The end of the road

The plan was simple – top (Hanoi) to bottom (Saigon) in 2 weeks and experience everything in between.

The 1700+ kilometre distance involved two 13 hour sleeper buses from hell, two 5 hour near death seater buses, bicycles with no brakes, scooters with no brakes or mirrors, motorboats boats packed with locals, rowing boats floating along in silence, two days riding ‘Harley’ style through fabulous countryside,  a jeep bouncing in sand dunes and a 3 wheeled cyclo driven by a Vietnamese war veteran.

The ‘everything in ‘between’ did not disappoint

The hustle and bustle of Hanoi – our walking tour and eating fests were true highlights; ‘Outback’ Ninh Binh –  a sad looking war torn city of concrete with an amazing limestone karst landscape backdrop which will hopefully be Ninh Binh’s saviour;  Ancient Hue – a quaint historical city built around the ancient Emporer’s ruins. The Hue to Hoi An road trip – riding the ever famous Ho Chi Minh trail over 2 days on the back of a ‘mini Harley’ and exploring pagodas, temples, tombs, waterfalls and remote villages along the way. Add this to your bucket list people! High class Hoi An – Parisian style restaurants on a Venetian style river full of longtail boats in the middle of South East Asia – does such a place exist? Yes,  it’s heavenly Hoi An;  The beaches of Nha Trang – unspoilt kilometres of sand and blue ocean means one can enjoy some R & R;  The Mui Ne melange of fishing villages, kitesurfing beaches and sand dune surrounds; And finally, hectic and eclectic Ho Chi Minh – Vietnamese street life, traffic, food and culture at it’s finest.

No matter what road we were on (neither of us knew most of the time!) or on which form of transport (many of which nearly killed us!), we have had the ride of our lives and would do it all over again! Thanks for reading and happy travelling.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

Saigon – last day, another tour!

It was our last day in Saigon and indeed the last day of our adventure in Vietnam. We had to leave for the airport at 3pm. Did we have time for one last tour? Hell yes!

The day before, we had been sitting in a bar rewarding ourselves with a couple of beers for having been shopping for a whole 10 minutes, when we were approached by Ngia, a 62 year old war veteran offering a tour of the city by cyclo.

For the past 2 weeks, we had secretly been sniggering at the hundreds of tourists we’d seen being ferried around in these 3-wheeled tourist traps. Keen to avoid the regular tourist trail as much as possible, we vowed we would give them a miss.

However, Ngia seemed to be a bit different from the usual guys who approach you, selling anything from cyclo tours, to books, sunglasses and the usual tourist tat. He had such a friendly face and was carrying around a magazine with a picture of him in it under the headline ‘Best tour in Saigon’. To be fair, we never read the article, but it was a pretty good sales technique nonetheless. He had approached us several times, proudly showing us the scar on his head from when he was shot in the war and promising that he could give us a tour that included much more history and local knowledge than any of the other guys.  So, in an attempt to eek out every last second of our trip we booked a one hour tour with him at mid-day the following day.

Sure enough, he arrived at our hotel 30 minutes early with another driver (there’s no way Sarah and I would have fitted in the one cyclo!). Our bums had barely touched the baking hot seats before a couple of sunhats were thrust upon us. Sarah’s was a yellow baseball cap that made her look like she was on some kind of ‘care-in-the-community’ scheme and mine was an equally dreadful floppy pink floral number. Both of us took our chances with the mid-day sun and politely refused to wear them.

off we go!

Neither of us were very comfortable about being cycled around the city like this, especially by someone who is 62. Sarah even offered to cycle for a bit when later on, he had to get off and push her up a hill! However, as he told us, this is his livelihood. He was delighted to have a job to support his 3 children and at the end of the day, which could be as late as 2am, he would cycle the 12kms back to his house. A very different work ethic than we have in our own countries.

Saigon is a very beautiful city, in spite of how busy it is. It was certainly nerve-racking at times, cycling the wrong way down a one way street into oncoming traffic! Or going around roundabouts where there are no apparent rules and people seem to follow an ‘every man for himself’ philosophy. On a cyclo though, you are only one step above a pedestrian and it wasn’t as if we could swerve out of the way very quickly. I only had one near miss with a motorbike that nearly hit us side on, but other than that, the traffic just seemed to flow around us.

Our first stop was in a street packed with antiques shops. Neither of us are that interested in antiques, but it was actually fascinating to see the hoards of different items. Ngia’s enthusiasm rubbed off on us too and it was very interesting listening to his old stories from the war. He had fought in the South with the Americans against the Viet Cong, had been shot twice and watched his best friend die in front him. Sarah and I both agreed we would probably be in tears by the end of the day!

Sin Xiao!

My driver was a bit less charismatic than Ngia and spoke almost no English. With only 3 words of Vietnamese in my vocabulary the conversation was hardly flowing. When we came to a point of interest, he simply slapped me on the shoulder, mumbled something unintelligible, to which I replied enthusiastically ‘Ah…lovely!’

Our tour took us through the city, past old buildings that had been bombed in the war, bars where the GIs used to hang out and on to shiny new offices and swanky hotels down at the riverside. We made a stop here to look at some 300 year old bonsai trees. There was a lovely garden by the river (which was not so lovely) and Ngia told us the significance of the various shapes of the bonsai trees.

We continued on the tour and saw many interesting buildings including the cathedral, the impressive Post Office and the American Embassy. Ngia told us that many Vietnamese people are not happy with their Communist government and want to apply for visas to go abroad, mainly to America, Canada and Australia. Consequently there are large queues outside the US Embassy every day.

Our last stop was to a lacquer factory where you can watch craftsmen making beautiful lacquer products using mother of pearl or duck egg shell. It is quite a lengthy process that is still carried out using traditional methods. Needless to say we didn’t buy anything, but it was certainly very interesting.

rubbing and washing the lacquer plate to reveal mother of pearl

Outside the factory they were selling freshly squeezed orange juice on the street, which might have been the best I have ever tasted and all for 14 baht! We bought some for our drivers who were now looking a bit cream crackered and headed off back to the hotel.

