12th Feb 2010: Wandering around Hue, Vietnam

Another day in Hue and this one was, surprise surprise, another boiling hot day! We decided to stretch our legs and walk across town to the Citadel, crossing the river to take in the views, battling with a bit of motorcycle-heavy traffic before reaching the gates of the Citadel.
En route Leon had to try on as many caps as possible, as he had managed to lose the last one that he had bought, again. Afterw3ards we toddled off to the Citadel’s main gates, amusingly declining the many tuk tuk drivers who offered to show us around for what seemed like quite a hefty price.
The grounds of the Citadel are absolutely massive, which neither of us had really expected. It was a mixture of well pruned gardens and lawns, long, unimposing halls that early emperors used to dwell in as well as larger, more decorative buildings used as theatres or residential dwellings for their mothers, families and so on.
It was a bit hauntingly quiet but very peaceful at the same time in the grounds and we spent most of the day just exploring these ancient buildings. Once lunch time descended we were more than ready to sample some of Hue’s finest food, and this time we took up the offer of a kind tuk tuk driver who, if I remember correctly, only asked for USD1 to take us to a famous seafood restaurant within the citadel walls that we had read about. You gotta love Asia and the cheap prices.
The seafood was divine and also very affordable – we had rice with prawns, a huge freshly cooked fish and vegetables as well, and probably some squid thrown in there for good luck! The waiter showed us how to roll up some Vietnamese spring rolls which consisted of the rice paper, thin slices of cucumber, some greens and fresh fish covered in spices. You roll it all up and dip it into a sweet and sour dipping sauce and the outcome is delicious! I eventually got impatient with the rice paper and just continued eating the fish and with a couple of local beers this was definitely a memorable lunch! What made it even better was the fact that the bill was so cheap, only about 6 quid per person, which is pretty much unheard of in the UK.
Finding our way back to the hotel was a bit of a mission and we did have to pop into a few shops along the way to try and get us out of the Citadel. Eventually we made it and along the way we took a detour into a huge supermarket, which is always an experience in itself in a foreign country. Sadly we couldn’t find any Milo for Leon (who had developed a love for this chocolate milk drink) but we did manage to buy a lot of groceries for half the normal price, simply because this is where the locals shopped, and not just the tourists.
For our last night in Hue we happily ate some cheap noodles down the road from the hotel and had went to the local pub for a few games of pool and some drinks. We met two really down to earth Aussie guys who were travelling on bikes with a local tour guide called Mr Pink (yes, like in Reservoir Dogs) who was taking them down the coast of Vietnam like us. What we found incredible was how much they were paying Mr Pink but I guess you need to make sure that you are in safe hands and that does come at a price in places. This was it for us and Hue and we were now ready for the trip down to Hoi An the next day.

11th Feb 2010: Chugging on down to Hue, Vietnam

We had a notion that the train would be stuffy and hot but the experience was quite the opposite. Since we were both on the top bunk, this meant that the air con was blowing directly on us and as a result, it was absolutely freezing! However, this was much more preferable than the other extreme, that is, to be sweating buckets in our sleep, so when we woke up the next day I’m pretty sure we gave each other a high five for the great train journey.
It was a few hours still until we arrived in Hue, and since there were no seats in our cabin or carriage, Leon and I found some small plastic stools and perched by the hot water dispenser with some really old Vietnamese guy who was lovely and kept talking to us in French (Leon gets mistaken for a Frenchman all the time).
We arrived in Hue on schedule and first impressions were that we had arrived in the middle of nowhere. As soon as we left the station we negotiated two one-man tuk-tuk bicycles to take us down town to our hotel that we had pre-booked. As we went down the main road, we could see the citadel across the river which was Hue’s main attraction, and the only reason we were there really. We pulled up close enough to where we thought our hotel with and the cheeky tuk tuk guys tried to double the price of our ride, saying that we had gone much further than negotiated. This was completely untrue, so we did what honourable people would do and stood our ground! Finally we managed to convince them to take the money we agreed on and luckily they moved along!
We wandered around the main tourist area looking for our hotel which we eventually located. The owner was very friendly (always a plus) and we were so ready for a nap that we didn’t mind the four floor trek to get to our room. My how the Vietnamese love their tall, narrow buildings...
Blissful hot showers and a 3 hour power nap later (!) and we were ready for some food. Settling for the pizzeria round the corner, Leon and I ploughed into our very tasty pizzas and went across the road for a swift pint (which I believe cost the equivalent of one pound sterling) before heading back to the room for some mindless TV and an early night. The big Hue sightseeing trip could wait until tomorrow...

