Vietnam

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PhuQuoc
So we managed to arrive at Phuquoc island after the hellish transfer by bus, sea and more buses and we get to our accommodation as the sun is going down. We are both knackers as we didn't manage to get much sleep in the last 24 hours. We are shown our accommodation and we are both not very impressed. For the price that we are paying it should be a LOT better. Its very run down and is in serious need of a touch up, and not very clean, but its too late to find alternative accommodation and we just hope that we will not be carried away by the massive army of mosquitoes in the room (grateful for the mozzy net).

We head out along the beach and find a recommended restaurant on the beach and try and find some alternative accommodation at the same time. We bump into one of the couples that we travelled with on the bus and ferry and they suggest the accommodation that they are staying in. Luckily for us they have a room, but its only a bungalow, which is nice and big, and about the same price as what are are paying for mozzy hut. We take it as we will be stuck here for the during of Tet as the whole country shuts down over the Chinese New Year. We have a nice dinner and head back to mozzy hut for some shut eye, and try not to touch anything.

Once we moved into our new bungalow we spend the day on the beach and enjoy the sunset. PhuQuoc island is located on the South West corner of Vietnam and has been disputed between Cambodia and Vietnam for sometime. There is a large military base on the north and south of the island, which is about 50 km long and about 20 km wide. Brendon manages to hire a motorbike for us for a couple of days, and we head South to see what the beaches look like there and do some sight seeing. There are loads of pearl shops along the way as they harvest loads of these on the island. Well the road there was dirt, and lets just say that it was “interesting” driving on gravel for 1.5 hrs to get to the south with 2 people on the bike. :-)

Quick note on bike hire, they never ask for id, where we are staying or ask for money. They are a lot more trusting than most people!

After getting a little lost we stop at a side shop to ask for directions and get something to drink. The shop lady helps us out by pointing as we don't understand each other, but then she beckons us to sit down and share some seeds and nuts with her next to the side of the road. It was really nice just sitting there with the lady eating pumpkin seeds and smiling at each other. Apparently it is good luck to have a foreigner in your shop or house over the new year celebrations as with will bring you good luck and fortune. We make our excuses and head to one of the beaches in the south. It was really beautiful and not that many people on it. We manage to find a single sealed road back to our bungalow so the trip back is a lot quicker.

We share a great market dinner with a Dutch couple that we met for our Chinese New Years Eve Celebration, were expecting the fireworks to be going off around midnight, only to discover they will be going off at 930 that night. The market clears out and we are left on our own with our dinner (wild boar) and we can hear the fireworks but can't see them. Oh well! :-)

We spent the next couple of days exploring the island's beaches and generally just relaxing on the beach, which is a nice change from our time in Cambodia. We arrange to get a ferry over to the mainland and this time its on a normal ferry and we decided to do a night bus through the Mekong delta to Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC). This seems to be the trick around Asia, catching night buses to avoid having to pay for a nights accommodation. Well we didn't get much sleep to be honest - it seems that the custom in Vietnam is to honk the horn at every person, bicycle or car on the road.

After about 6 or 7 hours we get to HCMC around 6 in the morning and as it was Shrove Tuesday we try and find a place to have some pancakes. HCMC is really something else. Its busy. Try and imagine the busiest place in London during rush hour and then increase it 10 fold. Everywhere you look there are motorcycles. There are 80 million people in Vietnam, and around 61 million motorcycles. That is just crazy, and there doesn't seem to be much order or rules on the roads. 2 lane roads will have traffic going the 2 ways, plus a lane in the middle of the two, plus traffic going the opposite way on the edges of the road. Trying to cross the road as a pedestrian is an art and once you have mastered it, its great fun.

The trick is to just start walking diagonally - fearlessly to cross the road, and walk slowly (but not too slowly) and gently walk across. The motorcycles see you and swerve out of your way and you safely get to the other side. IF you hesitate then you are screwed!! You will get run over! ;-)

Other than the crazy traffic (well someone said to us that as it is Tet its about 50% quieter on the roads at the moment) we explore the city's sites with the backpacker area very geared up for travellers with some great little café's, hawker's food stalls and its fair mix of some seedy bars. We visited Reunification HallPalace.. The War museum was really interesting with some old tanks, choppers and planes plus loads of history on the war and its origins and it was interesting to see the perspective from the “other” side.

We spent a day touring the Cu Chi tunnels which were used during the war and even managed to climb in to them and tried to walk 20 meters under them. Which was pretty hard, pitch black and very claustrophobic. The tunnels are designed for a small Asian man, who crouches as if hes having a poo in a long drop toilet. They could walk for hours like this, we barely managed 5 minutes.

The rest of HCMC was pretty nice, and we then headed to the airport to fly to Denang which is about 1 hours flight north of HCMC.

Hoi Ann
Once we got to Denang we try and find the cheapest way to get to Hoi Ann, but no one at the airport want to help and we have to bite the bullet and get a $15 cab ride into the town of Hoi Ann. Hoi Ann is an amazing place, and is listed as a world heritage site to protect the look and feel of this smaller fishing village. Whilst most of the fishing is done on a smaller scale, what Hoi Ann is renowned for are the unique buildings and fishing houses that have a very unique charm to them. Whilst most of the houses are now owned by the biggest trade namely Tailor shops .You can have just about every type of item made for yourself. Want a pair of really funky Nike trainers with the colours that you chose? Done!

