Hey Everyone,
I'm sitting in our hotel room at the Royal Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City. It is incredible noisy with 8 million people tooting in the traffic and sticky with 100% humidity. The tour finished today and most of the group continued on to Cambodia. It felt strange the tour leaving without us having spent the last 11 days, all day every day, with them. We are leaving for London tomorrow and I have finally found some time to tell you what we have been up to in 'Nam.
After Hanoi and the 14 hour sleeper train we arrived in Hue at 9 am. As I wrote last time the train was an experience. I managed to avoid using the squat toilets that discharge straight onto the tracks below but I still had to sleep on the most disgusting mattress and sheets possible. The rocking of the train however is quite soothing so I managed to sleep for about 6 hours.
When we arrived in Hue we took taxis to the hotel and I was quite impressed. The Hanoi hotel was a very basic hotel. The Hue hotel was flash. It was big with a marble entrance in an enclosed courtyard. Our room had 2 beds, including a double, a balcony, high ceiling, large bathroom and good views.
Once we arrived we had to be ready in half hour to go out again. Hence why I have been slack keeping you updated because we have very little free time and need what we do have for sleep. Anyway, we jumped in the shower to wash off the train dirt and got ready.
I have never had so many showers in my life than on this trip. Some days I managed 5 showers. Vietnam could never be described as a clean place. Every time you leave the aircon you come back sweaty from the 35ish degree heat, 100% humidity and you smell like smog, exhaust fumes, rotting rubbish and dirty water. Tap water is not even drunk by the locals here. According to our tour guide, Duy, everyone boils the water before drinking. So the water around is not nice.
Anyway, once ready, we headed out into Hue. Hue is much quieter than Hanoi. It is a small city with wide pavements, French architecture, and built around the Perfume River. We walked to the river through a sculpture park with massive classical and modern sculptures often themed around peace. Much in Vietnam is themed around peace, and you see images of doves everywhere. Our tour took a boat out onto the Perfume River, which did not, despite its name, smell nice. It was brown and the shores were littered with trash.
Our first stop was a pagoda on an isolated hill which we explored while the monks ate and prayed. It was a very serene area with lots of bonsai trees, little temples and giant, thumb-sized wasps. It also had few people trying to sell you souvenirs. We continued on the boat to a different part of the shore and got to join the mayhem by riding on the back of some scooters. It was fun. My Vietnamese driver was the leader of the pack so I climbed on, held the handle at the back of the seat and we cruised around in front. The scooter tour went to the tomb of Emperor Tu Duc. A massive enclosed area where our guide explained the importance of yin and yang in Buddhism, where a high wall must be offset by a deep pond and enclosed areas must be balanced with open air areas etc. Anyway, what it means is that the architecture built is very pretty. Also in Buddhism the turtle, phoenix, unicorn and dragon are the sacred animals so there are sculptures of them everywhere also making for pretty buildings.
We then rode to an area where they make conical hats and incense sticks and I bought 3 cloth paintings for $NZ 2. Souvenirs are incredible cheap here, especially when you barter, but often I think who cares when you find yourself barter over 50c (5000 Vietnamese dong) for a T-shirt. We rode onto a female pagoda where female monks fed us a vegetarian set lunch. It was delicious with soup, springrolls, tofu, chips, deep-fried stuff and lemon juice. The fruit here is amazing. The pineapple juice is particularly nice and, for $1.40 usually, I have drunk litres of it. You also don’t have to worry about ice here as no-one touches the tap water and therefore all ice is made from bottled water. Makes life much easier.
Our scooter drivers then headed into the city. You just keep your legs in and shut your eyes when they zip straight across a roundabout, beeping the horn at the two oncoming trucks and hundreds of other scooters without even hesitating, and swerving around anything that gets in the way. Even the stray dogs understand the beeping and move out of the way immediately.
Around the city are purpose built, narrow, concrete tracks for the scooters so we got to take a scenic tour of the rice paddies and little communities. It was a great way to see real Vietnamese life with people in the rice paddies, children playing in the mud, old people outside their homes.
The scooter tour finished at our hotel and after a rest and a drink on a very rickety, rotting deck over the river we headed out to dinner as a group. After dinner we went to a terrible Western bar called the DMZ, full of white men listening to Guns & Roses and playing pool.
The next morning was free to explore Hue so Ol and I went shopping. We bought 2 big cloth paintings for $3, a Tiger beer singlet for $3.50 and an hours internet use for 50c. Again it is very cheap here. Meals tend to cost anywhere between $1 to $4.50, and anything over $5 is considered an expensive meal. The beer ranges in price from 90c to $2.90. 640ml Tiger beers usually cost $2 in restaurants. Even I have been forced to start drinking beers at that price. I have also had a few $3.50 Pina Coladas with the excellent pineapple juice.
