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Published: November 18th 2007
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Han Oi Traffic
Its just nuts! Han Oi
It is amazing here!
The traffic is absolutely chaotic!!
(Double click on 2 videos below text) Horns tooting constantly.
The shops are sprawled out onto the footpaths
The footpaths are used as restaurants or for parking motor bikes.
The roads are used for everything else - pedestrians, mobile shops, cars, buses, motorbikes, parking, walking, selling…..
The gutters are cluttered with rubbish.
Streets are lined with the same same shops, street with all cotton shops, a silk street, a party street, a bag street, a lolly street… and so on
The food is very uninteresting and bland with limited Vietnamese cuisine.
The alcohol and food is very cheap!
The ladies wearing the hats carry baskets filled with fruit, vegetables or donuts to sell and turn into hawkers when they see a tourist
A butcher is a woman with a wooden camp table or a tin tray on the pavement selling her raw meat
The men sit in on the pavement socializing, drinking and eating - all bloody day!
The women work and look after the kids.
The wives and daughters give all their wages to their husband or father.
The men sit at the pub all day, the
Ha Long Bay Tour
Its amazing, there are 1600 islands like this. women only party at weddings.
The houses range from thin long high French houses to concrete single level rooms and to tin shacks in the country.
Religion is visibly scarce.
The communist message blasts policies from the loudspeakers built into the streets.
The water is clean and the toilets take paper!
The only glimpse of communism is the stupid tourists wearing the t- shirts.
$85.00 buys you a million dong, 20000 dong buys you breakfast and 40,000 dinner, and that’s in a restaurant! They also take US$.
Mardarm you want come my shop, mardarm you buy something from my shop is heard constantly as you walk by the shops.
The clever ones - before you know what is going on, you have a heavy bamboo pole balancing two baskets filled with 6 bunches of bananas on your shoulder and Vietnamese hat on my head - lady saying take photo take photo, we swap, we swap. This results in the purchase of a bunch of unwanted bananas for an exorbitant price. Although the banana hawkers left me alone for a few hours until I gave them away to an orange hawker!
I would not buy much even if I
Ha Long Bay Tour
Floating Village - can you imagine living there! could in Han Oi, although fantastic scarves and wood but that’s out of the question coming back to NZ. No Starbucks or KFC, but we did drive past a Gloria Jeans on the way out.
A typical Vietnamese bar in town for the local boys - long concrete room about 6 foot wide, with childrens plastic seats, a TV and some alcohol. Sometimes is it is 2 children’s plastic stools on the pavement and a barman with 3 bottles of alcohol to choose from and 4 glasses.
A typical Vietnamese restaurant for the locals - The foot paths are filled with roadside restaurants, a woman with coals in a tin cooks on plates on top, serves in dishes she washes in a tub at the roadside and serves her customs who sit at small tables and chairs, the same our children use to play.
Look at the videos of the traffic, not to be missed - its hilarious! When you first arrive, its like “no way can we cross the roads!!” - but you do and as you do you squeal, cringe, walk, stop, run, stop, run, shut your eyes and pray that you managed to make
it across the road. But it takes a few hours to realize you don’t dodge the traffic, the traffic dodges you. You just step out on to the street and they drive around you, as long as you walk at a consistent slow pace it actually works well and they will toot if they need you to move over. They just constantly toot, to tell you or the vehicle to move over they want to pass, or just for the hell of it. Apparently they have like 18 fatalities a day in Han Oi. They have traffic lights in some areas and have just had a big campaign to get people to stop at them, but that only works in some areas where there is huge amount of traffic on wide roads and only then not everyone stops at red lights.
ACCOMMODATION We stayed at the Rising Dragon for NZ$33 (US25.00) for 4 nights as it got good reviews on the internet and it is in the Old Quarter which is the most traditional part of Han Oi. It is in shoe street! Recommend for travel bookings as well.
Rising Dragon They put us in a
Perfumed Pagoda Tour
Scenery down the river trip where a woman over 60 rowed for over an hour with 3 adults in the boat. hotel for one night after our return from Ha Long Bay as they were full and it was the pits, OK for the $12.00 on the internet, but they charged us NZ$25.00. Called Bamboo Hotel or Central Star. When we arrived they gave us the key and it did not fit the lock…made us uncomfortable cos meant previous tenant may have taken key and replaced with another. Would not recommend to any potential travelers.
TOURS Ha Long Bay - this was a highlight - it was just fantastic. The weather was perfect, the boat great, and the food exceptional. It cost NZ$100.00 each for 2 days including cabin with ensuite for the night and 4 meals. The dinner I would have paid $100.00 for on its own! We could not get the famous Santa Maria but booked Bai Tu Long and the boat looked one of the best on the ocean. If you do go and on a tight budget, beers US$2.00, wine US$30.00 but you can take your own for US$5 corkage, spirit US$5.00. Hence we enjoyed a few beers!!
You sail around 1600 cliff type islands, stopping off at an amazing cave, a swim at
Perfumed Pagoda Tour
More scenery down the river the beach, a paddle in the ocean and an early morning wake up call to watch the sunrise. You sail past floating villages where people live on rafts or houses on the ocean linked to the nearest island by a cable so they can be reeled in the event of a storm. There are young children and even dogs living on these floating villages.
You cannot even get away from the hawkers even in the middle of the ocean. The floating villagers have shops setup in dinghies and row out to the boats in the hope that you might buy something.
You are not alone though there are hundreds of boats out there at the same time but makes for pretty lights at night. It was a 4 hour bus ride to get there and then again on the way back, but it was worth it. Highly recommend.
Perfumed Pargodas This was a 2 hour bus ride through the poorer districts so was interesting ride. An elderly lady rowed 3 of us in a tin canoe along the river for one hour - incredible! It included a lunch and then a 40 minute walk up the hill
a mix of steps and pathway, and believe it or not there were people selling drinks and souvenirs along the way! It was not an easy walk but we did better than some who opted for the Cable car (which by the way is modern!). When you get to the top its just a cave with a religious shrine with lots of candles. I did not think worth the walk but the whole day was great the best being the boat ride and the view out of the bus window. Cost only NZ$30 each and it was 11 hours, don’t believe them if they say you will be back at 5.00 pm - you are not back until 7.00 pm.
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