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Published: June 18th 2008
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Nha Trang
Sleeper bus We arrived in Nha Trang anticipating our last bit of Asia's sunshine and a nice beach, to be greeted by Asia's torrential rain storms. I think we were just a little unlucky with the weather, but it certainly put a dampner on our last beach trip. After a month on Thailand's beaches, we probably shouldn't complain.
When we arrived a local guy followed us into the hotel and started chatting in Vietnamese to the owner. We stood there a bit bemused that this guy follwed us in then seemed to be talking about us to the owner. He looked a bit confused, then asked us if we knew this man- he was trying to get commission for 'bringing us there', even though HE follwed US! The cheek! We soon got rid of him by advising the owner we had never seen him before in our lives- nothing like earning an honest living in Nam!
The main reason for us visiting Nha Trang was to do our last dives of the trip, numbers 41 and 42! We had heard all sorts of bad stuff about diving in Vietnam- poor safety records, nothing to see due to dynamite fishing, poor visibility etc
Hoi An
Tailors so we didn't have high hopes. I was pleasantly surprised with what we saw- it was actually a lot better than the diving in Cambodia for the variety of weird stuff to see. The highlight was an octopus that we found lurking under a rock, which we managed to find in the last few minutes of the last dive- this had been on my 'must see' list for quite some time so we were really pleased.
We didn't have much to do in Nha Trang other than dive, and as the weather was so bad we decided to move on to the next town rather than waste any precious time there getting wet. It was a really long trip to Hoi An, which meant another night bus. The night busses in Vietnam are sleeper buses, so we get about 5 foot by the width of your body to lie down. Not the most comfortable journey, especially when the roads are not sealed and the bus stops every half hour for a toilet break.
We arrived early next morning at Hoi An - again in the rain- to be woken by a hotel tout on board the bus insisting
Hoi An
River view that we wake up to go and see her rooms. Unsurprisingly that annoyed everyone on the bus, and we collectively refused to move from our 'beds' much to their annoyance. After 20 minutes or so they gave up and we headed into the centre. We stayed in the old quarter of Hoi An, which had beatutiful old colonial buildings, most of which were now tailors shops. We hadn't intended on buying any clothes, but eventually we found that the only way to stop buying clothes was to book a bus ticket and leave.
I got a winter coat (which has since come in use during torrential rain storms in Hong Kong), 2 tops, 2 trousers and 2 dresses, and Trev was a little more restrained by getting only 4 shirts. They would take our measurements, then a few hours later we would go to collect it and usually then place another order. We spent most of the 3 days just going from shop to shop getting measured or collecting things- getting horribly confused as to which shop was where and where we had placed orders. They were excellent tailors, and could knock up almost anything- they all had old
Hanoi
Beer corner, 10p a glass Next Directories, which you could pick clothes out and they would copy, all for a fraction of the price. The bus ticket out of there was the only thing we could do to stop buying more!
After Hoi An was Hue, which was a civilised few hours away. Not much to say about Hue other than it didn't rain. We had to go there to break the journey, as the next one was a long one again all the way to Hanoi.
Hanoi was a shock to the system- the traffic was just incredible. There were just thousands of mopeds on the streets, all beeping their horns furiously, squeezing inbetween bikes loaded whith more goods than you could imagine could fit on the back of a bike. There were occasions where even as a pedestrian it was impossible to get down the street due to cars, bikes, street vendors, mopeds all trying to get to their destination. Our first guesthouse was pretty bad- in the big cities you always get less for more money which we always forget, and we ended up in a really bad place. We moved house to a much better hotel, and for 5
Hanoi
Trev and street beer quid got a huge bed, air con, TV and mini bar. Much better.
Hanoi was where we had to get our visa for China which was an experience I hoped never to have to repeat (no luck there then). Due to the Olympics, getting a Chinese visa has proved pretty difficult, and we had to jump through many hoops to be able to get there. All in all we made 3 trips to the embassy, having been turned away each time because of insufficient paperwork. Each time we got what they asked for, they asked for something else, until I was prepared to give them the shirt off my back for my Visa. Eventually we got one, but only a single entry which caused us to have to repeat the process in Hong Kong, and spend 80 quid on top of the 25 for the first one.
We liked Hanoi a lot, despite it's noise. At 7.30 each morning we were woken by a speaker outside our window broadcasting the news (or propaganda?), but I grew to like the singing that preceded it and bagun humming in my half slumber after a few days. We were able to live there quite cheaply too. We had beer in the street sitting on plastic chairs (big enough for a 3 year old) which cost us 10p a glass, and found a little Vietnamese restaurant run by a local couple that was really cheap, but really good. We ended up eating there 9 nights out of 10, and some days had breakfast, lunch and dinner there too. When you find something cheap and good, stick with it! At least it wasn't McDonalds.
Hanoi was a bad place for people trying to rip us off. Some locals see a westerner and must think 'walking bank' for the scams thay they try on us. One particularly bad day, even before lunch time had arrived we had argued with 6 or 7 people all trying to scam us. After nearly a year on the road we are sick of it, and prepared to stand up for ourselves and argue over even a small amount of money if someone is trying to squeeze it out of us by being dishonest. Let them just try!!!!!!!
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