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Published: November 23rd 2007
Fairy tale water falls
The Kansi waterfalls just outside Luang PrabangHi all,
We are slow at this but that’s due to really bad internet connections, or the complete lack of an internet cafe!!! But the blogs will be coming fast and furiously for a while now!!
Due to our over indulgence of the Islands and having to stay in Bangkok for 2 weeks, with the visa run to Cambodia and waiting for our visa to be processed for Vietnam and India, we were running seriously short on time to travel through the north of Thailand, Laos and Vietnam! In total we only had about 3 weeks to do these two countries!!!! So here is the shorter edited version of the trip we SHOULD have taken........
We crossed the river to the border town in Laos by long boat. We were really sorry to leave Thailand. We got off the boat and checked in with Immigration. You wouldn’t want to stay overnight here, and we moved straight on to the pier on the Mekong. Laos is landlocked and lies between Thailand, Myanmar, China, Vietnam and Cambodia. The Mekong River forms the country's western border and the Annamite Mountains form its eastern border with Vietnam. The total land area is
Last night in Thailand
A view over the river to Laos from Vietnam approximately 237,000 sq km - an area similar to that of the United Kingdom. There are 68 official ethnic groups in Laos, belonging to three main groups.
Lao Loum - Lao, or Lao Loum consists of about half of the population. The Lao Loum or lowland Lao people live in the Mekong river valley and its tributaries. The Lao Loum cultivate and eat wet, or sticky rice, and generally practice Theravada Buddhism. Lao Loum are a subgroup of the Austro-Thai people and speak the Lao language. The Lao Loum women wear the traditional sinh - the wraparound sarong. Lao Tai are closely related to the Lao Loum and are officially classified in that group. The Lao Tai are more tribal than the Lao Loum and cultivate both wet rice and dry mountain rice. Lao Tai traditionally practice slash and burn agricultural methods. The Lao Tai on the whole have not converted to either Christianity or Buddhism and retain their animist beliefs. Lao Tai are further subdivided into sub groups by the colour of their traditional clothing, i.e. Black, White, and Red Tai.
Lao Theung are the largest hill tribe group, with 45 subgroups. The Lao
The long boat
We took a long boat across the river to the river side Laos border town Theeung are semi nomadic and of Mon-Khmer origin. They live on mountain slopes, between 300 and 900m altitude and practice slash and burn agriculture. The Khamu subgroup is found in the north and grow mountain rice, cotton, coffee and tobacco. The Tin subgroup is found in Sayabouli province - they are hunters and do not use metal tools, using only wood and bamboo. The Akha and Alak subgroups live in the south in the Boloven plateau.
Lao Sung or High Lao live in the high mountains of the north. Main groups are the Hmong and the Mien. Hmong are divided into Black, Red, White and Striped, according to their clothing. The Hmong raise cattle, pigs and chickens and generally survive on a barter economy. The Mien have a similar language to the Hmong and are known for their silver craftsmanship. Smaller hill tribe groups include the Lisu, Lahu and Lolo.
As well as the four main groups, Laos also has a number of Chinese, mainly living in the cities as well as ethnic Vietnamese, Cambodians, Burmese and Thai, In Vientiane there are also a small number of southern Asian
We boarded a long boat and headed
The slow boat
A view inside the slow boat, you take this up the Mekong river for two days to reach Luang Prabang in Laos. off on the mighty (and shitty brown coloured) Mekong River. We met quite a few cool people including Israelis and Columbians on the boat and sat back and chilled out! The trip takes you along the river allowing you to have a good look at the real Laos. It is undeveloped and is basically made up of lush tropical rain forest, hills, mountains and small villages. There are a few big towns and one city (Vientiene). Our destination was Luang Prabang. After a day on the river we pulled into dock at the half way point town of Pak Beng. We had to climb up a steep very muddy bank (with our backpacks on, so we were well weighted down!) which had treacherous footing; as the boat could not moor at the concrete dock due to the amount of other boat traffic. You emerge on a dusty road! The knowledgeable go right into town. The daft (me and Claire) go left to the first flop house you see. It was really cheap, but also truly basic. This town is a hole. The people are not friendly at all and are only interested in your money or selling you opium and
The slow boat
A view down the Mekong and Laos. Most of the country is undeveloped and rain forest weed! If you do not buy there crap they are rude or just completely ignore you. After a bit of a kip I went into town with Claire and some of the others off the boat. We ate at some crap open front stall and had some beers. When they messed up my food I went next door to the Indian and got a carry out Naan and Chicken Tikka, it was better than anything else they ate next door! The bloke who served us was crazy (as in mentally ill) He was constantly panicking and couldn’t get anything right! Eventually we paid the bill and left to have a few beers back at the Guest (flop) house. We had a decent sleep only interrupted when Claire sat up in bed screaming for me! She told me to turn a light on and that a creature had just touched her foot. She was in a right flap! I told her a creature had, and that creature was me! I had turned over and knocked her foot with mine!!!!
