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 - 14/06)

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!!

Trang (pronounced Chang) surfing!

Mud Bath
Here are a few photos from our trip to the local mud bath.







All nice and clean after the mud bath.


Tim and Paul getting take-a-way bia hoi. The 1.5 litre of beer is in a plastic bag and only costs around 20,000 VND ($1AUD).

Feasting on the most fresh and yummiest fish!! We got 4 fish between about 10 of us and it cost $3 AUD per person (possibly less than that)

Waiting for our fish! Nha Trang has the best seafood.

Having a feast of crabs and squid at the beach near Nha Trang.

Having some local delights at a restaurant. Again, some yummy food!

Ha Noi - Wed 5/05 - Fri 7/05; Sun 9/05 - Sun 15/05 ; Fri 21/05 - Fri 28/05

Hanoi...Hanoi is a claustrophobically crazy place. The city itself has narrow streets teeming with traffic, horns honking continuously and a great grey cloud that hangs above the buildings which seemingly never lifts. The Vietnamese capital has an 'Old Quarter' which is where most tourists spend their time and is probably the most interesting part of the city. Hanoi, surprisingly, has a large number of lakes and the main lake in the heart of the city has a nice pagoda and temple that has obviously been there for a very long time. Hanoi was founded about one thousand years ago and has undergone various name changes over the centuries.
We were fortunate enough to be staying with Kate's friends, Matt, Lindy, John and Caz in a cool three story house about a ten minute scooter ride from the old quarter. It was really nice to stay in a house again with familiar things like a refridgerator and tv, and a room to sleep in where you can walk out of it and still be in the actual house. After staying in hotels and guest-houses for so long we have both missed having simple household comforts that we all normally take for granted. The guys even had a super cute mini schnauser named 'Poco' and it was especially nice to see a well cared for dog again rather than the usual bedraggled, scary-looking ones we see on the streets. As we spent some time in Hanoi before and after we travelled up to Sapa we were able to stay in Hanoi for almost two weeks in total.

The city has alot of history but it is extremely dirty and grimy, but lets face it, most large cities in this region are. The most disconcerting thing, other than the traffic, about Hanoi was the cloud of smog and dust that hovered above the city. I think some people must go most of their lives without ever seeing many really nice, sunny, clear days here. As we drove back to Hanoi from Ha Long bay it was a nice blue sky afternoon, until we reached the edge of Hanoi and then the cloud just descended and it was back to the gloom. While we were in Hanoi we tried to do some touristy things but alot of time was spent just hanging out with friends, going out for lunches and dinners and sorting out our visas to stay in Vietnam.

One touristy thing we did see was the 'Temple of Literature' which was the first University set up in Hanoi around a thousand years ago. The Mandarins set this up and it lasted for centuries with many famous Vietnamese scholars attending it over the years. It made for an intersting walk through the old buildings (which looked remarkably similar to the average Buddhist temple) but after about half an hour it was time to move on.

On our last day we visited the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the father of Vietnam as we know it today. This was actually pretty cool and it involved standing in an enormous line of people on a very muggy day for about an hour. Literally thousands of people were in line and it amazed us both to think this was just another day at the Mausoleum. It shows how highly regarded the former president is by his countrymen (and women) as there were people of every age waiting patiently for their chance to get a glimpse of this long dead fellow. When our turn came to file past the glass case containing the waxy remains of 'Uncle Ho', as he is affectionately known, immaculately dressed but stern faced guards ushered us around the body in an orderly but efficient manner. All in all we must have been in the inner sanctum for about 15 seconds but the glow of the lights over the body and the freezing air conditioning made this just about the right amount of time to be in there. Ho Chi Minh looked just like he did in the old propaganda videos we had observed whilst standing in line, even his wispy beard was intact, but as he wasn't put on display until around fifteen years after his death we were both left wondering whether it was really him or just a waxy impersonator.

Another place we found in Hanoi that was especially pleasing was the 'Kangaroo Cafe'. Owned by a bloke from Sydney this place saved my life on more than one occasion. On the whole I have been a little less than besotted by Vietnamese food and I have been on the lookout for food from home as much as possible. The Kangaroo Cafe is without a doubt the best western food we have encountered on our entire trip let alone Vietnam. They had Fish'n'Chips! Real Fish'n'Chips, not a poor imitation! You may snigger, but after four months on the road with no Fish'n'Chips I was in heaven! All of the food they served was hearty huge and very reasonable. God bless this place, it was just what I needed and not a rice dish in sight!

