Children of The Revolution

Distance Traveled:   29,100 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H-L)

Time Difference: -10 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack: None at the moment

Currently Inspired by: There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness. - Dalai Lama

Stacks:  No major ones, although I went for a million skids in the Forbidden City as they have flagstones everywhere that are covered in moss and also in Hanoi I think I nearly got hit by about a hundred cars.  Thankfully they are all almosts.  There was a very funny stack in this house on Christmas Day but I don't know if the person involved would like me to publicise it ;)

 

The entrance to the Citadel

My last blog left off in Hue, where it rained almost constantly for my entire trip.  On my last evening there I went out for dinner with Cam and a very very funny New Zealand couple that he had met earlier that day and who had us in stitches for most of the night.  On my last day in Hue, I decided to actually go out and do stuff rather than farting around waiting for nice weather, so Cam and I trekked off to the other side of the city and visited the Citadel, home of the Flag Tower and the Purple Forbidden City, which is an incredible Chinese imperial palace built around six hundred years ago for the emperor.  There are several buildings within the city, each one more ornate and impressive than the last.  It takes a good hour and a half to walk around it, and I was very glad that I got to see it.  The walk there and back is quite interesting also, as there are many large and well maintained buildings on the city streets.  This is where I said goodbye to Cam, as I headed up north and he went to meet up with some other friends for Xmas and New Year.  For pictures of Hue and the Forbidden City, click here.

I took a sleeper train to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam and the heart of communism in the country.  The train was... err... rustic, let’s say, and its feet smell had the unfortunate tendency to flash me back to my trip on the Oldest Bus In The World.  I was in a four berth sleeper, top bunk, and as there were only two of us in the berth at the start of the trip I bribed the conductor with $5 to let me have the bottom bunk and to make the later arrival take the top.  This may sound bad but really it’s just business as usual in Asia, and the guy who came later (a communist soldier in full regalia, I was dismayed to note) was, fortunately for me, happy to take the top bunk.  I had brief and vivid flashes of being locked up in a Vietnamese prison for years without trial but of course everything was fine.  What was not fine, however, was my Slovakian berthmate.  I don’t know how we even got onto the topic, but it turns out that he is everything I despise in Western men who come to Asia – an Asian woman chaser.  At the very very far end of the spectrum, it must be said. He goes onto websites and finds girls that are looking for a western man to take care of them and then gets into relationships with them, so it’s not like he’s EXACTLY supporting the sex trade, even though these relationships are really transactional in nature. He married his second Asian wife when he was 39 and she was 17.  So everything about his behaviour is really borderline, in my opinion.  I tried not to be judgmental (to his face anyway) and just adopted an expression of open curiosity to which he responded quite eagerly, as though he was keen to talk to someone about it.  

He made several statements that I disagreed with (eg. how lots of the girls in the sex trade in Asia really enjoy what they do and aren’t forced or pressured into it and would rather do it than get an education or do anything more “respectable” and also that “everyone in a relationship is using the other person for something anyway, it might as well be money or sex”) however due to the fact that we were in forced close quarters for the next twelve hours I managed to hold my tongue until he said the following two things 1. “I actually prefer Japanese or Chinese women, but Thai women are just easier to get” and 2. “All these feminists that have a problem with this kind of thing are just ugly women that can’t get a man”.  I still didn’t go off as much as I wanted to, for the reason previously stated, but I let my feelings on the topic be known quite without any room for misunderstanding, soon after which we both said our goodnights and retired to our bunks, for which I was profoundly grateful.  Unfortunately sleeping in a narrow, five foot five long bunk surrounded by three snoring men (one of whom was a hideous, creepy chauvinist) and an ancient, clanking train is reasonably difficult and I arrived in Hanoi, cranky, crumpled and bleary at around 5.30am the next day.

