Heading towards the South of Vietnam involves planning everything carefully

Monday night.  There are five days left of my trip and still a little under 1,000km to go before Saigon.  A loud thick relentless rain is crashing against the pavements and buildings outside.  I decided now was a good time to take stock, recall the stories from all the travellers I have met along the way, and plan the rest of my route to Saigon.  In the west of course, it goes by its new official name of Ho Chi Minh, also in Hanoi – but the closer you get, the more it’s referred to as Saigon.  Traipsing through Rough Guides and the Hostelworld web site, I could only find $20+ hotels in Hoi An, which aside from the 14 hour train journey, is double what I have been already paying.

Screw it, I thought – I’ll work it out when I get there.  I’m not really one for planning, I feel it can ruin a perfectly good holiday of chance encounters and unexpected surprises.  If today was anything to go by, I couldn’t be more right.

I left Hue and its pouring rain in the morning, after a discount of $2.50 for the terrible inconvenience of having to go to the hotel across the street for my room, because the other was full.  “Would you like motorbike right to train station, sir?”  “Aaaaaargh”, I screamed, throwing my bags at the womans head.  “I don’t”, tossing over the chairs, “want”, kicking over some nearby plants, “a goddamned motorcycle!”.  I snapped myself out of my Scrubs-inspired imagination and replied solemnly, “No.  Thank you”.  “It’s free.  For the inconvenience of the room.”  I backed slowly away and started running for the door.  Well, it’s the principle of the thing.

After a short 3-hour train ride to Da Nang, I emerged out of the train station clueless about what to do next.  “Motorcycle?” came a distant voice.  I ignored him and made my way in the general direction of somewhere-else.  Minh was standing on the corner.  “Excuse me, you go to Hoi Ann?  Where you from?  I take you motorcycle, many people from London I take”.  Minh was more conversational than pushy, a trait difficult to come by in most of the motorcycle druglords I’d come across.  Most tour guides in Vietnam carry little black books around with them, filled with reviews of their services from all over the world.  The cynical among you might thing there’s a counterfeit store where you can get them made with your name.  I must see if I can find one for myself.

Minh came very highly recommended, and I didn’t notice that any pages had been torn out.  He took me to his friend who would take me the hour trip by car to Hoi Ann, for 200,000 dong.  Approx 10 pounds to you and me.  The motorbike was over half the price, and came with an authentic Vietnamese experience.  With my principles not as solid as I thought they were, off I went.  “Why don’t you go to Saigon on back of motorbike?”  Minh asked.  I laughed, yeah right.

When we arrived at Hoi An, Minh pointed me towards the My Chau hotel with spacious rooms, en-suite shower and bathroom, and large double bed for $8 a night.  Beats hostelworld hands down.  Once I’d checked in, we sat down and talked about my travel plans for the next 2 days.  “I take you place not in Lonely Planet”, they’re not in Rough Guides, either – and the idea was immensely attractive.  As with all good travel plans, the itinerary I had worked out for myself back in Hue was torn up and thrown away.  I now leave Hoi An at 8am with Minh, and we’re travelling to the Cham ruins at My Son, into the mountains and staying in a small local village named Hien, before returning to Da Nang and catching a night bus into Saigon on Thursday.

I’m looking forward to having a guide for the penultimate part of my trip, as well as leaving the well-travelled path a little bit, if not completely.  You can address me as Mr McGregor.

But before you do… Hoi An…

Random thoughts from the north of Vietnam

Some random small things I’ve picked up along the way was going to twitter, but decided there were too many, and they’re too long…


Eating snakes… One of the hostel legends – first you drink the bile, then the blood, then you eat the beating heart.  Apparently you can feel the heart beating in your stomach.  There’s a place just outside of Hanoi you can try it.  I’d only do it at the end of the travels though, nothing ruins a holiday like being violently ill.

Snake wine.  It has a dead snake dead scorpion in it.  And looks a lot like olive oil.  The rumours are that if you drink the whole bottle, the poison makes you blind.  I say put it in smaller bottles.

Even though the hotel I booked in Hue was full, I can still use their free wifi if I go over by the balcony.  Well, it’s only across the street.

