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Published: December 23rd 2006
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Mui Ne
could be mistaken for being in the sahara desert Before you look at the length of this entry and go 'can't be bothered', instead of listing every place we went to in Vietnam we just bulked it all up, I say this because if it was me i probably would just see all the writing and just skip to the photos.
Well after being stuck inland for about six weeks we were glad to arrive in vietnam in search of some beaches but the beaches had to wait for a few days whilst we were in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
In a word... busy. This place is on the go from sun up to sundown, as you can see from the photo there are thousands of people on motorbikes, and seeing that I am now a seasoned motorbike rider in asia I decided to have a go at riding one around the city much to hinda's distress who everytime we go on a bike she thinks we are going to die and listening to a couple of stories from expat nurses and the somewhat lack of rules on the road who could blame her however she seems to forget that she has Valentino Rossi's protege as a
Ho Chi Minh
normal traffic conditions, insane! driver.
We had a roam around the city and went to a couple of the vietnam war mueseum's which like in cambodia gave us a little bit more of an insight into what exactly happened and some of the after effects that are still raring their ugly head up until this day. Just walking around the city you see so many people with deformaties that give you chills up your spine, somehow i don't think the government support system over there is quite like what we have in Australia either.
We decided to grab the open bus ticket to make our way from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi which is around 2400km (i think) and for $20 for the entire journey where you can get on and off wherever you like you couldnt go wrong.
Mui Ne
This place is famous for making fish sauce and if you didnt know it already you certaintly find out when the wind picks up a bit and the smells come wafting past! Outside of that though it was a really nice place just to chill out for a few days and sit on the beach which was only 30m
Mui Ne
sand dunes for our bungalow. A couple of local attractions are the sandunes and a canyon which as you can see in the photos doesnt look like anything you would expect to see in Vietnam it could be the sahara desert if you didnt know any better.
Nha Trang
This place was meant to have some of the best beaches in vietnam according to lonely planet. Not sure about that though, it's quite a busy little city located right on the beach, the water was clean and it has everything you need and lots of little Italian restaurants.
Doc Let
This is virtually an untapped resource its only 40km north of nah trang but not on the open bus ticket and no local transport goes from nha trang to doc let. We hired a motorbike to get there and stayed at a place run by a crazy french guy for $25 a night for two which included all meals. The food served was great and you were always offered more. We took a ride around town on the bike and all the kids went crazy yelling out to us it was a great experience seeing the locals who
Mui Ne
could be mistaken for being in the sahara desert (ignoring the fact that the is an ocean in the background) hadnt been exposed to many tourists so were just happy and curious to see us and were not trying to sell us anything which was really refreshing and rewarding. We stayed for one night as the places is fairly quite and as hinda knows i need things to do otherwise i go a little crazy, none the less it is definantly worth a visit there are not many places where you can share the entire beach with two or three other people .
Hoi An
Without a doubt the best place we have visited so far, it had a brilliant beach just outside of town. The city itself had a nice and relaxed charm about it and the people were really friendly. The town is also famous for its tailors, there are over 200 to choose from and you can pick up custom fitted shirts for $12 and suits from $50-150 and duffle coats for $30. Definantly worth getting somethings made at that price. Unfortunatly seeing we have very little room in our packs and we have 4 more months on the road we only got a couple of shirts each.
Hanoi
This place is
Mui Ne
more of the sand dunes! so far rivalling the towns in India as my most hated destiantions so far. It highlights the distinct difference between north and south vietnam down to a tea. Upon arrival from our overnight bus at 6am we were brought to a hotel and told a room would be ready in a couple of hours so they gave us breakfast and we waited but after two and a half hours of waiting and us politely declining to book a tour through the hotel we were told there were no rooms available, after which we were sworn at and told to get out of the hotel, as you can imagine this was met with a lovely response from us!!! A little while later we saw a few friends of ours we have made along the way and they had similar altercations with three different hotels that same morning. Some french people we had also met were actually given a room but kicked out at 6pm that evening because they didnt get their cambodian visas through the hotel instead going to the consulate themselves (as the hotel were trying to charge them too much anyway). So it seems we were not the only
ones and it wasnt exclusive to the hotel we went to.
Add this to the fact that we saw so many physcial fights between all ages and sexes in the streets and also seeing people going to the toilet in the middle of the city quite regularly means that Hanoi is an absolute sh%t hole in my book. The only reason you need to come here is to get the Halong Bay.
Halong Bay
This area is world heritage listed and from first sight you can see why, it is very similar to krabi in thailand although it doesnt share the same sunny weather and clear water, instead it's misty and has jade green coloured water due to being much further north.
There isn't alot to do and no night life to speak off so a 2day/1night trip would be enough to see all the sights.
Though you get to sleep onboard the boats for a night, however we weren't allowed to do this as our passports were in Hanoi at the Chinese embassy getting visas so staying in Cat Ba for two nights probably wasn't as much fun as the boats would be.
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