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NORTHERN VIETNAM - Sam
Not only has the Socialist Republic of Vietnam decided to ban Facebook due to alleged anti-government talk from Vietnamese people online, but we've been holed up on a boat for 3 days and havn't been able to contact the outside world for a while.
Our last hours in Hoi An were a bit of a fiasco - the tailors lost part of my suit and went to "go and get it" which took them about 4 hours. Blatently working their sweatshop slaves to death in order to reproduce my gear! We got our things shipped off back to the UK which took a long long time because the post office lady really hated us :( After our long waits and dampened spirits due to the onset of rain, I proposed a trip to the old food market to get some traditional food, but when we got there the river had burst it's banks and claimed the entire riverfront, desolating the whole market district! we escaped quickly and found a good place eventually, sharing Cao Lau (yellow soy-flavoured noodles) and shredded chicken rice. With an Orangina.
The next morning we got on our bus to Hue and when we got spat out into the city it was like jumping into a termite mound - we had taxi touts and hotel sharks crawling all over us, tugging us, taking our bags, lying about the name and price of hotels and generally misleading us a great deal. We held firm, however, and grabbed a great bargain down a back alley with actual clean rooms and a working shower - luxury!
Unfortunately I wasn't impressed by Hue, as the rain got worse and worse and we ended up in a western bar sharpening our pool and planning our next move. We did go to the Forbidden Palace but, other than a really cool Age Of Empires style video at the beginning, the place was a ground-level ruin and wasn't worth the money.
One amazing thing did happen to me though - we went to buy flights to Laos and the trip to Ha Long Bay, and somehow I ended up going on a 'date' with the girl who sold us the trips - hilarious. Completely surreal affair; we went up a 16-story hotel to a roof balcony and the views were immense; learnt some Vietnamese which has already escaped me; and most poignantly, got to see how people live. when I walked her home she went off to cook me noodles (I wasn't in a position to refuse) I was shocked to see that the 23 year old called An - who dressed in a smart pinstripe suit, very independent and intelligent, living alone and being able to talk to me about politics in English aged 23, seemed quite well-off compared to the people on the street - was living in a knackered, 100-year old colonial ruin with one room, a corridor with a camping stove for a kitchen, no bed, no wardrobe, no furniture. The only thing that may have elevated her from my idea of absolute poverty was a stack of dog-eared, second-hand books on History and English Literature. I felt immensely humbled, and guilty that at the start of the night I was scared she was going to leave me with the drinks bill in line with so many scary traveller tales. I couldn't really talk to her about how shocked I was because it was improper... and she seemed so happy and said how she had everything she needed. Went home in the taxi a few minutes later feeling a bit shocked - I'm not really able to elaborate on how it feels but I hope you get the picture.
I got back to the bar near the hostel and bumped into my old group, had a few beers then realised it was 3am all of a sudden and I'd been locked out of the hostel where Dave was sleeping soundly. I consigned myself to sleeping outside before by a stroke of fate one of the staff was going to the loo so I banged on the door and got let in.
After our ride out of Laos, it got extremely cold and Dave's stubbornness in taking a hoodie to South East Asia paid off all of a sudden. After a connecting bus from Hanoi we got to Ha Long, and took a Chinese-style ship out to the Bay. Literally unable to describe what it looked like, save that it was like something out of Lord of the Rings... just see the photos when I get a chance to upload them. We saw a few massive cave systems filled with stalagmites and stalagtites, then got dropped at Cat Ba Island off the Vietnam coast. Our 'hotel' was pretty grotty and the boiler didn't work so cold, cold showers are the main memory. Cat Ba seafront was also pretty disappointing and touristy, so I get the impression we missed the good parts of the coast we heard so many good things about. We did meet some nice Canadians and a pair of Londoners who we spent the night with at the bar (credit due to Dave who SOMEHOW persuaded the barman to give us 3 bottles of beer for free).
