Hoi An - part Deux

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Ok, so Halong Bay was beautiful, if misty, and not really too appealing for swimming. We really enjoyed our night on the boat, staying in a lovely cabin with a double bed (no bunks!) and a nice bathroom.

On the rip we ran into a number of people - some talkers like ourselves. So the two days passed quickly. While on the Lonely Planet route we have run into the following groups of people - in decreasing frequency:
Aussies
Canadians
Brits & the Irish
Germans
A mix of a number of other Europeans - namely French, Danish & Dutch
Israeli’s
And an odd spattering of others (South African, Japanese and abot 2 Americans)

It seems that people from some countries ravel a lot & from the rest of the world not at all - or at least not to third world countries.

The most common occupations have been students (if that counts as an occupation) & teachers but we are starting to run into a few professionals as we carry on.

It seems that Aussies & Canadians (with the Brits & Irish not far behind) are most like ‘us’ in that they’ll talk to anyone are completely open and honest & are there to have a ball. So when we ended up hanging out with Tanya & her mum Judy from Oz & Laura & Hannah from Canada, its no surprise that it was a talk fest. We talked through much of the night, swapping stories about where we’d been & the best places to go n our travels. Warning to bad ‘hoteliers’ & restaruant staff. Word does get around & people do black list you. We also got the names of some great Tailors in Hoi An (LyLy - shop 5 in the cloth market) who turned out to be a treat. Thanks guys.

OK well thereturn from Halong Bay was relatively uneventful & we teamed up with the Tanya & her mum, plus Urif (Israel) & his Auzzie partner Anne and a wonderful Spaniard, Torres, for dinner. Torres, the first Spaniard we’ve met on our travels was travelling on his own & just learning English. We found that his French was better and I had the best French in the group - which is to say very little - we conversed in a mix of English, Spanish, French & the odd Vetnamese word. Dinner at the Stop Café was fine - great for those craving Europen food - but Brendon & I would have been as ahappy at a Vietnamese place where they don’t charge for the nostalgia of eating familiar food - and where we could have tried more local delicacies. Note, even at places like this, ‘Yellow Noodles’ are still just instead noodle. What a disappointment.

We were however far happier with dessert at Fanny’s restaurant on Hoan Kiem Lake. Wow! I highy recommend this place if you’ve got a sweet tooth. They do the most amazing things with icecream.

Sunday morning and Brendon & I rose and went back to the old quarter to see if we could change to a train departing that night. We couldn’t, but used the trip to wander around the streets of the Old Quarter & Brendon finally got to the shoe street & brought himself some casual shoes. I went to the market while he was shopping and saw some amazing sites. Some delicious (huge arrays of fruit & spices), some downrighth awefule - fish, turtles & what looked like baby snakes or eels all being chopped uo with blood everywhere - on the road, the chopping boards, peoples’ hands & on the scrawny cats you saw everywhere. Phew it stunk! We then had lunch & coffee n a cafeé overlooking Hoan Kiem lake & hurried back to Carine & Bertrand’s. The four of us then went off (again by foot) to explore the ‘citadel’ - a miliatry stronghold that was rarely open. Bertrand had heard about it from a colleague & we were the only non-Vietnamese there. It was fascinating, although we would have learned more if something was in English. As it was, the reincforced bunkers underground & the war rooms - complete with strategic maps, original desks & telephones (I think) and pictures of this place being used in the early - spoke for themselves. After the Citadel, Brnedon & I left the pther to, wandering past the Lenin Monument & memorial to war dead, on to Ho Chi Minhs Mausoleum, Museum, Pagodas (One Pillar and Dien Huu) & the Royal Palace. Very interesting.

We had our first home-cooked dinner that night (yum - thanks Carine) & went to bed to sleep our final night in a home for a while.

The next day was started with a gym workout - a mixture of yoga, exercises such as press-ups and using those great dynabands I got when I tore my ligaments. After a relaxing breakfast we headed to the Temple of Literature. A University founded in 1070. It was a restful haven in the bustling madness & honking that is Hanoi.

That evening we donned our packs & day bags & walked the couple of k’s (yes we got lost) to the train station where we boarded our overnight train to Hue.

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Comments

[Linda Reid]

Interesting Stories
Gosh Claire you write such great travel journals, I almost feel like I'm there with you both. You should have been a Geogoraphy teacher - maybe at St. Cuthberts!!!!!!! Love Linda