10th Feb 2010: Another day in Ha Long Bay

It was precisely 6 am when the drizzling began that morning, and at this exact time the alarm went off telling us to get out of bed and ready for some sea kayaking. Truth be told, the last thing I wanted to do that morning was get into a kayak and paddle around in freezing cold water, but of course this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and there was no way I would let my laziness take over.
Everyone gathered at the top deck looking distinctly sleepy-eyed but soon perked up as the boat pulled up beside a floating kayak centre in the middle of these massive limestone rocks.
Leon and I grabbed one of the newer looking kayaks (safety first!) and gently tested the waters. Once we got our paddling in sync it was incredible being able to meander around the karsts, stopping by some small caves to admire the sheer beauty of them. It started to brighten up a little as time passed and overall we had a lot of fun kayaking in the water. Nothing like some early morning exercise to get the blood flowing! After our 45 minutes were up, we all happily climbed back onboard the boat and were instructed by our tour guide to get ready for breakfast quickly as we were behind schedule. He was one of the most passively aggressive people we had ever come across as a group, so not to make him really angry we did as we were told and swiftly showered before heading up to breakfast.
When we got upstairs, what we were greeted with was one of the most hilarious moments on the trip. Sat in front of the TV were all the crew of the boat, watching some form of Vietnamese soft porn! I thought I could hear some dodgy sounds when I was in the shower but I thought I had been imagining things. Nope, at 8 o clock in the morning, as we sat having some fried eggs and bread, the guys on the boat thought it would be appropriate to watch some pornography. Whatever floats your boat, as the saying goes.
After an entertaining breakfast, we sailed on a little and took in the views once again, before saying goodbye to the others on our boat. Leon and I had to stay on the boat and they had an extra day as part of their package, which entailed staying on Cat Ba Island for the night.
The journey back was more beautiful than the previous day because the sun had thankfully decided to come out just for us. Once back on shore, we had a bit of a wait before we were ushered onto yet another minibus for our journey back to Hanoi. En route we stopped at a hotel which seemed to just cater for bus loads of tourists on their way back to Hanoi, with four floors full of hungry foreigners. We were fed some fried fish, rice, soup, spring rolls and omelette (the usual fare) which was bland but filled us up for the next few hours. Leon and I were both a little worried that we were pushing it a little as we had a train to catch that evening down to Hue, but had to pick up our rucksacks from the travel agency first. Despite the pretty horrific traffic on the way back, mainly as we approached Hanoi, we luckily made it on time to the agency and they kindly called a legal taxi for us to take us to Hanoi Railway Station. I say legal taxi because the taxis around Hanoi are notorious for fleecing tourists by speeding up their meters, so we were happy to wait for one of the government cabs who wouldn’t dream of doing that (in case they get found and sent to prison, then who knows what...)
Our train pulled up at the platform just after we had purchased some food for our journey: can of coke, check. Bag of crisps, check. Some funny coconut bun, check. We boarded the train and took time to inspect our cabin. It had two triple bunk beds in each one on our carriage, with air con and a window, with about 70 centimetres between the bunks for you to walk around (or just about turn around) in. After the brief wave of claustrophobia passed, we climbed up to our individual beds (we were both on the two top bunks) and could just about sit up. Leon, being taller than me, somewhat resembled the Hunchback of Notre Dame in the way that he was sitting! It was comfortable though and compared to long distance coach rides, much more pleasant and easier to get some sleep on a sleeper train. The only annoying part of the trip was realising that our tickets said that the price of the bunk was considerably cheaper than what we had paid the travel agent. Scrap that, we weren’t annoyed – we were fuming. I am pleased to say that this was the one and only time that we were royally ripped off in Vietnam but definitely would recommend everyone who visits Vietnam to watch out for scams like this.
After a long day, we were both shattered so it was off to bed nice and early. Luckily for us, the other people in the cabin were all part of a family going home for Chinese New Year and were decent folks so I was able to have a fairly peaceful sleep, save for the few bumps on the track along the way.