We were both glad that we had been typical tourists for the day, happily snapping our way through the streets of Saigon. Plus, it was one of the only modes of transport we hadn’t been on in the last 2 weeks! However, we could no longer put off the fact that our trip had come to an end and with heavy hearts, we booked a taxi to the airport to make the journey back to Thailand.

Saigon – 24 hours in HCM…should we wind down? NO! We’ll do a 5 hour motorbike food tour, go shopping, drink beer with strangers and squeeze in a cyclo city tour

We left Mui Ne and survived our last bus of death 5 hour journey to Ho Chi Minh City. The traffic got worse and worse heading to the country’s capital and so did the near misses. I have figured out Vietnamese bus driving now: get as close as you can behind the bus/truck in front so that you can’t see  the road ahead, then decide you want to overtake, pull out for a wee look to the opposite lane and  then do a huge swerve back in as you face another truck coming towards you at full whack, or go for the overtake anyway in the hope that the truck on the other side will hang back a bit rather than hit you face on and kill everyone.

Neither of us dared to even talk about the fact that our trip was coming to an end. We had thought we would just wind down with a little cafe eating and shopping.

However, a few days before in Nha Trang, our good friend Katie had emailed us a website link www.xotours.vn  which she thought might be of interest – basically a food tour on the back of motorbike . A 4.5 hour evening food tour on the back of a scooter around HCM city, eating and drinking  local style. Does it get much better? We booked the tour within minutes of reading Katie’s email and now were really excited to reach Saigon, despite  nearing the end of our trip.

We checked into our hotel. We  had pre booked on-line without much care – we were so tired by now, we knew we could sleep anywhere. I did however object to the fact that only the bottom sheet on the bed was clearly the only sheet that had been changed. I don’t consider myself a fussy traveller but I do have bionic nose and eyes when it comes to clean sheets.

I politely (Ok, slightly sarcastically) asked at reception if they would be so good as to change the other sheets too, fully expecting them to deny that they hadn’t. “Yes, no problem Madame” was their reply. Bloody cheek of it. We returned to the room later to find clean pillows but still a slept in duvet cover so I took it upon myself to invade the laundry cupboard, much to Lindsay’s amusement, and change the duvet cover myself.

Neither Lindsay or I are really ones for shopping. Although Lindsay did have a full list of things in her head to buy from day one, the heat, bartering and effort involved both now and during the rest of the trip were usually cast aside in favour of a cafe with cold beer, eating or doing something else way more fun. Saigon was no different. Our entire trip’s shopping was done in about 30 minutes, over the stretch of  only about five different shops spanning 50 metres or so. Job done.

We sat for late afternoon beers, people watching, eyeing the crazy traffic in bewilderment and chatting excitedly for our evening ‘Foodie tour’.

Inevitably,sitting at the corner seats at a street side cafe, we were approached by many sellers to buy tat and more tat. A little old cyclo man saw our happy inubriated faces and tried to persuade us to go on an hour’s cyclo tour of the city. We decline saying that we were already booked on a tour due to leave later that afternoon. He was persistant and quite funny. We liked him. He even had a photo of himself in  a Western magazine with a a full page article  “Saigon’s best tour”.

Who knows if the article was actually about him or cyclo tours in general but, give the effect of the beers, the fact that we were too exhausted to decline again and again and again and the fact that we both thought he had a nice face, we agreed a price with him and told us to pick us up at the hotel the following day at noon, 3 hours before we were due to leave for the airport. Well, in the excitement of the forthcoming Foodie tour and the ‘Mission Accomplished’  feeling on the boring shopping task, we had decided to treat our last 24 hours in Saigon like it was our first.

We got picked up by our lovely guides for the foodie tour on the dot at 5.30pm. The were dressed in traditional Vietnamese dress, introduced themselves with big smiles as Ang and Boom (something like that anyway) and off we went to our first stop.

5.30pm in Ho Chi Minh city is, like most countries, peak hour traffic time. There’s something insanely crazy and exciting about riding around a hugely populated city like Saigon experiencing hundreds of other bikes whizzing past and around you from all directions.

Once again, we both had that look on our faces that said “OMG we’re living this”, not reading about it in a guide book or enviously looking at someone else’s photos wishing we were there. We WERE there and loving every minute.

Our first stop was a spicy noodle soup, thankfully not the tame ‘Pho’ that we had eaten up until now. Yay, there were oodles of chiles and spices on the table to add to the soup – we were happy bunnies 🙂

Although, when we were presented with green tea to drink with the soup, neither of us had to speak. The look we gave each other said it all  – where was the beer? However, we drank the tea graciously and off we went to our next pit stop.

The trip took us around 5 different districts in all so it was a great way to experience the diversity of Saigon: affluent areas, poor areas, shopping areas, market areas – we would never have been able to see all that in 24 hours if we had attempted such a jaunt on own own or without locals. Other food stops included an outdoor BBQ restaurant where we feasted on goat, frog and BBQ prawns and sipped locally brewed banana wine (and beer by this stage 🙂 ) Our drivers/guides were obviously instructed to ‘look after’ us the entire night. We didn’t have to lift a finger. They  peeled our prawns for us, shelled our crab, kept us topped with beer and, slightly OTT, even held our hands when accompanying us to the toilet. We later learned that this is because many foreigners are shocked and appalled by the toilets. What a scooter driver can do for a person in a situation where the toilets are bad, I don’t know. But they were amused and baffled at Lindsay and I telling them that we thought the toilets were great – clean even. Living in Asia for a long time prepares you for anything.

The atmosphere was very sociable and each tourist who had signed up was seated next to their driver/guide. We did lots of ‘1-2-3 cheers’ photos which always makes for a good crazier than crazy style photo. That’s Lindsay and I right at the back.

