http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , Vietnam en-us Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:06:48 UTC Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:06:48 UTC I hopped on a bus from Saigon Mui Ne a beach resort just up the coast. I got there at night got dropped off at a guesthouse. It was out of my price range 10 but it was late and he told me it was right on the beach so i went for it. When I woke up I found out that yes it was near the beach on top of it to be exact. They built too close to the sea so the waves crash right up onto th http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Mui-Ne/blog-351257.html Country Number 8 and my last stop 2 weeks in Vietnam and its home. CrazyThe best thing about the Bangkok trouble was that I got to see Jackie again She came to Vietnam for 1 day to catch a flight out and we got to have some dinner and drinks. I'm not good at goodbyes and try not to think about it but now its dawning on me that I might not see my partner in crime for quite a while http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-351254.html Today was another interesting day in Vietnam.We are now in Hoi An. Hoi An is famed as it has probably the highest per capita population of tailors in the world as far as I can tell. People come from far and wide to have suits tailored clean crisp shirts created and the latest fashions from cut out pictures from magazines. A few hours later I suspect many of these people discover they were optimi http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-351243.html 19.11.08Km travelled 18462This morning we can finally take it easy. The train is at 10.45 so we have plenty of time. We wake up slowly and relax we we can lay in bed as long as we want. It rained heavily all night. When we are ready we go downstairs for breakfast and then we check out. It's not raining now so we can walk to the station. We ended up taking a bit of a long way around and when we r http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Nha-Trang/blog-351202.html Ok so we arrived last night in Saigon Ho Chi Minh City at around 10pm we walked outside the airport to get a cab which proved quite difficult people were following us around showing us there cab licences and telling us to go with them. I give you very cheap price we kept saying no thank you but they just kept coming at us we ended up just having to say NO which I felt was rude but a http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-351148.html I had my camera stolen in Vietnam so here are a few pics from my friends camera. http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/blog-351121.html Unfortunately our Sapa trip was not the only time we managed to get fucked over on an organised tour. Having heard some good reports about Halong Bay from many of our fellow backpackers we decided to head up. Not on the 'safe as houses you can't lost you'd be stupid not to' trip organised by The Hanoi Backpackers Hostel. Oh no. That's just what they'd expect us to do. Team smartshite found the http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Halong-Bay/blog-351103.html It was in a place called Sapa about 400km north of Hanoi where I got my first taste of motorbike action. Before we get into that though there was the small matter of the journey to Sapa. For two of our number namely myself and an English guy called Steve Whittaker this involved a leisurely train ride to Lao Cai followed by a short bus ride to Sapa town centre. For the other two nutters name http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Northeast/Sapa/blog-351095.html I liked Vietnam. Scratch that I loved it. The places the parties the scenery it was awesome. The people though were fucking cowboys There were exceptions to the rule of course but for the most part every native we came across attempted to rip us off. In fact from the minute we crossed the border the shafting commenced.Neil and I had planned to get a train from the border to Hanoi where we http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-351083.html I don't really have a lot to say about Hoi An it's basically about six or seven streets of tailors souvenir shops bars and cafes. The Tailors are really cheap and I think everyone in the group had at least one thing made some of the girls had about 500 worth of clothes and shoes made up. I only got a couple of pairs of lightweight trousers with legs that zip off.Since I wasn't running around http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-351070.html We have a new blog folks. This TravelBlog sucks so we have moved to TravelPod...httpwww.travelpod.commembersjaykythlionas Please update your favourites and links and be sure to tell the media http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-351034.html Hi folks this is Jaymz. Jojo got up at 5.15am this morning and wouldn't go back to sleep so I volunteered to get up early and take him for a walk. What a sight Hanoi is at 5.30 in the morning Everyone everywhere and i mean EVERYONE is exercising around Hoan Kiem Lake on their own or in massive groups listening to terrible Vengaboysstyle techno. Young people also play badminton which Jojo http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-351023.html We returned to the Hanoi Elegance 3 yesterday afternoon as previously described. If it is Wednesday it was time to move on to our next stop on the road the pretty Hoi An as it is described in my guidebook. Katherine and I had breakfast and then made the 45 minute drive to the airport. It is a pretty quick flight from Hanoi to Hoi An and even though our driver left us standing stranded for abo http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-350929.html My pal Katherine and I have just returned from a wonderful excursion to Halong Bay.Halong Bay on the coast has the wonderful limestone juts emerging from the water at every turn. It really is a magical place. We were picked up at our hotel the lovely Hanoi Elegance 3. Our driver Ang was capable and cautious probably a good combination in this country. The traffic comprised of bikes motor http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Halong-Bay/blog-350922.html We managed to get out of Singapore unscathed and took a cheapish flight up to Hanoi to properly begin our trip. This is where we had planned to head after going to