High Fivin' Ho Chi Minh and the Taxi Hijackers

On Saturday we decided to go and have a look at the Ho Chi Minh museum. Touted to be 'the preserver of everything memorable related to the great revolutionist, Ho Chi Minh', we couldn't get over how absurd the exhibits were. From sculptures of giant fruit, to a picture of Ho Chi Minh looking like he was about to 'high five' everyone, to a strange golden dragon thing - we just didn't get it. The descriptions of the displays didn't exactly help, either. So it all was rather odd.

After this we made our way to the Ho Chi Minh house. The only problem was in trying to get there. This was because firstly you had to go to one queue to pay - but that queue turned out to be for the Mausoleum. And they kept trying to make us go and put our cameras in lockers in a completely different location (back the way we'd come) - and they didn't seem to understand that we were not interested in going to the Mausoleum at all. So eventually we manged to fluke our way out of it and get to the Ho Chi Minh house - where we literally sprinted past all the rooms because of the queue. You just couldn't stop - people kept pushing you to keep moving. So strange.

After this we decided to try and get a taxi to the so-called Hanoi Hilton, the prison used by the French to imprison and torture Vietnamese political prisoners and then later used by the North Vietnamese to imprison American soldiers during the Vietnam war. But do you think firstly we could find a taxi? That's because we had been warned to only use the green taxis due to the others often ripping you off, or worse, mistreatment of customers - as Sophie was to find out. You see, Sophie had decided she was unwell again or something and so had opted not to come with us to the Ho Chi Minh stuff. We later found out she decided to try to join us and hailed a taxi outside the hotel - but she didn't heed Vaughn's warning about the taxi drivers and she took the first one. She thought she had negotiated for him to use the meter but suddenly in the trip she realised that the meter was not working, so she challenged him on it. He then pronounced some exhorbitant fare for her to pay, which was something like 10 times the price it should have been, and when she announced she wouldn't pay it, citing some negotiated fare she thought they had agreed upon, he locked the doors and started driving her off on a wild goose chase. Understandably she became quite scared and eventually paid up - and he then dumped her wherever they were, which was nowhere she knew - and she didn't have any money. I'm not sure how it was she made her way back but she did eventually - although she was quite shaken. The feeling in the group though was surprisingly not very sympathetic - Vaughn had warned us after all about the various taxi drivers and their unscrupulous methods - so it generally was felt that Sophie brought this on herself because she didn't listen. I think probably that attitude was a little harsh because she really could have come quite unstuck - she was lucky I guess. Just goes to show you though.

Anyway, back to our own adventure. We found a taxi and tried to ask the driver to take us to the 'Hanoi Hilton'. He didn't know what we meant. He thought we wanted to go to the real Hilton. We were almost ready to give up, when I looked up on my phone the place we wanted to go - and discovered it was called 'Hoa Lo'. I started calling out 'Hoa Lo, Hoa Lo' and the driver started talking excitedly in Vietnamese - he got it. So he took us there.

It was quite an interesting place - interesting in the way that Auschwitz or Dachau or Port Arthur is - because it leaves a real bad taste in your mouth as you walk around. You could really feel that sense of cold, oppressive spirit as you walked around. The atrosities that happened there...

Anyway, after this we all sort of separated and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Hanoi as we liked. Francois and I headed off in search of ties - I wanted to get one for Kev and Damo - and the others were looking for pirated DVDs. It was a pleasant enough afternoon although I was glad to be back at the hotel, out of the smoggy, motorcycle air.

For our final night we headed off for dinner as a large group, and en route we tried to find a chemist with disinfectant - I had injured my foot in Nha Trang when we were swimming and the pain had not diminished - if anything it was getting worse. We didn't find a chemist, but we did find a fantastic market, and I was able to pick up a cute barbie motorbike for the girls and new screen guard for my phone.

It was a very lovely evening, and it was actually quite sad that the trip had come to an end. The next morning I got a taxi with Vaughn out to the airport and it was off to KL...

Ha Ha Hanoi

Yes, dumbest title on the planet. Sorry. Couldn't think of anything else.

So the day after our wonderful Halong Bay experience (and it really was like the Top Gear Vietnam special), and we were back on the minibus en route to Hanoi. I must admit, I had quite mixed feelings now about this, because it meant that in just 2 days or so the adventure would end, our Gap Adventures Roam Vietnam trip would be over. And I would then be saying goodbye to the group - and I genuinely was sad. For all our quirkness, the 6 of us had actually gotten on quite well, and I can honestly say that I will miss all of them, each in their own special way. And of course Vaughn too.

So we drove into Hanoi and made our way to the hotel. I have to say I think I liked this hotel the least out of the whole trip. I certainly don't remember it very much. The rooms were quite small and although they had all the mod cons, there were quirky little eccentricities about them. Francois' room, I believe, didn't have hot water. Mine had a light that you could only turn off by unscrewing the bulb. Stuff like that.

We no sooner dumped our stuff then we were off on an orienteering type walking tour given by Vaughn. Turns out we were quite a way (walking) from the main sights and so on. He took us into the heart of the sightseeing area and we literally nearly died en route. Firstly, from the smog. No joke, I had a headache within 2 minutes of walking around the streets, and you don't want to know what colour the snot was. Put it this way, even though one time it was black in London, I have never seen a blacker snot in my life. Gross. Secondly, we nearly died from being run over by scooters. If I thought the traffic was bad in Ho Chi Minh, I was sorely mistaken. Hanoi is infinitely worse. And they have absolutely no regard for people - particularly tourists.

So we headed off for this restaurant that Vaughn knew for lunch. On the way we lost Francois once when Erik and Vaughn looked in a market stall and Francois went to buy donuts. The streets were just so crowded, there was nowhere to walk on the footpath (the footpath being full of scooters and street vendors) and so it made it really hard to stay together. Fortunately we caught up with Francois again.

Lunch was very interesting - we were up on the 2nd floor balcony of the restaurant but conversation was near on impossible due to the roaring sound of the motorbikes. Plus, the land of the rising smog meant that the food did taste just a little bit odd. However, our vantage point afforded us a very interesting view of Vietnamese electricals - the wiring was just all over the place! I have never seen so many cables at once on a power pole.

Erik decided to take advantage of trying frog's legs for the first time. Cos that's what you do in Vietnam, isn't it - eat a traditional French dish. Well, I suppose that's what you do when you're sick of pho.

After lunch Vaughn took us to the place to buy tickets to the water puppet show. The Vietnamese have a very intriguing way of queuing for tickets. Basically, the rule is, you don't. Queue, that is. You push in. Blatantly. They'll serve you over any one else if you're the most pushy. Poor old Beate was trying to get our tickets and it was near on impossible.

Fortunately, after a time, she managed to get through and get the tickets, having taken out a couple Vietnamese on the way. I, meanwhile, had been investigating some rather lovely looking copy Kipling bags. I eventually (when we visited the next day) settled on a very nice blue Kipling duffel bag for something like $10. What do I care that it's not real? It's a bag, and I know I'm going to need one to get all my Christmas gifts home (I'll be traveling back through KL and I know I'll pick up that Barbie for Cella, and the General Grievous lightsabre for Dart, so I'll need it!).

So off we went to the water puppets. Firstly, can I say - on what planet is that normal? It was so dodgy! I know it's a good cultural experience and everything, but I will admit, I found it to be deathly dull and boring. For starters, it's all in Vietnamese, so who on earth actually knows what's going on? Seemed totally random to me. Puppets floating about in water, with Chinese instruments banging and some chick warbling away. I didn't get it. And the others weren't overly impressed either. I suppose we should've headed Vaughn's warning when he said that he had never actually sat through the whole thing, usually falling asleep. Oh well...

So we made our way back, firstly I went with Sophie and Shanty and checked out copied DVDs (no wait, that was before the water puppets) - sorry, I went with Francois to try and find a tie for Kevan and Damo. I realized pretty quick I should've bought it in Hoi An when I had the chance. Despite the tourist books saying that Hanoi was a good place for tailors, we couldn't find any where we were! Most discouraging. We eventually found a shop but the woman there was so rude. She showed me a bunch of very unappealing ties, and then, when I had turned ever so slightly to inspect them a little more (aka look at them), she whacked me on my bag (which was hanging on my back) and demanded to know which one I was buying. What!? I actually confronted her and said, "Did you just hit my bag?". She tried to deflect the conversation and harp on about which one I wanted, but I said "No, you hit me on my bag, and that's unacceptable". So we left.

Turns out that's quite normal in Hanoi. They're very untrusting of tourists. The next day I happened to be walking around a market with Beate and Erik, and a woman tried to fair whack my hand because I touched one of her towels. Seriously! I touched it (just to look at) and she drew her hand back sharply and tried to strike me! Now what does that say about much they want (or clearly don't want) the tourist dollar, hm?

I don't remember much about the dinner (other than it was probably yet again, pho, and it was actually quite expensive) - on account of I'm writing this 3 months later - but I seem to recall it was nice. Back to the hotel for a good sleep before our last day.

A snippet of the water puppets...

Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay

When I left off, we had just arrived in Hanoi. Apologies for the delay in the update, but I have been a tad busy lately.... but now, on with the show...

