Vietnam, off to Nam chaps >>>

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Were off to Nam boys, lock and load!

Vientiane to Hanoi, should be easy… well, it should, shouldn’t it! Party of 6 set off at the early hours of the morning to the bus depo. Some confusion seems to be going on with our little guy and the bus people. More to the point where is our bus to Hanoi? Were told we can get onto a bus but it doesn’t mention on it that it is going to Hanoi, ok, we presume that it’s all sorted and are told to get on the bus. Off we go… 20 hours later were still in Laos and in a car park somewhere in the south about 300 or so miles from Hanoi, I think were ever further away than we were 20 hours ago. The Shex (Marv) is not happy and in true Rish style jumps out the window of the bus and “gets” the bus driver, after a bit of “chat” we establish the bus isn’t going to Hanoi its going to Danang in the south of Vietnam and the driver has been in a “massage” parlour around the corner!! Doh!! Marv and a German get the money back and we set off after a bit more “chat” with the locals to the bus station about a mile down the road. We all eventually get a mini bus to take us to Hanoi, 10 hours later… WE ARRIVE with a KFC in sight for some western comfort food!

Day 1 in the Nam, Hanoi is the most moped/scooter filled place I’d imagine in the world, crossing the road is nothing short of hilarious, it’s like been Moses and parting the red sea, they just swerve around you!
I decided as Jay had his phone stolen and mine had broken that I should invest in one, got a decent Nokia for 50 pounds so not to bad, t’was a happy day been able to text home and Helen again, so much so we went and celebrated with a beer Hanoi and that was the end of that day until we ended up at half man half noodle bar and eat our weight in cheese and ham toasties, delish! Somehow we ended up here the next night and I think the night after, creatures of habit I suppose! We book ourselves out of Hanoi to Ha Long Bay which should only take about 3 hours to get to so big whoop on the quickest travel I think we have had this trip!

A few quiet ones in Ha Long Bay are needed after the Hanoi city fun and the countdown to meeting Helen in Nha Trang begins. Skipping in the morning followed by an afternoon swim and some push ups to try and get shot of the moob’s I seem to have created with all this relaxing! Maybe I’m leaving it to late, anybody for a beer?
The foot and knee are finally healing nicely and I don’t need to bandage anymore which is great as I was getting to good at that! Three days off the beer and I’m feeling great, we book Team James tickets to Cat Ba for some nice beaches and cheap accommodation.

The rest of the guys we had met booked themselves onto a boat tour of Ha Long Bay, cost of about 60 dollars. Team James book a one way ticket to the island for a cost of 5 dollars, and… we ended up on the same boat and the tour was just part of getting to the island, the Team James way always works out to be the winner!

Cat Ba, fine food and the introduction of ‘O’! The cold green tea drink that seems to fix everything from hangovers to feeling a little run down, tired or just thirst. Awesome! Cat Ba has a few nice beaches and local cheap as hell beer, but, I think after about 16 or so glasses and not feeling drunk there may be a reason why it was so cheap, fizzy yellow water tasting beer minus the alcohol, probably better for us though! The next day we decided to head off to Monkey Island, no, not the computer game! A real island of monkey’s, off we go to see the land of monkey via a floating village that appears to be surrounded by a awful lot of poo, were told they just go straight into the water but it doesn’t seem to go very far from the villages!? Grim! Monkey island, does have monkey’s, BUT, they come out for feeding everyday at the same time, we were later told they are kept in cages and released each day at 5! Captive Monkey Island, still pretty cool day in the sun and avoiding floaters whilst swimming in the bay. After a few days relaxing on the beaches Cat Co 1 & 2 me and Jay decide it’s time to head back to the main land to Hoi Ann and then off to Nha Trang.

Leaving Cat Ba via local bus to the mainland at 6am with the locals is always fun, we noticed that Vietnam has a two tier pricing system where the locals have a price and then there is the tourist price which means you generally pay up to 3 times more for something than a local would, madness! Anyway, I’ve almost finished my second book, The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh about the American, Vietnam conflict which is pretty eerie in parts as we have been to many of the authors battle areas and hometown of Hanoi. We arrive on the mainland at a place called Hai Phong were we hoped onto a taxi-bike (scooter) to the local bus station to get a sleeper bus to Hoi An. On getting to the bus station we are bombarded by the local scammers who try the old games of trying to tell you they work for the bus company an to wait here whilst they get your ticket for 3 times the actual cost, not on my watch! I manage to find the actual ticket booth and get the sleep bus to Hoi An, we are away!

Bus to Hoi An, the bus is quite funny, what look like bunk beds for children all the way to the back of the coach. We find our “beds” at the back and try to lie down, surprise surprise we barely fit in them if we sit up! The problem with been to big in these countries is they don’t cater for gigantors like Team James, we settle in for a long journey, about 18 hours to get to Hoi Ann. On we go passing the time with shithead and to Jay’s luck a local guy who is willing to put Jay up in his house just before Hoi An. Obviously, at no cost to Jay, the kind local continues to offer Jay a milkshake he brought for the journey and to stroke and photograph his arm, which he then text’s the photo to some of his friends, I think Jay’s onto a winner, best to pretend I’m asleep and pretend it’s not happening! 😉 I think after a while Jay decided it would be best to pretend to be asleep as well! We arrive at Hoi An at 4:30 in the morning and we are both more than half asleep, we decided as it takes a further 10 hours to get to Nha Trang to continue you on as the likely hood of getting a place to stay at that hour is pretty slim. We sleep the rest of the journey and wake up nearly at Nha Trang where we will be meeting up with Helen & Clare as well as Marv and AdrianO, Paul, James, Jen and the O’Tools as well! Rock on Nha Trang.

