Vietnam....... May the Pho be with you

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After the rather eventful journey, we found a cheap hostel in Hanoi with all mod-cons and amenities, but none of them working, and then headed out to find cashpoint and then much needed sustenance.

So, it turns out, that Hanoi is a bit of a foodie heaven/haven. An example of a typical day's food for us was:


• Deep-fried battered tofu for breakfast
• Several bowls of pho (pronounced foo), which seems to be the national dish of the north and consists of noodle soup (beef, chicken or veg) with optional chilli, lime and herbs which you add yourself.
• A huge plate of veg, rice and tofu/meat concoctions for dinner
• Evening snacks of 'pho mai que' - deep fried battered cheese, the city's favourite bar snack....all washed down with with many 'bia hoi's (14p glasses of beer).


Most of our food and drink was consumed sitting on midget plastic stools on the pavement, although we occasionally sat in the road when pavement space was at a premium. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Hanoi also has cake!

Whilst trying not to get run over by the millions of motorbikes speeding along the roads/pavements/public spaces often seemingly directly at us, we did manage to do some other stuff in Hanoi during our spare time when we weren't eating or drinking. We went to a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show, visited the temple on the lake in the centre of the city, and had a look round Hoa Loa prison, which was originally built by the French to keep dissidents, but later housed US airforce POWs. We also spent rather longer than Chris would have hoped, wandering round the Old Quarter shops and markets soaking up the atmosphere and invariably getting lost.

Given its gastronomic delights, it's a miracle we ever managed to leave Hanoi, but leave we did, and despite Emma's best efforts to make us miss our bus by sending our taxi to the wrong bus station (only one letter different from the name of the one we needed), we made it to Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay the next afternoon. Unfortunately in Cat Ba, Emma got a touch of the Lurgy, which put pay to us being too active, but we still found plenty to occupy our time that didn't involve rock-climbing, sailing and base jumping. We went out for a day's kayaking around the some of the hundreds of huge karst islands which was great, with stunning scenery. Chris did 75% of the work in a double kayak, whilst Emma and Bob took responsibilty for steering and directions. (Suffice to say, we got lost.)

Cat Ba is the largest of Halong Bay's islands which come in various shapes and sizes in deep green ocean off the Northeast coast of Vietnam. Aside from aimless paddling around the islands whilst Bob taunted rabied dogs on floating house boats (who weren't quite game enough to jump in the water and chase our kayak), we pulled up on a couple of the deserted patches of sand on the islands to see huge birds swoop down into the sea and watch local fisherman go by. Not a bad way to spend a day. Aside from this, we also managed a lazy afternoon on a white sandy beach, sunbathing and shade-seeking, swimming and building sand castles.

From Cat Ba, it was back to Hanoi by bus, then boat, then bus, and then from Hanoi, another bus through the night down to Dong Hoi in Central Vietnam. From Dong Hoi, we'd arranged a pick up to take us to Phong Nha National Park in rural Vietnam. Staying on a farmstay overlooking rice paddies, we had another relaxed couple of days drinking beer (and a teensy bit of wine) and eating lots. One day we hired bikes and went with some others to explore the local village, Son Trach, and from there hired a boat to take us into a little bit of the Phong Nha Cave, a huge cave (think it's about 55km in total), with a few areas where a boat can be moored allowing further exploration on foot. It's been pretty well set up for tourists and was all well lit, which perhaps detracted from some of the eeriness, but it was fun none the less. We went for lunch in Son Trach, picking one of the less salubrious looking joints where, after some rather confused attempts at Vietnamese, Emma settled on having the local vegetarian specialty of riverweed and rice (note - there are no veggie specialties, or indeed in turns out meat or fish specialties in Son Trach). It was as delicious as it sounded and consumption was still regretted several days later when Emma had to send Chris out to get some antibiotics as she began to rot from the inside out.

