Blogs from Vietnam, Asia - page 1345

We were looking forward to Hue but in the end we were a bit disappointed. The town was OK, some great resturants and drinking holes, but in terms of stuff to see it was a let down. The citadel was not bad but we had been told inside wasn't worth it so gave that a miss. The area around the citadel was good for a cycle round though just to soak up the atmosphere. The main thing we wanted to see was the tombs of the old emperors. Maybe we didn't read up on it enough but we found them quite dull and not really that interesting. The most fun part of the day was the motorbike ride between stops which included having to ride the bike over a very unstable bamboo bridge about 1m wide, ... read more

After our fantastic time in Can tho Mekong Delta we caught a bus to Saigon which took about 5 hours quite a good journey...arrived at 9pm. We decided to go to District 1 as the city stretches all the way to Cambodia it's massive! Saigon or Ho Chin Minh City which it is now named after uncle ho....i have never seen so many motorbikes around the city a real bustling place...we stayed on a main street really like Ko San Road of Bangkok..nice though! We visited the Cu Chi Tunnels from the Vietnam War..these were amazing we went into one which was of course dug out for us fat foreigners to fit down..it was so claustrophobic no air really dark in places..not a experience i want to repeat..jimmy took the opportunity while we where there to ... read more

As Halong Bay is the number one tourist attraction in North-East Vietnam and a world heritage site, we thought we should pay it a visit, and it did not disappoint. Halong Bay translates as where the dragon descends into the sea and is a collection of over 2000 limestone islands which are absolutely magnificent. We decided to do a two day tour which started with a three hour minivan ride to get to Halong City where we boarded a boat (yes, Anna on a boat!) for a four hour cruise round the bay, once we were on board we discovered four Australian guys were also on the tour, who we had met the previous day. We stopped for some lunch near a floating village and also visited two of its limestone caves. While we were having ... read more

My accommodation was booked by my country manager at Australian Volunteers International. I was hoping for something semi-decent (after all it costs $US20 a night!), but hotels here are expensive, and I had foolishly had high hopes for expensive hotels in India (only to discover holey sheets, rat droppings, broken ceiling fans and dirty squat toilets...) Anyway, turns out I'm not in India! (who knew??) My hotel is a palace (not an actual 'palace', it is just very nice). My room is HUGE (think lounge room and kitchen of Edthel combined), with a double bed and a single bed (I could push them together and make a 'triple bed' if I wanted to!!!). I have a *TV* (a TV!!) with CABLE for gods sake. I have 80-something channels (it's hard to remember when you have so ... read more

Have been in Hanoi one day, we had decided to do a walking tour of the old quarter area of the city, so went down and had breakfast and then the heavens decided to open, so I went back to our room and saw that we had a lake rapidly developing in our room as none of the windows were sealed properly and the rain was just pouring in! A lovely lady from our guest house (who didn't understand a word I was saying) spent about an hour and a half mopping up the mess and wouldn't let me help! The rain finally stopped and we ended up going on our tour - went to Hoan Kiem Lake which was really really beautiful and then walked through the old streets - each street sells something different, ... read more