VIETNAM 25/11/11 - 15/12/11

As we are so far behind, (We're in China, it's the 9th Jan) I'm gonna race through Vietnam like a local bus driver buzzing off red bull and rice whiskey, who's forgotten about the 40 dozing tourists aboard and getting off on the rush of overtaking on blind corners around mountainous bends and charging into oblivion.

Ho Chi Minh City 25/11/11

The first thing that you notice in HCMC is the scooters - they are EVERYWHERE. Upon leaving the city they should issue every tourist with a t-shirt bearing the slogan;

"I crossed the road in Ho Chi Minh City and survived." (assuming you did of course…)

In South East Asia scooters and mopeds are the main form of transport and in many towns, outnumber the cars 10-1 (at least). They are viewed in an entirely different light to the way we see them. In Asia they are more than just a cheap means of getting from A to B, or a stepping stone to getting a car, they are THE means of transporting anything from your kids (and not just one, but the whole family, plus yourself), to your livestock (of course they don't worry about the hygiene of such a task, just get it there). Basically as long as it can be strapped down, NOTHING is too big to transport on the back of a scooter. A ladder fully extended? No problem. A full-length mirror? No problem. 100 crates of squawking birds? No problemo….I can probably fit your nan on too.

In most parts of Asia, scooters act as a means of public transport as-well. We first saw this in Bangkok with smartly dressed office ladies, perched ever so delicately side saddle behind a helmeted (sometimes) driver and being whisked through the traffic choked streets.

We're not sure if they have to pass any kind of driving test or not, as there appears to be no rules of the road - just drive, beep and swerve, drive, beep and swerve. Traffic lights? Maybe we'll stop…..maybe we won't. There also appears to be no age limit - in Laos, I'm fairly sure we saw kids driving themselves to and from school.

In Ho Chi Minh, the SHEER VOLUME is PHENOMENAL. And as there is so much traffic, there is so much pollution. The drivers all wear face masks, like the surgical masks that you see doctors and nurses wearing, except here they are de rigueur and have become a fashion accessory with different frilly patterns and comic characters. Which kind of makes them look like a character from Mortal Kombat, and just a bit silly.

The thing that really gets under my skin here in Vietnam though (and something we haven't really seen elsewhere yet) is the sheer danger and irresponsibility of the driving. They drive on the pavement, they drive with no lights, they drive headlong into oncoming traffic, they drive at pedestrian crossings when people are on the road - sometimes they do all of these things at once! (And in China the bikes are SILENT! Horrible electric scooters that sneak up behind you in the dark with no lights and no warning - VERY bloomin' irritating...................)

So to cross the road in Vietnam requires a blind leap of faith - literally. The other thing is, hell will freeze over before you get a break in the traffic, so you have to make a move eventually. The traffic won't stop, but it also won't run you over. Most of the time. It takes a little getting used to, just stepping out into the sea of beeping scooters and walking a steady pace while the constant traffic flows around you like a river. So long as you don't make any sudden moves or stop, you should be fine.…..

HCMC is dirty, dingy and cramped - and that was just the hostel. It was located in the middle of a maze of narrow alleyways running behind buildings that faced out onto the main street. Our first real experience of close-knit compartmentalised city dwelling was kind of what I expected S.E Asia to be like actually.

After the emotional trauma of Cambodia, the last thing we needed was the graphic horror of the War Remnants Museum….but we went anyway. They paint a very one-sided vivid picture of the atrocities of war and make a very strong point of how much the country and its neighbours were bombed and suffered during the American (Vietnam) war. A colourful (read macabre) exhibition of the effects of 'Agent Orange' occupies one floor of the museum and also serves as a berating reminder that the effects of A.O continue long after the first generation have passed on. It is a visual assault of contorted bodies, limbless babies, conjoined twins, extreme elephantitis and children born with such abnormal birth defects that "normal" life is near impossible.

Dalat 28/11/11

Don't go to Dalat. Unless you have oodles of time to kill and a penchant for crap nothing towns. En route to Dalat there are beautiful views and a surprising proportion of Christian and Catholic churches. There is an interesting market, but they are everywhere in Asia anyway. We went on a laughable city tour to see the "sights" - talk about scraping the barrel to fill a day. And it's cold. Oh, and did I mention my beard? I started growing it at the end of October to remember 'Movember', it's coming along slowly, but by God, it's really itchy….is that normal?

Nha Trang 30/11/11

We should be used to the kamikaze style driving of SE Asian bus drivers by now, but it still makes for a nail-biting ride every time you venture into a bus with one of these death wish drivers. Our journey to Nha Trang was done in half the time thanks to this insane method of driving round the mountainous roads.