Claire:- Tommy was right about the crazy waiter who may also have been a crack addict!!! He was
On the slow boat
Me posing on the slow boat bonkers, he mucked up all the orders bought us too many dishes, then started to shout at us, saying that we HAD ordered this and we were wrong, in the end we just shared out the wrong dishes, but said that we would only eat the right amount of dishes!! He was pissed with us after this and then later came back to say that he had lost his pen and left it on our table, we looked and it wasn't there, but he kept coming back, each time getting redder and redder and more agitated. After he'd come back about 4 times, he exploded....."You have my pen; you take it from me; I leave it here, where is it?????" he was totally freaking out and I thought he might explode. We of course didn’t have the bloody pen, but the more we said this, the angrier he got!!! Eventually as it was getting totally out of hand, I reached into my bag and said "Here take this pen, it mine, but you can have it!” He calmed significantly after this as it turned out this was the only pen that he had in the whole restaurant. I was a
We stayed overnight in a Laos town
The people were rude and only interested in making money off you or selling you opium! We were glad to leave in the morning! pen lighter, but my headache started to clear, we left after this needless to say!!!
He had also sold us some Laos Whisky, which he bought out in an used water bottle, I smelt it and my eyes nearly came out of their sockets, it smelt exactly the same as paint striper or white, it was basically Moonshine, a home-made clear spirit...............soooooooooooooo strong I’m sure you could have been pissed on the smell alone!!! After smelling it, I refused to try any, as did Tommy, I knew that if it went anywhere near my mouth, it was going to come straight back up and I didn’t want to try it once, let alone twice!!!!! Some of the others took swigs from the bottle and their faces where enough to convince me that I’d made the right decision!!!!!
The town ran on a generator for electricity which switched off at 10.30 pm I was in the shower as we lost the lights!!! When we eventually were on our way to bed, I heard scurrying across the roof and I immediately thought cat sized rats.....oh my god!!!! You could tell my the way they ran across and they seemed to like
our room and then we heard the squeaking, I was shitting myself that they would easily be able to get into our room, it was practically thrown together!!!!!
The town was really a village that had been built on selling drugs and providing basic food and accommodation for the tourists from the long boat and although we stayed in a cheap and BBBBBBBBBasic place, it cost less than a pound, the young guy who worked at our guesthouse was at least friendly, if not a little manic!!! He was young and thought the travellers were cool, shame most of the other villagers didn’t share his opinion! Tommy is right though, I was just drifting off to sleep, when suddenly I felt something brush up against my feet........giant cat sized rat was my first thought and I literally screamed "where’s the f###ing torch" and started kicking like a mad women!! Eventually I was practically sitting up on the pillow shining my torch over the bed, looking for the cat rat, "they were nibbling on my toes " I almost cried, Eventually Tommy managed to make me listen and believe it was him who had knocked my feet, but to be
The Mekong!
It can look beautiful in the right light and if you ignore the brown colour :) honest I still wasn't 100%!s(MISSING)ure and it took me a long while to fall back to sleep.
TOMMY :- We couldn’t wait to leave in the morning and set off to the slippery slope! At the top wringing his hands and jabbering to himself was our crazy waiter from the night before! He started going on about how we hadn’t paid enough cos he'd found two beer bottles under the table. I explained we had brought them with us off the boat and he had given us permission to drink them in his shop! He started jabbering and I got pissed off (I haven’t got Claires patience) and told him I wasn’t giving him nothing and go see someone else who was there! He got more agitated, so I got off! He nabbed about 5 others including Claire on their way down and they told him where to go as well! He then followed us onto the boat, before getting kicked off as it left! What a nutter! (Sorry to the mental health professionals among you, for the incorrect terminology 😊 ).
