Hi all So 7.00 am saw me and Mand up (the girls had decided to give this one a miss too - still feeling culture fatigue) and getting ready to go to The Perfume Pagoda which lies about 70km or so outside Hanoi. We were the first ones on the minibus so we got ourselves well and truly settled into the seats with the most legroom and by the time everyone else was on, we were pretty glad we had. Slightly cramped is probably the kindest thing to be said about it. But we were ipodded up, we had books and we had pillows. A bit much for a 70 km (about 44 miles) trip, but we didn't want to get bored. As it turns out, we did extremely well. It was rush hour (why call it rush hour when the fastest you can move is about 0.2 miles per hour?) and it took a good hour just to get out of the city. All the while, our guide has been telling us all about the Perfume Pagoda and what we'd be doing. Suddenly (after an hour remember) two English girls pipe up behind us 'We booked for Halong Bay - not Perfume Pagoda'. Cue stony silence from everyone on the bus and a fairly hostile look from the guide. After much cajoling (the guide just wanted them to go to the Perfume Pagoda and go to Halong Bay the next - regardless of whether or not they wanted to see it) they eventually turned the bus round and headed back to their hotel. Another hour in traffic with them and the guide arguing pretty much the whole way over whose fault it was. 'You told us to get on', 'You should've checked our tickets' 'Why did you get on when you knew it was the Pagoda bus?' 'You never said it was' 'I've been stood here talking about it for an hour...' and we were back at their hotel. We quickly unloaded the mardy b****es (I mean how stupid can you get?), and loaded up with the two poor sods who were supposed to have got on in the first place, and had been sitting waiting for two hours. They weren't the most convivial people at this point. In fact nobody on the bus was except for me, Mand and a septic called Tammy who works as a yoga teacher in Bangkok. The rest of the group were three deaf mute Parisians (seriously!), two really really snotty Austrian girls, a middle aged German couple, a really really annoying septic who looked like she'd just heard that hurricane Katrina was back, and an old lady with really long white hair and her Vietnamese lover. What a crew. So off we went, with our guide giving us the same speech we'd already heard (for the benefit of the newcomers) and one Happy Mondays album (Pills, Thrills And Bellyaches) later we were there. Well I say there, what I really mean is at the river. After fending off the advances of the various street vendors (we managed to escape with just buying three bracelets - and even managed to convince them to give us the correct change) and we walked down to wear the longboats were for the trip upriver. The river is the only way to get to the Pagoda, and there are hundreds of them there. Some of them are paddled by the widows/female family members of soldiers ('martyrs') killed in the war with the US. Ours were paddled by a couple of local boys which in a way took a little of the romance out of it. But hey, it was just me and Mand and the guide in ours, and we gently floated down the river, through some amazing scenery and scenes of rural life, with the guide telling us all sorts of things about this part of the country and the local flora and fauna. Then we moved onto world politics (always a hot topic) and family values that prevail over here and the differences and similarities in our countries and cultures. It really was a beautiful relaxing amble down the river. I don't know how long the boat trip took (an hour and a half maybe) but eventually we disembarked outside the pagoda and took a short walk up the side of a mountain to a restaurant. The Perfume Pagoda is actually a shedload of pagodas (37 rings a bell, but I might have just made that up) set on a mountain. Around these pagodas grow masses of wild flowers, hence The Perfume Pagoda.The two our guide wanted us to see in particular, were the one right at the very top (the holiest) and the one at the very bottom (the oldest). The walk to the top takes about an hour or so and is ridiculously steep. But the ever resourceful Vietnamese have put in a cable car so for about 3 dollars you can get a return. After a fair amount of discussion we decided to get the cable car up (we figured we were already 2 hours behind schedule thanks to those idiots getting on the wrong bus - and we wanted to spend as much time in the actual pagoda as possible) and walk back down, taking in the scenery. After that it was to be lunch so we didn't mind getting down a bit later. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact we were feeling a bit lazy. Honestly. But it was quite steep. Anyway, the German couple then kicked off big style with the guide, isisting that they'd already paid for the cable car back at their hotel (they hadn't), and there was angry muttering going on between the miserable looking septic and the white haired woman and her fella. They obviously felt they were being ripped off and the girl kept going on about how she couldn't afford to take the cable car (what? 3 dollars? Tight b****) but I think it was more a matter of principle. Well, we left them and their principles as they started the long walk up and jumped in the cable car for the 15 minute journey to the top. The view from the top was outstanding and the pagoda itself was set in a big cavern. For some reason, some of the buddha images had flashing neon light behind them which I thought was a nice touch. Like some kind of 70's disco deity. Its the most holy, because its where three things meet. I think they were water (from the river), and..erm...well two others which I can't actually remember (Yes, it's the Rebel MC rough like a ninja sting you like a bee). Probably air and stone. We were fairly rushed through, again because of the 2 hour delay we'd had and we had to get back down for lunch. The three people who walked up must've got about 5 minutes in it before it was time to leave again. Interesting thing principles. As we were leaving to begin