Good Morning Vietnam

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Saigon

WILLARD (v.o.):

"Saigon, shit. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I've been here a week now. Waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room I get weaker. And every minute Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger. Each time I look around the walls move in a little tighter." (Apocalypse Now)

Don't know what Martin Sheen was complaining about, to be honest. The border crossing had been uneventful, remarkable only for our heroes being obliged to disembark the bus and wade sweatily through the various (read: unnecessary) layers of army-uniformed beaurocracy with baggage in tow. The contrast between the ornate and typically Asian opulence of the Cambodian checkpoint and the austere monument to communism that 'welcomes' you to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was immediately apparent, after which Saigon itself came as something of a pleasant surprise. Charming (if somewhat crowded) French-influenced architecture meets the usual colourful and clectic advertising hoardings and other assorted signage, along with a refreshingly large helping of greenery that gives at least the illusion, if not the reality, of formerly South Vietnam's former capital being that much brighter and breezier than most other Asian cities.

As their trip ran its course, our heroes had become increasingly aware of an economic phenomenon identifiable only as Lonely Planet-driven inflation, whereby any establishment recommended in the aforementioned tome jumps at the chance to hike up their prices and rake in the profits. Sure enough, the Nga Hoang hotel (described as "a terrific deal") turned out to be twice the listed price - $12 instead of $6. Terrific. Thankfully, a little old lady touted them in the street and led them through a labyrinth (bemulleted David Bowie sadly absent) of back alleys to a small family-run place consisting of four rooms with satellite and hot water and a panoromic (read: panoramic) fifth-floor seating area, all stacked atop each other in a characteristically Vietnamese skinny high-rise. Safely ensconced in agreeable (not to mention agreeably priced) surroundings, our heroes embarked on just under a week or so's worth of action-packed adventures that included:

*A walking tour that took in the Ben Thanh market, the Reunification Palace, Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Opera House, amongst others, plus lunch at a not-so-cheap Indian canteen (thanks again Planet) behind a mosque with a Canadian called Mel who they met on the way to the War Remnants Museum.
*The War Remnants Museum. Pretty harrowing, if a trifle one-sided. But then this is Vietnam after all, and the Americans did do some fairly fucked up stuff, what with their chemical defoliants, napalm and the like. Pickled mutant foetuses in jars, anyone?
*A fascinating day tour to the Cu Chi tunnels. How many Vietnam War films have you seen that even mention them? Yet these underground networks were instrumental in the Viet Cong's sustained guerilla campaign that ultimately convinced America to bug out. The Vietnamese booby traps meanwhile show that the US didn't have a monopoly on war crimes and make Rambo: First Blood look like a teddy bears' picnic. Recommended.
*A tedious day tour to the Mekong Delta. Underwhelming scenery and a succession of tourist traps masquerading as authentic Vietnamese culture. Most certainly not recommended.
*Much playing of pool and supping of beers at the overpriced but nevertheless popular Go2 bar.
*Staying an extra day because Jamie left half his clothes at the laundrette.

Mui Ne

Our heroes said Goodnight Saigon and boarded the tourist-friendly Open Tour bus bound for Mui Ne, a quiet beach resort a few hours outside the city. Emphasis on the word "quiet". The beach was average, as was the weather, and the various hotels, restaurants and the like were just too spread out for the few people that were around to be able to congregate. Still, Louis and Jamie made the most of their day and a bit there by teaming up with a couple called Dan and Ellie for a sunrise tour of the surrounding area that took in:

*Dusty Badlands-like scenery that might have been Arizona or somewhere, interspersed with tiny Wild West-style settlements and kitsch Vietnamese cemetaries.
*Enormous Sahara-esque sand dunes - all the better for sandboarding (sliding down the dunes head-first on sheets of something like laminate flooring).
*More sand dunes.
*Weird red Martian rock formations.
*A fishing village complete with multicoloured fleet (and it was a fleet) and, more unusually, these strange little one-man basket boat-type things that you stand up in.
*A particularly uninspiring cloud-covered sunrise. Oh well, it was still worth getting up at 4:30 for. Probably.

Other highlights of Mui Ne included a cheap seafood restaurant and, er, that's it. About the most interesting thing was meeting two English lads called Tommy and Adam and waxing lyrical about computer games (amongst other subjects) over a few beers in the stylish but less than busy Wax Bar. Little did our heroes know that this was but a taste of the extreme thirstiness to come...