Claire :- But he was a total oddball !!!!!
Fairy tale water falls II
The Kansi waterfalls just outside Luang Prabang Tommy:- Back on the boat and it was more of the same. Stunningly beautiful views of untouched rain forest. At one point we pulled into a small village (these stops were frequent as I think Laos people travel for free). It was funny watching a motorcycle being loaded into a rowing boat to be shipped to the next village! Even funnier when the crates began to fall off the roof and a guy dived into the "Poo water to retrieve them"
We finally got to Luang Prabang at 5 pm. Luang Prabang is lovely. It is very quiet and relatively small. It is also very Buddhist, dominated by temples. It is carved out of jungle and of a night there is little to do except eat, drink and visit the small night market. We did this and bought our very desirable LAOS BEER T-Shirts! Before heading off to eat and an early night! We only had two full days in Laos before flying to Vietnam so on day two I took Claire’s advice and we headed out to see the Kangsi waterfalls. These waterfalls are about 2 hours outside of Luang Prabang but well worth the visit.
Fairy tale water falls II
The Kansi waterfalls just outside Luang Prabang, Me and Claire pose! They are located in a national park and you pay a small sum for entry. After a 5 minute walk you come upon a fairytale waterfall! It isn’t the biggest, or the loudest, but it’s beautiful. You can see it in our pics, but they don’t give it the full Kangsi effect. The waterfall comes rushing over a low cliff face and gives off a dull roar. Rather than one mass of water it splits itself into many small waterfalls. This means as they hit the still water pool at the bottom there isn’t the great crash, steam and frothy water you might expect! It is a tranquil and beautiful spot. We spent about 2 an a half hours there, just admiring the view!
Claire:- This was the second time I'd visited these waterfalls and I have to say they are the most beautiful that I have seen. I've seen Victoria Fall in Zimbabwe/Zambia and Niagra Falls in Canada and although these waterfalls are beautiful, immense, powerful and quite overwhelming. Kangsi waterfalls are really like something out of a fairytale , we spent ages just staring at them and all of the little waterfalls that come off of
it. Last time I was here, we swam in the water a little way down from the falls, but this time no one else was swimming and it looked a lot more deadly to get into the same spot from the last time I was there, some 4 years before. So we decided against swimming and just enjoyed the view.
There was also a bear and tiger sanctuary run by a charity in the UK on the site and it was good to see that they had built some new bigger enclosures for the animals, but in reality the poor things were still caged and could have done with even more space, but at least it was an improvement on the last time I was here, so its hopeful for the future!!
Tommy:- We headed back to our hotel, had a big scran and went to bed. The next day after brekky we were off to the airport and a flight to the relative unknown of Vietnam (unknown for us anyway).
VIETNAM
We arrived in Hanoi, to find it hot and the sky was a very funny grey colour! (Perhaps an
omen of what was to come!). We met up with a cool bloke who had just finished a 10 year stint as a boat captain for some British billionaire and he jumped a taxi we had arranged with our hotel 'Democracy', with us. The hotel was right in the lake area and was sound. The staff were cool and very friendly. These were the only friendly people we found in Hanoi! I've gotta admit I didn’t like this city. I'm not a city person anyway, so don’t take whets written here as gospel! If you love the crowds and hustle and bustle and general chaos of a large city and you’re used to rudeness (i.e. live in London) then you may like Hanoi. Just beware the people here are a bit dour and only interested in your money and how they can part you with it. If they don’t have any luck the reaction ranges from rudeness to aggression! Also they are scammers. The taxi's at the airport are a 'mare and will try to rip you off. Always get a price first or arrange a pick up with your hotel! Never get a cyclo. They will try to rip
you off and I nearly got into a fight with some arsehole obnoxious Vietnamese fella. At one point when we were toe to toe, he said "you no pay, you no go" I didn’t help matters by laughing at him (he was about 5'2" and skinny) and asking him if he was gonna stop me. At that point an English speaking Vietnamese lady mediated and we threw a bit of cash at him before telling him what we thought of him (not politely) and leaving. The air con taxis are metered and cheaper. Your hotel can sort out taxis for you!
