GOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!!

12th October 2008

As you may have guessed we have arrived in VIETNAM! The bus ride from Nanning was comfortable and easy and NOT scary on the border like we were expecting it to be...we didn't even have to bribe the person doing the "health check"! We got into Hanoi and went to the "Little Hanoi Hotel" with our new found kiwi friends from Nanning. Twas quite comfortable, we got FREE breakfast (anything free is GOOD!) though we didn't get the fresh fruit in our room that was advertised >=( Anyways...

Hanoi is a cool city! I really liked it there. We spent day 1 doing a self walking tour around the old quarter, which consisted mostly of shops. There were different areas dedicated to one thing ie shoes, silk, bhuddist altars, PVC products etc etc Was very exciting! That night we went to see the water puppet show, which was also really good. Highlight of my day was these cute Vietnamese boys who were eating ice cream by the lake seeing us and coming over and offering me an ice cream! SO CUTE! I said no though (not sure why) so Lindzy made me feel guilty.

Day 2 we walked to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, although we missed him by 5 days! He had to go to Russia. Went to the temple of literature, the first university in Vietnam...I forget how old it was...but it was really nice and peaceful. Then we went to the old french prison nick named the Hanoi Hilton by the US POW's. Pretty interesting place and they loved to advertise that John McCain was a prisoner there...

29th October 2008
...At this stage in my boring recollection I stopped writing about what we were doing and so now I am going to try condense the last 3 weeks in Vietnam.

7th October 2008 - 10th October 2008
While in Hanoi we paid $70 for a tour up to Sapa. (FYI Sapa is a little town in the mountains where there are a lot of ethnic minorities.) It was AMAZING! We took a night train up there which was like an ice box and then spent our first day walking to the ethnic minority villages being trailed by a group of girls doing a fantastic job of befriending us, which was just a guise to get us to buy things from them. It was a little touristy (guess thats what ou get fr doing a tour) but overall it was amazing! Minus the ice box train back to Hanoi that made me sick =(
Highlight: the marijuana plant growing on the side of the road next to our hotel and Lindzys face as they tell us that they don't smoke it. Ít's only for making hemp!

October 10th 2008 - October 13th 2008
A bus boat bus combination took us from bustling Hanoi to beautiful Cat Ba Island. Here we spent a day on a boat visiting Halong Bay, a random unexciting cave, kayaked and saw Monkeys on Monkey island. Here we came across some guys feeding and teasing the monkeys. Not being amused we bad mouthed them, only to go to a bar and find that both guys work there and that they're not arrogant wankers we judged them to be. To make it all the more interesting Lindzy got some dance lessons and I went home alone ;) We then spent a day recovering from hangovers and laying on a beach all day before packing up and bus boat busing it to Nihn Bihn.

October 13th 2008 - October 14th 2008 "BORN TO BE WIIIIIIIILD"
After the dodgy bus-boat-bus trip (the man conveniently forgot to tell us that we'd have to pay an extra 50000 dong (about $3...yes that is a long of money to me!) to get a moto to where the second bus left from) we got to Nihn Bihn. We rented a moto and rode out to the fishing village singing "Born to be Wild". Fishing village not so exciting but very beautiful none the less.

Moto ride home however...more interesting.
Problem #1 We decide to take the scenic route home suggested by a local but somewhere took a wrong turn and ended up exactly where we started and riding all the way back again.
Problem # 2 It's getting dark and the light on the bike is about as bright as a parking light. This makes it very hard to avoid big rocks on the road and hay bales.
Problem # 3 The fuel guage gets stuck on half which results, just when we think we're almost back to the mainroad, the bike coming to a sputtering holt. Of course the locals come out to see why the foreigners are stopping outside there house and end up taking Lindzy to the gas station to get fuel and the rest of the family inviting me in their house, giving me tea and tring to communicate in the VERY little English they had. (Conveniently Kevin Rudd and the Vietnamese leader were meeting in Canberra so that provided some excitement and distraction!)

Next day we rented a moto again and rode 65km each way (total of 130km) to the naional park. Against our better judgement we had no warmer clothing and no raincoats so when it started to rain we got saturated. The national park was beautiful (think Jurassic Park) and we met a very entertaining pom who was writing and article for Rough Guides.
Highlight of the day: Lindzy complaining about how cold she was while using ME as a wind block!

We got a night bus to Hue that night, which turned into a drama because there weren't enough available beds, the driver had picked up locals who pay less and they were in our beds, so they got kicked out of the beds and put on the floor and we got the dirty beds next to the lovely smelling toilet!
We also met some cool Aussie guys, Scott and Barry, who shouted us beer and got everyone socialising. As well as some slightly odd Israelis and a Quebec couple (Quebec...NOT Canada!)

15th October 2008 - 17th October 2008
We arrived in Hue and got a $5 (nice and new) hotel room and explored the former ancient capital of Vietnam. The former palace (whats left of it after the Tet offensive int he Vietnam war) was interesting and the tomb we visited of one of the former kings was amazing too. Very beautiful and lively city.
We ran into the Aussies again and had a coupe of beers with them and also ran into some other people we met in Sapa. Of course one thing led to another and we were all very drunk but I was rocking on the pool table. That night was Lindzy's turn to go home alone and I got home at 530am to have a 30min nap before getting up and ready for the DMZ tour!

