GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!

---

Our 7 hour bus journey was fine and we crossed the border relatively easily, with our immigration check just being a guy in uniform reading out our names from our passports like a school register and everyone getting back onto the bus. The journey was a lot more peaceful than the trip to Phnom Penh, with no Cambodian karaoke or Jackie Sham films to keep us company, however the incessant horn blowing of the bus driver didn't really allow any sleepage! We arrived off the bus into the hustle and bustle of Hoh Chi Minh City (Saigon) to moto drivers, cyclos and taxis all offering hotels for the night but we managed to dodge most of these and made our sweaty way to our hotel, which was down a dodgy looking alleyway but full of guesthouses and restaurants.

We didn't really have much time in Saigon as we needed to make our way up the coast, which first involved an 18 hour journey to Hue, halfway up Vietnam. It was almost as hot and humid as Phnom Penh but we still decided to go for a walk and look for a...wait for it..... temple! Hooray! It was actually OK even though it had taken us a few death runs across roads where there are motorbikes as far as you can see and no lane system in place other than if there is a motorbike there, honk and they'll move. Luckily crossing the road is easier than you'd think as you just have to walk across slowly and the bikes go round you. Cars don't move though. Anyway the Jennifer Pagoda was ok despite the 15mile trek and death roads but we decided to head for the tranquility of the botanical gardens. We had to pay about a pound each to get into the gardens, which we thought would cover the cost of keeping the place clean and tidy and keeping the expected beautiful array of tropical plants looking beautiful. Turns out the money was spent on looking after the lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, etc. Turns out it was a zoo.

We wandered around for a bit, had fruit peel thrown at us by Bruno, the orangutan, and fed an elephant some of the most expensive carrot in history (there was a little old lady selling it next to the enclosure. Robbing old mare), indulged in a soggy out of date cornetto substitute before heading back to the comfort of air conditioned hotel world.

We didn't have time to go and see the Cu Chi Tunnels used during the Vietnam war but went to the War Remnant's museum the following day. This was again very interesting and eye opening, but at the same time very anti America! It described all the immoral atrocities that went on including the use of chemical bombs such as Agent Orange and their after effects. There was a gallery showing the work of photographers and journalists that died out in Vietnam in the war zone capturing the battles in vivid pictures.

We didn't really have much more time in Saigon, and the following day were to catch our first class sleeper train to Hue. We were advised to get a taxi at 10pm, with our train leaving the station at 11. We shared a taxi with an older couple and despite the train station being only 2km away from the hotel, were still in the taxi 20 minutes later. We ignored it at first and thought it must be the one way system and Saigon traffic. Another 10 minutes and we asked the taxi driver (whose english was worse than my Vietnamese) if we were going to the "Train Station" to which he replied "Yes! Pwane" while pointing to an airport sign above the road! STOP THE TAXI!!!!! Guide book out, trying to find the vietnamese word for "Twain", but we managed to show him on the map and showed him our train tickets and ran towards the train with just under 10 minutes to spare.

We had booked a couple of bunks on the train and shared with a Japanese traveller, who turned down the offer of a cookie later on, and a local Vietnamese middle aged fellow intent on clearing his throat (as a lot of folk round these parts seem to do quite loudly) and playing horrendous Vietnamese music through his mobile phone (which we could barely hear over his snoring). Anyway, luckily Lizzie fell asleep and her snoring was enough to drown out the music, the train and the snoring yokel, and as I am used to her sultry snorts, I promptly fell asleep for the best night's sleep since we arrived in Asia! (Can i just correct Ian there...whilst he slept like a baby I tried to drown out the sound of snoring and rubbish music with some - I'm not afraid to admit it - relaxing Westlife tunes, and found myself still awake hours later...Ian was still in the land of nod somehow!)

The trains had a kind of prison feel to them with uniformed guards/stewards wandering up and down the train offering pineapple and our prison food. Lunch which was chicken, rice, soup and cabbage served on a prison tray, cost less than a pound and was actually ok. There was a small wash room with grated floor, which as I found out from observing locals, also doubles as a urinal. With that, we both agreed to wait until the hotel to get cleaned up!

Hue was a small town that had a river flowing through it called the perfume river and we took a dragon boat ride along it the next day to see some tombs of former kings. It cast us a staggering 3 pound, which included gourmet lunch of rice and cabbage served in bowls rinsed in the river itself and chopsticks that were again, washed in the river! The actual tour was cool, although the tombs were very similar to temples, so we gave a couple of them a miss and just relaxed with some locals selling snacks next to chickens, dogs and cats!

The river itself was very high due to the huge amount of rainfall they'd had and the next day, despite us both not feeling too good (understatement of the century) after too much Vietnamese liquor, we headed out for a bike ride despite the chance of "showers". We hired our bikes out for the afternoon at a cost of 50p for both, and headed off to the citadel (temple like building again) and a few back streets of the local town. Turns out these "showers" were monsoon tropical showers that got increasingly longer and lasted for pretty much the entire afternoon. We sought cover under the closest roof, which happened to be a little lady's front porch with her bed just inside the door, and we managed to pay her for a coke and warm beer (didn't go down well) but we declined her offer of some warm noodle soup with what looked like testicles. No offence love!

That evening we were off to Hanoi and were booked on a sleeper coach for the overnight 13 hour journey. As you can see from the picture it was pretty comfortable but I didn't sleep much partly because every time I dropped off the horn would go or the lights would come on for no reason. When we arrived we were bleary eyed, still a bit hungover, and were jumped on by a guy offering us a hotel for $10 a night at a place called Elizabeth Hotel. Lizzie thought it must be a palace with a name like that and we agreed to hop onto their mopeds (with backpacks and luggage! Probably not the safest) and before we knew it we'd got ourselves a decent hotel near the main centre.

We didn't really have enough time again to go to Halong Bay as were were due to fly to Laos in a few days, although given another time we would have probably planned this in. We were a bit tired of travelling all the time so just relaxed as much as we could in Hanoi, eating lots and just wandering round the markets and lake! The markets were our first real experience of local food markets where there were fish tanks full of eels, fish, prawns, crabs etc and we also saw our first evidence of dog on the menu!!! A whole cooked dog was placed on the chopping board ready for the pieces to be sold. Before this I had been quite open to the thought of trying some dog meat, but this had made my mind up. No thanks! also managed to get some local "Weasel" coffee called Chon. They feed the beans to weasels and when they pop out the other end, they collect them, grind them and Bob's your uncle! Supposed to be very nice, if not a bit nutty!

After weeks of pretty much local food (except the odd pizza) and the urge to try and remind my increasingly disturbed stomach of what normal food was like, we decided to head for an Italian restaurant, which was lush, but came to 15 pounds (the same as our 3 night stay at Elizabeth Hotel!!!). We'll stick to 2 pound fried noodles for now I think! We're off to the water puppet theatre tonight, which is supposed to be good before we're up early (Villa v Ajax are on at 2am so I might be awake already) for our flight to Luang Prabang, Laos.

Bye for now!!!

---