Nha Trang is touristy, sunny, and has over-expensive tours. We even manage to get ripped off by a decrepit cyclo driver who agreed to take us to Long Son Pagoda. He huffed and wheezed through the chaotic traffic to get both of us to the other end of town, only for him to double the price by the tine we got back.

We ate dinner one night at the fantastic "Patricks" - a narrow venue selling Breton cuisine. The place was tiny, packed to the rafters and thoroughly entertaining with loud gregarious groups of foreigners, a Filipino playing western cover versions and a brilliantly friendly and welcoming host. An inspiration.

The 4 islands boat trip on the other hand was an exercise in pointless tourism. Katy splashed around in the sea wearing a skanky looking snorkel whilst I sat on the pretty beach wondering why we'd paid extra to sit here given that the toilets were so hideous. It was mildly amusing for half an hour after lunch when they provided the "entertainment" - a crusty old codger playing a battered guitar and a bored looking youth banging away on an even more beaten up drum kit, whilst the "crew" (a bunch of wayward delinquents) set about shrieking into a microphone whilst another dressed in drag and walked around touching the old men. It was like a warped Butlins nightmare.

To leave Nha Trang, we were booked on a sleeper bus. This is a horrible episode from start to finish. Rude and non-communicative staff. Long waits on the pavement. Cramped and dangerous seating conditions once on the bus. Imagining all sorts of horrors should we crash. Nightmare. Avoid if possible.

Hoi An 2/12/11

Hoi An is full of antiquated charm with streets full of beautiful old colonial houses now serving as over-priced, but tourist friendly hotels, bars, cafes and restaurants. All of these houses are prettily decorated with colourful paper lanterns - and with the conical hats of the locals bobbing past, it presents a picture perfect Vietnam.

We spend our time here exploring the maze of temples and ancient houses in the rain. Hoi An is a great place for shopping, should you have the desire and the finances to do so. However, it does have one major irritation. Here more than anywhere else, we have been accosted by people offering help, but who ultimately want you to buy something from their shop. And me, being the friendly polite sort, always gets sucked in. It goes something like this;

Local: "Hello! Where you from?"

Me: "Hello! London!"

Local: "Ah, England! Velly Beautiful. Where you going?"

Me: "We're trying to find (insert temple name)"

Local: "Ah, go this way (insert directions). Now you look in my shop and buy sometheeng?"

Me: "Er, no thankyou…."

Local: "Ok, maybe later you buy my something?"

Me: "Er, yeah, ok, maybe later…"

What happened to helping for the sake of being nice?!?

Other highlights of Hoi An include the local delicacy of Rose Dumplings. Sounds like a dodgy panto character, but they're exceedingly tasty.

We also paid a visit to My Son - a cluster of 4th Century brick temple ruins. It was raining again. Actually it sounds a bit rubbish when put like that……

Hue 5/12/11

Cyclo drivers in Vietnam are as annoying as tuktuk drivers in the rest of Asia. For some reason Vietnam has no tuktuks - we're not sure why.

The awesome Hue Citadel was visited on a self guided tour after ignoring said cyclo drivers. We paid for a 'Perfume River' tour to see the Emperors tombs, which again were awesome. Minh Mang Tomb could be our favourite small structure in the whole of Asia so far, it's so serene and the place is beautiful - what I would expect an Asian temple to look like (prior to coming here of course). Khai Dinh Tomb is magnificent in a different way - sombre intricate stone carvings on the outside and the most delicate and colourful porcelain mosaics on the inside. Tu Doc tomb is rather run down and not as nice as the first two being built mostly of brick and concrete, but has nice grounds surrounding it.

Otherwise though, Hue is a bit dull.

Hanoi 7/12/11

Our stay in this claustrophobic, chaotic and charismatic city is broken up by visits to Halong Bay and Sapa in the north of Vietnam.

Halong Bay has beautiful karst scenery, with enigmatic limestone cliffs jutting out from the water, beautiful caves and traditional Chinese junks sailing amongst this dramatic and romantic setting. At least that's what the postcards told us. When we went it was cloudy and overcast - we could just about make out some shapes looming in the haze. This was after being told by our cheery guide that we had paid double what the visitors last week had paid, thanks to the bays newly awarded status on the list of "7 Natural Wonders Of The World".

We stayed overnight on one of the boats and partook in that most famous of Asian past-times - a night of karaoke…yep. I can barely remember the evening due to vast quantities of 'Hanoi Beer', but there is video evidence of me torturing P.P Arnold's "Angel Of The Morning"….to my shame.

