The Slitherants: The trip down south (Ninh Binh 28/05 - 30/05; Hue 31/05 - 2/06; Quy Nhon 3/06 - 06/06; Nha Trang - 06/06 - 10/06; Saigon 11/06

The trip down south...As we made our way down Vietnam we had a few stop offs in some smaller places but to be honest by this time we were getting a little tired of being travellers in Vietnam. Therefore I have decided to deal with these stop-offs in one post and just mention the highlights as there were not an awful lot of them. I hate to complain, but we were getting tired of being treated as the 'Great White Wallet with Legs' whereby every person that we encountered from the person making our lunch to the lady selling tickets at the train station has to charge you three times the actual price or worse, badger you to buy something wherever you go. On our trip down south we were both pretty much over being treated like suckers and we were starting to feel like we had been in this country for way too long. It's not all bad but when you get hit up by so many people wanting money from you all day, every day it kind of wears you down. Enough bitterness, sometimes you've just got to vent a little, back to the good stuff.

About three hours on the train south of Hanoi is Ninh Binh. This is a grubby little highway town for the most part, but off the main road is what can only be referred to as the inland version of Ha Long Bay. We decided to stay here for a couple of nights and check out the freaky karst stone rocks that spring out of the countryside like they've been dropped from above. Basically you pay to have a man and a lady row you up a river that passes through this other world type landscape and through three tunnels that have formed under these giant rocks. The scenery is pretty spectacular but there are so many boats on the river it gives the impression of being one large row boat race. The Vietnamese have an interesting style when it comes to rowing as they sit and row forward in their boats rather than facing backwards. They can also lie down and row the oars using their feet, kind of like a bicycle style, which looks hilarious but actually works.

We enjoyed the trip up and down the river through the rice paddies where the locals were harvesting and passing under the spectacular karst stone hills but, as usual, we were also expected to buy a host of unnecessary and unwanted items by our boat crew. It starts when the boat reaches the turnaround point on the river and a lady in another boat full of drinks and snacks rows over to you. She then tries to get you to buy her drinks and snacks and failing that she tries to persuade you to buy drinks for our boat crew. The scam is that if you buy the rowers a drink they won't actually drink it, but rather they will then sell it back for half the purchase price to the lady who sold it to you in the first place! Then on the way back the old lady breaks out a box of tea towels and other items she swears she herself has handmade (yeah right!) and expects you to buy something. This is after you've already paid to go on the trip in the first place! We both held firm and as I felt kind of guilty I offered to do some of the rowing on the way back to help out, but even so the lady as we neared the end of the journey started complaining that the trip was 'very cheap, very cheap' so we had to pay her some more money just to get off the boat! Nice place, but seriously, what a scam!

From Ninh Binh we took a twelve hour train journey to Hue, the ancient capital of Vietnam. As all the 'soft seat' tickets (that means a standard comfy chair) were sold out we had to get a 'hard seat'. A hard seat is pretty much your stock standard park bench bolted to the floor of the train. I was not looking forward to this! As it turned out my bony bum did better than I expected and I made it to Hue without needing a 'reconditioned arse' but goddamn, that seat was hard! The locals bring little mats and sleep on the floor under the seats rather than on the seats so you had to be careful where you stepped when you got up to go to the loo.

We had both been wanting to visit Hue as it was supposed to be steeped in history. The 'Ancient Citadel' is like a city within a city. It has a four metre high wall that runs for ten kilometres around the perimeter of the old city. Within this walled enclave is the 'Purple Forbidden City' which was the old Emperor's palace and home. Unfortunately, other than the cool old buildings inside the Ancient Citadel there was not much else of note to make Hue worth remembering.

