Vietnam - the countries within a country!

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After booking Vietnam and beginning my research about where we would travel, I quickly learned that 11 days was NOT enough! However, I knew that with careful planning, I'd be able to see a good amount of it and what's more, internal flights from as little as £9(!!!!!) meant that we spent less time travelling and more time exploring each city we visited. My favourite thing about this country was that every city we visited had a completely different feel to it, to the point each could be it's own country!

It seems only right to start with the 25 hour bus journey I ended on from my last blog.... I had read some horror stories online but what was more nerving was the fact that there were so little information about the journey in comparison to most other journeys in South East Asia. In addition, from people we spoke to, we learned that most people had been advised to fly the route. Unfortunately, our budget meant we couldn't really afford the £200 flight in comparison to a 10 dollar bus journey without having to cut back else where. In hindsight, all in all, the journey was not that bad at all. The men working on the bus were a bit weird and the most frustrating thing was that never told us what was going on. Actually, I take that back. The MOST frustrating thing was the beeping!!!! From the second we got over the Vietnamese border (so still at least another 12 hours to go), they were beeping every time there was any other car/bike/person/animal near the road! I'm sure at times they were just being knobs because they kept looking round and laughing to each other. Luckily, I'd got myself some sleeping tablets from a pharmacy in Laos so I managed to sleep about 20 of the 25 hours - sleep that was probably well needed! I was shocked at how simple and easy the border crossing was. There are stories online about having to pay 'extras' for use of the stamp or some other stupid reason when of course this money is just pocketed by the men at the border. However, we arrived a little before the border opened and once it opened, the whole bus was stamped out of Laos and into Vietnam within an hour and we were on our way (with lots of beeping!!!). Of course, it probably helped that you have to have a Vietnam visa in advance when arriving by land so it was literally just a case of checking it and stamping. Once stamped out of Laos, we had to walk through 'no mans land' to the Vietnamese border, it was really foggy that morning so it was pretty eerie walking through this baron land.

So 25 hours, a whole lot of beeping and after being perved on my some weird Vietnamese man on the bus who tried getting my attention by playing with my portable phone charger whilst I slept and then wrote out 'I want to kiss you' in his phone (Males please note; this is not how to get girls!), we arrived in rainy Hanoi! With no idea where we were or where we were going we managed to get a taxi who told us he'd do it on the meter, which we thought must be a fair price. Little did we know that this is a little trick in Vietnam and they in fact rig their meters so to take more money from unsuspecting tourists. Ah South East Asia and your scams! Another scam we encountered was tourists mistaking 500,000 dong notes for 20,000 dong notes as they look quite similar. The locals, of course, can tell them apart and will more often than not keep the 500,000... this also almost happened to us but luckily we noticed in time.

Out of all the places in Vietnam I visited, I'd say Hanoi was my least favourite however I think the miserable weather was a massive contributor to that. I'm too much of a sun worshipper and had just come from 35 degree sun to 19 degree drizzle. It was also SO busy. Like to the point you risked your life every time you crossed the road and there was constant beeping everywhere you went. We noticed that there were so many older Vietnamese people always just sat out on the streets on little stalls huddled in groups drinking tea or alcohol which was pretty strange. Any time of day, there they'd be cluttering up the already busy streets. Our hostel there was awesome however, definitely one of the best I stayed in and most impressively, they offered free beer!! As well as free breakfast although we found that in Vietnam, most hostels offered some kind of free breakfast which was always a bonus. I very unexpectedly bumped into my best friend from home in Hanoi since we knew we would be in Vietnam on similar dates but had no idea we'd be in the same city at the same time!

A highlight for me was definitely Hoa Lo prison which was built by the French and Americans to imprison Vietnamese political prisoners and then the Vietnamese used it to capture prisoners of war during the American/Vietnam War. The prison as a whole was verrry biased, giving this impression that the Vietnamese were treated extremely inhumane by the French and Americans whereas the Vietnamese treated their prisoners of war like royalty. Although there is probably some fact behind it, it was very over-exaggerated at times. Places like this, including the war museums we visited you have to remember to take with a pinch of salt. As I'd studied Vietnam and all about the wars during my History A-level, these places were so interesting to me as it gave a very different perspective to what we were taught at school.

Our next stop was the beautiful Ha Long Bay. We wanted to do a two night tour but unfortunately we had a flight and it was too risky us getting back with only an hour or so to spare to catch it. Thus we took the 'party cruise' for 2 days and 1 night. It was such a nice trip, just floating through endless limestone isles of all shapes and sizes. We were served some amazing meals too which included whole baked fish, a really nice tofu and tomato dish and this incredible fried corn. Despite the grey weather, we still managed to go kayaking, caving and even jumping in off the top of the boat! Then we all got very drunk (it was the party boat of course) before retiring to our little cabins. We met some great people on that trip, two English girls especially who we later met up with too. The following day we floated back towards shore but not before a cookery class in which we were taught to make traditional Vietnamese spring rolls which we were then served to us as part of our lunch. They were delicious!

Da Nang was our following destination, it was a short stop there since we landed there late in the evening so stopped over for a night before catching the train to Hue the following day. We found this to be the place we got stared at the most. We are pretty used to getting stared at since we live in a town in Japan with few foreigners but this was seriously strange! People were coming past on motorbikes and slowing right down and veering over to the pavement just to take a look or say 'hello' to us and one old woman in a cafe literally just stood in front of our table for a good 2 minutes staring at us!! Da Nang is usually famous for its beach but we decided to spend our one day and night in the city. I'm really glad we did this if I'm honest since I saw a lot of beaches whilst travelling but this city was really different to any I saw. I felt as though it didn't see very many tourists which was rather refreshing.

The views from the train ride to Hue were literally breathtaking. The Marble Mountains, white sandy beaches and bright blue sea! Definitely the most beautiful train journey I have ever taken. Despite the beautiful views outside, my experience inside the train was hindered by some old Vietnamese lady sticking her old wrinkly feet on the arm rests either side of me and to add insult to injury she then began hacking very loudly and spat on the floor!!! One thing I will never get used to in Asia is the spitting/sniffing/hacking all the time. Its obviously a difference of culture but I just don't understand how it can EVER be seen as acceptable!

We arrived in Hue without having booked anywhere to stay but asked to be taken to Pham Ngu Lao Street (the main backpacker's street) and ended up in this tiny hostel that was literally like two rooms in the couples house that had a number of bunk beds and triple bunk beds! It coincidentally turned out that the man that owned it was a guy that my brother had made friends with when he was in Vietnam last year and he even accompanied us on our 'easyrider' trip to Hoi An. We ended up spending most of our evenings at the Backpackers Hostel since they had great happy hours and even a pub quiz one night (which we won may I add!).

In order to see some of the famous sites, we decided to take a boat tour of the Perfume River which stopped at various places along the way including a famous garden, three tombs and finally the Old Imperial City. The tombs were different to how I'd imagined, they were more like temples but nonetheless, they were amazing. It was so pretty, for instance the walls were made up entirely of pattered pieces of pottery. The most interesting thing I learned was that for every body they find, whether Vietnamese, French or American, as well as for anybody that dies, in Hue (and possibly in other parts of Vietnam) a mini shrine is built for them. Thus when driving through countryside you see loads of shrines randomly in wooded areas from where soldiers had fallen during the war. It's a really nice gesture, I couldn't imagine the British treating their dead enemies of war with so much respect.

I was left a bit confused and disappointed with the Imperial City. It had been a looong day and we were pretty tired so we decided that we just wanted to see the Forbidden Purple City that we'd read was one of the best things in Hue. From looking at the maps we realised that in order to get to it we had to pay to go into the castle ruins. Thus we paid an extortionate amount (even in comparison to western prices) to get in and began our hunt for the forbidden city. There were barely any signs or information once we got inside so we felt as though we were just wondering around aimlessly. We found an English speaking tour and asked the guide where we could find the 'Forbidden Purple City'. He was very quick to correct us and told us that we should most definitely not call it the 'purple' forbidden city since purple is a imperialist colour and thus it is offensive! This was news to us, especially since even the signs had called it the Purple Forbidden City! We learned that actually the whole castle grounds was the forbidden city we'd been looking for and therefore it was rather underwhelming especially after having visited the beautiful tombs earlier in the day! One of the most entertaining parts of our day was a little old vietnamese woman who was on our boat celebrating her 80th birthday with her family. At one point we were waiting to get on a bus to take us to our next destinations and she was sat smoking. The stench coming from whatever it was was like nothing I'd ever smelt before, it was really over powering and made us choke despite the fact we outside in the fresh air! We think it might have been opium. It was quite a sight to see a little 80 year old lady with her black teeth and gums smoking drugs like it was nothing!

