Catchphrase: Flattery will give you my trust as well as VND 2,500,000 from my wallet
I was robbed guys! Oh the highjinks! But i am getting ahead of myself.
Nha Trang happenings:
We didn't stay long here, partly because it was a mega touristy beach town and partly because THERE WAS A DROWNED PIGLET ON THE SHORELINE. This brought up some vague nostalgic memories of swimming at st kilda beach, but not for long. Maybe a few seconds.
Hoi An happenings:
This place was the death of me! Or more accurately my finely crafted budget. Every second shop was some sort of tailor or boot maker. Which basically means that they're all in stiff competition with everyone else, since there's not enough tourists to go round. I felt quite popular, what with people trying to befriend me every two steps so that i would buy something off them :) Bring on the attention! I love attention! And i love clothes! So it was a very joyous afternoon. But then i got the worst migraine EVER. I think this was my brain's indirect way of keeping me financially viable. Brains are amazing things...
One other thing which is on my list of "mindblowingly awesome things i've done so far" is the My Son ruins. Grace and i got up at the godforsaken hour of 5am for a sunrise tour and it was gorgeous! We were the only silly people up so early so we had the place to ourselves for hours. Well worth it. Then when a bus full of strangely dressed peeps arrived, our tourguide got uber excited and started filming THEM! Apparently they were a bus of Cham people, the same that made the My Son hindu temples a thousand years ago. The tourguide had never seen them or heard them speak, so she was understandably chuffed. I think it's a good thing when a tour guide gets more excited than you do. Except maybe about finishing the tour. That would be bad.
Bach Ma happenings:
So after all that Hoi An whoo-haa we managed to get a bus to Can Hai, a town halfway between Denang and Hue that was right next to Bach Ma national park. Although when we got off the bus there weren't any taxis: only motorbikes! Who can say no to motorbikes?! We kind of justified the dangerous-ness of the ride because we were in a rural village rather than a city or a highway... and the idea of being on a motorbike with a complete stranger sounded pretty rebellious and awesome to me :) And it was fast! At one point my motorbike went the wrong way, only to take a shortcut and catch up in superb super mario kart fashion! (no turtles were thrown/harmed)
Because there heavy roadworks in the national park we couldn't stay at the summit, only the park gate. Which was AMAZING because we got fed a vegetarian feast every night by the canteen staff (easily pleased as we are!) Although, i found out it is better to find a live mouse in the bathroom bin than it is to find a dead mouse under your pillow in the morning. The room grace and i were staying in apparently hadn't been used in some time. I got to do the whole girlie-girl mouse response when i found the first mouse, which was nice. Got over that fiasco, and then grace woke up the next day - after sleeping poorly - and realised that there was a dead mouse under her pillow. This trip has been so full of useful life lessons, we are going to end up the savviest group of groovers ever! Nothing will surprise us. Dead mice? We LAUGH in the face of dead mice! Mwah ha ha!
But it was not all mice and rice! Not at all! We went for a fabulous walk up the mountain to a waterfall. As far as i am concerned we are all champions because it was intensely hot that day and that coupled with the humidity made for four very sweat-saturated campers. But once we got to the waterfall it was amazing! And there were fish that nibbled your legs if you stayed still too long: i felt like i was at a saigon day spa ;)
And at the end of the hike i got my first leech! It was taking my blood without asking, which was quite rude. The canteen staff tried to rip it off me, but i finally convinced them to get me some salt, thank goodness. I have never been so grossed out. I didn't know what happened to leeches when you put salt on them, and now i do. Purging isn't pretty. I didn't take a picture.
Hanoi happenings (Round I) :
Hanoi is so fabulously overcast, cold and rainy! It is like my Melbourne away from Melbourne, with extra chocolate croissants. I'm a bit smitten. But we didn't stay long here, just enough time to catch up with our friend Evan for a real grownup night out of beer and icecream, and get all organisational. Clare and Wazza are both heading to china in a week and a bit but Grace and i are heading onto Laos instead. We're still not really sure when or how we're getting there, partly because we keep getting distracted by the awesome cafes and the chocolate croissants previously mentioned. And it is easier to plan what you're doing next when you're sailing around islands on a junk, so that's what we decided to do first.
Ha Long happenings:
And now i come to the events of a single day, which make up what i am unofficially calling "the worst day travelling ever" (which closes the possibility of there being another day worse than this - i am super clever)
We stayed one night in Ha Long City, and planned to go to cat ba in the afternoon. But Grace's card got eaten by an ATM machine, so we had to make a few calls and organise a new card to be sent to Hanoi. But it was all good because i'd taken onough money out beforehand to get us to Cat Ba and back. It was after lunch by the time we took a taxi to the ferry. But the taxi driver mixed up which marina we were meant to go to and took us to the wrong one 5km out of town! Cruelly, we'd missed the last ferry for the day by a few minutes. While we were trying to work out our next move a guy came up offering us a lift on his boat. The price was ridiculous but by this stage we had all had our hearts set on leaving Ha long. So we agreed. The boat ride went through the amazing limestone islands surrounding Cat Ba, so i went to the front to take a few photos. Stupidly i left my bag in the cabin with the others, but then they all came out as well. I didn't think to go back in for my bag, as everyone else had done the same... and who was inside the boat other than the crew? Surely they couldn't steal money out of my bag AND drive the boat? Actually they could. Thinking myself super savvy, i checked that my wallet was still in my bag when we eventually docked, out of habit, but didn't think to look INSIDE the wallet.
It was a very silly mistake, and one that i can't really rectify. The police here cannot help me because we got the ferry from a different district, even though i could identify the two people involved from the business card they gave me beforehand (!!). Not only that but my insurance doesn't cover any cash lost. In short, it ended up being the most expensive ferry ride ever. And I know it's a newbie mistake to make. I guess it's because i'm not used to traveling in a group. There's a sense of security: we're all looking out for each other, we'd notice something like that, etc. I just have to get back into my old habits and put my wary hat on.
Cat Ba happenings:
But it was still worth it! We found a fabulous tour company (Cat Ba ventures) run by Mr. Tung and his wife. So the first day we went on their day tour. We were shown around this huge cave-turned-secret-military-hospital build in the american war. I couldn't believe that through constant air attacks these people managed to construct a three story hospital inside a remote mountain in just three years. Not only that but our guide's brother and several other people he knew were born there! The Vietnamese are so resilient.
We also stopped at a national park to do an hour and a half walk up a mountain. If the steep scramble didn't put you off, the constant swarms of wasps might. I've never been so panicky, i literally sprinted all the way up! But as long as the guide didn't swat at them they just seemed to want to catch a free lift up the mountain on our clothes. This was small comfort though. And the local guide was hilarious! Apart from his misguided attempts at killing all the wasps, he picked us edible fruit from the side of the path, threw sticky plants at us constantly and even jumped out from the bushes as a joke. He was the best nature guide ever!
But the best thing we did was go on an overnight cruise on a junk. These beautiful boats go around to the different islands towing kayaks that you can use to explore by yourself. Most caves had these amazing lagoons that you could only access through kayaking through a SEA CAVE! Oh my goodness i was so excited. And there are huge sea jellies that are 50cm in diameter just cruising around too. We also went to the Surprise Cave, which was exactly that. You could only access it from a boat, then you had to climb up the cliff to this massive limestone cave. We were all very impressed and took lots of pictures. Then we went further along the path to where it opened up to the REAL cave. It was the definition of CAVENOUS. I couldn't see the end of it. And there were massive limestone crystal columns and stalagtites everywhere. I could totally understand the tourist draw, especially after seeing graffiti from 1904 ( i guess they didn't have guestbooks then) It's my favourite place so far.
I wasn't going to add Cat Ba onto this entry, but after what happened in Ha long i just wanted to end on how awesome Cat Ba is. So although i was essentially pickpocketted by pirates, the peeps on Cat Ba are lovely and we had the most awesome of times.And it's all about the story yeah? :)
Hope you're all peachy and i'll probably write again once i'm in Laos!
xxx mel