My cabin on the Eclipse

I had booked a two day, one night boat trip out on Halong Bay and they were picking me up from my hotel at 8.00am.  When I arrived there that morning the hotel staff very kindly allowed me to use a spare room to have a shower and a quick nap before the pick up (as I was not actually paying to stay there until the following night) and they also held onto my luggage so I could just take a day pack, for which I was profoundly grateful.  It takes about three and a half hours to drive to the Halong Bay docks from Hanoi, and I managed to sleep for most of that time as well, so by the time we arrived I was feeling human, thankfully.  Our boat, the Eclipse, was a lovely, if a little dated, vessel.  The rooms were fairly comfortably appointed and there was a comfortable sun deck up on top which offered an unobstructed view of the surroundings.  The boat had about ten double rooms but there were only a handful of us on there – a couple (I think they were Portugese) with their two incredibly well behaved children, a Swedish guy and a young American couple from San Francisco on their honeymoon, so it was intimate and quiet, which I very much enjoyed.  There were about another ten or so similar boats taking people out at the same time as we were heading and also we would pass them at times or drop anchor near them to explore the area.  There was one large boat with about forty young Australians on it who were drunkenly shouting and swearing and jumping into the icy water and basically making tits of themselves, and I was cross and embarrassed on their behalf until I had a flashback to my first OE and realised that I most likely would have been on that boat with them, doing the same thing :)

One of the 3,000 limestone islands

Part of the Sapphire Caves

Although the limestone isles which make up the most recognisable features of Halong Bay are really superb, for me the most beautiful part of the trip was our visit to the Sapphire Caves.  These are massive caves within one of the limestone islands.  We docked and walked up a million steps and then down into the labyrinth.  There were about four main caves.  I think our guide said in total that they spanned around 1,000 metres (I presume cubic?) and they were simply magnificent, like nothing I had ever seen in my life.  It is one of those places that you walk around with your head on a swivel and your jaw hitting your chest, like those clown heads at carnivals.  Unfortunately, my camera died about ten minutes into the boat ride from the docks, and as my charger was tucked safely away in my suitcase back in Hanoi, I was unable to take more than a few hazy shots of the limestone islands, which was very disappointing.  If you look here in my Hanoi / Halong Bay album,the photos I have included of the Sapphire Caves are from the internet.  I’m allowed to do that because I did actually go there.  Isn’t that the rule?  The food was delicious, the company was great, the staff were helpful and overall the experience was very good if a little overpriced, although I was worse for wear on the second day after staying up late with Jorgen (Swedish guy) and drinking more than half a bottle between us of an extremely potent rice vodka.  We certainly solved many of the world’s problems... if only I could remember the solutions!

I’m just going to say it – Hanoi is nuts.  It exists at this kind of frenetic pace that even seems to jump up a couple of notches at nighttime rather than calming down.  I know I said the traffic in Ho Chi Minh City was the worst but Hanoi makes HCMC appear calm and orderly.  There is definitely MORE traffic in Ho Chi Minh, and the roads are wider and appear scarier, but there are just absolutely no rules whatsoever in Hanoi, and bikes and cars scream around these tiny corners and cut in front of people, drive on the wrong side of the road, hop up on the footpaths and hoot and shout at each other constantly.   The noise is deafening, and the people are a lot more pushy and aggressive.  Don’t bother standing politely and patiently in line for something in Hanoi.  A local will simply push you to the side and get in front of you and start talking to the cashier.  You sometimes have to force your way to the front.  I was pretty exhausted by the time I got to Hanoi as Vietnam was so crazy and I spent so much time travelling overland between all these different towns that I didn’t really have the energy to deal with it.  Apart from a quick food forage I basically hid in my room the first afternoon and evening back from the boat and nursed my hangover, and then a horrible sewerage smell wafting into my room from god knows where drove me out into the streets on the second morning, which I was actually quite glad about, because it is a fantastic place to walk around and I wouldn’t have liked to have missed it.  Like most nation’s capitals, Hanoi has a profusion of government buildings however unlike most nation’s capitals, the buildings in Hanoi are really quite beautiful.  They look like large, stately homes with ornate detailing and lush grounds.  