The most exciting and my favourite part of the trip was most definitely motorbiking along the coast from Hue to Hoi An! This is the same route as was on Top Gear so the Hai Van Pass is now pretty famous. It was the first time I'd ever ridden a motorbike so biking round those windy rounds with their hairpins bends and sheer drops down the mountains was terrifying however the journey was so so beautiful and I am so proud of myself for braving driving myself...and for not dying along the way! The guy who ran our hostel was also going to guide us along the route and luckily the day before he took us out for a test run on the bikes which made me a little more confident the following morning. Along the way we stopped at a locals market where we picked up some fresh watermelon and a pretty waterfall called Elephant waterfall where was swam and ate the watermelon. We stopped for a seafood lunch and it was INCREDIBLE. The freshest seafood I have ever eaten since our guy literally picked the fish up with his hands whilst still alive and sent them off to the barbecue. The restaurant was a wooden shack out on stilts in the sea and as you looked down you could see nets where they were catching/breeding the fish that they use in the restaurant so this really was the freshest of the fresh and it really showed when the food arrived! We had various different seafood from huge prawns to a clam chowder but the best thing for me was the muscles!! I have never eaten anything as delicious; there are not enough words to describe how good they were. After our lunch we made our ascent up the mountain roads where the views just got better and better until we reached the national park at the top. We were first harassed by ladies in the little shops there who were trying to make up buy drinks for extortionate prices but pretty soon we managed to get away (yes I caved and bought a drink I didn't want). We walked as high up as we could and got an amazing view of the bay below us. It really was a breathtaking, bucket list moment for me!

After a winding descent (and losing our guide as he decide to speed off and I wanted to take it slow on the way down) we stopped at the beach in Da Nang before ending our journey in Hoi An. A 200 km ride with no problems but the second I got off the bike I stepped back and burned my leg on the bloody exhaust - OUUUCCCHHHH! I had a huge big open wound on my leg for a good week until I finally took myself to a pharmacy. Luckily the scarring is minimum but theres still a faint mark where it is... kind of like a special tattoo from my trip haha.

Anyway, we were extremely tired after our long day of riding so we decided to get some dinner and have an early night. I was shocked to find that you could buy a beer in Hoi An for 3000 dong... approximately 15 pence!!! Unfortunately the restaurant we chose ended up being awful! I've never received such bad service before. We ordered 3 local dishes between the 3 of us to share and the first one arrived, a noodle dish and was really delicious but it was a bit of wait for the second. However what was really bad was that the third the 'Local Pancake' didn't arrive for ages. After an hour we asked about it and they told us it was coming however 20 minutes later they came back over and asked us again what we'd ordered, so clearly it was not even nearly ready. It was another hour before anything arrived at which point they plonked a plate of pancakes on our table and we began picking at it. However another 10 minutes later she dropped another plate of rice paper and a sauce on our table with absolutely no explanation or apology! By this time we were pretty angry and just asked for the bill, maybe our exhaustion had something to do with our short tempers but this place was seriously bad. Overall I did enjoy food in Vietnam but it was A LOT of beef noodles which got a bit samey. My absolute favourite Vietnamese food is the street food know as Bahn Mi which is barbecued pork in a baguette normally with cucumber, coriander and chilli sauce but some also include pate and various other things. Each one I ate was different but all were sooo tasty and it was so cheap!

