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Published: August 29th 2009
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During our two weeks in vietnam, we scaled the country from north to south, via stunning beaches and very friendly locals. We even embarked on a mini moped adventure through vietnam (
Top Gear Vietnam Special eat your heart out!)
We crossed into Vietnam on our sleeper bus from the southern China city, Nanning. Following the the stress-free border crossing (we were transported through the no mans land from china exit to vietnam entry on elecrtic golf carts..awesome!)..straight away we noticed the scenery was a lot less built up, there were a lot more palm trees, more fruit farms, less rice fields! Four hours later we arrived in Hanoi, the capital city. Well, i dont think i have ever seen so many scooters in my life!!! They were everywhere, it was incredible. For the first day i would look into the road and it'd make me giggle to myself at the sight of all of the hoards of people buzzing along in swarms. Crossing the road was fun. Amazingly though they all seemed quite skillful drivers and if you just walk out into the road at an even speed the moped drivers just seem to anticipate your regular pace and they
avoid you! It's like the parting of the sea- incredible! Everything is very fast yet very friendly. We were staying in the old town so not a high riser was in sight, only the odd pizza place and tourist aimed cafe, but mainly shops and restaurants aimed at locals. We visited the Hoa Loa prison aka 'Hanoi Hilton', where senator John McCain was tortured and tried to commit suicide in his time there during the Vietnam War. Pretty creepy place.
The next day we planned to escape the big city....We took a local 'hard seater' train from Hanoi to Halong bay area, UNESCO world heritage site, at the cost of 15,000 dong (60p) for the 3 hour journey. The train was pretty rustic- made us feel like we were really "travelling". Halong Bay is a stunning area just off the coast of mainland vietnam where hundreds of limestone rock formations jutt out of the sea. Upon hitting the coast we took a VERY rusty local ferry to Cat Ba island, we were sold a ticket for 130,000 dong outside the ferry terminal only to find out we could have bought a ticket on the boat for 25,000. Don't you
just love the capitalist mania! We based ourselves on Cat Ba for for the following 2 nights where we hit the beach 1 day and embarked on our first Vietnam Moped adventure around the island the next. The coastal roads are stunning and practically empty, which was a relief with it being Matt's first time driving a moped. As it happens he was a pro and we had heaps of fun trundling through the countryside, passing small villages on the way. The port at Cat Ba has lots of floating houses, where some of the locals live. Very quaint, but we had to be cautious on the beach cove incase anything brown and long happens to float around the headland! Our hotel was pretty good for the price, however having eaten all our meals so far there, on the last day i spotted 3 huge rats in the kitchen.. urgh! but hey, this is Vietnam we thought, so we continued to eat here taking a little caution to inspect our food before digging in.
A sleeper train took us on the next part of our journey to the fishing port town of Hoi An, about half way down the
coast. We took up on more of the beaching opportunities here before embarkation of Vietnam Moped adventure part deux... 60km tearing up the road took us to Marble Mountain- very beautiful marble formation covered with forest (great views from the top) and a whole cave network inside. We loved walking and crawling around this natural maze from one cavern to the next. Marble Mountain is actually a Buddhist place of worship with huge buddah statues in some of the caverns.
Hoi An itself was a really quaint town, with lots of suit/dress makers, infact a more fitting name would be "anything makers" as they literally make anything for you, all tailored! If we were going straight home from here i think we would have picked ourselves up a tailored suit or two for the slim price of 60 USD! Needless to say we didnt buy anything from the tailors, but we loved the week we spent here in this cute town.
Our 6th mode of transport was the sleeper bus we took from Hoi An down the coast to Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City... other modes being train, boat, moped, bicycle, scooter taxi (so much fun balancing
on the back of the scooter with large backpack on back, whilst being driven at max scooter speed weaving in and out of the MANY fellow scooters inhabiting the road! Although it wasn't spoken, this was certainly a race between Matt's scooter taxi and my scooter taxi. In our heads we were encouraging our drivers to floor it, whilst over taking one another at traffic lights and round-a-bouts... Matt's crossed the invisible finish line first at our destination).
So Saigon... previous French occupation is very evident here. Quite a few ornate, colonial looking government buildings. Its has the same (or larger!) crazy number of scooters here like Hanoi, although the roads are wider making it even more of a challenge to cross the road! We paid a visit to the War Remnants museum, which was very shocking and quite upsetting actually. It's rather graphic and shows the effects of the chemicals dropped by the Americans onto the people from the villages and towns in rural Vietnam; terribly burnt skin and flesh from Napalm and many children and adults who are still stepping on landmines and being born with deformalities today.
We have loved Vietnam. The locals are so
friendly, even in the big cities we have felt good vibes from the Vietnamese. The food has been good, still a lot of Chinese influence but the meat quality is much better. If you order beef soup you know you are getting meat of the cow instead of its intestines or tongue. You can still order these parts but you specify it! Will leave you with an interesting thought.... there are lots of puppies and kittens in vietnam but few adult dogs and never did we see an old looking dog. None of the menus state dog or cat, but due to our observation im thinking we must have eaten a fair amount of "pet" in our last two weeks!
Off to the airport first thing in the morning, bound for Bangkok! I hope you all had a good bank holiday weekend! Let us know of your shenanigans!
Lots of love, Nat and Matt
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mum and dad
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your daisy roots
we spotted your new crocs, while you were selling bananas! are they as comfortable as the others? cos mum had blisters from them. this blog of vietnam looks great, we are partial to the odd dog toastie too!