Jan 2009

Mui Ne

Arrived at our first beach for three years!!!! Another classic Lonely Planet 'unknown sleepy gem' that everyone therefore now goes to and hotels are up everywhere! We splashed out and stayed at a place with a swimming pool and spent a few days having some much needed R&R time, swimming and reading (yes Bryn was reading books - novels as well!)

The beach was ok, but the hotels have been built too close to the sea and the beach disappears at midday - a bit of a let down. Bryn did nearly caused an international incident as his milky white body was revealed for the first time and started to divert the planes overhead!

Also had an afternoon trip to see the local sights...

The Fairy Stream which you walk along barefoot to see sand formations....

Had to share with the local cow herd...

Off to the local fishing harbour

Then the Red Canyon

And the White Sand Dunes....

And the Red Sand Dunes....

Also enjoyed loads of fresh squid, fish and prawns each day in true roughing it, backpacker lifestyle!

Saigon

We went to Saigon briefly in the end after realising it would be too difficult to bypass (we were getting a bit sick of doing city stuff and wanted some trekking). Got one of our worst, but cheapest rooms to date and explored for a day and a half.....

War Remnants Museum.....even worse propaganda than before - although all the agent orange deformity photos were gut-wrenching. They also love the photos of woman and children capturing american GIs. The ''tiger cages'' (cells) where the French used to keep their prisoners through to the 50s were pretty appalling.

Walking tour of the city taking in some of the most impressive buildings and parks.

Mekong Delta

As our 30 day visa was running out (we were well behind on Bryn's itinerary spreadsheet) we bit the bullet and did the Mekong Delta region on a 3 day tour which would take us into Cambodia. The Mekong is the most fertile area of the country , they get 3 rice harvests annually - and so most people want to live there. This means pretty packed floating markets - with everyone trading their crops by boat. Lots of genuine smiley kids all saying 'hello'' with big teethy grins.

Was good fun seeing the locals making the local foods - although it was a bit touristy (but a day off from thinking isn't always a bad thing).

Rice papermaking....

Rice candy making....

Coconut candy making...

Local spirits (snake and scorpions included!) were also being made - go on, down in one Fi!......

Stayed overnight on the boat one night in a room with 12 others - a bit like school camp - luckily no heavy snorers! Another day stayed in a floating hotel which was really pretty for sunset. Went on lots of different size boats.....

Did some biking...

Relaxing....

And visited a local child sweatshop aka Silk Factory - where actually the kids seemed to be having a right laugh - albeit they probably should have been reading books or learning a language or something. Bryn went down a treat with the girls, as he had learned some basic Vietnamese phrases by now - heard the giggling fits down the street!

All that was left was a nice meal with a drunk frenchman......

All ready now to take the boat over the border into Cambodia. Cant wait for something a bit more off the beaten track......fingers crossed! tbc......

Kon Tum

Kon Tum is supposedly the friendliest town in Vietnam - think probably because it is not famous for anything else! However, we immediately noticed the lack of people selling to us and the amount of kids shouting ''hello, hello, hello' with big smiles was drastically on the increase. We checked into the nice Family Hotel, with a balcony room overlooking the garden - perfect place for getting our smalls dry! We started to feel the baking heat of SE Asia for the first time and a planned hike became more of a gentle meander as our bodies waned. Walked through one of the traditional villages with a communal Rong House where all the villagers meet up. Good bit of banter with the bakery boys as they realised they were pretty short next to Bryn....and Fi! Discovered excellent egg, dried fish and salad baguettes at roadside stalls for only 15p - nice!

