Chris Greenwood

We arrived in Hue and checked into our hotel, Binh Duong 1. We had been offered a basic double room for $8 but decided to splash out and go for the $12 room that contained a computer with internet access as I was getting very far behind on this blog. The room was on the top floor of the hotel, was very clean, well equipped and had a great view. We left the other six of our group downstairs to decide where to stay, giving them our room number so they could get in touch. About an hour later we had a call on the room phone from three of the guys who had decided to hire bikes for an hour for a quick ride around the citadel. We decided to join them and paid for a half days bike rental though this only came to 15p! Our hotel and pretty much all hotels and restaurants are located on the south side of the river in new or European city and the main city itself is across the river. The entire old city on the north side is enclosed by a 20m thick wall that run around the city in a square with each side of the square being 2.5km long. We cycled across the bridge and through one of the gates into the old city. Inside the old city is 2 further walled areas. The first that you reach is the imperial citadel which would have been used by the mandarians, civil and military noblemen as well as everyone who served the emporer. Inside the imperial citadel is a further enclosure called the forbidden purple city. This area would have been used solely by the emporer, his wives and concubines. In fact the only men allowed inside the forbidden purple city who weren’t related to the emporer were eunuchs.

Continue reading “Hue”

So a minibus eventually picked us up from our hotel around 30-40 minutes late. We were one of the last to be picked up so they were probably delayed by a few people on the way. We were taken to the sleepy bus which is a full sized coach fitted with rows of nearly flat bunk beds which convert into seats. We got on the bus and found ourselves a couple of top bunk beds next to each other near the back of the coach. The beds around us filled up with other people many of whom were on their own and within a few minutes we all got talking, sharing stories of travels. We talked for a few hours an eventually the lights were turned off and we went to sleep. Nobody slept particularly well but I did at least get a few hours sleep. We were woken up at 6:00am by traditional Vietnamese music and a video on the TV. Soon after we stopped for breakfast at Dong Ha. While eating we were approached by a guy who offered us a DMZ tour. We had planned to tour the DMZ from Hue but looking at the map we could see that Dong Ha was very close to the DMZ and Hue was another two hours down the coast so we’d have an extra four hours travelling time to see the DMZ from Hue. Before we got on the bus I’d had an e-mail from Tom saying that they had done a really good DMZ tour from Dong Ha with a guy who’d approached them at their breakfast stop. When I mentioned the names Tom and Craig  to the guy he beamed with delight and repeated Tom and Craig, it was the same guy who they’d taken the tour with. I knew he probably wasn’t just making this up as he could actually pronounce Craig, something almost nobody here can (including the Americans we have met). We were due to be picked up by our hotel from the bus in Hue but the restaurant owner offered to call and cancel the pickup so we agreed and along with another of the giys we had met we decided to do the tour. Alex and the other guy, Luke got back on the bus to get our stuff and at the same time persuaded another five people to join us. We unloaded our stuff from the bus and the eight of us watched our bus to Hue drive off. The tour guide was called Hoa and spoke pretty good English. He gave us about an hour to have some more food and wash, change etc and then when we were ready all eight of us piled into a minibus. The first stop of the tour was the former US Con Theiu firebase. While there was not actually much to see at the firebase apart from one concrete bunker what was so amazing to see was the vegetation in the DMZ compared to the surrounding areas. During the war the US napalmed the entire south side of the DMZ to prevent the Viet Cong hiding in the dense forest. This conbined with the agent orange that they sprayed completely destroyed all plant life and even now over thirty years later the vegetation still looks very young an unestablished despite massive government planting schemes. The concrete bunker at this firebase was one of the only ones that was made of concrete and was reserved for the high ranking officers. Everything else was constructed from sandbags and our guide picked found a few partially filled sandbags from the thousands that litter the area. The area that we were in has been cleared of mines by Australian, French and British mine clearing teams but our guide jumped into a pit and picked up a couple of obviously preprepared mine detonators that had been found in the area by locals. Evn though we knew the area was relatively safe we still followed the guide’s path exactly and didn’t stay from the tourist trail. The bunker was pretty interesting, pockmarked with bullet holes and with the word California scratched into the concrete by a soldier during the war. After seeing the bunker we headed back to the minibus and drove on to a North Vietnamese cemetary where over 10,000 north vietnamese troops were reburied after the war. Seeing the endless rows of graves was a pretty sobering experience as you can see from the photo that I have put up in the DMZ gallery. Throughout the day while driving around in the minibus we would often stop to looked at bomb craters left in the land. Some were as big as 15m wide and the guide told us that they had been as much as 10m deep though were only about 8m deep now due to erosion. We also stopped at one of the small pockets of natural jungle that hadn’t been too damaged by the bombing which was a stark contrast to the rest of the scenery and even this was filled with massive craters. We were told that in the area just north of the DMZ 7 tonnes of explosives were dropped for every person living in the area. After these sobering facts we headed over to the Ben Hai river which formed the border between North and South Vietnam. We were taken to, what was at the time the only bridge over the river which was fenced off when Vietnam was divided into North and South. The bridge was a reconstruction of the original for tourists and as a memorial as the orginal was blown up by the US during the war. We were told an amusing side story about how a mini war was fought across the river with boths sides competing to have the tallest flag and the loudest speakers spouting propaganda across the river. Our next stop was the Vinh Moc tunnels. These tunnels were one of over 100 tunnel networks built by the local population as the only way to escape the bombing. The tunnels are 23m underground at thier deepest and comprised of three stories of tunnels including a meeting area, a maternity ward (where 17 babies were born, all of which apparaently survived the war), kitchens and tiny rooms where whole families spent months at a time. The tunnel network had not been enlarged for westerners as it was built bigger than the Cu Chi tunnels down south but there were very few places where I could stand up and in most areas had to walk in a seriously hunched up position to avoid banging my head on the hardened clay roof. We saw rooms on all three levels and in total spent about 45mins to an hour underground with one break outside at one of the seventeen exits. You don’t really realise how deep underground you are until you reach a ventilation shaft and look up, which makes you very glad that there are backup exits! The tunnels did have electric lights in some places but these had been put in to recreate the dim lighting conditions that the original paraffin lamps had provided and a torch was still necessary in most areas. Luckily I was given the second torch with the guide carrying the first which made the whole experience a little easier. Nevertheless after almost an hour we were both glad to see daylight again and wouldn’t have wanted to spend much longer underground. Our last stop was the partial remains of a rusted US tank on the side of the road at what had been another US firebase. There is very little to see at any of the old US bases as what was left over after the war including the many of the mines and unexploded ordnance was scavenged by local scrap metal sellers causing hundreds of casualties.