Our last stop was mainly seafood. Crab in chile and garlic, crispy quail and the most amazing grilled scallops with nuts with spring onions. We tasted  it all to a point where our stomachs were full to bursting.

We did, however, draw the line at tasting what can only be described as a boiled duck foetus still in the shell. The feathers did not look appetizing!

The tour came to an end – it had been great and our guides returned us safely back to our hotel.

Most normal people, so tired and exhausted as we were, would have gone to bed, but it was only 10pm, and our last night in ‘Nam.  We couldn’t waste it. We would just go for one beer, we decided.

Several beers later we were swapping travel stories with an English couple, Hannah and Tommy from Bournemouth, who had just excitedly arrived in Vietnam that day, embarking on a 6 month journey through Asia. It’s always nice to meet fellow countrymen who have just arrived and get the news from ‘back home’. Though Lindsay and I did have that same look on our faces at how out of the loop we must be having been away from the UK for so long when young Hannah, at age 24 (!) raved on about Botox and the current trend in the UK of ‘square’ eyebrows. I sat there trying to remember when I had last plucked mine, licked my finger and gave them a quick swipe.

We all shared a lot of laughs and many beers but Lindsay and I politely declined their offer to go dancing. After all, it was gone 1 am and I had wrinkles to moisturise and eyebrows to pluck and wanted to be fresh for our final few hours in Vietnam tomorrow and enjoy our  midday city tour by cyclo as best as we could in 40 degree heat.

Mui Ne Day 2 – Fairy Springs, sand-boarding and the red canyon

After our relatively tame night at one of Mui Ne’s nite spots, we were raring to go on our jeep safari to the sand dunes. We had a yummy breakfast in the hotel and even managed to squeeze in a couple of hours at the pool, until the heat became unbearable and we’d both lost literally buckets in sweat.

The jeep arrived to pick us up with a very grumpy driver – we didn’t even get his name and we both agreed that we missed Mr Tu and Nho from the Easy Rider trip.

Jeep to the sand dunes

Driving in the jeep was incredibly bumpy and windy which made it difficult to see, let alone take photos, but it wasn’t long before we got to our first stop – the Fairy Springs. When we booked the trip the guy wasn’t sure if Sarah was joking when she asked if there were actual fairies at the Fairy Springs.

There were a lot of other jeeps on the same tour, so there were other tourists around being herded towards the Fairy Springs. We were met by a young man who said ‘come with me’ and assuming he was part of the tour, off we went.

We passed pots and pots of fermenting fish which is used to make fish sauce. If you forget that it is basically rotting fish, it’s actually very yummy, but the smell is revolting.

Fermenting fish used to make fish sauce

The Fairy Springs is a shallow river that has interesting sand and rock formations on the side, formed from typhoons. It was very beautiful and our ‘guide’ was pointing out interesting plants that closed when you touched them, waterproof leaves etc, although we did feel a bit like we were in a race to get around as quick as possible.

Then he told us we would now be going to see what I thought he said was an ‘orchard’, Sarah thought he said ‘orchid’ and as it turned out, was an ‘ostrich!’ Neither of us could have guessed that one, but sure enough, we were taken to a small paddock with 2 ostriches (which are enormous by the way!) and for a fee you could ride on it’s back for a couple of minutes.

We deliberated about giving it a try, purely for the video footage it would have produced, but this thing was huge and didn’t look too happy at having a saddle strapped to it’s back and chased around the field. We decided it was much more fun to watch the Russians do it instead. Particularly as one of them was swigging out of a bottle of whisky that he’d brought along with him. Is it possible to be drunk in charge of an Ostrich?!

Drunk Russian on an ostrich

We carried on up the stream at a rate of knots and at the end our guide asked us for a tip, mumbling something about money for going to school. It was then that we realised he wasn’t actually a guide and was just a chancer, meeting people off the jeep tour. Come to think of it, no-one else had a guide, so I guess we were just the most gullible looking. We scrambled around for some small money and gave him a few thousand, which he then told us wasn’t enough. Cheeky bugger! To be fair, it wasn’t much, but that was all he was getting.

Back to the windy jeep and a quick stop at a beautiful fishing village in Mui Ne bay.

Fishing boats, Mui Ne

Then it was off to the bit we had both been looking forward to and the purpose of the trip – the sand boarding! The sand dunes were indeed very beautiful and we were dropped off and ushered towards a quad bike that they wanted to charge $20 for 20 minutes for. We declined and opted to walk, which in hindsight was not the best idea.

The ‘sand board’ is just a rectangular piece of plastic with a string attached to the end, which was very difficult to carry in the wind, but we were still excited about sliding down the dunes. We traipsed off in the heat of the day while other tourists whizzed past us on their expensive quad bikes.

We couldn’t see anyone else boarding until we came across a young English guy who seemed to be exasperated with his plastic board. Out of breath and sweating, he told us he’d tried everything to try and get this thing to move, lying on it, standing on it, sitting on it, you name it, but contrary to the pictures in the brochures, even if you try to go down an almost vertical slope, the board just digs into the sand and buries itself. You are lucky if you can get it to move 6 feet.

After 2 attempts and having a laugh at Sarah lying on her stomach flapping around like a fish out of water trying to get her board to move, we gave up, exhausted and disappointed. Even more so when we discovered we’d paid double for our boards than the English guy.

Back to the jeep again for the next stop – the Red Canyons.

Red Canyons, Mui Ne

Contrary to what the picture suggests, it was not Vietnam’s answer to the Grand Canyon. Whilst the red sandstone was interesting, there was a lot of garbage around and the sandstone was covered in graffiti that people had etched into the stone – mostly in Russian.

Red Canyons, Mui Ne

Our last stop of the day was to the sand dunes to watch the sunset. The pictures in the brochures show beautiful dunes, that look like the Sahara, with amazing colourful sunsets. Again the reality was a bit different. There were hundreds of people clambering up the dunes that were right next to the main road. It was quite a long way off sunset and neither of us were that bothered about hanging around.

