Saigon part 1

Well we finished up in Hué and after a 3 hour delay due to fog finally boarded a plane to Saigon, upon arrival we promptly had a taxi try to screw us before reaching our overpriced, and remarkably tacky hotel (shows what you know lonely planet).

so we were in the Tourist section, I normally am in faqvour of avoiding this type of place but we were getting up early to try to catch a flight to a nice little island.

anyway it was absolutrly brimming with backpackers, travellers, potential sex tourists, the works. a total hussle and bussle, with lots of locals trying to flog lots of stuff to lots of tourists.
There were bars as far as the eye could see, and it certainly had a lively atmosphere to it

dropped our stuff and went in search of westerner food (authors note: I'm a firm believer that when in rome and all that, but frankly a burger sounded like a pimp'in idea). Had a few beers, all overpriced, but hey part of the experience. wandered some more, bought some pirated dvd's and all that.

on closer inspection it really hit me, the place had a really dity, sleazy feel to i, it felt like the foreigners were using the locals and the locals were using the foreigners, one for a godo time the other for their livelyhood. We saw alot of older single men there, and frankly it gave me the creeps, sure i'd see the same demographic on a golf course, but these one's were leering and everything in a skirt and a pulse.... not pretty at all, and i'm being far from prudish.

anyway ate some great tasting western pizza (italian inspired to be more specific...which im still suffering for today) and had an early night due to us going on stand by to get a flight to Phu Quoc island...as its hot and sunny and has beaches there...all the things im currently missing

so here now, a bit sunburnt and feeling great.

G

TET and beyond

well being stuck we decided to make the most of it, and rented a motocycle, Paulina being the more experienced..pretty much everything was the driver and within a short time we were hooning around the countryside checking out the sites, and dodging stray livestock on the road (water buffalo anyone?)

The guys at the hotel explained in Vietnam that the man never rides on the back of the motor cycle, so bascially we had to switch sexes.... I wasn't too fazed by the whole thing, hell i was getting driven around.

The preparations for TET were well and truly underway, and people were hanging up their chinese new years equivalent of an xmas tree, cleaning up and getting hair cuts.

We also took this opportunity to go on a pharmacy run, with a couple of words written in Vietnamese thanks to our friendly hotel guy.
We discovered that in Nam, you don't actually have to know about drugs to work in a pharmacy and we were given a range of strange and mysterious pills to try...YAY!

our bus to Hué left at 8pm so the afternoon/ evening was spent sitting around.
when the bus arrived i was more then a little relieved to discover a) it was empty abd b) the seats reclined, and i proceeded to dose myself up on half a xanax, to take the edge off the ride.
A few hours later i was awoken, we had stopped on the edge of a freeway, it was 11:45 and the bus driver had called a 30 minute break for TET.

dazed, confused and foggy I got off the bus, and watched the fire works, not too impressive but the vietnamese seemed excited, we wished each other happy new year (Chuc mung nam moi), and the drivers invited us to have a beer and some of the new years speciality which was goat, cooked in some sort of leaf.
I'm prety easy when it comes to food but frankly it was pretty damn gross, shortly after the entire highway which had been deserted, came alive with the sound of motobikes, lots and lots of them as people went to new years parties etc.

so we arrived in Hué at 5:55 am, found a hotel, some old lady banged on the door, woke them up we were showed a room and in bed by 6:10...

Hué was ok, big fobidden city, alot like the one in Japan only crustier, and most of it had been destroyed anf rebuilt less then a hundred years ago, the entire town was cloudy and not so much fun so we booked a ticked for Saigon for the next day. Also bumped into this Aussie couple from the boat, and had a few drinks which was nice.

in Saigon now, happy new years everbody.

Stuck!.....in Nimh Binh

Well due to a bad case of Tet (New years) we're stuck in Nimh Binh for another night,
I didn't think this damn holiday would have such an impact on travel....but it seems to.


Today we went and did tourist shit, got ripped off, saw some sights the usual. Rented a bicycle and went to see the country side. It was scenic, the kind of scenic you pretty much expect in Vietnam. Sprawling ricefields, bumpy lane ways, dirty children, ugly dogs, you get it all.
but despite that it really is beautiful, peaceful and sort of majestic in a sprawling ricefields kind of way.

The Tam Coc caves were your typical toursit spot, beautiful, but a tourist spot. some old ladies rowed us for a few hours through some caves, saw some sites, tried ot sell us stuff, and I ended up 'helping' to row the boat, maybe they were trying to make me feel important.... i'm still unsure.

So we rented a bike, its funny because traffic in Vietnam is flat out mind bogglingly insane, the craziest and most dangerous I've ever encountered, but being on the road is different. When your one with the flow of traffic , on the road with a set of wheels, people notice you and drive around, even cutting across rediculous intersections, its much safer on a bike. its kind of like the Force, and once you embrace it, the whole process is less scary, sure its absolute brimming with pure chaos....but thats really part of the experience.

tomorrow we board a bus for Hué, since there is no trains its basically a good 12 hour ride, the current plan is to visit the local Pharmacy and get whacked out on 'pharmies' for the trip...fingers crossed we can communicate with them!.

and finally I now have a local mobile number, should any of you have the desire to send me highly overpriced SMS's, please don't hesistate (MMS not available) +84 - 904409678

stay well

G

Hanoi bay and beyond

Well, the last day in Hanoi was filled with the usual Tourist things, a visit to the water puppets, alot of wandering and drinking, quite an interesting city, in a crazy kind of way.

we took the manditory tour to Halong Bay, its basically a place with lots of caves, and you stay on a sorto f modified old chinese junk, the tour group was filled with the manditory Australians, nice people and the caves were, well caves.... nice to look at but you wouldn't wanan spend alot of time there.
contrary to the multiple horror stories i've heard, the boat was nice, the food (even vegetarian) was good, and all up it was a good solid experience. our guide "han", was entertaning, his sense of comedic timing, and the way he rpeeated himself twice in every 2 sentances, was most amusing.

got off the boat, and with Han's negotiating got a moto (motocycle) to the bus station, the guys tried to screw us when we got off, seriously, one thing about this country I simply can't get over the fact I'm getting shafted, every step of the way. Its so bad for tourism, and frankly it pisses me off, but according to other travelers, Halong is the worst for it... dodgy f*ckung country!.

so the bus was traumatic and frankly my sore are is a testiment to that, a 4 hourbus ride, with probably close to 40+ people on a bus licensed to carry 28 (i'm being VERY conservative re the 40 people).
I and Paulina were up the back in that little space between the back seats, and the one in front, she was sitting on a little plastic stool and I was sitting on a metal box (and so were a hell of alot of locals), it was aweful and there is no G rated version to describe how my arse is feeling today. The vietnamese seemed to think it was funny, and even though there was another tall dutch guy on board, when I stood up to stretch i got ALOT of attention, and a thumbs up fro mthe inspector.

We're currently doing the TET (NYE) count down, basically its more like xmas where shit closes for a few days and while we're in Nimh Binh (funny huh?), the big one is to get to a big city before the shit closes down..

day two

Well day 2 was met with the usual honking that begins @ 6am, got up, ate, wandered round Lenin park (very commie style funnily enough), and moved to our new hotel in the centre of town.

visited the mouseleum of Hop Chi Min, basically a small shrivelled up old guy, surrounded by a stack of guards, the whole expeirence lasted 2 minutes, but it was interesting... maybe Australia needs its own mummified corpse... Bob hawke anyone?

got a ride back from an old guy, who peddled along, while the two of us sat in this seat, he might have bene having regrets with the combined weight of 140 odd Kg, but he pushed on through the insane traffic, I thought i very well may die. but suprise it didn't happen, that and the fact the whole thing was lop sided (i'm a little heavier then Paulina).

by day two we are experts @ crossing the street, all you gotta do is walk slowly and find something to pray to or for, death hasn't followed yet...hurruh!

'Nam here we come...

Well we've just Hit vietnam,the flight was long, squishy and the inflight movies were pretty average.being stuck sittng behind some guy who wanted to put his chair back, and me simply being too tall,we were stuck in a inflight battle of wills.he went back,i knee'd him repeatedly in the back, he went forward, i moved my leg, we went back so on and so forth...

arrived in KL, with a 5 hour stop over, not much open and plenty of time to kill.had a few drinks at a lovely american themed restaurant/ bar "cheers"..., as the authentic drinking hole's were funnily enough not open at 5:30 am.finally got into Hanoi about midday.

Weather wise its like Melbourne,except no heat wave, so basically cloudy and overcast.We caught a psychotic taxi from the airport, and its not really fair to blame everything on the taxi driver, as the whole traffic system is without a doubt the scariest i've ever seen.the lights change, people go, except before they have changed people are still going, 1 way deosn't exist, its all about a man, and how loud his horn is.no traffic rules, if you want to cross the road, you walk slowly,very slowly and try/ pray to any of a number of gods, you don't get hit.so far it hasn't happened, but there have been a million and one close calls.

Nobdy speaks english, its dirty, and as foreigners we are getting screwed in more ways then the Karma Sutra ever detailed, but its fun.