Posts about Vietnam
Life in the fast lane
As the plane begins its final approach to one of the ‘hardest places to land’ and you release your white knuckled hands from the arm rest for a few seconds to lift the window cover and look outside, you are greeted with something fascinating. There is a line that runs along just below the horizon over Hong Kong, on one side of this line there are high rise buildings, fluorescent signs that advertise numerous digital companies and a spaghetti of roads full of flashing lights and flashy cars. on the other side of this line is a huge expanse of green. The entire city is surrounded by fields, jungle and waterfalls. the difference between these two environments is huge, and fact that they are resting next door to each other is an amazing thing to see from the air.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The last few days in Vietnam were fantastic. Hanoi was much faster than any other town we have been to, but there was ten times the amount of scooters on the roads, making crossing them an adrenaline sport. Every street looks very much the same, which meant that when we got lost, it took a long time to make our way back to home. But along the way we found a local market, one that not many westerners seemed to have found as we were the only ones in sight. After a little battering (3 DVDs and the complete 24 box-set for around £12) we did make it home.
Over the two days that we were there we managed to get to the War Museum, where I found out that the country has been ripped apart more times than thought, what with the French sticking there head in there as well at some point over the past 100 years. Some of the jeeps and planes that were left over were fairly haunting, some of them having plaques drilled into them expelling how many people were killed with them. Chilling stuff.
In the evenings it was all about the celebration. We found a bar on top of a block of flats, cleverly named ‘Top Pub’ which turned out to be a little dodgy, as when police came round, the music was turned off and we were told to keep our voices down and to pretend that we were infect friends with the bar man who had just come over for a casual drink. The bar man had a LOT of friends. Once they left the music instantly started again when I am fairly certain they were still in earshot. After far too many cocktails (which you got for free if you stood on one leg for 4 minutes, which gets harder after your 5th) we all stumbled into a taxi that drove around a few times before going to the hotel, watch out for this, it happens a lot, especially to drunk tourists!
The were some swift goodbyes in the morning, with the rest of the group heading into Lous and us jumping on our plane to Hong Kong, it was amazing to go up Vietnam with them all, and was a shame that we had to say goodbye so soon as they all rumbled off to the party capital of South-East Asia.
Hong Kong is a city full of rich businessmen and high rise 5* hotels. It’s no more expensive than it is back in the UK, but after going through a country that asked you for no more that 70p for a beer in the nations capital, it was a bit of a shock when the bill for our first meal come through. It would have been alright though if the food and service had been anything like what I had experienced in Vietnam, but alas it was not. On a recommendation from a guide book, we went to a restaurant in the City Hall. The place must have been a school hall at some point in its life, which had been closed down and then filled with tables, chairs and chandeliers. Avoid it if you can!
Here, they have something that works very similarly to the Oyster card back at home. Although here it’s imaginatively called the Octopus card. The public transport system is pretty sound all the time, and not only does the Octopus card work for all modes of transport, you can also use it in the 7-Elevens all aver town (like co-op, only smaller and there’s one every other shop). Even though this is great, you can’t eat food on the trains, at all. Annoying when my stomach was crying out for some food and I’m sitting there holding a bad full of biscuits, bread and cream cheese (the ONLY cheese you can actually buy out here).
The night life here is fantastic, and not as expensive as you think it might be after spending a day watching the back account suffer. I have a friend out here who moved out with her parents a few years ago, and she is well versed in the night time scene. Katie took me to a bar, ‘Carnegies’ in the centre on town. Here, the booze is stacked on the shelves behind the bar like a library and the way the bar staff get them down is using a ladder very much like the ones you would see in a library to slide back and fourth and drop them down to the colleague waiting at the bottom. You dance on the bar all night, and on wednesdays and thursdays it’s ‘ladies night’ so all girls drink free. Have a female friend with you helps and most of the time there are so many people there and you are ordering through someones legs so the bar staff have no idea that every girl is taking two drinks and handing one straight over to a male friend behind them. Twas a cheep night for all!!