Buon Ma Thout
Headed on to the home of rubber plantations in Vietnam and also the coffee capital ...Buon Ma Thout. Tried to organise a national park trek in town through an agent but were being quoted $100 a day without transport and sleeping in a tent - they had gotta be having a laugh! Headed to the village of Ban Don ourselves, where the national park HQ is base to try and cut out the middle men (Bryn likes lean supply chains!). Got a 'local' bus, which was hilariously packed, and we kept knocking people out with our big rucsacks. However, the locals found us very amusing and were very friendly - albeit with limited comms. Stayed in a basic stilt hut which was fun - although not the most comfortable environment for washing and relieving! Lots of dogs with scars and a monkey in a small cage Headed off the next morning to play negotiating hardball with the park ranger. He was not budging on price even though when he tried to break it down at our request it made no sense. We later found out that the government runs all tourism in the province and so it is basically take it or leave it - which is why they never get any damn tourists! (I would love to see their business plan!). The only other tourists we met also walked away based on the ridiculouus prices levied - oh well, still nice to have some adventure again for the first time since China. Did manage to have our frst ever elephant ride (see piccy below!) - Fi got rather excited.

[b]Dalat[/b]

Arriving into Dalat we commenced our biggest accomodation search trek to date. We were convinced that there must be some lovely place to stay in this colonial French hillside town. Sadly we couldn't find it! Heading out that night Fi was amazed to run into an eBay colleague from Richmond who we had dinner with and shared flashpacking stories.

Dalat is the home to vietnamese wine, because of its elevated cool climate so it was perfect for apair of wine bores from the UK! We splashed out on the top wine made in partenrship with a french cooperative - if that is the best they make they should stick to the rice spirits! Bit of subtelty with the oak would have been nice - felt like we were licking the barrell!

Dalat was perfect for doing our own thing and we immediately hired a tandem bicycle and set off round the lake. An interesting experience...particularly the hills.

Visited the local flower garden...

Loved Emperor Bao Dai's art deco palace....

The cable car ride.....

The reservoir....

And some waterfalls....

Bravely hired a motorbike and set off to climb a mountain - and were glad to suffer just a flat tyre on the way there. Couldn't believe our luck when we discovered this next to garage....which only charged us 40p for the fix! We loved a day walking up Lang Bian through the jungle up into the clouds.....

And then we were on the bus....quickly descending down out of the hills down to the beach

Hue
Arrived into Hue and it was pouring.....! We stubbornly pushed past the tuk-tuks etc and walked out into the downpour - arriving like drowned rats into our hotel later! Hue is a pretty town with a river flowing through - the main attraction being the Imperial Enclosure area which is the Vietnam version of the Forbidden City. Sad though to see the amount of decay happening to it - the wet season is pretty tough on wooden buildings.

New Year was pretty low key and we scuttled back to our hotel as soon as the new year started as we needed to be up at 6am for our Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) tour. We'd splashed out and hired our very own South Vietnam army veteran for the day to show us round the locations. The DMZ was the area between North and South Vietnam and
many of the key battles in the American War were fought here.

Stopping at a catholic church riddled with holes on the way to the zone it was sad when he broke down in tears, as he lost a lot of good friends during the American War.

He had lots of good stories such as at Khe Sanh Combat Base - otherwise known as Hell to the US GIs. It sounded absolutely horrendous...with the Viet Cong regularly sending in missiles. Our guide really brought it to life for us with his tales....drug taking was a regular occurence here with many perishing because they didn't react to the air raid sirens. The GIs had only 2 minutes a week to speak to their families in the US and he told us that often they never actually managed to get any words across to their families as they couldn't stop the sobs....

Also went to the Vinh Moc tunnels....these tunnels weren't fighting tunnels like the Cui Chi tunnels in the South.....these were built next to the China sea and was the main inward location for the VC arms from Russia.

From here the arms would be transported down the Ho Chi Minh trail to the south. We had a fabulous time scurrying through the tunnels appreciating being on a private tour and ignoring the signs saying 'No Entry' and heading off down unlit tunnels with only our torches! Despite the massive bomb craters we saw, from the extensive US bombing campaigns, the US never managed to penetrate these tunnels. Amazing ingenuity.