We headed back in the minibus to the cafe where we’d started the day for some much needed lunch and, when we were finished we climbed aboard the same minbus for the trip to Hue. We left the guide in Dong Ha and he instructed the driver to take us to Binh Duong, the hotel we were booked into in Hue. Hearing that we were booked in, the other six of our part decided to stop there to check it out. The ride to Hue was an interesting one with the second person on the bus trying to persuade Vietnamese people on the roadside to climb into our already full minibus. Luckily for us she was mostly unsuccessful.

When we got to Hue I followed where we were going on the map as I usually do so that I know were we are and sure enough not far from our intended hotel we veered off the route that I thought we’d take and stopped at another, shabby looking hotel. We were told to get off and assured this was our hotel. When I explained that I knew that this wasn’t the hotel we were told that there were police over there and that the minibus couldn’t take us any further! Of course the owner of this hotel immediately came out offering us seemingly excellent rates and a couple of our group were tempted but I said that I wouldn’t consider anywhere that I was dropped against my wishes as the minibus owners had obviously pulled this one on us to earn commision. I could see from the map that we were no more than 15 minutes walk from the hotel we had booked so I lead our group over to our hotel on foot. On the way we were hassled by a guy who wanted us to stay with him but when he realised I was set on the hotel I had booked he fetched an employee of our hotel who led us to the right place. It turned out that the cafe owner in Dong Ha hadn’t phoned our hotel at all despite the fact that I watched him do it and a guy from our hotel had waited for us at three buses in the morning! After hearing our story the hotel were very greatful that we had sought out their hotel anyway and we checked in.

The DMZ day tour was great fun and fascinating lead by our knowledgable guide it was a shame however that the minbus crew decided to try and scam us at the end of the day but at least it all turned out fine!

As I write this we are waiting for our bus out of Hue to Hoi An so unfortunately I am still 3 days behind however Hue was amazing, we had a great time with our new found friends and I’ve made notes so I can write about Hue later. We are hopefully meeting up with Tom and Craig for 24 hours in Hoi An and you’ll hear all about it though probably in a weeks time!

I have just put up 6 new galleries containing over 100 photos taken over the last couple of weeks. For some odd reason the photos have uploaded in reverse order so you may want to start from the second page of each gallery (if present) and work backwards! Since they appear to the right of this in alphabetical order rather than chronological order I have provided links below so you can view the galleries in the order that they were taken.

Hanoi & the Perfume Pagoda – Tom, Craig and I at the Perfume Pagoda and the surrounding days in Hanoi.
Sa Pa – Tom, Craig and I trekking in Sa Pa in the cold, mountainous north of Vietnam.
Ninh Binh – Tom, Craig and I head south from Hanoi to Ninh Binh, a small town with some local sights.
Hanoi with Alex – Alex’s first few days in Hanoi
The Demilitarised Zone – Alex and I take a diversion on our way down to Hue to visit the Demilitarised zone.
Hue – Alex and I in Hue (pronounced Hway with less emphasis on the H), the old Imperial walled citadel and beautiful city in central Vietnam.

The photos of the DMZ and Hue are ones that I haven’t talked about yet on the blog as I am still a couple of days behind but expect updates soon!

A short while after my previous post Alex came through customs, tired but excited to see me. I was very excited to finally see her and very relieved that she made it through three flights and four airports without running into any problems. I had arranged an airport pickup with the Hanoi Guesthouse who were there with Alex’s name of a piece of paper waiting to take us back. We arrived back in Hanoi and we unpacked Alex’s stuff, she showered, changed and we headed into Hanoi in the late afternoon so that I could show her around the old quarter. We immediately went for a light meal at Cafe Sago as we were both starving and walked around stopping off at a few bars including I-Box, and the City View cafe which is in the same building as Legend beer but on the 5th floor and has great views overlooking Hoan Kiem lake. My plan for the evening was that we’d go for dinner at the mock meat restaurant so we wandered in that direction however due to our late lunch at Sago neither of us were hungry. We walked past the mock meat place and saw that it was open until 11pm, it was only 9pm at the time so we went nearby for a couple of drinks. We returned at 10pm for some food to find that they were closing early. By now it was pretty late to get food in Hanoi and I knew from experience that if we didn’t find something quickly everywhere would be closed. We opted for Tandoor and Indian restaurant nearby that I’d been with Tom and Craig that served some surprisingly good quality Indian food and had a good vegetarian selection. I have to admit that coming from Birmingham where a good curry is always nearby and where in the last year I have made some really good curries, I have really missed a good curry partly because in Vietnam the food is often quite simple with quite a bland taste compared to what I’m used to. This isn’t really a criticism of Vietnamese food but is more down to the fact that, as a vegetarian, there isn’t a lot of choice for me! Anyway so we ended up at Tandoor, not really a good introduction to Vietnamese food for Alex but it was a very good meal. After food I introduced Alex to the joys of Bia Hoi at our favourite street bar and we had a few beers each for about 30p in total and eventually headed home. It was great to see Alex and although we had been in touch so knew the broader details of what each other had been up to it was great to catch up and compare our experiences of the last three weeks.

The next day I let Alex sleep in a little as she was quite jet lagged and, after the flight, needed to catch up on some sleep. We eventually staggered (I walked, Alex staggered as she was jet lagged and still behind on sleep) out of our room at midday and caught a taxi to teh army museum. I had been before with Tom and Craig but because we got there really late we had missed everything to do with the America Vietnam war apart from the captured planes and helicopters outside. It was great to see the rest of the museum as although the Viet Minh’s campaign against French occupation was interesting it is not something I really know much about, or didn’t before visiting the museum! Anyway we took the museum really slowly as the heat was really getting to Alex and she was also still very tired. After the museum we headed over to the very nice but expensive cafe in the mueum grounds for a drink and a relax before finding a taxi back into the old quarter of Hanoi. After a drink we wandered out of the museum and on the way one of the motorbike taxi guys saw us taking photos of each other infront of a MiG and offered to take a picture of both of us. We posed for the photo said thanks and wandered out of the museum to look for a taxi. Of course by now it was rush hour so a taxi was both very hard to find and not particularly convenient as at rush hour they have a lot of problems getting down the narrow streets of the old quarter. After about 5 minutes of looking for a empty taxi and failing the same motorbike taxi guy drove over and offered us a lift. We refused but after another couple of minutes without any luck on the taxi front we gave in, haggled down to a reasonable price and jumped on. Normally I avoid motorbikes wherever humanly possible but it being rush hour and due to the fact that he said he’d take both of us on the same bike it seemed like a good way for Alex to experience a motorbike taxi. Sure enough due to the rush hour traffic the motorbike didn’t make it above bicycle speeds and we made it to our destination in about 5 minutes. Our destination was Fanny Ice cream a french ice cream parlour that sells ice cream in loads of flavours that would challenge even Australian ice cream in Amsterdam! (anyone who lived with me in Amsterdam would know that this is very high praise from me). Amongst all the usual flavours was sticky green rice which is actualy very tasty. After ice cream we sat by the lake for a while watching the people of Hanoi go by before heading over to I-Box for some half priced and therefore affordable happy hour beers. The staff at I-Box have a habit of putting free snacks in front of you while you drink. For Tom, Craig and I it was peanuts with an unusual spice. For Alex and I they put little baskets of popcorn in front of us that seemed to be flavoured with something spicy which was delicious. During our three small beers we managed to get through six baskets of popcorn with the staff happily replacing them the instant that one was empty. We felt a little bad but they kept on putting them in front of us and we were starving so couldn’t resist it. After this we headed over to the top of the lake to change some money and them upstairs for some homebrewed beer at ‘Legend Beer’. unfortunately the weiss beer was off so we had the dark which was still great. We headed to ‘Whole Earth’ the mock meat restaurant for some really good dinner and Alex’s first experience of Vietnamese mock meat. After food though it was still pretty early but we were tired so we decided to head to ‘Red Beer’ a microbrewery/bar where the beer is brewed right behind the bar. We planned to stay for just one drink but just as we were about to leave it started to rain as heavily as it did in Thailand and pretty quickly the street was flooding. We stayed for another beer and it eased off a bit but we could see that it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon and the bar started to close up (at 10:30pm!) We braved the rain darting between overhanging balconies and planning our route to cross the road where the puddles wouldn’t soak our shoes. Of course this being Vietnam the locals spotted an opportunity and within 2 minutes we were approached by a young guy selling plastic bag ponchos for a dollar (16,000 dong) each. He knew that we were a captive audience and we knew that he’d paid no more than a few thousand dong for them (at most)  so we offered him a reasonable price and when he refused walked off. Sure enough 20 seconds later he came back with a better offer and we got ourselves 2 ponchos for less than a dollar, he still seemed pretty pleased with the money and headed off to try and make some money off some richer tourists. The plastic poncho even went over my small backpack so we got home a few minutes later relatively dry! When we got back to the room we headed out to the balcony and stood under the covered part to watch some of the most impressive lightning I’ve seen since the night that Tom and I spent in Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica.

It rained for lots of the night and we awoke at 7:00am to a cool morning in Hanoi. We got up early to take a trip to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum which is only open from 8-10am. We had breakfast and grabbed a taxi before 8am. When we arrived we joined the back of the huge but fast moving, mostly Vietnamese, queue. We were led in a long line through security checks where we had to hand over all bags and mobile phones and cameras and eventually headed into the mausoleum. We walked as if in a procession in absolute silence around 3 sides of a glass case containing the embalmed corpse of Ho Chi Minh. It was the quietest and most respectful I’ve seen the Vietnamese be and it was quite obvious that they were awestruck, quite understandable when you read about him. After the mausoleum we continued on to Ho Chi Minh’s house and his stilthouse where he lived from 1954 until his death in 1969. We decided not to go to the museum after as we were both feeling pretty rough and not in the mood for a museum. We grabbed a taxi back to the Hanoi Guesthouse and packed up ready to check out. We relaxed for a while and Alex grabbed some more sleep while I read until 12pm when we checked out and dumped our bags at reception. Next we headed to my tailor as I had an appointment to pick up my suit. The suit was finished and looked excellent. I tried on the now finished jacket which fit as if it was made for me, probably because it was! I paid the last 50% of the full price (GBP30) and we headed back home. Tom managed to bring a little bit too much stuff travelling with him so to bring the weight down he had left some with me in Hanoi to post home along with my suit. We packed up the box with Tom’s stuff and my suit and headed to the post office to send it. On the way to the post office we stopped at the currency exchange to change my remaining dollars and plenty for Alex so that we didn’t have to worry about money in the smaller towns. We changed money with the girls behind the counter who I’d dealt with quite a few times over the last few weeks. After we changed money the girls thanked us profusely for all the business we’d given them. They seemed really greatful and I think that because I’d been in with Tom and Craig and then Alex they thought that I’d brought both sets of people to them. We stayed and chatted for a few minutes and I explained that I was leaving today and told them our plans. It was nice to realise that had recognised me all along and really appreciated my business. We headed over to the post office in a good mood. When we arrived at the post office with my sealed box we were asked to fill in a multitude of forms including 2 inventories of the box contents. I listed the major items in the box but not having looked through Tom’s stuff didn’t list everything. When we eventually got all the forms filled in they took my box and told me they’d have to open it to confirm the contents. They then proceeded to unseal the box and unpack all of my carefully packed items and go through each one to translate my English inventory into Vietnamese. Luckily all the major items were at the top and somehow once she had translated the listed items she ignored the other bits and pieces of Tom’s and repacked the box. I made sure that she packed it back well and sealed it properly. After 30 minutes of the ‘sending a box’ process we were almost finished and she weighed the box, (6kgs in total) charged me GBP15 and after gettting me to write the to and from addresses on almost every side of the box we were finally able to leave and get some lunch.

We went to everything bun for lunch a noodle place that we had been to before and was quite expensive but I wanted Alex to get some good quality interesting Vietnamese food and this was the perfect place. I helped Alex choose the roll your own fish rolls dish that Tom had eaten previously. When it arrived I showed Alex how to make the rice paper rolls containing fish, fresh veg and some really tasty salad leaves. She really enjoyed the experience and I was pleasantly surprised by the fish which had loads of meat where Tom’s hadn’t been great. After lunch I took Alex for a walk around the lake, something we had never actually done and on the way we stopped at the temple for a look around. After the temple we continued slowly around the lake, stopping for photos and to sit in the somewhat peaceful surroundings. We stopped at Fanny ice cream as we passed, then at Hapro for a sandwich and a drink. We realised that the bus to Hue was picking us up soon so we headed back to the Hanoi guesthouse to catch it. We decided to get the sleepy bus as although we would have preferred the train the train was $29 compared to $12 for the bus. The bus was late and while we waited I chatted for Thin about life in Vietnam, and Nam Dinh where she originally came from in the countryside. As we left I gave her an envelope that I had prepared containing some money and a note that I’d agreed with Tom and Craig days before. It wasn’t a lot of money to us though on our budget it wasn’t insignificant but we all felt that she had really gone out of her way to help us out and although we’d agreed it beforehand in the end it was mostly covered by the money she’d got us back after we were ripped off by the hotel in Sa Pa! I told Thin not to open the envelope until after we left as I didn’t want her to feel obliged to thank us for it but I hope that it helps her out a little as she really deserved it.

I was really quite sad to leave Hanoi as it had been my base for almost 3 weeks and although we spent over a week of that travelling to other places it was nice to always have somewhere to leave luggage and come back to where I was sure that we wouldn’t be ripped off and could really relax. It was also great to get to know Hanoi a little better than the average traveller as by the time I left I knew my way around so well that I appeared coinfident of where I was heading when walking around and was barely hassled. I will miss Hanoi and Thin but we still have plenty to see and do so must move on!

I arrived back in Hanoi while it was still light, something I was keen to do as the bus stations are often pretty intimidating in the light and I didn’t fancy passing through on my own and in the dark! I arrived into the bus station and was pleased to see a taxi very near the bus so I ignored the husslers and headed straight for the taxi. The driver didn’t speak any English and it quickly became clear that he didn’t know where to find Bat Su, the street where I was headed. He asked a friend before we left the bus station and all seemed okay. Everything was okay and after over half an hour of squeezing through Hanoi’s rush hour trafffic we made it to Hoan Kiem lake only ten minutes walk from my destination. This is where it went horribly wrong in but proved to me that it’not just the tourists who get horribly lost. Headinmg toward Bat Su he took a wrong turn and completely overshot the guesthouse we were now on the north side of the guesthouse on streets I didn’t recognise. Further more many of the narrow streets were so rammed with people bikes and motorbikes that every agonising wrong turn took an age. The driver eventually admitted defeat and stopped to ask direction, repeatedly. We slowly homed in on my destination and eventually made it. The taxi was the cheapest metered one I’d seen so rather than getting away with a very cheap ride I ended up paying about what I’d expected to. I headed into the Hanoi guesthouse pleased to see that Thin, the fantastic day receptionist/hotel manager was still there as I had only booked this night at the last minute and, being full, I was being put in their sister hotel 100m down the street.

The sister hotel is actually nicer than the Hanoi Guesthouse in terms of the room interiors but it didn’t feel quite as clean and my small room didn’t really have a proper window. The Hanoi guesthouse is still far preferable thanks to the extremely well cleaned rooms and the excellent staff who really seemed to go above and beyond the call of duty to look after you and don’t try to push tours or other services.

I went out for a cheap and tasty dinner at the mock meat restaurant followed by drinks at Cafe Sago looking out over the lake. I finished the night with one expensive drink slowly sipped in Minh’s Jazz club where some pretty reasonable live jazz was playing. The Rugby world cup match with England vs South Africa was playing at 2.00am and, having nothing planned for the next day I stayed up to watch it. I shouldn’t have bothered as England were destroyed by South Africa though I thought the score of 0 to England was a little harsh and while they did deserve to lose I thought they deserved at least a few points.

On the second day I got up surprisingly early bearing in mind the late night, sorted out my bag as I now had not a single piece of clean clothing and took my laundry to the Hanoi guesthouse. I checked out of my temporary hotel and into the Hanoi Guesthouse where I was given the best room in the hotel, a double on the top floor with a huge private balcony complete with a stone table and stools. For dinner I went to Baan Thai, a thai place for expats thais that we had been meaning to check out. The food was excellent and reminded me what I missed about Thai food the fresh vegetables with plenty of heat and a taste I haven’t had in any Vietnamese food. I finished the night with a home brewed belgian beer in the Red Beer microbrewery bar and then went to our favourite spot for a couple of disgustingly cheap bia hoi.

Anyway I had better go I’m writing this from the airport as I wait for Alex’s flight which is landing about now. I got the local bus here which was both very cheap and almost impossible to track down so I left plenty of time and got here an hour early. I’m very excited about seeing Alex even though its only been three weeks I have missed her a lot. Okay really better go now.