The Hong Kong island is only one part of the entire city, and to be honest not the most exciting one. Whilst it has all the bars and night life, as far as things to do during the day it falls a little short. there is a place called the peeks, where you can get a tram up to the highest point on the island for another amazing view of the different environments in the city, but thats about it. There is also the ‘Big Buddah’ that you can find on the next island, the same island with Disneyland Hong Kong and the airport on it (diverse I know), which is definitely worth the very long cable car ride to it, but pray for good weather. being so high up in the mountains the whole place is prone to disappearing into the clouds.
If you ever do manage to make it Hong Kong, something that is a must is truly experiencing the sudden change between built up city to dense jungle. Right now, I just got back from an epic 4 hour trek up a (almost) mountain, where on one side of me there was a concrete jungle and on the other an actual jungle. We dropped down the other side and started hunting around for something special. We found it. Three hidden waterfalls are cut off by signs saying that there have been landslides and it’s too difficult to get there, saying that we have to turn back now for our own safety. But after bumping into an expat in a sandwich shop who turned out to be an experienced hiker, we were told to go for it, to climb around the sign, and climb down the old land slide (it had been a few years ago, and as long as it hadn’t been raining was still [relatively] safe). We did, and thank god we did. We fell upon one of the most beautiful water falls I have ever seen. If you are anywhere near here at any point, even if you are only there for a few days, get your trainers on (flip flops are a no go!!) and get out there, it’s well worth it, and the best hang over cure in the world!
Tomorrow, through various contacts made over the various nights out and friends of friends, I will be getting on a yacht, heading over to an exclusive yacht club, and dinning with the other half. Its a tough life!
Till then
Matt M
Suits, shirts and sleeper trains
A week further down the line and we have managed to stretch across the whole length of Vietnam, I am now sitting in my room over looking Ha Long Bay, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
A week ago I ended up in the Nah Trang Mud Baths after sitting by the pool for a good few hours nursing the burn that everyone had managed to acquire. It would seem that a bunch of white westerners was actually more of an attraction to the locals than the baths themselves, a fact I realised when an elderly Vietnamese man with black teeth came over and stroked my skin and laughed… its a strange country. The mud baths themselves were an experience, it turns out that they weren’t the thick kind of mud I thought they were going to be, more like an off green runny paste that you sat in for 15 minutes. Was still a good way to spend the afternoon, and good laugh had by everyone who came along, and at around £4 a pretty cheep way to spend it to.
After to heading the cash point and withdrawing 1,000,000 Vietnamese Dong (it’s pretty strange seeing that number coming across an ATM machine) we went on to board out second sleeper train. This time around, we were told that the train would not be waiting around for very long, that we would have to run to get on, and that if we weren’t on time it would leave without us. Yet getting a sweet on and fighting to get on that train was not worth the hassle.
The window was smashed, the mattress emitted an amazing amount of flies when you sat on it, and cockroaches had set up shop in most corners of the room. I felt unhealthy just sitting in there.
As if 8 hours wasn’t enough in that hell hole, the train broke down somewhere along the way for a further hour. I think in all I slept about an hour and half. Once again, there was a rush to get off the train before it started moving again. One upside to the whole thing was turning around to see one of the most incredible sunrises coming over the train. Every cloud.
Hói An is a small town that sits on a river that has been made famous for the amount of tailors that have set up shop here. For around £55 you can get a full suit with shirt and tie, all completely made to fit you how you want. How could I have said no?
It takes just over 24 hours to get the suits finished, but it’s totally worth it. I came out of the shop with the nicest suit I have ever owned, and for a quarter of the price I would have paid back home. Most of the girls I was with went about getting a fitted dresses as well, but this will take a little longer, mainly because they will look much more extravagant! I was offered the chance to get shoes made for me as well, but I thought I would draw the line somewhere!
On the first night in Hói An it was one of our groups birthday, and after a few hours of fittings, we all went to a bar restaurant called Before and After, which you can find nearer the river at the centre of ‘Old Town’ where a few of us carried on the night after the meal.
We were approached by an American who seemed to love that my name was Matt (I never found out why) who then shoved a leaflet into my hand explaining about a Beach Party and a free bus would take us to. Not one to pass up such an offer, I jumped on with Katie. Here you can get a bucket of some disgusting mixture of Red Bull, Orange Juice and Vodka in a massive bucket for 65,000 Dong (around £2.20), and after a couple of these you will be sufficiently inebriated.