Nha Trang, we book into a guesthouse and drop our bags off then were heading out to see what Nha Trang has to offer, first things first it’s time for some food and a mixed fruit shake! We sit on a road just off from what looks like a beautiful beach front with palm trees lending a bit of shade all the way down the main beach. After breakfast we start to explore, we find out that Nha Trang for travellers mainly exists in one pretty large square with restaurants, bars, internet café’s and general knick-knack shops followed by more dive shops than I have seen anywhere else, seems like a good place to do a Padi course… We head down the beach for some swimming and to top up the tanarge, stressful days over in Vietnam! Spent the evening in a bar called backpackers bar to watch the football, little did we know we would spend pretty much every night in the place when everyone arrives! Another chilled out day on the beach and exploring what we can do when everyone arrives, looks like an amusement park is not far so that could be fun and the diving course seem quite cheap compared to what I expected. Team James decides it will be a good idea to tattoo me and see what kind of reaction I get from Helen when she see’s it in the morning, decided on the classy option of JD ‘Heart’s HC, classic!

Helen and Clare arrive to two sleepy and a little bit hung-over James’s! Helen notices the tattoo but says nothing… later found out she was just a little shocked and was thinking how we could remove it! Ha-ha, good job it wasn’t a real one then! We all head out to get some breakfast from one of the many eateries in the square and catch up on over 6 weeks apart and of course meet miss Clare Dickinson!

Helen, James and Jay and Clare chill out day on the beach and Marv and AdrianO arrive in Nha Trang as well, there is only one way this day is going to end! Joined by our rish friends we end up on the buckets and doing YMCA in a bar, but, that’s not the most metrosexual thing that happened that night, Jay ends up somehow in a dress and a wig, nice touch to the night!? Perhaps! Me and Helen decide it’s time for a catch up outside the bar where we are chatting until another group of people we had met in Laos arrive at the same bar out of nowhere! Shots anyone! Usual madness continues for the next few days.

I treat Helen and myself to a place with a view and a Jacuzzi for a night to escape the madness that is the Nha Trang square although we venture out to a nice Italian restaurant whilst avoiding the drunks, Jay and Clare!! 😉 The next day, after an awesome day and night with Helen it’s off on a cable car with everyone to an island called Vinpearl, a theme park and water park pretty much all to ourselves, YES! Bumper cars, free arcade games and dance mat’s, what more could we have asked for…Well, maybe a ride that pulls about 3g’s and made us feel like we were going to get squashed against the seat and throw up, success, Jay breaks and is sick after the Vietnamese guy kills us on the rides! Time to hit the donuts in the waterpark and chill out for a bit we feel! Underwater camera fun and two people half pipes followed by a water light show and one more go on the bumper cars!

Island tour boat trip and exploration of the local area as well as the tiniest aquarium kind of sea world thing that let us feed some turtles after a visit to some of the islands surrounding Nha Trang, pretty chilled out day with some super soaker water fights and a bucket of water over Helen as she sunbathed followed by some retaliation!

Time to get ‘edumocated’ and learn how to dive, we decide to do the SDI course as there is a lot less bookwork and a lot more practical learning than the PADI. We go with a diving school called ScubaZone Vietnam, with a name like scuba zone you can’t go wrong! Me, Helen, Jay and Jen join up and do a little bit of reading up the night before and get an earlyish night for the early start the next day.

Diving, we head out with the breakfast of champions in one hand (Crisps) and the mighty ‘O’ green tea to prepare us for the diving. We get suited up and advised what we will be tested on and the usual stuff. The wet suits are a bit of the snug side all over so were glad to get into the water! All in with a walk the plant style leap off the boat and were ready to submerge. I make it to the bottom but can’t see Helen or Jay, down there for a little longer and Helen appears next to me with eyes the size of saucepans, not to sure she was enjoying having 10 metres of water above her! No sign of Jay though, he’s still at the top as his ears are playing up, back to the boat to get the snorkel for him. We run through some test like removing the goggles underwater and how to put them back on and get the water out by blowing air through your nose, Helen doesn’t like this and swallows a little bit of water so calls it a day for the testing, just me and some sea creatures, success on the tests. The second day we all dive down and go on a fun dive and do some more tests on the second dive. We see all sorts of crazy animals including one scorpion fish that apparently is really dangerous! Probably best not to sit on that one then!