As I have mentioned previously, Kate and I had both just about reached the end of our tether with the constant badgering from locals looking to rip us off. At one lunch we had in an average restaurant just outside the walled city gates the lady tried to charge us more than double the price of what our actual bill came to. These kind of things can add up and leave you with a less than favourable view of a place.
The real kicker came when, at our hotel, we rented a motorbike for two days and asked the staff to please bring it in for us at night so it wouldn't have to sit outside. This is common practise in Vietnam where any bike left out on the street has a good chance of being stolen so every hotel that rents bikes always brings them into the foyer at night so they will be safe. Well the next day when we set out on our journey to see some old temples just out of town we made it about 300 metres down the road when the bike suddenly ran out of petrol! So what?? I hear you ask; shouldn't you have filled it up the day before?? Well, we did!! We had filled it up the day before and driven one short trip out to the beach and back, about a 25km round trip, and anyone who has ridden one of these Honda Dream's knows they could easily do 150km's or more to a tank of petrol, they're just about the most economical bike you could hope for which is why all the locals ride them! So what happened to the petrol?? Our theory is that the person putting the bikes away for the night (you leave them your key) siphoned the gas! He obviously didn't realise that we were renting the bike for two days, not one, so he assumed he could siphon the gas and the person who hired it the next day would fill it up again. Wrong! It was us and we knew how much should have been left in there and this really pissed both of us off. It's not the money to fill it that we were cross about, as it only takes about $3 AUD to fill, but more the principle that someone we had trusted to park our bike had stolen all our gas! When we informed the hotel about this they, predictably, said that we must be mistaken and that it was our fault we had used all the gas and not realised it! Luckily I had been for a ride after we got new gas and had had a chance to cool off so I was not as mad about this as I had initially been. If I had a thief ripping off customers working for me at my hotel I would want to know about it-right?! But no, they blamed us so we just left them to it and were all the more glad we were due to be checking out the next morning. Hue in the end was a bit disappointing but there you go, what can you do?

Our next stop on our way south was to be Quy Nhon, which was reported to have a New Zealand owned hotel right across the road from the beach where we could chill out for a few days and escape the non-stop stream of hawkers, touts and badgerers who were beginning to take their toll on our enjoyment levels and our sanity! Once again what was promised to be a nine hour ride in a comfortable coach turned out to be a twelve hour trip in a sleeper bus where anyone over 5'4" will be unable to fit their person into the tiny seats. Shit!! I'm trying hard to remain positive here but we were both really starting to feel jaded by Vietnam and were literally itching to get back to enjoying our trip and doing new and exciting things. Vietnam had by now become just too familiar and it was only the fact that I had promised to return to Nha Trang and catch up with our friend Paul at his skateshop that kept us from slipping over the border in to either Cambodia or Laos.

Quy Nhon was just what we needed and a few days of sitting up on our third floor balcony overlooking the beach, safe from disturbances really helped us both. The fact that our laptop was being a real pain and not working properly meant that I was unable to do as much blogging as I would have liked but overall it was a nice place to chill. We went to a leprosy hospital that is situated on a nice beach, but as the weather wasn't great and I was scared of the lepers peering through the fence at me (I swear I held my breath the whole time I was there, would that help??) we quickly bailed. We had to make stop offs in places like Quy Nhon just to break up the journey south as Vietnam has a long coastline and it takes so long to get anywhere.

Next stop Nha Trang. Nha Trang is a cool beach town where we have stopped off before. Our friend Paul who has a skate shop here let us stay with him (Thanks Paul!)and it was a welcome relief after our rather mediocre trip down from Hanoi. Paul is a funny guy and he took time off from running his shop to go skateboarding (I am now the proud owner of a sweet skateboard again thanks to Paul's generosity), surfing (even though the waves were tiny we still had alot of fun) and eat the best seafood we have had on our trip anywhere. We also met some cool English kids through Paul, Josh and Cosmo, who were keen to hang out, skate and drink Beer Hoi (25 cent mugs of beer that they serve on the footpath). We also took a memorable trip to the mud-baths just outside of Nha Trang which are like an outdoor mineral spring and massage complex rolled into one. The pools are hot as, which on a 35 degree day are a little hard to stay in for too long, but the highlight is definitely the mudbath. Paul had introduced us to three really nice girls from China who had come along for the experience and we all sat in a bath of mud together splashing and carrying on like your average piggys. It was awesome. After you bathe in the mud you then sit in the sun and let it dry on you until you start to seize up. Then when you wash it off your skin is as soft as a new born baby and you jump in another hot spring pool to soak it all out a little bit more. Awesome.

