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Published: August 8th 2009
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Leaving Hue, we were picked up soon after breakfast on foot to go and catch the bus to Hoi An and walked through the streets in a crocodile line style, picking up extra tourists from various accommodation on route. The bus itself turned out to be a really comfy sleeper bus - laughable that we only had it for a 4 hour journey, after the grotty night bus we had had a couple of days earlier we certainly weren't complaining! We stopped off halfway (a strangely long 45 minute stop as it wasn't a meal time and the journey was so short - presumably to encourage us to spend money at the village.) Behind the cafe we pulled up in was a beautiful lake, so we walked along the shore past ladies shelling shellfish and huge mounds of shells lined the path.
We arrived in Hoi An around lunchtime and looked for a hotel - they were all a bit more than we'd like to pay as there seemed to be no grotty cheap ones, but we found a fancy one that was good value, complete with flower petals on the bed and the room smelling of lemongrass! We went
out for lunch and tried the local specialties: Banh Bao ("White Rose") delicate steamed crab parcel, Hoanh Thanh Chien - fried shrimp wontons, and Coa Lau - a noodle dish, all of which were delicous. We wandered through the tiny town which has a quite relaxed feel about it with narrow streets of wooden merchant houses, lots of craft shops and tailors. The weather suddenly turned to rain so we dashed back to the hotel for shelter and Phil got his photos burned onto DVD's. Then when the rain had subsided we went out for a fancy Cord en bleu-ish dinner (A South American - Vietnamese fusion) before wandering through the streets through the Japanse Covered Bridge by the river.
We got up early and were down at the market by 6am to watch the hive of activity at its peak in the early morning. It was a sea of conical hats and heaving with life - people were arriving by the boat load on little ferries from down the river, and the day's catch was being unloaded and piled straight onto stalls. We stopped at a tiny stall with little plastic stools scattered around for a glass of
coffee by the river, before getting breakfast and wandering around town in the already sweltering heat. We stopped for lunch on one of a series of long benches, each of which turned out to be a different rival street restaurant, all serving the same dishes. We then went for another coffee on the same little stall as the morning, where we received some funny looks for ordering hot coffee in the middle of the day - they all had theirs in glasses full of ice. After another wander through the streets and a browse in some craft shops full of pottery, chopsticks, lanterns etc. there were rolls of thunder overhead and we dashed into a cafe bar just before the heavens opened. We wrote some postcards and played some games of pool until the storm passed over and then walked back to the hotel to wait for our bus to Ho Chi Minh City. We'd booked it the day before but were unable to get a place on a sleeper bus and had to settle for another 24 hour bus journey on seats (though this time we were assured that they were fully reclining). However the first couple of hours
on this bus were among the lowest on the trip so far! It was the first bus where we'd been allocated seats, rather than than the usual free for all that ensues when the doors are opened, but ours happened to be on the back seat meaning that we couldn't recline our seats at all and to make matters worse probably the tallest women we have ever happened to see were sitting in front of us and demanded we made room in our tiny footwell so that they could recline fully. We had to watch from our elevated vantage point as the rest of the bus played with their seats until they were happily lying flat while we were robbed of all our leg room (Elly literally had her feet on the headrest of the seat in front). Our spot also happened to be on top of the engine and was scorching hot and with no reading light- nothing to do. We had certainly been on worse buses but on a clapped out bus where you fight for your seat you're all in the same boat, whereas having all paid the same price our discomfort felt catastrophically unjust at the
time! and it really did take a good couple of hours at the beginning of the journey to get over this undeserved punishment!
We'd managed to get a few winks of sleep by the time we arrived in Na Trang at 7:30am - where we were to change buses to Ho Chi Minh, the next bus was an hour late so we had to sit on the pavement and hope it would show. It did in the end and we finally arrived in the rain in Ho Chi Minh City at about 7:30pm. After breakfast the next day we walked to the main market in the city and dicing with death walking in front of oncoming traffic (not so bad in the narrow streets and 1 lane carriageways of Hanoi - but in the 2 and 3 of Ho Chi Minh's boulevards make for a terrifying but exhilarating experience!) The market was a network of dark narrow pathways between stalls inside a huge building. The stalls largely sold clothes and souvenirs but with a frantic central section of fresh food and noodle stalls. We went for a drink at a coffee shop and then walked to the grand looking
colonial Hotel De Ville and on to the "Notre Dame" Church along wide streets, questioning whether we were in Asia or Europe! We walked down to the Reunification Palace, a pretty ugly building that was the Presidential Palace of the South. We went for lunch at a lovely french cafe before walking down the main street past the opera house to the river - not at all picturesque - industrialised and grey. We made it back to our accommodation just as the rain started to fall and in time to watch the 4th day of the Lords test match.
The next day we went for a tour of the Chu Chi tunnels. Our guide talked enthusiastically about the war and despite being very proud that the Vietnamese defeated America, was quick to dispel any ill feeling towards Americans. The Chu Chi tunnels are an enormous underground network of narrow passages where the Viet Kong lived, hidden from the US troops during the war. We were shown a video of footage from the time and were taken into the forest in the rain and told to try and uncover one of the original entrances to the tunnels - it was
almost impossible to spot on the forest floor (in fact if the American soldiers had found the tunnels they couldn't fit inside) We were then shown various types of fierce looking man traps used by the Viet Kong made from wood from the forest. We then went inside a replica tunnel made for tourists and just 100 metres of stooping in the dark on uneven surfaces was quite claustrophobic enough! Next we were offered the chance to use the M16 and AK47 guns that were used in the war, if we paid the ridiculous price for the bullets. We declined but still had to listen to the painfully loud sound of other people having a go. We were then shown to a seating area where we were given the staple diet of tea and a potato like vegetable that had been cooked in an underground kitchen in the tunnels and could see how the chimney was built to disperse the smoke and avoid detection. We arrive back in Ho Chi much later than expected due to the congested roads, and due to the rain decided to watch the last day of the 2nd test.
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Mum & Dad
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Thought our Ryanair flight back from Rodez was fairly basic - but all things are relative... After all that rain, at least you are probably drying out by now in Lombok! Enjoy!