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Published: February 16th 2011
Fact number 1 - We are now staying in our 12th Guest House / Hotel
Fact number 2 - We are close to leaving our 3rd country of the journey - 11 more to come
Fact number 3 - The cheapest beer we have drunk is the equivilent to 26p for 450ml Saigon bottle - Vietnam (not bad either!!)
Greetings from Hoi An, Vietnam! So after our last blog entry some two weeks ago we have travelled down to the south coast of Cambodia and then crossed into Vietnam, and have now made it up to the central coast of this very long and thin country.
We are beginning to feel now that we are racing against time, and our flight from Singapore on 21st March is looming in the near distance, as a consequence we feel we are having to rush passed some locations and probably countries.
We took the night bus down from Siem Reap to the coastal town of Sihanoukville, Cambodia.
Now let us explain the night bus situation. In theory, night buses are a great way of travelling around large countries, you pay between $7-$20 depending on the length of the journey and
the bus is obviously also our accommodation for the night. You should fall asleep in nice soft bunk beds on the bus and wake up in the location of your choice, thus not wasting a day travelling, right?............ Well this is not the case. With the roads being of very bad quality you are constantly woken up and thrown around your bunk with a violent jolt, not good if you suffer from travel sickness. The drivers of buses, scooters and cars have a serious addiction to using their horns, almost for no reason at all - they hoot at 30m, 20m, then 10m from a vehicle, and an additional three times to let them know they are passing, and one or two more to thank the other driver for letting them pass - it is ridiculous and soooo loud! The longest time we have NOT heard a horn tooting is eight seconds.
The journey down to Sihanoukville was actually the worst of the three sleeper buses we have had the pleasure of being on. There were no bunks as promised by the tour operator... the toilet door swung open after hitting every bump in the road, thus releasing a
powerful pungeant aroma of faeces and urine which seemed to linger in the stale dry air.... There was no light in the toilet, so a routine trip to the toilet was like loosing one of your senses (sight) and gaining extra power in another (smell), as well as utilising all of your leg muscles to balance whilst the bus attempts to avoid the pot holes. The bus driver also thought it was a good idea to let some of the locals onto the bus who hadn't booked seats, and so for a good four or five hours, Barrie had a small Vietnamese man sitting leaning against his hairy legs on a child's plastic seat in the ailse, accompanied by at least ten others.
Anyway, we got there in one piece and after obtaining our Vietnemese VISA from the embassy, we got a tuk tuk to a bungalow at our chosen area - Otres Beach, an area 4km down a bumpy dirt track from the main town with a quiet beach and a real back packer vibe. We met many people, enjoyed swimming in the warm calm ocean and probably had our best meal to date. A $7 sea food
BBQ was on the menu, which we were a but reluctant to pay - but it looked so good! $7 - that's about £4 - tough going when you are used to eating for no more than £1.50 (honestly you get like this!!) Now accustomed to eating frogs, crocodile and snakes, this deluxe BBQ consisted of freshly caught Baracuda, whole squids, MASSIVE shrimps and all the classic BBQ trimmings, absolutely delicious! we will never forget that night - the perfect meal!! We also met Andy, a crazy, pot smoking German, who has lived in Cambodia for the last 15 years, and worked at this restaurant. Andy agreed to take us out to the beautiful islands on his long boat the next day with his Vietnamese captain. We had a fantastic time travelling to the many islands off Cambodia's southern coast - this is probably what the Thai islands were like 40 years ago, completely unspoilt and only a handful of people. We snorkled in the clear waters seeing many colourful fish and coral, as well as an octopus... the captain cooked us another BBQ on the deserted beach, more Baracuda to eat, played bowls with a coconut and sticks, walked
through some jungle - it was obviously so much fun!
We left Cambodia the following day on a (better) sleeping bus and woke up just before the Cambodia / Vietnam border, had a completely fine border crossing this time and then arrived in crazy Saigon at 10:30am - Vietnam's largest southern city. What a contrast to the relaxed atmosphere of Otres Beach. The traffic!!!!! Everywhere, like ants, the scooter rules the roads... Everything, including the kitchen sink is carried on the scooter or push bike: entire families (up to six people), dead/live pigs, piles of vegatables, boxes of cola, ice blocks the size of a small child. Crossing the road was a desparate dash across hoping they will slow. Now we have learnt to just walk out (against our better judgement) and if you walk very slowly and keep vigilant, they judge the situation and drive passed or slow down - it is a strange feeling. Despite the chaos, Saigon is a city with much charm.
We spent a lot of time people watching in our Saigon backpacking ghetto, where we met interesting people, found a good bakery, lots of decent restaurants and bars, and Barrie was even
approached by a prostitute, to which he replied "No thanks, maybe later" (!!!) which to be honest, was what he said to all the street vendors and street sellers who always seemed to hassle us to buy their food or cheap goods. So saying this phrase came naturally to him, but obviously didn't think that she might come looking for him later!! . Although Barrie didn't come back to the hotel for a good hour that night... hmmm. We also explored the city by foot, seeing the locals dressed in their 'Sunday Best' celebrating their New Year. By far our most memorable experience was the War Remeberance Museum, which was perhaps the best and most affective museum we have been to. Although obviously biassed towards the Vietnamese people, the museum presented us with 4 hours of harrowing and disturbing photographs, film and artifacts of the 'American War' - it was difficult to stomach seeing the innocent people; parents, children, grandparents, entire families being torn apart and in some cases, whole villages being massacred by American weaponary. Some of the images will remain with us forever, and we both want to know so much more about Vietnam's past and politics.