As our days were spent hanging with friends or doing mundane chores like organising visas, travel plans and train tickets there is not much else to report about Hanoi. Is it my favourite city in Asia? Hell no. Is it worth a visit? If you're in the neighbourhood then yeah I suppose so. There is a lot of cool stuff near Hanoi, like Sapa and Ha Long bay, but the city itself is just a bit too grey and claustrophobic for me. Having said that I want to say a special thanks to Matt, Lindy, John and Caz for letting us stay and putting up with us. There is nothing worse when you're going about your normal daily working routine than having a couple of layabouts on holiday to come home to. Thanks guys, you made our stay in Hanoi well worthwhile.

Our plan from Hanoi was to trek all the way back down to Saigon again (about 1200km's) and stop in at some of the places we had missed on our way up the country the first time. As buses and trains average about 50km's an hour here (I'm not joking, they really are sloooow!) 1200km's works out to be quite a hike. By this stage we had been in Vietnam for over a month and we were beginning to wonder how we had managed to stay here so long. Vietnam has the best of things to offer travellers in this region but it also can be extremely wearisome as we were about to find out on our trip back down south. But more about that next time. 'Til then.



Tim and I riding around Ha Noi.

Temple in the middle of the lake beside the old quarter.

The lake near the old quarter was fluro green.

A street in the old quarter.

Tim and Jake found one skate spot in Ha Noi. This is Tim showing one of the young guys how to do a trick.

Temple of Literature - these are tomb stones of professors. The Vietnamese go around touching the turtles head. I assume it gives them good luck.

Me at the Temple of Literature. This was a big drum that was on show and it still worked.

Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. You can't quite see in this photo but there is a large line proceeding all the way to the entrance.

A guard at the mausoleum.

Our favourite restaurant - the Kangaroo Cafe. This was once bangers and mash but I have eaten it all!! Yummy.

This is Tim and his fish and chips!

The locals where these ponchos whenever it rains. It doesn't quite keep you all dry but it is better than not having one.

A man asleep on top of his motorbike.


Poco, the dog.

Bac Ha - Fri 21/05 - Sun 23/05

Bac Ha…The second shorter stop on our mountain region tour after Sapa, Bac Ha is a much less visited destination than our first stop. The town only has about a half a dozen options for accommodation but as we had been given the number of a local guy who runs a home stay we didn’t have to stay in one of the crumby hotels right in the centre of the town. ‘Sa’s Place’ is a home stay run by a guy named Sa and his wife. It’s about two km’s from the town and I thoroughly recommend staying here if you’re ever in Bac Ha. First of all it’s only $5 per person per night and his wife is the most amazing cook. Sa also has a seemingly never ending supply of corn whiskey that gets served up gratis with lunch and dinner and most of the night as well. He also makes his own plum wine and it tastes a lot better than the corn whiskey, let me tell ya. Sa also has a six year old boy who delighted in being read English story books by Kate and was a pretty damn likeable little guy. Sa grows plums, raises about 70 chickens, 4 dogs, 4 cats and a whole other menagerie of animals on his small farm and it is a peaceful respite from the towns where trucks and buses honk their incredibly loud horns unceasingly.

The main reason people come to Bac Ha is the Sunday market where the otherwise sleepy mountain town comes to life and is transformed into a bustling marketplace where all manner of goods and animals can be purchased. It also attracts the colourful flower H’mong people in droves and in their elaborately adorned clothing they make for a pretty unique and special sight. The flower H’mong people walk a very long way to the market along steep mountain roads in order to sell their wares and we saw people leading up to a dozen horses tied to one another and all manner of other livestock like pigs and buffaloes to be sold. The livestock market was a real highlight and I learned that if you need to buy a pig you can purchase him in a sack and then tie him to the back of your motorbike using a special wooden frame, no problem. The water buffalo are tied by their noses to a large rock or stone on the ground as the potential buyer and seller haggle over a fair price. The water buffalo can also be ridden like a horse if you’re not too large and we often saw young children in particular travelling this way.

