I was so sad that it was our last day! This last portion of the journey was short but incredibly beautiful. We saw a portion of the original Ho Chi Minh Trail and a beautiful waterfall.
We stopped at a very traditional village, where the elders didn't even speak modern Vietnamese. There was a little girl who loved me and kept following me round smiling! We also went to a bigger pineapple farm and ate some amazing fresh pineapple with salt, as the locals eat it. We also tried some jackfruit, which is basically a big durian, but it was so vile I couldn't even eat it out of politeness!
Our next stop was a beautiful temple, where we got to see some of the service, which was lovely. We also stopped at a house where a lady was making rice paper, she was so mechanical it was hypnotic!
Our final stop was a cafe which had recently been a wedding and still had all the decorations up! From there it was a short ride to Hoi An. The guys found us a lovely cheap hotel with a swimming pool and then took us to the best tailor in town.We spent ages choosing designs and fabricsm then went to a cafe to say goodbye to Tan and Anh. It was really horrible after five days of being with them almost non-stop.
We spent the evening exploring Hoi An, which is amazing!
Friday, 22 July 2011
Bike trip day four - Kon Tum City to Somewhere
I'll edit the title once I've worked out where we actually stayed the night!
It started raining soon after we set off, so we sheltered under a large hut, and John and I wandered off and found a monument while Tan and Anh dug in their bags to get their rain gear out. They had thoughtfully brought extra for us - John had a full on rain suit with trousers and I got a long rain coat.
We reached the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail, took some pictures then set off down it! The scenery today was absolutely amazing.
We stopped to buy some sweets, then went to see some village kids and taught them to take sweeties from strangers. We saw an enormously rickety bridge that a couple were brave enough to cross on motorbike!
We saw Scorpion Waterfall, which was just stunning, then stopped at a family's house and watched a man making rat traps to catch food in the jungle. The kids were very cheeky and kept asking for more sweets!
The hotel was beautiful and we even had a balcony! We had a goodbye dinner with Anh and Tan for our last night then went to bed.
It started raining soon after we set off, so we sheltered under a large hut, and John and I wandered off and found a monument while Tan and Anh dug in their bags to get their rain gear out. They had thoughtfully brought extra for us - John had a full on rain suit with trousers and I got a long rain coat.
We reached the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail, took some pictures then set off down it! The scenery today was absolutely amazing.
We stopped to buy some sweets, then went to see some village kids and taught them to take sweeties from strangers. We saw an enormously rickety bridge that a couple were brave enough to cross on motorbike!
We saw Scorpion Waterfall, which was just stunning, then stopped at a family's house and watched a man making rat traps to catch food in the jungle. The kids were very cheeky and kept asking for more sweets!
The hotel was beautiful and we even had a balcony! We had a goodbye dinner with Anh and Tan for our last night then went to bed.
Bike trip day three - Daklak to Kon Tum City
This day was a bit of a killer,we had to travel about 300km and were knackered by the end of it! There was some stunning scenery though, and we still made a few stops. Our first was a beautiful view where Tan pointed out that all the greenery we could see were coffee trees! We also spotted some Vietnamese fire engines, one of which was army camouflage!
Next stop was a local person's house where they made and dried rice noodles. There was a giant machine that the ladies mashed the paste into, then it dropped out the bottom, was cut and then set out to dry in the sun. Tam kept making us eat it even though it was really dry and bitty.
Next we stopped at a pepper plantation, and again Tan made us eat some! They were very, very hot! We also saw a cashew tree, which was even more bizarre than the pineapple! Cashews grow pocking out the bottom of a peach-like fruit, which wasn't how I imagined them at all. We also discovered mimosa, and spent the rest of the trip spotting it and poking it endlessly! We popped down the road to a household drying coffee beans outside their house, and Tan pulled up some peanuts for us.
Next stop was an endless rubber plantation, where some really friendly ladies let us take pictures with their (very heavy) buckets of sap. Then we stopped at Sea Lake, where we met a guy eager to practice his English who advised us to visit his hometown, Hue.
We eventually arrived at the hotel with very sore bums, and after a failed attempt to find the local market, we went to bed.
Next stop was a local person's house where they made and dried rice noodles. There was a giant machine that the ladies mashed the paste into, then it dropped out the bottom, was cut and then set out to dry in the sun. Tam kept making us eat it even though it was really dry and bitty.
Next we stopped at a pepper plantation, and again Tan made us eat some! They were very, very hot! We also saw a cashew tree, which was even more bizarre than the pineapple! Cashews grow pocking out the bottom of a peach-like fruit, which wasn't how I imagined them at all. We also discovered mimosa, and spent the rest of the trip spotting it and poking it endlessly! We popped down the road to a household drying coffee beans outside their house, and Tan pulled up some peanuts for us.
