The Mekong Delta, from Vietnam to Cambodia by boat

We had a great few days travelling from Ho Chi Minh city to Phnom Penh in Cambodia.  As usual, we set off extremely early last Friday and got on board a little boat to cruise out of Ho Chi Minh City.  It was great to see all the tiny little houses along the river side, yet also quite sad to see how much rubbish was floating around.  Then, as we went further out of the city, it became noticably richer, with houses 6 times the size of the other ones!  The divide between rich and poor is very obvious.

We continued to cruise along for a few hours before visiting some of the Mekong Delta islands.  This was the highlight for us.  We visited a little honey place and sampled the food, as well as a little fruit place.  A tiny wooden boat took us down a weedy little stream to the other end of the island, which was pretty cool – something we haven’t seen anywhere else.  Then, after a long bus journey, we got to the ferry crossing.  This was very odd… it involved getting off the bus and standing amongst loads of motorbikes (revving at our ankles) waiting to get on the ferry.  Once on the ferry, the locals were all looking at us and trying to take photos with their camera phones!  Again, the other side, we battled our way off with the motorbikes and hiked down the road to find our bus (easier said than done).

One thing we have noticed after careful observation of other Brits (and too much spare time ourselves), is that British people love systems.  I know I’m generalising here, but it seems that we don’t mind if things are a little late, as long as there is a system in place.  While the Germans on our tour were questioning the time of arrival of the bus, we were questioning why we had to get off the bus, why it went on a different ferry and why all the ferries left the port at the same time.  Anyway, I’m going off track here!

So we eventually got to our hotel and grabbed some food.  We can recommend a restaurant that you should not visit in the Mekong Delta region, as it left us throwing up all night!!!  Unfortunately, having both been up all night feeling ill, we were unable to visit the floating markets the next morning and just joined the others on the bus later on to get to our floating hotel.  It was pretty basic, but cool – a hotel which is like a boat really!

Finally, the following day, we got our ‘fast boat’ to Phnom Penh in Cambodia.  It certainly wasn’t fast, but the scenery was lovely.  We went passed some lovely little villages, particularly on the Cambodian side of the border.   This made the whole journey worthwhile.  The locals must see that boat go by every day, but they were so excited to see it and all jumped up and waved as we came passed!  It was our first river border crossing as well, so that was cool.  Oh and we got another 1 hour bus after the boat as well, to get to the centre of town.  Exhausting, but well worth it!

A chocolate digestive would go down a treat right now with a nice cuppa tea, but I’ll have to wait a little while for that won’t I?!

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

After an interesting flight from Danang, which involved people using their mobiles on the flight (???) and Dave physically fighting with a tiny old Vietnamese lady (who decided it was not appropriate to queue to get on the plane and wanted to push everyone) we made it to Ho Chi Minh City!

It’s very different to Hanoi and noticably richer.  Although there are still millions of motorbikes on the road, it has been pleasing to find that they actually stop at traffic lights occasionally and I don’t feel like I’m going to die every time I cross the road!!

On our first day here we visited the war remnants museum.  As you can imagine, it’s an extremely moving place.  We came out feeling quite shocked and depressed, particularly after seeing the replica concentration camp they have made for us to see.  However, it is interesting and we would recommend that people visit it.  We had been hoping to go to the famous Reunification Palace on our way back, but it was closed due to a conference, so we went for tea, coffee and cake instead!  Yum!  (Well… yum after I took back my ‘tea latte’ and asked for a black tea with separate milk).

Today we went on a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels at Ben Dinh.   It’s not far way, but took 3 hours to get out of the city!  Nevertheless, it was well worth the journey.  The tunnels are extensive and unbelievable.  They are 280km long and tiny – it is amazing to think that the Viet Cong soldiers and civilians lived in and fought in these tunnels.  We were given the chance to go in them.  I lasted about 10 seconds, but Dave went a bit further.  It was extremely hot inside and everyone came out looking really bedraggled!

Tomorrow we set off on our 3 day boat trip along the Mekong Delta into Cambodia.  Should be interesting!

Halong Bay and Hoi An

We’ve been busy over the last few days in Vietnam, squeezing in both the beautiful Halong Bay and Hoi An.  It was only about an 800km trip between the two, so relatively close compared to some of our journeys across the vast nothingness of Australia.

We decided the best way to see Halong Bay was to take a 2 day tour from Hanoi.  Halong bay is about 4 hours away from Hanoi so we were pleased to see the sea and arrive at Ha long city after our early rise and long drive.  We had seen nothing like it when we arrived at the harbour to board our junk for the next 24hours.  Basically, the large port was full of tourists and there were literally hundreds of junks dropping off and picking up tourists for their trips around the thousands of karsts.  We knew it would be touristy, but this was something else!

Soon after departing the port we started to lose the other boats as we gently cruised through the protruding rocks from the still water seas.  We were lucky it was really clear and sunny, so we made the most of it by sitting on deck.  Later we kayaked around some of the karsts, through some caves into small inlets.  The sea was at low tide so we occasionally grinded along some of the rocks and had to push ourselves off, which made it a little harder than normal, but our efforts paid off as we saw some monkeys around the hills.

Meals on the boat were interesting as we had seafood most of the time.  Carly had already opted at an earlier point for a no seafood dietary requirement, but I thought it couldn’t be that bad!  We’ll I’ve never had so much whole crab to crack, prawns to peel, fish to debone, squid to chew, octopus to untangle and so on.  It was really tasty though and I survived to see the next day which was a bonus!

After more cruising and viewing we disembarked and headed back to Hanoi to get the overnight train to Hoi An.  This train was a little less jolty through the night, but due to the typhoon that had hit Vietnam earlier in the week the train couldn’t go all the way to Danang (nearest train station to Hoi An), so we had to change trains in Hue adding another 3 hours to our already 15 hour trip.  (A long, crazy story of disorganisation!).

