smifterbifter.com - Bifter's World Tour

Sapa - 29th Oct - 4th Nov 2000

From Dali station we caught an overnight sleeper train back to Kunming where we visited the same hostel we had stayed at before. We didn’t stay there but used the little travel shop in there to buy some train tickets, which turned out to have an exorbitant commission on top of the price. Still, we waited around, killing time before catching the train in an internet café in this terribly drab city. The train when we finally caught it was unique in that it ran on an old narrow-gauge line, and was used as a supply line to the Communist Vietnamese during the Vietnam/US war. For the second night in a row, we slept on a train and woke the following morning to lush jungle and the beautiful stereotypical Chinese scenery, rice paddies and rustic villages.

Eventually we made it Hekou on the Chinese/Vietnamese border and attempted to pass through. The Chinese side of the crossing itself had a high military presence but seemed to be pretty organised and after only an hour or so of waiting, we were allowed exit China and cross the Red River to the Vietnamese border control. Now we had been fretting somewhat about this part of the border crossing. We had heard tales of huge bribes, kidnapping, unofficial and unpleasant border guards and the like. So we were all a bit apprehensive on arrival. As it turned out we did have to pay an unofficial 'fine' of $10 as we didn't have the correct papers. But that was it and we wandered into Lao Cai, Vietnam. The locals all looked at us as if we were from Mars, and tried to force us into buses and onto the back of motorbikes to god knows where. We teamed up with an American couple and found a particularly jolly chap to take us to Sapa in his minibus.

On the way we drove past beautiful Vietnamese scenery as we wound up through the mountains. After a couple of (very) close calls with oncoming traffic we arrive in the town of Sapa, under the shadow of Vietnams highest mountain, Fanzipan. I say town but it really is a building site, growing quickly as tourists flock there. Luckily it has only been discovered in the last few years and is still pretty remote. The view from the town was fantastic. Perched on the side of a tolkenesque valley with a river meandering at its base. Immediately we got there we knew we would be spending a fair amount of time there, just appreciating the view.

We were staying in the very good Auberge hotel, staffed by the cast of Fawlty Towers, which made every meal order was amusing as Waldorf Salad. Which reminds me of one particular incident when we asked for three Tiger (beer)s. The member of staff akin to Manuel looked at us incredulously as he pondered this request, before repeating the question “You want three tigers?”. Stressing the three as if one or two would have been do-able. For a moment it looked as if he might actually find a shotgun and try to get us a couple of Bengal’s so we made drinking motions with our hands and he clicked, expressing some relief as he did so. Indeed, no order was quite correct, but luckily the food was the best we had yet eaten. Again, the locals seem to be able to rustle up almost anything you wanted. Beer, again, was cheap and plentiful. I don't think I'll ever be able to buy a pint in London for 3 quid without saying to the barman "You know, when I was in Vietnam....."

On our first night there, we met a chap called Alan. He was from Australia and spent most of his time in Sapa, acting as some kind of doctor to the locals. He always wore a blue cap. He put us in contact with Mi, a local girl of 16 who lived in a H'mong village in the valley. She agreed to take us all on a trek down into the valley and to some of the H'mong tribes villages. The H’mong people are essentially a traditional tribe, but they have not been slow to adapt to the financial rewards of preying on foreign tourists. While the adults toil away in the fields, the children are sent out into the town with various hand-made souvenirs. They then use the hardest sell in the book – being cute. I fell for it twice and have ended up with a cloth hat and a twangy-thing.

Next morning we set off with Mi, and her friend Chen, covertly (as the hotel operators prefer tourists to use their own, expensive, guides) and headed off in the heat of, what the locals were saying, the hottest day they have had for years. The walk was quite easy being mostly downhill and we saw villages that probably haven't changed for 500 years. Bamboo huts, water driven power and paddy fields. After a few hours we ended up in Chens own family home for lunch. We couldn't hope for a more ethnic experience. The place was swarming with cute little kiddies and we ate noodles, tofu and rice sitting on the dusty stone floor around an open fire in the shade of a bamboo and palm frond awning. The day was capped off by a motorbike ride back up to Sapa. It was three to a bike including driver along a dirt track. Ben & I clinging on for dear life pissing ourselves, thinking what our mothers would think as we wound up along the cliff edge. Luckily we were so overloaded that we couldn't go much faster that 20Kph, and the driver was very good, if a little worried about his bike, as we spluttered along like a fart in a biscuit barrel.

The good weather continued for the next 3 days, pushing 40 deg C, we estimated with my digital bum thermometer. And we, being typical Mad Dogs and Englishmen, sat out in it almost the entire time and always at midday when all the locals were sensibly running for shade. Of course, we drank beer, sweated profusely and commented on how hot it was, but never did anything to cool ourselves.

On our last night there we visited the Bamboo Hotel Bar for an ‘Evening of Traditional Music’. We thought it might be interesting and it was free so we went along. After getting a beer and finding a place to sit, the performance began. An H’mong girl came out onto the floor and proceeded to play a tune on her instrument, which can only be described as a leaf. It produced a high-pitched broken wailing sound, seemingly completely devoid of pitch. This continued for about five minutes and during which time we stole quick glances at each other with barely suppressed grins. It was getting hard to contain our laughter at this extraordinary squeaking performance, but luckily the virtuoso performance ceased before we cracked. Only to resume a minute later with the accompaniment of a twangy thing. “Twang, twang, squeeeeak, twang….”. This brought our giggles to boiling point, tears streaming down our faces and stitches in out guts. Just before we all had to leave or risk being thrown out, and to our imense relief, the entertainment finished. Believe me, I did not feel good about our conduct but, in the mood we were in, it was inevitable. We seemed to have almost gotten away with our despicable behavior, but one particular local who was wearing the combat fatigues of a North Vietnamese soldier stared menacingly at us until we left.

