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Published: November 8th 2007
Well, to start off, there were some ommisions from the last blog...
1) whilst we were all swimming off boat in Halong bay, a girl who was about to jump in from top deck of boat called down that there was a sting ray swimming right between myself (elaine) and another girl who were little more than arms lenght apart in the water... needless to say i got out pretty sharp, but paul dead impressed with bravery when i decided to get back in afterwards, altho i stayed fairly near ladder.
2) the blog from Vang Vieng, and Hanoi were fairly close together, and Paul wrote that vang vieng one, but we see from our stats that it didnt really get a look in for views... Check it out, our avid blog readers... has some cool pic's of us swinging out over rivers etc!
3) the managers of the Ritz in Hanoi gave us 2 nights accomadation and laundry, for pauls lessons and help on their webpage. if you actually click into it now www.theritzhotelhanoi.com you can see that Spring (the manageress) is a dab hand now at building her page, so everyone was a winner - specially
me, who just lazed around hotel drinking tea and looking pretty!
Hmmm, so what have we been up to since.... a lot actually, so i'll have to plough thru this one...
We paid a little extra to have an overnight sleeper bus with loo down to hue, for a 12hr bus ride, which turned out to be 16hrs... The bus was sweet thought, check out photos of our snug beds! We only stayed 24 hours then in Hue to recover from bus journey before the next one. We went to the Citadel there (walled city within city), and unfortunately got sidetracked on way to chosen accomadation and ended up taking a room that turned out to be yucky damp. Dampest room we were ever in in our whole lives, so thrilled (but tired) to get out of there at 7 am the next morning.
Then down to Hoi An. We made it to the beach 5km away on the back of motorbikes (30,000 dong return - 2 dollars each) the first day, and were delighted to see the waves in the China sea, promising a chance of some surfing further down the coast! We also did the
done thing, and investigated getting some clothes tailor made in Hoi An while we were there. We had a recommendation so that made things easy (thanks Andy). Paul got a dark grey cashmere, lined suit, with waistcoat for 110 dollars (think about 80 euro), and then got into the process, and got a pair of shorts, cord flares, and 3 more shirts made. i joined in the fun and got a shirt (turned out a disaster tho) and a lovely top and dress made (think 45 dollars for the 3)... Took 12 refittings to get all the pieces of pauls suit right, but we perservered (and stayed a few extra days) and in the end, we are both happy with it... its now on some boat somewhere travelling to ireland by slow sea mail... perhaps never to be seen again but hopefully not! They threw in a tie at the end as well (just as suit box was sealed up with last piece of tape). They were nice in the shop and we enjoyed our twice daily visits into them for fittings and adjustments; it finally afforded us some structure in our days on this endless holiday!
The
town in Hoi An was nice, they have a unesco heritage site made of the old town part of Hoi An, and its very pretty with really nice places to eat and walk around. Unfortunately, the weather got quite bad whilst there, and it became insane to leave the hotel without a raincoat (found ourselves in that position a couple of times - in retrospect ended up feeling like ijits, as turned out the plastic ponchos all the locals were selling were the equivalent of 50cent, and we kept turning them down when we forgot raincoats.... it was probably a 'spot the cheapskates in the rain' situation!!!) The whole old town was flooded a few times and the river overflowed onto the streets (not as far up as our hotel .. or tailors for that matter thank god), but the vietnamese were entreprenarial as ever, and just starting trying to sell boat trips around the streets of old town then - see photos again!!!! But despite the rain, we really like Hoi An, and spent a contented 5/6 days there, mostly nursing beers in the afternoons whilst watching the downpours in between suit fittings!
Then back on the
bus for another 12 hour overnight journey. Unfortunately, no cushy sleeper bus this time, so an uncomfortable 10 hrs (an overestimated journey time for this one luckily) tossing and turning and trying to catch even 20 winks! Arrived in Nha Trang, where the rain continued to lash down (starting to feel like home here), and into hotel to recover from crappy bus sleep. Nha Trang is nice, a seaside city, with a nice beach and lots of centrally located bars and restaurants to indulge ourselves in. They have a few things to do, like island hopping boat trips with a stop off to a floating bar, but unfortunately with the weather it wasnt possible really to do much else other than eat and drink and stay indoors. We did visit a beach resort with a pool to swim in, but about an hour after we paid 2 dollars for our reclining chairs the rain started to bucket down, but we had got a swim in, and they brewed their own beer there so we retired indoors to the bar. So with the monsoon raging in central Vietnam, and sunshine activities an impossibility, we decided 2 nights had just about cut
it, so we piled back on bus at 8am the other morning to make our way to Mui Ne.