My plan had been to find the stalls selling corn hooch and sit down and have a few rounds with the boys. Once I found the section selling hooch though I realized that this was a serious whiskey selling site, not a bar, and unless I wanted to purchase a minimum of about ten litres then don’t even bother…The food area was gnarly and the locals took great delight in swilling back entrail soup and all other manner of disgusting and stomach churning delicacies. I wasn’t even going to try to get a seat at one of those tables as I know when I’m beat. Just the smell of walking through this section was enough for me and watching the locals chewing this gunk open-mouthed made me feel ill. The market itself was certainly an eye-opener, don’t even get me started on the meat section, but it was definitely a highlight and well worth taking in.

On another day of gallivanting around the countryside on our bike we took in another smaller market at a place called ‘Can Cau’. This was a place even higher up in the mountains than Bac Ha and was frequented by almost exclusively by Flower H’mong people. The scenery and the people were pretty awesome but the market was only average so we jumped on our bike and blazed on. The road up to a place called ‘Simacai’ passes within about 8 km’s of the Chinese border which you can see clearly from the high mountain road. The scenery here is definitely mind-blowing and we were both loving cruising through it on the bike, passing the hilltribe people and their live-stock on their way to and from market.

At nights we would sit with Sa and his boy as his wife kind of did the cooking and rarely joined in with us. Sa was a wealth of information about everything that he thought was wrong with the way Vietnam is run. It was nice to finally speak to a local who could tell us about what it’s really like to live here. He had some pretty interesting facts like; if you want a good job in the government then you can buy it! Nothing happens here apparently unless you pay for it. So for instance, your job as a government official might cost you $80 000 AUD, but with all the good bribes you’re going to be getting you might make this money back in six months or so. A policeman can make a lot of money by stopping truck drivers and the like and demanding money in exchange for not arresting them. The average government employee wage here is about $150 AUD per month and yet these officials can all afford cars and live in relative luxury by extorting money from the public. This, as Sa explained, is how the country is run. If you can’t pay for a service then you will never receive it, that goes for housing, healthcare, education etc. If you pay some money then you will go straight to the front of the queue. Crazy! I don’t know how this is supposed to reconcile with the official communist status of Vietnam and how everyone is supposed to get an equal share but there you go. Sa regaled us with plenty of examples of how corrupt the government and officials are and it makes you despair when you think of the plight of the overwhelming majority of poor people in this country. Staying with Sa turned out to be an education in itself and it was nice to learn a little about one of the countries we have visited rather than just the usual tourist fare. All too soon it was time to board the overnight train back to Hanoi. A place we had been previously and the capital of communist Vietnam. Hanoi is an ancient city full of history and one of the most interesting ‘old quarters’ of any city in the world. But more about that next time. ‘Til then.

The countryside around Bac Ha.





Xe's House (pronounced Sa's)

Xe's son and me.

Xe's son making monster faces.


The cute kitten. His name was called Snow in Vietnamese. The cats are liked in the country as they eat all the rats.

Xe's house.

The plough that are pulled behind the buffaloes.

Another sort of plough which is also pulled behind the buffalo but is used (I think) to flatten the dirt so that the terrace is even and water is dispersed evenly within the rice terrace. Brett - I can explain this more when I talk to you or mum sometime. The other things are brooms.

Can Cau Market
Below are some colourful pictures of the people at Con Cou market. The colourly dressed minority girls are called Flower H'Mong.



Can Cau market with the mountains in the background.


The horse market. This was situated above the market.

Tim and the motorbike. After the long ride on the motorbike on the dusty ride we decided to invest in face masks to stop us breathing in the dust. Tim got a piece of leopard skin material and I got a material surgical masks (which all the locals wear).

The countryside around Can Cau. This was more impressive that the scenery around Sapa.

Bac Ha Market

The eating area of the market.

Tim getting his first shave and now he gets a barber to shave him.

A horse with the handmade saddle.

Two buffalo fighting.

Buffalo with the view of the Bac Ha market in the background.

Buffalo up close!

Buffalo market. The buffalo are very quiet beasts however they are tied to the rocks.

Flower H'Mong girls again.

Flower H'Mong girls.

Pig packed tightly on the back of the motorbike! Poor piggy!

Millions of baby ducks!

Ploughs being sold at the market. Brett I thought you would like this. These are used on the back of the buffalo to plough the rice terraces.