20 days In Vietnam
We started Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon), what really fascinates me here is the local attire, I can only describe as what we would call pajamas and they are all patterned in outrageously loud designs. The war remnants museum was very interesting it really shed light of some of the war crimes the Americans committed, especially with the use of 'agent orange', the chemical they used on the northern territories. We then headed down south for a trip to the Mekong delta, on the way we visited the famous tunnels of Kochi which I found remarkable, they are so narrow and required little air vents for breathing. I crawled along them its amazing to think whole families lived in these tiny underground tunnels. We also saw the traps the Viet cong used during the war they were horrendously brutal, moving platforms that left you on to a bed of nails, this was called the 'spike trap pit'. Whilst in Kochi we went to a place which made sweets and crispy cakes from rice, the staff demonstrated how it was done whiles dishing out the rice wine its amazing what you can make with just rice.
After the delta we headed north to Da Lat in the hills on the way we met a couple of crazy girls from Belgium. We visited a waterfall and it started to rain so they insisted we hitchhike the rest of the way back to the city, in the end a private bus stopped they had to fit our bikes in as well as us what made it worse was me and Gary had a tandem bike, Sophia insisted we force it all in the passengers had peddles in there face and the driver had to lean in order to drive, was amusing though.
We continued to Na Trang a real party/beach town when sat in the coach to leave Da Lat Gary noticed there was air coming out one of the tyre the driver just repetitively kicked it till the nail till it sank deeper in the tyre and the air stopped, what a cowboy. Whilst in Na Trang we paid about five pounds for a boat trip including snorkeling and a huge meal, there was karaoke and they made a makeshift floating bar one Vietnamese women who was previously sea sick (I noticed because I ate here portion of food) got so drunk she could stop laughing for the rest of the trip. I got hit by a mo-ped here, I was on a zebra crossing too, he just knocked me to the ground and cut my already blistered feet.
We progressed north to Hoi An this is where people get there tailor made suits and dresses made, then sent home. I made some great contacts here who have all my dimensions so at some point in the future I can still place orders for tailor made cloths. This was the first place we witnessed the monsoon because in rained for two days and the flooding was severe my thirty pence umbrella bought in Loas certainly earned its money here Gary was well jealous at least until it broke . From here we rented a motor bike each and drove down the most sceanic part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. We debated this for a while because it would mean riding for 40km where, if we broke down there would literally be know one. 'You've got to risk it for the biscuit' so we did, I decided to go in local dress and wore the locals hideous pajamas, I had them tailor made and Gary wore a communist t-shirt. We had the road to ourselves stayed in some villages along the way and saw the most striking views. There were a few land slides on the way but they luckily missed us. The rain on the last day was tretcherous Gary didn't have a viza and his bike started making funny noised we did eventually make it back though.
On route to the capital, Han Noi you could still see the extent of the American bombing campaign with rubble and a few odd standing buildings. When we arrived we tried to visit the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh's body has been preserved and is on display, but it was in Russia for its annual maintenance. You can really see the communist influence here with hundreds of shops all of equal size.
All the moto drives are drunk even in the middle of the day so we had to be extra careful. I managed to get my LCD screen on my camera fix here twenty pounds by some solo guy in a shack Nikon wanted eighty 'bloody corporations'. We went on two tour's from here Sapa in the far north near the Chinese border and Halong Bay. Sapa was great we met some funny Israeli guys and stayed with a traditional Sapa family. The granny of the house forced us to do shots of rice wine and here its tradition to do six consecutively with the whole family at the table, crap!! I got some great photos of the locals here and learned how they farm rice. We went out drinking here with the locals and many other travelers all the local people from Sappa drank with us mainly the women they play drinking games with cards till late hours of the night. Funny thing is they all have there babies tied to there backs till early hours in the morning.
The seconds tour was Halong bay the scenery here was great we stayed on a boat and went kayaking. The food was terrible on this tour though I did improve my Gaelic though as we met a couple from Ireland.
We caught our flight back to Thailand we had another two weeks before flying to Hong Kong couldn't wait to get back to Khosan road and have some cold milk with cornflakes. We met my friends from university ginger Roz and Adam here, it was Gary's birthday so was great timing, we all went out had a rather destructive bucket, a great night unfolded, was good to see some friends after nearly six months of being away from home.
We had a few things left to do around Bangkok, one was visit the death railway where forced labour was used in its construction about 60,000 Allied prisoners of war were then executed by the Japanese, here is where we walked across the famous Bridge on the River Kwai. On the way back we went to a waterfall we wondered in to a bamboo jungle by mistake, it really was a jungle I trod on a snake it was bright green almost illuminous lucky it didn't bite me. The next day we went to the floating market which I found a bit of a rip-off however after that we went to the snake show where we found the snake a green viper really poisonous I found out. The show consisting of tormenting many large snakes towards the end show master said:
"what happens when you put a mongoose and a cobra together? they don't like each other"
They put an cobra and a mongoose in a glass tank, I wont tell you who won I'l upload the video I took on 'you tube' soon.