All of the previous disppointment was negated by the Duke of Edinburgh style trek through the jungle we did on the next day (although we got out of our rooms 5 minutes late and our unforgiving, unsociable group and gone without us so we had to hail a motorbike rider who packed us both onto his seat and drove us to the National Park with terrifying speed. We had to do the trek with another group, albeit a much nicer one with some adventurous middle-aged Australians who gave us great tips about roughing it in Oz next month. After climbing through a tropical mountainside for about an hour we cleared the canopy and sunlight burst through onto our new view - miles and miles of amazing jungle hillside as far as the eye could see. We climbed a rickety old watchtower which looked like a condemned electricity pylon, accompanied by a loud American gay who suffered from Torrettes & vertigo at the same time ("HOLY S***, I'M GONNA DIE! SOMEONE GET ME DOWN OR YA'LL FEEL MY FISTS OF AMERICAN FURY!!!") - brilliant. Oh well. Still good.
We got back to the boat and cruised down to Ha Long Bay, where we spent the night sleeping on the boat. The night was exceptionally dry due to the ridiculous corkage fees imposed by the staff... everyone went to bed at 8pm and only 2 ambitious Australians were brave enough to stay up and play cards with us until the dangerous hours of 11 o'clock. Things turned up the day afterwards, however, when we went on a 2-man kayak borrowed from a floating village and went off to explore some cave shrines in the rock islands. Dave announced his burning desire to go swimming in the sea, and what started as a flippant comment about how cool it would be to jump off the top of the ship turned into a brotherly pact.
When we got to the safe deep water, we pumped ourselves up, laughed nervously as we peered over the side...
And dived a good 25ft off the ship into the South China Sea.
If bungee jumping is anything like that, I'm doing it. After a few metres the weight of your body starts falling at uncontrollable speed and it's hard to force your body into any shape at all, but our dives were great and we came straight back out for another go. The 3rd time I jumped I overshot the angle and backflopped - still feeling the pain from that now!
HANOI was around 6 hours away by bus, and any previous grumblings about Vietnamese traffic can be multiplied by the power of 10 - crossing the road becomes an art form. Traffic lights are optional and the road is alive with motorbike rumblings. On the way into central town I saw the aftermath of a head-on collision between two young bikers... missed the impact by a few seconds, but the motorbike was about 20 metres away from its owner, who was either dead or knocked out, his face was covered in a dark red bruise and the vehicle was mangled. No more dreams of buying a scooter. Mother and Father will be pleased.
As recommended by a Canadian friend, we found an absolute steal of a hostel, only $5 a night with free breakfast, internet and BEER! having settled, we evaluated the food forced on us by the boat trip, which consisted of rice, marrow soup and tofu every day. Dave needed to sort out his meat fix and I was craving something massive as well so we indulged in Hanoi KFC - I defend this with the fact that I have discovered the ultimate chilli sauce, and it resides in Vietnamese KFC sachets. Who knew?
Other than this brief failure I had crispy fried pork and rice with lashings of chilli, which was grand... a few hours ago I also tried a weird street food fry-up of deep fried sweetcorn and butter. I'm proud to say I now prefer Vietnamese tea to normal tea with milk, and I intend to contuinue drinking it when I'm home. Life officially changed - box ticked.
Today we spent the day exploring the old district. Looking forwards, the streets were grotty, polluted and full of dodgy dealers - but looking up were examples of stunning but dilapidated old French balconies and pretty little Chinese roofs. The highlight was definitely seeing the famous Vietnamese water puppet show, and I've tried my hardest to get a video but I had to compete with scores of infuriating Japanese tourists. Watch it on the blog video button, if only to listen to the music!
I realise I usually sign off by writing about what I'm planning on eating after coming away from t PC; I think I'll find some dog tonight.
(PS: Oh, how I yearn for roast potatoes and gravy)
Northern Vietnam - Dave's Entry
So it's been a while, at least it feels that way. Being without the internet for 3 days really is not something I am used to or particularly enjoy, but its all part of the experience! However I must say some of the things we have been doing to fill the void of our internet based existence have been most enjoyable. Even better than social networking might I suggest? As always I hope this blog reaches you all in happiness and health, and that you are continuing to enjoy reading these entries as much as I enjoy writing them.
The morning after my last blog it was time to depart for Hue. The cultural capital of Vietnam. Getting up early to catch the bus at 7.30 am wasn't a great way to kick start the day and facing the 5 hour journey was made all the worse by the driving rain. So it wasn't until about 1pm we arrived in Hue and there was absolutely no change in the weather, in fact it seemed to be getting worse. We managed to find refuge in a nearby travel agents, where we spent 4 million dong on our flights to Laos and the Halong Bay excursion. To tell the truth the rest of the day wasn't much to write home about for myself, we went for a walk over the bridge to the nearby market but the rain was seriously dampening my mood, tired from travel and weary from spending I headed for the Halo Guesthouse and a much needed nap. The rest of the evening was devoted to Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" which I finally began to enjoy.