There is a large lake in the centre of Hanoi with a circular path all the way around it, which would be a nice inner city oasis if there was any way of shutting out the incessant traffic noise.  It is really quite big.  I imagine walking at a decent clip (I ambled and stopped all the time) it would take about thirty minutes to circumnavigate.  This is the point at which I became lost because I failed to note any landmarks at the point at which I entered the circle and then had no idea where to get off it.  I mentioned I was tired – my last full day in Asia and I got lost for the first time!  I continued to stroll, figuring I would see something familiar eventually and became quite hungry so stopped into, purely by chance, the worst restaurant in Hanoi and possibly even all of South East Asia.  I spent an unhappy half an hour patiently chewing on pieces of beef flavoured gristle, surreptitiously spitting out a salad that had apparently been dipped in bleach, and quietly choking after biting into a large and unrecognisable piece of raw ginger.  To call their food bad would be like calling an English winter a bit cool.  Speaking of which... (see what I did there?)

LONDON!  Ahhh, how I’ve missed you.  After being awake for something like twenty two hours on taxis, trains, two planes and the tube I arrived, shivering and delirious to the station from where Mattie and his lovely housemate Romana came to pick me up.  I was so happy, just walking through Heathrow, sitting on the tube, and having everyone completely ignore me! I can’t even tell you how much the anonymity meant to me after three months of being a white giant devil in countries where staring (frequently while also picking one’s nose) is not considered to be rude in the least.  I am invisible here.  I could don an Indian headdress, a Frankie Says Relax t-shirt, a pair of pink wellies and nothing else, and dance around the high street, clucking like a chicken and weeing on lampposts without attracting a second glance from London’s jaded masses.  How wonderful it is to be back in the land of Marks and Spencer, chicken and bacon sandwiches, double decker buses and an extraordinary amount of cultural history in a relatively small area.  Even the house I’m staying in had a celebrity in it once – Marc Bolan of T-Rex fame grew up here, as the small plaque out the front commemorates.  Quite in opposition to the feeling in Asia, London feels like a place of endless possibilities, and is the perfect place for me to come and chill out, get hugs, and rebuild my mental defences before heading to Morocco, the part of the trip that I don’t mind saying is making me the most nervous.

Mattie and I on Xmas Day

Christmas was a fun day although didn’t really feel like Christmas at all.  We exchanged gifts in the morning and then ten of us went on for a late roast lunch at a local pub and came back here for more drinks, which quickly got very messy.  I was in bed by nine (as I am most nights – damn jetlag!) and since then have just been chilling out watching movies and going nowhere apart from quick dashes to the high street for supplies.  It’s been wonderfully relaxing, and I am getting my fill of hugs, which was precisely what I wanted.  You see some shenanigans here in my Xmas album.

So, I am flying to Marrakech on the 2^nd January, and my next blog will be from there.  I hope this one has provided a sufficient eulogy for the Asian part of my trip.  All at once confronting, beautiful, pathetic, rich, peaceful, harried, pushy, gentle and exciting, it has been an exceptional and unforgettable three months, and thanks to everyone who has come along and been sharing this journey with me!  I love your feedback and emails.  

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

I Am The Rain Goddess

Distance Traveled:   16,220 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA-H)

Time Difference: -3 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack:  Remember UB40? My local cafe in Hoi An played them, and sent me on a trip down memory lane and onto iTunes.  Great band.  And the lead singer was so hot, even with the bad 80s hair!

Currently Inspired by:  THIS

Stacks:   I don't know if what happened today counts - see blog content

It’s official.  After two weeks of solid daily rain in Vietnam I am prepared to declare myself a Rain Goddess.  I went to Thailand, and it flooded.  Clearly, I belong to the venerable ranks of such characters as lorry driver Rob McKenna.  The clouds love me!  They want to be near me, and cherish me, and water me.  I appreciate the sentiment and everything, but it’s kind of fucking with my shit. (Excuse the language, Aunty Monica!) 

