Round The World: November 2008

Saturday, 29 November 2008

Hue, The DMZ and the journey to Vientiane

When we arrived in Hue it was late at night, we checked into a hotel then went and got some dinner. Luckily we stumbled across Cafe on Thu Wheels, a place recommended in the guidebook for its motorbike tours. As we only had a day to see the city, we thought it would be a good way of doing it. We'd arranged a bike tour for the following day. Despite a early and rainy start we had a great day. Nikki rode on the back of the tour guide's bike and I had my own. Our awesome guide Duong took us to an old american bunker that overlooked Hamburger hill, a Japanese covered bridge, a temple where we got to see a ceremony, an Emporer's tomb and the pagoda at the citadel. As well as seeing the sights it was also a great way to see some of the countryside, including rice fields, water buffalo, duck farms, small villages among other stuff. During the afternoon we ran round arranging a bus across the Laos border through to Vientiane, after going on a tour of the DMZ. We had decided not to make the final part of the journey up to Hanoi, as people said it was similar to HCMC with less to see.

It was another early start to get the tour bus in the morning, where we saw a funeral procession, that was really colourful, and involved a lot of people throwing fake money around. We had arranged to be dropped off at a town on the way back called Dong Ha where we would then catch up with the sleeper bus that was coming from Hue through Dong Ha on its way to Vientiane hence saving us a few hours of pointless travel. We were told would definately go all the way through to Vientiane, we wouldn't have to change buses at any point. As we were among the last people to get picked up, we got some of the worst seats. Nikki ended up squashed up at the back of the bus wrestling for shoulder space between a nice german gay couple (who made room for me) and a selfish, annoying, retarded, rude australia couple who huffed and puffed whenever she sat down and dared to take up her seat space on the back row ann the woman who wittered on like a deranged guinea pig about stupid. I ended up on a fold out kitchen chair in the aisle for the duration of the 9 hour tour that would send me hurtling through the windscreen should we break suddenly.

The DMZ tour was a bit disappointing, we saw a place called the Rockpile (a big hill that stickes out of the flat ground where the americans had bars/pubs on top and watched out for the Vietcong) from a massive distance. They stopped at the side of the road and told us we could take photos of it. Then possibly the start of the Ho Chi Minh trail (scrub land and a small statue thing all in Laos lettering). We were then taken to an old airforce base with a really really biased take on all the photos ("the Americans fleeing from the strong Vietnamese troops" or "Vietnamese Heros, who bravely killed many Americans" etc. etc.) and some rusting tanks and planes in the surrounding area (also a coffee plantation which was quite cool). We got a 10 minute stop over at a monument for the war and looked at 'Minority Villages' as we sped by on the bus after being told to 'ready our cameras'. We were quite glad to get off at Dong Ha, leaving the now boiling hot bus and the people on it for their 3 hour trip back to Hue.

As Dong Ha isn't on the tourist trail we attracted more attention, but a lot more friendly than the kind we received in China. When buses stopped at the traffic lights next to us people leaned out waving and smiling. I had a guy wanting to try on my shoes as he found them comically big, and children came out to greet us as we walked down the street. We got on the sleeper bus - good start - at 7pmish after being left waiting in the cafe for 2 hours. As we were the last two to board the bus we ended up with possibly the tinyest bunks in then entire world - neither of us could lie flat or even comfortably - and managed to grab a few minutes sleep here and there while the bus propelled itself and maniac speeds (lifting us off the beds when it braked!) til about twenty to one in the morning when they shook just Nikki an me awake and kicked us off in the middle of nowhere and told us (by pointing and gesturing and repeatedly saying "one") to wait 1 hour for another bus. The place was a total dump; road side shack thing with 'toilets' (holes) completely full of bugs, bad smells and a pig sty behing the urinals. We were joined by two girls and a guy from Ireland who were also confused by their unscheduled tour after paying for a direct sleeper bus from Hoi An to Vientiane.

The other bus arrived (among loads of others just stopping at the shack for toilet breaks) an hour or 2 later and wouldn't let us get on for ages, even once they'd took our bags and worryingly put them up stairs not in the boot area. Then people seemed to come out of the cafe and climb on board. As we watched through the window we saw they seemed to be stepping up something as they went to their seats - and then we realised that all our luggage, as well as the other's, was stacked in the aisle and all the vietnamese passangers were climbing over our bags, walking across them to get to their seats! Then we were allowed to board... only to find there were NO spare seats (the drivers hadn't seemed to be able to do the maths on that one and were as surprised as us) so they got some small plastic stools and put them down the aisle at the front of the bus, where the luggage and boxes weren't, and made us sit on them, luckily a woman who was getting off soon gave Nikki her seat so I was sat in the aisle next to Nikki with the 3 Irish travellers sat in front of me... Oh dear God, we were not impressed, we had at least 17 hours to go and things weren't looking good. Luckily after about 2 hours or so (about 4/5am) some people got off and we all managed to get a seat and attempt to sleep with the awful driving and braking. At about 5.30 we pulled up and stopped at the side of the road to wait for the border crossing to open at 6.30... sleeping on a bus in the middle of no where.

