In Uncle Ho Chi's backyard; part 1

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A 9 hour bus ride took us from the coast of Cambodia, upto Phnom Penh, then across the troublesome Vietnamese border into Vietnam and along to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it's affectionatley still known. Spent about a month in Vietnam, so will break the country up into 2 parts, (just like the yanks did LOL), starting with Mekong Delta, upto the Demiltarised Zone at Hue.

Finding our feet in Saigon

In any guide book you read, even my 4 year old one (idiot), they all talk about the traffic in Saigon, and more importantly, the amount of motorbikes! well, they aren't kidding. Tax is sooo high on cars, that just about nobody apart from very few taxi drivers actually have one. Motorbikes, well scooters really as the limit in Vietnam is 125cc, outnumber the cars about 500-1 at a glance, probably more!
Arriving at night in such a big and hectic city is slightly dissorientating, so we gathered our bits together, and myself, Gary, the Dutchies and a Scouse guy named Eddie (calm down calm down...) jumped into a couple of taxi's and headed for a hotel. 10 mins drive later, we are on the main backpacker street, pick a place, dump the bags and out for a beer. (just one Gina, and not before i got the Sim card!!). In the bar we bumped into a guy called Shawn, a Kiwi the Dutchies had met in Siem Reap back in Cambodia.
Semi late rising the next morning, and off to a civilised coffee shop, was a welcome break. Some friendly cyclo (bicycles with BIG seats at the front) guys offered to take us for "boom boom". no thanks chaps! The tours in Vietnam are all pretty cheap, and there are some must do's from this area, so we booked some up; Cu Chi tunnels, the tunnels the Viet Cong hid in during the Vietnam War, and also the Mekong Delta. As a reward for booking these tours, AND walking and getting lost in the city, we decided to have a couple of beers while sat at a small bar 2 mins walk from the hotel. As we sat down, sipping the ice cold beers and relaxing, looking across the road, something suddenly dawned on us. The scenery looked so familiar, and then it hit! It was the Bus stop we got dropped off at the night before!!! The Taxi drivers had driven us 10 mins up the road and round the block to get us to our hotel a mere 100 metres away!!!!! ahhh well, win some you lose some!

Cu Chi Tunnels

The tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. American soldiers used the term "Black echo" to describe the conditions within the tunnels. For the Viet Cong, life in the tunnels was difficult. Air, food and water were scarce and the tunnels were infested with ants, poisonous centipedes, spiders and mosquitoes. Operation Crimp began on January 7, 1966, with B-52 bombers dropping 30-ton loads of high explosive onto the region of Củ Chi, effectively turning the once lush jungle into a pockmarked moonscape. The 75-mile (121 km)-long complex of tunnels at Củ Chi has been preserved by the government of Vietnam, and turned into a war memorial park. We just did the half day tour, comprising of a short video of Vietnamese, strong anti-American propoganda, followed by a walk around the forest, with a look at the tunnels themselves, the entrances and some crude booby traps. The chance to fire an AK-47 for 25 quid is offered (seemed a bit steep), and one thing becomes apparent straight away, how LOUD guns really are! film and tv they are noisey, but in reality, they are deafening if you are firing or anywhere near someone firing them. To be in a combat situation, in that humidity, with all of the tunnels, booby traps and noise must have been brutal and unimaginable. Before you leave the complex, you get to "walk" through a small portion of the tunnels, that i believe have been made slightly bigger for fat weatern tourists. look at the pictures to see just how small they were!

Mekong Delta

Is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries. On and around the river, 1000's of Vietnamese live and trade on the river and its various tributaries. We took a boat ride across the river into the delta itself, though being just a one day tour, you don't get to journey deep into the "real" delta. The tour begins with us walking to a... Yes, you guessed it, a BEE farm! we are sat down, were showed some bee's, given some honey based products to try, and THEN given the chance to buy some. hmmmmm... next stop was a sit down with some "traditional" Vietnamese music. It appears that "If you're happy and you know it" is actually a traditional Vietnamese song. Fancy that! oh, and then we could tip if we wanted to. walk through some banana tress, and to some boats for a real taste of the delta. Given some funky conical hats to wear, as we were paddled through the delta to our waiting boat, we were hounded every 10 seconds for a tip with the fun and highly entertaining line "you tip money, you tip money...". After the guy paddling our boat had tapped me on the shoulder for the 16th time for a tip, it started to get a little annoying and tiresome. But never fear, because now we were back on our bigger boat, and off to the... COCONUT factory! Yes indeed, you can seeeeee Coconuts, watch coconuts being chopped up etc, and THEN, actually buy some coconut products if you want to.mmmmmmm, coconuts! (turns out Shawn did actually buy some coconut sweets that he was STILL trying to get rid of in Thailand over a month later!! Despite all of the selling stuff, still a fun day out for us and the Dutchies, although Eddie did look particuarly pensive this day.

A few days in Saigon is enough for anybody, so we booked a bus ticket that takes you from Saigon allllll the way to Hanoi, for the rip off price of $38! ha! soooo cheap! The Dutchies headed off a day earlier, Eddie had already gone so it just left myself and Gary. or so we thought. The bus pulls up, and who's sat on there.. the bloody kiwi Shawn! Coconut sweet???? we sat behind him and flicked his ears all the way to Mui Nai , our first Vietnamese beach.

Mui Nai

Its a quiet town, with pretty much one road, hotels on both sides. The Beach here is pretty small, but also due to that, its nice and quiet! A lot of Russian money is pouring into the area (guess Communists stick together???), but it is still relatively undeveloped. We picked our hotel, and it turned out to be the best place to stay. As we were checking in, Brent (a guy i met in Cambodia) was at reception trying his luck with an Italian girl, and after we had checked in, 3 more people who i met in Cambodia also turned up, (Kiel and Ashley (Canadian couple) and a guy called Lee). so all of us hit the beach, and generally chilled out in this nice little town. The guys hired a jeep and some bikes and went off for a day to check out the sand dunes and a canyon in the area, but i opted for more beach time and some serious pinking! A small Vietnamese place next door, effectionately called Daveo's by us was frequented for breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day, and with prices so low (3 quid for a meal with beers), and RIGHT on the beach (the floor is sand and falling into a big whole that daveo was digging with his JCB everyday). The evening's were generally spent sittiing in the pool at the hotel, and we picked up some more peeps who's room was overlooking the pool. now with soo many in the group, names were getting tricky, so (and there is a long "in-joke" story to this), everyone, girl's included became "Steve". it was funny to us, but maybe that was due to the humidity and a couple of beers!.

Dalat

Dalat is the capital of Lâm Đồng Province in Vietnam. The town is located 1500 m (4,920 ft) above sea level on the Langbiang Plateau in the southern parts of the Central Highlands. On first impressions, it looks like a Swiss town, Not that i've been to Switzerland... it is pretty, with nice lakes, and the French influenece is evident. apparently, both the American and the Vietnamese forces agreed not to bomb Dalat, and so a lot of the original French building still stand. Dalat highlights include many things that we chose not to see! Easy Riders, Vietnamese guys with motorcycles will ride you around for a day and take you to countless shops for their comissions, or, as we did, you can get a taxi for half the price and go where you want to go.
we found a waterfall, with a mini roller coaster (see pictures)as a way of getting down to the bottom. basically, you can pilot your own little cart, simply either breaking or, NOT! the guy in charge of it said we could go all the way without brakes, so, we went back up and did it all over again without breaking soo much fun! we also had a ride on a cable car, with some misty but nice views. Dalat is also home to the "Crazy House", a complex, misshapen, weird, CRAZY house basically. with themed rooms (i.e. a bear in your room with glowing red eyes), it was very strange. they even have a honeymoon suite!? the Architect is Hang Nga, who holds a PhD in architecture from Moscow State University. she is also, incidently, Ho Chi Minh's sucessor's daughter. thinking we were pretty clever with directions, we (myself Gary and Shawn), got ourselves lost in this town for about 2 hours, ending up in God know's where, but we did discover a secret Ninja camp where they fight outside in the dark!

