Advertisement
Published: December 23rd 2008
We arrived rather smoothly in Saigon on a short flight thanks to Vietnam Airways. Very civilised. Unfortunately, upon leaving the airport we were hounded by taxi drivers telling us the bus we were looking for did not exist. We knew it did so we kept looking and kept looking only to be constantly told 'there is no bus'. Even when we found the bus and were walking towards the bus they were still saying there was no bus! How helpful eh?
Bus was good and cheap, although they did charge us for our rucksacks. There was a helpful local who told us where to get off and how much it was and all those useful things you need to know when catching a bus.
We decided to stay in an area called Pham Ngu Lao, which is the backpackery bit. There are loads of little alleys running off the main roads. We stayed down one of these. It was expensive again, $15. Not used to these kind of prices! To be fair, it was nicer than we're used to - with air con and a fridge!
On our first day in Saigon we did a bit of a
self-guided walking tour. We went to a market and then to the Reunification Palace and onwards to the War Remnants Museum. The Palace was a bit dull and too modern. Ad my modern I mean 60s/70s style to the max. It kinda reminded us of our schools. I guess they were built in the same era. Not very palatial. We escaped our extremely dull tour and found the basement command centre was much more atmospheric and exciting. Looked like it was straight out of a James Bond villain's lair. Although perhaps one of the less wealthy villains, it was in a basement after all.
The War Remnants Museum was formerly known as the Museum of American Atrocities and is nicknamed by Westerners as the Propaganda Museum. While it was one sided and showed the Americans to be rather horrible, why wouldn't it? I'm sure they were rather horrible and anyway, war is always portrayed by the victors. I think people are too used to seeing American Vietnam war movies depicting everyone as a hero and can't take the other side of things. The photos on the walls were pretty graphic and gave me freaky nightmares that night.
While
in Saigon we also took a trip out to the Chu Chi tunnels of the Vietcong. Alas, the only real option of getting there was on a mini bus with a really annoying Vietnamese guide who insisted he was actually American and led a whole bunch of American soldiers in the war. Considering his English was incomprehensible, we doubted it. Upon arrival we were ushered into a queue for tickets and then charged a whole lot more than the printed prices displayed, with no explanation just a demand for money. What is it with the Vietnamese?? Turned out the extra fee was for a documentary film which we didn't want to see anyway, but apparently had to. It was terrible. We didn't understand a word and couldn't really make out what was going on on the screen either. Thankfully it ended half way through. The guided tour round the area was again incredibly drawn out and annoying, so we decided to lose the crowd and walk about on our own. The only good bits were the displays of the booby traps and the tunnels themselves, which were ace. They were very tight, very dark and very hot. And they just
got smaller and smaller as you went along until we were really squeezing through on our hands and knees before popping back into daylight. Not for the claustrophobic.
We left Saigon for Nha Trang on a night train. The train was fantastic. We were in a 4 berth cabin with soft beds and clean sheets. The toilet was western and also clean. Wow. This class was called 'soft sleeper'. We slept. Nha Trang was a great place. We weren't there at the right time of year as it rained every day and the sea was very rough. We stayed in a shocking bad room which had no windows and one of those bathrooms that is not separate from the room so everything is damp. But it was $6 and the owners were nice.
We took a day trip to the tourist island of Vinpearl via a cable car. The island had a resort, restaurants, an aquarium and arcades, that type of thing. It was done out like a theme park. The draw for us was the waterpark, which had some really good slides. The place was a little eerie though, as there was hardly anybody there. Empty
theme parks are odd. To be fair, it did kind of feel like winter. It was grey and blustery and drizzly. Only it was still warm enough to go to a waterpark. What a good day.
The next day we thought we better at least pretend to be cultured so we rented a moped and took it to a Pagoda with a big white Buddha. Not very exciting. And the horrible day time mosquitoes were out. Then we just cruised up and down the beach, which was more fun, before getting a curry and hopping on a sleeper bus to Hoi An. It was heaps of fun tackling the Vietnam traffic on the 'ped. The bus was a nightmare though. I don't know how they can call it a sleeper when it is impossible to sleep on. It was basically just a regular bus but with the chairs reclined slightly more than normal. As I can't sleep sitting up on my back, this didn't help. I tried lying on my side, but I just don't bend that way. Therefore I had to try and squash myself into the (flat) leg space. Leg space of the average Vietnamese person. I'm
5'11". This does not make for a good night's sleep. Added to this there was no toilet and the driver was a typical Vietnamese bus driver, i.e. a maniac. He drove like it was the movie 'Speed', happily going on the wrong side of the road and pushing oncoming traffic off the road and constantly blaring his horn. It was very bumpy. We very bouncing up and down in our 'beds' Oh why isn't there a train station in Hoi An?