The same hotel should change their router password… I can login with admin / admin.  You get this a lot in places that offer free wifi, why don’t all routers force you through changing the password when you first install it?  Plug and play that creates a rubbish system is still a rubbish system.

Vietnamese cities don’t have many massive landmarks that I can use to orientate myself.  The tall narrow streets are not helping.

So, my BGT-31 GPS has been a lifesaver.  Once I find a place like a hotel or a train station – I can mark it, and use it to create way points later on.    It tells me which direction I’m heading in; North, East, South or West, which I should be heading in, and how far it is.  It also makes me feel a bit like a ghostbuster if I hold it out in front of me while I’m walking.

I can’t sleep on trains if I’m lying down.  I had the same restless nights when I was in Croatia.  Remarkably falling asleep sitting up and talking to myself on the way home from work has never been a problem.

I often pass by Facebook requests from old school friends that I can’t remember from 5 years of school.  But I’ll happily add someone I’ve spoken to for only 15 minutes in a hostel.  And I still have to ask their name again, because “hey man” never returns any successful matches.

There are a lot of good rock bars in London that I don’t know about.  And it’s embarrassing finding that out from a Swedish bloke who lived there for only a year.

Seeing a live pig tied upside down on the back of a motorcycle was well worth seeing, no matter what the animal rights activists say.

I’m beginning to understand the phrase “more people die every year crossing the street, than do flying”… Londoners should still be afraid of flying.

The book sellers on the streets have offered me huge stacks of Lonely Planet Guides, but never Rough Guides.  I wonder how accurate their counterfeiting is, or wether the books contain helpful gems such as “you should stay at my place, very cheap”, and: “Always buy lonely planet guides from the local street book people.  They are cheaper and more accurate.”  All said and done, as Mike (I won’t take the credit) – at least they’re selling something tourists will find useful, and not some useless cheap tat.


That’s the lot.  It’s a bit of a strange format for me to add on the blog and I blame twitter.  It also makes me want to include some poem about friendship or love at the bottom, and request you send it to 5 of your closest friends.

Remember, if you get it back – someone loves you too.

No, I don’t want a &%*$@# motorbike

Motorbikes, everywhere

Motorbikes, everywhere

Since my last post, I’ve had a day in Hanoi, an overnight train to Hue and a day here exploring the Imperial City.  Tomorrow, I have a train booked to Da Nang, where I’ll hopefully be able to find some way to Hoi An, as well as a hotel when I arrive.

The food has been fantastic so far.  I can only describe it as a clash of Thai and Chinese foods,as you might expect.  Lots of noodles, rice, meats, and fish.  We went to one of the street restaurants on the night after getting back from Ha Long Bay, and I loved every bite.  A little bit saddened that nobody was brave enough to order an entire dish of the Noodles with Pigeon, sure… But my stomach will probably thank me for it in the end.  I still haven’t found these fabled banana leaf pate’s that are supposed to be really good, but the fried banana healthy-heart-attack is another trusty snack.

Secondly, I have to get the rant over and done with.  Motorbikes.  A typical conversation around Hanoi or Hue has been going something like this…
“Helloooo.”
“Hello.”
“Motorbike?”
“No, thank you.”
“where you from?”

And so on…

This is typically happening approximately every 30 seconds any time I’m anywhere near a road.  Which is basically all the time.  Variations are now beginning to include:  “Motorbike?”  “Yes it is…”  “You want ride?”  “No.”, and to toy with them a little more, “Moto’?”  “Cheese grater.”  “Where you from?”  Give them a blank look and walk off looking back suspiciously.  Everyone I meet has similar stories, and we all hate them.  I particularly enjoyed being lost in Hue looking for my hotel, with one motorbike driver telling me it was one way, and the next telling me it was the opposite direction.  One particularly helpful bike-spawn told me, “Nooooo, that’s very long way…2km”.   “No it’s not..”, I proclaimed pointing at the map before finding the hotel right around the corner.

The moral I’ve taken away from this is don’t trust the motorbike madmen, ever.

