- Leigh and Lawrence. We had also been drinking at a bar where one of the workers got excited about the prospect of Gwend's birthday and promised he would be buying her a cake.

We had decided to go to Vinpearl on Gwend's birthday; Vinpearl is an island with a waterpark, theme park, aquarium and amusement arcade on. We got cable cars over there at 10.00 and didn't leave till about 9.00pm. There ended up being thirteen of us at the park because we had met Leigh and Lawrence there, some Scottish friends that we had made the night before, and Bryce our Canadian friend had also re-joined us with some of his mates. We spent the day running around the park like big kids drinking the cans of 50p beer on offer. My favourite parts of the days were the bumper cars, the water ride called the ‘Tsunami’ and the wild toboggan ride that we took, in the dark, at the end of the day. We also saw monkeys riding bikes, which was at first a novelty but so cruel.

That night we went to our favourite bar, Oasis, again and as promised, Tri had bought Gwend her cake which said ‘Gwenda in England’ with her date of birth on it.

The next morning we had an early wakeup call from Brian (one of our Canadian friends) who had got an overnight bus to Nha Trang. Because Brian and Bryce had brought two more friends with them, the lot of us decided to go to the mud bath spa. Instead of relaxing we ended up mostly throwing buckets of mud in each other’s faces

That night we said some sad goodbyes as Gwend and I were leaving all the others to take a two day/night journey up to Hanoi. We were both sad to leave Luce and Soph who we hadn't spent a night apart from for over two months. It was in this frame of mind that we started our long journey. The beds on buses were no longer a novelty and these beds were disgusting and tiny. Both Gwend and I agreed that for the first time we genuinely thought that we would die on this journey. I was bouncing out of my seat for the last ten hours while watching the sky light up and the rain lashing down outside.

We arrived, shattered and smelly, in Hanoi after two days travelling at 6.00am. Unfortunately, we had only two days here because we had stayed too long in Nha Trang and missed our bus. Therefore, despite being tired, we spent the day exploring the city. I can't say I know a lot about Hanoi because we mostly shopped, getting rid of the last of our pennies, but it seems a nice place with a big lake in the middle of the city surrounded by trees and flowers. The best part of our time here was staying in the ‘Hanoi Backpackers’ hostel which was full of travellers of a similar age to us who we went out with that night. We ended up with some Dutch boys who we went with to a Vietnamese club- this was simply scary. I couldn’t hear, or really see a thing due to all the flashing lights and everyone in there seemed completely out of their minds. It didn’t take us long to get back to the backpacker bar with the rest of our kind.

The following day we had our trip to Halong bay which, I believe, has recently been named a natural wonder of the world. We only had time to go on a day trip here, but we were quite lucky as there were only six of us on a huge boat so we could spread out. The sight of Halong bay was beautiful, despite it being a cloudy day; it is incredible to see these huge rock formations that appear scattered throughout this stunning stretch of ocean. In addition to viewing the wonder from our boat we also stopped at a floating village which was really bizarre because the houses floating on the water looked as if they could have been from a suburban estate, with flowers decorating their porches and dogs tied outside. Here, we also had the opportunity to kayak through these huge formations and into the caves, which gave us a stunning view of everything. Kayaking through a cave and into a cut off part of sea with towering walls of rock was a strangely eerie experience; it was so quiet inside that all you could hear was the uncoordinated splash of mine and Gwenda's paddles breaking the silence.

After being on the water the boat dropped us off at a huge, natural, cave that we walked through while our guide pointed out interesting rocks shapes, including ones shaped like a dragon, a lady and a giant boob.

At the end of the day we began the long journey back to Hanoi, both very quiet in the knowledge that the next morning we would be flying home after almost five months away from the UK. I loved Vietnam; I had been anticipating an entirely different country to the one we visited. I expected Vietnam to be a less developed, less touristy version of Thailand. It was definitely less touristy, but in no way less developed. What surprised me the most was the diversity here; Saigon offered busy restaurants, coffee bars and kareoke, while the Mekong was still very rural, as was Muine, Dalat was a beautiful mountainous city (weirdly with a french twist), Nha Trang offered beachside relaxation with a busy nightlife and finally Hanoi was a pretty garden city- not quite as metropolitan as Saigon. Vietnam definitely has a lot to offer and I will, without a doubt, be returning.

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