The other side of Vietnam

The next bus journey that we took from Nha Trang to Mui Ne was also an “interesting” one, with the bus driver and a van driver trying to run each other off the road to resolve a dispute over “who cut the other up on the road”. I wouldn’t have minded if we all hadn’t been in the back of the bus at the time!

Mui Ne was a little bit of a disappointment after so many good places in Vietnam, as the area that we were staying was effectively a mostly deserted beach resort. The area was excellent for kite surfers and jet ski riders, but with neither of those being our forte it mainly left us with the option of sunbathing or frequenting bars and cafes. A tour was available to the huge sand dunes nearby which also stopped at the “fairy stream”, but after a few of our group went and gave it a dreadful review everybody else decided to give it a miss.

So with little to report for those 3 days, we enjoyed a relatively sane bus ride to Ho Chi Min City which many of you will know better as Saigon. By comparison our time in Saigon was fairly action packed, with our first visit being a half day tour to the famous Cu Chi Tunnels.

Toby demonstrates how small some of the tunnels are

The tunnels were constructed for use during the Vietnam war, offering the Vietnamese nationals an opportunity to hide away from the invading American soldiers, as well as including underground hospitals and kitchens to keep them fit and well.

The tunnels were incredibly small, in some cases only 22cm x 30cm, and therefore were only easy for the smaller framed Vietnamese people to navigate. In fact for the purpose of tourism the tunnels that we were able to explore during our visit have been specially enlarged to allow western tourists the chance to visit them. The tunnels and the surrounding forest areas were heavily booby trapped, and some of the devices that the traps consisted of were extremely barbaric (most of which involve pits and massive iron spikes travelling in more than one direction).

Exploring the parts of the tunnels widened for us westerners

The tour was very informative and shocking, but it wasn’t until we visited the War Remnants Museum that the horrors of those dreadful years really hit home. To see how the actions of the Americans during the war still affect the Vietnamese today (especially the spraying of Agent Orange which not only killed the crops and food supply of the country, but also affects the DNA of people who breathe it in or eat crops that have been contaminated. The American government now pays $1.52 billion per year to Vietnam by way of an apology, as well as helping with the decontamination of soil which is still going on to this day) was staggering, and I think most of us that visited the sites that day left in a very sombre mood.

In the grounds of the War Remnants Museum

The next day was spent in a rather more upbeat way. We took a tour out to the MeKong Delta where we were able to enjoy journeys in several different types of boat exploring some of the local activities and trades that are common around the river’s edge.

First we visited a bee farm where we were able to sample a number of different products made using the honey from the beehives, including honey and lemon tea, honey pellets and candied fruits. Next we visited a candy factory that specialises in coconut toffee, where we were taught the process for making some of the country’s finest sweets. The factory itself is only the size of an average living room in the UK and only has 5-6 people working in it, but the productivity rate is extremely high churning out packet after packet of candy. Finally we were able to visit a fruit farm where we were able to try a number of the different local fruits that are grown there. Both Vicky and I are very keen on dragon fruit, but with the cost of them back in the UK they will have to be a rare and special treat! Out here you are able to pick 2-3 of them up for only a pound. During our fruit sampling we were treated to some local music by some of the villagers using some weird and wonderful instruments that certainly I have never seen before.

Taking to the rather brown waters of the Mekong

With our bus booked to Cambodia for the next day the river tour concluded the Vietnam leg of our adventure. It is a country that we have both enjoyed, and one that both of us are keen to return to in the future. There is a lot more to see here, and there is only so much you are able to do while on a trip like this. It is a shame that Halong Bay didn’t feature on the route through the country that the group took, but that will almost certainly be priority number one when we one day return.

Goodnight Vietnam!

Good Morning Vietnam!

Midway through another long and uncomfortable sleeper bus ride, we arrived at the border of the 15^th country on our travels so far; Vietnam.

The Vietnam border is in truth probably the easiest border crossing we have had since leaving Europe. I was very surprised that we did not even need to have our luggage x-rayed, which has been a routine piece of business at most other borders, and in India and China an x-ray of your baggage was carried out every time we got to a train station! A couple of quick stamps in the passport and a zap to the forehead with a temperature gun (or maybe a mind control device?!) to make sure you were not running a temperature and we were in.