After a day here I hated it, and Claire wasn't to keen herself so we booked a tour to Halong Bay 3 days and 2 nights and left the next day!
Ha Long Bay is rated as one of the world’s natural wonders by the Vietnamese and is the most beautiful tourist destination in North Vietnam. Ha Long Bay boasts nearly 3000 limestone covered islands of various sizes and shapes along the 120-km coastline of Bai Chay Beach.
Its waters are thriving with a great diversity of ecosystems including offshore coral reefs, freshwater swamp forests, mangrove forests, small freshwater lakes, and sandy beaches. The folk tale about how the bay came about says the dragons descended from heaven to help locals by spitting jewels and jade to the sea, forming a natural fortress against invaders; these precious stones are represented by the lush green outcrops. Several islands boast beautiful grottos and caves with contiguous chambers, hidden ponds and peculiar stone formations. The bay is about 170 kilometers northeast of Hanoi
We travelled by small minibus for about 3 an a half hours to reach a small marina on the Vietnamese coast, the gateway to Halong Bay. After our guide got the tickets we boarded a beautiful Traditional Vietnamese Imperial-style luxury Wooden Vessel/junk boat. These have cabins with air-con and toilet and shower, a restaurant on the main deck and an upper deck for sun-bathing and boozing! We were served our dinner and then set sale! After about 1 and a half hours we entered Halong Bay and it lived up to the billing! It is stunning (although not as beautiful as Koh Phi Phi) Lush islands of rock loom out of an emerald green sea. Unlike Thailand’s Phi Phi (which is much more beautiful)
Halong bay at night
We moored and got on the lash Halong is not a small area. It beats most other similar sights on pure scale. When you have over a thousand of these stunning uninhabited islands to sale through and marvel at, it is truly breath taking. The only downer are the people who live here on floating junks and platforms. They had a traditional life but with the influx of tourists they now just follow your boat everywhere you go trying to sell you drinks and half rotten fruit at extortionist prices! This aside Halong is well worth the money.
That night we weighed anchor in the centre of the islands miles from anywhere. We had been drinking all day and decided to do a bit of diving (well jumping) off the rail on top of the boat. Me an Claire both did it more than once, beer made it easy!!! That night we all got well and truly hammered and a good night was had by all. The next day we went Kayaking around the islands on the sea. It was good fun. We then went to an island where everyone, bar me and a couple of other hung over and sensible souls, went bike riding. I
Beautiful Halong Bay
The only nice thing in Northern Vietnam! We were on a tug ship, with a luxury cabin! think they were mad as all the bikes were proper ropy and had no brakes!!! I'll leave Claire to tell you about this bit, as I drunk some beers, caught some rays, read me book and caught some ZZZZZ's, not exciting at all!!
Claire :- Thien Cung Caves (translates as Heaven Palace ) were, as our tour guide pronounced it "THE a-ma-zing caves" it was so funny every time a word in English had more than one syllable, she pronounced them all as though the word was hyphenated!!! To be fair, they were a-ma-zing , there were many different partitions to the cave and they all joined together through small walkways. In traditional Vietnamese style the cave has a complex legend behind it....
Legend has it, that beautiful young lady named Mây (cloud), caught the eye of the Dragon Prince and he fell in love with her. They were betrothed, and their wedding lasted seven days and seven nights in the very centre of the grotto.
In honour of the wedding, small dragons flew about through the caves stunning stalactites and stalagmites, elephants danced together , snakes twined themselves around trees and two stone lions
danced . A large elephant, smartly dressed, waited for the bride and the groom. The genies of the south and north stars also came to attend the banquet, and the atmosphere was lively and of celebration. All these scenes are said to have been fossilized in the grotto at various points around the different partitions of the caves, our guide pointed out all of these and although some are kind of hard to identify, some indeed look like elephants, lions and other strange mythical creatures
In the centre are four large pillars supporting the "roof of heaven.” From the base to the top, many strange images seem to live in the stone: birds, fish, flowers and even scenes of human life. There is one that truly looks like two lover entwined together !! On the north wall of the grotto a group of fairies appear to dance and sing in honour of the wedding. Under the immeasurably high roof, stalactites make a natural stone curtain it was truly beautiful and a sight to behold. Somewhere there is said to be the sound of a drum beating, but it is actually just the noise made by the wind blowing through
The yanks left this behind!