We hire some bicycles for a couple of days and spend them exploring the town and finding the best tailor for the best price. Basically you get what you pay for, so if you want a $50 suit, you will get a $50 suit and it will last about 3 wears. Brendon decides that its too good an opportunity to not get a suit so gets a cashmere suite for about $100 from Yaly's. They are probably the best rated tailor in the town. Hannah was also rewarded with a winter coat that actually fits, a lovely summer dress and a pair of leather sandals.

So the next couple of days are spent going from one tailor to another for 1st, 2nd,3rd and final fittings.

One of the things we liked about the town is their night food market. Located in the centre of the old town, there are 2 sections of about 10 different food stalls all next too each other offering their particular speciality. Well we were in the town for about 4 days and we tried a different one every lunch and dinner. If you are in the food market then you should try their fresh beer. Its cheap and darn tasty - or so Brendon says!

During one of the evening dinners at the food market, we are enjoying another great meal, and some guys on a table a couple of rows down mention to one of the stall owners that there is a massive bug in one of her customer's hair. The stall owner calmly picks the bug out of the girls hair, but then flicks the bug over to the boys. They laugh - pick it up and then hurls it back to the stall owner. Only the bug doesn't like being flung around and decides to start flying and dive bombs straight to Hannah. A blood curdling scream which quietens the market for a couple of seconds and Hannah says to the boys “You naughty boys”. Well she didn't say those words, but you get the idea! :-)

Well because Hannah caused the market to all look at her, one of her old work friends was sitting at the end of the table that we hadn't even noticed. We quickly swapped seats and the drama about the bug was soon forgotten. We enjoyed a couple of drinks at a bar to catch up.

Luckily for us we had booked our tickets to fly to our next destination, but because it was still Tet, people were saying that it was really hard to get tickets to anywhere. One family that we met had to get a flight in HCMC, but had to do the 2 day drive by hiring a taxi to take them there. Even the bus and train network was booked up, so when we finally make our way to the airport, our flight was delayed by 6 hours.

Hanoi
We finally make it to Hanoi and are very thankful that we asked our hotel to pick us up as its 1am in the morning and everything seems closed. We get to our hotel (Golden Sun 2) and are surprised by the size and quality of the room, as normally things are quite cramped and shabby for the budget hotels that we use.

The old quarter is very cleverly laid out in a large number of roads that each sell a particular type of goods. So if you want meat, then you go to meat road. If you want bamboo baskets then you go to that particular street. But there are around 50 to 60 different streets, so it was quite confusing at first, but we managed to get the hang of it after a while. Just below the old quarter is a big lake, which is lovely to walk around at dusk and dawn, and strangely when we were there, a lot of Vietnamese were getting married. There were about 10 different couples tying the knot around the lake.

The next morning we get picked up early bells, so that we can do one of the top things to do in Hanoi Area - Halong Bay. After our 2.5 hour bus we get there and things don't look good. We and numerous other people are all looking at each other as there is a very very thick mist that is hanging over the bay, and the port captain isn't allowing anyone out into the bay. Well we still manage to get on board so that we can have some lunch on-board and hope that the mist will lift.

Our Junk Boat, “The Margarite”, is a big boat compared to the other boats around, and we get served lunch and meet the other passengers that we will be sharing with over the next 2 days. Lunch is served and boy we get fed. Course after course of food.

At around 4 o'clock the mist lifts just enough so that we are given the go ahead and there are cheers around the boat as we sail away. The mist makes it look very eerily, and manage to get some great photos. The next couple of days are about lots of eating with a couple of activities thrown in to get rid of the calories. We went for a hike up to one of the massive caves that lay “undiscovered” until the early 1900's. It is a massive cave but has sadly been vandalised over the years. The view from the top of the caves overlook the Halong Bay area is just amazing.

Park up for the night and the crew make a fatal mistake. They open up the karaoke bar. Well the Asian countries we have been to LOVE a bit of Karaoke, but they hadn't met Hannah and Brendon yet. Well lets just say that both of us sang about 80% of all the songs and just got drunker and louder! At the end of it around 11 ish, the captain of the boat came over and belted a tune out as well (in Vietnamese) and then we had to finish up. So being brave, we thought that we would try our hand at some squid fishing, as you do! But didn't catch much.

The following morning Brendon has to kick Hannah's butt out of bed as we have to do a sunrise kayaking around the bay, and after a little moaning get her out and into the kayak. One of the local ladies that is also kayaking - got ready to get into the boat, stepped into it with one leg, but didn't bring her other leg into the boat, so short end of the story, she performed the splits and fell in. :-)

We enjoy the rest of the day on the deck of the boat, and relax and catch some sun and then back to Hanoi. Back in the city, we enjoy some of the best ice cream we have both had from a place called Fanny. Trust us its great!

We flew back to HCMC so that we can fly out back to Singapore.

Now at this point or our travels most would probably say - ye they have had enough, but both of us felt that we haven't seen enough of Asia. Our original plans were to spend about 3 months in Australia, so we decided to change our plans and include Indonesia, Borneo and Malaysia and cut down our time in OZ to just 6 weeks.

Top Tips for Vietnam:
1)If you know your plans book some flights, they are well cheap and quick if your short on time
2)Get yourself something made in Hoi Ann
3)When walking across busy roads never stop and walk diagonally. Trust us it really works
4)Bring less clothes and buy them there, after all most of our clothes are made there anyway

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Comments

[Elsie]

AWESOME
You both look relaxed and healthy and again a wonderful experience, I am looking forward to hear some more when you visit (counting the days) Looking forward to the next blog, thanks for sharing it, it is really a fantastic experience that you are having a lot of fun and daring experiences. Lots of love