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Published: August 2nd 2006
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Keeping the place tidy
Museum gardender in Hanoi Girls next time you feel that urge for a shopping spree coming on, head instead to the travel agents, book a flight to Hanoi and hotfoot it down the coast to the lovely little town of Hoi An. It's a clothes shoppers heaven, every second door has a tailor trying to entice you in to rustle you up a suit, dress, pants, top, shirt, coat, bag, shoes in any material or any design you like all for a handful of USD. I foolishly mentioned this to one girl who shall remain nameless (!) and looks like a return trip will be obligatory!
We didn't have any clothes made there though, in fact we did very little at all apart from relax and eat very well. The stiffling heat meant that there really was no other option but to cycle to the beach and prance around in the water for the day. Hoi An is a great little town with tonnes of character and charm, the narrow streets and colonial buildings somehow escaped unscathed while the Amercians were reducing all around it to rubble. They run a tight ship here though, unlike the south and pubs strictly shut at 11pm.
Chaos
Hanoi traffic Apart from an overdose of spring rolls (seems like we had them for breakfast, lunch and dinner!) Vietnamese food has been great, with one notable exception. The views from the train between Hue and DaNang of the coast at sunset were stunning but the Pringles only get you so far on a 15 hour journey and we soon succumbed to the hunger. Now the "beef" on a stick didn't look great and one bite confirmed that it tasted like nothing we'd ever eaten before. I strongly suspect we've now had our first taste of dogmeat!
Hanoi has to be the marmite of cities - you love it or hate it. We liked Hanoi, but only after learning how to handle it, so here's my guide to surviving in Vietnam's capital:
1) Take a deep breath and relax, despite the madness all around you. This is the city of a million honking motorcycles, but you rarely see an accident and there is never any road rage. Those bloody horns drve me mad and I wasn't even driving - but despite the frantic pace it's organised chaos!
2) Get used to travelling on the back of a moped. Its often the
Gotcha!
Enda can be a lazy sod when he thinks nobody's looking only way around and anyone with a motorbike and some time will take you wherever you want to go for a dollar. This throws you headfirst into the mayhem but is a great way to experience the sights and smells of the city and you might even start to enjoy after the 5th or 6th time, just hang on with white knuckles and pray - it worked for me.
3) Keep your wits about you, before long you'll probably have some try to rip you off or shortchange you somehow, don't be paranoid just wary..
4) Develop third eye in the back of your head for crossing the road! Alternatively just put the head down, walk slowly and hope for the best... Saigon had prepared us well for this bit.
5) Just wander round and soak up the atmosphere in the old quarter. Life happens on the pavements in this city. People eat, drink, sell, sew, read, work and watch life go by from the side of the road. Shops just seem to be large storerooms for the goods on display on the sidewalk.
6) Finally if it all gets too much for you, stop off at a Beer Hoi
(Fresh draught beer) stall on the pavement, plonk yourself in the plastic kiddies seat and enjoy the world's cheapest beer. At 10p a glass, bring out a tenner and 100 beers later you'll love the place!
Sad but true. The WC is now determining our itinery completely, but we make no apologies. English football gets wall-to-wall coverage here so they all love Sven and the boys and it was in a pub surrounded by hundreds of Vietnamese screaming for England that the "Irish and Scottish Paraguay Supporters Club" had its first outing. Pity about the result (lucky lucky England) but good craic all the same.
We didn't really have a choice but to visit Halong Bay. Its a well worn path and my photographs haven't given you much of an idea of how stunning the UNESCO heritage site is.
Thousands and thousands of jagged limestone islands jutting out of the blue water and several little floating fishing villages make up the bay and it was well worth the trip. Spent the night on the island though, not the boat as we fancied some comfort, AC and, you guessed it, live football! Gunther and Fritz (not their real names...)
A'right wee man
Dondo had grown since I last saw him In Australia surprised us all by being good craic for Germans and we watched the games with them in the town square on a big screen. We even managed to teach the lads what has the be the best song of the tournament so far....(To be sung to the tune of Bob Marley's "Jammin".....) "We're Germans, Germans, Germans, Germans, We play football better than you........we hope you like Germans too...!!"
Back in Hanoi we visited Ho Chi Minh in his mausoleum where his body has been embalmed and put on display. The Vietnamese worship the man and his face is omnipresent even on all the notes. To us westerners he bears a strking resemblance to Colonel Sanders! At his resting place we joined what was probably the world's largest queue to see him but it moved very fast and I have to say he was looking remarkably well for a man thats been dead 40 years...
You know the way it is....you're aimlessly wandering around town, in our case Hanoi's old quarter, just looking in the odd shop but with absolutely no intention of ever buying anything.....and then you buy 185 DVD's! No? Well thats exactly what happened to us.
Who were we to argue? They were $1 each and we bought about a year's straight viewing. One complete boxset of Oscar winning movies since 1928, one 'Desperate Housewives' (for Fiona and Mam of course), one 'Little Britain' series and countless others and we are coming out of the shop $185 dollar lighter in the wallet and with 7kgs of CD's to get home somehow.....oops! Straight down to the post office we went to offload them home, only to be told in no uncertain terms that Vietnam Post does not accept counterfeit DVD's and customs would certainly not let it through. Shit! As we speak I am lumping around two big bags of them and will soon have to resort to selling them on the street...! Doh!!
R.I.P. Champagne Charlie (Haughey) and long live the Champagne Backpackers. After our ordeal on the bus we only travel by train soft sleeper now! Got the train to China (Guilin) across the border where we disembarked and changed trains. Happily spent an hour there at midnight watching France - Switxerland and I am sure they would have waited for us had we wanted to watch it through. As the rickety old train
Outside Madame Tussaud's
I don't think anyone believes it's really 'Uncle Ho' in there... trundled over the border and we were greeted by a grunting Chinsese border guard we looked back and saw our comfort zone being left far behind. This is going to be a totaly new experience for us all...
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