However, just as we were leaving, we were approached by a group of students who nearly fell over with excitement when Sarah said hello to them in Vietnamese. They wanted to have their photo taken with us, so for the next 10 minutes, we were put in various poses as they took it in turns to have their photo taken with each of them – like a couple of freaks in the circus!

Sarah with local students in Mui Ne

Back to the jeep for the journey back to the hotel and without so much as a goodbye from our driver, we went to get ready for our last night in Mui Ne.

Both exhausted and aware of the fact that we had another 5 hour bus journey to Saigon at 8am the next morning, we opted for a pizza and a quiet night in, both excited about the jam-packed 24 hours we had planned in Saigon, the final stop of our trip.

Mui Ne – Kiwi kite surfing mecca or Russian R & R?

I don’t think the ear cleaning experience was such a good idea as I awoke  with one ear swollen and slightly painful. I hoped I hadn’t contracted some fatal disease and, bless Lindsay, she didn’t even say “I told you so”.

Today we were heading further south. This journey would be a breeze – a mere five hour bus journey to Mui Ne, a pretty little quiet beachside town known for it’s pretty fishing villages and sand dune backdrop where we very excited about going sand boarding

After the nightmare sleeper bus, we chose a seater bus. After an hour we so wished we were back squashed on those sleeper ‘beds’ for the  bus seats were designed in such a way that the head ‘rest’ seemed to push your head forward and consequently gave us both terrible neck ache. The horn honking was no better and the driving just as bad as I heard Lindsay tell  me, quite matter of factly, as I dozed, “just to let you know, we’re on the other side of the road and there’s a huge truck coming towards us”. So accustomed had we become to this, I didn’t even flinch.

We arrived in Mui Ne and, whilst asking directions in a local tour office, ended up booking a tour immediately for the following day with a nice Vietnamese man  who thought we were movie stars. I wondered how many times a day he used that line but we still booked. He got a taxi driver (I think it was just his mate who was lurking around in the shop) to take us on the taxi motorbike to our hotel – three on a bike, plus two backpacks and he did not drive slowly.

The hotel was nice and, given that the temperature was hitting nearly 40 degrees, the pool looked very inviting. We checked in and housekeeping took us to our rooms. In the elevator, she groped my nose and told me how much she liked it. I have had my ‘pointed’ Western nose complimented before many times in Asia but not experienced the groping so it was very amusing.

Our room was nice and we did wonder for split second if we had been given the ‘honey-moon’ suite as we looked at the  “I love you” bed runners which later featured in a mini photo shoot when we came home drunk.

With not much of the afternoon left we headed to the beach which was a little disappointing as there was a fair bit of rubbish washed up. Mui Ne is famous for its’ kite surfing schools so we looked past the rubbish and watched the the kite surfers do their amazing stuff on the waves.

We also whiled away time giggling at two Russian girls doing their very own semi-pornographic photo shoot on the beach. I had a snooze at one point and they were still at it an hour later when I woke up, I’m sure doing the same poses but they had introduced a prop – high heeled shoes, which are of course very practical when walking on a sandy beach.

We had a nice beach walk and, once again, wondered where all the people were. We had read about cool beach bars and evening dining with feet in the sand – it didn’t look hopeful. We had also read it was a place very popular Kiwis (due to the kite surfing) and, having lived in New Zealand, Lindsay was looking forward to crossing paths with some Kiwis. All we saw were Russians and 4 star, bland hotel resorts.

We stopped for a drink and snack back at the kite surf school cafe where we had started and experienced the best spring rolls I have possibly ever eaten, delicately wrapped and steamed in rice paper. 

As we sat and ate, we realised that the beach cafe we were in seemed to turn into a bit of a night haunt as the sun goes down as there was a bar and dance floor off to one side. We had hope that we might indeed get a night out on the tiles and vowed to check it out that night. We checked the guide book and it did confirm that ‘Wax beach bar and club’ was indeed one of THE two local hot spots to go to and low and behold, in a beach town spread over 10km, it was right opposite our hotel. We were sure that ALL of Mui Ne would flock there that evening.

We had a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant – stir fried noodles with beef (or ‘beep’ as we had commonly started to call it given that the Vietnamese struggle to say or even write bee’F. Our minds went back to the Hoi An Cafe 43 when we spotted the typing error on the menu and it has been a constant source of hysterical laughter ever since)..

We hit Wax bar and club soon after and found that all of Mui Ne were not there at all. However, we spotted a few beach bean bags, got comfortable with some beers and counted a whole 4 people in the place.

Around 11pm, it filled up a bit and, given the smell of paraffin from an unlit beach bonfire a couple of metres away, we moved from the bean bags to the bar/dance floor area where we watched in amusement four Russian tourists clearly having the holiday of a lifetime and strutting their stuff on the dance floor, completely uninhibited and probably drunk as monkeys . More and more local Vietnamese came in  and all sat together on one side of the dance floor, avidly watching the Russians.

Out of nowhere, up on the dance floor popped a Vietnamese guy in black slacks, shite shirt and black tie and started going for it on the dance floor. His moves clearly were Michael Jackson influenced. The more confident he got, the louder his Vietnamese friends cheered him on and the nearer to the centre of the dance floor (and  to the Russians) he got.

One of the Russian guys seemed to take this as a bit of a challenge and so pulled out all the stops on his dancing and so all his Russian countrymen were cheering him on.

It ended up with the Russian and the Vietnamese guy dancing face to face in the centre of the dance floor. The Russian was twice the size and height of the Vietnamese guy and Lindsay and I were in absolute hysterics  watching this ‘West Side Story’ surreal dance off in an almost empty nightclub.

Later on, one of the Russians was near us at the bar and sent over two drinks for Lindsay and I. Aptly, these were White Russians.

He was just a friendly, happy guy. He asked where we were from and we told the UK. “Ah England”, he said, “the land of Guy Ritchie”. Hmmm, I could think of more common links to Britain, like the Royal family, football or fish and chips, but I went with it. He went on “Yes, ‘Lock Stocking and Two Barrel’s (I didn’t bother correcting him) and ‘Snatch’  – I love these movies.” And with that, he said cheers, told us to enjoy our drinks and disappeared with the rest of his gang.

Within about 10 minutes, Lindsay and I realised that we were eerily the only ones left in the ‘club’. Once again, it was before midnight and we had another early night and decided that tonight was possibly as hip as Mui Ne’s nightlife possibly gets.

Nha Trang Day 2 – mud bath, running out of petrol and ear wash!

We had heard about the mud baths in Nha Trang from some Kiwis we’d met in Hoi An, but the lady at our hotel recommended we go to a new one called I-Resort which was a bit out of town. www.i-resort.vn

We hired a motorbike that actually had brakes and armed with yet another map and a set of sketchy directions, off we went in search of some relaxation. You’d think on a straight road it would be easy to find, but yet again we managed to get lost. We are used to this by now and are no longer phased by having to do u-turns in the middle of the road or driving up dead end streets. It’s still fun to drive in another country, especially on the opposite side of the road and I was pleased that I managed to negotiate the roundabouts without crashing.

The spa was indeed lovely, with beautiful mineral pools that were as hot as a bath and many waterfalls for you to cool off in. It was nice to have a bit of luxury for a change and for 500 baht/10 quid we could have the mud bath and use the facilities all day- bargain!

As we discovered, there is a bit of a process to the mud bath. First you are ushered to shower and change then you are taken to the mud bath which is promptly filled with hot velvet-like mud. It felt a bit like bathing in milk chocolate and we were happy to have our own private bath and not have to share it with the many Russians, who were the only other customers.

mud bath in Nha Trang

After you have wallowed in the mud for 20 minutes like a couple of hippos, you are taken to the ‘baking’ area, where you lie in the sun until the mud dries. Then you have a choice of different water jets that you can walk through to take it off. It was great fun!

For the rest of the day, we lounged around in the mineral pools and Sarah made some friends with some Vietnamese grannies from Seattle! It was a blissful day.

I-Resort - Nha Trang

I-Resort, Nha Trang

On the way home, I noticed that the petrol guage on the bike was in the red, but the guy at the hotel had told us that there was enough to take us 26km before it ran out. We had only done about 10kms, so we assumed we would be fine – wrong! The bike started to shudder and then came to a halt on a dual carriageway.

No sooner had we stopped than a Vietnamese guy pulled up and seemed to be offering us help by trying to take one of us on the bike. We decided he looked a bit high on something and had visions of us being driven into the middle of the jungle and hacked to bits, so we declined and decided to walk to the petrol station ourselves. Poor bloke was probably only trying to help! We asked a one toothed motorbike taxi guy where the petrol station was, but he offered to go and get us some instead. The fact that he was back within 10 seconds made us realise we could have walked by ourselves, however he filled us up, we paid him too much for the petrol, took the obligatory photo and everyone was happy. 

We managed to negotiate our way back to the hotel without getting lost and feeling all rejuvenated, went to get ready for a night out in what is described as ‘Vietnam’s party capital!’.

We still hadn’t sampled the Pho (pronounced Faw) which is Vietnamese noodle soup. They sell it EVERYWHERE and whilst we knew it would probably not be as tasty as the Thai noodle soup, we were still keen to try it. We went out for dinner and were indeed  disappointed in what was still tasty soup, but bland in comparison to the Thai version. We were both searching for the usual array of condiments to put in.

Continuing our day of pampering we went in search of a salon that did ‘ear washing’. Sarah had noticed that many of the massage shops offer this and was keen to try it. I didn’t fancy it and opted for a pedicure instead. The ‘salon’ that we went to was far removed from the spa facilities we’d been to earlier in the day. All the staff were gnawing on corn which they sell everywhere on the street and consequently the shop floor was covered in corn kernels.

There were old shoes lying around on the floor and instruments and equipment that looked straight out of a torture chamber.

the 'salon!'

Sarah was ushered upstairs for her ear wash and I had a pedicure whilst watching a Russian movie. She made a pretty good job of my toenails, given the state of the equipment she was using. Sarah’s ears  had been poked and prodded with long dentist like equipment and whilst she said it was ‘interesting’ I don’t think she’ll be rushing out to have it done again.

We decided to hit the ‘party town’ and I was keen to hear all about the ear-washing experience. Having been disappointed in the tame nightlife the night before, we thought we would try the tackiest bar in town. With big flashing signs advertising ‘Booze Cruises’ at the front, we felt sure it would be packed with drunken backpackers drinking out of funnels and playing drinking games. Again we were disappointed in what was a fairly dull bar. Where were the crazy bar girls that we are used to?! We were surrounded by people drinking out of what looked like old pickled onion jars – their version of the Thai ‘bucket’. However, we drank a few Saigon beers and headed home for another early night. Maybe we’ve both been in Thailand too long. Vietnam just wasn’t crazy enough!

Nha Trang – Vietnam’s ‘party’ town (or so we thought)

‘Sleeper’ bus! Pffff. How can one sleep when the bus takes corners almost of two wheels, a horn honking at an obscene volume on top of Vietnamese music at 5am which is supposed to be pleasant.

We got zero sleep so we were very happy that, on checking in to our hotel in Nha Trang at 6.30am, the room was ready. We immediately drew the curtains and slept like babies for 3 hours

Slightly recovered from our bus ordeal, we decided to have a restful day. After all, Nha Trang is known for its’ wonderous beach so that’s where we headed. Despite the idyllic town looking like a postcard with a blue ocean, skies to match and white sand in between, the guide books do warn quite strongly about hawkers and touts, bag snatching, drink spiking and, worse still, people getting tasered by locals on the beach late at night and then being robbed (or worse)!  Lying on the beach without a care in the world, it didn’t seem possible.

