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Published: December 7th 2006
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Sand blasting
Mui Ne (Thanks to Mark for this pic) There are those who would throw up their hands in horror but we decided that Ho Chi Minh was just another big city and chose to spend our time in Vietnam elsewhere. Yes, I'm afraid we missed Saigon.
History Lessons Our first stop on the way South was the
historic capital city of
Hue. Some of the more recent history is not of the picturesque kind as we discovered on our day tour of the surrounding "American" war relics. We saw the stuff made famous by the movies: the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the Vinh Moc tunnels and a former US airbase.
The trip down the tunnels was made more authentic by the fact there was a powercut so we had to share torches. A claustrophobic experience to say the least - especially given they were designed for the petite Vietnamese.
By now we were becoming accustomed to the sort of propaganda that we came across in the American airbase "museum". Balance doesn't really come into the equation here. Quite a contrast to the museums we visited in Normandy a few years ago.
To continue the theme of the day we went to the DMZ bar that evening. There were
some veterans present in the bar - although not the kind you would associate with the war. A common sight in this country is an old western man with a young, pretty Vietnamese woman. Or women. Almost more disturbing than any of the war sights we'd seen that day.
Unfortunately those weren't the only sort of rats we saw in Hue. A particularly fine specimen was spotted as we were leaving a little local restaurant one evening.
Brendan was so disturbed by all of this that he did some sleepwalking. Impressively he managed to walk down two flights of stairs and awoke to find himself in an unoccupied room in the guesthouse. We checked our door locks carefully after that.
The following day we decided to delve into some more ancient history by visiting one of the tombs of the Nguyen emperors. Once again bikes were hired and after a little confusion we made it to our destination, the tomb of
Minh Mang. After Angkor it was a little underwhelming, especially given some of the sympathetic repairs where original walls had been replaced with corrugated iron. No expense spared then.
Ooh Heaven is a place on Earth And that place is called
Hoi An. The reason, multitudes of cheap tailors shops, amazing seafood and mojitos. Two large parcels have now been dispatched for home (sorry Mum and Dad!). We've lost count of how many items we bought. Okay so we went a little mad but wouldn't you when a tailored shirt costs 4 quid and a silk dress 10?
Whether we actually need all these clothes is beside the point, they were a bargain.
And it wasn't only girly shopping, David enjoyed the whole experience too, although he was a little disturbed by some of the more intimate measuring.
However the shops are certainly dominated by women whose partners dutifully admire their array of new outfits (no your bum doesn't look big dear) and carry armfuls of brightly coloured bags. The funniest sight was an American guy filming one of the shop staff trying on an outfit he'd had made for his wife so that when it arrived home she would know how to wear it.
Brendan's bargaining skills were put to the test here and he managed to get a suit and shoes made for $75. Sadly the shop he chose struggled to make
Stoney Faced
Minh Mang Tomb sleeves which would allow him to raise his arms above shoulder height. Perhaps the recommendation of a waitress wasn't one to go on (it was her sister's shop). Of course it was all sorted to his satisfaction in the end.
Sun, seafood and sand dunes Mui Ne also brought Brendan's bargaining skills to the fore as he tried to secure a tasty seafood lunch for us. Over the phone. Having been forced to leave Mark's less than healthy motorbike in a small repair shop (more on that later!) we were guided to the beach, where an appealing looking 'restaurant' awaited us.
With no menu as such, we were offered a poster chart of varying forms of sealife. Having established that neither penguin, nor blue whale were actually available, we tried some more basic options.
Communication was somewhat stilted, and eventually Brendan was handed the phone to speak to the local English speaker. Unfortunately, this only resulted in us being offered a packet of dried noodles for the princely sum of 40,000 dong. Clearly the word fish was not a part of the phonecaller's vocabulary. Or perhaps seafood at the beach was just too much to ask for.
Bridge of Guys
DMZ Tour (Thanks to Mark for this pic) We decided to abandon the quest for food and return to collect Mark's repaired bike. It transpired that we were to need the cash saved from the non-existent lunch to pay the ridiculous rip-off foreigner tax for the repairs.
After much futile arguing we ended up paying around 5 times the right price in order to prevent them dismantling the bike once again.
However, this was to prove a small blip in an otherwise hugely enjoyable day spent whizzing along the coast road with the sun on our faces and the wind in our hair. The latter having an admittedly lesser effect on David than Carolyn, whose hair was transformed into a whip when she took the driving seat.
A brief stop on the coast road at the impressive sand dunes saw us surrounded by kids offering us the chance to 'sledge' down the sand on an off cut of lino. Now you know where the excess from the kitchen floors goes. We chose not to take them up on their persistent 'offers' and instead decided to revert to childhood ourselves and run down the side of the dunes at full speed. Which, it has to
Gunner Gray
Vinh Moc tunnels be said, was considerably more fun than the attempts to run back up the other side.
There's little else to add about Mui Ne, spending the time as we did, lounging in hammocks and swimming in the impossibly warm sea.
As we're now living on an island in the Gulf of Thailand I'm afraid the next blog might be a while in coming. It's a hard life, this travelling lark. 😊
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Sarah
non-member comment
:(
I am so jealous of those beaches...