Day 99 - Mui Ne

29.10.09

Playing lazy buggers, I get out of bed at midday and decide to walk to the far end of town and see the rest of the Mui Ne strip. The place is basically one road that follows the beach and as I walk along, I realise that it isn't really a backpacker/traveler place and the amount of seriously nice and high class resorts definitely puts the place up at the top end. Some of the places look phenomenal and I definitely want to come back one year and live it up in one of the nice resorts.

My indulgence of last night has sown the seed of the splurge in me and so I end up donning my Green Flash trainers, a Flash Gordon t shirt and my flashpack and going for lunch at Cham Villas. Cham Villas classes it self as a Boutique Luxury Resort and consists of 16 luxury villas in 9000m2 of tropical gardens with a 60m private beach, average. Sitting in their restaurant listening to light jazz and lounge music, sipping on glasses of Chardonnay was quite nice, although they probably wondered what I was doing walking in wearing my swimming trunks a pair of walking sandals and an old green t-shirt. The seal on my last few days of living it up has been broken and I don't want to think about what tomorrow will entail.

Day 98 - Mui Ne

28.10.09

Absorbing the sun, relaxing on the sand, watching the kite surfers, dipping in the surf my self and reading a good book are today's activities. After a reasonably late wake up I kick back on the beach and relax, no plans apart from chilling over the last few days of my travels.







Come evening time, it's just me and Clare left as Lee departed for Saigon this morning. Clare isn't really a backpacker, she is more of a flashpacker and with me cutting my travels short by a month, I have some spare cash floating around. We head over to a snazzy restaurant called Snow for dinner and pick up a Belgium guy called Micheal on the way. It's a Russian owned place and is definitely devoid of backpackers as it is one of the more expensive places in Mui Ne. Throughout our time in the restaurant/bar, I have a Manhattan cocktail, a delicious tiger prawn salad, fresh grilled fish fillets with a tiger prawn and caviar creamy sauce, chocolate orange cake as desert and then a White Russian to finish off. Even though I thoroughly indulged and this is an expensive place in Mui Ne, it still all comes to only £16. After dinner we hit Sakura, a very very very cool, chic and trendy bar complete with it's own pool and sun loungers in an all white LED lit interior set right on the beach. Some beers and cocktails see us through until 2am in what is a very indulgent night, but still so cheap compared to back home.

Day 97 - Nha Trang, Mui Ne

27.10.09

Up at a still dark 4.30 and I pack my bags and am ready and on the beach at 5.30am ready to catch the sunrise, which I'm hoping will be worth the early effort. It appears I have arrived to the beach late, not because of the sunrise, but because the beach is the most rammed that I have seen it so far. There are Vietnamese people exercising, swimming in the sea, playing football, pacing up and down the beach and basically just doing their normal morning exercise routines, but just amazingly early. By the time it hits 7-ish they will all be gone and the beach will be empty again until all us tourists rise up out of bed and get down there. It's such an unexpected sight to see them all up and about so early, but is quite cool, and the sunrise, my whole reason for being up so early was nice as well.

At 6.30, my bus leaves for Mui Ne and it pulls into the one road town around 1-ish. Mui Ne, is a small town on an epic stretch of beach that must be at least 9 miles long and forms a huge circular arc. The town is mainly located at one end and then a road leads around the beach all the way to the far end and is dotted with small resorts and hotels with beach side bungalows that are literally on the beach. I walk for about 40 mins along the beach to the hotel where Clare and Lee are staying and get my $10 room which is all of 15 seconds walk from the sand.

Day 96 - Nha Trang

26.10.09

Clare and Lee have gone on to Mui Ne today and so I'm left to my own devices on this sunnier day. Hitting some pre work Geneva admin and emails entertains my morning before a walk over to the beach to laze around in the afternoon. My plan is to relax and try and even out some of my tan which has me sporting vicious tan lines where I have been wearing t-shirts in the sun over the past two months. I'm not sure how successful I will be in the remaining 6 days away but it's worth a try. Once again, the beach is rammed to the rafters and I can't move for the people stumbling over me as I relax and read some Ernest Hemingway in a very sophisticated beach bumming session.

I fully intend to go for some food tonight but end up finding that there is a TV in my room and after not watching TV in 3 months I end up watching 4 films one after another until the early hours of the morning. Not long to go now before I'm back home. It's sad to think I have seven nights left away and then I will be back home in the UK. The journey has been so good and I've met so many people and experienced so many different things. I'm not sure if I want it to continue or I'm just sad that it is coming to an end, as I do want to be back home and am ready to leave.

Day 95 - Nha Trang

25.10.09

Rain rain rain is the order of the day and the more than inviting weather is putting any kind of beach action thoroughly off limits. I sit down in the hotel lobby and drink tea with some of the hotel staff and also Clare and Lee, two people who I have been stalking all the way down from Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An. Vietnam has such a treaded route from north to south, that if you set off from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh or vice versa, you will see the same faces at nearly every stop. People travel the same routes and stay roughly the same amount of time in each place and so you are guaranteed to bump into them. As outside activities are being thoroughly rained off me and Clare take a walk to a photography gallery at the other end of town. It's by a famous Vietnamese photographer who shoots only in black and white and never in digital. He develops all his own photographs in his home studio in the back of his Kitchen. His photos are very good and capture different scenes from Vietnamese life, a boy running across the back of buffaloes, pictures of very old Vietnamese women looking weather worn and spaced out and one prize wining piece of a child crying are amongst his best for me.

Come evening time we eat out in a Vietnamese restaurant that serves food the size of fish pellets, so luckily I ordered two mains in anticipation and then have a few beers until a respectable 11pm. Hopefully tomorrow will bring better weather and some sun and sand time.

Day 94 - Nha Trang

24.10.09

Pulling into Nha Trang at a bright 6.30am and still the local population are up and about doing their business and it seems as if they have been up for hours already. Avoiding the 'recommended' hotel that the bus drops you off outside (for a healthy commission no doubt), I walk to a hotel that was recommended to me by some people I met in Hoi An and manage to bag a lovely $5 room. A quick walk around the local area and a pop into a super market yields some water and a sizable pack of cashew nuts, which I manage to polish off in more or less one go.

Before I venture to the beach I want to walk and check out the main temple in town and it's large white seated Buddha. The questions is will it compare to the colossal Leshan Buddha in Sichuan, or the massive bronze Lantau Island Buddha in Hong Kong... not quite there, but it's still nice and it's pure white construction is radiant in the bright sun.

Walking to one end of the beach which probably stretches at least a couple of miles, the golden sand and warm water is very inviting. It's just a shame that the beach was rammed to the rafters full of people... or not.

Day 93 - Hoi An

23.10.09

My last day in the tailor capitol of Vietnam and it starts at 5.30am as we depart for My Son, the ancient ruins about 50km away from Hoi An. The aim is to get to the ruins before most of the tour groups do and as not many people like to wake up this early it should be relatively empty. The deal is that we get breakfast on the bus there, which is a slightly disappointing coffee and small roll, but it will do the job for now. There are only 6 of us in total on the bus and outside the heavens seem to be opening up and the road is getting flooded in places. The ruins themselves are quite nice although only one section remains semi intact and the rest really are truly ruined. The severe rain has left some paths very flooded and so unless you are Jesus and can walk on water you're going to get very wet feet, I obviously am not Jesus and so now am sporting a pair of soaking wet trainers.






















Getting back to the Hotel I take a short nap and then roam around town some more before settling down in the same cafe from yesterday and getting my two coffees, some lunch and a cup of tea, more or less the same order as yesterday. Watching the world go by, and the rain, I kick back and finally finish updating the journal before heading out to Nha Trang on the 6pm bus. The ride should take about 12 hours and it's on an air conditioned tourist sleeper bus. The transport situation of Vietnam only dreams of being as efficient and having the coverage of China's and so for tourists one of the easiest ways of getting around is on the tourist buses that run between the major destinations. Hopefully I can find a nice spot on the beach at Nha Trang and just lose a few days to the sun, sand and sea...

Day 92 - Hoi An

22.10.09

To buy or not to buy, that is the question... I decided last night that I'm not going to buy any more clothes, but still this morning I am getting tempted. I could wangle out a more expensive suit at the reputable places and still pay only £200 for a tailor made suit in a quality fabric that I'm sure would be lovely. After another stroll around town I decide that this is not a good way to spend my money and I can pick up a suit for the same price at home in Marks and Spencers and it will probably be better if not the same quality.