Now the plan was that given the weather, we'd fast forward down to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city depending on the particular politics of the vietnamese person you're talking to). The bus journey to Mui Ne was just 5 hours down the coast, but as we approached the endless miles of sand dunes that the Mui Ne regions is reknowned for, sure didn't the sun come out. And out she has stayed as we come into our 4th night here. Now there has been some talk of a typhoon heading our way, so perhaps its the calm before the proverbial storm, but the weathers been smashing. And for the parents, Pauls been keeping an eye on the satellite path, and it should be a mere tropical depression by the time it makes landfall, and even at that its starting to veer back up to Hoi An (a 15 hr drive away at least)... and our bus runs at 2pm everyday so we can decide any day to escape if we want to!
So Mui Ne, its your
typical sea side resort, running along an 11km stretch of road, with restaurants shops, posh resorts, a beautiful beach, and kitesurfing, surfing and windsurfing to be had. Its quite relaxed and laid back and more importantly rents surfboards.
They are somewhat limited on tours etc, but we did the standard trip that everyone does. We ignored all the Motorbike drivers offering half price over jeep tours and went with the tour operater with the jeep (a mistake alas - payed double for nothing more, but ah well). They pretty much bring you to handfull of sites, the fishing village, the 'fairy stream', the red canyon (ahem) and the sand dunes for 10 dollars. The 'guide' couldnt really speak english and just stopped at sites and let us get out and see the places for ourselves.. None of them were really anything to write home about, and we could have probably rented a motorbike for 6 dollars between us and gone to see them for all ourselves. At the 'fairy stream' we were handed over to a 14 and 15 year old (funny guys) who walked us thru the stream for about 10 mins until they seemed to get
fed up and then turned around and said we'd go back.. And then just before we got back to the jeep, they both turned around and with pleading eyes and faces said... "money?!" in unison.... Well, chancer's they were.. paul asked what a good tip was, and they said 100,000 each (about 5 euro!?!) so we said feic it, god loves a tryer, and gave them 20,000 each (a more reasonable 1 euro). Then back into jeep for red canyons (about knee high red sand piles hehe) and then into jeep again for the yellow sand dunes. Then bombarded by all the kids who had sleds - pieces of hard plastic sheets with shoe laces as reigns, that they charge you 20,000 dong (1 euro approx) to slide down dunes (as much as u want though). We picked a friendly industrious 9 and 12 year old to bring us. The sand dunes were impressive, and the sledding fun, and the lads took some clever photos of us, and Paul had lots of fun jumping off dunes. Course when the boys were finished they said 'maybe a 100' - ah chancers. We gave them 50,000 between them - an extra 5,000
each and sent them on their way! Dunno wot we were paying tour operater for other than a lift, but it was all a bit of fun and really only cost us 10 euro each altogher with all the extras!!
So thats pretty much it to date. We are really enjoying Mui Ne after all the rain, with the tans starting to brown up again! We have a nice hotel for 13 dollars 'The Delight' guesthouse, and we've gone surfing twice already. Finding our usual 2.5hr surfs are an impossibility, we are wrecked after about 40 mins, and muscles are aching from all the paddling (and general under-use). Too many fancy meals out methinks, this asian slimming scenario isnt working out at all! But a couple more days surfing ahead if the waves keep up, and then down to Saigon for more adventures. Oh, and we met a young german girl (an artist called Katie) last night who has cycled down from Hanoi to here (about 1200km i'd say) on her own, with not even a mobile phone in her pocket, or anything other than pleasantries in the Vietnamese language! Brave woman! She still has to get to
Saigon and do the Mekong Delta but she's on the home stretch now! And we think we are adventurous!!!
So, hope you are all still reading with interest. We both had a good bout of homesickness there for a while due to moving around so quickly so we are enjoying being settled in one place for a while. Starting to think about Christmas, and how to have a merry little one without you all here with us! Looking forward to seeing Cambodia, and being a little the wiser again getting back to Thailand, and starting to get excited about New Zealand (and drinking red wine again 😊 - Paul will have to wait a little longer for his Guinness). Keep in touch everyone, we miss you all and hope you are all enjoying the unseasonal irish weather this autumn.
Paul and Elaine
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Mark
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gas photos
lots of travelling, lots of rain, lots of beer... mmmmmm beer...