Of course the vietnamese say it was captured! stone.
Arriving at the last partition of the grotto, a natural gushing stream of water babbles throughout the year with one path that meanders out of the grotto into the sea. Here are three small ponds of clear water. Legend has it, that this was where Mây bathed her 100 children (better woman than me!), bringing them up wisely and happily into adolescence. One path meanders out of the grotto; it was the way Mây, together with 50 of her children, took to harvest new lands. The 50 remaining children, together with their father, were left to build the native land.
It was by far the biggest, most stunning set of caves I have ever visited and definitely has the best legend I’ve ever heard!!! Only wish we'd have had an invitation to the wedding !!
We set off to cycle around one of the inhabited islands, which as Tommy said, the bikes left a hell of a lot to be desired!! At one point, one of the guys said "sod this I’m going back to the boat, these bikes are a death trap" and to be fair they were. The first bike that I tried, I
pedalled about 10 metres before the chain and gears had fallen off and were dragging behind me, the next one had virtually no breaks, I nearly gave up at this point and went back to the boat. But our guide was getting quite stressed that people were bailing out and insisted that I try another. The third one I tried would only work in one gear, a difficult one to pedal uphill, and the brakes worked a little, although wouldn't come to a complete stop, so I thought sod it I might as well give it a go. The briefing before we left was that we could cycle on flat ground, BUT uphill and steep downhill’s we had to get off and walk the bikes as they were not able to handle these and many tourists had had accidents when they did not listen to her. OH my god I thought they must be SOME hills, but when we meandered off the hills were not big at all, she'd just meant that the bikes were so shite that uphill the gears couldn’t take it and downhill the breaks wouldn’t work!!!!!! But still it was a lovely ride round the islands,
Miliatary museum Hanoi
I pose next to some long dead vietnamese warlords statue through some small towns and eventually we ended up in a really old kind of temple that turned out to be someone’s house, we felt a bit uncomfortable just kind of standing around watching him cook on an open fire, so I asked if he'd like his photo taken with us, he smiled and nodded, but wouldn't look up for the photo, think he was a little shy!!!! We cycled and walked our way back to the ship and then hopped back onto the boat and headed to Cat Ba Island!
Tommy:- From here we sailed to Ct Ba Island to our hotel a 3 star, the HOLIDAY VIEW. It wasn't a bad hotel. A meal had been arranged but the food was shite and I wanted to go out and buy my own. Our guide told me there was no where to get food, it was too expensive and all Vietnamese food. SHE LIED (spot the Vietnamese theme here!) I ended up paying a small fortune in the hotel for a "steak" that was actually a thin shitty burger and tasted like the worst thing sold on the streets of London every Saturday night! After
A french soldiers helmet
Taken from the war. Read the communist propaganda on the label, its quality. It says something like this is evidence of the failure of the french!!! this debacle we hit a local bar and got very drunk. The aussie owner was cool and we got a bit of a happy hour, so Clairey got stuck into the cocktails! The next day we cruised then drove back to Hanoi. We chilled for a couple of days rarely venturing from the hotel. We did walk to the Military museum, up near Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. To be honest the museum is crap and not worth bothering with! There were a few good bits and a few humorous bits! It was Sooooo Communist it was funny. Honestly if you walk the museum and read all the rhetoric you would believe the Vietnamese never lost a battle, that the yanks never won a thing and that the Vietnamese army was the best and bravest in the world!!!! You get constant references to the 'south Vietnamese puppet government' and 'Americas war of aggression against the Vietnamese people' me and Claire just laughed to be honest!! The best part is outside where they have some left over yank ordinance. You can pose with a Huey chopper and a yank plane as well as various bombs, cluster bombs and a bizarre crashed American
A plane that was left
I pose on another piece of hardwear they left plane that looks like some weird arty sculpture! To be honest that’s all I can say on Hanoi, except that they have hundreds of DVD shops and sell them for pennies. We got about 8 box sets and 10 DVD’s for the equivalent of 25 quid! Bargain!
Claire:- There is just one other word of warning about Hanoi.......the roads are among the most difficult in the world to cross, that I have been to so far, that’s including India, Thailand, Nepal, China and London, where in the cities, the traffic is awful!! Honestly you take you life into your own hands every time you cross the road in Hanoi ! I have NEVER seen so many bloody mopeds in one place in my life Katy Melua should write about the 90 million mopeds in Hanoi, rather than the 9 million bicycles in Beijing, hasn't quite got the same ring or romance, but people need to know about this!!!!!!
