Gooooood Morning Vietnam

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Next stop was Vietnam, so back we went to Bangkok airport and flew to Hanoi. What a crazy, crazy place that was.

To start with the guesthouse we’d booked into upgraded us to their hotel, which was a bonus - the rooms were more expensive but we got them for the same price, good stuff. The staff were amazingly friendly and helpful (scammed us ever so slightly, but you get used to that!). The moment we stepped out of our hotel we got harassed by a lady selling fruit…we nearly paid well over the odds for it, luckily a lady from our hotel came and rescued us and told us what we should be paying.

It was a nice city, with some amazing architecture and stuff, but you have never seen so many motorbikes in your whole life and in Vietnam instead of using an indicator they beep the horn…so it’s pretty constant. Even down tiny side allies that there’s barely room to walk down, you turn round and there’s someone on a motorbike trying to squeeze through. Mental. One of the best things was Bia Hoi junction…a load of bars that consisted literally of plastic chairs on the street and homemade beer for about 10p…YES.

We spent 3 nights there, did some sight-seeing - went to the mausoleum to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh (liberator of the Vietnamese people from colonialism)…it felt pretty wrong and made me feel slightly sick. Also went to the Temple of Literature and the One Pillar Pagoda…fairly boring, but that was the sight-seeing bit ticked off. Lunch was great though, so swings and roundabouts. That evening we went to a traditional Water Puppet Show - in a little theatre and the stage was water. There was a cute little band playing Vietnamese music along with it - it was all really impressive.

Went to a funny little bar that evening too…it was like we’d walked into a family home and they hadn’t had a customer for about 5 years. I ordered a cocktail and Simon asked for beer. It took a while…my cocktail was the strongest thing I’ve ever tasted, I’m fairly sure they must’ve been missing some of the ingredients - the non-alcoholic ones. Then for Simon’s beer…it was warm. He asked if they had a cold one instead, naturally - the girl looked at us as if we were mental asking for cold beer and said “We don’t have ANY cold beer”. Sure, why would they? She brought over a little pot with ice in, so after 3 hours it had cooled down slightly…who needs a fridge anyway?

From Hanoi we went on a 3 day tour to Halong Bay. Travelled 3 hours in a not so luxury mini bus that was mentioned in our itenary. I was in a pop up chair in the gangway, with nothing in front of me, so had we had an accident (quite likely the way they drive) I would’ve been straight through the windscreen. The driver was a loonatic to add to matters.

There were 15 or so people on our tour, mixture of ages and nationalities…not a great group to be honest, but we got along ok. Our guide was called Tham…not the best of guides but her English was funny so she was great for taking the piss out of if nothing else.

Went on a traditional wooden junk boat, which was really good fun, slept on it the first night and the second night stayed in a hotel on Cat Ba island - it was all really good fun. Cruised around Halong Bay, which was beautiful - I’ve never seen such calm water.

Went kayaking, had lunch on a deserted little beach and went to Monkey Island. As we got off the boat our tour guide very casually mentioned that we should stay as far away from the monkeys as possible. She did however forget to mention that they attack you if you do go near them and that they carry rabies. Simon went to take a picture of one and it started chasing him, it jumped up then started scraping itself up his leg. Luckily it didn’t bite him, just a small scratch, little bugger…..the monkey was pretty annoying too (joke, get it?).

The whole thing was really cool, ate lots of fresh seafood…maybe a bit too much, it all got a bit predictable in the end, luckily I had rice to fill up on.

After the tour we had a lovely 14 hour overnight train journey to look forward to. You have little cabin room things to sleep in with one bed above the other on either side...to my shock we were sharing with strangers. We were with a German couple, who as it went weren’t too bad….I was thankful we didn’t have a particularly annoying English guy who was in the room next to us.

The journey was bearable and we managed to sleep a fair amount. The trains weren’t as bad as I first thought because they had a long walkway bit along the windows where you could stand up and look out at some of the amazing views.

Our next place to visit was Hoi An, where we spent 3 nights. It’s a small town, which wasn’t affected by the war, so very old and beautiful. It was soooo much more chilled out there, hardly any motorbikes and cars and the people weren’t just out to scam you.

We attempted to do a bit of sight-seeing there, but enjoyed some chill out time more than anything. Went on a cute little boat ride - stopped off at the boat petrol station along the way and the lady working there was sat among about 20 tanks of petrol….smoking a cigarette, it was bloody funny - I don’t think she quite understood why we couldn’t stop laughing!

Also hired bicycles there and cycled to the beach and around the town a bit - really good fun and much safer than motorbikes, so I was happy 

On our first day in Hanoi we went to a little bar, which we discovered was basically in this family’s home. The lady sat and spoke to us for ages and was so so lovely. We ended up going back there in the evening and had dinner there…she cooked everything fresh for us, including some amazing traditional Vietnamese dishes - it was unbelievable! She then told us stories about her family and how much it costs to send her children to school and stuff…we felt pretty depressed by the time we left.

After an awesome time in Hoi An we set off for an impressive 18 hour train journey to Ho Chi Minh…this would be the ultimate test! We passed time by playing cards - I learnt how to shuffle properly, exciting times, reading and attempting to get up to date with our diaries. It wasn’t actually too bad and we had a lot of snacks to help us through…always helps.

The Vietnamese trains have specific ‘Western toilets’ too, which made us laugh. They basically have a seat and aren’t just wholes in the ground, which the locals seem to love so much.

The staff on the train tried to scam us…usual, by charging us more for our food than they were charging the local people. What they didn’t realise is, that we’re not stupid (no comment), so picked up on this and hassled them until they gave us our money. Bloody jokers.

This time we were sharing a room with 2 Vietnamese guys - they went to bed about 7 or something ridiculous. What is their problem?

We finally arrived in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) at 4am….feeling pretty tired even though we’d slept from about 10pm. We wanted to avoid paying a night’s accommodation, so hung around the train station a bit (probably the most rough and ready thing we’ve done since we left!). I even fell asleep using my backpack as a pillow, for 2 whole hours…Simon, bless him stayed awake and kept an eye on the bags.

We killed a few hours then headed to our hostel, which again was pretty decent. Saigon really was a crazy place…just like Hanoi but on a huge scale. We’d luckily only booked a night there and that was quite enough.

Went to the War Museum and also on a tour to the site of the Cu Chi Tunnels - one of the most famous battlegrounds of the Vietnam War. It was quite amazing, we got to see the traps and weapons that they used during the war…some of it was quite shocking and interesting, well as interesting as a war museum can be.

During the evening in Saigon we wondered why hundreds of people were parading around the roads on their motorbikes waving Vietnamese flags. Discovered that they’d won the SEA Games, which is a massive thing to them - it was an awesome atmosphere.

So, our tour of Vietnam was quite a whistle-stop, but I think that was a good thing - what a crazy place. Couldn’t wait to get home to Thailand 
Thailand 1 - Vietnam 0.

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Comments

[Jeffreeeeeeee!!!]

World Tour
Hello You 2 - this travelogue is fantastic - thanks Lyds for making me laugh so much - people at work think I@m a nutter anyway but laughing out loud has confirmed it- keep up the blog diaries - marvellous Love et al Jeffreeeeeeeeeee xxx