Hoi An wasn't very exciting to look at when we arrived. I'd heard it was a very sweet little picturesque place. Hoi An is the place to go if you want clothes tailoring. Being a somewhat funny shape, this is just what I wanted. Also, it was really cold in Hoi An so I needed warmer clothes. In the end, I had some jeans, some linen trousers, 2 long sleeved tops (whose sleeves actually reach my wrists), some shorts and 2 pairs of shoes made. We had some trouble with the shoe makers who didn't make what we asked and wouldn't admit to being wrong ('The customer is always right' has never been heard of in Asia). It
was a bit of a standoff. We had to stay another day to get it fixed. It still isn't really what we wanted.
The old town in Hoi An was nice. It was indeed very picturesque but a little too quaint, like it's just there for the tourists. Correspondingly, all the bars and restaurants there are stupidly priced because the package tourists will pay it. Not good for us backpackers.
We left Hoi An for Hue on a regular daytime bus. Somehow it was another sleeper bus!!! Maybe they don’t have normal buses in Vietnam. We had to climb into these stupid bed things in the middle of the day for a 2 hour trip.
Hue was even colder and wetter than Hoi An. Infact, it was chucking it down. We were looking for a specific hotel but couldn’t find it and eventually gave in to the touts who were hassling us all the way. We actually got a really nice room with big windows on 2 walls and a computer in the room! The first day was a wash out but on the second day we walked to the citadel and checked it out. It was...ok. Next
we rented a 'ped and drove to the Tomb of Tu Duc which was much cooler. Just more atmospheric and...interesting, we thought. And we saw a lady making incense sticks.
We left on a sleeper train that night for Hanoi. We could only get 'hard sleeper' class. The price was almost the same as 'soft sleeper’; we figured it couldn’t be much different. Oh, were we wrong. The train was skanky. There were 6 berths in the room - stacked 3 high. When they say hard, they mean it. It was just a board with a bit of thin carpet on to sleep on. Our cabin mates consisted of a loud snorer who would turn the radio and lights on and off to his own whims and an elderly couple who decided that 4am would be a good time for us all to get up. They decided at this time to have a bit of a family reunion and invited all their friends into our cabin to talk loudly too. How considerate.
Hanoi was cool though. We found a nice hotel in the Old Quarter and spent our time just wandering about. The 'attractions' of Hanoi as listed
in our guide book didn't really appeal but we enjoyed the city by just walking around taking it in. The streets are arranged by what they sell. We were just in between Christmas decoration street and Metal Racks Street (i.e. coat stands, hat stands, dish racks etc.). As elsewhere in Asia, you see people welding things on the pavements with no eye protection beyond putting their arm in front of their face. We walked down to the lake, which was very pleasant indeed. Of course, the traffic in Hanoi is something to behold. Mopeds fill the narrow streets. As a pedestrian you are essentially part of the road traffic. You have to walk down the street as the shops spill onto the pavements leaving no room to walk. The mopeds just have to swerve around you and you just have to have blind faith that they will. Crossing the road is fun. We'd been trained up for it through increasing moped use as we journeyed through Asia, so it was ok for us but we saw newly arrived Westerners avoiding crossing at all costs. You just have to walk out, simple as that. It's not like with cars where it
would indeed be foolish to walk in front of one, with mopeds they just flow around you. Have faith and it will all work out.
The only thing of note we did is take a 2 day 1 night trip to Halong Bay - where limestone karsts stick up out of the ea and generally look cool. They were cool. We did a bit of kayaking at sunset, sat on the boat (which was pretty flash) and ate the same stir fry continuously. When we chose the trip we had a choice of 3 boats. We went for the flashest, as it was the end of our trip and we wanted to treat ourselves. Besides, we never did do anything for our anniversary unless you count that cheap bottle of wine on Don Det. Our boat broke down an hour out of harbour and had to be towed for the rest of the trip by the cheapest boat we were offered! Good times.
Aside from an all out argument with a street food vendor who was trying to rip us off, our tour of Vietnam had come to an end. This blog had given a pretty negative impression
I think, but it's not that we didn't like Vietnam and more about where it came in our trip. We'd already been travelling over 3 months when we arrived so we were just a bit tired. Small aggravations which we would have found funny or an inconvenience at best in the beginning we really starting to get to us by this stage. We really wanted to stay still and unpack for once. We were sick of Asian food. We were sick of the Asian take on Western food. Also, we were coming from Laos and Cambodia where the people were very very nice and things were cheaper. Also it was cold and rainy. I think if we had gone straight to Vietnam from the UK we would have loved it, so take what I say with that in mind.
From Hanoi we flew to Kuala Lumpur from where we waited overnight in the airport and flew to Phuket in Thailand for a beach holiday at the end of our Asian Adventure.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.185s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0829s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
CatBrook
....
going local
Becks! So you made it through the 'nam, even though you went local and joined the moto-madness...very impressive you crazy girl! Can't believe it was cold, we had precisely the opposite weather and were drenched by sweat not rain....not sure which is worse. Cool pics, especially the tunnels! Can't believe your time in Asia is almost up, I hope you keep the blog up in Oz!! xx