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Ok so were a little behind on the old blog...
So our 3 day motorbike trip through central Vietnam took us past some fantastic scenery and Hiep, our guide, was very informative about the facts and figures of the country's past and present. From passionfruit farms to silkworm factories and village longhouses to ricepaper and tofu-making, we felt like we'd seen a side of Vietnam that would've otherwise been difficult to achieve:- Stopping every now and then to rest our bums in a hammock or meet a friendly local making rice whisky.
Perhaps the best part of having a personal motorbike guide was we got to eat the local grub at local prices, needless to say it was some of the best and cheapest we'd tried so far - always puts a smile on our faces!
The 'Easy Riders' left us in the beach town of Nha Trang. Despite some bad reviews we'd heard we found it to be really nice! A virtually deserted (huge) beach, good local food, plenty to do and a slow pace of life... We endulged in some jet-ski action and a great value boat trip: Snorkelling, a quirky aquarium, fruit wine in a 'floating bar'(rubber rings) and even a live boat band!
After realising we were never going see all the places we wanted within the month visa, we headed north to Danang in search of a visa extension, 3 days wait but easily achieved. Pleasantly surprised, Danang has the most untapped tourist potential in the country. Its the 3rd largest city in Vietnam, has 30km of undeveloped white sand beach! fantastic infrastructure, a great local market and no-one comes here!
Hopping on a local bus we got to Hoi An, extremely touristy but nevertheless a quaint and beautiful town full of 19th century temples and houses (the whole town is a UNESCO world heritage site). Chinese paper lanterns light up the central bridge at night, where we found some amazing speciality dishes and the cheapest beer to date (12pence a glass!). Escaping the hassle of the tailors we zipped on a moto to Mae Son, another ancient Khmer ruins, of which there's not much left after the war, but a pleasnt way to spend an afternoon.
Onto Hue, an ancient Imperial stronghold, impressively standing on the banks of the 'Perfume River'. A few days well spent here wandering the huge Citadel ruins, and hiring a dragonboat to visit a colossal 'tomb' of one of the emperors - though its really more like a village housing tombs of not just him and his family but also the graves of his 100 wives and 100+ concubines (!!!). A first for us, we ate in a 'deaf and dumb' restaurant where the proprietors are deaf and mute, and so lots of pointing and nodding provided a fantastic meal of more local fare not found outside of Hue - brill!
An aussie guy in Danang recommended going to see Hang son Doong (the newly announced 'biggest cave in the world') as it had only recently been discovered, a little research led us to a farmstay in Phong Nha - seemingly the only place in the area to stay and trek from. Upon arrival they told us tourists are not yet allowed to trek inside the cave but that in the morning there was a group doing a 2day trek upto the entrance of it, staying in 'swallow cave' another stupidly large cave (housing upto 100,000 swallows) nearby.
To cut a long story short, we did the trek and it turned out to be a dramatic adventure through Monsoon rain, flooded jungle rivers, hammock ropes being tied together to get across as the currents were so strong! Machete-ing through dense banana trees we were covered the whole second day with leeches - a constant struggle to flick, pick and burn them off! The guides were apparently worried the whole time that we would be in trouble from the quick-rising water and might get stuck - the 12 of us, oblivious, were having a great time! (apart from the leeches) We finally made it back to the road a few hours late and they said we would be the last group to do this trek this year as the monsoon was well and truly here! We were absolutely knackered but feeling mighty proud that we were among the first 40 tourists to do the trek and see this cave :) and had truly earned our cold beers and jeep ride back to the farmstay!
Our next stop was Ninh Binh. We came here to see Tam Coc - a beautiful landscape of tall Limestone karsts freshwaterways and rice fields. And what a way to see it! we hired a small rowing boat rowed by an old couple (and me!S) taking a leisurely ride through small caves and beautiful rivers - quite amazing to see eagles and goats grazing at impossible angles while an old vietnamese bloke rows with his feet seemingly half asleep!
We made it to Hanoi in time to try some famous weasel-poo coffee (yes the coffee beans are passed through the weasel- and its quite strong!) and a few more cheap beers before Rachel fell ill. She seemed better so we booked a bus to Sapa in the northern hills..
- Sapa, though we couldnt enjoy it to its full potential, a beautiful place set high in misty hills was the first place we had to wear a jumper! We met some charismatic Hmong tribe ladies flogging there wares and sampled the local apple wine and french pastries.-
...but unfortunately she took a turn for the worse and was pretty much stuck in bed for 2weeks with high fever :( and the poor girl even managed to get on the 10 hour sleeper bus back to Hanoi and on a flight to Bangkok as we'd already booked the previous week...
Next blog Thailand's islands coming soon... sorry it's taken a while to catch up! xx
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