9th Feb 2010: Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam

Ha Long Bay. I had been looking forward to this day since I saw my first poster of Ha Long Bay many years ago as a young teenager. The one with all the grand limestone rocks emerging from the emerald green water with a beautiful boat serenely drifting down the middle of it all. This was definitely a day that I hoped would live up to expectations, and in a lot of ways it did.
We started the day in a bit of a foul mood as we had to traipse all the way down to the travel agent with our heavy rucksacks at 7 in the morning, only to find that there was no one there, although the door was unlocked. As Leon went off on a mission to find us breakfast, I sat in the office thinking that my worst nightmare had come true, that is, that we had been part of a scandal, paid the money for the Ha Long Bay trip, only for the agent to have run off with it and here we were, left in the dark with no means of visiting the Bay. Fortunately my paranoia was just that, as 30 minutes later the man did show up and a little while later so did the minibus to take us down to Ha Long City.
As is very much the norm in South East Asia, our minibus did the rounds at all the guesthouses and hotels picking up more people for the trip and packing us all in like sardines in a tin. However, this didn’t stop us from feeling the excitement as we approached Ha Long Bay, nor did the dark clouds and grey sky that were looming, After disembarking we were put into two groups and luckily for us, Leon and I were put in a group of people who were really fun, down to earth and were overall a great crowd to spend a night on the boat with.
We boarded our boat and even though it wasn’t as luxurious as the brochure suggested (they never are anyway), it was a little bit like a pirate ship with a Vietnamese crew who were pretty much like modern day mercenaries, so all in all we were very happy indeed. Although the sun wasn’t out, the views were as spectacular as I imagined. Huge pinnacles of limestone were randomly dotted about in the sea and as we meandered through them, we were also served a hearty lunch of fish, vegetables, chicken, spring rolls and fruit which was much needed after the long journey there. To break up the day, we were dropped off at some spectacular caves in which there were some stalagmites resembling Margaret Thatcher, as well as one that looked a lot like a woman’s breast. After lots of picture taking we went back to the boat and just chilled by playing cards and having a few drinks whilst taking in the views. We retired to our little cabin after some supper and more cards, ready for the next day which we were told would involve some sea kayaking at 6 am!

8th Feb 2010: Crazy, Crazy Hanoi

The following day we started early to make the most of our short stay in Hanoi and headed down for our free breakfast in anticipation. Sadly there was no buffet consisting of a selection of pastries, an egg station or fried noodles; instead our host Mr Jimmy sat us down and his staff presented us with 4 fried eggs (we didn’t ask for these but the gesture was kind enough), a plate piled up high with bread which was equivalent to a whole loaf, as well as some spread and a huge jar of jam which was a suspiciously bright shade of pink and tasted of sugar and not so much of strawberry.
After forcing ourselves to eat as much as possible (it was free after all), we were then subjected to a 20 minute-long lecture by Mr Jimmy outlining what we should do with our 4 weeks in Vietnam! However, he was really just trying to help us out and also sell as many of his own tours as possible, which is the norm in Vietnam, so with polite nods and uhmmings of ‘we’ll go away and have a think about it’, Leon and I made a dash for it and headed down on foot to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum.