WE were so bemused by watching people edge their way slowly into the road among moving traffic and getting across alive, we decided to take a video from a restaurant where we were watching in awe as people survived
crossing the road, thinking they must be gods or maybe these are the kind of people that they write the complex legends about.....watch this space for The Legend of Bao the brave and Loan the lucky bird, the lovers test by Fate.....
Bao (meaning protection) and Loan (a lucky bird in Vietnamese mythology) a young pair of lovers who were so besotted with one another they could not bear to take their eyes off one another for fear of losing one precious moment deep within one another’s eyes and souls. They had made a pact never to lose a single second of that longing gaze and would be together until the end of time. However, a cruel bout of Fate intervened to test their love and commitment to one another.
They were sent to Hanoi to get supplies for their village and the market was on the other side of the most treacherous roads in Hanoi. In order to cross this treacherous road, it seemed they would certainly have to lose sight of the other or risk certain death. The 2 lovers cried, there was no way they could do this whilst gazing at one another. They A sign!
Open and zoom in to have a read!! had a difficult decision to make, risk their lives together and not lose a moment of their true love as they had promised, or break their pact and cross the roads, with a greater chance of a longer life and immense happiness......... Their decision was made, they knew that fate was testing their love and they would not falter in the face of a greater power.....they would prove their love and be rewarded for their commitment.
So they kept their gaze into one another’s eyes, soaking up the true love they felt and they walked into the road, carefully trying to keep within their vision some of the traffic over the others shoulder, they used communication and trust, the greatest tools of love....................."stop....walk....stop...walk....walk...watch out for the moped .....walk...walk....stop...walk....don't stop.....walk..stop.....watch out for the moped ....watch out for the moped ..watch out for the moped ....stop...watch out for the moped ..walk...walk....watch out for the moped .......jus keep going.......don't stop.......watch out for the moped ....don’t stop ......watch out for the moped ....".
As Fate knew well, had the road been empty it would have only taken a mere 5 seconds to cross, but fate , as he had done every day
Casings
Left over casings from scatter bombs the yanks dropped in (this is how they put it) 'In the Americans war of aggression against vietnam' for a long time, sending more and more mopeds every month. Today he had sent a storm of the most deadly mopeds to the roads to test the young lover’s cunning and their love for one another. He sent the deadly mopeds with women on and men, frequently he would send families of four on each moped to try and topple either the moped or the lovers, he sent babies as young as one or two being held on with one hand by the driving parent or the 7 year old sister to scare the lovers, none of them wearing helmets, to show the humanity of each of the riders of the deadly moped. He sent mopeds carrying cargo, kegs of beer, cupboards, small tables and reels of large plastic cables. But still they didn't give up, they persevered despite the possibility of carnage and death to whole families on single mopeds!!
When they made it to the other side they wept in one another’s arms, they had made it and survived Fate's cruel and deadly moped test, their love was pure and true and they would be together for eternity. Fate came down and commended the two lovers
In a cyclo in Hanoi
I had an argument with the driver of caires and nearly kicked his head in! No worries he was about 5' 2" Gobby bastard for both their proof of love pure and true and also their bravery and courage in the face of the deadly mopeds, as a reward he did indeed grant them eternal life and flew them back to their village , as they would surely not have survived crossing the road a second time. As a reward Fate said that for the next year, he would only kill 800 people every month in Road traffic accident, rather than the 1000 that would normally be taken. The young lovers thanked Fate for his generosity and kindness and went off so spend eternity gazing into the eyes and soul of the other, knowing that they had not only saved themselves and their own love, but also the lives and love of 2400 people who would ride the deadly mopeds within the next year. Their love was both pure and true and they spent eternity in happiness. ...........
Seriously, creativeness and Legends aside, the figures are astonishing for the road traffic accidents in Hanoi. According to a Vietnamese version of Time Out, a Supplement of Vietnam Investment Review No 605 released on 19 / 11 / 2007,
In Hanoi, between late 2006 to
June 2007, there were 223,000 and 21,000 newly-registered motorbikes and automobiles respectively, raising the city’s total motorbikes and automobiles to 1.93 million and 193,000 respectively, excluding thousands of newly-registered police vehicles.