Bangkok so now we're back on track.We arrived into the airport at 2000hrs and found a cab to the city. Our guide book said there was a fixed price of 7.50 for all the airport taxis so when we got in and were told it would be double http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-350882.html Today we had few time in the morning. At 11 am 6 of us went for a vietnamese cookery lesson. The lesson was at a house because the restaurant situated in the Old town had been flooded by the river. A 22 year old women took the lesson. She was very knowledgable and enthusiastic about cooking. She had started as a waitress in the restaurant and had progressed to one of the chefs. She had learnt all http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-350831.html Well we are here now. The flight was pretty good apart from Jonas crying his head off for ages due to lack of sleep. After two or so hours of intermittent screams I just gritted my teeth and did my best to soothe him. When we arrived in HCMC the passport control officer gave us a reason to finally add some humour back into the journey with the most bizarre facial hair. And I mean hair as in si http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-350820.html Hanoi VietnammdashPart OneAs you can tell from this blog entry we are a few weeks behind in providing timely updates. We will be providing several back to back updates to bring you up to speed.We depart Bangkok Thailand on Thursday 30 September. We would have stayed in Thailand for much longer but our 30 day visa was expiring and we had to move on. Our plans are to return to Thailand. Ou http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-350780.html finally i am in vietnam after spending nearly 24 hours with no sleep on 2 different airplanes. i fly out from los angeles international to taiwan. the airfare cost 1500 us dollars via eva air. good service here i have nothing to complain. this flight takes about 20 hours on an airbus a340. the plane is fairly nice with every passenger having access to a small lcd tv and music. the noise is just http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/North-Central-Coast/Hue/blog-350751.html editors note this is nothing like my brother's blog...my english not that power but yeah just an insight to my short little trip to good ole vietnam.so its 0815 over here now in hcmc. touched down finally. 9 days in vietnam. on our own. writing in such short sentences cos i have no idea how to describe what it feels like to escape from NS for just a miserable 9 days..cant imagine what it will be http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-350672.html Vietnam June 2004I left Phnom Penh after staying about a month. PP was interesting and I learned more about the Cambodian people. They are very friendly people like the Thais and Vietnamese. The country is very poor and doesn't seem to be making much progress economically. They are just now getting over the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields madness and don't seem to have a very good government. Irs http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-350580.html Overnight train from Siagon got us Steve and Andy into Da Nang and a quickish taxi ride took us into Hoian to check out his recommended hotel... we didn't fancy it too much and wanted to get to the beach. Got to the beach and found out that it's 6km from Hoian and there's nothing around the beach So we stop off at a shop and see some mopeds on offer and hire three mopeds at a semireasonable p http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-350518.html After hearing stories that Northern Vietnam was far better than Southern Vietnam I decided to move on quickly from Ho Chi Minh City and get straight on up to Na Dang to then move onto Hoian to chill out and consider getting a couple of suits.I arrived into Saigon HCMC via a 7 odd hour bus ride from Phom Penh which was comfortable enough spent about 6 hours running around Saigon to hit a few http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-350515.html So last weekend around November 22ndish we took the six hour minivan trip from Ho Chi Mih City to Hiep My Village. The Village is not even listed on this travel blogs database it is so tiny maybe a a population of a couple hundred people. Dave teaches with a woman in Calgary who is originally from Vietnam and her and her family arranged for us to visit their village for one week and teach en http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Mekong-River-Delta/blog-350509.html So after spending two weeks in Hue we headed down the coast to Qui Nhon for some beach time. We hadn't hit the beach since Cat Ba Island October where I climbed and kayaked. To our dismay our beach week was abruptly interrupted by a tropical storm. RAIN RAIN RAIN Our hotel had an open concept and there was a hall that was actually outside. This one poor girl who worked at the hotel had t http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Qui-Nhon/blog-350499.html After Luang Prabang we jumped on a VIP bus down to a little town called Vang Vieng. Note VIP does not mean an easy bus ride. What ensured was 7 hours of absolute hell which involved the bus not driving straight for more than a few hundred metres through winding mountain ranges me being sick twice and the airconditioner above Perry's head breaking and soaking him with water. But ah Vang http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Northeast/blog-350333.html 70 kilometres outside Hanoi in Ha Tay Province is a complex of Temples and Pagodas collectively called the Perfume Pagoda. I booked a trip to explore the Pagodas. At the appointed time a luxury car pulled up and I climbed inside for the twohour journey. Very comfortable The scenery as you leave Hanoi is lovely with rice fields galore small villages and various Pagodas Temples and other shrin http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-350298.html B bread sandwich meat ick and coffeeS corn muffins dried candied ginger and a banana fritter yumL vegetable cao lau thick noodles with coriander and tofu and lime and an oily dressing and lemonaidS coconut ice cream yum and banana juice yumD lemongrasschili tofu YUMM rice and ginger tea with real ginger yum http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Vietnam/South-Central-Coast/Hoi-An/blog-350267.html