Hoi An was a really nice change from the noise of Hanoi.  Even though it’s about as busy as an average British town, it sounds and feels lovely and quiet.  The setting close to the sea and along a small river is really nice.  Much to Carly’s glee, Hoi An is famous for its textiles. Every shop here is either selling tailored clothes of all descriptions or hand-made shoes.  Obviously we’ve picked up a little something, but you’ll have to wait and see what creations we’ve had made!

Today we went to My Son, a set of ancient ruins dating back to about the 7th century.  The temples were quite overgrown by the jungle, but they were interesting to see and wander around in the heat of the morning.  Hoping to go to the beach tomorrow before heading to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) in the evening.

Hanoi, Vietnam

I’m not quite sure where to start with Hanoi!  We arrived here a few days ago, before our trip to Sapa, and have since been back for a look around.

Initially, on our drive from the airport, it seemed like a reasonably calm place.  We were deceived!!  Once we got right into the middle of the city it was like entering a chaotic mass of motorbikes!  We had to walk through millions of them (on the path and road) and avoid treading on loads of people eating their dinner in the alleyways to get to our hostel!  It was very interesting, especially as loads of them like to sit outside on tiny little stools and even cook their dinner next to them on little BBQs.  I was convinced that we were either going to get squished by a motorbike or scalded with boiling soup on our ankles!!! 

You can’t come to Vietnam without going to Hanoi, but it’s not really somewhere that we would like to stay for long.  It’s not as busy and chaotic as Medan, but does come close!  We have had to be here for a few days in order to apply for our Mongolian visa (we need it for the trans-siberian later).  Nevertheless it has been interesting.  We have wandered around the city on a walking tour, seen them practising vigorous tai chi by the lake at 5am and been asked to buy things about a million times!

One thing we have noticed is how football is the English ‘thing’.  In all of south-east Asia we have been asked:  “Where you from?” a countless amount of times.  When we say England, they always reply, “aahh yes good football” or “David Beckham”.  I’m not joking, it’s every single time.  You would think they might say, “aaaah yes London”, or “the queen” or “cold place” or something, but it’s always about the football.  It’s quite nice because then we can chat to them about which teams they like.  Even in the Sumatran jungle, the English premiership was their favourite thing to watch!

Anyway… back to Hanoi!  We have tried some Vietnamese food (pho – a type of soup), which seems to be very nice.  It’s not as spicy here as in other places.  We went to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum and the war museum today, which were ok.  They show lots of art work, but you still come out wondering what exactly he did and wanting to find out more about him.  Today we also went to see a water puppet show, which was very random and amusing.  Apparently it’s a northern Vietnamese thing to do so we thought we’d better had.

It’s been fun, but we are looking forward to getting some peace in Halong Bay soon.

Sapa, Vietnam

Our trip to Sapa started with a sleepless night on a sleeper train from Hanoi to Lao Cai on the border of Vietnam and China.  The 8 hour trip was on time, which makes a change for the trains we are fortunate enough to board, and we arrived at about 5am before the 1 hr trip up through the mountains to the hill station – Sapa.

On departing the bus and embarking on our little walk across down to the accommodation we’d booked we were very quickly introduced to Sapa hospitality.  Two local tribes women (from the Black H’mong people) quickly followed us up the hill asking us questions about who we were, where we came from, how old we were, were we married and so on.  To start with we were prepared with the standard asia phrase ‘no, thank you’, but they kept following us and they did seem genuinely interested.  But it didn’t take too long before we heard their favourite phrase ‘you buy from me?’  We were soon glad to escape to our predators for a catch up on some sleep.

Later that day we decided to go on a small hike, which Sapa is famous for, to Cat Cat village.  The walk was lovely, down through the valley, past the village and to a waterfall at the bottom.  We got to see a little bit of local life, people working the rice terraces, water buffulo tramping through the water, pigs lazing in the sun and chickens aimlessly wandering around.  The hike was really worth it, although a little tiring on the way back up!

To round off our first day in Sapa we had earlier seen that a free Vietnamese language course was being held at the tourist info centre.  Of course, we leapt at the chance and were soon being taught with a small group of other beginners the basics of Vietnamese.  It was really cool and now we can make a few locals smile with our attempts to order food and drink and ask for directions.

The following day we were to head back to Hanoi in the evening, on yet another overnight train back, so we wanted to make the most of it.  We headed off on a hike to the top of one of the hills surrounding the small town.  Of course at the start we had the usual small group of H’mong tribes people follow us, but at the top we great peaceful views of the valley and town.

Before heading back to the train station, we decided to try out our Vietnamese at a local cafe and had a long chat with the waiter.  He actually understood what we said and was so pleased that a tourist wanted to speak his language!  He was more interested in practicing his English, but it was great knowing our skills were working.  Later we went and sat in the town square to witness some of the madness surrounding the local people and their attempts to sell their wares to the tourists.  Many came over to chat to us as they all do, but they tend to leave you alone a little bit more if you aren’t walking around.  We had some interesting conversations and a bit of a laugh.

That pretty much ended our trip to Sapa, apart from the funny taxi trip back on arrival in Hanoi.  We got an official taxi from the station and, after telling the driver where we wanted to go and the d asking his friends where it was, he took us off around town.  We had a map and could soon see he didn’t know where he was going.  We noticed we had gone full circle and were back at the station.  So when he pulled over to ask for directions, we hopped out and swapped to another cab, with Carly forcefully informing him that we weren’t paying for his scenic drive at 5am.  (she’s not to be messed with, when she’s tired! )