Vietnam part I (finally)

I have been working in a call centre for 2 months now. It is boring as hell, and doesn’t pay very well. I thought I’d take the opportunity of sitting at a desk doing mindless work to try and update my blog. So here we go, from a call centre looking out over the River Thames, St Pauls’, the Gherkin, the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, an update of SE Asia, with more to follow.

From memory I left off as we were entering Vietnam after a 25 hour bus ride from the capital Vientiane to Hanoi. The border crossing was something of a mission, not helped by the border staff trying to charge us twice for a visa stamp that we shouldn’t even have had to pay for one. The highlight was probably getting back on the bus on the Vietnam side, and one of the stupid gap-year Poms realising that his iPod he had left in the seat pocket was missing. We all assumed that one of the border guards must have taken it, but as we pulled out the guy suddenly headed to the front of the bus – he had recognised his headphones on the bus driver – and demanded his iPod back. The driver didn’t argue, gave it back with a shrug, and off we went into Vietnam. I can confirm that a 25 hour bus ride is not an experience I will be in a rush to repeat, but with the help of some sleeping pills I did at least manage to get myself unconscious for a decent chunk to the journey.

Hanoi. Hanoi is crazy. Hanoi is as busy as any city I have seen. Hanoi is awesome. I liked Hanoi. When we got there we headed to a hostel with a couple we had caught the bus with. It was cheap and cheerful, and they had free homebrew in the evenings. We were right in the thick of it where we stayed and spent a lot of time walking round exploring. One of the amazing experiences we had here was going to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. We were lucky to get in as we got there literally minutes from closing. We were ushered in by one of the armed guards and proceeded to follow the dimly-lit stairs up, walking past solemn armed guards every 5 metres or so. When we got to the top we were the only ones there (except of course more guards) and had a good look at the former leader's glass sarcophagus. We had to keep walking and eventually made it back outside. It was a very surreal experience, and was almost like walking into another world.

We spent a couple of nights in Hanoi before jumping on a bus to Halong Bay, the compulsory tourist trip (first seen by me on alternative travel documentary Top Gear…). Halong Bay really was incredible. We spent the first night on a junk, and it was amazing. We were with some cool people, and on the first day we went through a limestone island which had a big cave running through it, we went for a kayak around some of the amazing islands that the Bay is famous for, and we went for an awesome swim, jumping off the side of the boat whilst drinking over-priced beers from old ladies in row boats. The second day we spent on Cat Ba Island, going for a cycle, checking out a cave used by the Viet Cong as a hospital, and lugging our packs from boat to bus and back to more boats. That night we spent on Monkey Island, a half constructed ‘resort’ with rubbish and oil spoiling the bay we were expected to swim in, and dust, fumes and noise spoiling a big part of the time on the island. The company was not as good as on the boat, and getting the shits didn’t help matters. We did go for a cool walk up the hill and saw a cheeky monkey, but overall rated the boat a lot more than the island. The rudder came off the run-about as we were leaving the island, and we had to wait for another one to come and pick us up. More boats and buses, the third day was nothing special, and I was avoiding food for as long as possible.

We got back to Hanoi and spent one night in the hostel before switching to some new accommodation. Got to hang out with Mum for a few hours one evening which was really cool – she had a workshop to attend to didn’t have too much time to socialise, but it was still fun. Other highlights from Hanoi were definitely the water puppets and the Prison Museum which was better than a lot of the museums we saw on the trip.

From Hanoi we caught a train south to Hue, situated smack bang in the middle of the country. It was a bastard of a train journey, crammed, noisy and smelly. And there were some sort of weird flesh eating beetles patrolling the carriage… Hue wasn’t quite as interesting as we’d hoped. It was getting more humid the further south we got, so this wasn’t helping. The river ‘cruise’ we went on was lacking in everything you could hope for in a river cruise, and we paid far too much for it. We managed to find a supermarket, which was a novelty, but in terms of sight-seeing we were under-whelmed. We should have gone to the citadel, as it is probably the city’s highlight. In the end the highlight was probably the small homemade ice-cream shop we found.

The next stage was a bus trip to Hoi An. Hoi An was a highlight of the entire trip. Known for its abundance of cheap tailors (which we took full advantage of, or rather, who took full advantage of us), it was also a beautiful little town. We hired bicycles one day and rode to the coast, which was lovely, and so cool riding along listening to our iPods. The water was amazing for swimming, however the women peddling their junk was a bit annoying. We had access to a neighbouring hotel’s swimming pool and breakfast buffet, which were both very welcome, and it was REALLY cool bumping into 3 of the friends we had made earlier in our trip (2 from the Gibbon Experience in Laos, one from the junk in Halong Bay). Again we ate some really nice food here, and the whole experience was very pleasant. Definitely recommended for anyone heading to Vietnam (and I guess it is fairly obvious, but cheap tailor made clothes are, for the most part, cheap for a reason, so don’t expect those shoes to last an entire season, or that shirt to keep its buttons…)

Further installations to come...