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.

Day 85 - Hanoi

15.10.09

I have a relative lie in this morning and wake up at 10am, having a cold shower as there is no hot water to be found, although the high heat and humidity of Vietnam make it quite refreshing. Into the cafe for my free breakfast included in the deal and I head off into the labyrinth that is Hanoi once again. After a brief foray to the north of the old quarter and grabbing some deep fried nibbles for lunch, I take a wander over to the Temple of Literature. It's a big complex and is nice enough, although compared to the vast expanses of the Chinese Confucius temples, or the sheer brilliance and colour of the Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, it is rather plain. As per usual outside the temple the hordes of motorbike drivers and pedal powered rickshaw drivers hawk for your business and will actually follow you down the road. I find that talking to them in Chinese gets a look of confusion and surprise, followed by disappointment at the fact they can't communicate and then they quickly leave you alone.

Walking back to the hotel I cross over the railway tracks and then somehow manage to double back on myself and cross over them again. I think that it must just be a siding and so keep on walking, 30mins later I am definitely in the wrong area, having a look at the map doesn't shed any light whatsoever on my location so I decide to keep wandering. Another 30 mins later and I ask a security guard who must have been trying to actively be unhelpful and so I keep wandering. About 20 mins later and I hit a road on the map, it turns out that I have managed for nearly and hour and a half, to systematically take every turning that would put me as far away as possible from my hotel, but all is well as I know where I am going now and I head off down the road... Turns out that I don't know where I am going and end up walking the wrong way down the road only to ask another security guard, who is more than helpful and points me in the right direction and points out my error on the map. It takes me about 2 hours to walk back home, I was way way way off track.

I also find out today my brand for Geneva, I am in Global Design for System Professional. It's a 'prestige' brand for high end hair salons and professional hair care. My new boss encourages me to visit high end hair salons before I head over to start work, I'm not sure if I'm in the right place for high end.

Day 84 - Hanoi

The train pulls into Hanoi Ga at a pitch black 4.30am. Our sleeper cabins are predominately full of Vietnamese and hardly any foreigners get off the back section of the train, however at the other end, there are several high end private carriages attached where the fare is more than double the price, the cabins are lined with wood and you get fresh fruit and a carriage attendant, with only 4 beds per compartment. Low and behold, hordes of westerners flow out of these cabins and I could be at a train station in London. Leaving the station I am surprised at how many foreign people there are here, it's a big difference to China, where you see only a handful of foreign people in most places.

Getting to my hotel at a bright 5am I have to wake up the sleeping guard to let me into the hotel so I can drop off my bags, I potter about and arrange my things for an hour or so and then head out into town for a bright 6.30am Hanoi start. It's a busy and bustling city and the amount of motorbikes on the road is ridiculous, it's like playing a computer game with the motorbikes the bombs trying to hit you as you walk across the road. A walk around Hanoi's major sights and to Hoan Kiem lake, which reputedly has giant tortoises living in it, one specimen found dead a few years ago weighed in at 250kg and was 2.1 long, it's stuffed in a museum and is crazy big. With no one to witness it, I saw what I thought was a seal's head surface out of the water and move along a few feet before diving back under again. I swear that this thing was massive and it felt like spotting Nessie. My camera was in my bag so unfortunately no photos to back my claim. It's supposed to be good luck if you spot one, so maybe it's an omen for the rest of my Vietnam travels.

The other adventure today is getting lost. After a walk to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, I think I am walking back to the hotel, but somehow manage to double back on my self, and end up walking in the exact wrong direction. Then consistently for about two hours, I think to my self, I will walk around and find my way, but always seem to walk almost perfectly in the opposite direction to which I should be going. I finally hit a road on the map and take what I think is the right way only to find out at the end that I went the wrong direction. It takes just shy of 3 hours to eventually walk back home... at a fast pace.