I was so sad to leave Hoi An.  It’s just beautiful.  I extended my trip there and stayed for a week, mainly  so I could visit a street festival they have on the 14^th and 15^th of each month, only to find out on the 14^th that it was actually the 14^th and 15^th of the month using the Chinese calendar :-/ so I had actually arrived in Hoi An one day after it was actually on.  Help the tourists, people!  We don't use the Chinese calendar!  It didn’t matter though, I had such a wonderful time there.  There really isn’t enough to “see” and “do” in Hoi An for one week, if you are the type of traveller who likes to pack every day with touristy things, but I managed to fill most days with long strolls through the town, stuffing my face with the best food I’ve had since I left home and getting to know the area.  No writing.  I mentioned in my last blog when I had just arrived there that I thought it was very pedestrian friendly (relatively speaking) and that the people were an absolute delight, and that opinion on both counts only strengthened over my time there.  

I had a little local cafe called Solo Restaurant just opposite my hotel, run by a lovely lady call Han.  I got to know her a little because one evening she (mistakenly) thought that someone I was having dinner with was trying to hustle me, and while I was standing out the front having an icecream after dinner she came out and enquired about the situation, and said she was worried about me.  I do enjoy travelling on my own but you do have to be switched on and organised and all over everything all the time cause no one is going to take care of anything for you! And it can get quite lonely at times, particularly because I don’t go out and party like I did the first time I travelled. So to have a total stranger so unexpectedly looking out for me actually brought a tear to my eye.  She was so sweet and happy and a great cook, but I found out that she works there pretty much by herself because she can’t afford to hire someone, so she opens at 6am and works some nights until 2am if she has tourists wanting to stay and drink.  She waitresses, cleans, and does all the cooking.  She also has an eight year old daughter that she and her husband are paying to put through school who comes to the restaurant in the afternoons and the husband also works and then helps out when he can at the restaurant.  She said she hasn’t seen her parents (who live five minutes down the road) for a really long time because all she does and work and sleep, which made me really sad.  Families are a lot closer here.  Now if anyone would have an excuse to be tired and cranky and pissed off with her lot, I would say Han would be a candidate, but she was just always sunny and kind and seemed grateful for the fact that they had jobs and a roof over their heads.  I love meeting people like that.  It always puts things into perspective.  I won’t forget her.  If I’m ever in a position to offer a decent amount of help I will do it.  Even if it’s so she can hire someone for one or two days a week and have some sleep and see her family!

Some of the intact My Son buildings

The main touristy thing I did in Hoi An (apart from getting coats made) was a trip out to the My Son (meesohn)  ruins.  For those of you who didn’t see my furious facebook rant after I visited them, the brief history is as follows:  A series of Hindu temples built mostly to the God Shiva nearly two thousand years by the kings of Champa.  Older than Angkor Wat although not as massive or as beautifully preserved (which I am getting to), lost and then rediscovered by the French in the 1960s, who began to study the construction techniques which are still unknown.  The French decapitated a bunch of the statues and figures and took them back to France, where they are still on display in the Louvre.  Then also in the sixties the Americans received some (incorrect) intelligence that some Viet Cong were hiding out in the temples, and bombed the crap out of them.  This is the point at which they went from being the My Son Temples, to the My Son Ruins.  Some Viet Cong were actually in tunnels under the temples, apparently.  Now those thousands of years of Cham history are gone.  ANYWAY, I have banged about the American government enough lately, we all know what they’re like, they aren’t going to change.   

