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Published: November 28th 2008
Lets play Charades children ...... Purrrrleeease?!
Not the most imaginative title I could've come up with but it does what it says on the tin. We really had to race through Vietnam even with the extra couple of days we had accumulated by not being able to stay longer in Laos. The four of us (Sam and I and a pair of cool Canadians we met in Chiang Mai and Laos) went to a great little hotel in hanoi's old town and sweated our arses off trying to find a fairly cheap place to eat that wasn't outside on the crazy/honking/hot streets. Vietnam came as a real shock to all of us after Laos. I reckon if I had come here after China it would all have been grand, but as it was I had gotten myself all loose and squidgy after spending 6weeks in the rest of SE Asia and wasn't prepared for the overly 'chinese' style attitude. In your face and everything nownowNOW! The general consensus of people I have spoken to since has been that the people that liked it most have visited Vietnam before Laos or Cambodia and the people who liked it but not as
much as the other countries visited here after. Its kinda a marmite country but even though I found it difficult to get to grips with on this trip I would really like to go back - which I guess is kinda Vegemite ?!
There is a truth about travelling that people and experiences can affect the place you visit more than the place itself. You can be in the most beautiful place in the world and have a bad time or in the grottiest little hovel and it be one of the best times of your life, depending on who you're with, what you do and how you feel. To be honest for various reasons I was not feeling quite myself in Vietnam and it seemed to affect everything I saw; like I said before, it's a country that is a lot more intense than the others and reminded me of China in many ways. This is not necessarily a bad thing but because of my low state of mind I feel like travelling through this country was pretty tough. Due to our constrained time schedule we only had time for the highlights and usual tourist track and with
Vietnamese Lake
journey from Hanoi to Hoi Anthis track it becomes difficult to see the 'real' Vietnam. The open tour buses take you from tourist hub to tourist hub but are easy, convenient and sterile - believe it or not I actually miss crazy local buses and having to do charades with the locals! It seems like vietnam is kitted up purposefully to keep the tourists in their little easy to manage boxes and the only way of getting 'out there' is to go on, surprise surprise, a tour! (or having enough time to figure out how to do it properly😉) These tours are also very expensive, the 'Easy Rider' tours were recommended by a few people as a great way to see the areas inbetween the tourist towns and I soooo wish we had done it but due to the $50 a day price tag we were all umming and ahhing about it till it was too late and we didn't have enough time left. The easy rider tours are basically a motorbike tour where a Vietnamese dude with a cycle ("you wanna be a biker, or a biker's old lady" - grease 2, gotta love it!) will drive you from one place to another and
show you a few waterfalls/lakes/villages etc along the way. It is pricey for Vietnam but if I was to go back I would definitely give it a go just so that i had the feeling of seeing a little bit more.
Beauty away from the craziness
Due to the superduper tight schedule, which was the same for the boys we were traveling with, we all booked ourselves on a trip to Ha Long Bay for the next morning after arriving in Hanoi. The woman at the hotel was so cute and I would recommend using her at the Little Hanoi Hotel even if you aren't staying there. As with most of these things it is worth paying a little bit more just to get what you want rather than tight fisting it and getting some cockroaches thrown in with your bargin. The boat was a big junk boat with a deck and private ensuite rooms (and normally a karaoke machine to go with the huge plush red leather sofas, but it was however unfortunately out of order, aaaaah shame! 😉) The only down side was the fact that we didn't really have that many people on our boat
and would've possibly preferred something a bit livelier! But the trip itself was brilliant, Ha Long Bay is a stunning area. Unfortunately I was never able to get my photos up of Yangshuo but Ha Long Bay is basically Yangshuo on water. The beautiful limestone karst peaks that define the landscape there, here puncture the waters surface. We had 3 days and two nights in the area, one night on the boat and one on beautiful Cat Ba Island, the main inhabited island in the Ha Long Bay group. The weather wasn't that great but the scenery more than made up for it! The first day was spent sailing out into the water and around the peaks before stopping for a quick look around a group of caves on one of the islands. Now in typical Asian fashion, and in keeping with the Sound and Light Show that was inflicted upon the Yangshuo landscape, the caves were of course not allowed to simply be beautiful and magnificent in their own right - Oh No! - they were subjected to the same colourful, permanent light display; so everywhere you turned there was a purple stalagtite and a fluorecent green stalagmite. They
even found form where there was none - 'Here is the tiger, see his face?' - No - 'Here is the frog, see how he sits?' - Nada. Surprisingly the only forms I could make out were pointed out just as we were leaving - 'Here is the penis and the breast' - A huge phyllic tower stands proudly by a squat mound with a little lump for a nipple - well yeah! I can see that!