Chris

We took the train down from Hanoi to Ninh Binh, a small city about 90km south of Hanoi. We were met by a guy from the Thanh Thuy hotel which we had booked. We were told we’d be given a motorbike ride to the hotel with our bags but when question he told us that it was only a two minute ride. We arrived at the hotel and quickly checked out the hotel’s restaurant menu. We had read in the guide that weren’t really any restaurants in Ninh Binh and so most people ate at their hotel. After looking at the menu and noticing a distinct lack of vegetarian food we asked if they could make me some to which the reply was ‘no’. Unimpressed we asked if there was somewhere nearby that we could get something that I could eat and were told about a restaurant around the corner. We headed over and were met by what looked like a seafood restaurant complete with several fish tanks with the day’s menu swimming around in them. Sceptically we asked to see the menu and although there wasn’t exactly a wide vegetarian choice I was pretty sure I could get a meal and since we were all pretty hungry we took a table.

We looked through the menu and I ordered the vegetarian dish, Craig inquired about the turtle and no sooner had he said turtle (in vietnamese) the waitress called to the guy at the counter who immediately picked up the phone and started shouting turtle down the line. Realising that he was probably ordering a live turtle and that we might have to pay for the entire thing (at GBP14 per kg) we quickly made it clear that we were not interested and Craig ordered eel. Tom ordered a fish and a few minutes later our food arrived mine being actually quite tasty, Craig’s being a pile of chopped up cooked eel, head and all and Tom’s being an entire large fish seasoned and covered in veg. Tom thought that he’s need help with this but actually the fish turned out to be surprisingly unmeaty. In the evening we headed out to a popular Bia Hoi spot where we were quickly shown to plastic kid’s chairs around  plastic table and handed large glass of Bia Hoi for 10p each (alternatively a large plastic pitcher was available for 60p). The locals quickly made us feel at home by offering us their snacks (large thick rice cakes bigger than a popadom and covered in what looked like toasted sesame seeds, along with dried, toasted and shredded squid) , cigarettes and even their beer which we had no use for having full glasses. A couple of locals came over from another table said cheers and downed their full glasses, Craig followed and was given a round of applause. The toilet at our wooden poles and canvas bar was the river just behind the bar which we avoided as long as possible but eventually had to use. We reciprocated by buying our new found friends a pitcher of beer and stayed around for some more drinks the locals didn’t really seem used to tourists and we were most definately a novelty to them. Just at the point that we were actually getting quite drunk we decided to leave and paid the GBP2 bill to the owner who seemed genuinely pleased to have us as customers though this most likely because we attracted more people to his bar to observe the westerners. We headed back for an early (10.00pm) night and to sleep off the local beer and snacks. The next day we had planned an early start so we could hire bikes and see Tam Coc, an inland equivalent of Ha Long Bay and Hoa Lu the site of an ancient temple.

We got up a little later than planned the next morning but were still out on our three speed rickety bikes by about 9:30am. We were given a hand drawn map and recommended the country road to Tam Coc. In actual fact the map turned out to be more of a general impression of where we needed to go with roughly the right roads marked. We proceeded by heading in what I thought was the correct direction (west then south) and asking directions from the locals at regular intervals. Surprisingly we made pretty good time and were surprised when, cycling along the road we saw the ticket office with a woman beckoning us over. We had heard horror stories about being pestered by locals and in fact on the way in had already been chased by a woman pointing us the wrong way telling us that she’d take us their and give us a tour. We paid for our tickets, took our bikes to a place we had been told we could leave them for free and found the place where we would board our boat. Our boat was another sampan like at the perfume pagoda but this time we were joined by a guy who rowed and an old woman who had a paddle but almost immediately handed it to us inviting us to paddle. The boat ride was meant to be two hours and we started by heading along the water and through some natural caves that formed tunnels. After about 30 minutes I was getting a little bored as although the scenery was beautiful I wasn’t really at ease sitting next to an old woman who didn’t really speak and was obviously only along for the tip. We reached the end of the waterway turned around and stopped. Immediately refreshments boats pulled up along side us offering us food and drinks. Politely but firmly declined and after a couple of minutes they gave up. Our rowers, realising that we were not easy to break started to quickly row us back to the dock. On the way the woman produced all kinds of hand made good from a chest and I was expecting to bear the brunt of the sales pitch for the last 20 minutes of the ride. Surprisingly after we all refused her wares she put them away and didn’t mention them again. We got back to the dock where we were asked for a tip and seeing their lack of persistance we gave them something small.

We headed back to the hotel where we’d left our bikes and, feeling hungry, had a basic lunch a got back on our bikes to head to Hoa Lo. I had heard of some abandoned resort nearby where you could walk up the mountain and get a good view and sure enough on the way back we spotted a sign down an empty road to a ‘tourism resort’. We headed down and were greeted by a women selling tickets for admission, obviously not so abandoned! We walked into the ‘resort’ which consisted of adandoned bars and souvenir shops and even a long abandoned water puppet theatre around a pretty ornamental lake complete with statues. The place had obviously been scaled back due to a lack of visitors but they did still have a couple of staff keeping the paths clean. We walked around and then headed to the steps up the rock which was about 200m high and almost vertical. the steps had been built to allow people to get to the top. We walked up the path and quite a while later all feeling very tired we arrived at the most amazing view I have seen in a long time. I don’t really have time to explain it but I’ll put up some photos soon. It was like being perched on the top of a skyscraper and even gave me a hint of vertigo. We stayed up there until our legs had somewhat recovered and headed back to the bikes. Seeing us dripping with sweat the ticket lady offered us shade, cold drinks and the use of her fan which we gladly accepted. After this we cycled home, back through the country roads, tiny villages and stunning scenery, to the hotel. That evening we went for food at Xuan Hoa a little hotel run by Xuan and his wife Hoa and the rest of their family who were very nice and we even got a game of chinese chess out of one of the family (we lost, badly). The food was great for Vietnamese food and they were very willing to cater for me providing separate meat and non meat spring rolls for Craig and Tom and I. After dinner they brought out shot glasses and a water bottle for what they called ‘Ninh Binh water’ which turned out to be a home brew rice based spirit at least as potent as a strong whiskey. We ordered a taxi and headed back to the Bia Hoi bar. We were enthusiastically greeted by the owner who insisted on shaking all of our hands. We had a few drinks and again made a few friends but tonight we concentrated on debating nuclear power which inevitably led to nuclear weapons which caused quite a heated debate. Once the debate got loud enough that we might have been at risk of offending the locals we headed back to the hotel to finish the discussion and get some sleep.