We went through the border control at around 7.30am, getting a visa, shelling out lots of money and getting conned into paying to use the toilets for being Westeners.
then just 7 hours or so left to go and we were away, stopping at a fly infested shack cafe for 'lunch' (Nikki stayed hungry, I tried some) and then we were off, only to get dropped on the outskirts of the city and have to get a 'Sangthew', an open truck thing, the 13km into town and get dropped off randomly in the center to find that EVERYWHERE, literally (almost) everywhere is fully booked! We eventually got a room after trawelling round everywhere and other travellers giving us hints or suggesting places they'd left that morning and washed, fed and were dying for sleep despite it only being 8.30pm...

Despite the journey from hell we've been having a great time in Laos and will do another post in a couple of days to catch up.

Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=87240&l=3da67&id=720640428

Saturday, 8 November 2008

Photos

A fortnight in Vietnam

We arrived at Ho Chi Minh city (HCMC, formerly Saigon) at around 7.30am local time, tired and wanting a bed, to be confronted by a crowd of taxi drivers telling us $25 to town (most things here are priced in US dollars, the local currency Dong is about 25000 to 1 pound, hence 40 quid will make you a millionaire!). We went to the information desk and got one for about $9, after checking in we immediately collapsed for a few hours! When we eventually surfaced later that day it was dark, we got some dinner and headed back to our room, collapsing in front of a TV that had actual channels in actual English!

The next morning we stepped out into what seemed the entire world's population of motorbikes, mopeds, scooters and pedal bikes on the one road we were trying to cross. It seems like sides of the road in this city are arbritraty, wherever there is space, the Vietnamese will fit a vehicle through it. Luckily we had a mild introduction into road crossing in China, this was now the main event. The important thing is to put your head down, don't look at whats coming and they will miraculously part like Moses controlling the red sea around you. The minute you hesitate, get scared and pause or stop to say "Ooh, look at that!", it all starts to go wrong, a great deal of screeching, honking and swerving occurs. Nevertheless we made our way through and found quite an exciting market. Unlike markets we've visited previously, there was no speciality, clothes, tourist crap, food, spirits, etc. all under one roof. Cries of "Hello Sir/Madam, I have your size, what you looking for?" followed us round. We weren't particularly in the mood given our state, but still sat down at one of the food stalls and had a late lunch. We overheard a conversation that made mention of a night market that set up in the evenings outside of the market hall.

We continued to wander round the streets marvelling at the copied books (who knew there were black market books) for just a couple of dollars each until it suddenly started raining, and we ducked into a coffee shop. Once the rain had let up, that stops and starts as if someone is in control of a magical switch, we made our way down to the Saigon river watching some boys jump into the very murky waters. Later on that evening we returned to the night market and decided to have dinner there, we found a great looking place with a big barbeque set up outside and ordered a red snapper with some noodles. The fish was served whole with a plate of rice pancakes, a few herbs and some cold noodles. The idea is to put a little bit of everything into a pancacke then roll it up. The pancakes and noodles were a bit bland, but the fish was great and we decided to return the following evening.

Rain greeted us again the next day, so we spent most of it inside. First stop was the Reunification palace which served as the HQ for the South Vietnamese army during the war. It was a bit like stepping into a villan's secret hideout from an old James Bond film. The most interesting areas were the display wall, featuring 'gifts' that included some hollowed out elephants feet, and the basement that was full of communications gadgetry and map covered walls. We then made our way over to what we thought was the war museum but became suspicous when the first display was that of a wedding ceremony. We had in actual fact stepped into The Ho Chi Minh City Museum. There was a small room dedicated to the war, but the rest of the museum told of the history and development of HCMC. Once we'd had our fill of scary stuffed animals and topographics we went in search of the actual war museum to no avail. Once back at the hotel we sorted out our Open Bus ticket, the ticket is a prepaid ticket that allows us to travel from HCMC to Hanoi, making stops at Mui Ne, Nha Trang, Hoi An and Hue in between. As previously arranged we once again went to the night market for our dinner opting for meat options this time, but wishing we'd gone for the snapper again!

The next few days were spent in Mui Ne in a pool that looked out over a beach and the South China Seas. After a couple of months spent inland it was nice to unwind and relax under the sun. We did however spend one day adventuring. On the way into Mui Ne we had seen loads of dragon fruit plantations, and wanted to go and investigate. In the spirit of the moment we rented a moped, as the roads were nowhere near as crazy here, and set off to find the dragon fruit to scoffs and sniggers from the hotel staff who told us it was too far away. One bum-breaking-knee-burning-hour-long journey later we found the plantations. They went on in every direction as far as the eye could see, and each one was accompanied by a roadside shop. We picked one and after sampling one with red flesh and one with white flesh we decided on the red, bought two and were on our way again. Boosted by our success in finding the dragon fruit we then tried to find the salt fields, unfortunately we found roadworks instead, and headed back to the hotel to enjoy our fruit by the pool, smugly asking for a knife, making sure the staff saw our enormous fruits!