Nha Trang

We booked the early bus to Nha Trang, turning out to be the bumpiest trip ever in a broken old bus! when i asked the bus driver about how bumpy the road was, he told me where was another brand new road, whicj takes half the time, but it was too dangerous!! The thing is with buses in Vietnam, the backpackers book and pay for their tickets, then the bus driver will go the way to the destinantion he deems best, picking up the locals from the side of the street for cash in hand lifts. There are no villages on the brand new road, thus no fares to pick up, so he chooses the bumpy long way for us! Nha Trang is the tourist destinantion of the Vietnamese coast! Big hotels, massive developments and it has its own airport. if you do 2 things in Nha Trang, then do Vin Pearl and the Mud baths. Vin Pearl is an island off the coast, reached via the longest sea crossing Cable Car in the world (apparently). you pay one price, 800 Dong, and once there everything is included! a kick ass water park, massive aquarium, some bigger rides, and an arcade game building where they are all free! such a good value day out, well, apart from on one of the water ride (which weren't developed with heavy westerners in mind), and i head butted Shawn and split his eye brow open. that was the end of his water fun for the day! The beach here is also 10x nicer than the Nha Trang, polluted dirty beach. back in Nha Trang town, we saw the Dutchies very briefly, played some pool and had a few beers, and they left on the night bus. spent the next day chilling by the pool, and Gary decided he was gonna head north to Hoi An (the suit making capital of Vietnam) to get some stuff made, so myself and Shawn hung about a bit longer to check out the mud baths. we very much enjoyed our Homo-erotic experience in our mud bath for 2... you spend about 20 mins sitting in a pool of pretty smelly mud, before showering, then sitting in a nice warm pool. there was also heated swimming pools over 30c, like a giant bath. Amazing who you bump into at these places... We bumped into another 2 Kiwi's, 2 guys that we had already met in Cambodia, and then MUi Nai. BIG KIWI"S!

Hoi Ann

The Bus ride upto Hoi Ann is an overnighter taking approx 12 hours. We had been on seated buses soo far, and they were pretty rough, so for another $5, we were able to upgrade our bus passes for SLEEPER BUSSES all the way to Hanoi. The Bed's are pretty narrow, arranged in 3 rows of bunkbeds from the front to the back of the bus, and if you are 6'2", a little tricky to stretch out and get comfortable in, but better than the alternative of sitting and trying to sleep. We arrive in Hoi Ann, and jump onto the obligatory moto ( a guy with a little scooter who will put your Backpack between his legs, and you ride pillion), and found us a nice Hotel. SUITS SUITS SUITS! thats Hoi Ann really, and also the nicest beach in Vietnam. The Weather was great, maybe a little too great judging by my pinkness at one stage, and we did daily bike rides to the beach in this fairly laid back, buy vibey town. Not only suits, but any type of clothing (jackets, coats, shirts, dresses), wallets shoes and leather goods and Knock off Nike Trainers amongst other brands. To make up for neither me nor Shawn buying anything, Gary purchased 2 suits, 1 overcoat, 1 pair of Cowboy boots and the THE worst trainers i have ever seen!!

Huế

Huế was the national capital until 1945, when Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated and a Communist government was established in Hà Nội (Hanoi), in the north. In the Vietnam War, Huế's central position placed it very near the border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The city was located in the South. In the Tết Offensive of 1968, during the Battle of Hue, the city suffered considerable damage not only to its physical features, but its reputation as well, most of it from American firepower and bombings on the historical buildings as well as the now infamous massacre at Huế committed by the Communist forces. Not a great deal of people stop over here, its more of a transit point to travel onto Hanoi, but due to its history and proximity to the DMZ, it seemed like it would be worth a look.
The Vietnamese Demilitarizied Zone ran east-west near the centre of present-day Vietnam (spanning more than a hundred kilometers) and was a couple of kilometers wide. It reached across into a beach on the east. It was the site for a lot of fierce battles, remnents of which still remain today in the shape of discarded Military Vehicles and planes. The Ho Chi Minh trail (a path that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) to the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) through the neighboring kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia) crosses through this area, although nothing remains, now. Also, the tour we were on took us to an abandonnes US Airforce base with Mud runway, and another network or tunnels to help take supplies for the Vietcong out to and from the coast. Although an interesting tour, it was in the end, a 9 hour bus trip with a few stop off's. Windows on the bus were to be shut at all times, except for when we were going up some steep hills, and the Aircon had to be turned off because "its dangerous to operate it at high altitudes..."!!!!! The next day we had a ride about on some bikes to the local pagodas.Roughly along the Perfume River from Huế lie myriad other monuments, including the tombs of several emperors such as Minh Mang, Khai Dinh, Tu Duc, and others. with so few people getting off in this town, and then even fewer (or none on this day) actually riding out to the tombs, it was great to get a quiet day to appreciate the buildings and surroundings. Even these historic sites bared bullet and bomb scars. We litterally raced back to the hostel, slightly miss judging time,with Shawn also slightly miss judging the speed and proximity of a rubbish truck and almost dying... had a curry ( a welcome change to Vietnamese cuisine), and left one of the wettest Cities in Asia to head for the Capital, Hanoi.

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