If you're coming to Vietnam and you want to have a great time then Nha Trang is the place for you. Cheap hotels, lots of bars, millions of Beer Hoi's, skateboarding, surfing, mud and Anchor skateshop! Four days in Nha Trang was exactly what we needed to put the less fun aspects of travelling down through the northern and central regions behind us. I was able to do some shopping, brand new skateboard-yes! Anti-hero Vans shoes for $9 rather than $150 in Australia-double yes! But as usual before too long it was time to jump on a night bus and roll out again, this time to Saigon.

We needed to get our visas sorted for China and I'm happy to say at this stage they should be ready for us tomorrow and we can continue with our trip into Cambodia, Laos, northern Thailand and then onto China. So after nearly two months in country it is time to head off to Cambodia tomorrow. How did we spend so long in Vietnam?? Well we had a great time travelling with and catching up with old friends while making new ones. I will definitely come back to Vietnam in the future but perhaps for a shorter stay in order to avoid the onset of 'Vietnamitis'. The grim fascination of the killing fields and the ancient grandeur of Angkar Watt await us in Cambodia and I for one am looking forward to it. There is even an alledged skateboard halfpipe on top of a bar in Siam Reap near Angkar Watt to hit up once I get tired of looking at the ancient temples. So long Vietnam, bring on Cambodia! But more about that next time. 'Til then.

Ninh Binh
Trip down the river on canoes to see the inland version of Halong Bay. It was pretty impressive as the local rice farmers were harvesting rice. Below are a few pictures of the cruise.

Tim rowing the boat after we didn't want to buy any of the ladies 'handmade' stuff.

Rice being transported on the boat.

Our boat crew!

This is how the rowers row once they get tired! They row the boat like it is a bike.

Transporting the rice plants to the rice harvesting machine (see below for pictures).

Ninh Binh's countryside.

This is the rice harvesting machine. The rice bundles are pushed into a small hole on one side of the machine then the rice grains are shaken off the grass and fall out the bottom of the machine where it is then packed into 20kg bags. The grass is then thrown out the back of the machine. I think they may use the grass as hay and feed it to the buffalo. The following few pictures should demonstrate how this machine works.

Pig on the back of a motorbike. Fat pig too!

Rice drying on the side of the road.

Bundles of rice being transported on a small truck.

Bundles of rice ready for the rice harvesting machine.

Sightseeing in the countryside.

Hue
Emperors Tombs.
Along the Perfume river there are about six or so tombs of past Emperors. We went on a hunt for these tombs however we only found two and they are the smallest tombs. Here are some pictures of the tombs we found.

Hue citadel.
Between 1802 and 1945, Hue was the imperial capital of the Nguyễn Dynasty. As such, Hue is well known for its monuments and architecture. The seat of the Nguyễn emperors was in the Citadel, which occupies a large, walled area on the north side of the Perfume river. Inside the citadel was a forbidden city where only the emperors, concubines, and those close enough to them were granted access, the punishment for trespassing being death. Today, little of the forbidden city remains, though reconstruction efforts are in progress to maintain it as a tourist attraction as a view of the history of Huế. Thanks to Wikipedia this might explain a bit about the citadel. Below are a few pictures inside the citadel.

The entrance to the citadel.

Entrance to the forbidden purple city - this was the Emperors residence. There wasn't much to see as most of it was destroyed in the Tet Offensive in 1968.

View of the citadel from one of Hue's bridges. Actually you can't see the citadel as it is hidden by the row of trees.

Quy Nhon

The lightning lighting up the sky.

During the storm.

Before the thunderstorm.

Nha Trang

The Nha Trang skate crew after a skate and a few beers at the bia hoi!! Notice how they all have the same shoe?! haha.

In the evening all the locals flock to the sea side to swim and fly kites.

Tim got his baguette wrapped in some little kids school assignment - the assignment was awarded an A+. We couldn't read it as it was in Vietanmese but there was picture of a fish and possibly a story. It was very cute!!