Next stop was an endless rubber plantation, where some really friendly ladies let us take pictures with their (very heavy) buckets of sap. Then we stopped at Sea Lake, where we met a guy eager to practice his English who advised us to visit his hometown, Hue.
We eventually arrived at the hotel with very sore bums, and after a failed attempt to find the local market, we went to bed.
Bike trip day two - Lak Lake to Daklak
We met Anh and Tan for breakfast at the restaurant, then we set off for a nearby village. Tan and Anh showed us the traditional village houses, and some new ones which had been recently been built. We saw elephants, pigs, dogs and chickens around the village, and some very sweet children who were delighted when we took a picture of them and showed them. One of the longhouses had a massive duck pen underneath, and when we went over to see them the ducks all ran to us, obviously expecting to be fed!
We had a rest stop at a stunning dam, where we took some pictures and went for a walk to stretch our legs, then we went to a python farm. They had a giant python and a baby, and some scorpions and other stuff. There were also two really cute children who probably got more attention from us than the snakes! We also saw a pineapple farm, which was bizarre - I did not realise pineapples grew like that!
We drove a bit longer, then Anh pointed out a village five aside football match, so we stopped to watch for a bit. We sat on the floor near the road and immediately had a little crowd of about 7 kids sneaking glances. The were giggling and watching us, then one of them came and squatted about a metre away from his friends, towards us. The rest of his friends quickly ran over and joined him, still sneaking glances. Eventually, metre by metre, the whole crowd ended up next to us, pretty much openly staring! At half time, the crowd grew to about 20-30 kids, and some nearby older teens who were too cool to look interested. It was really awkward because we couldn't really communicate so we were pretty much watching them staring at us! As some of the crowd dispersed when the match resumed we got our camera out and showed the kids how to use it, which resulted in some good pictures of the match and some of the ground!
We went to what I think is the biggest waterfall in Vietnam, which was stunning! We wandered around the little rocky coves, which was a bit scary, and took lots of photos.
We arrived at our hotel early, at about 4 ro 4:30, then went for a wander around the town. We stopped at a coffee shop where nobody spoke English and attempted to order coffee from the menu - which we got! Hooray!
We went back to the hotel and met Anh an English guy called Evan and a Vietnamese guy whose name I can't remember and decided to have dinner with them. We drank lots of rice wine, and since Anh and Evan seemed to have had a good start on us, they both became very impassioned with various opposing viewpoints! At one point Evan laughingly called me crazy for being veggie and Anh jumped to my defence and had a go! Evan was smashed and kept bringing up the least neutral dinner conversation topics such as the American War and how westerners see Vietnam as dirty! It was a completely bewildering evening, but a lot of fun.
We had a rest stop at a stunning dam, where we took some pictures and went for a walk to stretch our legs, then we went to a python farm. They had a giant python and a baby, and some scorpions and other stuff. There were also two really cute children who probably got more attention from us than the snakes! We also saw a pineapple farm, which was bizarre - I did not realise pineapples grew like that!
We drove a bit longer, then Anh pointed out a village five aside football match, so we stopped to watch for a bit. We sat on the floor near the road and immediately had a little crowd of about 7 kids sneaking glances. The were giggling and watching us, then one of them came and squatted about a metre away from his friends, towards us. The rest of his friends quickly ran over and joined him, still sneaking glances. Eventually, metre by metre, the whole crowd ended up next to us, pretty much openly staring! At half time, the crowd grew to about 20-30 kids, and some nearby older teens who were too cool to look interested. It was really awkward because we couldn't really communicate so we were pretty much watching them staring at us! As some of the crowd dispersed when the match resumed we got our camera out and showed the kids how to use it, which resulted in some good pictures of the match and some of the ground!
We went to what I think is the biggest waterfall in Vietnam, which was stunning! We wandered around the little rocky coves, which was a bit scary, and took lots of photos.
We arrived at our hotel early, at about 4 ro 4:30, then went for a wander around the town. We stopped at a coffee shop where nobody spoke English and attempted to order coffee from the menu - which we got! Hooray!
We went back to the hotel and met Anh an English guy called Evan and a Vietnamese guy whose name I can't remember and decided to have dinner with them. We drank lots of rice wine, and since Anh and Evan seemed to have had a good start on us, they both became very impassioned with various opposing viewpoints! At one point Evan laughingly called me crazy for being veggie and Anh jumped to my defence and had a go! Evan was smashed and kept bringing up the least neutral dinner conversation topics such as the American War and how westerners see Vietnam as dirty! It was a completely bewildering evening, but a lot of fun.