DMZ tour was pretty good (if you're interested in the war and know something about the places in the DMZ). Though we couldn't understand the guide very well and spent half the day in a bus because everything is so far apart. Khe San was sobering (the museum VERY bias) and the Tunnels were amazing! With bomb craters all over the ground and people having lived just underneath in a network of tiny tunnels and having survived. Incredible.

While in Hue I also decided to buy another camera after A LOT of ummming and ahhhing. Then the next morning we got a bus to Hoi An.

17th October 2008 - 19th October 2008 "I'm Siiiiinging in the RAIN!"
Hoi An is the Vietnamese capital of tailors and also prone to flooding. Thus, we had to have clothes made and watched the river water flood the city. That was basically all there was to Hue. Tho when the flood waters dried out a bit the old buildings (untouched by the war) were charming. From Hue we got a night bus to Nah Trang.

Nah Trang is the tourist/party/beach capital of Vietnam. We basically spent our first day on the beach (working up a nice tan of course). Then that night we headed out to a couple of bars with late night happy hour! We met a group of Canadian guys and went to another bar and met a group of Aussies, with night culminating in pool playing and drinking before going to the beach for a late, drunken swim. This would have all been a MARVELLOUS night if I hadn't gone into my bag to realise someone had stolen my camera AGAIN! They'd even gone to the effort of taking it out of the case as well. I went back to the bar (that was now closed) and the security guards in the door way playing cards refused to let me in to try look for it. So I started yelling at them and then broke down drying while sitting on a chair in the rain (oh yes it had started raining too!) I think they took pitty on me and let me in but naturally the camera was no where to be found. Thus a marvellous night turned not so marvellous and managed to lose my second ($400) camera in 3 weeks!

Next day we headed out on a boat cruise of the islands. Did a bit of snorkelling (with a million tiny jelly fish which stung like B%*&$#@!), swimming, jumping off the boat, eating tropical fruit, listening to the entertaining boat band lazing around in the sun on the boat.

From here we headed to Mui Ne.

"Beach Life and Perverts"
So Mui Ne is a more quiet beach town with huge sand dunes behind and a long beach in front. We stayed at a quiet resort on the beach and got a little bit of swimming and sunning in. Though we spent most of our first day trekking to find a bloody bank that would change travellers cheques only to discover that the resort next door did it!
Day 2, we went up into the sand dunes where you get some nice photos and ripped extorted by little kids making you pay to slide down the sand dune on pieces of plastic. All fun and games I guess. That afternoon I was felling ancy and needed to talk to someone so (after the skype near our hotel didn't work) I got on my pushbike (leaving Lindzy to sunbake and get a massage) to go find an internet cafe that had skype. Unfortunately, as I was riding up the road and got to an area where there were no buildings on either side a moto driver pulle dup beside me and asked me where I was from and I told him Australia. At this point he says nothing more and I start to get nervous cos there is nothing he can offer me (I'm on a bike and thus don't need a ride and he isn't selling anything). Then all of a sudden he grabs my arm and then gropes my boob and says something I can't understand but loses his balance so pulls away and starts following me. I'm in shock and freaking out trying to ride faster to get near some more people but thankfully someone was behind him and he pulled over and went back the other way. So I rode up the road in tears, with every internet cafe not having skype and having to turn around and go back being apprehensive that he's going to follow me again.
I got back to the hotel and ended up getting a massage which helped calm myself. This was followed by a swim, where, as Lindzy is on a beach chair reading a book another moto driver walks up to the beach via the empty lot next to our hotel. At first he just stands there, but then he starts looking at Lindzy and then back at me and fiddling with his pants. He then walks forward a little and sees that there is a policeman at the resort next to ours. Seeing this he moves back into the trees a little and continues to look at Lindzy and then me and then, to my absolute DISBELIEF, he starts jerking off!!! On realising what he's doing I start to walk towards the policeman continuing to watch but he then ddid a runner. TWO perverts in ONE DAY!!!
Next day we headed to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Saigon was a cool city, though we didn't really do all that much there. We went on a wlaking tour of the city taking in some of the temples and going to the War Remenents museum and Reunification Palace both very interisting historical places. We also kept bumping into a gay couple from California we had met on the Nah Trang boat tour. They were both so funny and cute we were sad to say goodbye! Also. We found THE BEST fruit shakes! AND they were only 30cents...SOOOOOOO GOOD!
From Saigon we took a Mekong boat tour that would take us to Cambodia.

"Row, Row, Row Your Boat!"
We went on a boat tour up the Mekong viewing the general way of life of the local villages and having lunch at a restraunt where we could also feed crocodiles! Then headed to a hotel for a night where we made friends with a Canadian/Vietnamese with a guy and girl about our age, some Germans and John from Texas. The night included lots of drinking and some karaoke! The next morning we were up early to take a row boat out on the Mekong to a Muslim ethnic minority village. It took us a few moments to realise she was saying he was were son! So cute! Here we parted ways with our Canadian friends and got on another boat that would take us to Cambodia.

On the boat to Cambodia we made friends with an Aussie and British couple who were both really nice. Of course about an hour into the boat ride I had to go to the toilet (this whole trip has had me all of a sudden needing to go to the toilet at the MOST inconvenient times! I swear I have a bladder the size of a pea!). The boat driver kindly pulled the boat up on the bank and a group of us took the oppurtunity to pee in the bushes on the side of me Mekong...what a memory! We changed boats at the boarded and after a LONG boat ride, followed by a bus ride, Lindzy, me, the Aussies, Brits and Texas arrived at the Okay Guest house in Phnom Penh, ending our 3 week tour of Vietnam!