We got approached by the usual stream of beach sellers, all of whom sell the same thing. One little lady did catch my eye. She was 64, had no teeth, skinny as anything and her tactic was to flutter her eyelashes at you. It worked. I ended up buying a couple of things that of course I didn’t need, but she was too adorable.

She chatted away in Vietnamese and kept pointing at my bag on the sand. I got the message – she was telling me to be careful of my bag. So perhaps the warnings had substance.  She wrapped the strap of my bag 4 times around my wrist, so tightly that I worried  it would cut my blood circulation (and make bad tan lines! ). She did the same with Lindsay pointing insistently at her bum bag at her feet and so Lindsay brought it closer to her as she lay. Clearly that wasn’t sufficient. She put Lindsay’s bum bag around her neck, nearly strangling her and then shoved Lindsay’s head to the sand so that it covered the bag. Lindsay didn’t dare move after that.

We enjoyed the beach but, what with all the warnings, were slightly disappointed not to see anyone getting robbed, drugged or tasered. We were still  mindful that it could be worse at night, especially as Nha Trang is THE party town of Vietnam.

We ended our beach afternoon with beer and nibbles in the well known ‘Sailing Club’ – Nha Trang’s first ever bar. I wanted to go back for nostalgia’s sake as Dave and I had been here 12 years ago when it was a crazy, fun bar, with bamboo walls and a thatched roof. me being me, I was disappointed to find there was no debauchery and was now a swanky beach ‘club’ bar (I’m sure adding the word ‘club’ justifies expensive prices in Asia – Thailand is the same). Anyway, we  still enjoyed our expensive beers and posh tapas while watching the Nha Trang sun set.

For evening dinner, we stumbled across a restaurant called ‘Chopsticks’ which offered an exciting special of Vietnamese chicken in a claypot. The Manager sold it very well so we ordered it, along with some yummy sounding squid. Neither hit the spot. The chicken claypot was more like a chicken casserole that anyone could rustle up and the squid in spicy lemon sauce was just squid with some  fancy carrot decoration. Grrrr. Me –  not a happy bunny.

We got chatting to the restaurant Manager who was really nice and then insisted he wanted to tell us a VERY funny story. After the anti-climax of dinner, we were all ears. He even pulled up a chair. His funny story was basically his life story which, whilst semi-intersesting, was not funny and as much as a disappointment as the food, especially when we had listened patiently for half an hour, avidly waiting for the ‘funny’ ending. We did notice an Australian couple giggling to themselves at another table who had probably had to endure the same ‘funny’ story themselves on a previous visit.

He then suggested presenting us with his paintings he had for sale. We noticed an entire portfolio and thought we would make an escape, told him apologetically that we had to go and , probably out of guilt, promised we would return tomorrow. He very proudly presented us with a parting gift of a pair of chopsticks wrapped beautifully in a piece of toilet roll and a pretty red bow.

We left the restaurant and, feeling like a night out, went in search of the crazy bars and pumping night life. We found a bar called Guava which was fairly busy with expats and extremely loud music with bass that pounded through your body so only managed a couple of beers there, especially when a guy tried to chat up Lindsay but smelled of vomit.

We wandered the streets, still mindful of potential theft and tasering, but it was calm and quiet and all the locals were very friendly. We eventually stumbled across Nha Trang’s supposed Number One nightspot, the ‘Why Not Bar’ but instead of finding a lively bar full of drunken hedonists and a full dance floor, everyone was sitting mellow smoking shisha pipes and the dance floor was empty. We were home by midnight.

The sleeper bus – it doesn’t get better the second time round!

Having done one sleeper bus already and not really enjoying the experience, we were keen to take the overnight train, but unfortunately the timings did not work for us, so we found ourselves back on the bus. We had been promised by the booking agent that this would be a better bus than last time, but even then we had our doubts.

‘bus station’ in Hoi An

We arrived at the ‘bus station’ early to ensure better seats and managed to get on the bus first. There are 3 rows of beds and I’d been stuck in the middle one the last time, so I wanted one by the window. Sarah climbed on to the top bunk, but as I tried to sit below her, a small, what I can only describe as a Nazi child, grabbed me by the arm pushing me to occupy the very seats I’d been trying to avoid. A lot of shouting and arm pulling ensued and then he pushed the seat back forward so that I couldn’t sit down. Defeated and angry, I climbed on the the middle bunk, with the dread of the 12 hour journey ahead.

The beds were even smaller than before so that when you lay down on your back your elbows were actually off the bed. The little cubby hole for your feet was so small that we could not straighten our toes and had to have our feet at a pigeon-toed angle. Having seen one of the guys going around giving the blankets a quick skoosh of spray before we got on, we could only assume that they were not clean either and the presence of mattresses on the floor in the aisles made us wonder just how many people would be joining us.

We watched as everyone got the same treatment by the Nazi child as we had. Nobody was allowed to sit where they wanted and were manhandled to their seats like a prisoners of war. There were no Vietnamese on the bus at this point and we realised that he had put all of the foreigners on the top bunks. Everyone sat around looking bewildered and disgruntled – apart from a German couple wearing conical hats who sat next to us. The husband was very tall and we watched as he tried to wedge himself into the ‘dentists chair’. No sooner had he got himself into position and he was grinning like a Cheshire cat, head resting on his hands like a sleeping child and humming away to himself.

He didn’t even seem to mind that in the aisle next to him, was an extra bed occupied by a Vietnamese lady dressed head to toe in leopard skin and wearing a full face mask. The beds were positioned in such a way that her head was inches from his crotch, which by now he had covered with his conical hat.

We picked up some Vietnamese people at the next bus station who came on and occupied all the lower beds. They were all given a bottle of water, but none of the foreigners got one. Blatant discrimination! One man was unable to get to his seat without climbing over another lady. Instead of asking her to move, the little Nazi simply thrust her chair forward so that her head was almost on her knees and the guy squeezed himself round the back of her!