The next day, more rain, more unrelenting, driving rain. However we were not deterred and after a hearty breakfast of Coco Pops and Hot Chocolate, Sam and I made for the Imperial City and the delights Hue had to offer. Don't want to seem as if Hue didn't have its appeals (I think the weather had a huge influence on my judgments) but the Imperial city was quite a disappointment. So much of the City, built in 1833 was destroyed during the American war, walking around it was impossible to understand what was once such a cultural gem due to the amount of reconstruction going on. Seeking shelter from the rain Sam and I stumbled into a nearby eatery and recuperated in the warmth. We were leaving early that evening so finally made the decision to head back, shoot some pool then get going to Hanoi. The 2-0 beating handed out to Sam owed itself only to me being marginally less poor, we frankly shouldn't be allowed to play pool in front of a bar audience again!
A 7am arrival in Hanoi was quickly followed by an 8am departure for Halong Bay! After a 13 hour sleeper bus journey, the next 3 and a half hours seemed like nothing. The trip passed smoothly especially the later stages, mainly due to the incredible silhouetted mountain views emerging on the horizon. Halong Bay was absolutely magnificent; unfortunately the food on the boat was far from it. An enthusiastic staff seemed to find all new ways to make tofu just as bland and unpleasant as the meal before. $45 and no substantial meat, poor form. The first activity on the excursion was to visit one of the Halong Caves. The cave was interesting; save the masses of tourists turn happy snappers who were determined to dent everyone's enjoyment of this natural wonder. The limestone landscape here is constantly being eroded and the huge stalagmites inside the cave really imposed a sense of grandeur about the place.
Moving on from the cave in our humble vessel we set sail for the delights of Cat Ba Island. The first thing to mention here has to be the pre dinner shower. Usually a shower after a solid 40 odd hours of not bathing would be a welcome, even necessary relief. Wrong. The boiler was off, there was a hole in the wall, it was biting cold outside, to save a grim and long account of the temperature the water plummeted too I will instead just note that I was lucky to survive the night hypothermia free. Late for dinner we were outcast to another group and quickly made acquaintances which were later further consolidated in the Blue note bar, pretty much the only bar open past 10pm on Cat Ba.
The real treat of the island lay in store for us the next morning. After missing our bus, chasing it down by moped, getting on the wrong bus, going to the wrong place, we finally made it to the national park, with an entirely new group. 3 groups, in 24 hours, official nomads. The trek up the steep mountainside which was realistically unharnessed rock climbing at points, was well worth it for the incredible views accessible from the peak. After climbing a rusted, dated, rattling and frankly unsafe metal outpost many more feet up, we indulged in some photo taking of the breathtaking landscape below. My vertigo merely served to aid my sense of achievement at reaching the top of the rickety tower and after shaking all the way back down we headed back for lunch at the hotel before getting back on the boat come evening time.
A late evening in comparison to the other members of the boat who headed for bed come 9pm was had playing cards with Australians. Our 10.30 pm retirement was quite outrageous in comparison to the exploits of others. That morning we kayaked on the bay, under the immense stature and presence of the karst scenery around us. It has to be mentioned that to fully appreciate the scale of these limestone giants you must view them from water level. The thousands of islands form one of the most iconic and photogenic scenes that I have witnessed to date. The real fun of the morning was swimming in the bay, well actually jumping off the top of the boat to swim in the bay, multiple times. Definitely felt the cold though post swimming and had to retreat to the warmth of the bed covers, where I spent the next half hour shivering and aching. So worth it.
Ok so post Halong bay we headed back to Hanoi where we arrived relatively early yesterday evening. Just about time for dinner and a couple of beverages before heading eagerly for the comfort and relaxation of a land based bed. Today Sam led us on a thoroughly well conducted walking tour of Hanoi. The highlights included a trip over the bridge at Hoan Kiem Lake to the Temple, a water puppet show and nearly getting run over every time we made a decision to cross the road. Wish I could have made this entry more interesting and complete but just having a serious bout of writers block today, very frustrating!
Hoping to be back on form the next time I update you all!
David
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