Vietnam!

Ok so I am now 2 whole countries behind on this thing. I am officially useless at blogging. It is really hard to find the time to write it and also to find a computer that is not painfully slow!

Our firs top in Vietnam was Chau Doc, a town jut past the Cambodia Vietnam border. We took a little time to relax and adjust to the change of pace...life is pretty chaotic in Vietnam! In the evening we took a motorbike ride up Sam Mountain to watch the sunset over Cambodia...beautiful. We chilled at the top of the mountain in hammocks with a beer for a while and decided tat we already liked Vietnam!

From Chau Doc we made the long journey to Ho Chi Minh City. I have never ever seen traffic like this! Vietnam is very heavily populate with a population of almost 90 million...I swear they all live in HCM! The locals mainly drive motorbikes or scooters and they will stop for nothing and no one. Crossing the road is terrifying but we were given the tip that you just have to walk across really really slowly, do this and they will avoid you....make sudden jumpy movements and they will hit you. I have some amazing photos of all the traffic congestion at rush hour.

In HCM we explored the huge Ben Thanh Market and I bought some souvenirs that, along with a canvas painting I bought Cambodia, were going to be a total pain in the ass to carry around for another month! Our first evening in HCM was a very drunken one. After dinner we ended up in a bar that was called 'fucking strong buckets.' They definitely were fucking strong buckets. Despite the fragile heads in the morning we got up early and travelled to the Cu Chi Tunnels, a complex network tunnels just outside the city where the locals lived during the Amercian war to keep safe. This was a really interesting day and Lis and I felt glad that the buckets had not stopped us from learning about Vietnam's recent war history. While at the tunnels we got the opportunity to shoot a M61 machine gun (i think this is what it was called!) Not too sure I just know that it was a really big gun!

In the evening we boarded the first of 3 sleeper trains on our travels through Vietnam. As we were expecting the worst it actually wasn't that bad! Tiny cabins with small bunks and one very dodgy squat toilet per carriage but we all seemed to sleep pretty well and before we knew we woke up in Nha Trang.

Considering it is supposed to be rainy season in Vietnam we were very lucky with the weather in Nha Trang, it was beautiful. Situated on the coast we spent the day relaxing on a beautiful beach, wandering around the local shops and markets and drinking iced coffee. Vietnamese coffee is delicious! That evening we went to an amazing restaurant where you paid around 3 quid to get your own table bbq and an endless supply of fresh prawns meats and vegetables to bbq yourself. Would have been really really good value if they hadn't marinated absolutely everything in red chillies so ended up getting through about 4 beers each at dinner. After dinner we hit the town, Nha Trang has many nice bars along the beach, it almost felt as though we were on holiday somewhere in the med. However, when walking from one bar to the next we came across a large dog which had a cat in its mouth and it literally chewed it to death in front of us. It was horrible. It suddenly hit me that we were in fact in Vietnam where this kind of thing does not even get a second glance from the locals. 4 beers down I got really upset about the whole thing and made a teary phone call to Mum who told me I wasn't in Kanas anymore and to go and get another drink down me!

The next day in Nha Trang was spent seeing some temples (I do have the names written down somewhere but I have seen so many bloody temples that it is hard to remember them all by name!), the White Buddha, and visiting the mud baths. We were very lucky with our timing in visiting Vietnam as it was the run up to the Chinese New Year. Vietnam has been independent from China for less than 1000 and there is still a strong Chinese influence within the Vietnamese culture. New year is called 'Tet' and the phrase 'Chuc Mung Nam Moi' means Happy New Year. I said and heard it so often that I swear the saying will stick with me for life. The streets of all the towns and cities were decorated and the streets lined with stalls selling big pots of yellow flowers which are lucky to have in your house at this time of year. It was a really interesting time to be in the country.

From Nha Trang we headed north by sleeper train to Hoi An. This particular sleeper train was not so enjoyable. There were so many locals trying to make their way home for the holidays and so, extra, not quite so comfortable, transport was put on to accommodate the vast numbers of people. Fighting through the crowds of locals to get on the train was a nightmare, once on, trying to make your way along the corridor of the carriage was almost impossible. There was just Vietnamese bodies everywhere! Once we had managed to vacate the Vietnamese village that was in our cabin we relaxed a little and felt like we shouldn't complain about our cabin in which there were 4 beds and 1 person to each bed when next door in another 4 bed cabin there were 18 Vietnamese people trying to sleep!

We arrived into the city of Danang and made our way straight to the town of Hoi An. I absolutely loved this place! Beautiful river, architecture, shops, cafes, beach. I could have spent so much longer than a couple of days here. Hoi An is famous for its tailor shops where you can purchase whatever design of whatever item of clothing you desire, made for you within a few hours. Safe to say I spent a little bit of money here!

From Hoi An we continued or journey north to the town of Hue. Here we had our first rainfall but we purchased really attractive ponchos and spent some time visiting the former Royal Citadel, modelled on the Forbidden City in Beijing, and once home to the Nguyen Emperors. We also made a visit to the seven tiered pagoda a some of the tombs of the former rulers of Vietnam. While in Hue we ate in some really cool places but I must admit I wasn't the greatest fan of Vietnamese cuisine and was starting to miss Mums home cooking a bit.

From Hue we boarded our last sleeper train in Vietnam and made our way to the beautiful and famous Halong Bay.It was New Years Eve while on the train so we bought some booze to take on and celebrated just as hard as if it was our own New Year. When we got off the train there was a sudden shock to our systems as it was bloody freezing! So off with the shorts and on with the thermals. Halong Bay was absolutely amazing! We boarded a sailing junk, enjoyed a seafood lunch and sailed around the thousands of islands that rise dramatically from the water. It is stunning. I just wish that the weather had been better as although it was dry it was really overcast and grey. I will have to go back and see it in the summer one day, my pictures just don't do it justice!

We finished our travels of Vietnam in Hanoi, the capital, which was also verrryyy cold. The city is usually nicknamed Hanoi-se due to the vast numbers of people, traffic and the obsession the locals have with beeping their horns. However as it was Tet and most people have around 10 days off work at this time the city was strangely ghostly. This was probably a blessing though as it meant that I was unable to buy anything else!

We said goodbye to some great friends in Hanoi and celebrated our farewell with a big night out in our thermals!

The next day we headed for the airport to fly back to the sunshine in Vietiane, Laos....