Dalat

Shades of the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia as our heroes wound their way along the long and winding road to Dalat in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Cue another change of scenery, with pine forests and deep blue lakes reminiscent of North America or Canada, while the corresponding drop in temperature was the cue to don hoodies for the first time in some, ooh, four months or so. Dalat itself was surprisingly large and built-up, with possible the most guesthouses per square mile of anywhere, ever. Our heroes eschewed the souless (read: empty) establishment their bus dumped them at in favour of The Peace Hotel, a perenniel backpacker favourite and good value.

The adjacent Peace Cafe meanwhile proved to be a popular hangout also, not least with the Easy Riders, Dalat's much-touted (and touting) motorbike tour guides. After looking at their tour packages, however, and after speaking to a couple of English guys called Ian and Stuart who'd just done one, our heroes rapidly concluded that it wasn't much cop: a couple of sites of genuine interest padded out with tourist traps for the princely sum of $15 or $20 dollars, more or less a day's budget. Nor were the so-called Easy Riders interested in a bespoke trip to a couple of sites for a reduced fee. Clearly it was their way or the highway: not so much "Easy" (read: easy-going) and more about just taking you for a ride. That night though in the Peace Cafe our heroes happened across two Cambridgeshire boys called Jonny and Chris, and together with their landlady's help they procured a jeep plus driver for a mere $4 apiece. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. All that remained was to celebrate over a few Big Man beers and the local tipple, goat penis wine, before a good night's sleep and the cut-price trip which took in:

*The beautiful Paradise Lake, which was like being in Canada, only not.
*Datanla Falls, which boasted an amazing dry luge, a video of which is on youtube for your benefit.
*Prenn Falls, which was a bit dry, frankly (literally and figuratively speaking).

Other highlights included the local market, and another round of dubious beverages (scorpion wine). Next stop: Nha Trang.

Nha Trang

After checking into the Ha Huong Hotel on the e-mail advice of Alex and Ellie and reuniting with Chris and Jonny, our heroes ambled down to the beach, only to come across the hairless body of a dead dog. Turning away in disgust (after having had a good look, of course), they were confronted by a tuk-tuk driver pissing against a wall. Welcome to Nha Trang, a big, ugly concrete jungle of a tourist resort. Not much going for it, you might think. And you'd be right. What Nha Trang does have though is nightlife. In abundance. Cue a succession of lazy days and thirsty nights with Chris, Jonny, Tommy and Adam, which typically went like so:

*Chilling out maxin' relaxin' all cool by the pool in the plush Cafe Louisiana.
*Food at the Kangaroo Restaurant, including ostrich and crocodile (eventually).
*Drinks at either a) Red Sun, b) Why Not? Bar, c) The Sailing/Boat/Fishing Club, or more often d) all of the above.
*A good hard seagulling to round off the night.

Other highlights included Jamie's 23rd birthday, which took in an average (but not unenjoyable) water park, cake and cocktails at Louisiana, a mud bath at a nearby spa, and then thirstiness of epic proportions: buckets of death, flaming shooters, and a fish tank. No, not a fish bowl - an actual aquarium's worth of alcohol. Suffice to say, 'twas a birthday he'd never forget, if only he could remember it.

Hoi An

Our heroes shared a bus with Chris and Jonny, and having arrived at their hotel (with pool) were soon reunited with Tommy and Adam in historic Hoi An. Hoi An's Old Town (a Unesco World Heritage site, no less) is so cute it's almost unreal, like wandering through a backdrop from Disney's Mulan. As well as being stupidly picturesque, Hoi An is the tailoring capital of South-East Asia. It also boasts a bakery (next to the Cargo Club, pastry lovers) that serves the best pain au chocolate in the world. Fact. Their three-day stint included:

*Tommy and Adam getting measured up for suits at Yaly, one of the more reputable tailors around, and being quite pleased with the results.
*Inexpensive slap-up meals at the Banana Leaf Restaurant. Squid stuffed with pork and mushrooms for $2, anyone?
*Multiple pastry stops.
*A trip to the nearby Cham ruins at My Son, which remain impressive despite having the shit shelled out of them by the Americans.
*Renting bicycles for the Tour De Hoi An to the beach some 2km away which you can again watch on youtube.

