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Frey Kat Danielle's SEA Travels
In Vietnam we lost Danielle to Sarah and Alison (Danielle’s aunt and mum) and we gained some serious mileage on the buses (although we still can’t comprehend how it can take 12 hours to go 600 kms... we can definitely believe it). Basically we started in Saigon and made our way along the coast to Hanoi – so here are some random stories for your enjoyment…
After doing some sight seeing in Ho Chi Minh we caught the bus to Dalat. The lake in Dalat provided many fun times - on our first afternoon we got caught in a storm that made the roads flood (impeccable timing as always!) and we also tried the peddle boats… but the nice looking swan turned out to be evil and made us peddle really really hard. But never fear we made up for it by having some really good lemon moraigne pie. We also hired a motor bike to cruise around. After getting a little lost we ended up at the valley of love (a honey moon place with hedges, statues and another lake)... It was absolutely corny and cheesy - great fun. We also checked out this tiger waterfall that had a dodgy bridge spanning the top. We braved the bridge and didn't die... a bonus I guess! The Dalat wine was everywhere so we decided to give the red a go. We were sorely disappointed – it had a mayonnaise after taste – I wonder what the wine critics would make of that?
Hoi An was a great little town. It is best known for its tailors. We spent quite a few hours picking out designs and materials (and yes we are now proud owners of some spunky silk skirts and tops). Stupidly, we decided to try our luck with the wine again - this time it was mulberry flavour. Lets just say that the glass didn’t get finished (luckily there was amazing pancakes that made up for it).
At the markets in Hue we made the mistake of looking at an underwear stall… after the lady told Freya that the nice looking undies were too small, she pulled out these huge grandma undies and tried to measure her up… when we cracked up laughing and walked away she chased after us waving them in the air! We did a bit of sight seeing… went to a few pagodas, hills and museams and we tried our hand at making incense (Freya’s first attempt was shocking – the second one was much improved … Kat was definitely the master). When we went to ‘see’ the citadel (not that there is much still standing of it) we got absolutely soaked in a crazy storm – while we were hiding under our ponchos trying to stay a little dry a group of Vietnamese kids ran past us to break dance (in their boardies) on this platform that used to be a library (you couldn’t tell from the remains…).
Hanoi had many highlights including the water puppets, fanny's ice-cream (the best cinnamon and ginger ice-cream), the crazy asian ice cream shop where you can ride your scooter right up to the counter (young rice was the best flavour here), consuming copious amounts of 2000 dong (very cheap) bia hoi (dodgy home brew, which incidentally gives bad hang overs) on bia hoi corner (a 4 way intersection that has lots of plastic stools) and of course the 'cinemas'. Our lack of movies over the last few months fueled a desire to see something - anything - on the big screen (never mind that you had to go down a little alley way to get to the movie room)... so we saw Take the Lead (a high school dancing movie). There was no complaints about the quality of the movie (hey it was even in English), but there was a really loud monotone Vietnamese translation dubbed over the top of the movie (drowning out the original)...we struggled to see how the Vietnamese could understand the plot as the girl voice did both male and female parts and the movie operator had hit the play a bit late at the start of the movie because there was some serious delay happening... Nevertheless, to add to the ambience there were huge rats scuttling along the floor in the cinema (we laughed and watched the movie with our feet on the seats!). Overall we really enjoyed Hanoi, the old quarter has such a cool feel to it, so many market/shops and tiny thin streets that you can meander your way through. We all did Halong bay at separate times (thanks to a Indian visa set back for Kat), the trips were pretty similar, but Frey got clouds and Kat got sun). Overall, Halong Bay was just stunning (despite the just-north-of-the-typhoon weather for Frey). Lots of time was spent swimming, jumping off our boat and Frey even got to play a little soccer! The sea kayaking was really great - got to paddle through a few little caves into pristine lagoons... not a bad way to pass the time. Also a big thanks goes out to Chan for her hospitality in Hanoi! Thanks so much for taking me places, providing me with a much-needed space to chill and updating my ipod!!!!
After doing some sight seeing in Ho Chi Minh we caught the bus to Dalat. The lake in Dalat provided many fun times - on our first afternoon we got caught in a storm that made the roads flood (impeccable timing as always!) and we also tried the peddle boats… but the nice looking swan turned out to be evil and made us peddle really really hard. But never fear we made up for it by having some really good lemon moraigne pie. We also hired a motor bike to cruise around. After getting a little lost we ended up at the valley of love (a honey moon place with hedges, statues and another lake)... It was absolutely corny and cheesy - great fun. We also checked out this tiger waterfall that had a dodgy bridge spanning the top. We braved the bridge and didn't die... a bonus I guess! The Dalat wine was everywhere so we decided to give the red a go. We were sorely disappointed – it had a mayonnaise after taste – I wonder what the wine critics would make of that?
Hoi An was a great little town. It is best known for its tailors. We spent quite a few hours picking out designs and materials (and yes we are now proud owners of some spunky silk skirts and tops). Stupidly, we decided to try our luck with the wine again - this time it was mulberry flavour. Lets just say that the glass didn’t get finished (luckily there was amazing pancakes that made up for it).
At the markets in Hue we made the mistake of looking at an underwear stall… after the lady told Freya that the nice looking undies were too small, she pulled out these huge grandma undies and tried to measure her up… when we cracked up laughing and walked away she chased after us waving them in the air! We did a bit of sight seeing… went to a few pagodas, hills and museams and we tried our hand at making incense (Freya’s first attempt was shocking – the second one was much improved … Kat was definitely the master). When we went to ‘see’ the citadel (not that there is much still standing of it) we got absolutely soaked in a crazy storm – while we were hiding under our ponchos trying to stay a little dry a group of Vietnamese kids ran past us to break dance (in their boardies) on this platform that used to be a library (you couldn’t tell from the remains…).
Hanoi had many highlights including the water puppets, fanny's ice-cream (the best cinnamon and ginger ice-cream), the crazy asian ice cream shop where you can ride your scooter right up to the counter (young rice was the best flavour here), consuming copious amounts of 2000 dong (very cheap) bia hoi (dodgy home brew, which incidentally gives bad hang overs) on bia hoi corner (a 4 way intersection that has lots of plastic stools) and of course the 'cinemas'. Our lack of movies over the last few months fueled a desire to see something - anything - on the big screen (never mind that you had to go down a little alley way to get to the movie room)... so we saw Take the Lead (a high school dancing movie). There was no complaints about the quality of the movie (hey it was even in English), but there was a really loud monotone Vietnamese translation dubbed over the top of the movie (drowning out the original)...we struggled to see how the Vietnamese could understand the plot as the girl voice did both male and female parts and the movie operator had hit the play a bit late at the start of the movie because there was some serious delay happening... Nevertheless, to add to the ambience there were huge rats scuttling along the floor in the cinema (we laughed and watched the movie with our feet on the seats!). Overall we really enjoyed Hanoi, the old quarter has such a cool feel to it, so many market/shops and tiny thin streets that you can meander your way through. We all did Halong bay at separate times (thanks to a Indian visa set back for Kat), the trips were pretty similar, but Frey got clouds and Kat got sun). Overall, Halong Bay was just stunning (despite the just-north-of-the-typhoon weather for Frey). Lots of time was spent swimming, jumping off our boat and Frey even got to play a little soccer! The sea kayaking was really great - got to paddle through a few little caves into pristine lagoons... not a bad way to pass the time. Also a big thanks goes out to Chan for her hospitality in Hanoi! Thanks so much for taking me places, providing me with a much-needed space to chill and updating my ipod!!!!
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