That afternoon we did one of my favorite things I did in Vietnam; we got in a kayak (my first time!) and rowed ourselves out to a nearby island. We successfully navigated past all the huge boats and a random swimmer to get through a little arch in the base of the island and into the most beautiful lagoon which sat walled by the karst peak that surrounded it and with only the little arch as a way in and out. It was so peaceful in there, with only ourgroup (and the random swimmer, what was he doing?!)for company. We spent the night drinking dirty vodka bought from floating boat/shops and playing cards out on the deck after we had anchored for
the night in a cove (with 30 other boats!) and jumped off the top of the boat (only to find out after I had jumped, but was still in the water, that it was infested with huge jelly fish!). For the second day we jumped off the boat at Cat Ba and went for a walk in the national park - vertical uphill hike in humidity worse than Bukit Lawang, with our lovely little Vietnamese guide, Kim, bouncing up it next to us in her tiny little fancy shoes, just to rib it in! I have never sweated so much in my entire life and at the top was only a fairly average view of the island (I refrained from climbing up the rickity, due for demolition comms tower for a better view! Our hotel was beautiful but we were rudely aquainted with some Vietnamese hospitality that evening involving a pool table, some annoying locals and snotty hotel staff. We were later however kindly invited to join in the karaoke festivities downstairs, urrrrmmm... no (sorry the screeching coming from below was enough to make your ears bleed - and thats sayign something after travelling China! 😉).
The next day
the boat and bus combo too us back to Hanoi and we got on a bus straight out to Hoi An. I was pretty stressed after losing about 20quids worth of Dong (quite a lot in local terms) and not being able to find anywhere that had internet or a supermarket/packaged food stall or anyone who was willing to help me at all! But all was better after we got on the mini bus and while we stopped to get some more passengers the driver got out and downed a jug of Beer Hoi (local beer on the street); not exactly safe but at least it gave us a bit of a giggle! The bus journey was not set to make us think better off this specific area. We were first told there were too many of us and that we'd have to wait for another bus but they wouldn't tell us how long, then sam and I were spilt up and while I was at the back with a lovely family we'd met on the minibus, Sam was down the front with the smarmiest, leachiest local guy. I couldn't leave her with this guy especially since she was still
pretty new to this and he wasn't the harmless cheesy local type. I asked him if he would move to my seat at the back; he looked at her, all squeezed in next to him, and smiled happy in the knowledge that he didn't have to move anywhere. I tired speaking to the conductor and he/she was very little help other than to wack me on the arm and point me back to my seat. In the end the guy next to me kindly moved and all was well, apart from our opinion of the country so far!
The land were clothes are born!
Hoi An is the Land of Tailors. They'll make anything for you, bring them a picture of a Versace dress worn by Cate Blanchet on the red carpet and they'll do it, tailor made to fit you, at a fraction of the cost. I unfortunately a) have nowhere to wear such an item b) still had months of travel ahead and couldn't afford to be frivolous! The boys however got custom suits galore and even with shipping them back to toronto got them for much less than they'd ever have to pay back home.
I was unfortunately a bit ill here so the best thing I was actually able to do was join the others at the beach. We went to the locals beach which is apparently the opposite side to the normal beach, just coz that's where was closer, but it was so nice to have it pretty much to ourselves until the sun began to set and the local famillies came out in their droves for fresh seafood dinners on the beach. Quite a sight! The next day we were on a sleeper bus to Nha Trang - the beach party town! The beach was unfortunately not quite the same standard as some of the ones I have seen in Thailand and Indo. In fact all the beaches along the Vietnamese coast aren't really anything to shout about, the water was murky and the sand was covered in debris from the ocean and negligent beach goers. We didn't stay within its confines; but the 'backpacker' district of Nha Trang is Bien Thu, where there are a couple of good little resturants and and some cool bars. But our favorite place was without a doubt - Romy's Ice Cream Palour. Opened by a
German chef it now sells to-die-for icecream sundaes and waffles with fresh fruit. Pretty expensive for Vietnam but we went everyday - I almost actaully vomited from eating so much but I was not going to let a drop go to waste!
Funky Monkey and his funky man band
In Nha Trang we obviously had to do the obligatory Booze cruise/snorkelling trip. We signed up for Funky Monkey's island tour adn had absolutely no idea what we had gotten ourselves in for! Queen - we are the champions and invites to buy the cans of tiger beer at 9am when I still had sleep in my eyes was not a good start ... but things soon warmed up! There were some really cool people on the boat with us and after a dip in the water (a very sad moment involving the loss of a very special casio watch was involved😞 ) everyone was on the beers and happy for a bit of grub. After which the real entertainment started .... the local guys that ran the boat quickly set up the instraments and right there on oru boat we had the best concert in Vietnam! Funky Monkey
(real name probaly fred or Melvin) was on lead vocals and the coolest dude in Asia was gunning it on the drums and guiter, they cracked out 4 non blondes, some more Queen and later began to bring out different nationalites to do different songs fom home. Sam was the lucky lady on who fell the eye of FM when he needed someone ENglish to sing the Bangles classic - Eternal Flame. It was beautiful and absolutely painful at the same time (bear in mind sam has as much musical talent as anyone in our family - i.e. ZERO!) Then an Irish guy Joe got up and did a brilliant version of Ronan (obviously he knew all the words to 'when you say nothing at all') and then Tom a really hot English guy got up to play the guitar and sing Razorlights Golden Touch (he'd done that before!) All in all it actually ended up being a pretty cool day, random, but cool! Unfortunately here is where matt got pretty ill (he didn't quite enjoy the boat trip as much as us) and as sam had an infestation on her leg the size of brazil that was secreting puss
there was a bit of a trip to the doc required and some antibiotics to be administered. All while Andrew and I headed onwards to Da Lat in a bus that had me fearing for my life, while my seat collapsed on me and the still to be finished road wound round in circles as we climbed higher into the mountains
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