Currently, Hanoi has 530 kilometres of road in the inner city and over 1,000km in the outer city. So for each kilometre of road in the capital there’s nearly 6,500 vehicles
Last year on average 35 people died every day and more than 1,000 people died every month through traffic accidents. Such grim figures could just as easily be applied to a country at war.
During the first half of this year, Vietnam witnessed 7,648 traffic accidents, with 6,898 deaths and 5,903 injured and bike accidents take up about three quarters of Vietnam's medical budget
Check out the video for the craziness that is Hanoi's roads!!!
Tommy We gladly scooted off to the airport and got a "cheap' flight down to Ho Chi Minh City, which everyone but the Government calls Saigon. There is a marked difference between the peoples of the north and the south. The southerners are more used to tourists, the Americans left there mark on this city and you
can still see it. I found this made the southerners friendlier, happy and they caused us less hassle. There’s not to much to say as this is just another city, but we stayed in the centre at a cool hotel called Bich Duyen. Its cheap and the bloke who works there is well friendly. He rented us a DVD player on the cheap and we caned loads of our DVD's. Claire did a day trip out along the Mekong to some Islands, I had the shits and stayed in bed!
Claire> The day was an early start, still not sure if Tommy was faking his sickness or not, just cos he didn’t want to get out of bed, he still maintains he was ill so.....😱.... Anyway I as looking forward to it, despite being knackered at having to meet at 6.30 to drive 3 hours to the Mekong river, we boarded a boat to take us across to the other side and then got onto a smaller boat to take us down to Ben Tre Island where they hand make and pack coconut sweets and jams, they were really tasty and I bought a load for our overland trip
A small Huong native village
It was a bit said as the children just sat and begged us to buy bits of cloth jewellery! (although no none ended up eating them except me!!).
We then stopped of for a free lunch, however you could also choose and pay for the delights of alligator or snake soup/steak, the problem with this being, they asked you to come and look at both which were in a cage alive, before eating them !! Needless to say no one was interested in those!!!
Our next stop was the Honey Farm where they had a huge Anaconda (boa constrictor) I cleverly managed to avoid this, but watched as a stupid Chinese girl kept screaming every time they tried to put it around her shoulders, one sure way to piss a snake off eh!!??
We were served peanut and honey sweets, honey and hot green tea and kumquats juice-it was really nice. They also had the bees making honey on slabs and we got the option to hold it, at first I thought no way, then I thought about what a great picture it would make for the blog, so went ahead with a tentative smile and then swiftly passed in onto someone else!!!
Our next stop was for a fruit snack and some
On the way to the airport
Sat in the back of a taxi truck! more tea, while the locals sang traditional songs for us, one of which was to the tune of Auld Lang Syne!! It was, I have to say.....bloody awful, I’ve never heard so much wailing and out of tune musical instruments in my life, I had to stop myself from laughing!! I felt terrible as its obviously not supposed to be funny.....but lets put it this way....don’t expect to see them EVER on MTV, except maybe on Jackass for a practical joke!!!
After this is was on for another trip in a traditional boat paddled at the front and back, and were given conical hats to wear, I have to say I think that it suited me!!! Then it was back to Ho Chi Minh where I found Tommy in bed watching DVDs, sick, I’m not sure, maybe only of sitting on his ass all day !!!!!
Tommy:- We also found a superb Thai restaurant just left out of the hotel and 20yds down the road. The staff and food was superb! We ate here daily and Claire got her fix of Yum Thai spicy prawn salad, so that kept her quiet for a little while
at least !!! Anyway that’s about it for Vietnam. We set off for the Airport, and a long flight (Vietnam to Hong Kong to Delhi to Katmandu!). I was sorry to leave South East Asia but not Vietnam. We were both to excited about our overland trip with Exodus to be too bothered. Anyway see you in Nepal................................
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Nicole and Kev
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Hey loving your blog. We funnily enough did kinda the same trip and also loved the water fall near Louang phabang and had pretty much same opinion of vietnam as you especially the cities! Mad mad motorbikes! It would take me half an hour to cross a road while clinging desperately to kev shouting wait... wait...wait GO GO GO!!!