My morning takes me out to one of the Islands near Hoi An which isn't that interesting apart from a transaction where I am initially quoted 5000VND for three banana fritters and after some negotiation, I end up getting 3 for the 5000VND. It is typical of nearly every transaction in Vietnam, where you are quoted outrageous prices compared to the locals for food and even things as basic as bottled water. My journal is seriously out of date and I have a span of days from a month ago that I need to write up, so I place my self in a cafe on the river front and end up whiling away 4 hours writing and drinking tea/coffee. I know I said I wasn't going to buy any more stuff, but a few silk ties glistened in the light reflecting of the river in that oh so special way and beckoned me to part with my money. The initial price was $7 for one, but after some talking and smiling I end up getting them for just less than $3 each. No more buying!

Day 91 - Hoi An

21.10.09

I have a fitting for one of the shirts at 10am, so I get up early and have a walk around town and end up ordering another two. I now have 4 shirts, all from different places on order. My aim is to compare quality and then possibly get some more stuff made if it's all good. The shirt is nice and the cut is good, They put normal cuffs instead of double cuffs and it's slightly too tight, so I get them to change it and while there I obviously end up ordering more... 30 mins later and I'm measured up for a blue 3 piece navy suit. I head around to my other fittings during the day and by night fall I am the proud owner of 4 bespoke shirts and a 3 piece. The shirts vary in quality and the three shirts from expensive tailors are better than the shirt from the cheaper tailor, unfortunately I also got my suit made in the cheaper tailor as it was half the price of the expensive one. It's not horrendous, but it has some problems and the lining isn't properly set in the jacket so it doesn't glide on unfortunately. I have come to the conclusion that I am going to save my money and not splurge on clothes here as the quality is below what you would get at home, although it is still so cheap it is probably worth it.

Day 90 - Hue, Hoi An

20.10.09

I'm on the 2pm bus bound for the coastal town and tailor empire that is Hoi An. This morning, I engage the legs once more and rack up a very healthy mileage walking around the town in search of the pagodas, temples and burial mounds, but after about 2 hours I've done a massive circle and managed to bypass all of them some how. What happens next is either funny, brave or just stupid, as I reach a bridge to cross the river and I know there is a temple on the other side. The only down side is that it's a bridge for trains on one side and the other has two lanes, each one wide enough for one motorbike or cyclist to go down or up. I can't be bothered to walk back to the pedestrian bridge as it is a good 45min walk away and so I make the decision to run the 150m or so down one of the lanes and just hope I'm fast enough not to annoy the other bikes. It ends up working and I manage to tail a cyclist nearly all the way, so I don't feel too bad although running essentially down a road with moving traffic is quite entertaining.

My afternoon bus to Hoi An gets in at a cool 6.30pm and this town is tourist central! It's also the place to come if you want to get tailor made clothes made and with bespoke 3 piece suits coming in at under £100, it is totally possible that I blow my Cambodia/Laos/Thailand money on clothes. In the few hours of opening time that the shops have left, I manage to order 2 shirts and have my eyes on a few suits. The shops have countless catalogs and cut outs from high end fashion magazines of suits you can have copied and all in all it's a very dangerous place to be if you don't want to spend money. I shall see tomorrow how the quality compares.

Day 89 - Hue

19.10.09

Today the train pulls into Hue Station at a bright 8.30am and I ignore/walk/barge past the army of taxi drivers and hotel touts who are standing outside. A walk into the centre of town and scour of the places that I could possibly sleep in and after looking at four hotels I settle for a $5 dollar double bed, which isn't too bad value at all.

Hue is all about ancient ruins and the capitol of old, so I hit up the ruins and have a look around, but it is in a seriously desperate state. Most of the old Imperial City was destroyed during wars or natural disasters and no one seems to have worried about repairing them, so all in all there isn't that much to see apart from some ruins and large open spaces where buildings should be. The architecture of the restored sections though are very nice and some of the garden spaces still manage to retain some of there charm. Overall today is a day of wandering and when night falls my wandering turns into avoiding the constant calls of "where you go?, motorbike?" and when I decline the offer of a lift it moves on to "Marijuana?", "Women?", "Men?", at every street corner there seems to be a bike driver who doubles up as a pimp and drug dealer. My trip so far in Vietnam has been interesting. Although I have only been here for a week, I can say that I take Vietnam as a bad version of China. The people hassle you so much more and try and cheat you out of money at every turn or fool you into paying extra for everything. People at Ha Long Bay paid $78 for the same tour as me and I only paid $40, even from the same hotel a girl paid $42 compared to my $40. If you try and buy any local food, you will get an inflated price that is more than double the rate that locals pay. Hopefully it will pick up and as I travel further south it will all get better.. I've booked my ticket home today and will be heading home on the 2nd November, so not long to go. It's a sad thought to think it will all be over soon, but new adventures will be just around the corner.

