Got a bit behind with blogging, so here is my three weeks in Vietnam all at once!
Goodbye Malaysia
Spent another day lounging around the Cameron Highlands, then took a bus back to KL. Had a good tip to stay at Le Village, where I already knew some people, so it became my home away from home in KL for my last two days. Gave away half of my wardrobe (ie two pairs of shorts, a shirt, and a dress) and bought and received some new clothes.
Goooodmorning Vietnam!
Flew into Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) after a detour via Singapore (cheap flight!). Caught up on sleep and tried the traditional dishes ‘pho bo’ and “banh xeo” and the next day visited the War Remnants Museum and wandered past some of the other sights.
Flew to Hue to meet my good friend Emily, who’s living in Laos for a year and wanted to go to the beach in Vietnam for a long weekend!
We spent half a day wandering around the Citadel and seeing a dance performance, and the next day did a motorbike tour of the sights around Hue, with a great guide, Mr Phuong.
We visited a Japanese covered bridge, a museum where a sweet little old lady showed us around, a colourful marketplace, a buddhist temple with praying monks, a town where they made incense and conical hats, a hill overlooking the Perfume River, a mini-colosseum that used to host tiger vs elephant fights, an emperor’s tomb and another buddhist temple. Such a great trip.
That afternoon we took a bus to Hoi An, and ended up on a semi sleeping bus!
After walking 5kms due too loss of sense of direction and hotels with flooded swimming pools, we found one that hadn’t flooded.
You see, Typhoon Ketsana hit Hoi An 5 days earlier, with a lot of flooding. There was still a lot of mud on the streets.
In Hoi An we hired bicycles to go to the beach, Emily got some clothes tailor made, and we visited some of the sights in the old historic centre.
After a train ride back to Hue, Emily headed back to Laos and I hired a bicycle and saw a bit more of Hue. In the afternoon I got on a sleeper bus to Hanoi, 15hours. Interesting ride… I recommend getting a train, even though it’s more expensive and the times might not be as convenient.
In Hanoi I made friends with a guy called Bazz in my dorm, and we spent a few days chilling out and seeing a few of the sights in Hanoi, including the water puppet theatre, ‘beer corner’ (drinking beer for 2000dong on little stools on a street corner), the ‘Hanoi Hilton’(Hoa Lo Prison Museum), Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and surrounds and the Temple of Literature. Our favourite place to eat was KOTO, a restaurant training street kids. Such good food and a good cause, we went twice.
Then a night train to Sapa. After a sleep catch up (surprisingly, because usually I sleep well on transport, I had a lot of trouble on the train there) in the awesome corner hotel room with a view of the mountains, we hired scooters and visited the massage Thac Bac/Silver Waterfall, Tram Ton Pass and Cat Cat Village. Good fun.
The next day we started on a two day trek, medium level, which included 16kms up and down on the first day, a home stay with local Red Dzoa people and then another 10kms or so the next day. After the first two hours we were no longer followed by local hill tribe women trying to sell us stuff…! It was a wet muddy walk in mist a lot of the time, and it had it’s tough moments, but it was nowhere near the hell of the trek I did in Lombok! We had lunch on a rock in the river, and arrived at our home stay early, around 3pm, so had the afternoon free to relax.
Our guide made us dinner and we ate it with the head of the family and his eldest son. We were ‘made’ to drink shots of rice wine. Each one toasting something or someone, including our guide, our hosts, the ‘happy couple’, haha. Didn’t stop till the bottle was empty, but towards the end I was permitted to drink half shots! Despite the burning sensation in my throat each time (tastes like tequila), I surprisingly didn’t feel *that* drunk.
The next day, after a breakfast of pancakes, viewing buffalo *right* outside the door, we headed up. Up and up further into the clouds, and it was raining slightly on and off too. It was a crazy slippery path, and we were dreading going back down, but luckily the other side of the mountain was a lot drier. At 1pm we were done and had a lunch of noodle soup in a village before heading back to Sapa and a night train back to Hanoi. I slept better on the way back.
After another day in Hanoi I headed off on a ‘deluxe’ cruise of Halong Bay, a world heritage site that’s trying to become another ‘wonder of the world’, the following day.
The first day we visited a large cave, went kayaking for an hour (where we went underneath a gap in the rocks to come into an enclosed area, and saw an amazing sunset, but I didn’t take my camera into the kayak!) and dined and slept on the boat (a ‘junk’).
The following day, after visiting ‘Monkey Island’ and lounging on the beach there, we arrived at Cat Ba Island. After checking in to the three star hotel and having lunch, I hired a scooter to visit Hospital Cave. Some english guys in my group had the same idea so we went together. We also drove around half the island, avoiding goats and cows on the road!
Hospital Cave was used in the Vietnam War. A guide unlocked the gate for us, didn’t look like many tourists visited it! It was quite big, lots of different rooms and even had a swimming pool and a theatre room (just all empty rooms now though).
The next day we cruised back to the harbour, and that night I flew to Thailand.
Unfortunately I forgot to exchange all the Dong I had before I went through customs. After customs there weren’t any money changers. In Bangkok noone wanted to change Dong! Gah, typically I have over $100 in dong! Hopefully find a place in Chiang Mai.