Other highlights included Adam hitting a fruit-seller lady with the frisbee (hard) and getting outrageous banter off another: "Sorry doesn't cut it - I'm going to pop a cap in your ass". That told him.

Hue

Having resolved to band together as a four-strong travelling fellowship, Jamie, Louis, Jonny and Chris bade farewell to Tommy and Adam (for the time being) and headed off to Hue, one stop up the coast from Hoi An and another step back in time. Once the political capital of Vietnam (between 1802 and 1945), nowadays there isn't a lot going on in Hue, and so a lot of travellers simply bypass it. But it is very pretty, and well worth a day of your trip, especially for a couple of culture vultures like our heroes. A boat trip down the Song Huong river to the tombs of the Nguyen dynasty is par for the course, but the foursome balked at the cost ($8 without entry fees), time (almost all day), and itinerary (bulked out with rubbish touristy-type stops). Instead, they rented a taxi to Tu Duc's tomb complex, widely acknowledged as the biggest and best, and took cyclos (see picture) around scenic Kinh Thanh, the citadel, still standing and in a state of some disrepair in spite of extensive restoration work by the US (read: they bombed the fuck out of it - again).

Hanoi

One overnight bus journey later and our awesome foursome found themselves in Hanoi, capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Hanoi is much more authentically Vietnamese than Saigon, but much less traveller friendly. Backpackers flock to the characterful (read: decrepit) but diffuse Old Quarter around Hoan Kiem Lake, and so spread out are they that Hanoi lacks the western comfort zone that Saigon's Pham Ngu Lao and likewise Bangkok's Khao San offer. Not necessarily a bad thing, but Hanoi seems all the more alien as a result. Thankfully though our heroes (by chance) checked into the same hotel as Nicole and Lucia, two well-bred English girls they'd hung out with in Nha Trang and Hoi An, and not long after were joined by Tommy and Adam, fresh from their Halong Bay tour. Cue a few days of fun and frolics that included:

*Many markets, where buckets of animal penises were admired and vests were invested in.
*A trip to the water park, which - unbeknownst to them, but not, they suspect, to their taxi driver - was closed. Shortly followed by a trip home with the same enterprising (read: scamming) driver, feeling suitably had.
*Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, where you can ogle the waxwork-like corpse of the communist icon - if you can negotiate the stringent security, that is. He actually wanted to be cremated, but why let that stand in the way of a quick buck from an army of rubberneckers?
*Louis and Jamie getting their camera repaired, no thanks to the world's worst moto driver (had he even been to Hanoi before?).
*Many meals and ales at the cafe on the corner of Hang Ga and Bat Dan. Great value and highly recommended.
*Meeting a jolly Hungarian giant at the aforementioned eaterie who hunted hammerhead sharks, bred fighting chickens, and enjoyed a 'massage' ("No, fuck!") or two, amongst other things. He also claimed to know 300,000 people back in his country. Eat your hearts out, Facebook friend collectors.
*A thirsty night out complete with thirsty t-shirts (Tommy's handiwork) in true Brits abroad tradition.
*A two-day, one-night trip to Halong Bay, yet another Unesco World Heritage site with more than 3,000 stunning limestone islands and outcrops rising from the sea, all of which confirms that Vietnam has some of the best and unquestionably the most diverse scenery in the whole of South-East Asia. Sleeping out under the stars on the roof of their junk (read: boat) because their rooms were crawling with cockroaches.

Our heroes barely had time to touch base in Hanoi before it was time to taxi to the bus station and settle in for the 24-hour marathon journey into Laos. Bit of a stretch, but no problem for a quartet of hardened long-distance veterans, our heroes thought. Oh, how wrong they were... The end (read: finished).

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Photos

Saigon
Higgledy-piggledy.

Mekong Trip
Delta force.

Sandboarding
Charlie don't surf.

Goat Penis Wine
2007 - an excellent vintage.

Team Dalat
Jeep at half the price.

Datanla Falls
Gushing.

The Fish Tank
Tommy's bright idea. He wasn't even drinking to get drunk - he was just so thirsty.

Tomb Of Tu Duc
Serene.

My Son Ruins
Well and truly ruined, thanks to Team America's contribution to Vietnamese culture.

Cyclos
Environmentally friendly.

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum
Nothing but grey concrete and deadbeats.

Halong Bay By Day
Watcha gonna do with all those junks?

Halong Bay By Night
Photography by Jonny. Not too shabby.