The last day in Ninh Binh was largely concerned with how we left the city. I was going back to Hanoi to wait for Alex to arrive while Tom and Craig were heading down to Hue. This was a day earlier than we had originally planned but there was nothing more that we really wanted to do in Ninh Binh, we did actually head over to Hoa Lu in the afternoon but were not there long enough to actually see much as I had to get back for my bus. Travel wise we eventually settled on buses my bus left at 4pm and was a minibus that for the same price as leaving at the bus station, picked me up at the hotel saving me a motorbike taxi ride. Tom and Craig opted to take a brand new ‘sleepy bus’, an air conditioned coach with almost fully flat beds. Unfortunately for me my bus did not take me to the centre of Hanoi but to the south bus station 7km out of the centre of the city, however since this is the end of the Ninh Binh story I will continue in a new post.

Before going to Sa Pa I got us all to look at the plan for the remainder of the holiday as we didn’t have one and I very concerned that we had very little time so see a lot of things including the all important trip back to Bangkok through Cambodia and for me and Craig the highlight of the holiday, Angkor Wat. We sat down and had a big discussion looking seriously at the time we had left after Alex landed in Hanoi. We planned to travel several thousand kilometers in three weeks including visits to about five towns in Vietnam, a crossing to Cambodia a quick visit to the capital Phnom Penh and a journey up to Angkor Wat and on to Bangkok where both Tom and Craig were keen to spend at least three nights. I really didn’t think this was feasable unless we spent most of our time travelling and spent very little time (1 night) at the places we planned to visit. I also knew that Alex had just finished several months of solid work on her dissertation and probably needed a more relaxing holiday above anything else. We looked at where we wanted to go and how long we wanted at each place and all agreed that we had nowhere near enough time to do everything. This left us the options of cutting out a lot of the coast of Vietnam or cutting out Cambodia. While I really didn’t want to sacrifice Angkor Wat we estimated it would take 2 days travel to get there from Ho Ch Minh city and then 2 days to get to Bangkok. When you add in at least 2 nights in Angkor Wat and the 3 in Bangkok this left us about 1 and a half weeks in Vietnam after Alex arrived to travel almost 2000 kilometers and see the largest part of the country. Since we would be in a lot better position if we didn’t have to wait for Alex to arrive I offered to let Craig and Tom continue down the coast and I would wait for Alex. Thankfully they wanted us to travel together and after some discussion we agreed that the best plan was to sacrifice Cambodia, make a reasonable job of seeing Vietnam and fly straight from Ho Chi Minh city to Bangkok. This is a real shame but from looking at flights on the Internet we discovered that from another holiday in Thailand which both Tom and Craig are planning it is pretty easy to fly near to Angkor Wat straight from Bangkok. We decided to continue up to Sa Pa and make a proper plan when we got there but after discussion with Alex booked flights straight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok as these might sell out.

We decided to get the night train to Sa Pa as it is a 10 hour train ride and a soft sleeper cabin only costs GBP 6 per person. The Hanoi guesthouse booked this for us as well as a taxi to get us to the train station which is luckily not too far from ‘home’. We were led to the train by a local kid who gave us no choice and was sorely disappointed with his 5000 dong tip (still pretty reasonable when you consider that many people get only 30,000-40,000 dong for a days work!) . We were in a four person cabin with the 4th person being either a Vietnamese businessman or a Japanese tourist. Either way he was as friendly as you can be while speaking not a single word of English and our 3 words of Vietnamese only solicited more smiling and head nodding. He did however lie down and turn off his light the second we left the station so we made a sharp exit from the cabin and went to look around the train. We walked down the train for several carriages until we encountered a guard who I think told us that there wasn’t a dining carriage or if there was we weren’t allowed to go there so we headed back the other way. Being first class our carriage was number 1 so we headed forward and found a storage carriage complete with floor space, guards and an open side. The guards wouldn’t let us sit down so we considered bribing them but having no cigarettes or spare drinks and worrying that money might get us in trouble we opted to head back to the carriage and sleep. Sleeper trains that I have travelled on in the past have been slow, quiet sedate affairs that mean you get at least an okay night of sleep. This train was a whole different story, it travelled at what felt like breakneck speed (probably only 30-40mph) and bumped, jolted and rocked pretty much constantly. Surprisingly I managed to get a reasonable amount of sleep, I only woke up a few times! Craig slept like a corpse as usual but unfortunately Tom didn’t sleep to well and was slightly rumpy the next morning as a result. The train arrived at Lao Chai, the nearest train station to Sa Pa, at 5:30am and we all staggered off the train half asleep to look for our pickup. Expecting a sign saying Tom Hopkins we were surprised to only see a sign saying Thomas held up by a driver outside the train station so we flashed the business card for the Royal Sa Pa Hotel, he told us to get in his minibus, we confirmed the price for the transfer (about 80p) and we climbed in. After waiting for the rest of the people that he was picking up we headed out of Lao Chai to start the 30 something kilometer transfer to Sa Pa. The road was small and mountainous but this didn’t stop the driver overtaking on blind corners (at slow speeds but still bloody dangerous). It was obvious that they had had some pretty heavy rain the night before and we regularly had to swerve to avoid rockfalls and mudslides that often covered most of the road. Eventually just over half way to Sa Pa our minibus came to a halt behind a queue of other minibuses, lorries and cars. The driver got out to investigate and after 5 minutes with no explanation we followed. We walked to the front of the queue to investigate. We saw some half finished concrete reinforcements that were being built to stop the rockfalls and mudslides. The heavy rain had washed lots of the recently disturbed mud over the concrete barriers where it had headed down and pooled in a low part of the road. The mud had been deposited on a 10-15m stretch of road and was about 1ft deep. One of the minibuses had tried to get through and had sunk into the mud only 2 metres into the muddy area. Motorbikes being lighter and better able to avoid it were just about getting through but were still struggling. At this point we resigned outselves to either a long walk or a long wait. Since it was raining and a walk could take hours on roads that were unsafe we opted for the long wait and estimated that it would be at least a couple of hours before we could cross. Luckily due the road works there was a digger at hand and it started scooping mud out of a section of the road. We thought this would still take ages but were amazed to discover only 30 minutes later that the digger has cleared enough mud for vehivles to start to cross so we climbed back on board and successfully crossed the mud. We arrived in Sa Pa 20 minutes later and were dropped off at the Royal View hotel which looked very expensive and most definately out of our price range. Our bags were whisked into the Hotel by a porter and we were asked to check in. Upon check we discovered that the booking for Thomas was only for two people and we insisted now for the 3rd or 4th time that we were booked into the Royal Sa Pa hotel not the Royal View hotel.  They insisted on calling our guesthouse in Hanoi who explained the situation to them and we were told clearly that we hadn’t already paid for our stay. We knew this already but it became clear that they were convinced we were on some pre booked tour like everyone else. Yet again I showed them the business card of the Royal Sa Pa hotel and pointed to the map clearly showing that we were not in this hotel. They suddenly realised their mistake and took us by minibus to our hotel, the cheap hotel in their family of hotels. We checked in to the correct hotel and were given a choice of rooms, one higher up with what we presumed was a better view but a double and a single bed and one lower down with the single beds. I hadn’t slept well in the massive double with Tom so wasn’t keen to repeat the experience but Tom and Craig wanted a good view so we checked out the room. The bed was a small double and the view was of the street rather than the surrounding countryside so we went for breakfast as the other room was still in use. After breakfast we went for a walk to look for a good tour agency and found Handspan travel as recommended in the guidebook, Tom was keen to do a 2 day, 1 night trek, Craig was willing to go with the majority and I, while willing to do the 2 day trek was concerned that it might be a little too hard sell touristy, and more importantly was very unwilling to go too far from a decent western toilet as my stomach was giving me some pretty serious problems, I won’t go into detail. Since it was the morning and we had most of the day we were keen to do some kind of day walk for the first day as we had 1 night already booked at the hotel. We were told that mine and Craig’s trainers weren’t up to the task while Tom’s being more sport trainers were okay. I headed back to the hotel to use the toilet and on the way was given the key to the downstairs room with the 3 beds. I visited the room which was big and had a great view so accepted it pending Tom and Craig agreement. Tom and Craig came back to the hotel and discovered that the hotel offered the same treks as Handspan travel for half the price. They also could hire wellies to me and Craig very cheaply which meant we wouldn’t have to buy walking shoes.