Because he fought with the US, our guide has been treated harshly by the government/police, monitored ever since leaving a 'reconditioning unit' following the war. Getting work was very difficult. He has written 15 letters to the US to try and get recompense or move across, but apparently they had all been ignored. In fact, our tour was conducted under a shroud of secrecy as officially he was just our non English speaking driver.

Also went off to the Royal Tombs of the Nguyen emporers and the infamous Thien Mu Pagoda....

Hoi An
Hoi-An was a bit of a tourist circus - just a town of silk shops (check out the exact replica of Fi's Ted Baker dress below!), tailors and cafes and restaurants - not much for us hardy backpackers.

Nonetheless a pretty riverside town full of canals and flooding roads....

Nearby are the mystical ruins of My Son which we were lucky enough to arrive at for sunrise thereby beating the tour buses. Sadly the site did suffer in the war, and the area is still mined.

Everything in Vietnam is separated into 'Tourist'' and 'Non-tourist' - public transport, hotels, restaurants, prices, areas of town etc etc. This is good in that everything is very easy for the tourist and you dont have to think much. However, it was starting to irritate the hell out of us, as we were not speaking with any locals unless they wanted to sell us something, were subjected to attempted overcharging a lot, were not seeing the real Vietnam and generally our minds were getting stale and bored with the ease of each day. I know this sounds odd - but when you backpack the day-to-day logistics and banter with the locals is great fun! Decided to take action and rerouted away from the tourist run along the coast and headed into the Central Highlands instead. The bus ride to Kon Tum was fabulous...in with the locals and the scenery was stunning. We were actually following the Ho Chi Minh trail up, climbing up through winding valleys and through small villages. The foliage was lush, green and dense and we did wonder how the US GIs must have felt heading off on their patrols in terrain such as this.

Arriving into Hanoi at a 'bus stop' outside the city centre, we were forced to jump in a taxi - which then proceeded to take us on the 'tourist' route to our hotel. Once we had him going the right way he then decided to go nice and slowly so that the meter further racked up the Dong. The golden rule - never trust anyone with a dodgy eye or a very hairy mole (in this case the latter). Walking out that evening into the Old Town quarter of Hanoi was quite a different experience.....motorbikes everywhere!! Unfortunately they tend to either set up restaurants or park their bikes on the pavements so we were stuck dodging bikes in the narrow roads. Welcome to Vietnam!

Then it was a frenzied day of culture! First stop was Uncle Ho...who's corpse was illuminated by a strange orange light but all in all...suprisingly small Communist leader. Then on to the Army Museum to pose with the military hardware outside. We both really enjoyed the main exhibition though which helped us understand recent Vietnamese history but also left us wanting to understand a slightly more balanced picture - ie without the vietnamese propaganda.

Upset with the hotel as they tried to kick us out that night so they could accept a booking from a large group. We stood our ground but were too scared to go out for long for dinner and ended up pacsafing our luggage to the room in the event that they tried to get rid of us whilst we were gone! Ended up watching a Vietnam - Singapore football match (ASEAN Cup semi-final for those interested) which the Vietnamese won - party time in the streets!

And then we were off on our Christmas holiday trip to Cat Ba Island and on to the Ocean Beach resort on it's own private island. Cat Ba Island is in the spectacular, if a little misty, Halong Bay....

However, arriving onto Cat Ba Island we made a major mistake and didn't get the shuttle bus to Cat Ba town as we thought we were in the right place for our pick up to the island. Spent an age trying to negotiate a decent moto rate to the other side of the island from the greedy locals who seem to love seeing a foreinger in a pickle. Bryn insisted we stand our ground and start to walk the 40 km in midday sun to the correct collection point. Eventually after we'd walked about 5km through the middle of nowhere with our full packs we stopped in a restaurant and, the angels must have been looking down on us, as we ran into a tour guide from Ocean Tours who'd been asked to look out for 2 lost Westerners on the island.

