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Published: January 14th 2007
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Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) Arrived at Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) at around 7pm and totally shattered. I got royally screwed over by the taxi driver going to Di’s house; he charged me 400,000 dong (yes, dong) for a 30,000 dong trip. To be frank, he was a total C***.
The evening didn’t get much better when it turned out that Di had decided to go out for dinner at that opportune moment, so I was stuck outside. However, I randomly found a couple of ozzie girls who kindly looked after me (fed me beer) until Di got back! People are so nice! Later that night I went out with Di, played cards and got fairly plastered.
While in Ho Chi Minh I went to the utterly crap History Museum, and the fantastic Cu Chi Tunnels! It was an hour and a half trip to get there via bus and moto in the rain, but it was most definitely worth it. Crawling round the very tunnels where the Vietcong once popped up and annihilated the Americans, and looking at the impressive, if slightly inhumane traps they built. Cool! I’m not entirely sure Di was as impressed…
My stay
in Ho Chi Minh was brief, as I set off to Mui Ne that night. This place has like a mini desert with rolling sandunes on its doorstep! Making good use of these little beauts we borrowed some mats off the local kids that constantly harrassed us and caned it down!! Bloody good fun. I even dabbled at standing up on them, but faceplanted pretty sharpish. Since I’d hired a motorbike we cruised about all day (to be honest, we cruised about ‘cos we were looking for the red canyon, which we accidently overshot by about 10km) before heading back to catch the bus to Hoi An. In fact, it was only myself who caught the bus since Di said she couldn’t hack the 18 hour journey. Girls.
Hoi An was a cosy little french-esque town, so I whiled away a morning looking around. When Di arrived we headed out and I treated myself to a damned nice rare steak. Och, it was so good. There’s nothing like the taste of blood to cheer a chap up! Afterwards we went out into town, played cards and table football, and got drunk again!! Living the dream.
I had a
Goin' Under
These badboys can go about 20ft down, and are hands and knees all the way. Mind you, they were 5ft 5, not 6ft 6 hour wait in ‘Hue’ on my way to Hanoi, so decided to go and see the No.1 attraction; the citadel. It turned out, after forking out 55,000 dong (£1.80) to get in, that 90%!o(MISSING)f it had been levelled by the Americans and other forces in various wars. Nevertheless, I strolled around the remaining 10%!w(MISSING)hich was spread in various places over 3sq miles. It was a nice break before the ensueing 12 hour bus journey.
Hanoi & Halong Bay I arrived into Hanoi at 6am, and booked onto a trip to Halong Bay at 8am. Hardcore is my middle name.
Met a girl called Lilian from Switzerland, and we shipped on up over to Halong Bay in the tiniest bus yet. 3 ½ hours virtually sat on one anothers lap and we got to know each other quite well. After some fuss with the retarded tour guide guy, we were chuntering along on a boat to the islets. Halong Bay was stunning, and my pictures just don’t do its breathtaking size justice. On one of the first islands we stopped to look round what could have been a very impressive cave. Instead it had been massaccred with
pink, green and blue lighting, giving it a ‘discotheque’ feel. We had a damned good laugh at it though!!
After that we cruised around the maze of islands, and met loads of people. We kayaked by sunset, and then swam in the dusk before nightfall. Heaven.
That night me, Lilian and an Israeli chap called Nir were staying on Cat Ba island, so we headed out to a local bar and played Shithead (a card game, for you old people) with a french couple. A lengthy game of pool later and we hit the sack. It was a good chilled evening, and full of banter.
The next day we basically just sailed back to the mainland, whilst listening to the interesting war stories from an American Vietnam war veteran. I pondered how welcomed he would be here…
Before heading off to Laos I visited the Army and Air Force museums. The first was pretty good, cool guns and stuff. The latter was basically a field with loads of military aircraft, which I loved! As I typed this in a nice internet café, a fight broke out between some psycho Israeli bird and the bar staff! So I
decided, once chairs had been picked up and the girl had nearly pierced my ear drum with her shouting, that I’d better break it up and sort it out. So I did. And they gave me discounted internet. Nice.
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PJ
non-member comment
Happy new new year and all that Mr. F Glad to hear you are enjoying yourself. Greetings from sunny Leeds!!!