Speckle
Jessica Willan Joined: October 27th 2006
Logged in: July 6th 2009
Logged in: July 6th 2009
I've spent my whole life cautiously saving up money, having no idea what it was for. This is a gift that I give to myself, ignoring my conservative saving habits. I've had a rough few years, and this trip is something positive that I can hopefully feed off of and reverberate when I return. I recently quit my job, turning down a corporate career promotion, which would have atleast doubled my salary in a matter of months. I did this because, as much as I need to move out, I don't want to make money that I have no time to spend, nor could I sublimate my soul to some corporate machine! So I chuck it all out the door and I'm going to explore something radical, new and independant. Something over on the EAST SIDE.... ;)
Travel Blog Posts
The drive from Nha Trang to DaLat was awesome! Most of our bus rides have been at night, when you can't see anything. Supposively in Da Lat, the agriculture industry comes first, tourism second. I love the countryside! Looking out the window, we were flying by fields of sugar cane, strawberries, foreign veggies, green tea, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, orange trees. From inside the bus, we could smell the blankets of coffee beans set out to dry. Later in Da Lat's market, we we saw just how large the produce can grow here. We're talkin' Aloe Vera stems longer and fatter than my arm, Jackfruit bigger than watermelons, huge celery stocks and green onions. More fascinating than this, was the calm lifestyle in the countryside. Neither of us imagined seeing horses in Vietnam, but sure enough, amoungst ... read more
Last night, (Christmas night), two big Irish dudes staying at our hotel were mugged by local "lady boys". These dragqueen locals routinely hang out around the beach/sailing club at night, and mug all the drunk backpackers. Infact, I'm sure we walked passed the same lady boys responsible, on our way to the sailing club last night! Having been warned several times, we didn't bring anything important except enough $$ for beer. We were with Marco at the time and had read that prostitutes often ask male tourists on a date (and of course the tourist thinks they are female), then the prostitute reaches into their pocket and rips them off, fleeing with their wallet. While walking past these ladyboys, one offered Marco something and he visciously shouted, "Get the Fuck away from me!", in his german ... read more
Aquarium
After a 12 hour crammed bus ride in which the bus driver proceeded to play Vietnemese pop love songs from 6:30pm to 6:30am, we were exhausted at our Nha Trang arrival. On day one we visited the "Giant Buddha". There are some terribly slimey looking people hanging out around it. Since the monks were asleep, one of these people took advantage of the opportunity to rip us off. He took us up the stairs, then asked for a "donation" for the monks. I said Ï'll give you a donation when I see a donation box." Evan gave him some $, but he wasn't getting nothin' from me! We walked further up on our own, to find donation boxes of course, and the man had disappeared. Yikes, they'll even use temple grounds to scam ya! But ... read more
Tailor shop
The second we were off the bus, there were women grabbing me left and right, trying to pull me into their tailor shops! I made the mistake of saying, "Maybe later" to one of them and she found me the next day and harassed the shit out of us! So, we started lying and saying we had a tailor already. In this town, everyone is a tailor, and some people make shoes, jewelry, paintings or carvings on the side. On our last day in Hoi An, we had 5 hours to waste before a 12 hour bus ride. So we wandered around town, taking a look at the shops. It was quite entertaining to watch people make paintings, carvings, scrap metal creatures, jewelry, in all the different shops. I particularly enjoyed looking at the wood ... read more
Hmong children
If you ever come here, you can NOT miss Sapa. We hopped on a "soft sleeper" night train to Sapa. Six bunkbeds (and strangers), in one tiny room and a hole in the floor, so you can poop and pee on the tracks. I felt dirty, and neither of us slept that night. 10 hours later, at 6am, we arrived at the station. Before we even got a chance to get off the train, our cab door was opened by a taxi driver shouting "You come for tour! I drive you!?", after saying no to him and like 10 others, we shoved our way off the train. We were very tired, yet there was a five hour trek and a nights stay in one of the shacks of the Hmong people ahead. Sapa is BEAUTY. More ... read more
school girl
We bought our open tour bus ticket for $26 from Hanoi to Siagon, stopping wherever we want along the way. First trip was a long 13 hour haul. 13 hours on a stale uncomfortable bus, neither of us had a wink of sleep! At one point the bus stopped in traffic and I asked desperately, "When's the next washroom!?" The driver then got out of the bus, pointed at a dark pit full of garbage on the side of the road and left me there! Anyways, we arrived in Hue at 6am, desperate for sleep. Hue is a smaller city than Hanoi. The food is better and the people more friendly/trustworthy. We found a room for $6 a night wt. A/C, balcony, hot shower + free internet! Evan's watching Christmas movies on T.V. right now. ... read more
Back in Hanoi, after our trip to Cat Ba Island, we switched our hotel to a more honest one. "The Old City Hotel" has NO Hospitality and they charge you for A/C even though they shut it off on us at night (the only time we are there)! Ev complained about the A/C situation and they continued to shut it off 3 MORE TIMES the next night, each time Evan having to go down 4 flights of stairs to get them to turn it back on. They understood perfectly good English when trying to sell us the room and trip packages, but when Evan was yelling "AIR CON! Don't turn it off, we paid for that!", they pretended to not understand. We gave them our laundry in the morning and they told us it would ... read more
I forgot to mention that you can also bookmark my travel companion Evan's blog....the web address is... http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Evan-the-Blue/ he adds all sorts of things I'm sure I'll miss. After the CRAZY busy populated, traffic chaos of Hanoi, Evand I decided we NEEDED some beach bum time. We signed onto a 3 day tour trip of Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. BUT we spent a couple of days on our own, for a total of 5 days. I personally had a lot more fun when we went off on our own! Although it was nice to see some English speaking people who didn't hassle us for money. We hopped on a boat after a 3 hour drive. The boat was quite nice and we had our own private rooms on it. Real cheap of course. The ... read more
Before you come here, I suggest you stock up on water and maybe some booze. We took a boat to Cat Ba Island, spending one night on the boat, then arrived at Cat Ba the next afternoon. The limestone mountains surrounded us everywhere, covered in mist. I wish I could post some pictures on here, but I have yet to find a computer with a plug-in. Our boat stopped at "The Amazing Cave", which was far too touristy for our liking. Tourists aside, it was quite a marvel. There was a large rock shaped like a penis inside of it. Pretty neat. On the boat we met two teachers from Holand. Evan had bought some really nice Australian white wine, so we shared the bottle with one of the teachers. They were great to talk to. ... read more
Where's Evan?
No matter how much you've read, NOTHING will completely prepare you for Hanoi. It takes atleast two days before you start to feel a little more comfortable. The airport was HUMID and HOT. We are 17 Hours ahead here and arrived quite late at around 10pm there time. The second we got out of our taxi bus, we were horded by a group of men trying to get us to go to their hotels. I had read about this, but once you're here you're looking around and taking in everything, you're not thinking about what you read. We followed one of the men, and stayed in "The Spirit Hotel". Luckily we had air conditioning, b/c there is no sleeping without it. The staff were a little shady looking, but there were cupboards to lock our ... read more
