Blogs from Vietnam, Asia - page 1331

Fish Food And Fried Snake: Why I Don't Like Tours

Asia » Vietnam » Mekong River Delta June 16th 2006

I'm always slightly dubious about tours. Short, forced and poorly chosen visits, cramped busses and fellow visitors who discuss the relative merits of various washing powder brands. I've seen it all. The good, the bad, and the hideously ugly. Actually today I'm lucky - the people are great. But the tours shit. We start the day ina small boat, and visit two sights (if you can call them that). A fish farm, and a weavers. The formers only interesting points are that its floating, and it has a huge vat of steaming fishfood on it. The latter is interesting if you've never seen manual weaving before. But I have. After such excitement we got a bus to Can Tho, stopping at a riveting incence factory... aaaaahhhhh!!!! When we arrived at Can Tho, our destination, we went ... read more

Snake wine.... showing where it gets its name from

System Overload

Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi June 16th 2006

Gunhild

Wow, what a strange day. After waking up at six and exploring for a couple of hours, I had to go lay down. Everything got to be too much and I was feeling sick. I wasn't expecting this to be as hard as it is, but this is an emotionally difficult experience. I'm sure it will get better and that this is just a transitional phase. I guess this is what they mean when they talk about "culture shock". You look around and it just doesn't make sense; this is complete organized chaos. People are going everywhich way on their motor bikes, women are squating on the sidewalk cooking, little animals all over the streets, car and bike horns blaring, the smells. It seems crazy, yet everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing. I ... read more

Things That Go Bump (And Squeak) In The Night

Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi June 16th 2006

The View from my Hotel

Karyn

I know it's been a long time, but work is VERY busy. Which is good, but, well, busy... I'm exhausted at the end of every day, then stagger the 84 steps up to my room (no house yet!) Last night I was woken up by the Saint-Bernard-sized RAT that has moved into my room. Then I was woken up by a really bad calf cramp. Finally, I was woken up by thousands of ants in my bed, biting me with their tiny teeth. When I tried to have a shower this morning to wash off all the ant carcasses stuck to me, I had no water... Honestly, it is difficult to project an air of professionalism at work after such an evening... But the good news is that it is Friday. Which means two glorious days ... read more

Me and my American friend Julie when we visited Ho Chi Minh on Mum's birthday...

A nice Vietnamese man I met at bia hoi (fresh beer)

Frangipanis!! Outside 'Uncle Ho's' mausoleum

Back in 'nam

Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi June 15th 2006

Keeping the place tidy

Martibhoy

Girls next time you feel that urge for a shopping spree coming on, head instead to the travel agents, book a flight to Hanoi and hotfoot it down the coast to the lovely little town of Hoi An. It's a clothes shoppers heaven, every second door has a tailor trying to entice you in to rustle you up a suit, dress, pants, top, shirt, coat, bag, shoes in any material or any design you like all for a handful of USD. I foolishly mentioned this to one girl who shall remain nameless (!) and looks like a return trip will be obligatory! We didn't have any clothes made there though, in fact we did very little at all apart from relax and eat very well. The stiffling heat meant that there really was no other option ... read more

The Sand Dunes of Mui Ne

Asia » Vietnam » South Central Coast » Binh Thuan » Mui Ne June 14th 2006

Mui Ne Red Dunes Sun Rise

Laura and Paul

Wednesday 14th June Paul - Woke up this morning at the terrible time of 7:30am. Not impressed with the early start but we had a bus to catch. Another of those horrible "Open Bus" tours. Or as we like to call them "The Frat Party" bus. "Narly man and lets go get fookin' wasted, yeah baby..." We were heading to Mui Ne if you didn't already gather from the title. It's basically one long beach resort with some huge and impressive sand dunes. Anyway back to the bus. Another legendary journey where we sat in front of some guy who spoke to his "friend" next to him for the whole four hours about how he'd "you know, done this, done that and god YOU HAVE to do this in Australia and Thailand and Oh my god ... read more

The Real Madrid shirt makes it to the White Sand dunes

Down The Mekong

Asia » Vietnam » Mekong River Delta June 14th 2006

The Mekong River

pummel

Here I am on a boat chugging its way down the Mekong. The water is brown and muddy, and there is very little traffic. The odd boat goes past powered with a basic engine, or even just oar power - paddled in the curious backwards standing up way that the Vietnamese do. The pyjama and pointy had clad occupants tend to wave, but some choose to mind their own business. Not coincidentally 'The End' by The Doors is playing on my MP3 player. The boat chugs on. Mekong Life The delte living Vietnamese really do wear pointy hats. Once the main river is left small boats are everywhere going about daily life. Many fish with nets, while elsewhere on the river huge bamboo cranes lift nets from the water in an attempt to dredge for fish. ... read more

Hot Hanoi

Asia » Vietnam » Red River Delta » Hanoi June 13th 2006

Hanoi 1

Docjsh

I was prepared for the very worst in Hanoi. No one I had met along the way in the variety of hostels had anything nice to say about Hanoi and most really disliked it. These people told me to beware of the people because they will constantly try to cheat you; most also didn’t like the food much; and almost all said that there wasn’t much to do or see. I had a pretty good time myself and didn’t have much to dislike about anything except the constant and unrelenting heat, but hey, I’m in Vietnam in June, so I have only myself to blame for that. Of course the best part of being in Hanoi was the fact that Jackie finally joined me, so I would have been pretty excited had I been in the ... read more

Nha Trang

Asia » Vietnam » South Central Coast » Khanh Hoa » Nha Trang June 13th 2006

BBQ on the beach

Jon_H

Luckily the mode of transport down to the coast was more comfortable than on the way up and we arrived at Nha Trang by early afternoon and checked into a guesthouse complete with air-con, sky tv and minifridge - pretty luxurious compared to most places we've stayed at so far. Nha Trang is a pretty busy and extremely commercialised beach resort which is popular with both foreign and Vietnamese tourists, but does have a really nice beach which is where I spent most of the first full day in the town. Although popular, the beach is long enough so that it's still far from crowded. As a tourist destination it was extremely easy to find a decent place to watch the England v Paraguay match in the company of a fair number of English people as ... read more

Mekong Delta, My Tho

Asia » Vietnam » Mekong River Delta June 13th 2006

doolittle

Paco

Snake in the grass... read more

view from the top

Asia » Vietnam » Southeast » Ho Chi Minh City June 13th 2006

monsoon rolling in

Moesha Mo Sassy

Greetings friends, family and fans...not so much new in my life, but i do have a kick-ass apartment. so, most of this is just sweet photos from my place. Monsoon season is in full swing, so HCMC is much less the sunny tropical paradise I've grown to love; lately it resembles a warm Seattle/Norwich more than anything. Life in Ho Chi Minh continues to treat me well - I've started working a lot more, so I'm busier now than I have been for months - and I'm happier this way. Since nothing truely inspirational has occured lately, I've decided to compile a list cultural trends that I find noteworthy enough to share: 1) On Body Hair: I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that many of you have never really spent much time ... read more

Brief history of Vietnam

The conquest of Vietnam by France began in 1858 and was completed by 1884. It became part of French Indochina in 1887. Independence was declared after World War II, but the French continued to rule until 1954 when they were defeated by Communist forc...more history

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