Finally, with a full bus, we were on our way. We didn’t think it was possible, but the music was even louder than before, to the point where I could still hear it even with my Ipod at full volume. Sarah had sensibly brought ear plugs, but they were of little use either.

We made the obligatory pit stop at midnight for people to use the toilet and eat noodle soup. I’m sure they don’t normally eat at midnight, but for some reason when they are on a bus they feel the need to have a full meal as a midnight snack.

For those of you who have been on a visa run from Thailand, you will be familiar with the standard of the toilet stops. Always a hole in the ground job, usually with an inch of manky water on the floor. This was much worse, but faced with the prospect of having to use the toilet on the bus, we didn’t have much choice.

Outside the toilet was a line of men coughing up phlegm to the point where it felt more like a barnyard than a toilet.

Back on the bus and the music starts again – it’s now past 1am. The roads became windier and windier, so much so that you had to hang on every time we turned a corner and at some points we both swore he was on two wheels. Thank God we couldn’t see out of the front window as he weaved in and out of the traffic beeping his horn at full blast.

Unfortunately, on such a long journey, no matter how much you try to limit your water intake, it is inevitable that you will have to use the toilet.

At this point we now have people asleep in the aisles, making it impossible to pass. I had to climb down the bus like spiderman, only touching the floor just before I got to the toilet, which is not easy to do on a bus going at 100kms an hour.

I couldn’t work out how to lock the door, so I had to hold it shut with one hand while holding on to a handle on the wall for balance with the other. Trying to squat on a moving bus is very difficult as I was thrown around inside the toilet cubicle. It felt more like a bucking bronco than a toilet and I didn’t know whether to cry or  shout ‘yeehaa’!

Realising the ridiculousness of the situation, I had a good giggle to myself and was annoyed that Sarah seemed to be asleep with her ̉ earplugs and eye mask on, so I couldn’t even share the story. However, when we woke up, Sarah told me her toilet story. She got there in the same manner as me, by climbing over sleeping bodies, only to find a pair of underpants hanging on the door.

Having the same problems that I had unable to lock the door, no sooner had she got her trousers down at her ankles when the flew open and she was faced with a bus load of people. Fortunately, most of whom were asleep.

I’m sure many of you have been in situations that are so bad that the only way to deal with them is to see the funny side. So we relayed our stories through tears of hysterical laughter, shouting over the music and bouncing around on our beds as we hurtled in to Nha Trang, glad that this would be our last sleeper bus.

The Germans were still smiling!

Hoi An Day 2

To begin our second day in Hoi An, we decided we would make use of the hotel’s free bicycles to explore. Once again, we managed to get the worst push bikes in the whole of Vietnam. These had seats like stone and brakes that didn’t work at all so you had to stop with your feet. They did have cute ‘Mary Poppins’ baskets on the front though, even though we didn’t dare use them for fear of our bags getting snatched out of them!

We decided to take a local ferry boat to nearby Cam Kim island which is famous for local wood carving. The bicycles were nice for about the first 3 minutes until we realised that it was possibly the hottest day so far and agreed it must be touching 40 degrees. So we had only biked about 10 minutes before looking like death, drenched in sweat.

We got on the little ferry boat and loaded our bikes. There were two other foreigners (a nice Kiwi couple) on there and  I checked with them “does this boat go to Cam Kim island?”. They replied “we have no idea”. That was our kind of thing so we followed suit.  We bargained our ferry fare as best we could.  As we paid we pretty much knew we were paying a little too much but the Kiwis had paid twice what we had so we felt better. And the boat did indeed go to the island.

We toured the island – about 1 sq. km – on our wee bikes and took in the scenery of more beautiful rice paddies and the wood carving factories in the little village on the island. As we cycled through the village we were yelled at by a local old man to stop and come in for  drink. Tempted as we were, I noticed that he was drinking out of shot glasses (it was 10 am) rather than tea cups so we assumed by his ‘happy’ demeanour that he was on the ‘happy water’ (rice wine). So we thought it best to politely decline and cycle a little faster!

A bit later, we were yelled at again by a old toothless grandma sitting outside her house. We pulled up thinking she was asking us something. Her face went from laughing with no teeth to looking quite stern and then back to laughing. Again, we pedalled on.

We decided we would head to the beach in the afteroon. A nice pleasant 5km cycle on a stright road – imposible to get lost, right? WRONG. It was now the heat of the day and we got lost, made worse by the fact that other tourists were happily cycling past us on bicycles that actually had padded seat and brakes. Grrrr.

Finally we found the beach just outside Hoi An. The pleasant, flat 5km journey seemed to have taken forever so we were happy to flop on the sand, have a swim and drift into a nice afternoon nap. No sooner had our eyes closed than a large group of Korean tourists arrived squealing in excitement at the sight of the  beach and running around like children, kicking sand in our faces s they did so. They proceeded to do the obligatory Asian photo shoot of eachother doing various poses in the same spot ( which was right next to our heads) and same background. This lasted arouond 30 minutes. When we saw them approaching tourists like ourselves to have their photo takem with them, Lindsay and I quickly assumed sleep position again so we wouldn’t have to model with them in our two-pieces.

The Koreans eventually left and the sky turned decidely cloudy and dark. Suddenly we found that our bikes did have a little zest and we arrived back at the hotel in no time and stopped for a quick snack at the cafe next door. We were thankful to have made it back and avoid the torrential storm that hit. The restaurant we were in wasn’t so lucky and before long, the narrow lane was flooding and water was making it’s way into the restaurant at quite a speed. The staff were running around panicking slightly, moving tables and cushions in out of the rain while Lindsay and I sat there happily eating crispy wontons and sippy Beer Hoi  (local draft beer served from a huge beer drum) at 3000 Dong (around 4 baht/8 pence/15 cents) a glass.  Yes you read right, we could hardly believe it ourselves! On talking about how cheap it was we remembered the “free beer tomorrow’ sign we had seen the day before at another nearby restaurant, only to spot the same sign was there again.