The following day was a dedicated beach day. We'd planned to hire bicycles and cycle there since it was only 3km away from our hostel but we decided it was way too hot and decided to get a taxi. We were dropped at a part of the beach that was mainly restaurants and little beach thus we took a walk along before we came to some soft white sand perfect for sunbathing on. The sea was really rough which made it difficult to swim and at one point, we tried going in the sea in front of one of the hotels only to be told that we couldn't swim there.... As far as I'm aware, its not possible to own the sea?! We got speaking to a Vietnamese lady on the beach who was selling bracelets, she was really interesting. She spoke about 5 different languages which she'd learned just from speaking to people on the beach. She gave us a really good insight into what living in Vietnam is really like. For instance, as a proud communist country I'd always assumed that healthcare and schooling would be free since they aimed to be equal for all. However, we learned that in order to have a baby (this lady was pregnant) you had to pay a lot of money and if you didn't have it you had to borrow it, there was no other choice. She also told us that school is free until you are 12 and after that you must pay but unfortunately most people cannot afford to continue school and thus like her, they begin selling things to tourists in order to make money. She said she was very happy for the influx of tourists to Hoi An since they had been very very poor beforehand but now they were 'okay, not rich but not poor'.

We spent that evening in Hoi An old town which I really loved and I wished we'd stayed on the Islet there. I also got myself a custom-made two piece! Since Hoi An is famous for its tailors, I felt I must take advantage of it despite the fact we didn't have time to have a full dress or suit made.

The hostel we stayed in in Hoi An, Green Field Hotel, was by far the worst, even though as a whole it was a nice building with a pool. When we first arrived we were asked if we wanted to upgrade to a private room but since it was almost double the price we decided to stick with a dorm. We were promised a 'pool or rice paddy view' yet when we opened the curtain it was literally a wall with a picture of a rice paddy on! Also everybody except us that checked in was greeted with orange juice, cookies and smiles! We were simply shoved in this room with no information; such as the fact you have to ring a bell to get in at night. We ended up climbing over a fence to break into our own hostel because we were not told this!!! Then when we checked out they tried scamming us. When converting from dollars to dong they quickly added all sorts of figures. Luckily we'd worked out ourselves how much it should be and despite the receptionist's initial unwillingness to accept this, eventually she did.

Our final destination was Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City as it is now correctly known. I really loved it there. It had a buzzing city feel, without feeling overly busy like Hanoi, as well as sun! It was probably the most western place we visited in Vietnam, probably due to colonialism and the American invasion. However there were still alot of traditional culture there too. One example of this is the little vietnamese coffee shops that are on every street. I found out whilst I was there that Vietam is the second biggest exporter of coffee in the world and I can see why! Their coffee is sooo good. After a long day in the sun sightseeing, there is nothing better than sitting down with an iced coffee. They use condensed milk like in Laos coffee but the vietnamese style is much stronger and even more delicious. Lots of the old streets had young boys trying to shine your shoes for you outside the coffee shops too which made me laugh, it reminded me of England in the olden days!

Whilst in Ho Chi Minh we visited the Royal Palace which was really pretty but what stuck out to me the most was the War Museum there. Like I said previously, I learned about the American/Vietnam war at school but the museum revealed a lot more than what we'd been taught. It was filled with a lot more information than the war museum in Hanoi as well as lots of pictures which really made it emotional. Agent Orange was an operation by the Americans after the war whereby they sprayed the country with chemicals in order to kill all the crops. Bad enough as that is, it also had another effect, similar to that of an atomic bomb. People are left permanently deformed from it, even those that were not born and even thier parents were not. Simply their grandparents had been affected and it had been passed down. You see people all over Vietnam with various deformities; from missing limbs (which could also be as result of the thousands of land mines that are scattered all over South East Asia) to missing eyes and after visiting the war museum you quickly realise why this is so commonplace amongst the Vietnamese. It is truly upsetting.

After only 2 days in Ho Chi Minh, it was time for me to head over to Cambodia to begin another adventure there. As I said previously, 11 days was NOT long enough in Vietnam and although I still managed to fit an awful lot in and saw most of the famous sites, it is most definitely somewhere I will be coming back to to explore some more. I loved how diverse the country was and the sheer contrasts between not only the North and South but each place we visited. I went to this country expecting great things and it certainly did not let me down!

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