Vietnam - December 2011

---

We always knew that 10 days was going to be a whistlestop tour but the full reality only hit Kate and I once we were on the road!

I flew into Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and met Kate at the airport; you don't realise how much you appreciate seeing a friendly, familiar face until its been a couple of months since you saw one. Silly things like not having to introduce yourself and make boring small talk...oh, and I could catch up on 8 weeks of gossip!

There is only one word to describe the roads in HCMC...CRAZY; there are moped drivers everywhere and nobody abides by the traffic lights so you just have to pick your time and walk out into the traffic purposefully but slowly. The first few attempts were a little scary but we soon got the hang of it and were breezing out into massive intersections like pros.

We did a 2 day tour of the Mekong Delta from HCMC; it saw us going south of HCMC and exploring floating markets&villages, exotic fruit farms, tiny tributaries of the river and seeing how coconut candy and bricks were made locally.

Then came our first taster of a sleeper bus; we decided to use the sleeper buses to get us up big sections of the country overnight, saving us both accommodation costs and precious time but we would soon find out they weren't all they were cracked up to be! Sleeper buses are basically double decker buses with all the seats and the division between top&bottom floor ripped out and 30 bunk beds/reclining chairs put in their place. Lower bunks definitely left me feeling more secure and also felt the bumps in the road a bit less. We set off on our first journey somewhat intrepidly! About 30minutes after our first rest stop, a vietnamese lady started shouting&gesturing. After a bit of commotion, someone translated for us that she'd lost a lot of US$ since the stop and wanted the driver to find the nearest police station immediately. Another 30minutes and we'd stopped again...for almost 2 hours! Eventually the police got us all off the bus while they searched it and there was more discussions before they finally let us all back on and allowed us to continue on to Nha Trang (with the Vietnamese lady complaining loudly all the way!). As you'd imagine, there wasn't much sleep in 'sleeper' that night!! The other lesson this journey taught me was not to have a big bowl of pho (noodle soup) and a large beer before boarding the night bus unless you want to spend the entire journey busting for a pee!

We were a little zombified in Nha Trang but managed to get ourselves to the big chinese temple with a statue of the reclining buddha and a HUGE sitting buddha on the hillside above it. We also explored the Cham Towers. Afterwards, we treated ourselves to a trip to the mudpools and thermal springs. After a soak in a tub of mud, being pelted by jets of hot water and an even longer soak in a big bath of naturally hot, mineral rich water, we were chilled out and ready for our next sleeper bus adventure...so chilled out in fact that we lost track of time and had a scramble to get back in time for our next bus!

This one was relatively uneventful compared to our previous night but I had a top bunk in the middle row and one of my arm rests was missing meaning I had nothing holding me in on one side. Right hand corners certainly got the pulse racing!! This bus took us to Hoi An in the central highlands where we'd been warned it was likely to be raining. To be fair, during our one night stay, it was more on and off drizzle with the odd downpour - nothing our pacamacs couldn't cope with.

Hoi An had a quaint charm about it and the pedestrian and bicycle only streets of the old quarter made a refreshing and calming change. Hoi An is famous for its tailors; they can pretty much make you anything in your choice of fabric in the same day and the quality is amazing. Kate had a coat run up in 3 hours because they had 3 seamstresses working on it all at once! Hoi An is also famous for its silk lanterns and as night fell, they lit up the streets and market stalls glowed with a myriad of shapes and colours. It also had amazing food and we ate very well, especially during downpours where we sought shelter in the nearest cafe.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned the bread yet; one word.....AMAZING. The french influence was definitely apparent in the bread and after 8 weeks of rubbish bread it was heavenly. I also can't write a blog about Vietnam without mentioning Pho, or noodle soup, which is a bit of a national institution and can be found on street corners and in restaurants alike. The coffee was also some of the best I've tasted and had slight hints of chocolate; I became ever so slightly addicted to iced coffees which were made with freshly brewed coffee served over ice with condensed milk. Anyway, now my mouth is watering, I'll get back to talk of the travelling...

The following morning, Kate and I took a taxi to Hue (check out the "flashpackers"!!) which is a 3 hour journey that takes you along the Hai Van Pass, up into the mountains and through some stunning scenery. (Any of you who watch TopGear may have seen it when they went to Vietnam and drove round a very bendy pass, very fast!). The most comical moment was probably when Kate asked one of the local ladies trying to sell us stuff to take a picture of us; she pointed, pressed and then nodded and smiled at us saying "good picture". It was only when we were back on the road that Kate reviewed the picture and found that the top of her head was missing!!

Hue is most famous for its Citadel which is listed as one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites and spans over a huge area with lots of separate temples, rooms and gazebos. We spent a good few hours ambling about and absorbing the beautiful architecture as well as the history. We then headed for lunch at a restaurant reccommended to me by my tour guide from Bali; it is run by a deaf family and has been open for years. It had a great, laidback, friendly atmosphere where people were grouped at big tables and the food was great. It was then time for our final and longest sleeper bus trip - 13 hours all the way to Hanoi! It soon became apparent after we got on the bus that it was a bit older and more run down than the other two and the suspension wasn't great but the thing that really set it apart from the others was the two multicoloured strip lights running along the ceiling which earnt it it's name of "Disco Bus".

We arrived in Hanoi early the following morning and went in search for somewhere to stay and stumbled across this really cute place run by a Vietnamese doctor and his wife; it wasn't particulary swanky but they were so welcoming and helpful and it was situated right in the middle of the old quarter. We spent the rest of the day exploring the city on foot, taking in all the popular sites as well as checking out all the meandering streets leading to the lake. In the evening we went to the water puppet show before heading out to another recommended restaurant and then on to 'International Bia Corner'; Bia Hoi is a local beer which is brewed daily and there is a crossroads in the old quarter where a small shop on each corner sells glasses of it and the seating area is a collection of tiny plastic chairs right beside the road so you feel that at any moment a moped could run over your toes. Definitely an experience not to be missed!

The following morning saw us heading off to Ha Long bay for one night on our boat "The Golden Lotus". The weather wasn't looking too promising but our tour guide, Tony, kept everyones spirits high with his constant jokes, banter and clapping and I became known as Zinnifer for the next two days! The weather remained really misty for most of our trip which was a shame but gave the limestone pillars and outcrops an eery appearance. We also stopped at "The heavenly cave" which is a huge cave full of giant stalactites and staligmites which are said to look like various creatures (if you look really, really hard!). Tony had said that we could have a "music party" in the evening on the boat which we later found out involved karaoke but all of the group apart from a Vietnamese couple weren't too keen on this idea so we stuck to card games instead!

Back on dry land the following day, we headed back to Hanoi, collected our bags from the Hotel and headed to the airport to catch our late night flight all the way back to HCMC so we were ready to fly out to Bangkok in the morning. In 10 days we'd come full circle and were back where we'd started at HCMC airport!!

---