Vietnam

On Wednesday 2 May we set off on our 10 hour bus journey to Ho Chi Minh. We were both more than a little grumpy by the time we got off......bloody karaoke videos! I'll move on.

The bus dropped us off right in the main backpacker area of the city and we promptly decided that we wouldn't be staying there and jumped in a cab to a guest house that Gav had read about called Miss Loi's just a few minutes away.

Miss Loi's guest house was lovely. We had a massive room with huge windows letting in loads of sunlight and a balcony with views over the city rooftops. The Mickey Mouse bed linen was amusing but hey it was clean and that's all that mattered.

Views from our room

The following day, Thursday 3 May we spent the day taking in the sights (on foot of course!). We started the day at The War Remnants Museum, previously called The American War Crimes Museum.

The museum has a number of 'themed' rooms displaying photographs and artefacts from the war. The most disturbing of which were those that contained photographs of the effects of Agent Orange and napalm as well as the full size replicas of the 'tiger cages' used to house political prisoners. It's a strange feeling that you are left with after visiting somewhere like that. We were very sad indeed to view the terrors that humans are capable of inflicting on each other.

Later we managed the Botanical Gardens, Notre Dame Cathedral and the gorgeous post office building....before Gav gave up and refused to walk any further and we ended up in.....KFC of all places. Well it was close by, air-conditioned, we were hungry (and that chicken burger tasted good).

The Post Office

On Friday 4 May we had booked a trip to see the Cao Dai Temples and the Cu Chi Tunnels. It was a little rushed, as organised tours often are, but was really interesting.

Cao Dai is a religion that was started by a Vietnamese civil servant in 1926, incorporating all of what he perceived to be the best bits of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism and Hinduism. There are now between 2 and 3 million followers. The temple was very beautiful but it felt odd that they were happy for bus loads of tourists to be traipsing through during their service. It felt a little like we were invading their privacy (although we obviously didn't feel too bad as we took photos along with everyone else).

They have enlarged a section of the Cu Chi Tunnels to accomodate the western frame and allow vistors to crawl through. It still seemed pretty small to me and I wasn't going to risk it. I am a little claustrophobic anyway but mainly I wasn't going to risk it as I had visions of my fat ass becoming thoroughly wedged in a tunnel and the local fire brigade being called to come and dig me out. In the end I decided that I may as well give it a go as everyone else was but only got half way before giving up. It is very hot down there and each section becomes smaller than the last. Gav said that the final sections was so small that he had to pull himself along on his stomach. I would have had no chance!

The face of fear!

On Saturday 5th we spent the day planning our trip to Cambodia. Cambodia wasn't in our origional itinerary however we had heard so much about it from other travellers that we decided it would be a shame not to go. The only problem was that rather than being in Bangkok for my birthday as originally planned, we were now going to be in Phnom Penh. We therefore decided to bring my birthday celebrations forward to coincide with our last night in Vietnam and so on Sunday 6th May Gav took me to the Caravelle Hotel roof top bar for cocktails. What a lovely evening. The open air bar had views over Ho Chi Minh City and to top it off they made a perfect Mojito, all very romantic (vom).

At last I get to wear heels!

After cocktails I was informed that Arsenal were playing and asked whether I minded going to watch the game in a bar in the backpacker area (aaah I see). The bar we ended up in was grim. An actual rat ran across the bar - I kid you not!

At 8.30am on Monday 7th May we departed by bus for our 6 hour journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia and with that our time in Vietnam had come to an an end.

We'd had a fantastic month in Vietnam. Yes at times there were challenges and we did get a little fed up with being scammed but overall we had thoroughly enjoyed our time there and would like to think that one day we will be back.

Of course we have to end with a picture of a kid!

As I've mentioned, we endured a 10 hour train journey to get to Nha Trang and do you know what, it was alright. It's odd that all foreigners are sat together and your ticket is stamped 'FOREIGNER' but at least that meant we were able to have a chat with the people around us which helped the journey pass surprisingly quickly.

Our Hotel, The Perfume Grass Inn had been recommended to us so we had booked ahead. It is nice to be able to just turn up at your hotel and go to your room rather than going through the palaver of looking at the rooms and bargaining a price. However, we later found out that we were being overcharged, bugger. After an adult discussion (read argument) with the manager, our rate was reduced so that we were paying the same as everyone else. Well, it was a whole one pound fifty per night we were paying extra..... I know, pathetic isn't it but I rationalise it by telling myself that the amount we were being overcharged adds up to a nights accomodation somewhere and therefore is worth having a little tantrum about (just agree with me).

The hotel was in a perfect location, a stones throw from the beach with all the bars and restaurants right on our doorstep. We arrived at around 10.30 on Saturday 21 April and did what any self respecting backpacker does on arrival at a new destination....... went to find a pub. We found a bar called Crazy Kims that was actually playing decent music (the first decent music we had heard since leaving Brum). Crazy Kim campaigns to protect the street kids again paeodophiles and an amount from every drink sold goes towards her cause (so in fact we were doing it for the kids).

The following morning we were up nice and early to start our 4 day PADI open water diving course. After brekkie we had half an hour to kill so decided to go for a stroll along the beach. My word it is a gorgeous beach. It was all the better for the fact that it was almost desserted (apart from a few hawkers - at that time!) so had an opportunity to take some great photos.

The first day of our course was class room based with DVDs followed by tests. It was a lot of information to take in at once and it's fair to say we were a little frazzled by the end of the day.

The second day we had a full day at a local pool for our practical sessions. The first thing we had to do was swim 200 metres, just 4 lengths of the pool. No problem I thought to myself. There was no time limit at all, it is just intended to ensure divers have a general level of fitness. Ah! We all know that I'm not the fittest person....okay I may be the most unfit person you know, but for some reason I thought I wouldn't have a problem swimming 200 metres. Wrong. Coming up to the end of the second length I realised that I was going to struggle to complete this initial test and that I had foolishly paid for a course that I was going to be unable to complete due to my embarassingly lack of fitness....too many fags, too much vino and no exercise since, well for a long time. Luckily I did manage to complete it but couldn't breath for around 20 minutes afterwards and my limbs had turned to jelly. Honestly, I think they were considering giving me oxygen at one point.

It was a really interesting day but again there there wa a lot to take in. And then there was my panick attack.

Sean, our diving instructor asked us to perform a number of tasks out of the water, on the surface and under the water. These ranged from just floating for 10 minutes to removing and replacing your breathing apparatus underwater. One thing he told us quite clearly is that should something happen under water do not simply shoot to the surface in a blind panic. Should you do that in the actual dive you wouldn't equalize and could rupture a lung or get decompression sickness. Also, don't remove your mask and regulator (the thing you breathe through) once at the surface. Logical yes?

You know what's coming don't you.

Gav and I were performing one particular test during which I had to remove my regulator, signal to Gav that I was out of air and he had to pass me his alternate air source for me to breathe from. When given the signal I was to then remove Gav's alternate air source, find my own regulator which is floating behind my back somewhere and pop it back into my mouth. Simple? Nope. Something to bear in mind that at no point when we were under water were we allowed to hold our breath. When I remove my regulator I have to constantly breathe out whilst remembering to save some breath to purge (blow the water out) the alternate when I put it in my mouth and the same to swap back to my regulator.

During the test I forget how I'm supposed to hold onto Gav, Sean is gesturing at me and I have no idea what he's on about so I get a little flustered. Then when it comes to replacing my air source I remove Gav's and breath out as I'm supposed to but then I can't find mine. A little flustered becomes a little panicked. I finally find my regulator but simply have now breath left to purge....ah and now we have absolute blind panic. I start gulping for breath and of course breathe in water. Obviously all I want is to be out of the water at that point so do exactly what I had been told not to and swim directly to the surface where I then splash around coughing and spluttering like a complete muppet.

I could have purged the regulator my simply pressing a button on the mouthpeice - I forgot. I suspect I will not forget again.

Anyway, we both passed. Yep, I'm as surprised as you are. We had 4 dives at sea, the deepest being to 17 metres, followed by an exam to test us on everything we had learnt. During our dives we were repeatedly tested on the skills we had learnt in the pool and it did all start to make sense once we were putting it into practice (luckily).

It was brilliant. We both really enjoyed the course and are now very much looking forward to our next dive which will hopefully be in Malaysia (dependant on the weather) where the water is apparently 29c!

Us with Cecilie and our diving instructors

We met a lovely Norwegian couple, Cecilie and Steinar, on the diving course. One evening Cecilie and Steinar took us to a restaurant that they had come across previously. The waiter that served us was an absolute diamond. He fell over himself to be helpful and we ended the evening with an amusing language lesson. He taught us a few Vietnamese phrases and in return we taught him how to pronounce the English translations for the items on the menu. We've had so many experiences such as this whilst in Veitnam, where the Vietnamese people simple can not do enough for us and really make our time as enjoyable as possible.

Us with our "diamond" waiter

On Thursday 26 April we headed off to Monkey Island with Cecilie and Steinar. This journey was a cab ride to the harbour and a short boat trip over to the island.

Monkey Island was bliss. Just the four of us, the staff and of course the monkeys (okay there was a fair amount of litter but we'll ignore that). We set off for an explore of the island which is quite small but has some amazing scenery. It wasn't long before we realised we were being watched (by the monkeys not the staff). Steinar bought some nuts to feed to the residents and they soon clocked the bag rustling in his pocket. Within minutes we were surrounded by the 'cute' little monkeys which actually became quite intimidating! We spent the remainder of the day lounging around on the beach (read Gav slept all day) whilst Cecilie and Steinar snorkelled. We saw a woman get attacked by a monkey when the little critter decided that she wasn't feeding him quickly enough (we'd had a lucky escape).

We extended our stay in Nha Trang a little as it was a public holiday in Vietnam on 30 April and 1 May and therefore travelling anywhere during that time would have been problematic. Yes okay, okay, we jut wanted to doss around on the beach for a little longer, can you blame us!

On [bSunday 29 April[/b] we set off for a little sight seeing. As I've mentioned in a previous entry, Gav has put his foot down on about all the walking so we hired a motorbike without a driver for the day. To quote my Brother, it was "a bag of nails". There was an awful scraping sound once we went past about 10 miles per hour and we lurched forward everytime we changed gear (or maybe that was just Gav's driving). Anyway, it did the job and meant we were able to see all the sites we wanted to in one day (leaving more time for the beach of course).

When in Rome....

The Long Son Pagoda

The Giant Seated Buddha

Nha Trang Cathedral

Nha Trang has great seafood. We had a whole lobster, a crab and 4 tiger prawns for the equivalent of 4 quid and it was all BBQ'd by a little old lady right on the beach so we didn't even have to interrupt our sunbathing (needless to say there are no pictures of this....the food didn't last long enough).

Talking of sunbathing, Gav is sunburnt. He is convinced he will go brown at somepoint before the end of our years travelling although I'm not so sure. Bless.

Our last night out in Nha Trang - The Sailing Club and Why Not Bar

These little darlings are a couple of the kids that patrol the beach trying to part you from your money. It seems they also try to part you from your 'hard earned' by whipping your ass at pool.

I'm a Hustler baby........

On Wednesday 2 May we departed Nha Trang (reluctantly) and set off on our 10 hour bus journey to Ho Chi Minh City.

Hello everyone!

We have finally inserted piccies into all of our entries!!!!

Hey Sylvie, have a brilliant 30th birthday night out. Do everything that I would do!!!

Latas peeps.

Cardie & Gav xxxx

Tuesday 17 April
Hoi An was just a half hour cab ride away from our hotel in My Khe Beach. The driver even put on a CD of love songs for us to listen to during the journey,all together now...aaaaahhhhh. Once we arrived he then drove us around for a further half an hour whilst we tried to find a hotel with rooms available and he didn't try to rip us off with the fare either (belive me that's a first). We ended up at Thanh Van hotel which even had a pool for our nine pounds a night and was just a couple of minutes walk from Hoi An's old town.

Hoi An is a really lovely riveside town that was left virtually undamaged from the War and so has retained it's beautiful 'Old Town'. The Old Town is a World Heritage Site and very pretty indeed with buildings that date back to 19th century. As with Hanoi, the French influence is apparent in the buildings, baguettes, pattiseries and coffee shops.

Us in Hoi An

Apparently there is a really lovely beach there too but we never actually made it to the beach. We spent ours days in Hoi An strolling around the Old Town and mooching through the markets.

The Old Town

The streets are literally filled with tailors where you can get absolutely anything made to measure. I now you may be surprised at this but I actually resisted the temptation to go clothes shopping. My backpack is heavy enough already thank you and it's fairly expensive to send stuff home. Anyway I'll be a superwaif by the time I get back so nothing I bought now would fit me then (what? A diet of beer and baguettes isn't slimming!?!). I didn't buy clothes but I did buy almost an entire dinner service in the market which I now have to lug around until I can send it home and I imagine it will be destoyed during transit - where's the logic in that!

We did manage to squeeze some culture into our time in Hoi An. On Friday 20 April we set off at the ungodly hour of 5.30am for our trip to My Son, the site of the Cham intellectual and religious centre.

The Cham people origionated from Java, Indonesia and occupied the central section of Vietnam from 2nd to 15th centuries. They were forced South when the Vietnamese migrated from the North and there are now just 110,000 in Ho Chi Minh City. Their religion, Hinduism, and Indian influence apparent in artwork came from commerical relationships that the Chams had with India.

Oh how funny and original we are!

The trip we had booked was the sunrise tour although as the sun was rising whilst we were waiting for the minibus to pick us up we realised that we would have had to leave at 4am to get there in time for sunrise. Never mind, the most important thing was that we would get there before the hordes arrived and would be able to enjoy the site and take our pictures unobstructed. It was perfect, other than our group of 7, there were only 4 other people there. Another good reason for visiting so early is the heat. By 8am it was very hot indeed so it would have been unbearable by midday.

It's unknown how the bricks were fixed together as no apparent mortar was used however it is thought that they may have used a sap from trees in the area to glue the bricks together. The carving was all carried out after the towers were constructed. Amazing aint it! Unfortunately the site was almost completely destroyed by bombs during the War and the craters are still very visible today.

The Cham language is now completely lost so the script seen here cannot be translated

Apparently if a man rubs the linga....well we'll let you work it out!

Our guide for the day was delightful, a real character and very informative. I wanted to adopt him by the end of the day!

Whenever we are out in Vietnam we are approached by hawkers selling sunglasses, postcards, books etc. Most are good natured and simply move on if you do not engage in a convesation. However, I was not prepared for the children in Hoi An though. We've already established that I think Asian children are exceptionally beautiful, so put a Vietnamese 8 year old in front of me selling something.....I'm a lost case......

Gav and I were out in a lovely riverside restaurant for dinner (not very backpackerish I know but dinner two nights ago was baguettes and peanut butter in our room so that balances it out a little) and were approached by a succession of cute little kids selling crap. Initially I was firm but could see that Gav was buckling, and so could they. Upon seeing Gav's weakness one little girl turned her back on me and with all the cuteness that is physically possible asked him "but why wont you buy". It was too much for me "Ah man, okay, okay I'll buy". Then the business woman emerges from the child and she is fleecing us for evey penny she can get. I now have a wooden whistle that cost more than dinner - fine. But no, that's not the end. She then runs off to tell her mate, or sister or whoever it was who in turn comes over to our table to ask "why wouldn't you buy from me but you bought from her" and then would not leave our table for a good 15 minutes whilst putting on the saddest face that is humanly possible. Oh no. Needless to say we will not be suckered like that again (actually that's a lie because we were the other night but I'll talk about that in the next entry). Anyway, a dodgy wooden whistle thing that was vastly overpaid for will be winging it's way to my Neice and Nephew in due course.

And so our time in Hoi An came to an end and on Saturday 21 April we left on 10 hour train journey to the beach resort of Nha Trang.

School's Out-School Children in Hoi An

Cardie's hair is getting bigger.......

Well hello there. How the devil are you all?

On Sunday 15 April we departed Hanoi for Da Nang. We still hadn't fully recovered from the epic 3 day train journey that we put ourselves through at the beginning of our trip and therefore decided to fly. What? You don't expect me to slum it all of the time do you?

Our hotel was in My Khe beach which I have to say we had mistakenley assumed was walking distance from central Da Nang however it wa in fact a cab ride away (oops, my mistake).

My Khe beach (also known as China Beach) was used by American solders for a little rest and relaxtion during the war. It is quite undeveloped currently although judging by the construction sites it wont be long until it is.

The view from our hotel room

On Monday 16th we headed into Da Nang for the day to do a little sight seeing. The most interesting thing we saw was the Museum of Cham Sculpture which houses the best collection of Cham sculpture in the world (more on the Cham people in the next entry).

The Museum of Cham Sculpture

We did also hunt for the Ho Chi Minh Museum but after a very, very long walk (what is it with us and all this walking) in the searing heat, Gav lost it! He was walking no further and that was that. So after everything I've said about the dangerous roads and the motorbikes, what did we do? Yep, we got motorbikes back. I was holding onto the guy driving so tight that he was hysterically laughing at me (the only thing the girls here hold on to when they are on bikes is their sunglasses or hats). We made it in one piece though, phew.

Da Nang

We were not blown away with My Khe or Da Nang although there was nothing wrong with either place as such. A good thing about not having a strict itinerary is that we can just move on if we are not particularly enjoying ourselves and that's exactly what we did. We had origionally planned to stay for a week but in fact stayed for just two nights and on Tuesday 17th April we headed off to Hoi An.