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Published: November 1st 2006
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The once great, and now hideously dreadlocked, AXL Rose once poignantly sang ‘I never felt for Vietnam’. Well Mr Rose, unlike you , neither of our names are amusing anagrams, and also unlike you, we have fallen for Vietnam, with it’s stunning scenery dominated by limestone monoliths rising from vast sub-tropical forest canopies and surreal franco-influenced-architecture.
Our first stop out of HCMC was Mue Ne: a sleepy little beach resort that provided a nice rest after the hustle and bustle of 2 weeks of cities. We hired a beach side bungalow, relaxed, read, swam and drank with the locals. Nat has discovered 1L bottles of Vodka for $3US. There is not a lot to do in Mue Ne (which suited us fine) but the sand dunes are cool (see picture) and the seafood is excellent. We found a cool waterfall after a very nice walk/ paddle.
After 3 nights in Mui Ne, we moved on to Dalat. The bus journey was awful, crazy speeds around blind corners, high up in the mountains, flirting with sheer drops, water leaking in on us, all culminating in knocking a local off of his moped, after he somersaulted over the handle bars the
driver coolly checked his mirror and carried on. Arriving in Dalat justified the journey for many reasons. Firstly it is so cool, being 1500 m up in the mountains Dalat provided a lovely respite from the heat. Dalat is where lots of Vietnamese people go on their honeymoon, it is very romantic and the valleys and waterfalls are stunning, the best was Pongour falls, as we went during the rainy season it was a full semi-circle of Falls (see pic). We found all of the falls on a 1 day 180 Km trip on a moped through the mountains - very ‘Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance’! Finding the falls proved difficult as where Bangkok lacked pavements and Cambodia lacked tarmac, Vietnam has no road signs.
We visited the ‘Valley of Love’ a cheese-fest of a fun park dedicated to love, where we peddled around the lake on a giant swan and Nat had her picture taken on a horse owned by one of the cowboys.
By now G had discovered the Local Java, Vietnamese coffee is so strong that you have to run on the spot for 5 mins after each cup - they serve it
with condensed milk which makes it delicious.
We are in Vietnam during the rainy season. War movies that depict conditions in no way exaggerate the suddenness and veracity of these downpours that last about 1 hour every afternoon, taking some of the heat out of the hot and humid days.
From Dalat, we traveled by coach for 6.5 hours to Nha Trang. Nha Trang is a large beach resort where we were trapped for 5 long lazy days. We relaxed at the beach, snorkeled, went on a booze cruise, wallowed in the mud (see picture) and swam in the water heated by a natural spring to 38ºC.
As this is our honeymoon we decided to spoil ourselves with a very expensive, 1 million Dong (£30) dinner on a jetty over the sea. The food was amazing. The beach was quiet and very clean and the water very warm. For the equivalent of £1, a lady would catch, cook and prepare huge crabs for lunch. As we mentioned, we were trapped in Nha Trang by a category 13 typhoon that landed 400km North of us in Danang. This gave us the chance to teach a group of 15
young kids English at a local school ran by Krazy Kim, who also runs a lively bar at night and fights paedophilia by day, on a moped of course - See picture. Teaching the kids was quite daunting and the teacher was very scary.
As we are here still outside of the high season, everything is quiet. We didn't see anyone else in our hotel for 5 days. So G decided to play a little joke on Nat and travel down to the 2nd floor in the lift where he dropped his pants and hit the button, making sure the lift did not stop at any other floor, G waited for his crowning glory. As the doors opened G looked between his legs to see not one but 3 pairs of shoes, the loud gasp from our newly arrived neighbours was only just audible over the sound of Nat's laughter.
The next stop, after an 11 hour overnight bus journey was Hoi An. We arrived to see the devastation the typhoon had caused with 1000's homeless and 7 dead, hundreds of trees uprooted and seaside roads impassable as they were covered in sand. One lady had the job
of holding up the electricity wires with a stick so that coaches could fit underneath. G helped with the humanitarian effort - just long enough to take this picture.
Hoi An is stunning. Set by a river it has an equal mix of Chinese and French influence in it's architecture. Cool temples and a fantastic covered bridge are set amongst tall colonial houses. It took us four days however to discover any of this as the shopping was out of this world. Hundreds of shops offered tailor made clothing, each had copies of the Next directory and various other catalogues from which they could copy clothing or you could just take pictures of what you wanted and they would make it for you. They would measure you one day (see pic), you would go in the next for slight alterations and take the item home that evening. All had suits and hundreds of styles of clothes to choose from and all of it was ridiculously cheap. We purchased, and subsequently shipped home;
- 3 Tailor made suits for G
- 2 for Nat (3 piece - i.e. one skirt, one trousers per jacket)
- 5 fitted shirts for
G
- 1 fitted shirt for Nat
- 2 pairs of trousers for G which he designed
- 1 pair of trainers which G designed
- 1 pair of sandals (like the wrap around all terrain ones) which G designed
- 1 skirt for Nat
- 3 dresses for Nat
all of this totaled under £170. The time spent waiting for all of this stuff was worrying as we had no idea what the quality would be like. But we needn't have worried as we were happy with everything, especially the items designed by G, the next Calvin Klein maybe?
The food in Hoi An was very good with several local delicacies. One restaurant, Cafe Des Amis, was exceptional. With no menu, the owner and chef asks if you like meat, fish or vegetarian and you get whatever set menu he has created that evening. Each meal would also be accompanied with many dragon dance displays from local kids. We were lucky enough to be in Vietnam for the Autumn festival. Kids start off about 3 weeks before, walking the streets with a drum, a dragon and a happy Buddha mask, dancing for money. The more money they
get, the more elaborate their costumes become. The best 4 dragons in each town on the 6th October get to go for a big Dragon-Off in the centre that evening. One big kid in particular was particularly excited by his costume, see picture.
From Hoi An we also visited My Son, an area of 4 temples, 3 of which have been destroyed by US bombing campaigns during the war. The picture below shows how close the 4th was to suffering the same fate. Here we were treated to some traditional dancing celebrating the God Shiva.
From Hoi An we traveled 4 hours North to Hue. This was to be a brief stop as we had spent longer than expected in central Vietnam. In one and a half days we still had time to visit the spectacular Citadel, take a cruise up the perfume river and find a deserted beach, see picture. Along the perfume river were some great temples and tombs, but our cruise guides only allowed us a little time to stop at each one, which meant we were running around. At one tomb, we experienced a little of what the Buddhists around here call Karma.
We were a little tired of fabricated charges in Vietnam, usually from moped parking or toilets where plucky locals try their luck and ask for a few Dong. This one occasion we both just blanked the wannabe toilet attendant. As we walked away, we were both commenting that we felt a little bad as maybe we were suppose to pay, when a bolt of lightning, hit the ground not 20 feet from where we were standing. Ten minutes later, after peeling Nat off a nearby tree we vowed to pay from now on.
Sorry this was a slightly longer blog, we hope you are still awake. Until next time, love to all
G & Nat xxx
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