Our first trek for one day was with Hwan a guide provided to us from the hotel and was a day of walking around the countryside visiting villages of the White, Black and Red Hmong peoples who are ethnic minorities living in the area (the colours are of their traditional dress not their skin). The walk was good fun, if quite relaxed, but when walking through villages we were hounded by local women trying to sell us their home made traditional clothing. The women were persistant and would not take no for an answer. I found it easiest to resist having experienced this sort of persistant selling in Africa many times. I also knew from experience that if you bought something it would not satisfy them and they would just try to sell you more until either they ran out of goods or you ran out of money. After the walk we went into the town for some food where Craig tried wild pig (the more exitoc meats he wanted to try were unfortunately sold out) and I had some surprisingly good pasta as my stomach was still rough and they’d run out of tofu! After food we found a bar with a darts board, pool table and a computer where they encouraged you to choose your own music from a wide range of MP3s. We discussed what to do the next day. Tom had gone off the homestay idea after the persistant tactics of the very people who’s guest you would be and we could all see that as a captive audience we would very likely all come back dressed from head to toe in traditional Hmong women’s clothing. We decided to take another day walk followed by the night train back to Hanoi. The Royal Sa Pa hotel where we slept was an experience. The sheet on the bed was clean but the cover on the pillow and duvet (it’s cold in Sa Pa) looked and smelled like they hadn’t been changed for a while. We opted to sleep in our sleeping bag liners. The second days walk was much more interesting with fantastic scenery and a more challenging route. Unfortunately it was full of tourist groups and this time the local women actually followed us from the town along the whole walk trying to sell us their goods. Once we got near the end of the walk the most persistant of them insisted we bought something since they had walked all this way with us! Tom and Craig broke just after lunch and once Craig expressed a slight interest in a shirt one woman was selling they were litterally mobbed by over 20 old women all thrusting various overpriced but admittedly beautiful and skillfully made articles at them. I made a hasty exit, left them for dead and took a picture of them being surrounded which I’ll post up here when I get a chance. After about 5 minutes Tom and Craig managed to escape with their wallets only 100,000 dong lighter (about GBP3) and a couple of beautiful if useless items of clothing. To be fair Craig actually got quite a nice shirt. The second day’s walk was with a lone American woman in her mid twenties called Julia. She was very nice and we had quite a chat. I think she had been on her own for quite a while though as even when talking to me she did almost all the talking! We went for some dinner again to the same place as before with Julia joining us where I had a nice Tofu dish at a decent price. Unfortunately they were still out of the really exotic meats so Craig had to settle for venison. After food we headed back to the hotel for a transfer back to Lao Chai for an overnight train back to Hanoi, soft sleeper again that we booked through the Royal Sa Pa hotel. We got to the train to discover that our 20 dollar soft sleeper was actually the 13 dollar hard sleeper with 6 beds per cabin rather than 4 meaning that the bed was much like a coffin that you had to slide into sideways. Since there was also no luggage space Craig and I both had to sleep with our feet on top of our bags. We arrived back in Hanoi at 4.30am and got a taxi to the Hnaoi guesthouse to pick up some clean clothes. Since it was still closed and not wanting to wake the night receptionist we sat on the steps and watched Hanoi come alive in the morning. They guy opened up the guesthouse at 5:30am I used the time to write my previous post. Our next destination was Ninh Binh a small city south of Hanoi we decided that we would all go there together then after 3 nights I’d come back to Hanoi to meet Alex and Tom and Craig would continue down the coast a few days earlier stopping on the beach for a few days on the way (something that they were really keen on but I knew neither I or Alex would be). Before leaving we complained to the Hanoi guesthouse about the rip off train booked through the hotel that they had recommended. The Hanoi guesthouse are very trustworthy and Thin the lovely lady who works on reception in the daytime immediately phoned up the Royal Sa Pa hotel to complain for us. The hotel refused to refund our money and there is nothing more that we could do. Thin also waived the hotel’s commision on the next train ticket that we bought which was a very nice gesture. 