At 2 pm that day we caught a public bus to our next hotel in Hoi An. And a public bus it was. Firstly, the driver made everyone close their windows so that the aircon could continue to hardly work. He then drove with his hand on the horn beeping every 20 seconds. He overtook a truck and a bus in one go on a curving mountain road using two blind corners to get in front, but it was ok, we were protected by his constant beeping throughout the entire overtaking process. After that everyone wanted off and we all opened our windows for some desperately needed hot air. We took a rest stop at a dodgy place where they kept squirrels in tiny cages, probably for dinner, and the souvenir sellers also happened to be collectors of NZ/Aussie/English/American coins and did we happen to have any for their collection. At the next stop we picked up some more passengers who, as the bus was full, had to bring plastic chairs on and sit in the aisle for the rest of the trip.
We arrived after 3 hours in Hoi An. Hoi An is another small city set around a river with beautiful old architecture. My little Vietnamese booklet tells me the city is now a UNESCO World Heritage site so it is a nice city but it is still full of rubbish, odd coloured puddles everywhere, un-walkable pavements, giant cockroaches and massive rats.
Our hotel in Hoi An was like a massive old French mansion with monster rats in the laundry and a fantastic pool. Unfortunately, when we arrived we had only half an hour again to get ready so no swim for us. Hoi An is famous for its tailor shops and some people come to Vietnam only for this reason. Duy took us to a shoe shop where most of our tour group got shoes made. The girls all got boots made to the exact size of their feet and calves which is a good idea but there was no way I was going to continue backpacking with a pair of boats to lug around.
Duy then took us to the most dodgy place possible for dinner. Down a dark back alley to a room full of Vietnamese people sitting on kindergarten-sized plastic chairs and tables. Our group got some kindergarten tables set up in the alleyway and we made double springrolls using readymade deep fried springrolls, covered in fish smelling salad and papaya with a piece of pork (hopefully) wrapped in rice paper. They were quite nice but I am over springrolls since coming here.
After our dinner Duy took us to a tailor shop. Having got quite jealous of everyone getting tailor-made shoes I decided to have a look. I ended up ordering a Kate Sylvester halter-neck dress in teal blue. The girls in the store measure you up and take photos and then tell you to come back the next day. The next day I went for a fitting and by that afternoon I had an exact copy of the dress that fits my size perfectly. I was seriously impressed with their skills though a bit worried about who was working to make all these outfits for tourists in under 24 hours. Plus it only cost me $NZ40 for everything. Some on our tour spent $US700 on tailor-made clothes. Once back at the hotel we took a fantastic 10 pm swim.
The next day we hired bicycles and rode out to the beach. Riding a bicycle in the traffic here reaches a new level of road-related terror. All you have to relay on is the little bicycle bell warning everyone of your presence on the road. The ride though was another great scenic way to see the houses, rice paddies and grave sites in the countryside.
The beach was how you imagine tropical beaches. Deck chairs under giant thatch umbrellas, with palm trees, white sand, bars and waitresses who come down to take your order. However, the beach is also full of rubbish and Sam on our tour saw a poo float by in the water. Nice. We all also got sunburnt despite lathering on the sunblock and were red and sore for the next few days.
The following morning Nicola, the kiwi girl, and I went shopping in the many souvenir shops in Hoi An. The good thing about the shops in Hoi An is that they sell good quality, well-designed products in wood and cloth. I bought a leather and silk handbag for $NZ9. I did some good bartering to get it down from $15 to $9 in different shops. Nicola bought a hand embroidered tablecloth and napkins, which take 2 people 15 working days to make, for $NZ40. There are lots of Western shoppers in Hoi An, especially fat Americans buying a whole wardrobe in 80s designs for themselves.
You have to be careful of scams though, as Sam bought some tailor-made shoes, paid up front and was given a different style, in a different colour, in the wrong size the next day. You can’t argue either because once they have your money they just don’t care here. It is a bit unsettling at times when people are all so nice but only for your money in the main streets of the cities. Outside the centre though most Vietnamese people are friendly and the kids love giving you hi-5's and yelling out American sayings like 'see ya later'. One Vietnamese old guy yelled 'throw another shrimp on the barbie' to us and the Aussies when we rode by.
We left Hoi An at 11.30am for the day train to Nha Trang. The train was delayed an hour and half so we didn't arrive in Nha Trang until 10 pm. It was a long train ride but I did manage to avoid the toilets on board again so I was happy. The train is a great way to see all the rice paddies, tropical fruit plantations, old concrete houses all painted in bright yellows, blues and pinks with Mediterranean features, and also the many graves, some mini-temples, dotted over the countryside.
Anyway, I have filled you in over half way now and will let you know what we got up to in Nha Trang and Ho Chi Minh city as soon as I can.
From
Sophie and Ollie.