My Son surrounding area

Moving on...  It isn’t just the remaining temples that are beautiful in this spot.  The surroundings are breathtaking.  Apart from the temples the area seems pretty untouched.  There are gorgeous smelling wildflowers, a clear freshwater stream, huge trees forming natural canopies over paths and some rich green mountains looking down on the ruins.  It feels like a spiritual place.  I could have just sat on a chair and breathed for an hour or so, but unfortunately I was in a guided tour so there was a time limit.

Mother of pearl artisan

We caught a boat back to Hoi An and stopped at a village on the way that produces boats and predominantly wooden art.  We learned a little about boat making: I had no idea that they made the planks of wood hot with a huge fire in order to bend it into shape.  I guess it’s something that I never really thought about, but what a process, especially considering these guys didn’t have any massive pieces of machinery, and they were churning out boats several metres long.  They make the boats with eyes on either side of the front in order to protect them from sea gods or demons, not so the boat can see where it is going, a common misconception.  After that we visited some of the art shops and watched the artisans at work in them, carving statues out of wood and laying tiny shaped pieces of mother of pearl on a background to form a picture.  The guy who was doing the mother of pearl was sitting there with no shoes or gloves and a hand saw, picking up the tiniest pieces and carving into the shape of say, a leaf or a flower and then pasting it onto the board in place.  Every time he had his fingers close to that saw I cringed, but his dexterity was absolutely incredible.

What do you think I wished for?

The Hoi An waterfront at night really has to be experienced by everyone at least once in their lifetime.  It’s just so stunning.  All the shops all the way along both side of the canal string out lanterns in red, yellow, cream and these reflect on the water.  Even in the coldest weather I imagine it would feel warm there.  Vietnamese ladies sit by the water with candles inside brightly coloured paper “boats” with beautiful designs cut into them.  For fifty cents you can buy one, light it, make a wish and then set it afloat on the canal.  My new Canadian friend Cam and I tried a few places along the riverfront for dinner in our last couple of nights.  It’s a shame that photos can’t really do the area justice.  Oh well, you will just have to come and experience it yourself!  You can see more photos from the My Son ruins, the village and the waterfront by clicking here.

Cam and I both took the same Vietnamese cooking class along with a couple of Aussies and a couple of Poms.  It was fun and the people doing it with us were pretty cool, although it couldn’t really touch the experience I had in Thailand.  I had a feeling that that was one of the best ones you could do ANYWHERE.  We did spring rolls again, although they were quite different from the Thai ones I learned.  I do prefer the rice paper ones because they are thinner and crunchier, but the filling in the Thai ones was much nicer.  We also made a Pho – which is that ubiquitous noodle soup they have here, usually for breakfast.  It didn’t taste much like the Pho that I have bought, but I found it really delicious.  It was a beef one, and had ginger and pineapple and peanuts in it.  Delish!  Lastly we made a chicken with lemongrass stir fry which was quite tasty.  All in all I’m glad I had the experience, and I would be keen to try some more Vietnamese cooking at some point if I get the opportunity.  I have to be honest, as nice as everyone has been, I'd like to do a one on one class.  I'd also like to do all of the prep and stuff.  You can see photos of the dishes we made here in my food album, along with a french cake / pastry or two from the boulangerie in town. 

From Hoi An I caught the bus further north to Hue (about four and a half hours) and checked into my VERY nice hotel.  Having seen so many millions of hotels over the years I find most of them pretty unimpressive but this one is lovely.  I am going to miss this standard of accommodation once I have to start paying first world prices!  Hue (pronounced Hway) seems pretty cool.  It’s a fairly large city, but it still retains a friendly, comfortable atmosphere.  The people so far have been almost as genial as they were in Hoi An.  The big draw card here is the Citadel which contains a few palaces and the old Purple Forbidden City.  There are also a bunch of tombs and some temples.  I just can’t see any more temples.  I am leaving tomorrow night on the sleeper train to go to Hanoi but haven’t been to the Citadel yet, because the rain and cold is starting to daunt me a bit with regard to going out and also because yesterday I just felt lazy.  This morning I caught a taxi to the train station to buy my ticket on the sleeper and told him not to wait because I had no idea how long it would take, and when I got out there was nary a taxi to be seen.  So I just set out walking in the direction I thought it was back to my hotel and fortunately was correct.  It took about an hour to get back so, rather inadvertently, I got to walk along the river and see a nice bit of the city, and the clouds were taking a break in their worship of me so I got to do it without rain (it started raining about five minutes after I go back to the hotel!)  

