I'm hungover again.
Just been for breakfast at le Pub so beginning to recover my sanity. Had an interesting night last night with two Brits I met at Hanoi Backpackers. Their approach to travelling - heavily influenced by The Dice Man (Luke Rheinhart) - is to make key decisions by throwing dice...actually a good way to order drinks...as a result of this system they're now off riding around on motorbikes in giant Mexican hats ('rented' from this Irish joint we ended up in last night)...
I'm heading to the army museum this afternoon then (inevitably) more beer and a chance to watch England beat the French. In Paris...and hopefulyl find time to read my brand new photocopied Laos guidebook 9a snip at 70,000D)...
Good times.
Friday 12 October 2007
Halong Bay
I'm not a massive fan of organised tours, especially with a bus involved. So I was a bit disappointed when I read that you pretty much have to do one to see Halong Bay...at about 8pm on Tues night after a few beers I decided to book one with the hostel for the following day...
In the end, I was pleasantly surprised...after the inevitable roadside shop stop (these companies have to earn their kickbacks after all) we got to Halong City around lunchtime and then spent the afternoon on the boat cruising among the limestone kasts and doing a bit of kayaking which was awesome fun (although was totally knackered after about an hour). We also got taken to the wonderfully named 'surprising cave' which was kindof cool except the number of people walking through was more reminiscent of Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon than the tranquility I had expected. Fortunately there were a bunch of Irish guys on the boat who nearly managed to smuggle 2 bottles of Hanoi vodka (my Oxford friends will recognise the taste as being simillar to the stuff served at PT) aboard - in the end the people on the boat found it and levied a 'service charge' of 10USD...anyway we stayed up until around 1 drinking this stuff while our guide sang karaoke in the bar below !
The next day the group split up and myself, another English guy (Rob), some Malasian girls and a German family headed to Cat Ba island...Cat Ba was actually really nice; much less tourists and a beautful sunset drinking beer with the locals by the dock. Then went to a bar with Rob and watched a woman on a nearby table literally fall over flat on her faceafter inhaling 'shisha' (although the evidence points to something stronger).
The next day we all headed back to Hanoi; spent some of the boat ride back chatting to a boat surveyor from Alaska with very strong anti-Communist views (she referred to everyone in the North of Vietnam as 'viet cong') who then began to attack the 'liberally biased media' for portraying America and Americans in a bad light - in particular the New York Times. Oh dear.
In the end, I was pleasantly surprised...after the inevitable roadside shop stop (these companies have to earn their kickbacks after all) we got to Halong City around lunchtime and then spent the afternoon on the boat cruising among the limestone kasts and doing a bit of kayaking which was awesome fun (although was totally knackered after about an hour). We also got taken to the wonderfully named 'surprising cave' which was kindof cool except the number of people walking through was more reminiscent of Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon than the tranquility I had expected. Fortunately there were a bunch of Irish guys on the boat who nearly managed to smuggle 2 bottles of Hanoi vodka (my Oxford friends will recognise the taste as being simillar to the stuff served at PT) aboard - in the end the people on the boat found it and levied a 'service charge' of 10USD...anyway we stayed up until around 1 drinking this stuff while our guide sang karaoke in the bar below !
The next day the group split up and myself, another English guy (Rob), some Malasian girls and a German family headed to Cat Ba island...Cat Ba was actually really nice; much less tourists and a beautful sunset drinking beer with the locals by the dock. Then went to a bar with Rob and watched a woman on a nearby table literally fall over flat on her faceafter inhaling 'shisha' (although the evidence points to something stronger).
The next day we all headed back to Hanoi; spent some of the boat ride back chatting to a boat surveyor from Alaska with very strong anti-Communist views (she referred to everyone in the North of Vietnam as 'viet cong') who then began to attack the 'liberally biased media' for portraying America and Americans in a bad light - in particular the New York Times. Oh dear.
Hanoi (cont)
OK, so I've now passed that oh so important milestone that was my 24th birthday...was a bit weird (I think the word I'd use is 'bittersweet') to spend it in Hanoi away from all my friends but met up with a couple of guys I know from London and found a pretty nice chilled bar so not too bad in the end...couldn't get water puppet tickets though !
Since then, spent a couple of days in Hanoi checking out the Temple of Literature (built in honour of Confucius) and John McCain's old pad (the French built prison later used to house captured US pilots after they had been rescued by the peace loving Vietnamese people from the burning wreckage of their aircraft (yep, more government propaganda)...you do end up feeling that the French treated their prisoners a lot worse than the North Vietnamese not that this is any meaningful comparison... also spent much time in roadside cafes drinking ca phe sua nong (Vietnamese coffee) and bia hoi (oh so cheap draught beer - 2000D a glass) while watching the crazy spectacle that is Vietnam.
The bit of sad news is my camera (veteran of many trips and a bit like a boomerang - I've lost it 3 times and always got it back) passed away after water from Tropical Storm Lekima somehow got inside the memory slot...so spent most of Tuesday afternoon looking at cameras on the net and trying (ultimately unsuccessfully) to get an international warranty...eventually found a shop where I got a good cash price (hey, counting out 6 million dong is fun)...now the proud owner of a Sony Cybershot T100 which (so far) I've been very pleased with...
Then I deicded it was time to hit up Halong Bay...
Since then, spent a couple of days in Hanoi checking out the Temple of Literature (built in honour of Confucius) and John McCain's old pad (the French built prison later used to house captured US pilots after they had been rescued by the peace loving Vietnamese people from the burning wreckage of their aircraft (yep, more government propaganda)...you do end up feeling that the French treated their prisoners a lot worse than the North Vietnamese not that this is any meaningful comparison... also spent much time in roadside cafes drinking ca phe sua nong (Vietnamese coffee) and bia hoi (oh so cheap draught beer - 2000D a glass) while watching the crazy spectacle that is Vietnam.
The bit of sad news is my camera (veteran of many trips and a bit like a boomerang - I've lost it 3 times and always got it back) passed away after water from Tropical Storm Lekima somehow got inside the memory slot...so spent most of Tuesday afternoon looking at cameras on the net and trying (ultimately unsuccessfully) to get an international warranty...eventually found a shop where I got a good cash price (hey, counting out 6 million dong is fun)...now the proud owner of a Sony Cybershot T100 which (so far) I've been very pleased with...
Then I deicded it was time to hit up Halong Bay...
Saturday 6 October 2007
Hanoi
Hey ! Sorry for lack of posting but for some reason have found it really hard to access Blogger from some internet cafes in Vietnam (probably more due to painfully slow connections tan benevalent censorship a la China)...
Spent an enjoyable few days in Hoi An generally sitting around drinking coffee and beer, while getting clothes made (finally tally is 1 suit, 1 coat, 3 shirts, 1 jacket and 1 pair of shoes)...plus some really nice old houses (with a lot of random architectural styles - Hoi An historically had large Japanese and Chinese expat populations)...a decent beach too (and dangerously long happy hours - some f them start at 4pm !)...
Bad news is my camera broke (think water from Tropical Storm Lekima might be to blame)...so decided to leapfrog to Hanoi to try and get it repaired and/or buy another one. On the upside, today is my birhday so nothing can go wrong today -famous last words. Looks like being a pretty random birthday - going to see a water puppet show with 2 guys I know from London (Fabio and Francesco); after that they're heading down to Hoi An (the same fun 17 hour trip I've just completed in reverse)...given Hanoi has it's own Le Pub (see posts passim) think that'll certainly feature !
Spent an enjoyable few days in Hoi An generally sitting around drinking coffee and beer, while getting clothes made (finally tally is 1 suit, 1 coat, 3 shirts, 1 jacket and 1 pair of shoes)...plus some really nice old houses (with a lot of random architectural styles - Hoi An historically had large Japanese and Chinese expat populations)...a decent beach too (and dangerously long happy hours - some f them start at 4pm !)...
Bad news is my camera broke (think water from Tropical Storm Lekima might be to blame)...so decided to leapfrog to Hanoi to try and get it repaired and/or buy another one. On the upside, today is my birhday so nothing can go wrong today -famous last words. Looks like being a pretty random birthday - going to see a water puppet show with 2 guys I know from London (Fabio and Francesco); after that they're heading down to Hoi An (the same fun 17 hour trip I've just completed in reverse)...given Hanoi has it's own Le Pub (see posts passim) think that'll certainly feature !
Monday 1 October 2007
Monsoon Blues
OK, so I may have mentioned in the last post that it rained...well yesterday's rain was nothing compared with today. It has literally been PISSING it down in Hoi An as far as I can tell from when I got home from the pub last night...and shopws no signs of stopping.
Just said goodbye to Happy (he took me to the village where he grew up and I had tea and bananas with his uncle...also visited a village where they make really cool pottery - I bought two fish-shaped ceramic whistles - definitely going to be of great use to me back home !)...now contemplating sitting in a bar until it stops raining - which could be several days !
Just said goodbye to Happy (he took me to the village where he grew up and I had tea and bananas with his uncle...also visited a village where they make really cool pottery - I bought two fish-shaped ceramic whistles - definitely going to be of great use to me back home !)...now contemplating sitting in a bar until it stops raining - which could be several days !
Central Highlands/Ho Chi Minh Trail
OK, so from Pleiku, we drove north to Kom Tum, described in LP as "the friendliest city in Vietnam" - actually the whole region is really friendly, with people talking to you because they're genuinely interested rather than simply seeing you as a walking/talking ATM...we drove through lots of cool minority villages (the houses in each looked different despite being only a few hundred yards apart)...also saw a beautiful wooden church built by the French in Kom Tum itself...later, we stopped at the disused runway of the old airstrip at Dak To...it was from here that the US launched bombing raids into Laos (as well as inserting special forces on the ground) while publically giving assurances that they fully respected Laotian neutrality...walking down the runway (now partially planted with crops and used by water-buffalo for grazing) was a erie experience...later I looked on the net and actually pulled up pictures of the base as it was in the 1960s...
After Dak To we stopped briefly at a shop where locals made knives out of rusty bomb fragments and then spent the night in a small town (don't actually know the name) around 30km from the Laos border...
The next day (Monday) after a delicious breakfast of pho (delicious noodle soup) we headed north along what was once the Ho Chi Minh trail - a nextwork of well concealed pathways used by the VC to obtain weapons and supplies from the horth. After 'reunification', the government decided to build a road along the route so it looks very different today, although you can still see the original path in some places...the scenery on the route was beautiful (hills, valleys, waterfalls, low cloud) but the weather (heavy driving rain) kindof spoiled it...because of the weather we decided to continue straight on to Hoi An. On the way - perhaps the best pitstop of the journey - I met what Happy assured me was a 100 year old woman...who was calmly stood outside the hut smoking a cigarette ! The whole family were really friendly (including their pet monkey)...the final hour consisted of driving through what I'm sure is now a flooded road, in the puring rain. When we finally got to Hoi An I had to empty the water out of my hiking boots (which I'd worn in the anticipation of trekking) before I could go in the hotel ! Needless to say cold beer tasted good last night...
After Dak To we stopped briefly at a shop where locals made knives out of rusty bomb fragments and then spent the night in a small town (don't actually know the name) around 30km from the Laos border...
The next day (Monday) after a delicious breakfast of pho (delicious noodle soup) we headed north along what was once the Ho Chi Minh trail - a nextwork of well concealed pathways used by the VC to obtain weapons and supplies from the horth. After 'reunification', the government decided to build a road along the route so it looks very different today, although you can still see the original path in some places...the scenery on the route was beautiful (hills, valleys, waterfalls, low cloud) but the weather (heavy driving rain) kindof spoiled it...because of the weather we decided to continue straight on to Hoi An. On the way - perhaps the best pitstop of the journey - I met what Happy assured me was a 100 year old woman...who was calmly stood outside the hut smoking a cigarette ! The whole family were really friendly (including their pet monkey)...the final hour consisted of driving through what I'm sure is now a flooded road, in the puring rain. When we finally got to Hoi An I had to empty the water out of my hiking boots (which I'd worn in the anticipation of trekking) before I could go in the hotel ! Needless to say cold beer tasted good last night...
Saturday 29 September 2007
Motorcycle Diaries
OK, so I'm not in Nha Trang as originally planned....actually in Pleiku, a small non-descript town definitely not on the tourist trail in the Central Highlands. Decided to retain the services of 'Happy', my driver and guide for an extra three days to explore a bit of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and see some minority villages around Kon Tum, then head direct to Hoi An - plenty of time for alcohol fueled beach fun later in the trip...
Two wheels is definitely THE way to see Vietnam...on day 1, drove from Dalat to Lak Lake (an unbelievably beautiful ride across the lush, green Central Highlands; saw rice wine being made (as well as trying it - and to my disappointment realised its avaliable in a bar in Oxford called the PT where I used to drink under the label 'Vodka'), tried some of the local tobacco in a long wooden pipe (vile)...also had 2 delicious meals (which needless to say cost virtually nothing). The next day went back to Lak (it was pissing down with rain the previous day) and did an elephant ride (100,000d, 'special price') which was cool (the elephant actually waded back across the lake !)...then headed north across the Yok Don national park (stopping to see some amazing waterfalls) to Buon Ma Thuot.
Two wheels is definitely THE way to see Vietnam...on day 1, drove from Dalat to Lak Lake (an unbelievably beautiful ride across the lush, green Central Highlands; saw rice wine being made (as well as trying it - and to my disappointment realised its avaliable in a bar in Oxford called the PT where I used to drink under the label 'Vodka'), tried some of the local tobacco in a long wooden pipe (vile)...also had 2 delicious meals (which needless to say cost virtually nothing). The next day went back to Lak (it was pissing down with rain the previous day) and did an elephant ride (100,000d, 'special price') which was cool (the elephant actually waded back across the lake !)...then headed north across the Yok Don national park (stopping to see some amazing waterfalls) to Buon Ma Thuot.
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