We were rained in at the cafe for quite a while while the thunder and lightening hit hard. Lindsay did comment on the fact that many staff seemed to keep looking up above our heads. We then noticed an electric socket with 4 plugs running off it and water cascading in off the roof just centimetres behind. Yikes.

A brief visit to the ladies proved rather interesting. The toilet was Ok (there was toilet paper, what more do you want?) but it was also seemed to  be the family bathroom. As I squatted, I noticed a laundry tub full of men’s dirty undies soaking to my left, a grotty pair of flip flops in the middle of the floor and another wash tub full of dirty shirts to my right. It was a bit of a Kodak moment so I made sure I got it there and and then mid squat.

The rain eventually eased and we  returned to our hotel and planned our evening ahead.

We couldn’t resist having dinner at our local restaurant again, ‘Cafe 43’, which boasted some fo the best food in Vietnam. There was a menu full of testimonials to prove this, as well as scribbled notes from tourists all over the world stuck under the glass top which you could read while you sat. Simple and clever marketing. The glorious reports certainly enticed us back anyway and we did eat some of the best squid we’d ever had.

I thought I would be clever with the waitress and try out my new favourite word in Vietnamese, “ngong”, meaning delicious. She seemed surprised and smiled and went on to ask me my name (or so I thought). Proudly I replied back in Vietnamese “My name is Sarah”.  Lindsay seemed shocked. “Blimey – have you been practising?”, she asked. “It just came to me” I said modestly. The waitress went on to explain that she had in fact asked me how old I was. I felt like a prize twat.

We headed off into town in search on the Hoi An nightlife which we had read “goes on until the early hours”. We found a mere two bars. We picked what seemed to be the best of the two and it was inded, full to the rafters with a mix of travellers and local expats. We got into a friendly chat with 2 guys, Dave and Dave who were both in Hoi An for a mutual friend’s wedding. Dave No.1 was a 50 year old Englishman, new to Asia and loving every minute (had been drunk most nights since his arrival). Dave No. 2  was a Designer and looked like a male Nana Mouskouri which was slightly off putting. He explained he lived in Paris but was actually Spanish.

We got on to chatting about living in Thailand and Dave No. 2 was quick to tell us how much he disliked Phuket for all the obvious reasons that people often generalise Phuket with. In an attempt to defend her territory Lindays said politely “I can see what you mean, but not all of Phuket is like Magaluf”. Dave No. 2 replied “I’m from Magaluf”. I thought I could visibly see the ground opening up to swallow Lindsay. We didn’t talk much more to Dave No.2 after that as he seemed to disappear.

We sampled more local beer and decided a taxi back would be better that getting lost yet again walking home. Back at the hotel, our night security guard was fast asleep on some camp bed, wrapped around with green netting, opened one eye and pulled our room key from underneath him, before zonking back to sleep. We were the last ones home at 2am – VERY late night by Vietnamese standards.

 

 

Arrival in Hoi An

So we said a sad farewell to Mr Tu and Ngo. As they drove off I’m sure I saw Lindsay’s mouth wobble as she said “I miss them already 😦 “. We really had had such a memorable 2 days.

We checked in to our very quaint hotel in a gorgeous little back lane of Hoi An.  We noticed a little restaurant right  opposite our hotel offering a promotion of ‘free beer tomorrow’ and vowed we would check that out the following day. As usual, we rested only for a mere few minutes on the bed before the eager curiosity set in to go out and explore (and eat, of course!)

Hoi an is one of the few places which escaped the destruction of war so it’s architecture is the main draw and we could see why. As we made our way down to the river front, we were literally walking with dropped jaws. Hoi An, to me, is like Paris meets Venice in Asia – a beautiful mix. The French influence of food – patisseries and bakeries everywhere – with a Venetian backdrop of the river dotted with longtail boats. It was so beautiful that it almost didn’t feel real and we both agreed it was walking around Disneyland, particularly as there was a constant sound of soft Vietnamese music coming from I don’t know where.

We were exhausted from our trip and were quite happy to sit and people watch so found a cute little riverside restaurant where we ended up ordering yummy steamed fish wrapped in banana leaves (a local speciality) and Morning Glory  washed down with a couple of cold beers. Sitting riverside, whilst giving the perfect view, meant that we got approached by every possible street seller. A few times is fine but when you’re trying to eat a mouthful of Morning Glory with chopsticks, can get a little annoying.

I wondered perhaps if Lindsay and I had that ‘new arrival/easy prey’ look, as I noticed other people weren’t getting harrassed. I asked a guy on the next table why they weren’t approaching him and he laughed and said they had already tried their luck on him many times. We ended up chatting to him – a very interesting guy. He was a Polish guy travelling through Asia for 40 days so we swapped a few stories as one does.

More interesting was that he went on to tell us that he worked in radio. He was very modest. A few years ago he was a radio show host with his own daily talk show etc. Still, he was very modest but by all accounts, when I pressed him whether he got recognised and asked for autographs, it was clear he was successful and Lindsay and I decided that we were sitting with Poland’s very own Dave Lee Travis. Oh, and his name was Peter (PJ for short) and for the purpose of radio, he was known of course as ‘DJ PJ’!

Meandering home through the maze of beautiful shops and tailors (Hoi An is THE place to go if you want clothes made to measure) something pulled us into a lovely patisserie (probably the size of the cakes). We happily sat there devouring the biggest slice of chocolate brownie cheesecake I have even seen/eaten (we have photographic evidence!).

It was an early night to bed and we hoped to catch a movie. Lindsay went to the room before me while I had a quick hour online. When I got into the room, I had to giggle as Lindsay felt compelled to make use of the mosquito net and had cosily tucked it all around her (and was then unable to get out to turn the TV on to watch the intended movie). I should add that all windows and doors were closed, the air con was on and there were no mozzies whatsoever.