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Published: February 22nd 2006
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Khai Dinh Mausoleum
Abusing one of the Mausoleum guardians... many of the Vietnamese Emperors built impressive Mausoleum along the banks of the perfum river.. Hello! Well we're now in Vietnam and it's our new favourite place already! Don't get me wrong, it's true you do get hassled morning, noon and night from people trying to sell you stuff, but it hasn't put us off at all. (We are just getting better at saying NO, NO, NOOOO!!!!!! - honestly though, we'd love to help them out and buy something but we just don't have the money, even if they do bring their children do look at us with puppy-dog eyes.)
It's hard to describe what Vietnam is like, but we'll give it ago. In some ways it's exactly like you imagine it. Beautiful girls riding around on bicycles in long-flowing silks and pointed straw hats. Cyclo (bicycle taxi) drivers plying for trade with... 'where you go?' 'Where you from' 'Only two dollar!' etc... and crazy amounts of motorbikes on the roads. But it also has really beautiful scenery, not just rice paddies, but also mountains, massive sand dunes and views that make you feel like your somewhere in the Mediterranean, not Vietnam... But nothing really prepares you for just how busy it is and how hard all the Vietnamese work to bring in money. (Example -
Pagoda
This Pagoda again looks out over the Perfume River. It was from here in the 60s that a monk set out for Saigon to set himself on fire... and became internationally infamous with the resulting gruesome picture... we were talking to a guy in a travel agents. He was asking how much rent is in London. Stu told him how much he paid per month when he was living in London and the guy says it would take him 1.5 years to earn that much money and he has one of the more decent jobs - really brought home to us how poor the country is!!)
One of the best things has to be the food. (I'm a bit a fussy cow so I'm having to be so adventurous - but still no onions and mushrooms, some things never change - Sarah). Every town we visit has a speciality, so we love Hues famous pancakes (crispy rice shell, containing fresh veggies, pork and shrimp), Bun Bo (Rice noodle soup with Beef) and Sarah's absolute favourite dish from Hoi An, Cao Lao. A stunning soup which contains noodles, fresh lettuce, beansprouts and thin tender slices of pork, topped with crispy pieces of pork as croutons (think pork scratchings!). Sarah ate it four times in three days.
Oh, and the accomodation is excellent and cheap too. For 6 dollars a night (or less if you can haggle better
Monster guarding his master...
Tried for an arty picture... partially successful but the brute kept moving... than us) you can get Satellite TV, a swimming pool and two double beds, bliss! Saving the best for last (Hmmm - maybe. Stu) there are umpteen shopping possibilities. Tailors, beauty parlours, art galleries and everything else you can imagine. (I managed to restrict Sarah to three pairs of Chinese style flip flops and getting her eyebrows done (threading is NOT painless, believe me!! - Sarah) but at only 2$ for the shoes and a dollar for a pedicure, I couldn't begrudge her that!
So now for what we've been up to... As we anticipated, our border crossing from Lao to Vietnam was not pleasant at all (f@cking terrible actually - Stu). We got on the bus at 10pm and straight away we saw the leg room was a joke and the ridiculously upright chairs didn't recline. It's poossible ten rows of seats had been rebolted into 7 rows worth of space (even the Laos had trouble and they're tiny). After only ten minutes we had to stop to put out a small fire, after one of the 'staff' reclinning at the back on a matress dropped his fag onto said matress. But... our crazed driver got us to
the border in about 4 hours! Then... we sat there for another five waiting for the border to open at 7am. (All the locals disappeared off the bus and weren't seen again until we got moving, none of them thought to tell us you could hire a hammock across the road while you waited, grrr). Cue three hours of contortionist like movements as we tried to get in any position that was the slightest bit comfortable with legs and arms at very strange angles. (My pillow was my 1000-page book - Stu). As dawn arrived we were asked for our passports from some random men and asked to pay 3 dollars... so we did... what could we do? An hour later we were hussled off the bus and onto motorbikes and before we knew it we were over the boarder minues bags. Cue an hour waiting anxiously for our bags to arrive! Got back on the bus and travelled up the road while amidst a hussle of activity around us while the "staff" took out what looked like hundreds of packaged motorbike chains from every conceivable compartment and what can only be described as hiding places while looking suspicious coming
War Reminders...
This Chinook helicopter was left by the American army in a desperate retreat from Khe Sanh military base... to check-points. We then slowed and chains were kicked out the door before we sped off. (I like to keep an open mind but this was higly suspicious). Then we stopped again about 20 miles from the centre and told "you get off here" - what could we do but get off? So had to flag down a local bus and take it for the 30min drive into the centre, squashed between sacks of rice (which I had to help unload) and live chickens and ducks. (Bird flu anyone??) Actually it was a relief to get on this bus although it was crammed because the people were lovely and such a contrast to the dodgy b@stards on the other one. All told a 17 hours boarder crossing but only 6 hours on the road. Annoying. We walked into the centre from the bus station and were immediately pounced on by cyclo drivers, trying to take us to hotels. One guy offered to take us to the hotel we were going to anyway for free, so we hopped in, only to be taken to another hotel, which was triple the price. But we bargained hard and got them down to 7$,
What's Round the Corner!!!
Sarah stooping in the Vinh Moc tunnel complex which held 300 villgers and protected them from the terrifying B52s... so it turned out alright in the end.
Hue (The ancient capital of Vietnam) was a bit of a shock to the system after sleepy Lao, but it was great to be somewhere new and vibrant. We decided to visit the citadel on our first full day (The old part of the city which is walled and a world heritage site). The main place to visit is the imperial city, where the emperor used to live. It's a massive site and pretty run down in places, but the buildings were lovely and we learnt a lot about Vietnam's Imperial history.
The next day was Valentine's day so we decided to do the perfume river boat trip, to get us some romance! We visited lots of the old Emperors' mausoleums which are along the river bank and a nice pagoda. Afterwards we had a cosy meal in a real restaurant, with table cloths and everything!! We splashed out and had fillet steak, yummy, but a bit extravagant on our 20 pounds a day budget!
For our final day in Hue we went on a tour of the old DMZ (demilitarised zone). We felt like we needed to do something that told us about the war from the Vietnamese perspective. The tour was a bit too long (12hours!) and there wasn't much to see, but the guide was really nice and informative. We saw a lot of old rusty American helicopters, tanks and bomb casings at a museum, where you could buy ruffed-up American dog tags (bit morbid!). We also saw the 'rock-pile' a mountain on which the USA kept tabs on Vietcong troop movements during the war, the Ho Chi Min trail and the best part a village called Vinh Moc, where the villagers had built a massive tunnel complex underground to protect them from the constant bombings. We stopped off in a little town called Dong Ha which had been bombed and mined a lot during the war. We were saddened to hear that over 5000 locals had died from treading on un-exploded mines since the war ended, crazy ha!
Actually we expected the Vietnamese to be bit hosile towards westerners (French and Americans more) but this was not true and they seem to bear no grudge - outwardly anyway. In fact the DMZ tour we went on was seemed fairly neutral in it reportage which was a refreshing surprise.
Until next time...
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jimandmel
James King and Mel Simpson
i don´t believe you!
Stu, you are reading a 1000 page novel, are you sure?