The first problem when we arrived at the crack of dawn o'clock in Hanoi was that our bus driver wasn't there. The second problem was that it was absolutely freezing. I put on everything I had that would provide any form of warmth, and still was cold. I don't know how Sophie coped though - she had on the shortest of shorts and a singlet top. Ridiculous! Anyway, seeing as we had nowhere to go, we sat down outside the station to wait. Even at that silly time of the morning there was a 'cafe' of sorts open - and we ordered a coffee. Mine was the most disgusting thing I have ever had. Just awful.

While we were waiting I decided to take advantage of the toilet. Oh my goodness, I have never seen anything more ridiculous in my life. Firstly, as I walked in (and bear in mind, they made me pay money to use this loo), the stench literally picked me up and carried me off. The second thing that struck me was the urinal - for that is what it was - a trough along the wall with two brick slats either side (obviously for your feet). There would have been about 4 or 5 of these. So essentially, the idea is that you drop your dacks and squat over this trough, in full view of everyone else (there's no door separating each one) - but not only that, its in complete full view of the doorway to the whole set up. So people walking past the loos on the railway concourse can see! How ridiculous is that? There is only one 'western' toilet, with a door - and that's what I was paying for the privilege of using, I guess. But it certainly was all just a bit too much.

When I returned to the group, the driver had arrived, so we headed off to the minibus. I tried to vie for a good position in the bus, which was quite squishy - but as the group had forgotten I was in the toilet, I was at the back of the line, and thus last in the bus. This meant that all the window seats were taken. I was stuck squished next to Shanty and Sophie, and with nothing to lean on, having had no sleep, and an hour and a half (or so) drive. I tried to sleep regardless, but blessed Sophie decided to listen to her iPod, at the level she usually listens to it - which meant that it was on full bore and I could hear everything. It was most annoying.

You can then imagine that by the time we arrived in Halong Bay I really was not in a very good mood. So it didn't help that our rooms were not available yet. We were able though to go have breakfast, which was a beautiful smorgasbord, and seeing as it was so terribly cold, I had to have the hottest things I could find. Alas I spilled my coffee!

Fortunately by the time we finished, the rooms were ready - and they really were worth the wait. The hotel was the Halong Bay Hotel, and it was directly opposite the bay, some 100m or so from the water's edge - and the view was just stunning. I took it all in for a bit, but really was more than just a bit irritable at this stage, so I decided to try to take a nap before our boat trip on the bay.

We left at about 12pm or something for our boat trip. Again I rugged up as much as I could - and was still cold - but Sophie comes down in barely anything! When we asked her about it, she said that she had gotten rid of all her winter clothes from her Kilimanjaro trek, and had no winter clothes with her. Come on? Not even a jumper? Fortunately Erik had a spare he could lend her.

The bus took us to the boat on the bay and we had a lovely cruise around the islands. The bay spans an area of around 1553 square kilometres and includes about 1,960 islets, most of which are limestone. It is just simply breathtaking. We were on a cute little junket that provided us with a gorgeous seafood lunch (Sophie however doesn't eat seafood and forgot to mention that when Vaughn asked for our dietary needs!) - just scrummy. And better still, we had the whole run of the boat ourselves. We visited firstly a fishing village, which was very interesting - it was essentially a large floating wooden jetty with lots of compartments cut into it where the fish were. You really had to watch your footing so you didn't fall in!

Our next stop was to the Thien Cung Grotto, which is a really large cave of stalagmites and stalactites, lit very beautifully (and probably to the detriment of the stalagmites etc), which has been forming for 700 000 to about 11 000 years. It was really beautiful, and I felt quite moved to let rip with a pretty impressive coo-ee (if I do say so myself), much to the amusement of the many Korean and Japanese tourists there.

Upon our return to the hotel, Francois, Shanty and I decided to do a bit of exploring of the town. We firstly made our way to the beach, where we were fortunate to see the sun set (our first really of this trip), and Francois encountered another French speaking person, so he enjoyed chatting away in French to him. We also came across a barbers, and Francois hada shave. But we didn't really see anything suitable for the evening meal (that didn't cost a fortune - although this is a good, cheap place for seafood - the price in comparison to that which we had been paying relatively for our evening meals was far above our budget, and we knew that especially Shanty and Sophie wouldn't be able to afford it). We did however happen across a night market setting up, and we had a bit of a browse around it. Every time we approached a stall the owners would get really excited and shove a load of tat under our noses. It wasn't really designed as a tourist market so I don't know why they thought we would want to buy these things.

Returning to the hotel, it was decided we'd eat there instead, which was quite nice (except that they ran out of the thing I wanted to order, so that I had to choose pho again or something). Then Beate and Erik wanted to have an explore, so Francois and I headed out with them again too.

All in all it had been a very enjoyable day - but I was oh so tired, and oh so ready for bed in my oh so lovely room!