After four nights there we had exhausted Sapa and all eaten, drank and relaxed ourselves to excess. We decided to make a move to a more Lively place.

Hanoi – 4th - 10th Nov 2000

To leave Sapa we hitched a lift in a 40yr old Russian Jeep, which bounced it’s way back to the border town of Lao Cai. From there we caught a train to Hanoi, arriving in the late evening. Consulting the Lonely Planet guidebook we decided to head for the old quarter where there seemed to be an abundance of cheap accommodation. First impressions? Freaking crazy. Our taxi trip to the Old Quarter was like a computer game. No rules of the road appeared to apply and swarms of mopeds, bikes and cyclos (human powered transportation) flowed around the taxi like flies. Well one moped didn't exactly flow around us, but he seemed to be OK as we sped past.

We discovered that asking to go to a particular hotel was not as easy as it seems, seeing as any hotel that gets mentioned in the any of the major guidebooks, spawns a multitude of hotels with the same name trying to cash in. We found lodgings in one of the Camellia Hotels in the area. It was a little bit grotty, but cheap and not too offensive.

Hanoi, in it’s current incarnation as the capital of Vietnam, is a very strange, yet beautiful city. The evidence of French colonialism is still very prevalent in the architecture and many older residents still converse in French. Indeed, we sometimes had to resort to using broken GCSE French to get understood. It has a very cosmopolitan and European feel with its street cafés and markets. The traffic in the city is horrendous, and is mostly comprised of mopeds. At first you think it is impossible to cross any road, but after a while you learn that the trick is to walk straight out into the traffic, at a dead steady pace, in a straight line. The mopeds miraculously flow around you and before you have dared to take a breath, you are on the other side.

Hanoi has plenty of museums, which we did our best to explore, and some great places to eat which we also took advantage of. It was about now that I started to realise that when travelling through Asia, you never cook for yourself. Every meal is from a restaurant or café. It’s normally just as cheap as getting the food and cooking (if any of the hostels in Asia had cooking facilities), and it is certainly the best way to dabble in new cuisines.

I think on the first night, we found a bar, called the Polite Pub, near the lake and on a street full of other bars and restaurants. We seemed to end up in there every night we were in Hanoi. I suppose it was quite a westernised place, having western music, and mostly an ex-pat clientele, but it had one gimmick that set it apart from any other bar. There were two main competing draught beers on sale, Carlsberg and Tiger. Each beer had a posse of beautiful girls decked out in slinky Carlsberg/Tiger emblazoned dresses who tried, through whatever means necessary, to get you to buy a drink from her. It was never much of a contest seeing as one of the Tiger girls was by far the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. We spent far too much money in the Polite Pub.

Deciding that we should soak up more of the culture of this city as opposed to soaking bar mats, we managed to squeeze in some time in Hanoi’s museums. The most interesting ones were those regarding the Vietnam/US war. Seeing as most of my knowledge of the war comes from Hollywood films (undoubtedly a poor resource for factual information), then a view of the war from the other side was as revealing as it was shocking. Whilst on the surface the Vietnamese are remarkably tolerant of American tourists, these museums were far more scathing. In any exhibit or display, the American army were always referred to as the “Bastard sons of America” or the “Murderous Americans”. The evidence to support these claims were shocking; Pictures of dismembered bodies, victims of contact with Agent Orange and other defoliants and executions. Although I already knew about most of the atrocities of the Vietnam war, the reconfirmation that the country supposedly at the forefront of the Free World actually committed so many was, at best, unsettling.

The problem with the Vietnam/US war is that it overshadows the other recent conflicts that Vietnam has endured. These museums showed us that the 20th Century has not been a pleasant time in the history of Vietnam. The American war was just the last of a series of bloody and costly struggles. Earlier in the century they had succeeded in throwing out the French and the Japanese, both of whom claimed some stake in Vietnam. In all, we found ourselves wondering how these people can still have the most incredible smiles and be as welcoming to others as they were. But then, it was their strength of character that enabled them to triumph in those wars in the first place.

The man synonymous with the communist Vietnamese movement was Ho Chi Minh. The leader of the communist movement in the North. He, like Lenin in Russia, was so respected by (some of) the people, that when he died he was embalmed and placed on display in a tomb in central Hanoi. We made a trip pout to see if we could visit the man himself, but unfortunately his remains were elsewhere being given a spring clean.

To further bolster our cultural exploration, we spent an evening at the Thanh Long Water Puppet theater. It was a puppet show performed on a flooded stage with traditional music and song. We didn’t have a clue what was going on seeing as it was conducted entirely in Vietnamese, but it seemed to be a sort of rags-to-riches love story with a few dragons and fireworks thrown in for good measure. Afterwards, we decided that we were all cultured out and went to the Polite Pub.

With our hotel, we signed up for a day trip out to Hoa Lou and Tam Coc. Hoa Lu is a historical site which lies at the southern edge of the Red River Delta, in the Ninh Binh Province. It is renown for its breath-taking scenery and is similar to Ha Long Bay (see later) because of the unusual lime-stone formations that jut out of the surrounding paddy fields. In the 10th century under the Dinh Dynasty, Hoa Lu served as the capital of Vietnam and, later, under the early Le Dynasty continued to enjoy prominence.

As we got further out of Hanoi, the colours turned greener, from the many different colours of rice, the life blood of Vietnam, to the duller green of sugarcane. Our first stop of the day was to visit two important temples and the remains of an ancient kingdom. The kings had carefully planned the location for the city, which was easier to protect from the invading forces from the North (China). An old priest regaled us with tales of the ancient kings and their queens, explaining their turbulent history.

We eventually reached Tam Coc, stopping for lunch at a small cafe. We joined the local residents and other tour parties and sat down to a Vietnamese feast of local food. After lunch, all the tourists moved to the small dock area and prepared to embark in the small reed boats that would take us through the waterways to the The Bich Dong Caves. These boats didn’t look like the safest vessles I had ever seen, being low in the water, made of plants and powered by a 60yr old grandma’s feet, but the water didn’t look too deep so we risked it. Ben, Greig and I on one boat, Paul and Ruth on another. We set off throught the Tam Coc Waterways, a series of large canals that wind their way through grassland and rushes surrounded by staggeringly fantastic, green topped, towering lime-stone formations. It was quite etheral and defiantly a serene location.

After a while we passed through the Bich Dong caves and ended up in a sort of floating market, and our boat rower started the hard-sell of her woven handicrafts. Since we were a captive audience and needed to complete the journey back to the docking area, I bought a sheet thingy to keep the peace. Those who did not want to comply found they needed to make a purchase in the end, or else their journey would be delayed for some time. Either way, we made it back to Hanoi later that evening which rounded off a pretty good day all round. My sheet thingy unfortunately ended up molding away in my backpack.

Back in Hanoi: Seeing as we needed to get a visa to enter Cambodia, Ben Greig and I made a trip to the Cambodian embassy. We found the approriate official in the deserted building and asked him if we could apply for one. He responded - “You want to go to Cambodia? Ha ha ha. In the wet season? Whoa ha ha. Overland, ha ha ha…?” Either he was quite mad, or he evidently thought we were. Neither explanation for his manic laughter filled put us at ease. If the embassy visa officer thought we were insane to go into Cambodia it didn’t bode to well for us. It transpired that the visa, if obtained then, would be valid for travel in Cambodia for one month commencing then. You couldn’t postdate entry. This was no good seeing as we still had a over two weeks left in Vietnam. We resigned ourselve to getting the visa at the last minute in Saigon.

One of our friends from home, Jimmy Cheese, was also traveling around South East Asia, with his girlfriend at the same time as us. However they were traveling in the opposite direction and their trip overlapped with ours at Hanoi. So we got together for a few days. His first night out was a bit of a mess as we ended up in the polite pub where James drank until he almost passed out. But undeterred he managed to struggle on, using his girlfriend, Vicky, as a prop, to make it to the Apocolypse Now nightclub. This activity was great fun at the time, but the next morning was going to be rough as we had a 6am start for the bus to Cat Ba Island (in Ha Long Bay)….

Cat Ba Island (Ha Long Bay) - 10th - 14th Nov 2000

aul and Ruth had decided to make their own way there, whilst Ben, Greig, James, Vicky and I had booked ourselves onto a three-day tour of Cat Ba Island, about 150kms East of Hanoi. It started at 6am with a nightmare 4hr bus trip to Ha Long. The previous nights exploits had us all on the edge of throwing up. Luckily, after a couple of hours we did stop, and Ben (for one) used the opportunity to upload into the conveniences provided. A bit of breakfast sorted me right out and by the time we arrived in Ha Long Bay I was right as rain. From there the trip organisers loaded us onto a boat for a further 4 hours sailing around the Bay to our destination.

The boat trip was through some stunning scenery. Eroded limestone islands are dotted throughout the bay area, each one looking like a villainous hideout for some James Bond foe. We docked on one island to explore the Surprise Caves. They are so named because each time you enter the next cavern, you are surprised that it is even larger than the previous. I wasn’t outrageously surprised, but it was interesting nonetheless. From there we caught our boat back for the 2-hour trip towards Cat Ba Island itself. And as the sun set over the bay, we passed between limestone cliffs and docked in the natural harbor of Cat Ba town. On land we were ushered to our hotel, where we discovered a good room waiting for us in the Thong Long Hotel.

Cat Ba is undergoing some refurbishment at the moment as it tries to make it an international destination for tourists. It has already won local Vietnamese approval as the number one destination for holidays, and can apparently get quite crowded in peak Vietnamese holiday season. However, we were there in the low season, and it was only populated by like-minded western travelers on tours from Hanoi. The island is a world heritage park that is about two thirds forested and one-third Marine Park. The wooded hills are supposed to be home to a multitude of wild animals like monkeys, and pumas, but either they had all been frightened off by the construction work in Cat Ba town, or they were just an elaborate hoax to get people to visit, as we never encountered any of them.

The organised tour we were on was supposed to be for two nights and each day having some activity planned, like walking up hills and stuff. Waking up on our first morning with a nasty hangover, put paid to any such nonsense and we resigned ourselves to staying four nights with little more activity than beach and booze.

Close to Cat Ba town are two fantastic beaches, Cat Thien Beach Number One and Cat Thien Beach Number Two. They are both set in idyllic little coves sheltered by limestone cliffs. They are accessible by two routes, the main path over the cliff, where you are asked to pay a fee for entering (probably unofficial), or by walking around the headland for free. After hearing the story of our friend Terry who attempted the free route and was attacked by a pack of wild dogs, we always took the shorter route over the cliff.

The two beaches were pretty deserted, and we spent the days lazing around on them, reading, swimming, playing volleyball and generally farting about. During the evenings we always returned to one of the restaurants on the main road, it served the most fantastic seafood any of us had ever eaten, fresh from the water that morning, and at excruciatingly low prices. The family who ran the place was very friendly and obviously thankful for the trade that we brought in (they seemed to be loosing out in competition with some rather nicer looking restaurants on the same strip). Then, most evenings, we wound up in the Flightless Bird - The only Western bar on Cat Ba. It was run by a Kiwi called Greame who could get quite grumpy when he wanted to go home.

Our third night there was defiantly one of the most memorable of the entire trip. We had spent the day, as usual on the beach, and then sat outside our favorite restaurant eating grilled fish and drinking Tiger beers, when a selection of members of the UK band, Gomez, strolled past and disappeared into the Flightless Bird. This was quite exciting seeing as we were all big fans of their music (well their first album anyhow), which had figured largely in the soundtrack for the trip. We ate up and then moved on to the Flightless Bird, to see if we could meet them. Unfortunately the seemed to be in conversation with a large group of people so we couldn’t just stroll up and talk to them and the left pretty soon after we arrived. But we met a load of good people with whom we played darts and chatted about Cat Ba, Vietnam and life on the road vs. life back at home. All good fun. We were just getting into the swing of things, when Greame, the barman, decided that he wanted to shut up shop. This was no good seeing as it was only midnight, so we sent in our crack negotiator, Greigy G. Armed with only his charm and a fistful of dollars, he somehow managed to get another two rounds out of him and then a tonne of takeout beers to boot. Thus, at 1am, clutching our take-outs, we left the bar and decided to head over to the beach to sit under the bright, full moon. Getting there was a bit of an adventure as the 7 of us brave enough to make the journey followed the path up and over to Cat Thien Beach Number One, sneaking past the security post. Rounding the corner at the top of the hill presented all of us with the beautiful vista of a brightly moonlit beach, the water looking like a carpet of glistening stars as it reflected the moonlight. Stunning. We sat on the edge of the beach for a time, drinking our Tigers and appreciating the view. Before long, one of our party, Billabong Ben (so named due to the fact that he wore only one T-Shirt – a Billabong - his entire time on Cat Ba), stripped down to his undies and marched out into the water. A while later he strolled back proclaiming that the water was lovely. It then descended into a free-for-all skinny dipping bonanza. We swam out to these two, what appeared to be, rusty lifeguard towers about 30 meters out from the shore and started to climb and jump off them. If I have one enduring memory of our time in Cat Ba, it will be this image – Greig, screaming and clutching his nuts, naked as the day he was born, dive bombing off the top of the lifeguard tower, silhouetted by the full moon like some twisted Amblin logo. A beautiful sight if ever I saw one. Unbelievably none of us drowned (though James lost his underwear) and eventually, we all climbed out of the water, to drip dry and finish off the drinks. After a bit, Jimmy suddenly turned and sprinted back into the sea. Thinking that he wanted a bit more water bound action; Greig and Billabong Ben sprinted after him, only to find that his mission had been to feed the fishes by spewing into the surf. Eventually, we ran out of booze, and this bizare evening came to a close.

The next monring, James and Vicky left Cat Ba to carry on with their trip. We were not to meet up with them again until we reached Australia, 3 months later. We stayed one more day, soaking up the rays on Cat Thien Beach Number One, playing beach volleyball with an annoying American (who taught us the rules and who we then proceeded to beat in every game). A few more beers with Billabong Ben in the evening and that was it.

Ninh Binh - 14th - 15th Nov 2000

On my last night in Cat Ba, I started feeling particually unwell with a nasty fluey cold. I think that it may have been due to the slightly dodgy water on Cat Ba. Obvioulsy we were all drinking bottled water, but sometimes you inadvertantly purchase a bottle that has been filled from a local source. Normally this can be identified by having a broken seal, but not always. Whatever the cause of my illness, I decided that I didn’t really want to take the long cruise back to Ha Phong. Rather, I would go with Paul and Ruth on the faster ferry and try to get a bus from there direct to Hue, our next destination. I really should have stuck to the original plan as it eventually took us a day londer than planned to get to Hue, whilst Ben and Greig made it there pretty quick.

So at 5am in the morning I met Paul and Ruth at the ferry port on Cat Ba where we started the 3-hour boat trip to Haiphong. On arriving there we were thrust in to a chaotic street with no information to be had anywhere. We knew we wanted to go to catch a bus to Ninh Binh (from where we would catch the train down to Hue), so we asked a cyclo driver where we could catch a bus. We had a difficult conversation with him in broken English, but he seemed to get the jist and he and his friends took us on their cyclos to meet a bus. We were dumped outside a tiny street café where we were told the bus would be along soon. A Vietnamese woman met us there and explained in good English that this would be the last bus of the day. So we had a spot of breakfast in the café, waiting for the bus. It turned out to be a complete wreck when it arrived, but we boarded anyway. As we sat down and the bus began to move off, the ‘conductor’ told us that we would have to pay US$15 each! This was about 20 times more that it should have been and he wouldn’t budge on it. So we shouted for the bus to stop and stormed off. We then saw our cyclo drivers still hiding around the corner and we realised we had almost been the victims of a scam.

The cyclo drivers caught us off the ferry and took us to a pre-arranged place (the café) where they knew the bus would stop in order to pick up unsuspecting western tourists. The woman there would explain that this was the last bus so that when we got on, we would have to pay the bloated amount when the bus arrived. Some of that bloated amount would then be paid back to the woman and the cyclo drivers for their part in the scam, which was why they were still hanging around.

So off the bus, we consulted the map and found the real bus station. There were many buses going where we wanted and for only US$0.80. The bus we took was also in pretty bad shape and it wasn’t going directly to Ninh Binh, we had to change busses in Nam Dinh. The first leg of the journey was hellish. The bus was full of diesel fumes and the wooden shell was barely held together with nails. After cramming in about a hundred locals and all their stuff, we set out and after a few stops for repairs and river crossings, we arrived in Nam Dinh where we boarded another, far nicer, bus, for the remainder of the journey to Ninh Binh. Immediately we arrived we headed for the train station to try and book some beds on the train overnight to Hue. Ninh Binh has only eight foreigner tickets for trains in each direction to allocate per day. Since this is below the usual number of foreigners in the town in peak season it is often impossible to get a ticket out on the same day, so we didn’t hold out much hope. To our surprise we got them and we only had to amuse ourselves for a few hours until it arrives. Too good to be true….

Ninh Binh itself is the capital of the region of the same name. It is close to Hoa Lou and Tam Coc (which we visited from Hanoi) and as such is surrounded by beautiful scenery. The town itself is pretty unremarkable, being split in two by a river. There are several pagodas and other religious sites in the area as well as the Cuc Phuong National Park, a bus journey away to the North.

We had some (very average) food in the Queen Mini Hotel, just a few dozen metres from the railway station and then set up camp in the railway station to await our train. There we met Eric who (I think) was Dutch and travelling around Vietnam on his own. It was his birthday, so we decided to buy a few beers and celebrate with him. The time for our train came and went and an announcement informed us that it would be delayed by four hours. So we waited and drank a few more beers and the hours disappeared. A further announcement told us that it would be another 6 hours. This was more than a little annoying. Leong, proprietor of the Queen Mini Hotel came up and liased with the station staff on our behalf and discovered that our train had hit a bus somewhere between Hanoi and Ninh Binh and would not be arriving that night. We decided that we would be best placed to try and get a ticket on the train the following evening but that meant that we needed to get a refund on our tickets, which we eventually did with the help of Leong. He also arranged for a room to stay the night in his hotel.

Next day Ruth and I took a wander around the dusty market in an attempt to waste time until we could go back to the train station and attempt to re-purchase some train tickets. Come 6pm, it became obvious that they would not be able to get us any tickets and we had to quickly make alternative arrangements on a Singh Bus – there was no way we were staying another night there. We made our way to the Thkv Anh Hotel, and enjoyed our first decent meal in Ninh Binh before catching the bus.

Hue - 15th - 16th Nov 2000

We were traveling with the main coach operator in Vietnam, Singh. They had the best coaches but they were incredibly cramped. And with the roads being so bad (and flooded whilst we were there) the average speed was pretty slow so all journeys took an age. This one was 16 hours overnight to Hue from Ninh Binh, and I was stuck over the real wheel arch for most of that time. The first 9 hours were the worst; not being able to sleep whatsoever as my legs were cramped and my arse was experiencing that kind of painful numbness you find from sitting in cinema seats for a 3 hour film. Luckily I had the Lord of the Rings to while away the hours with. This was also the first time we encountred a future friend Dave Robins and his pal Greg. I say encountered because we didn’t actually meet him, just heard Dave as he kept the bus awake reading a book out aloud to Greg.

700Km from Hanoi and 1100Km from Saigon, Hue is another past capital of Vietnam (it does seem to have had rather a lot of past capital cities) and it steeped in history from years of former glory. As such many temples litter the city, but unfortunatly we never got to see any during our stay. It is also a major trading port being on the river. Many tourists (such as Ben and Greig) use Hue as a springboard from which to visit the DMZ (DeMiliterised Zone), an area between two parallels, tactically seperating the North and the South Vietnamese before the end of the Vietnam/US war. The DMZ used to be mainly jungle, with tigers and elephants, but since the Americans were scared of the jungle they dropped 45000 tons of napalm and other chemicals on the area. Even today plants and trees have difficulties growing there. The area also harbours the Vinh Moc Tunnels – Part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail and used by the comunist armies to store people and weaponary.

We had heard reports from people coming north, that the South of Vietnam was experiencing severe rain and flooding. This was evident upon arrival in Hue. It was pouring and the streets were so flooded that they could be mistaken for the waterways of Venice. We checked into the very nice (for the price) Thuan Hoa Hotel. For the first time on this trip I had my own room, and it was worth every cent of the US$10. I even had a TV with CNN and MTV. Absolute heaven. Paul, Ruth and I went out for a meal and the out to find the DMZ Café – Apparently the only bar worth seeing in Hue. En route we found Ben and Greig chatting up a girl (later disclosed as Amber). They appeared to have had a much easier trip from Cat Ba than us, and they delighted in hearing of our tales of woe regarding our misadventure in Ninh Binh.

We all managed to make it to the DMZ café where we fended off the local ‘professional ladies’, played pool and met up again with Dutch Eric. A good evening, made better by the comfy bed I was able to collapse in at the end of it. Paul and Ruth had decided to make a dash for it to Hoi An the next morning and I had agreed to go also. It was too wet to really enjoy Hue and the rain did not look like it was going to stop.

Hoi An - 18th - 22nd Nov 2000

Finally a place to relax a little after the hellish journey from Cat Ba Island. Hoi An is defiantly one of Vietnams grooviest places. Hoi An port was founded in the 15th century and from the 17th to the 19th centuries it was one of South East Asia's major international ports, dealing with merchants from China, Japan and Portugal. The town is incredibly well preserved and has been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Even today, parts of Hoi An look exactly as they were over a century ago. There is still a heavy French colonial impression still there, reflected in some of the architecture, but all sorts of styles are represented. Even the Japanese left their mark with the ancient covered bridge over the Thu Bon river, built in 1593 by the Japanese community of Hoi An, and hardly touched since.

To get there, Paul, Ruth and I (Ben and Greig were stayed one more night in Hue to check out the DMZ) took a bus, for a change, during the day, which had trouble on the flooded roads and took longer than expected. On arrival we used the complementary minibus service on offer at one particular hotel to look around about half a dozen other hotels. After much deliberation we finally settled on Thùy Duòng Hotel, about 20mins walk from the center of town, where I took a triple room in the prospect of Greig and Ben turning up the next day. That night we ate out in the centre of the town sitting opposite a restaurant that looked much better than the one we were in. It’s probably worth mentioning that tourist menus all over Asia, but especially in Vietnam, have a habit of using somewhat cretaive English spelling. I wrote some of the better miss-spelled options down:

Beff in ognin an tomtoes
Chick in rice
Fried French
Potato Fris
Fepsi
Frut Smoothly

It could be entirely possible that these were intentionally misspelt to amuse us foreigners.

The following morning, we decided to move to accommodation closer to the centre of the town. So we packed up and started walking to discover that it rained heavily the previous night. The road connecting where we were standing and the rest of the town was completely flooded by the river that had burst its banks. We were cut off. We had some grub in a café on our side of the water and contemplated our options. Going around didn’t seem possible as there were no other roads and jumping over fences to go through the fields with our backpacks on didn’t seem too much fun. Digging out our swimming trunks and wading through was a possibility, but the flooded road seemed to be at least waist deep meaning we would have to carry our packs over our heads – an unstable situation that would more than likely end up with at lest one of us dropping the lot into the water. As we were weighing these alternatives up, Terry, the Bristol chap who had been following us throughout Vietnam, sauntered up and declared that he had been out on an all night bender and had lost his hotel. A brief interrogation revealed that he was staying in the same hotel as we had been (which we were still sitting opposite). The subject then turned to getting across the flood and how come he was still dry. He informed us that some enterprising locals had set up a water taxi service for the purpose of extorting stuck westerners, such as ourselves. So on Terry’s insistence that it was safe, we waded out to the boat and all four of us clambered aboard the little wooden longboat. With our backpacks we were dangerously unsteady and overloaded. Somehow we managed to not tip the vessel and successfully made it across – for an extortionate fee.

I found another Phu Thinh Hotel and Ben and Greig turned up that evening. The next few days were characterised by just wandering around the cobbled streets eating in the superb restaurants and socialising in one of the best bars in Vietnam – Treats. The weather was still not good, but it didn’t seem to matter there. I must have walked around the little town a dozen times during my stay, just soaking up the atmosphere and talking to other travelers. Everyone I met during the day I invited to meet later at Treats Bar at 6pm, the start of Happy Hour. There were quite often 15 or 20 people there whom we recognised from just walking around and they were all mid-twenties and doing the same type of trip we were. Thus, we always had a lot in common and we often talked until the small hours, nursing BGI Beers and playing the free pool. I really enjoyed the company of the people we met there. In fact I only have one criticism of the Treats Bar – They only appeared to have 3 CDs; Best of Sting, Best of Police and Best of U2. None of them bad choices of music at all, but it did get a bit much, forcing me to bring in my own music for the bar staff to play (a gesture for which I think even they were thankful).

Hoi An is famous for its tailors and fitting shops. Most of them are located in a large covered market where dozens of competing tailors vie for space and customers. You can get absolutely any item of clothing made, in absolutely any style, in absolutely any fabric, for a fraction of the cost in the West. They don’t work from designs, they just use pictures from western magazines and catalogues as a guide, then they take your measurements and make the garment by eye. In a couple of hours! I refrained for buying any clothes as I was convinced they all fall to pieces within days. However I was proved wrong, as everybody else’s clothes appear to still be holding up just fine. Paul went to town and ended up with 5 suits, a fair few shirts, a vest top, a couple of pairs of trousers and a pair of boxer shorts.

On reflection, I believe Hoi An summed up what was great about the country. It is a place not to be missed by anybody travelling through Vietnam. If it does have any downside it has to be the persistence of the hawkers trying to sell you little souvenirs or postcards. But this is the same all over Vietnam (especially Hanoi) and we found that you harden to it after a bit. Some hawkers seem to assume that if the price is right, you will buy anything they have, and occasionally someone will follow you for half and hour, continually decreasing the price of their product until you have the unpleasant choice of being rude or purchasing the item. In Hanoi, though, this had its upside as we were able to buy from a street seller a copied and bound Lonely Planet Guide to Vietnam for only US$5.

Nha Trang – 23rd - 24th Nov 2000

Paul and Ruth spent an extra day in Hoi An and then headed direct to the Mekong Delta, skipping ahead of us, whilst another long overnight bus journey took Ben Greig and I to Na Trang. I didn’t sleep a wink and arrived to find it was raining harder than ever. It’s certainly one thing you notice when traveling in Asia. There is no grey area of weather like I’m used to in Europe. No partially cloudy days, or clear and chilly days, or days with a bit of drizzle followed by patchy clouds. In Asia it’s either a) Stinking hot or b) Stinking hot and soaking wet.

Nha Trang is part of an area referred to in travel guides as the Central Coast and is becoming a major tourist destination. This is probably because it has one of the best beaches in Vietnam and almost transparent turquoise waters, making it excellent for fishing, snorkelling and scuba diving (if it isn’t raining). Offshore it has several islands that can offer a break from the city there is always the famous Mamma Trang's boat trips, which used to be popular with those who liked to partake in a little herbal relaxation. I say ‘used to be popular’, seeing as Mamma Trang is currently in prison on drug charges.

We stayed in the hotel we were dropped off at, not wanting to get soaked looking for a different place. Once in the room I slept for 5 hours straight, recovering from my sleepless night on the coach. I awoke to find Ben and G had disappeared, leaving only a note to say that they had gone off to explore the place a bit. I tried to go and find them, but after only 5mins and even though I was wearing a waterproof, I was soaked to the skin. So I returned, as did they shortly afterwards. We ventured out again for some food and then on to the beachfront where we found a bar that, in stark contrast to everywhere else, looked incredibly lively. The clientele of the Rainbow Bar turned out to be a mix of travelers, ex-pats, NCOs and prostitutes. A lively bunch that were suspending the disbelief over the weather by dancing and drinking cocktails out of pineapples whilst lightening and rain lashed down outside. Late that night, on the way home, Ben and I ventured out onto the beach and stood on the sand watching the waves crash onto the shore as the storm calmed down.

I think, that if it weren’t for the despicable weather we would have stayed in Nha Trang a lot longer. Indeed, James and Vicky had raved about it when we met them in Hanoi. But it wasn’t to be. The rain look as if it had set itself in for a while. So we escaped into the mountains…

Dalat - 24th - 26th Nov 2000

Yet another bus, but this one wasn’t too bad. Importantly they stopped off at a little café to get some breakfast en-route (an all too often neglected practice with tour buses in Vietnam). At 1475ft up, Dalat is the most accessible part of The Central Highlands, which is, in turn, the southern part of the Truong Son Mountain Range. Sometimes called the ‘Paris of the East’, it was built up from a village to a town by the French to serve as a mountain retreat from Saigon when the weather got a bit too hot for them. The town is in a temperate region dotted with lakes and waterfalls and surrounded by evergreen forests. At last the weather smiled on us, but it didn’t take long for us to start complaining about how hot it was again.

We avoided the hotel thrust upon us by the Tour Bus operators and found our own fantastic room in the Peace Hotel II. It was just around the corner from the main street and was particularly quiet. We had a top floor room with a balcony giving us a view of the town. For the first time Ben Greig and I had a double bed each. Normally, even though we had been able to get triple rooms almost everywhere, we often had to share a double bed (not fantastic fun) or had singles. Being so high up, the nights were cool and the hotel had supplied a mass of blankets to wrap up in. It is a sleeping arrangement I prefer – being warm when it’s cold outside, as opposed to being hot and not being able to do anything about it.

Using the, very sketchy map provided in the Lonely Planet, we struggled, but eventually found, the Stop and Go Café. It really wasn’t what we were expecting, being the house of a poet, artist, musician, local celebrity and ex-mayor of Dalat. We had some excellent breakfast with him in his lounge whilst we talked to him about our travels and he showed us various articles about himself in European and US magazines. He seemed to like us as he invited us back for a fabulous dinner later that night.

We signed up for a half-day tour of the town and surrounding areas. We covered quite a lot of ground, first visiting a Lat village where we drank rice wine with a local villager in his own home. Then to the Valley of Love, a park for young lovers to hang out in. Then to the King of Vietnams Summer Place, a royal abode until the 1950’s, which had an exhibition of fantastic embroidered art from a company. Finally we stopped of at the Crazy House, a sort of hotel come sculpture, designed and constructed by an Austrian architect.

Dalat was a place I could have stayed much longer, given more time. But our visas were running out and after 2 nights (mostly spent in the only bar there, Saigon Nites), we left.