our walk back down, it began to absolutely hammer down. So we got the cable car back down. Hey, its not that we're lazy, or don't love nature but we were on a mountian. You couldn't see more than about 20 feet cos of the rain. So we wouldn't have been able to see the scenery anyway. And I really liked riding in the cable car. The white haired lady and her fella also abandoned their principles and jumped in a car, leaving miserable septic girl alone for the walk back down. But she was not one for backing down and resolutely began the walk down. 15 minutes later and we were down, eating some really good food. Seafood, noodles, tofu, spring rolls, stir fried vegetables, omelette, sticky rice, and fruit salad for dessert. After about an hour, it was time to go to the next temple, but the septic still hadn't turned up. She eventually turned up about half an hour after that. So by the time she'd eaten what we'd saved for her (which was as cold as it gets and probably had flies doing the fandango all over it) she barely got any time in this pagoda either. Beautiful. I'll say it again. Interesting things principles. The reason it took her so long incidentally was that the path 'had gotten really slippery'. Really? It lookes like a f***in river was flowing down it to me. Anyway, I digress. The second temple we visited (the oldest) was really really stunning. They actually had a prayer meeting going on inside so we couldn't go in for a while and spent the time wandering around the outer buildings and the grounds. Although it was raining, it was fantastic. You'd think that after a while you'd get bored lookig at temples. They're all pretty much the same, architecturally and decorationally (I think i just invented a new word). But each one has something which just makes it stand out from the others. This one had a really pretty little pond which I could've sat next to all day (even in the rain), and two huge stone 'lion-dog' statues which were gorgeous (I'm trying to convince Mand we'll have room for them in our future garden). Eventually the ceremony inside finished and everyone filtered out, allowing us to filter in. After a brief look round we went back to the restaurant to meet everyone else and then it was time for the boat trip home. I managed to snap one of the planks they'd laid out as a makeshift floor (the river was nigh on flooding) getting on to the boat, which probably upset a few of the natives. But with a cheerful wave, we were off. Me, mand and the guide in the same boat again. This time, conversation was on more religious matters. We'd seen a few people in Hanoi that morning wearing white headscarfs, and a load more at the second temple we'd visited. We figured maybe it was a special day or some sort of sect. We asked the guide about it, and it turns out that its a sign of grieving. They wear them for 7 days after a close member of their family dies, then the body is cremated, and the soul can ascend. The incense which is burned aids this. This led onto a discussion about Buddhist rites, and superstitions especially those of people who live a more rural existence. They never call each other by name on the mountain in case the bad spirits hear and will come to their house at night is the one which really stuck out for me. I don't know why, but it seems to ring a bell with native American superstitions somewhere along the line. Thing is these superstitions are still very much alive and thriving today. Although the guide was trying to be dismissive of them, he had a look in his eye when he was talking about them and a slight quiver in his voice. The conversation strayed onto ghosts, witches and night terrors (he'd woken up a few times and been paralysed while something stood over his bed), and eventually he started telling us ghost stories. Not quite the light hearted relaxing drift back down the river, but cool nonetheless. As we were approaching the dock, the guide suggested that if we'd been happy with the guys paddling, we could maybe give them a tip. I thought everyone knew that these guys make next to nothing, slogging their guts out paddling people up and down the river. Anyway, me and Mand gave the guy a couple of dollars (we were going to anywway) but the looks of disgust and disintrestedness on the faces of all the others in their boats said just about everything. No tips for those boys that day. Such is life, but I felt genuinely embarassed by their behaviour. Not just then, but all day really. I found them really disrespectful to everyone. We all piled back in the bus and me and Mand found ourselves next to Tammy (the only other nice one on the whole trip) and we chit chatted off and on all the way back. She was looking for a different hotel, so we told her about ours and that it was on the same street as the alcohol and candy. 'Great' she replied 'now all we need is condoms'. Not quite the response we were expecting. But I think I'll remember it for life. Also along the way, the guide who had been doing great work with the really difficult crowd held a quick raffle. Just a bit of fun, the prizes being t-shirts (the losers got 'smiles') with the name of his tour company on it. The two Austrian girls refused to take a ticket. Point blank. 'We don't want to play!'. The guide explained that it was just for fun and they might win a t-shirt. 'We don't want a t-shirt' was the withering reply. 'Well maybe you won't win...' was the even more withering comeback. After a few moments they suddenly seemed to realise just how rude they were being and took tickets. One of them didn't even look to see if she'd won. The sheer faced rudeness of some people. I'd have made her eat the f***in t-shirt. Anyway, the middle aged German bloke won one, and two of the deaf mutes won the others. I was understandably devastated. Back at the hotel, we showered and grabbed the other two, before going out for a Bia Hoi or 6, some good food and then a few more Bia Hois. It didn't matter if we got trashed, cos tomorrow we were off to see a couple more museums, but these we were expecting to be pretty run of the mill. Speak soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx