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Ok this was gonna be a long ranty post b****ing about the crap time I was having with Intrepid, but since then I've escaped and am in a way better mood so I'll cut out the whinging! It really wasn't good though and I had the most depressing 5 days of my travels so far, most expensive mistake ever!
So our first activity with our new group was to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, which the Vietnamese people used to hide from the Americans during the war. Most of this historical type stuff has been quite interesting but not exactly exciting, but I really liked the tunnels... it was a nice change from temples anyway! They're really cleverly made - the Vietnamese people built them really small so that the Americans couldn't fit into them and made a load of traps, so they could live there for years without being found (Vietnamese people are tiny, I feel like a giant!). It's pretty interactive so you get to walk through some of the tunnels which was fun, although I wanted to do the smaller one but our new tour guide couldn't be bothered taking us there. He also told us almost nothing about the tunnels... he's definitely not as good as Tim was! The best bit though was being allowed to shoot an AK47 gun (you can do a machine gun too but I couldn't afford it), felt so baddass.
Next up was YET ANOTHER cyclo tour. There are only so many cyclos you can go on before the novelty wears off, they're too slow! Saigon is a crazy city though so I guess being in the middle of those streets in that traffic was a bit more exciting than before. We visited the War museum which has all the photos of people who were affected by the agent orange chemical the Americans used, as well as yet more deformed babies in jars, as if I hadn't seen enough of those at the forensic museum! After that we boarded our lovely 17 hour train to Hoi An, which I actually managed to sleep pretty much the whole way on, not as nice as the Thai ones though.
Hoi An is known for the fact that you can tailor make pretty much any item of clothing you want here in 24 hours for dirt cheap prices, and it's actually pretty good quality too. Being the most indecisive person ever I ended up not getting anything made, not that I could have fit them in my bag anyway! The town itself is pretty much completely geared towards tourists, but that doesn't change the fact that it's actually really nice. All the buildings are pastel yellow and have little balconies and shutters on them, with coloured lanterns hanging from every building along the riverfront, pretty. We met up with Shaun and Tiare who were on the Cambodia tour for one night to celebrate his birthday but didn't get up to much else there. Paid 12p for a beer though, that was a highlight! Hit a bit of a low point cos Hoi An is quite posh and doesn't really have any backpackers places there, so I couldn't meet anyone and had one of those moments where I wished I could just fly home and get a hug!
It was slightly redeemed by the fact that I booked onto a bike tour for one day which took us through the countryside past all the people in conical hats working the rice fields, such stereotypical Vietnamese views! I got to actually speak to other people! The guide spent pretty much the whole day singing 'don't worry be happy' to us which I guess was the advice I needed at that point! Anyway we left Hoi An for Hue on the bus, stopping on a beach called China beach on the way for a swim, aka being thoroughly beaten up by the sea! Also stopped at a marble workshop which was slightly more interesting than I would expect it to be, lots of nice rocks, woo!
Anyway I have to go so I'll cover the rest of Vietnam later on, where I finally managed to break free from the tour and everything got a hell of a lot more interesting!
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ramiar Raise the White LanternsOne of my favorite Vietnamese triodtians is the lighting of white paper lanterns and raising them into the night sky after a wedding. Not only is it good fun for the guests (fire is always fun!), but its a beautiful moment with some
Ryan Raise the White Lanterns to our clients who come to Vietnam for a doseinatitn wedding, as its particularly good fun for wedding parties looking to add some local flavour to the proceedings. Below are some images from a friend’s wedding in Hoi An this spring.