The next stop along was Nha Trang, another beach town, but a little less resorty, and a little more cocktail bary. In contrast to the private beach resorts of Mui Ne, Nha trang consists of a central tourist district about a 100m walk to an enormous curved beach. The first day was spent by the sea, swimming and enjoying the weather, the second we had booked ourselves onto a tour of the islands. The tour involved taking us out to four islands with various activities along the way. At the first we were chucked out above some coral admiring the pretty fish and a couple of rays before the pain of jellyfish stings became to much and everyone clambered back aboard. At the second it was luch time, they put on a big spread including prawns, noodles and fish and then chucked us back into the water to experience the floating bar (a big bucket sat in a lifebelt with a load of cheap plonk in it. The next stop was an island where you could pay extrea to do a number of watersports, we decided against and stayed on the boat. This proved to be a great decision as we saw the crew catch and kill an octopus. Even after it was dead the suckers still worked as Nikki found out when the guide grabbed her foot and stuck it to the upturned creature. The final stop was an aquarium, we decided to stay aboard once again, but this tim it was a little less exciting, but we were treated to a fresh fruit feast and some fried octopus! On our final day in Nha Trang the weather took a turn for the worse once again so we were stuck inside for most of the day, although I (Mark) did hire a pedal bike to go and look at some Cham ruins. Quite interesting and very different from Chinese/Japanese temples. On the way back I went on a bit of an adventure into the non tourist areas, which was exciting to say the least!

The following day we caught an overnight bus to Hoi An, a pleasant sedate town next to a river. It is famed for its multitude of tailors shops and Nikki managed to pick up a skirt and a dress for about 13 pounds. Today we hired a couple of bikes and rode the 3km to the beach, again a very different kind of beach. Soft white sand was offset by huge waves that crashed into your head from all directions! We went for a rather ominous meal last night to a restaurant that had no menu, just 3 choices - meat, seafood or vegetarian. Following your choice the staff then bring out various dishes under that theme that change daily. They also demonstrate how to eat the dishes and after we had been munching on what we thought was some sort of chicken, we were informed it was baby shark! Tomorrow we head further north to Hue before continuing on up to Hanoi.

HCMC & Mui Ne: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83126&l=18c0c&id=720640428
Nha Trang: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83294&l=3c919&id=720640428
Hoi An: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=83796&l=7663e&id=720640428

Thursday, 6 November 2008

Guilin to Hong Kong

We spent a few days in Guilin, which was quite a nice town, surrounded by crazy rock formations sprouting up at random. There wasn't a great deal to do, but we had fun relaxing and walking around the markets and the city centre. We spent a day in Elephant Park, a rock formation that supposedly looks like an elephant kneeling down to take a drink out of the river. We spent around 3 days here then took a sleeper train to Shenzhen.

From the train station in Shenzhen it was an easy walk to the Hong Kong customs. We were a bit wary of our accomodation in Kowloon, a huge building that was separated into guesthouses instead of apartments. Each floor would have 4/5 guesthouses on. There were quite a few shady characters hanging about trying to sell copy watches, bags and tailors services. We were also disheartened when we saw the quality of the room compared to what the same money would buy in mainland China. But we absolutely loved Hong Kong. We ended up not having to spend much time in our grotty room as there was so much to do. The weather was fantastic and the city didn't seem to sleep so we were always out and about and ended up spending a week here when we only planned to stay a few days!

We saw the Hong Kong skyline from the star ferry that crossed the bay, we climbed the Bank of China tower up to the 43rd floor and went up Victoria Peak on the peak tram for excellent views across the city. We watched the light show that happens every night from the Kowloon side (although it was a bit cheesy, all set to eighties muzac) and went out to Ngong Ping 360 on an awesome cable car ride that went round the south of Hong Kong island and over the new airport to the 'larges seated bronze buddha' in the world. We also spent a day at Ocean park not quite a theme park, but not quite an aquarium! We also met up with a friend of NIkki's Mum called Winnie who took us for a great meal in times square of dumplings (my favourite so far!). We wandered round the markets at night that didn't setup til about 8pm and did some much needed shopping! We also explored the bird, fish and flower markets which were all very interesting. During the week we felt we got the best out of the city and were sad to move on, but definately acheived everything we wanted to.

After a tip off from the guesthouse owners we then got the ferry across to Macau and spent an almost free day there! When we got off the ferry we got a free shuttle bus to the Venetian Casino where we put our bags into the free luggage store, then went to the gaming floor where we got free drinks (but didn't gamble!). We went and got dinner in the food court then wandered round the shopping arcade with its indoor canals before picking our bags up (that had been transferred to the front desk) and getting on the free shuttle bus to the airport! We had a fairly sleepless night in the departure lounge then boarded the plane to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) at about 7am.

Photos:

Guilin - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79549&l=87e60&id=720640428
Hong Kong & Macau - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=79824&l=4a745&id=720640428

Round The World