Back onto the bus we got for another few hours “sleep” (more like restless wriggling in my tiny bed) as the bus made it’s way down to Hue where we would be spending our first 2 nights in the country. Like Laos, Vietnam does have some wonderful scenery to view which makes being awake on the bus a lot more bearable.

Hue was a bit more built up than we thought it would be, but it still seemed a very enjoyable place to be. We stayed at the Hue Backpackers’ Hostel which is a very well run establishment that is part owned by a friendly Aussie guy who came to Vietnam for a “5 week holiday” 4 years ago and never went back!

For our only day in Hue (another day would have been really useful as there was lot’s we didn’t get to see, but that’s all part and parcel of group travel) we decided to get a boat tour down the Perfume River to see some of the riverside highlights, with all of our food (and importantly alcohol) included!

A dragon boat similar to ours in front of the floating Lotus restaurant

Along the way we stopped at a couple of temples and pagodas which were pretty impressive, where our tour guide decided to practice his palm reading skills on the unfortunate Libby who was none too pleased with the way he estimated her future!

The first stop on the boat trip

While on the boat a drinking game was in full swing. Anybody caught drinking their drink with their right hand would be forced to finish it in one go, while the words “Ten” and “Mine” were banned and anybody caught using them would be punished with 10 press ups. I finished the day out with a score of 40 push ups completed, while Vicky escaped with only 10! A few classic traps were layed down:

“Excuse me is that my hat down by your foot there?”

“No it’s mine” swiftly followed by an expletive as you realise what you’ve been made to say.

or wait until the time is just right and say to somebody:

“Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s about ten to ten” as they rack up 20 push ups for using it twice in one go!

Complimentary party hats are a must on party boats!

Our final stop on the boat tour was at the Royal Tombs where several of the former Vietnamese Kings have been laid to rest. Using several strange examples our guide explained to us some of the benefits of being a Vietnamese King, including the fact that you would often get to see 5 lovers during the course of a night (you know you’re starting to get older when the thought of that sounds bloody exhausting!). The grounds of the tombs were very enjoyable, and the weather really brought out the best in them as it had been glorious all day long. Time though to hop back on the boat and head back to the hostel where yet another free beer would be waiting for us (what a hardship!).

Inside the grounds of the Royal Tombs

As per normal we found a bit of time to pick up some souvenirs in the evening, just to make sure that we weren’t letting our bags get too light!

The next day we made the comparatively short (but incredibly hot) bus journey down to Hoi An, which clocked in at only 4 hours. Hoi An is famous for the hundreds of tailors that line the city’s streets, all of which are capable of making just about anything you want from scratch for a low cost and in an incredibly short amount of time (often within the same day). Seeing as I wasn’t having any clothes made I decided to let Vicky loose with some Dollars and she ended up with a silk fitted top, a new dress and a pair of shoes that were made from a photo of some old shoes that she used to love. Considering how long it takes to just get an alteration done in the UK I was incredibly impressed with their efficiency.

During our second day in the city, a group of six of us decided to pop into a little riverside bar to have “a quick cocktail” in the sun as the river ran by. 5 hours later the “quick cocktail” has turned into a cocktail, six bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne…reminds me of a few BBQ afternoons back at home!

Wine by the river...don't mind if I do!

The area down by the river in the city is incredibly pretty at night with so many colourful lanterns all lit up hanging from trees and shop fronts, while candles in coloured paper containers float slowly down the river. It was a beautiful atmosphere to wander round in and explore some of the streets that we had not been down until that point, after having dinner in a floating noodle bar moored up on the riverside.

Coloured paper lanterns drift down the river

The Greenfield Hotel where we stayed for the duration of our time in Hoi An was fortunate enough to have a swimming pool, which was very welcome after the hot and sticky days that we have been having, and also had the luxury of offering all of it’s guests 3 free cocktails every night!

Next up after Hoi An was yet another sleeper bus, this time heading down to our current location in Nha Trang. After a bit of a scuffle with the bus staff over where we should be dropped off, we made our way round to the Sea View Hotel which would be our home for 3 nights. The hotel is just 30 seconds away from the beach, although most people visit it either early (6.30am ish) or quite late (5pm onwards) because of how intense the sun is here.

Sunrise at the beach in Nha Trang at 5.25am

We decided that on the first day we wanted to try and find a mud pool spa that we had seen in some of the guide books, and so we decided that we would hire mopeds (the main form of transport for 90% of the population here) and head off in search of the spa. They weren’t too fussed that only one of the group had a bike licence, as in fact they didn’t ask at all. Those kinds of things are not important over here at all as long as you can afford the bike! Vicky was impressed because prior to the trip I said the one thing I would never do is hire a moped in Vietnam….ooops!

Jay, Becca, Vicky, Steph, Chris and myself take the bikes for a spin along the seaside

We made our way to the spa, but after finding that inflation had taken it’s toll since the guide books were printed we decided just to use the mineral water swimming areas. The water was incredibly warm (we are talking bath water warm) and was lovely and soft against your skin. We stayed for a few hours before heading back to the hotel on the bikes and heading out in search of dinner.

Time for a bamboo pipe shower :)

The next day we had booked ourselves on a boat trip around some of the islands just off of the coast of the country. It was another scorching hot day and we were glad of the shade of the boat and the breeze for keeping us cool. Our tour guide was very strange as he kept singing different songs to everybody on the boat depending on their nationality. He was also very keen to show off his dancing moves to some of the girls as well! We stopped for an hour and a half at the first island to get off of the boat and do some snorkelling, but with the number of other boats there as well we were convinced that any form of life would have been long scared off. We were however wrong. Although the reefs were not the best examples of coral that you will ever see, there was quite an abundance of different life in the water and we had great fun swimming around finding all the different fish. There was even a little puffer fish out for a swim!

Me checking out some marine life

After swimming for a while we moored up just next to a small fishing village to have some lunch, and to our surprise the tour guides from several boats, including ours, came together to make a band for our entertainment for about an hour. The whole thing seemed really quite surreal!

Band on the boat. The one in the makeshift bikini was our tour guide

After the entertainment was over a floating bar was set up in the water for free drinks, and some rubber rings we thrown down for people to float around the bar with. The only drink on offer though was a bright pink cocktail thing which after a few minutes was half filled with sea water anyway!

Our final stop of the day was at a resort island, where we were able to enjoy some more of the beach, a couple of swimming pools and knock a few balls down the driving range at the golf centre (basically all the things we didn’t have to pay any extra for!)

So today is our last day in Nha Trang and we are just using it to catch up with everything before we hit the road again tomorrow. Come back soon for Vietnam part 2 J

Life in Laos

The sleeper bus into Laos was a rather long and arduous affair, clocking up 26 hours in rather cramped conditions (I wasn’t actually able to fully extend my legs within the boundaries of my bed) and in as much it was actually more difficult to endure than the train. It was however another new experience to add to the memories, especially as we all had fake Snoopy duvet covers to enjoy the journey underneath!

Becca on the sleeper bus, fake Snoopy duvet in the bottom right

We arrived in Luang Prabang late in the evening and decided to venture out into the town centre to find the night market to get some food. The night markets here in Laos are very different to the ones in China, offering much more conventional food as well as many crafts people selling their products. As you can guess, another opportunity to pick up some locally crafted souvenirs!

It is much easier to pick up a varied mix of fruit and veg here than it has been for a few countries now, and so that has made a welcome change especially for me.

One of the stalls inside the night market

During our second day in Luang Prabang we decided to take a river boat trip up the MeKong to visit the Kuang Si waterfalls which were incredible. As you arrive at the park where the waterfalls are situated there is a small bear sanctuary that plays home to some black bears, before you come across several smaller waterfalls and swimming areas. We carried our way on up the path toward the main falls, and the view was not a disappointment! Standing on the bridge where this photo was taken you can feel the mist from the crashing waterfall landing on your skin and cooling you down in the humid environment.

Us and the bottom part of the waterfall, you can just about see the main drop through the trees at the top of the picture

We decided to walk up a path to the side of the waterfall where we were told there was a path that you could follow right to the top. The path was very steep and in some places dangerously hard to find any grip, but we made our way to the top where we were able to wade through the stream  (varying between ankle deep and knee deep depending where you walked) before it flowed off the edge and into oblivion.

Bob up to his knees at the top of the waterfall

Both while at the waterfall and during the boat ride you were really able to take in the rolling green hills that cover a lot of the country. The trees and the crops that line the hillsides are such a vibrant green, presumably helped by the fact that we are in monsoon season (I’ll mention rain a bit more later!), and often stretch as far as the eye can see.

View across the MeKong

The next day we made our way back down to the river and caught a boat in the opposite direction to the Buddha Caves. There are 2 caves which between them house over 4000 statues of the Buddha in all different shapes and sizes. The caves however only took around 20-30 minutes to see, and a lot of people thought they were overrated by guides for the benefit of bringing in tourists. The caves obviously still have religious significance to the local people, and once a year they are able to bring their own Buddha statues from home and have them cleaned in a special pool near the back of one of the caves (tourists are unable to see this part of the cave as a substantial percentage of the caves are not open to the public), but really there was nothing that you were not able to see in other parts of the city that could justify the 3 hour round trip to get to the caves.

The edge of the Buddha cave next to the river

After several more visits to the night market, and plenty of haggling was done, it was time fo us to move on to our next destination Vang Vieng. This area is very touristy and in turn is completely geared to live up to the stereotype. It is full of restaurants showing back to back episodes of friends on big TVs, selling sub-standard food for overinflated prices. There are plenty of places to buy “happy” fruit shakes or “happy” pizzas which are laced largely with marijuana or some even more harmful drugs, as well as the many bars designed to lure in travellers with their special offers. The other thing that the area is famous for of course is it’s tubing (floating down the river in an inflated inner tube of a tractor tyre, while stopping at many bars to heighten the experience).

Anybody would think that there was alcohol in those buckets!

During our stay in Vang Vieng we gave a large amount of custom to Gary’s Irish Bar across the road from our hotel. In fairness the rain in Vang Vieng had been relentless, and so we spent many an hour sitting in the bar and contemplating how hard it was raining outside. In fact in the 4 days we were in the area it was probably possible to count the number of hours it wasn’t raining on your fingers alone.

Familiar food is always a winner with the Westerners!

Unfortunately on the day that everybody went tubing, I was struck down for the third time by a bad stomach (that now makes more bad stomachs in the last 4 months than I have had in the last 10 years in the UK!), however Vicky was able to go along and have a great time with everybody else. They visited a number of the bars on the way down, and there was many an interesting story shared over breakfast the next morning!

Polly / Kate Winslet riding her tube down the river

We have now made our way down to Savannakhet where we are spending a very quiet day in the town (as it is Sunday as most things are shut). Tomorrow we make our way courtesy of a 9 hour bus journey acros the border into Vietnam where we will be spending roughly 2 weeks. Come back soon to find out what we are getting up to!

Planes, Trains and Dodgy Food

As you may remember I left the last entry with me being rather unwell in the airport at Kathmandu. Somehow after popping down a few more tablets I was able to last the double plane journey to Beijing, although I can’t say that I was having a comfortable time.

Looking worse for wear in KunMing airport on the way to Beijing

Jay unfortunately was forced to fly back home to the UK following further complications with his hearing, but after what seems like successful treatment at home he should be able to rejoin us again sometime soon. It will be good to see him back as we are missing having him around.

After a short taxi ride we arrived rather late at night at the Beijing City Centre Youth Hostel. We were allocated a very light, airy and spacious room with a view overlooking the city’s main train station. There was however one small issue….there was no toilet in the room! After a small amount of exploring, we discovered the shared bathroom was about 40 yards down the corridor (a 40 yard stretch I would be becoming very familiar with over the next 3 days!!)

The first 2 days after our arrival I was confined to the room which was incredibly frustrating, but Vicky was able to enjoy a short visit to Tiananmen Square as well as a day trip to the Great Wall. Vicky enjoyed her visit to the wall, but was surprised how steep it was in places. Some areas of the wall were in fact near vertical, with a few people deciding to descend on their backsides for the sake of safety. The area of the wall that Vicky visited was accessed by a cable car on the way up, with a toboggan ride available for the way down which looked amazing fun. Compared to the photos that some of the rest of the group took, the area of the wall where Vicky went was far less crowded, with some reporting that they were barely able to move for people.

A moderately steep section of the Great Wall away from too many tourists

The day after Vicky’s visit to the wall, I was able to venture out of the hotel and into China properly for the first time. Vicky and I caught the metro over to Tiananmen Square, and opted for a visit to the Forbidden City. It is essentially a palace the size of a city within the city of Beijing that was solely for the use of the Emperor and his officials during the Ming Dynasty as a sign of their supremacy. The city area was a reasonable size, and we were unaware that visitors are only able to enter through the South gate and exit through the North gate, therefore meaning that we would have to walk all the way back around the circumference of the city walls to get back to the metro. It was in truth maybe a little too much for me so soon after having been so unwell in the previous few days.

One of the squares in the forbidden city starting to become flooded with tourists

The one thing that you couldn’t help but notice about Beijing is how clean it was. The streets are regularly swept and washed, and you would feel comfortable about eating your dinner off of a lot of the paved areas.

On the topic of food, that evening we made a visit to one of the city’s night markets which are mainly dedicated to some of the stranger culinary delights you will stumble across in China. Scorpions, seahorses, lizards, frogs, spiders along with rat and dog meat on a stick to name a just a few!

A less than yummy selection of snacks at the night market

On the whole here vegetarian food can be tricky to find, but there is enough around just to get by. Finding a restaurant every couple of days that had western food on the menu was always a welcome sight, even if one chilli pasta dish did leave half of the nerves in my face twitching with it’s sheer strength!

Most places that you go in China there is boiling water readily available, and so pot noodle type dinners are very common here and play a prominent role on the shelves of a lot of the shops. Most of them again are meat flavoured with meat chunks included, but fortunately these are individually bagged and therefore easy to leave out. Plain noodles have been on the menu a few times here for me!

The following day we jumped on our next train to head down to Xian which is best known for the site of the Terracotta Warrior excavations, and indeed on our second day there we duly paid a visit to the site. The excavation work is a very slow process due to the delicate nature of the artefacts, and to this day work is still continuing to expand the collection of warriors for show. The main trench is a vast size, and all of the areas where digging has been completed are lined with warriors that have (mostly) been reconstructed. Looking at the areas where digging is currently in progress, you can see the vast number of small pieces that need to be catalogued and matched up to bring these amazing pieces of work back to their former glory.

An example of one of the warriors from an exhibition area

There are 2 other trenches at the site which are comparatively smaller, but they also offer some great examples of the work which is going on here.

Us with rows of warriors in the background

On our final day in Xian we decided to head down to the South side of the city walls where you are able to hire a bike and ride along the top of the walls. Xian is one of the only places in China where the city walls are still complete making this a unique opportunity. The walls have a circumference of 14km which made for a reasonable amount of cycling, and although most of it was flat there were a few up and downhill sections to contend with. By the end of our circuit I was pretty knackered (it’s been a while since a bike and I were closely associated!) although Vicky, Janet and Becca who accompanied me looked like they could have gone on even further! We did however elect to get out of the hot sun and enjoy a nice cold ice cream under the shade of a café’s umbrella.

Along the top of the Xian city walls

Back to the hotel and bags packed again, it was back to the train station for yet another train; this time to Cheng Du.

Note: Most of our train travel was done on sleeper trains, in which each carriage would have a very narrow aisle down one side running past small cabins that would have 2 triple bunk beds within them. Only the bottom bunk would afford you any headroom however, with the middle and top bunks not even allowing you to sit up at all. The beds are pretty narrow and just about afford you enough comfort to get some sleep, although to call it a good night’s sleep would be pushing the boundaries of the truth! The only other potential pitfall with the trains is that the top bunk would also be right next to the air conditioning unit, and so half of the group (myself included) are now suffering from the humble common cold!

Back to Cheng Du and the most popular attraction in the area; The Giant Panda Breeding Centre. Most of the group made their way early in the morning to the breeding centre, with the hope of catching the Pandas having their breakfast (there are 2 main things pandas do; sleep and eat. If you don’t see them eating then you won’t see them doing an awful lot!). We were in luck, and in several of the enclosures we were able to observe the extremely cute pandas taking in their daily nutrients. The breeding centre is careful to feed them a very healthy diet including some vitamins that they would normally struggle to get in the wild on their staple diet of bamboo.

These cute fellas can eat up to 20-30kg of bamboo a day

There are now less than 2000 Giant Pandas in the world, with their only remaining habitat being in the western parts of China. The centre is working hard to ensure the continued breeding of these amazing creatures and so far has enjoyed a considerable success rate. Whether any growth in numbers like this can ever happen in the wild is doubtful, but with people like these on the panda’s side their chances will be significantly higher.

It was after our outing to see the pandas that we learnt that Emily had decided to leave the trip and fly to Australia where she would see some of her family before flying back to the UK. It is really sad to lose another member of the group, as it feels like we are getting smaller all the time, but we hope it will be the right decision for Emily and that she travels safely.

Just like in Kathmandu we were able to take part in a pub quiz at our hostel in Cheng Du (Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel), and mine and Vicky’s team (team name will remain anonymous on this occasion for fear of corrupting any younger readers) was actually able to enjoy a very rare victory! I will admit that we did have significant help from the other members of our team who were all on their travels from America. Not a single question on football though!

Our next train journey would turn out to be a marathon one though. Making our way from Cheng Du to Lijiang was a near 36 hour journey spread across 2 trains. Tired and weary we made our way from the train station to our hotel which was it seemed only built very recently. The rooms were kitted out in a wonderfully modern style, and each room having it’s own large en-suite and a 40” TV (no not in the en-suite!).

Lijiang is commonly known for it’s proximity to Tiger Leaping Gorge, however due to recent heavy rainfall in the area we were informed that a lot of the paths that navigated the gorge were too dangerous to be used at the time. So saving ourselves the cost of a bus trip to the gorge we made our way down into the centre of the “Old Town” which is a maze of streets lined with local craft shops and restaurants. It can be fairly easy to get lost amongst the many streets that all have similar characteristics. There is no saying “we turned left by Boots and headed down towards WH Smith”, as there are no large retailers in a town like this (although several establishments from the UK are visible in the larger cities such as Beijing), but rather you will be saying “we came past that shop that sold tea” while looking round at the 13 different tea shops you can see just from where you are currently standing!

The entrance to one of the hotels in Lijiang

Wandering the streets of the town was fairly relaxing and fun however, as with no real time scale to stick to you were free to satisfy your curiosity by following any roads you liked and looking in all the shops you liked too.

In the absence of a trip to Tiger Leaping Gorge we instead made a visit to Black Dragon Pool, which is a lovely relaxing lake just outside of the city area. We enjoyed sitting in the sun and playing cards while enjoying the incredible views.

Part of the edge of the lake at Black Dragon Pool

Our next (and shortest at only two and a half hours) train journey took us to Dali for a single night at the excellent Jade Emu Hostel. Once again the hostel rooms were wonderfully kitted out, and they had even gone to the trouble of setting up their internet to let facebook and YouTube etc work (as these websites are normally all banned in China).

Vicky and Janet took the afternoon to do a horse riding trek up into the hills above the town, while I stayed and used the opportunity to put the finishing touches on the Nepal blog. By all accounts the girls enjoyed the horse riding, although they commented that the route was very steep and muddy in places. Hopefully the view from the top was worth it all for them.

The view from the summit where Vicky and Janet went riding

After our solitary night in Dali, we made our final Chinese train journey to the city of KunMing where we would be staying for our final 3 nights in China. KunMing is a fairly large city that however seems to have very little to do in it’s immediate vicinity. The city centre is packed with many multi-national stores that you would expect to find in most major cities, and to be honest it really lacked the cultural feeling that the small backstreets in the like of Lijiang had. It did however provide everybody with an opportunity to make sure they were stocked up on the essentials they would need before we would head on into Laos, mostly taking advantage of the huge Carrefour supermarket just down the road. China Post was required to send home all of our excess souvenirs and gifts that we had bought, making our bags a little lighter and more importantly making a bit of space for us to fill in the next few countries!

About the most interesting sight we saw in KunMing!

All that was required to complete our China experience was a sleeper bus journey that would take us over the border into Laos, and down to the city of Luang Prabang. More about that in the next blog though….