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Vietnam part 3 - Bike trip Day 1 - Nha Trang to Lak Lake
After our drivers turned up, we got on some motorbikes for only the 3rd time ever to start a 5 day 4 night adventure!
The initial stop was to a post box to let Imogen go post some letters... Very exciting and bums not too sore yet!
First actual stop for the day was to look over a nice view where a resort was being built. Apparently the building of the resort was moving very slowly because the manager was stealing money from the funds! Near the resort, we also saw Turtle Island which slightly resembled a turtle (more than Koh Tao did at least!).
Next stop was to get petrol but it was a petrol station right next to a local fishing port! We saw people rowing along it what looked like should have been big baskets, a strange looking dead fish and people just generally doing their day to day work! One lady was particularly efficient at sorting through shellfish caught.
We then went to a pagoda, a Buddhist temple. This was really gorgeous and peaceful with some faint music playing from somewhere. It was completely deserted except a small girl who was waving at us when she saw us!
Next we saw some people making bricks. They used a really simple machine to pour in ingredients and out comes a continuous flow of soft brick! This gets cut and then set out in the sun to dry then in a furnace to bake.
Then we stopped at a very small ethnic minority village. The house was long and low and is where every member of the family stays.There was a very cute and shy child in one of the windows who wanted to come see us but was a bit too shy! A family on the other side of the road all came out and shouted their hellos at us!
Then we traveled up into the mountains. The views were absolutely stunning and the roads were really fun! We stopped at the workshop of a man who made really cool looking furniture out of really old wood. He had a couple of dogs and monkeys, we fed the monkeys a banana each!
We next stopped at a coffee plantation, which we were both obviously very excited about seeing! The beans were not how expected them to be at all! After this during our drive we drove through a village where children actually ran out of their houses to come and see us and say hello! It was just like you see on TV and so nice.
Next, we stopped somewhere they were taking the skin off green beans. The people that worked here were very nice and we got a picture with them (which will eventually be uploaded) where we got asked to crouch so they didn't look so short!
The last thing we saw before our hotel for the night were some large machines pumping sand out from the river bed. This gets used to make cement! During the final leg of the day we also some farmers who had managed to get their tractor stuck in the rice paddy!
After the continuation of more amazing scenery we arrived at our hotel. We had a room with a veranda that led straight out onto Lak Lake, it was beautiful! While we were sitting out on our veranda, Imogen left her handbag on the floor and when she picked it up got bitten. She then realised her bag was covered everywhere with ants! Just before our dinner we noticed our room was actually covered in insects, good thing we had mosquito nets!
Bum soreness level: Quite sore
The initial stop was to a post box to let Imogen go post some letters... Very exciting and bums not too sore yet!
First actual stop for the day was to look over a nice view where a resort was being built. Apparently the building of the resort was moving very slowly because the manager was stealing money from the funds! Near the resort, we also saw Turtle Island which slightly resembled a turtle (more than Koh Tao did at least!).
Next stop was to get petrol but it was a petrol station right next to a local fishing port! We saw people rowing along it what looked like should have been big baskets, a strange looking dead fish and people just generally doing their day to day work! One lady was particularly efficient at sorting through shellfish caught.
We then went to a pagoda, a Buddhist temple. This was really gorgeous and peaceful with some faint music playing from somewhere. It was completely deserted except a small girl who was waving at us when she saw us!
Next we saw some people making bricks. They used a really simple machine to pour in ingredients and out comes a continuous flow of soft brick! This gets cut and then set out in the sun to dry then in a furnace to bake.
Then we stopped at a very small ethnic minority village. The house was long and low and is where every member of the family stays.There was a very cute and shy child in one of the windows who wanted to come see us but was a bit too shy! A family on the other side of the road all came out and shouted their hellos at us!
Then we traveled up into the mountains. The views were absolutely stunning and the roads were really fun! We stopped at the workshop of a man who made really cool looking furniture out of really old wood. He had a couple of dogs and monkeys, we fed the monkeys a banana each!
We next stopped at a coffee plantation, which we were both obviously very excited about seeing! The beans were not how expected them to be at all! After this during our drive we drove through a village where children actually ran out of their houses to come and see us and say hello! It was just like you see on TV and so nice.
Next, we stopped somewhere they were taking the skin off green beans. The people that worked here were very nice and we got a picture with them (which will eventually be uploaded) where we got asked to crouch so they didn't look so short!
The last thing we saw before our hotel for the night were some large machines pumping sand out from the river bed. This gets used to make cement! During the final leg of the day we also some farmers who had managed to get their tractor stuck in the rice paddy!
After the continuation of more amazing scenery we arrived at our hotel. We had a room with a veranda that led straight out onto Lak Lake, it was beautiful! While we were sitting out on our veranda, Imogen left her handbag on the floor and when she picked it up got bitten. She then realised her bag was covered everywhere with ants! Just before our dinner we noticed our room was actually covered in insects, good thing we had mosquito nets!
Bum soreness level: Quite sore
Vietnam Part 2 - Nha Trang
As John said in his last post, we arrived into Nha Trang at about lunchtime, and we got a taxi and asked the driver to take us to a cheap hotel. We ended up at a place called happy house, which was nice and cheap but had the most miserable, grumpy receptionist ever!
We went out to get some food, since it was about 4 by this point and we hadn't eaten all day because we couldn't work out the food ordering system on the train! Outside the restaurant, we came across some guys offering to take us on a bike trip and a young boy selling books, but we shooed them away until after we'd eaten. The restaurant was actually incredible, it had set meals with amazing food which were really cheap!
After we'd eaten, we let the boy convince us to buy 2 books (the last 2 in the Millennium trilogy and Catch 22) and chatted to the bike guys. They were really friendly and had a book full of reviews from people who they had taken on trips. We decided to go and get coffee with them, and we had our first pillion-riding experience, which in the heavy Nha Trang traffic was TERRIFYING! I was completely convinced that I would just slip off the back and John admitted afterwards that he had noticed himself squeezing his driver with his thighs going round corners!
I don't think John mentioned in his post, but the Vietnamese love coffee. They roast their beans with margarine and sugar, then grind it quite coarse and use an odd little contraption ( right) to make really strong drip coffee, which they drink with sugar and ice, and the milk that's used for white coffee is condensed milk, but you can get fresh in some places.
So, we ordered some coffee and had a look through all the reviews from the bikers' customers and we were definitely tempted! We had a set budget for all expenses per day, so we decided that if we could get the price down to that, we would take a trip to Ao Nang, which was our next planned stop. In the end, the cost was a bit over budget, but we decided to just go for it anyway! We did manage to haggle a good chunk off it, which I was very proud of.
We found out that the drivers were called Anh and Tan, and we arranged to meet them two days later to set off on a five day trip. We put down a deposit and they took us back to our hotel.
The next day, we went to the nearby mineral mud baths, which were soooo relaxing. We did the cheapest option, which included a hot mineral shower, a private mud bath, another shower and some hydrotherapy, then a (very!) hot mineral bath. There was also a public mineral swimming pool and waterfall, but they were heated so swimming was just exhausting! It was difficult to get pictures because of the mud, but I got a couple of John!
John was really ill the day after that, so we had a very quiet day walking on the beach, reading and not doing much. We decided that we should buy an SD card for the bike trip, so we went for a wander to hunt down a shopping centre John had seen. We did find it, but it was tiny and rubbish! A really nice, helpful sales lady gave us some directions in hand signals and we managed to eventually find somewhere to buy one, although I think this was more luck than anything else!
When we mentioned the bike trip to the miserable receptionist and she did a really concerned face, so I spent the evening convinced they were con artists who would either steal our money and never be seen again, or drive us to a secluded spot, then rob us. I actually couldn't sleep because I was so worried!
We woke up bright and early for the start of our trip, hoping that Anh and Tan would show up.... which they did!! It turned out the horrible receptionist was just put out that we hadn't booked through the hotel and therefore given them their commission!
Bike trip post to come!
We went out to get some food, since it was about 4 by this point and we hadn't eaten all day because we couldn't work out the food ordering system on the train! Outside the restaurant, we came across some guys offering to take us on a bike trip and a young boy selling books, but we shooed them away until after we'd eaten. The restaurant was actually incredible, it had set meals with amazing food which were really cheap!
After we'd eaten, we let the boy convince us to buy 2 books (the last 2 in the Millennium trilogy and Catch 22) and chatted to the bike guys. They were really friendly and had a book full of reviews from people who they had taken on trips. We decided to go and get coffee with them, and we had our first pillion-riding experience, which in the heavy Nha Trang traffic was TERRIFYING! I was completely convinced that I would just slip off the back and John admitted afterwards that he had noticed himself squeezing his driver with his thighs going round corners!