From Phong Nha, we were on the 5am overpacked local bus to Hue, imperial city extraordinaire. Previous capital, home of many an emperor, and a World Heritage Site, it contains a 'citadel within a citadel'; that is, within the already walled city, there is a large imperial enclosure containing all manner of ancient buildings in variable states of repair. Fortunately, since you had to pay to get in, it did provide a brief haven from all the hawkers, rickshaw drivers and people intent on trying to run us over on motorbikes. As an added bonus, the buildings and monuments were also quite spectacular, with a palace, lots of temples, shrines, urns, gardens, dragons aplenty, and a lonesome elephant (we think he might have worked there).

Fortunately Hue food was a cut above the rest when it came to vegetarian fare and we found an awesome little veggie place where we completely over-ordered and ended up with almost more food than we could eat (for about the cost of a pint back home). There were also cafes and restaurants aplenty with vegetarian offerings and suffice to say, Emma's bowels soon forgot about their recent woes and Hue became her favourite city in Vietnam.

As an added bonus, some people in central Vietnam including Hue and Phong Nha actually seemed really friendly. Just to put things in context, we did find that some inhabitants in the north of the country were, shall we say, quite hard work. We didn't get too many smiles or hellos (putting it lightly) and the scams were thick and fast, from attempting to charge twice for laundry and overcharging for food and drink, to some rather aggressive selling tactics for bus tickets. We're fine with a bit of bartering, but it seemed that all transactions in the north involved a fair amount of hostility and some occasional bare-faced lies. Further south we were expecting much the same but were pleasantly surprised. In the national park locals actually greeted us and seemed interested in us, although we put this down to them not having had a deluge of western tourists yet; however even in Hue which gets lots of visitors, quite a lot of people appeared genuinely friendly. Chris got playing pool with some locals, we got some free postcards from an enthusiastic photographer/restaurant owner and happy hour went from 14 pence for a beer to free beer! Unfortunately people did still seem intent on trying to run us over on their motorbikes, but you can't have everything.

From Hue, we went down to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Emma had visited the south of Vietnam a couple of years before and seen some of the main tourist sites, including the Cu Chi tunnels, and so Chris and Bob went on a boy's daytrip without her to see the tunnels and the conditions that people lived in during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile Emma went shopping and exploring the fine patisseries of the city, whilst trying to stay on budget!

Reunited, we all visited the War Remnants museum which displayed tanks, planes, artillery, a whole heap of harrowing photos, and a fair bit of propaganda besides. Aside from this, much time was spent in Ben Thanh Market, selling everything you could ever want and many things you never would. It was a bit of a challenge to walk through to say the least. Not only was it huge, with stalls very close together, but trying to scuttle through the middle with one hand covering money/bag/camera/wallet, we were invariably grabbed (literally) by hands from all angles trying to not-so-gently persuade us to come and buy from a particular stall which would invariably offer us 'good price' (although not before some serious haggling).

Much to Emma's delight, we found another vegetarian restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. This time we attempted to wrestle with a 'lau', a confusing vegetable fondue type hotpot. We were sure there was some kind of etiquette regarding how you should cook your own noodles over a boiling pot of veg and then somehow fish it all out and serve it up into miniscule bowls without burning yourself/others or spilling it everywhere, but we couldn't quite fathom how we were meant to do it. The only thing we're sure of is that we made a mess. But it doesn't matter, because from here, we're off to Cambodia, where I'm sure we can unintentially desecrate another local specialty.

Newly discovered facts whilst travelling in Vietnam

Riverweed and rice does not constitute a meal. Or even food.

Emma's new best friend is ciprofloxacin

Chris can eat beef noodle soup three times per day

You can actually fit five people on a motorbike, but we're not sure it's comfortable

Tallies

Number of times nearly hit by traffic on Vietnam's streets:

Chris - 7

Emma 192

Bob 1 (thought he saw a ewe on the other side of the road - turned out to be a big pile of sticky rice).

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Comments

[Becky]

Loving the blog guys. Makes me chuckle as I'm reading it. Looks like you are having an incredible time. The photos are amazing and some of it looks so unreal. Really feel like we are living it through your eyes. It was really lovely to speak to and see u on Sunday. Thanks so much for calling. Look forward to seeing you again soon. Loads and loads of love xxxx