We left Saigon a little more educated and on some fellow traveller's advice we took the 5 hour bus journey to the sea side resort of Mui-Ne. What a bloody waste of 3 precious days that was! 90% Russian tourists, rude locals, resort after resort - the less said about this place the better - except we'd both wished we had left earlier!
We then made our way up to the central highlands of Vietnam to a city called Dalat, 1475m above sea level. Our bus broke down 3 times on the way, a flat tyre, and twice the engine overheated. The poor old piece of junk just could not cope with the mountain route up to Dalat!! However, the positive far outweighed the negative and what a journey we had. Travelling on a bus going 99% of the way in 1st gear allowed us to really SEE the beautiful highlands and jungle clad mountains covered in cloud with waterfalls roaring down the side of the road, eagles flying past the bus window (does Vietnam have an American Bald Eagle - someone please advise?!!!)
We stayed in our (Lonely Planet) chosen Guest House - we had a massive
room with the most friendliest of staff. Dalat was different from everywhere we'd been in Vietnam so far, surrounded by mountain's the people were more chilled, with far more locals than travellers, it was really a breath of fresh air - literally! Due to the city's altitude, the weather was cooler and the nights quite cold infact. We had a more relaxed time here, where we explored the city on foot, ate local cuisine, went to the bustling local food market - think chickens in small baskets, monkey's brains, pigs head, smokey, with street vendor's cooking and you are halfway there. The food looked interesting, the smell was even better - quite an experience!
The highlight of Dalat was taking an 'Easy Rider' tour into the highlands - what a day that was! There were only four of us on the tour and we were paired up with our guides; talkative, knowledgable, informative, charming local guys who took us out into the hills where we saw, amongst other things; a giant Buddha, colourful Gerbera flowers being grown in giant greenhouses and coffee plantations. We got to drink the local coffee in a small cafe next to the acres of
fields where they grow the coffee beans, much to Marieke's delight! We ate lunch with our guides where they played games using tooth picks and told us stories and local jokes - a great experience. The highlight of the day was undoubtably the 'Elephant Waterfalls' - a huge waterfall that fell vertically for approximately 100ft. We were all lucky enough and fit enough to climb down the steep rocks, through a narrow cave passage and walk behind the waterfalls (think - Last of the Mohicans). Barrie walked right under the powerful falling water and nearly cried out in surprise as the water came down on his head and back with such force. The sound of the powerful falling water was incredible - we don't think you'd be able to do this in the western world somehow!! - However, another memorable experience. Except for the Waterfalls the other true stars of the day were our guides and their Honda cruising Motorbikes, a great way to see the country! The evening was filled with acoustic guitar playing by the guides in the guest house make shift bar. They sang traditional mountain songs - despite not understanding the language, it was really a
lovely moment. A few beers were had by all, and soon the singing and guitar playing attracted a few other locals and some tourists, who all had a go at playing the guitar and singing a song of their choice. A great end to a fantastic day full of sights and experiences.
We left Dalat knowing we'd miss the place, and doubted we'd find a better location in Vietnam. We descended down through the windy roads in the hills to arrive at more beautiful scenery in the coastal city of Nha trang; a place with far more character and charm than Mui Ne. We found ourselves in another friendly Guest House where we made friends with the two receptionists, one of which was called Trei. Trei liked to stroke Barrie's beard whilst telling him how much money he made a day!! ($2) We had one day on the beach, where we watched women and old men get 'wiped out' by the massive surf, only to get up and have the same thing done to them again! It was like watching 'You've Been Framed - LIVE'! Barrie went into the water and body surfed and played in the water like
a child - a true water baby! On our second day in Nha Trang we took a boat out to some islands, where we snorkled some decent coral reefs, sunbathed on floating platforms, met loads of fellow travellers and even had a floating bar party in the sea, where music blurted out from the boat and we floated around on rubber rings drinking crappy red wine at 11am - not for the faint hearted! Anyway, another good day in the South China Sea.
The day before yesterday we took our third sleeper bus (the experience is getting better now!) to Hoi An - 11 hours north of Nha Trang. So far this town has been charming with the quiet streets filled with bright lanterns in the evenings - could this rival Dalat?? Today we will take some push bikes around the town and countryside, and their monthly 'lunar festival' is on tonight. We very much look forward to it.
So, we are heading towards our final few days in Vietnam, and we very much look forward to a few days sailing around Halong Bay - for those of you who haven't heard of it - look it up
- it looks quite amazing. Then we have to fly over to our next country - Laos. where we'll probably write to you next - wish us luck!
We hope you are all doing fine and are well back in the Western World? We haven't really got sick with the dreaded 'delhi belly' that travellers so easily get - except for the odd occasion! Thanks once again for reading, do keep in touch and we apologies if you could not get on our blog last time - something about our security settings or something!!??
Much love
Barrie and Marieke x x
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Willemyn
non-member comment
No no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's not limit!
LOVE IT! It looks like you're really embracing the countries and cultures! I especially like the part about the guest house guy stroking Barrie's beard. Nice! Speak soon and loads of love xxxxxxxx