A great way to cure a hang over in Hói An is to get on a coach at 8am and head to the My Son temples. Here they are using some of the US army jeeps left over from the war to cart you up the mountain to the ruins. One of the monuments in the complex was once considered the centre of the universe and there is a small statue of a penis that you can touch to give you a better libido. I hugged it.
We moved on the next day for a quick stop over in Hue (pronounced H-way), here there isn’t much in the way of tourism apart for a number of bars where you can find a handful of over travellers. But the one reason that you should go there is the opportunity to experience the crazy streets of Vietnam first hand. For 250,000 Dong (about £9) you can be taken on a tour on the back of a motorcycle around the rice fields and local villages around Hue, the views you get to see are incredible, and the adrenaline rush of riding at 30 miles per hour on the wrong side of the ride is, while ill-advised, a brilliant feeling!
The next day we set about on our epic 19 hour journey to Ha Long Bay. The journey went something like this: Sleeper train late by 1 hour, sitting in the pouring rain, sleeper train is better than the last one but teaming with roaches, watch movies, air con breaks, sweat through sleep, get off train, bus has flat tyre, ‘10 minute’ wait turns into an hour and half, drive to mechanics, wait another ‘10 minutes’ (45 minutes), back on bus, 3 hour journey to Ha Long Bay. I will never get annoyed at the London transport system again.
Ha Long Bay is easily the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. We got on a boat almost immediately and set off around the 1,968 islands around the bay on our own ‘Junk boat’. If you ever managed to do this, there are three things you should do: Visit the caves, go to the floating fishing villages and watch the sunset out at sea. All of these things are breathtaking. One thing you should avoid is the beach. There is apparently only one beach that you can go to during the trip (how true this is I don’t know and don’t want to know now that we are leaving!) it will cost you 10,000 Dong, it isn’t much, but it still isn’t worth it. It’s crowded, filthy and totally destroys the peaceful feeling you might have managed to acquire during the journey. There is a path behind the beach up to the top of the hill which will give you the most amazing view aver the islands, and that is what you should pay for, but avoid this beach at all costs!
We are about to set off for the wonderful capital city of Hanoi, and our last few nights in Vietnam, so I will write again once in Hong Kong!
Tell then.
Matt
Same, same but different!
As we had arrived ridiculously early – at a time so early that even the early bird contemplates having an extra five minutes lie in- our rooms at the hotel Vien Dong in Nha Trang were not yet ready for us, so we headed to the beach until noon. The sea was a refreshing cool temperature which was just as well as outside the water it was scorching. Fully aware of the ever present danger of travelling to far flung places as a self confessed quasi albino, I opted for the shade, protection and, if I’m honest, damn right laid-back funky style offered by one of those quintessentially tropical looking beach umbrellas and donned my ultra handy mauve aeroplane socks so as to not burn my feet. Lying back, I listened to the dulcet tones of Jack Johnson- essential music for a chilled out sesh on the beach and thought back to all the stress and strain of the previous year’s work. This, though completely unrelated, made all that hard work and effort worth it, as I tend to like to think of it as both a reward and a pick up from the last hellish year. Though naturally a little sad not to be able to share this with all my friends and family, I was thoroughly enjoying being able to lie on a beach and not be overly concerned about getting burnt. The others however, who had decided for whatever reason- either intent on getting a tan, or put off by the relatively cheap 30,000 DONG charge- not to get an umbrella all burnt horrendously badly, especially those with paler skin and those on doxycycline Anti-Malarials. So be warned, when heading to a beach in a super hot country, irregardless of what you may or may not be accustomed to doing in Europe, you should really think about some greater protection in far flung places. Everyone to a greater or lesser degree applied suncream but it didn’t stop them from turning a shade of red normally reserved for screaming babies and overweight men who attempt to do some jogging.
I was also in no danger of getting dehydrated as my newly acquired Vietnamese lady friend (no, not that kind!) was ever attentive to my needs (and her opportunity to make a tidy profit) and in between chats she scurried back and forth with ultra refreshing coconuts and water.
In the evening we went for a nice meal at… as recommended to us by our guide. The food was reasonably priced and the place had an amiable ambiance which made for a relaxing meal. The only thing which made me mildly uneasy was the gigantic leopard print eel which glared at me menacingly from his tank for the almost the entirety of the meal. It’s quite hard to enjoy yourself when you’re stuck in a face off between yourself and an enormous eel, but somehow I managed.
The next day we worked on finishing our first video blog, hampered ever so slightly by a weak wireless connection and intermittent power cuts. Once we’d sorted that out, we headed to the hot springs and mud baths which our guide Apple had told us about. A taxi shared between 4 came to about 75,000 DONG, working out at roughly … each, … in dollars. Entrance to the hot springs was free, but for the mineral mud baths there was the option of either a four person private mud bath totalling 700,000 DONG or access to the public ones working out at 100,000 per person. We opted for the public baths: a) because they were cheaper but more importantly b) because we weren’t segregating ourselves off from the locals. In the event we were guided to a bath for just the four of us- presumably they’d assumed that we would choose the private option, though later I joined in with some of the locals. I’d hopped out of our bath to take some photos with Matt’s new SLR when an ‘official’ photographer popped up and started snapping. I swivelled round and began to take some general photos of the place and my attempt at National Geographic-esque snaps of the locals enjoying the mud. It was at that moment when the Vietnamese photographer approached me gesturing to the camera and pointed at a group of women in a bath that I’d just photographed. Oh ok, don’t take pictures of them I thought- perhaps they don’t want to be in other people’s photos. Yet that wasn’t what he was trying to get at. What the women wanted was, in fact, a photo with yours truly. Umm… ok, I said, surprised at the request, though I suppose we are just as interesting and photo worthy to them as they are to us.
After my somewhat bizarre bonding session with the three women which, as far as I can gather, involved variations of the Vietnamese for ‘Man, how white is she?!’ and ‘what on earth is she wearing?!’ (apparently unbeknownst to us swimwear clad Brits, it was actually customary to dive in to the murky green liquid mud fully clothed, complete with jewellery and watches- not sure how they still worked!) we headed off to first shower and then hop into one of the luxurious hot springs where we were joined by some fellow travellers from Canada and the UK. Our next stop was a warm waterfall, which was exactly what are aching muscles needed. Finally we headed into the pools, both hot and cold to enjoy a leisurely swim before heading back to the hotel. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and one which I would recommend to anyone. The muddy water, although giving the appearance and smell of watery cement was in fact full of minerals which made your skin incredibly soft. Those with sunburn also mentioned that it appeared to soothe their discomfort somewhat. After wolfing down some delicious, and I’d have to say most authentically italian of all the pizzas professing to be so, (purchased from a charming lady from the restaurant Little Italy- she was so nice she even gave us some extra sauces for those who were taking their meals away with them- we headed back to the train station, safe in the knowledge that Apple had promised us that this train would be just as comfortable and well equipped as the last. Now I’m not trying to call anyone a liar here, but the Vietnamese (technically Apple’s thai but this rule applies to her as well) have a wonderful way of stretching the truth slightly to fit their purpose, and nowhere is it summed up better than in the oft heard phrase (so much so that it now appears on souvenir t-shirts) of ‘same, same, but different’! More of slight artistic license used by Apple to describe our second overnight sleeper next time.
Til then!
Becky
Monsoon season is still freakin hot
And so it all begins!!
Its been a few days now since we left the UK and already an amazing amount of stuff has happened. The first thing wasn’t as fun as I would have expected it to be however…
I got to the airport and began to prepare for the journey ahead only the realise that I had managed to leave the one thing that I never go anywhere without at home. My camera. Nightmare. After lots of swearing (I apologise to Becky’s parents for this as this was the first time that we met and I wasnt acting at my best) I calmed down, and figured that I was going to buy a new one anyway, and it would be cheapest abroad anyway, so not a total loss. Never the less, I was going to feel naked without it until i got the new one!
After the fury subsided, Alex (the big boss) gave us our ever fashionable STA T-shirts, which we had to immediately don to walk through the airport representing the company. Hmmm….
And so the time came to say goodbye to the family, my sister took a million photos as I headed through security and managed to hold back the tears as I wandered off. What a trooper! Got the security and for the first time in a long time managed to get all the way through without an alarm going off. Becky wasn’t so lucky. After they searched her bag (which revealed even more liquids in her bag after showing me the 500 bottles she had already removed before heading through) we were pulled aside and put through the new full body scans I had been reading about in the papers. Which was actually quite a lot of fun to be a part of! Not sure how we look like terrorists in our nice STA shirts.
The plane itself was amazingly empty and we ended up getting our own rows to ourselves. So a good nights sleep was in store.
After a long sleep (where I missed the dinner and the headphone I had from the airline were taken off my head by someone) we landed in Ho Chi Minh. At our transfer in Doha we had had 40 minutes to get to our next flight, and I never thought that our bags were going to be following us through. But against all odds, they appeared without problem!
Once in a taxi we got our first feel of the Vietnamese lifestyle. And it appears that the word is SCOOTERS, lots and lots of them!
All the way to the hotel we were surrounded by them, they outnumbered cars at least 10 to 1, and there seemed to be no rules to them whatsoever. Driving in Vietnam is suicide!
That night, I was thinking that we would have a nice quite one to recover from the jet lag and settle in, but it was not to be. After meeting our guide (cutely named Apple, who screams, loud, whenever she was drunk) and the rest of the group, we had dinner and then headed into town. The night was very much a blur after that and two hours sleep later, we were up for our first trip.
So still drunk and slowly moving into the realm of hang over we set off on the 1 and a half hour bus ride to the Cue Cho tunnels. I have to be honest, I did not think that crawling through tunnels the size of a coffin was going to be a very good hang over cure, especially when I was claustrophobic…
The bus ride was a good laugh and we got to know our group a little better, and pretty soon we were standing on the site of all those battles you see in the movies between the Viet Khong and the Americans. The sun was well and truly out and I was sweating as soon as I stepped off the bus, I could see what they meant when they said that the reason the americans did so badly was because they couldn’t handle this blistering heat!
We were shown one of the original entrances, which I couldn’t fit into, but Becky could, which I was pretty glad about as what lay underneath did not look like my idea of fun. Later on though, there was a much bigger entrance and I was told I would be able to fit into it. Not being one to back out of anything I gave the tunnels a try. I got about 30 metres and had to bail. Hats off to the Viet Khong, there is no way I would have been able to stay in those tunnels for any longer than 45 seconds!
On the journey back, I thought about maybe getting a little shut-eye, but then got distracted by the scenery that I had missed on the way there. It was beautiful. there were miles of green fields all around, framed by an array of mountains, and in the distance you could see massive rolls of mist floating around the bases of the looming shadows cast across the sky. It was breathtaking.
Once back, many of the group retired for a little shut-eye, but I had spent too long without my camera, so ventured out with a couple of others from the group in search of one! It took a couple of hours, but eventually I found success, and once again I can been that geek in the back you can hear constantly snapping away!
It was on this little trip that I found out was it was like trying to cross the road. Just like driving, it is suicide. No one stops for you, but if you walk slow enough, the hoards of scooters can drive around you. Cars on the other hand you really have to look out for. Nether the less, it is still terrifying to see 1000 scooters driving towards you at speeds that would kill you. You just have to believe that those driving them know what they are doing and that the years of experience they have on them is enough to save your life.
A quick shower later and we were packed and on the 9 and half sleeper train to Nha Trang. And I welcomed it with open arms. After the two hours sleep that I had had in 48 hours it was beautiful.
We were woken at 5.30 as the train pulled into the station and heading straight to the next digs. We dumped all our stuff into one room (as only one was ready) and headed straight to the beach, at 5.30, and yet most of the town seemed to be up already. it seems that everyone in Vietnam follows the rule of waking and sleeping with the sun.
We worked on the first video for most of the morning and spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach, where the water was beautifully cold, and so refreshing, seeing as sitting down for five minutes in the sun made you start to sweat. Everyone got burnt.
Painfully we all heading to dinner and most people couldn’t eat as they all had sun stroke… it was an early night for all involved. Unfortunately the hotel had had all the power cut off due to the building works next door so we couldn’t get into our rooms until later. And were we did the air con hadn’t been working all day. Nice sweaty nights sleep.
Later on today we’re heading to the hot springs around the corner and hopefully getting into a mud fight with the locals, at least that’s what we’ve been told!
Till Next time!!
Matt M