Tuesday 17th April 2012
Woke at about 5am on the train after an OK night. We had soft sleepers but they use the term soft very lightly in Vietnam. The train pulled up at a station at about 7.00am for about 20 minutes where lots of people got off the train and headed across the tracks to the small stalls that sold everything you will ever need for a good Vietnamese breakfast. Allan bought a couple of baguettes to go with the bananas. Then everyone scrambled back onto the train and off we go to DaNang. We passed the time by spending some time talking to Lindsay and Irene and eventually got into DaNang with further incidents. The third ‘roomie’ left us earlier in the morning after realising he wasn’t wanted and some gentle persuading.
After booking into the hotel in DaNang we decided to do the normal ‘reccy’ to size up the place and see what there is to do. We have learned on several occasions not to trust hand-written local map handouts given by hotels/guesthouses. They tend to omit a lot. You can sometimes think where you want to end up is only a few blocks away only to find out they left 6 streets off the map. We set out to find the Cham Museum., This interested us after first learning about them in southern Vietnam (Chau Doc). We found it after an hour of walking. Very disappointing. It was actually a museum of the Cham sculptures, not of the people and their way of life. You can only look at so many sculptures that are basically meaningless if you can’t read the information. We then went in search of the Ho Chi Min Museum……second mistake, looking at a hand drawn map. Couldn’t find it so the next best thing was to have a foot massage, Uncle Ho would have to wait until tomorrow. Had dinner that night at an Indian Restaurant run by Vietnamese. It was good but you could tell it wasn’t cooked by an Indian.
Wednesday 18th April - DaNang
Again went for a local walk around the DaNang CBD. Then got a taxi to take us to the Ho Chi Minh Museum that we couldn’t find yesterday. On arrival we realised we should have walked another 200m and there it was. What a disappointment. We had hoped to see the life and times of HCM. Wrong. It was a pictorial history of the wars Vietnam had fought over the years but had nothing on Uncle Ho.
Decided to trust the map again and went in search of the supermarket marked with a © on the map. The Vietnamese idea of a supermarket and ours is vastly different, or the map was wrong again. Gave up and went back to the motel to veg out for the afternoon and write up the blog and tag the several hundred photo’s and videos we had taken. We’ve learned you must do it within a short time or it becomes a blur and you can’t remember which mountain is which. Allan decided to have another haircut. The one he had in Melaka was not good enough. This one was....nearly bald...
Tuesday 17th April 2012
Woke at about 5am on the train after an OK night. We had soft sleepers but they use the term soft very lightly in China. The train pulled up at a station at about 7.00am for about 20 minutes where lots of people got off the train and headed across the tracks to the small stalls that sold everything you will ever need for a good Chinese breakfast. Allan bought a couple of baguettes to have a banana with. Then everyone scrambles back onto the train and off we go to DaNang. We passed the time by spending some time talking to Lindsay and Irene and eventually got into DaNang with further incidents. The third ‘roomie’ left us earlier in the morning after realising he wasn’t wanted.
After booking into the hotel in DaNang we decided to do the normal ‘reccy’ to size up the place and see what there is to do. We have learned on several occasions not to trust hand-written local map handouts given by hotels/guesthouses. They tend to omit a lot. You can sometimes think where you want to end up is only a few blocks away only to find out they left 6 streets off the map. We set out to find the Cham Museum., This interested us after first learning about them in southern Vietnam (Chau Doc). We found it after an hour of walking. Very disappointing. It was actually a museum of the Cham sculptures, not of the people and their way of life. You can only look at so many sculptures that are basically meaningless if you can’t read the information. We then went in search of the Ho Chi Min Museum……second mistake, looked at a hand drawn map. Couldn’t find it so the next best thing was to have a foot massage, Uncle Ho would have to wait until tomorrow. Had dinner that night at an Indian Restaurant run by Vietnamese. It was good but you could tell it wasn’t cooked by an Indian.
Wednesday 18th April - DaNang
Again went for a local walk around the DaNang CBD. Then got a taxi to take us to the Ho Chi Minh Museum that we couldn’t find yesterday. On arrival we realised we should have walked another 200m and there it was. What a disappointment. We had hoped to see the life and times of HCM. Wrong. It was a pictorial history of the wars Vietnam had fought over the years but had nothing on Uncle Ho.
Decided to trust the map again and went in search of the supermarket marked with a © on the map. The Vietnamese idea of a supermarket and ours is vastly different, or the map was wrong again. Gave up and went back to the motel to veg out for the afternoon and write up the blog and tag the several hundred photo’s and videos we had taken. We’ve learned you must do it within a short time or it becomes a blur and you can’t remember which mountain is which. Allan decidied he needed another haircut. He actually only needed a shave but what the heck, give one of the locals a thrill to shear and shavel a foreigner. He did a great job.....nearly bald.
Thursday 19th April 2012
Walked along the river front in DaNang CBD and came across a school of would be artists
strewn along the bank of the river drawing either the river itself or the CBD buildings. Some very talented young men and women among them. We were on the afternoon train from DaNang to Hanoi so killed the morning with general walking the streets, had a shower and went to the station and waited. When we got there an old bloke with a trolley spotted us. He grabbed our bags and scurried away into the waiting room. He found us a couple of seats, put our bags in a safe place and vigilantly kept an eye on us until train. Time. When it arrived, he grabbed our bags and headed straight for the train and car 7.
He lugged both backpacks onto the train and into our cabin, pushed into the cabin and demanded money. We were prepared for this and gave him the equivalent of $2.….he wanted $3 and wasn’t going until he got it.
Our cabin only had one other in it, a young lad, about 18
and he was going to Hue (pron Whey). Didn’t have anything else to do on the train except watch the magnificent scenery out the left of the train going north. The coast line and mountains is spectacular. Allan started to view the photo’s in the computer and he became interested. They spent the next half an hour viewing our holiday snaps…he was fascinated. Later on that evening a young 22 year old lad from the next compartment poked his nose in the cabin door to say hello. He was a boy from England who has spent the last couple of months as a volunteer at a school in Siem Reap Cambodia, he was travelling in his time off before going home to England for his sisters wedding. We had dinner by ourselves and soon thereafter we were joined by two young Vietnamese fellows who were travelling others and they spent most of their time in their cabin. Later on we were joined by another couple, a Yank with a Vietnamese wife. Our half in thick mattress was starting to expose bones and we needed a break from it. We had 6 in the cabin so it was fortunate we arrived into Hanoi at about 6.15am.
Thursday 19th April 2012
Walked along the river front in DaNang CBD and came across a school of would be artists strewn along the bank of the river drawing either the river itself or the CBD buildings. Some very talented young men and women among them. We were on the afternoon train from DaNang to Hanoi so killed the morning with general walking the streets, had a shower and went to the station and waited. When we got there an old bloke with a trolley spotted us. He grabbed our bags and scurried away into the waiting room. He found us a couple of seats, put our bags in a safe place and vigilantly kept an eye on us until train. Time. When it arrived, he grabbed our bags and headed straight for the train and car 7.
He lugged both backpacks onto the train and into our cabin, pushed into the cabin and demanded money. We were prepared for this and gave him the equivalent of $2.….he wanted $3 and wasn’t going until he got it.
Our cabin only had one other in it, a young lad, about 18 and he was going to Hue (pron Whey). Didn’t have anything else to do on the train except watch the magnificent scenery out the left of the train going north. The coast line and mountains is spectacular. Allan started to view the photo’s in the computer and he became interested. They spent the next half an hour viewing our holiday snaps…he was fascinated. Later on that evening a young 22 year old lad from the next compartment poked his nose in the cabin door to say hello. He was a boy from England who has spent the last couple of months as a volunteer at a school in Siem Reap Cambodia, he was travelling in his time off before going home to England for his sisters wedding. We had dinner by ourselves and soon thereafter we were joined by two young Vietnamese fellows who were travelling others and they spent most of their time in their cabin. Later on we were joined by another couple, a Yank with a Vietnamese wife. Our half in thick mattress was starting to expose bones and we needed a break from it. We had 6 in the cabin so it was fortunate we arrived into Hanoi at about 6.15am.