It is now several days later I have returned from Ninh Binh which I will write about later and upon my return I was told by Thin that they are going to refund us a further 50,000 dong since we were ripped off. They will take this money out of tour money that they owe to the Royal Sa Pa hotel and if the hotel doesn’t like it they will end all ties with the hotel! Whis now means we had just over half the money that we were overcharged by returned which is a nice bonus since we’d already written it off to experience.

Well I have been writing for a couple of hours now and am very tired and hungry I hope to write about Ninh Binh later or tommorrow so that I am up to date before Alex arrives as once she gets here I will have even less time and a busy schedule to see the remainder of Vietnam.

Well we’ve now been in Vietnam for several weeks and we’re all getting a little tired of the food. In comparisn to Thai food it is bland and seems to be very similar no matter what restaurant you go to. While we have heard a lot of positive things about Vietnamese food it seems especially hard for me as a vegetarian to eat a varied diet. For example the average vietnamese vegetarian dish is tofu in a tomato and onion sauce. This is actually very nice when done well but after eating it on a regular basis it gets pretty boring. So to finish this rant on Vietnamese food on the evening after we spent the day at the perfume pagoda we decided to go for an Indian! We ate at a restuarant called Tandoor which is owned by a family who also own an all vegetarian Indian restaurant. Bearing in mind I haven’t noticed anyone looking at all Indian in Hanoi the food was excellent. It was also the first time in ages that I have eaten from a metal tray segmented for the different curries, raita, rice and naan. In fact I think that the last time I remember doing this was with the Olivers at some long ago Hari Krishna meal. After food we went for drinks  and an early night as we were all pretty tired. Hmm all this happened a week ago as i’ve been unable to bring this up to date for a while so my memory isn’t great. I’ve just realised that in my last post I said we went to Sago for food but it doesn’t really matter as everything I’ve said here happened I’m just not 100% sure as to when. 

Anyway the next day was a pretty slow one. I think the days of early mornings and not particularly good sleep were starting to get to us so we had a bit of a lie in. In the afternoon we went to the Army museum unfortunately by the time we got there it was getting a little late and it closes quite early, we did however still get to walk around some of the museum and see the impressive collection of US aircraft and vehicles both complete and wreckage that were captured the by Viet Cong.

After the museum we sipped Italian sodas and played chess and chinese chess at an upmarket cafe (hence the sipping) in the grounds of the museum. Shortly after we arrived in Hanoi Craig bought a cheap travel Chinese chess set that were are using to learn how to play. It seems like a pretty good game although I find learning very frustrating as I want to start employing clever strategies but find myself spending ages just trying to work out how to move the pieces. I can’t yet spot where I am vulnerable without a lot of effort which makes the game very hard. Playing Chinese chess has made us a few friends with the locals who often seem very keen to offer advice or play a game against us (they always win easily even when the three of us play together). After we were finished in the Army museum cafe we headed to the road to look for a taxi however this being rush hour it took us quite a while to find an empty one. We got in and Tom told the driver that we wanted to go to I-Box, a bar on the way back that while usually too expensive for us to drink in was currently in happy hour where beers were 2 for 1 making them a reasonable price. After driving for a few kilometers we realised that we were going the wrong way and questioned the driver. It turned out that he thought that Tom had directed him to the airport an hour’s drive. That could have been a very expensive taxi! We eventually arrived at I-box and ordered a round of beers and a couple of half price Mojitos. Once we had finished our first Mojitos we asked for the second ones (we bought two and therefore get 2 free). To cut a long story slightly shorter when happy hour finished and the bill arrived we were charged for 4 mojitos and got 2 for free, this seemed odd as we had only recieved 4 in total so we questioned the bill and were informed that the first 2 mojitos were doubles which we had requested. We hadn’t and furthermore since when can you get a double mojito? Tom and I who had had the first 2 mojitos had wondered why we were feeling surprisingly drunk on only a couple of drinks so once we saw the bill we realised that we had in fact received double mojitos. After a lot of arguing and a talk with the manager well handled by Craig, the most sober of the three of us, we had the drinks reomoved from the bill and paid the price we had expected to pay. After leaving we had a bit of an argument because Tom and Craig seemed to think that the place was intentionally trying to rip us off whereas my opinion was that it was their mistake due to the language barrier. When we left our waiter looked a bit upset and was very keen to make it clear that it was a mistake and wanted our confirmation that the cocktails had actually been doubles rather than singles and that they were not trying to rip us off. Luckily when we could see that we weren’t going to agree on this we ended the argument decided not to fall out over it and go for some food and soft drinks! While eating we watched part of a Vietnam vs Qatar football match on TV. After food we went for drinks and football at ‘Le Pub’ as England were playing Israel. They had a big screen so we spent the evening watching the game with some fellow English people.

The next morning Tom and Craig got up early to go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. I slept in as this is the one sight in Hanoi that I am saving for Alex’s arrival. Afterwards we went out to a local grilled fish only restaurant that Tom and Craig were really interested in. Afterwards with my stomach giving me some ‘issues’ we went to Papa Joe’s a place that also served western food so that I could eat something that was hopefully calming on the stomach. After lunch we went to a tailor to get me a suit made. We had already been in for a quote and I could get a suit made with two pairs of trousers for about GBP60. This seemed like a good idea and even if the quality wasn’t great it would still be very cheap. After designing my own suit we went for a few games of pool where we won 3 games each! We had pizza in the evening at Sago, our regular haunt then headed back to the Hanoi Guesthouse for the night train to Sa Pa.