Now by this time we were well into the later part of the morning which meant one thing: it was absolutely boiling outside. Not wanting to spend money unnecessarily, we braved the heat and the deadly traffic and walked for about half an hour until we made it eventually to the Mausoleum and Museum complex. Unfortunately we didn’t read the small print in the Lonely Planet which tells you that the Mausoleum is closed at lunchtime on Mondays. And what day was it? Correct. Monday. Instead we headed into the Museum which was fairly interesting, outlining the events that lead up to Vietnam War and HCM’s role as leader, but again lady luck was not on our side and we were promptly kicked out of the Museum after 40 minutes for them to close it down for the lunchbreak again.
Given that there was nothing in the vicinity for us to see or do, we decided to venture into town (which was another 30 mins in the direction we had just come from) to the Old Quarter to book our boat trip to Halong Bay. I’d highly discourage anyone from walking in the midday sun in Vietnam or anywhere for that fact, as we were both very flustered and just a bit irritable after what felt like a morning of walking for no reason! We made it to a tour agency which seemed legit (we’ll come to that later) and booked our trip for the following day, as well as our train ticket and open bus tickets for the rest of the journey. Feeling rather pleased with ourselves for getting the transport sorted, we did a little more venturing to get some much needed food down us, which consisted of more pho and fried noodles, and some local beer to wash those worries away... Refuelled and energetic, we made it back to the hotel and had a quick rest before heading out a little later for dinner. Wanting to keep the cost down, we found a food court in a shopping mall close to the main lake in the middle of Hanoi where we shared a rather large steamboat whilst listening to crazy Chipmunk music in the background. We also learned how to cross the road the Hanoi way by a lady who felt sorry for us, having stood by the roadside for about 5 minutes as the traffic was just too horrific! In Hanoi and elsewhere in Vietnam it's all about just walking at a steady pace across the road. This way the motorcyclists can just dodge around you as you walk on by! All in all, Hanoi was a city on speed and once you get used to the hustle and bustle, it's actually starts to grow on you a little. Not one for the faint hearted though, that's for sure.

Chaos at the airport and Hotel Civility, Hanoi, Vietnam: 6th Feb 2010

By the time we landed in Vietnam it was already 7pm in the evening and we were about to experience our first taste of the chaos that is Hanoi. When we went to the baggage carousel there seemed to be a dozen flights that had landed around the same time and, as a result, the fairly small arrivals hall somewhat resembled a market place with people shouting across the hall, kids running around and airport staff marching to and fro whenever the baggage carousels broke down (which happened quite often). We waited for almost 2 hours for our bags but apparently this was the norm in Hanoi airport i.e. no system is the way that their system worked!
Finally with backpacks to hand, we jumped into a local taxi and headed downtown to Hotel Civility, which we had booked online and looked quite decent on their website.
The journey into central Hanoi was an experience in itself. Evidently the way the traffic system worked was to use your horn as much as possible on the roads in order to warn other vehicles that you were coming through, and there was no stopping you. I have also never seen so many motorcycles on the roads before, and what was more incredible were the goods that people strapped onto the back of their bikes. Given that Chinese New Year was looming, there were 2 metre high mandarin trees and even a refrigerator strapped to the back of one bike! Malaysian traffic was starting to seem rather tame in comparison....
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally came up to a series of very tall, narrow buildings all built up right next to each other and lots more traffic. This could only signal that we were in the centre of town. Roads were windy, busy and motorbikes were swarming. We both held on for our lives even though we were sat in the safety of a car - it was that manic! Luckily we made it to our hotel in one piece and were greeted by the hotel staff, who took our bags and ushered us into the hotel. Really it wasn't anything like the website (some clever lighting going on there) and the staff all looked about 18 years old. When we were taken up to our room, up 7 flights of stairs (no joke), we thought that perhaps booking in advance was a mistake. Luckily the room turned out to be quite decent - it had hot water, a flat screen TV and aircon, so we happily agreed to stay for the next couple of nights. Bellies rumbling, we ventured down the road after quick showers and found an excellent French-Indochine restaurant where we devoured some pho (beef noodle soup) and fried rice. We also sampled our first local Vietnamese beer whose name I can't remember, but after a long day, it definitely washed the food down extremely well! With very little energy left, we decided to leave the exploring of Hanoi until the following day, and retired to bed in our room on the 8th floor (no elevators included).

7th Feb 2010:New Country number six.. Vietnam!

The next morning marked we were both feeling the excitement, both packing haphazardly and doing silly dances to mark our last day in Laos and what was about to be our sixth new country on Our Big Adventure. As far as killing time goes (our flight wasn't until mid afternoon), we did quite well and the highlight to note was the massive grilled fish that we ate in a roadside stall for the equivalent of about 4 pounds! Another 3 hours in a coffee shop sipping the cheapest filtered coffee that money can buy and then we were finally ready to head down to the airport. Me being my father's daughter, we made it to the airport in very good time, so good in fact that we had to wait another hour until we were actually allowed to check in! Nonetheless, we made it on that plane and off we went into the sunset. Good bye Laos and Good Evening Vietnam!