I don't think John mentioned in his post, but the Vietnamese love coffee. They roast their beans with margarine and sugar, then grind it quite coarse and use an odd little contraption ( right) to make really strong drip coffee, which they drink with sugar and ice, and the milk that's used for white coffee is condensed milk, but you can get fresh in some places.
So, we ordered some coffee and had a look through all the reviews from the bikers' customers and we were definitely tempted! We had a set budget for all expenses per day, so we decided that if we could get the price down to that, we would take a trip to Ao Nang, which was our next planned stop. In the end, the cost was a bit over budget, but we decided to just go for it anyway! We did manage to haggle a good chunk off it, which I was very proud of.
We found out that the drivers were called Anh and Tan, and we arranged to meet them two days later to set off on a five day trip. We put down a deposit and they took us back to our hotel.
The next day, we went to the nearby mineral mud baths, which were soooo relaxing. We did the cheapest option, which included a hot mineral shower, a private mud bath, another shower and some hydrotherapy, then a (very!) hot mineral bath. There was also a public mineral swimming pool and waterfall, but they were heated so swimming was just exhausting! It was difficult to get pictures because of the mud, but I got a couple of John!
John was really ill the day after that, so we had a very quiet day walking on the beach, reading and not doing much. We decided that we should buy an SD card for the bike trip, so we went for a wander to hunt down a shopping centre John had seen. We did find it, but it was tiny and rubbish! A really nice, helpful sales lady gave us some directions in hand signals and we managed to eventually find somewhere to buy one, although I think this was more luck than anything else!
When we mentioned the bike trip to the miserable receptionist and she did a really concerned face, so I spent the evening convinced they were con artists who would either steal our money and never be seen again, or drive us to a secluded spot, then rob us. I actually couldn't sleep because I was so worried!
We woke up bright and early for the start of our trip, hoping that Anh and Tan would show up.... which they did!! It turned out the horrible receptionist was just put out that we hadn't booked through the hotel and therefore given them their commission!
Bike trip post to come!
Vietnam Part 1 - Saigon
Hello again! Our lack of anything for the last month can be described very easily! We did originally plan only a couple of weeks in Vietnam, but loved it and stayed for a month. Then this combined with facebook being banned and blogs sometimes carefully monitored we though it would be best to just leave it! The fact that my flickr is linked to my facebook account to log in does mean we have about 5GBs of photos to upload, but once they are done a lot of them are very nice!
Anyway, on to Saigon...
From the airport we ended up in an extremely overpriced taxi, with a driver who was jittery, speeding and constantly honking (we later realised the honking is pretty normal for Vietnam). We made our way into the city, got a nice hotel and booked a few small trips. The roads of Saigon are incredibly scary. Everyone drives motorbikes, there are very few cars, and the roads are almost constantly busy. The only way to get across some roads is to just walk and have the bikes make their way around you (while Imogen screams a bit).
Our first day involved a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. These were tunnels the Viet Cong guerrillas hid, fought and lived for over 20 years. We saw a lot of the traps used by the Viet Cong which all looked incredibly painful! We eventually got to go into the tunnels themselves, which even though had been widened for us fat westerners, were very tight, stuffy, dirty and hot! We had a choice to go quite far but left at the first exit because it was very unpleasant. The fact people lived in these tunnels for so long is pretty shocking once you go inside.
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| Cyclo - like the one we took |
The next day was a day trip to see around the city. The stops were reunification palace, war remnants museum, a chinese pagoda, chinatown, a market and a laquerware factory. The best of these was definitely the war remnants museum, which we didn't have enough time out so we revisited it the next day! This evening was spent at a rooftop bar where they barbecue food in front of you on the table itself. Was pretty cool and we got pretty drunk!
We went back to the War Remnants museum, which was a really interesting place to visit but very harrowing. This paragraph from Wikipedia describes everything pretty well.
One building reproduces the "tiger cages" in which the South Vietnamese government housed political prisoners. Other exhibits include graphic photographs, accompanied by short copy in English, Vietnamese and Japanese, covering the effects of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliant sprays, the use of napalm and phosphorus bombs, and atrocities such as the My Lai massacre. Curiosities include a guillotine used by the French and the South Vietnamese to execute prisoners, last in 1960, and three jars of preserved human fetuses deformed by exposure to dioxin.
We got our train to Nha Trang very early the next morning. During the journey, I didn't remember when we were supposed to arrive (1pm) and woke Imogen up an hour into the journey at the first stop worried! During the journey I ended up with an old lady behind me with gross feet putting her feet on my chair and Imogen had a man constantly hocking phlegm... Other than these the journey was pretty pleasant!
Next post the beach town of Nha Trang...
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