One random direction actually had me wandering around parts of the city I would otherwise never have found, and believe it or not – one of my favourite areas of Hue.  Never mind the citadel, the imperial city, or the museums – I found myself walking through what could only be described as the poor area.  Mud-track and decayed roads just minutes away from the attractions across the river, and endless streams of people pointing and staring at the crazy pale man with sweat pouring down his body carrying two large backpacks.

The more adventurous of the children offered a “hello” and a “how are you” before running back to their friends laughing and hiding.  Only one man offered me a motorbike ride and fortunately he was at the receiving end of a polite decline.  He then followed and talked with me as I walked.   “What’s your name?”  “Where you from?”  “Are you married?”  The three questions you can be guaranteed to be asked within the first two minutes of any conversation.  “See you again soon!” he yelled, as he waved me off so I could be pointed at and laughed at by the next group.

I felt like I was in the Vietnam of 20 years ago when tourists were a rarity barely ever seen and a novelty to the people who live here.  Or maybe I just looked like shit.  Still I felt as though I should be imparting some sort of western wisdom to the children following me killing time and practising their english, or the ones who thought they were incredibly brave by touching my arm.  Perhaps some Krispy Kreme  recipes or how to buy a McDonald’s franchise would save them from the rickety patched-up wooden shacks I saw all around me.  As a girl sped by me on a moped with live ducks, flapping to escape their handlebarred prison, I came across the local market selling fruits, vegetables, prepared meat, live meat, rabbits and dogs (I think both fall under the category of live meat).  Scattered all around were families sitting on plastic chairs, eating freshly cooked noodles.  “Perhaps they’re better off without that Krispy Kreme”, I thought.

I certainly wish  had more time to explore the smaller areas like these, escape from the cities and into the smaller towns dotted around the coast.  My time in Vietnam is going really quickly, and I still have at least half the country to cover, not to mention everything I’ve passed by on the way.  I have a feeling I’ll be coming back one day, I just hope I don’t leave it so late that McDonald’s and Starbucks poison the landscape and the minds of the Vietnamese.

Ha Long Bay – One of the 8th Natural Wonders of the World

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Ha Long Bay is said to be the 8th Natural Wonder of the World.  I believe it’s one of the many 8th natural wonders of the world that exist in a great number of places where the Tourist board have a say.  I’m pretty sure Plitvice Lakes in Croatia fulfilled the role of 8th natural wonder the world, as well as Gulfoss in Iceland.  Maybe these guys should get together.

Back to The Bay.  It was Thursday, I’d arrived at the hostel around 9pm, having lost an entire night.  Adrenalin must still be running, because I was awake at 7.30 the next morning to sneak myself onto the 8.00 tour of Ha Long Bay.  It involved a bus trip across to Ha Long City, a boat ride around the bay, a couple hours kayakking, back to the boat, eating, drinking and sleeping on the boat, before another trip around the bay and back to Hanoi.   Wait, kayakking?

It might help to know that I don’t swim.

My attempts at treading water have largely involved not treading water, and sinking in a mild but not unreasonable panic.  So it might be safe to assume that kayakking isn’t my sport / hobby of  choice.  Then again, holidays are all about trying new things, aren’t they?  And I was only dead for 6 minutes.

My parents read this, I shouldn’t joke.  The number of islands in Ha Long Bay varies widely depending on your sources.  But it’s an impressive amount limestone islands scattered around 1553 sq. km. of Ha Long Bay, and even more extending up the coast to China.  Rough guides say 1969 of them in the bay, and another two thousand along the route.  The result in the misty/cloudy weather was a seemingly endless scattering of rocks appearing and disappearing as the boat progressed deeper and deeper into the unknown seas.  The name itself means “Dragon Descending”, so called for the legend given to the area.  It tells of a celestial dragon sent by the Jade Emperor to stop an invasion.  This dragon spat out pearls which formed islands with jagged rocks to destroy the incoming fleet.  They say the dragons enjoyed themselves so much, they moved into the area themselves, and now live among the islands.

Didn’t see any though.

No matter how much we drank.

I suspect some of the others did.

The kayaking was also really good fun. Being two-man kayaks, I teamed up with the Swedish guy I met on the bus and we created a formidable team, after half an hour out on the waters, drifting,  sending ourselves into tunnels and around the islands we even worked out that we could steer our kayak and weren’t just the victims of fate of chance.  We’d lost the guide, most of the rest of the group, and our larger boat of course.  We made it back alive though, of course.