Ho Chi Minh City - 26th - 29th Nov 2000

Ho Chi Minh City, the most recent former capital city of Vietnam, is actually a pretty groovy place and despite it having the largest population and being the most westernised of all Vietnam’s cities, it has it’s own style and atmosphere. In recent times it's tremendous growth has obliterated the historical and ethnic sectors that were previously separate and clear. Even though Ho Chi Minh City is now cosmopolitan, it is still possible to see traces of its rich heritage. Until the reunification of North and South Vietnam in April 1975 the city's name was Saigon. The Communist government of Hanoi renamed it in honour of Ho Chi Minh, the leader of the Communist forces during the Vietnam War. The "Real City" is District 1 also known as Saigon, a name still used by most people to refer to the whole city. Officially though, Ho Chi Minh City is the correct name.

We arrived, again by bus, in District 1 and promptly found the nice Ocean Hotel on the main backpacker strip, Pham Ngu Lao. We crashed for a bit then sat out on the balcony watching the impressive electrical storm roll in over the distant hills, before heading out to the Backpacker Bar just down the road from our hotel. As expected it was full of familiar faces from other places we had visited in Vietnam.

We had to get to the Cambodian embassy in order to obtain our visa, so Ben, Greig and I hired some cyclo drivers to ferry us there and back in the searing heat (the lowest temperature ever recorded in Hoc Chi Minh City is 16ºC and, during our time there, was way over 35ºC). The embassy was closed so the cyclo drivers gave us a tour of several temples in the area before dropping us back at the embassy when it had opened. After handing over our cash and passports to the embassy for processing, we took the cyclos to the War Remnants Museum. This was a far more comprehensive museum than the ones in Hanoi having hundreds of artifacts from the war on display. The most impressive part though was defiantly the journalistic exhibition of pictures taken by international journalists during the war.

On the recommendation of almost everybody we had met, we took a day tour of the amazing Cu Chi tunnels. Cu Chi is an area about 50kms west of Ho Chi Minh City. It was, and still is, a rural land dotted with small villages. The area became famous during the Vietnam/US war because of the communist resistance that was centered there. Cu Chi was the hub of a massive underground tunnel network. Started in the 1940’s, and expanded during the 60’s, it primarily provided shelter and storage for the Viet Cong armies infiltrating the south, but was also used to stage ambushes and raids on American installations outside Saigon. The Americans couldn’t understand how they were getting hit by small Viet Cong units who seemingly appeared from nowhere and created havoc. It took them months before the tunnels were found and they started an operation to locate destroy the tunnels. This failed so the entire area was designated a free fire area, where any returning aircraft could unload its remaining ordinance after a flight. Terrible Vietnamese casualties were sustained in the area and the land has still not recovered from the saturation bombing and the widespread use of defoliants.

On arrival at the Cu Chi Visitors center we were shown a video, then taken out and shown a display of simple, yet horrific, booby traps that were used to defend the tunnels and surrounding areas. Then we were shown the tunnels themselves. They had been enlarged to allow for us fat tourists to use, but as far as I was concerned they were still pretty cramped. But more troublesome than the size was the heat – it was boiling down there. In all, we went down into two tunnels covering about 200 metres and emerged very sweaty and dusty. Aside from the tunnels, we were given the opportunity to fire some automatic rifles on a decidedly unsafe range in the forest. Not having ever even held a proper gun in my life before it was a bit nerve wracking, but, thinking that this would be a once-a-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I bought 10 live rounds at US$1 a piece (5 for an M-16, and 5 for an AK-47). I stepped up to the platform and banged off the rounds in about 30 seconds (missing the target), and handed back the weapon shaking like a leaf. It was a very odd experience indeed – to have so much power in your hands was at once invigorating and frightening. It certainly got my adrenalin pumping. Other travelers had informed us that it was apparently possible to use more destructive weapons, like grenades and rocket launchers, in Cambodia. And, if the price was right, you could purchase animals to practice on. Unfortunately, though, money was a bit tight, so we had to miss out on exploding a cow with a bazooka. Shame.

Money in Vietnam was quite difficult to get a handle on. Officially everybody should use the national currency – Dong (which was about 20,000 to the GB£ during our stay). But in reality all large transactions were conducted in US$. This led to situations where you paid in dollars but received change in Dong. The exchange rates were always rounded up and I’m sure that we got stuffed more than a few times, but finding an ATM in Vietnam is a fruitless exercise (there were only two in Hanoi and none, that we could find, elsewhere). So we normally used up our stock of dollars or went to a bank to cash a Visa advance or change travelers cheques.

During our stay in Vietnam, we kept an eye on the news for any sign of trouble flaring in Cambodia. About a week before we were due head there, news reports showed that all was not well in the Capital, Phnom Penh. There had been a failed coup by opponents of the communist government. Several official buildings had suffered rocket and motor attacks and about a dozen people (all security forces and rebels) had been killed in the assault. It was speculated on the news that this skirmish could possibly be the first of many planned by the rebels. We fretted about this for our time in Ho Chi Minh, but the Cambodian Consulate reassured us that all was under control in the capital and that it would be safe to go there. The news had also died down, so we decided to risk it…..

\| home \| photos \| bifter's world tour \| prof info \| bifBlog \| links \| HITS - 000533 \| All content is the copyright of smifterbifter.com, © 2006 \|

This site uses Macromedia Flash	Site best viewed using Mozilla Firefox	bifBlog powered by Blogger