We finally arrived at Ocean Beach and were met with welcome drinks and escorted to our beach bungalow - woohooo! The holiday had finally begun!! The slight disappointment was that it wasn't sunny and despite meticulous planning on Bryn's spreadsheet we'd failed to spot that North Vietnam would be experiencing their rainy season whilst we were there!

Christmas Eve was spent taking a quick dip in the sea and heading off round our island on kayaks. Due to low tide, we weren't able to make it directly round our island and ended up going round quite a few islands and navigating through a narrow channel of churning water!

In the evening we headed to the restaurant and joined the BBQ party set up on the beach. When we headed up after dinner to the bar we were amazed to discover the staff had transformed the bar and were all ready for a big party!

The fact that we were celebrating on the wrong day didn't perturb us overly. And despite us having eaten our fill at the BBQ we managed to find room for all the goodies they'd laid out for us all. Steered clear of the karaoke after our experiences in China and made sure we made use of the free beer keg they'd laid on.

Unsurprisingly Christmas Day was a very quiet affair for us and we settled for a fresh seafood spread for lunch

Begrudglingly we had to abandon Ocean Beach... and headed over to Cat Ba Island for our trip to the National Park. We hired two motorbikes and after Fi's initial kangaroo bucks we were off across the island! First stop was Hospital Cave, which was an impressive feat of wartime engineering - it was built so that it was safe from the US bombs. Not quite certain about all the rooms....there seemed to be more swimming pools, cinemas, games rooms than places for sick people.

Second stop was the national park where we had a very quick 8km march to reach Frog Pond through Jurassic Park terrain. A shallow stagnant pond home to many mosquitoes and not many frogs as far as we could see.

We beat a hasty retreat through the jungle underneath the ever darkening canopy in an effort to get back before dark.

Ten minutes in and Fi was distraught to turn a corner and find that Bryn had skidded his bike and was examining both himself and the bike for injuries at the side of the road. It would appear that Bryn had found the only bit of gravel, on a road, on a corner on Cat Ba Island. Bryn suffered a bruised hip, grazed elbow and knee, sore ribs and a yanked thumb. The bike suffered extensive scratching, cracked body work and a bent gear lever. It was the gear lever that was to cause us most grief on the way back to town....eventually the bike got stuck in 1st gear which is not the ideal one to be in at all. We stopped and scratched our heads...no traffic passed....and then a friendly farmer appeared on the horizon and managed to bend the gear lever, enough for the bike to function, with his massive machete. It was a very slow 20km back into town particularly as we lost the daylight and had to go even slower so as to not compound the situation. Back in town we psyched ourselves up to take the bikes back to their owner wondering what our strategy was in a situation where we didn't have a signed rental agreement. It turns out that he really didn't expect anything...he realised he had no right to demand anything so Bryn agreed to pay $30 which the chap seemed relatively happy with. Fi procured a big block of ice from the hotel to treat Bryn's injuries and we went out for some Western comfort food and an early night.

Back in Hanoi we had a few days waiting round to get our passports back from the Cambodian embassy and we perhaps fell off the backpacker boat a little and for some reason ended up treating ourselves to an all you can eat buffet in a French colonial house . BBQ'd prawns, seafood, steak etc

Street party time again as VietNam beat Thailand in the final of ASEAN cup, in Hanoi - tickets for the game were 200 quid on the black market - which is a lot for these folks. Street food and street party commenced......all through the night.

Monday involved finding a clinic to see Bryn's thumb which had swelled up somewhat, was clicking and didn't seem to want to move that much. Big palava trying to contact our insurance company who seemed to think they required a police report of the incident for us to be covered, despite that fact that Bryn was the only person involved! A big learning for us though on insurance companies. However, in the event the clinic forgot to charge for the X-rays which thankfully came back with no breaks. Phew!

Decided to take the relaxing sleeper train 12 hours south to Hue. Arrived in enough time to be first into our cabin and find good spots for our giant bags and continued our strategy of taking the top two bunks in a cabin of 6 so that Fi didn't have strange men looking at her in her sleep. Train left and we all settled down to sleep.