Sapa was a last minute addition to our itinerary, and a definite highlight of our trip to Vietnam. We stayed overnight at a hotel in Sapa town, which in itself was not very interesting, save for the goofy little old lady who stood outside in the freezing cold, beaming a smile of bright white dentures and bounced up and down, waving at us every time we walked past her stall of soft drinks and snacks. She was great, but Sapa town was dull; with nothing but a Catholic church, a market, a curious café-bar done out in mock Tudor ye-olde-English-pub-style and plenty of guesthouses, restaurants and gift shops.

On both mornings we were met by our guide, a young girl named "Chu" who would lead us through the streets of Sapa town down towards the valley and the villages nearby. The views were obscured by heavy mist and fog, but as the day drew on, the clouds would make way to reveal stunning scenery of steep rice terraces leading down to the valley floor. Accompanying the group of tourists descending the path were several colourfully dressed locals from the villages. They would be wearing traditional dress of black dress with patterned hems, brightly checkered scarves on their heads and on their backs they carried a woven basket.

As we ambled along, some of these villagers would chat to you in broken English and would wait for you as you took photos so as not to lose sight of the rest of the group. The attention is a bit discomforting at first, and given our recent experiences of pushy Asian selling, we're quietly suspicious. By the 2nd day though, Katy has been accompanied by a woman called "Bo" who walked by her side for the whole way down to her village. They were chatting to each other and asking each other questions about their respective lives and we began to enjoy the interaction. Of course as soon as the local women had escorted their charges to the valley floor and to the village for lunch, then the selling machines sprang into action - the seemingly empty baskets they had been carrying on their backs magically turned into a Mary Poppins-esque bottomless supply of handicrafts, woven bags, colourful blankets, hats and bracelets.

The villages we visit on this trip provide a glimpse of rural Vietnam that we would have otherwise missed. Naturally, the villagers of these hill-tribes are savvy to tourists and much of their daily lives are now centred on that growing opportunity, but it is satisfying to see that they work with it rather than depend on it.

Back in Hanoi we visit the Confucianist Temple of Literature, get stared at and end up having my photo taken awkwardly with a couple of guys, buy a new net-book, encounter a weird Belgian who freaks us out a bit, visit St Josephs Cathedral - a rather plain edifice, but it's nice to see some stained glass windows after all this time, and drink Weasel coffee. Weasel coffee is so named because the creature scours the forest floor and somehow sources the finest beans, eats, digests, then passes them out, whereby they are collected, ground and drunk. It has a rather distinctive and very strong flavour to say the least, plus the added novelty factor of the story behind the product. Apparently this stuff sells for hundreds of pounds in posh department stores and hotels in the UK and US. Locals play badminton in the streets or a strange kicky-uppy game using a weighted colourful shuttlecock type device. Barbers set up shop on the street, using a tree to hang a mirror from whilst the rest of the tools of their trade lie scattered about them.

The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was a weird experience……Full of pomp and self importance, it's a palaver getting in and pisses me off with its rules and overly antagonising security procedures - it's almost as bad as the U.S embassy. Once inside the big grey columned monument though, you get ushered in single file by the white uniformed guards up the red carpeted steps into the cool dim interior and walk into a room with Ho's embalmed body lying on a small four-poster bed in the centre on a plinth. There are guards posted around the edges and a hushed reverence inside as you slowly shuffle past the body and wonder "Is it real?" (They do a good line in imitation wax works we've noticed in this part of the world - most temples have a freakish life-sized likeness of some famous Bodhisattva or other)

We emerge on the other side of the building and now I realise what all the fuss was about at the entrance. Ho Chi Minh is a fairly important dude in Vietnam's history - after all, they did name a city after him….

So, in summation, Vietnam was probably not our favourite place - largely due to the snorting, gobbing, often rude people shouting a dialect that sounds harsh and abrasive, like they're in one continual argument. You get the feeling that they just can't be bothered to deal with you - which is sad, 'cause it's a lovely place really. If you're getting a tour in Vietnam, you could do much worse than arranging it with the Sinh tourist café though, who are possibly the most organised team in Asia…..

The cuisine in Vietnam was disappointingly bland, apart from the spring rolls (fresh or fried) which are great everywhere and you must try the Pho (pronounced fer), a noodle soup with heaps of fresh veg ingredients and usually a beef or chicken base. Again, dirt cheap and best tried at a roadside café.

The traffic is a continual battle of course, but there is less rubbish than the rest of SE Asia and things for the most part are a little more organised and civilised. Apart from Vietnam Airlines at Hanoi airport who manage to make Ryanair look like a pleasurable experience…

Let's see what Hong Kong has to offer…..

Dean x