Day 88 - Ha Long Bay, Hanoi, The Train

18.10.09

Brekkie at 7.30 and then our bus picks us up at 8am and drops off at our boat, which then takes us back to the harbour where we have lunch and chill for a while and then back to Hanoi in a reasonably efficient operation. Overall the tour has been great fun, I managed to be the only person in the group who wasn't in a couple or with friends and we had odd numbers so I got my own room on both the boat and in the hotel. The activities were good fun, the food was nice and substantial and we always had enough. I think I must have got lucky with the tour and got put with a middle option group as two people paid 70 dollars for the same thing, but then another girl paid 38 dollars, so it all seems a bit random.







Once back in Hanoi, I jump on my train bound for Hue, it's a 13 hour night time journey along the coast getting in at 8am tomorrow morning. I'm sharing with what I think is an American woman and 4 Vietnamese people. Quite tired from all the traveling, it's an early night and awaiting my adventures to come in the old imperial capital of Vietnam.

Day 87 - Ha Long Bay, Cat Ba Island

17.10.09

Today we start with Kayaking at a bright 6.30am. Although we are only traveling around the same area we are anchored at, it's nice to see the rock formations up close and at water level, it also serves as a brilliant work out. We have breakfast and are shortly dropped off at Cat Ba Island which sits in the middle of the bay, maybe an hour or so away from the coast via boat. It's a reasonably big island and the first port of call is a hike to one of it's peaks, which affords some good pictures and it's like walking through a proper jungle. Next we are dropped off at our hotel, which is in a small bay about 3km away from the main Cat Ba town. I end up having tea with one of the shop keepers for some reason as they see me walking around and try to sell me something, to which I give them a smile and a "no thank you" and then I am invited to sit down. I go back a couple of hours later with my own flower tea from China, which seems to impress them no end and they are very thankful.

In the early afternoon I have a walk around to Cat Ba town and then around to the beaches and am greeted by warm water, beautiful scenery and an almost deserted golden sand beach. No more needs to be said.

Day 86 - Ha Long Bay

16.10.09

I've booked a tour to Halong bay as it is the only way that you can get to tour the bay via boat and spend a night out in the bay. The bus comes to the hotel just after 8am to pick me and a girl called Kim from Liverpool up and drive us to the bay. I have paid 40 Dollars for travel to the bay, 3 meals a day, the boat tour and a night on the boat, kayaking, trekking in Cat Ba Island on the bay, a night staying on the Island and the boat back to coast and then a bus back to Hanoi. All in all it's 3 days and 2 nights and coming in at less than £30, it's the cheapest option available (mid- 50 Dollars and top 95 Dollars), so I'm slightly worried at the quality. Apparently the lady at reception from whom I booked it all, said that out of every ten people only 3 are happy and about 7 complain, I push on anyway as it can't be that bad.

We get to Ha Long bay and are left for about 30 mins doing nothing as everyone else around us gets on boats, is this a sign of things to come? Our leader then comes along and puts us on a boat, which is actually very nice and then we set off. There are only about 16 people on the boat in total and we have a good sized lunch before touring around the Islands and visiting one of the caves. In the evening the boats drops anchor along with about 40 others in an area sheltered by Islands on 3 sides, which I am told is due to safety if there is a storm in the night. A couple of weeks ago there was a typhoon that hit and the resulting storm overturned a boat and several crew and tourists died, so I'm glad for the shelter. Everyone is in bed by 11pm, but I stay up a bit later and end up talking to the tour operator and some of the crew and then they bring out a fish stew which they just cooked and we all tuck in to a midnight snack. The stars out here are nice and falling asleep on a boat in such beautiful surroundings is definitely an experience.