Next day we all feel a bit off and my glands are the size of and orange sticking out of my neck so me and Helen have the day off and relax in the Nice Hotel. Final day of diving, Helen is still a bit rough so stays in bed but I venture out to finish off the tests and a big fun dive with Jay. Fun dive was quality and we get loads of underwater photos from a guy who came diving with us, GREAT SUCCESS, we both pass and get on it to celebrate in Nha Trang, Marv and AdrianO are off as flights home and to Sydney are closing in fast. On the same night we discover a restaurant called the Lantern which does curry and chips just like you can get from Eric’s in Cotteridge, we eat here for the next few nights until we leave!

The sad goodbye… it’s been 13 epic days in Nha Trang but it’s time to go our separate ways until Indonesia. Me and Helen spend the last part of the day together and head out for a walk down the beach after an interesting tourist day at the White Budda, where we got called “f’ing tourists” by someone trying to scam us for showing us the stairs and wanting money for this, fair to say I told the little man were he could get off! Ha-ha, we are well and truly used to everyone wanting something for nothing now and that often the local see you as a cash cow more than a person but this is something you just have to get used to. Back to the evening in Nha Trang, Helen and Clare are the first ones to leave and I had thoughts of asking Helen to change her plans and come with me and Jay but she had already done Cambodia! Helen hop’s onto the bus and it’s one last hug and kiss goodbye… a sad few days follow!

Helen’s addition:
…………………………………………….to come....

Me and Jay grab our bags once more to head to the famous Ho Chi Min City, better know as Saigon until it was renamed. We head off with a girl we had met in Ha Long Bay Jen and we take the sleeper bus once again, squeezing into those tiny beds is always funny, I opted for a different approach and chose one in the middle so I could hang my legs off the side, comfy? No, BUT, better than trying to fit into the actual bed thing! Updated my ipod so watch about 4 episodes of family guy and a few flight of the concords on route to make the journey go quicker.

We arrive in Ho Chi Min City and find a place to stay, were right in the centre by an STA Travel that apparently never opens, we find this to be true so no re-arranging flights for Indonesia here! A few beers down the main strip and to our amazement when we are enjoying a nice cold tiger after our KFC, the bar man grabs a sieve and opens up the drains, right behind us and sticks his hands in, next goes the sieve and lo-an-behold he pulls out more poo than I could shake a shitty stick at! Grim to say the least, the smell was like nothing else I had ever smelt, worse than going into the toilet after Jay even! Fair to say we moved on to another less pungent establishment, I’m still shocked that the bar man wasn’t at all bothered by the smell and just went back to work after wiping his hands with a dirty cloth offcourse! Ha-ha!

The next day we book ourselves in with our guest house to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels where the Vietnamese fort off American squaddies in tiny tunnels underground. The tour was pretty good, although we didn’t realise that spending 45 minutes on a scooter could be quite so painful on your w’ass and none of us could walk properly for awhile after getting off the scooters! Saigon is pretty much like all the other major South East Asian cities so we decided to have a look around by foot and then head to Cambodia where the US dollar is used more than the local currency which will make for some cheap days ahead as its almost 2 dollars to the pound currently.

The long road out of Vietnam to Cambodia, it didn’t take to long from Ho Chi Min City to the border where we opted to sort the Visa ourselves, saved us money but the bus driver wasn’t happy as he didn’t get his commission. So unhappy was he that he drove off and left us stranded!! We finally asked a police officer who knew of the company and called the bus straight away, I feel it happens a lot to tourists as he wasn’t shocked, we then got a taxi to where the bus was! Another fine example of Vietnamese scamming trying to get more money out of the foreigners, grrr!! Ah well, all part of the adventure, back on the bus I tell the bus driver what I think of him and on we go to Phnom Phen >>> We made it out of Nam alive! >>>

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Photos

Off to Nam, bringing the big guns!
War Museum, closed but we made the most of it after been taken to the "women" museum by mistake, something lost in translation!

Me awaiting my cyclo!
The trip around old town in Hanoi by cyclo.

Look, Ha Long Bay!
Boat trip to Cat Ba Island around Ha Long Bay, meaning dragon's bay, 40000 islands in total!

Mojo the monkey!
Men and Monkey, so alike on monkey island!

Ha Long Bay cave island!
Ha Long Boat trip with tourist caves!

Street drinking!
cheapest places to drink are to be found on kid sized seats and tables with a keg nearby!

Tattoo???
The joke tattoo i got to see Helen's reaction!!
"JD 'Heart' HC" HA-ha!

Sweatbands at Backpackers bar!
Another night in Nha Trang!

YMCA PARTY DANCE!
teaching the locals how we dance in the west!

US Jeep squaddies
The Nha Trang departure to war!

Vinpearl Amusement Park
Nha Trang's mighty vinpearl, kids day out!

Diving like a pro
Nha Trang SDI course day 3.

Team James underwater!
Day 3, final fun dive!

Escaping a Cu Chi tunnel!
Charlie on the run at the Cu Chi Tunnel's outside Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

Just cruising in the tank!
Cu Chi Tunnel's, ex US tank (Ho Chi Minh City)

Ho Chi Min City, (Saigon)
Scooters at night, so fast you can only see the lights!!

Me with long hair, good look!
Me in the 80's!

Comments

[James Kim]

Its all about the 'street drinking'.....works out about 7p a glass of beer. Nearly as cheap as sheffield!