We had quite a large group of 27 people, and were served up some fantastic Vienamese food on the boat.  Beer and music was also in plentiful supply, as were the bottles of vodka, although perhaps fortunately, the drink wasn’t included in the cost of the tour.  I will note that it did feel very much like being on the set of Big Brother when the camp-sounding Yorkshire guy found his way over from a boat 2 decks down.  Like the new housemate, he continued to shout very loudly about the injustice of having missed the Backpacker boat, and ending up with a bunch of old people who had already gone to sleep.  “What does India stand for!?” he proclaimed randomly.   “I’ll Never Do It Again”, for no reason – before he started listing all the places in India he really enjoyed visiting.  Genius.

On the way back into Ha Long City, we picked up some more people who had been staying on one of the islands in the area and dropped a few off, greatly increasing our size, and weight on the boat.  “Is this boat leaning a bit?” We all wondered aloud.  “They are asking if you could all move to this side of the boat”, said Dao The Tour Guide, “it is because we are sinking”.

That was reassuring.

Fortunately, the age-old trick of almost everyone shifting their weight to the other side of the boat fixed the problem completely, and we only had to do the same once more before we arrived safely back on solid ground.  Those Vietnamese…

Well, it’s about time to go and find a computer online so I can actually post these past two entries, then it’s off into the Hanoi Old Quarter for a bit of exploration and food.

Good Day to You, Vietnam

I’m finding it almost impossibly hard not to start the entry with a popular line from a certain Robin Williams movie.  So impossibly hard in fact, that I’m going to mention it in the first paragraph and therefore keep my air of coolness and originality, but live up to all the clichés at the same time.

I’ve been in Vietnam for a few days now, and probably not unsurprisingly I feel behind on my blogging already. I could probably blame this on the jet-lag.  Except I don’t really feel any.  I left London on a cold November 19th.  With the time differences, long flights, and the changes in the weather…  It’s now June.

Well, an English June possibly.  It’s actually a pretty comfortable 22 degrees, and all the Vietnamese are walking round in coats complaining about how cold it is.  I guess they have a different idea of winter than we do 🙂

Hanoi.  Way up there in the North, and Vietnam’s capital is like the quiet step-brother of Ho Chi Minh, or so I hear.  Although it is where Ho Chi Minh has a huge state building to show off his glorified preserved waxy body to one and all.  An honour that I find rather odd, given he was said to be a much simpler man and requested a far humbler ceremony.

Hanoi appears at first glance to have twice as many motorcyles as it does people, and reminiscent of Istanbul with non-stop traffic, horn blasting traffic-dodging death traps of roads.  Ring-tones for car-horn replacements seem incredibly popular though, so that’s a new one on me.

My arrival consisted of no less than an 11 hour plane ride into Hong Kong (Gate 13, for luck), 1.5 hours into Hanoi, and a white-knuckle 10-20 minute taxi ride into the centre and to the Backpackers hostel.  Hong Kong provided the perfect stop-off point to pick up some Chinese drugs that James had helpfully recommended to help with stomach bugs (Po Chi I think, I can’t bring myself to check right now), as well as Tiger Balm for insect bites and numbing of the eyes, should it become necessary.  I can’t see how it would.  His advice was invaluable to the speedy exit from the airport though, and armed with the pictures he drew of the boxes – I was in and out in no time.

It was also my first opportunity to get some real Vietnamese Dong, having only stocked up on a few US Dollars, the unofficial currency of choice in Vietnam.  Ordering 1 million Dong made me feel a little bit like I was the richest man alive.  Paying 10,000 Dong to go to the toilet made me feel a little bit like I was being ripped off.

So far, all I have seen of Hanoi is a small walk around the lake in the dark, which is said to be heart of the city.  And that’s abundantly clear when you see the KFC perched on the corner.  Michael, one of the first people I’d met at the hostel was very insistent that I leave at the first opportunity (I’m sure it was nothing personal), so that got me booked onto the boat trip around Ha Long Bay, 3-4 hours bus ride to the east.