Walking anywhere here is an adventure, but add rain, drooping power lines that are at Asian height to begin with and uncoordination into the mix and it becomes quite the challenge.  I was sort of skipping around large puddles and hopping on and off the road to avoid getting my sneakers wet, and there was a bit of black stuff sticking out of a puddle that I mistook for asphalt and stood on which turned out to be rotten leaves, so I ended up ankle deep in filthy water with my left foot.  I created my own soundtrack for the rest of the way back “Flap, Squelch, Flap, Squelch”.  I sincerely hope that it dries by tomorrow because nothing on God’s green earth could make me pack a damp shoe in my suitcase (I loathe even packing dry ones with everything else, they are all in a million plastic bags) and I may have to donate them to the universe, despite how expensive they were. :(  Fingers crossed!

Hue is known for having some good food, similar to Hoi An.  Everything I have had so far here has been good without being a taste explosion, so I may try a Lonely Planet recommended place tonight rather than just walking around aimlessly as per usual.  Tomorrow is sightseeing, depending on weather, followed by the sleeper train to Hanoi, then a two day one night boat trip around Halong Bay (Rain, as your Master, I Command you to stop for Halong Bay!!) then back to Hanoi for two more days of sightseeing and then London Town for 9 days, to partake of first world conveniences, stock up on stuff that I need, strengthen my mental defenses and get some serious hugs before heading to Morocco for two months.  So this is my last blog from Asia.  What a trip it is has been so far!  I’ve done some really amazing stuff, and am constantly surprised by how incredibly huge the world is.  There are a million more places on my tick list now.  I thought this trip would make the list smaller... HA. HA. HA.

Til Next We Speak

*LOVE*

N

Ahoi hoi!

Distance Traveled:   16,120 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC-TH-HA)

Time Difference: -3 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack:  I've been revisiting actual soundtracks lately.  The Crow - (How good is it??  I had forgotten.) Queen of the Damned, Dirty Dancing.  I gave The Wall another crack, but no improvement on the previous listening experience.

Currently Inspired by:  Am not inspired at the moment.

Stacks:   A doozy!  Trekking through the streets of Nha Trang after dinner one night in the pouring rain, I slipped on some wet tiles on the pavement and landed right on my butt...  In the middle of a fairly crowded street and out the front of a restaurant.  So embarrassing.  Thongs are great in the dry but in the wet they turn into bloody surfboards!  I injured my right foot and hobbled around for a couple of days, which was fairly inconvenient.  My pride was the most injured out of the experience.  And - a quick rant if I may - just about every hotel I've stayed in since I got here employs someone to CONSTANTLY sweep and mop the tiled areas, and as a result, the floors are always wet!  It's a friggin floor, how clean does it need to be?  At some point during just about every day I'm forced to shuffle the gauntlet over some slippery tiles and pray that I don't go arse over tit.  These cleaners are not my friends.  Am contemplating mass mop sabotage mission.

Words written:   I have hit a rough mental patch and done a large amount of deleting.  I won't update this again until I'm out of my slump.  Moving right along...

Just quickly, I realise that I said in my last blog that my trip down the Mekong was a bit "meh" in terms of the tour itself, however I completely forgot to mention the massive crocodiles!  They were awesome.  There is a link further down to some photos, they on there if you want to check them out.

I love the bizarre concept of time and distance they have here.  Every time I have travelled from one city to another I have asked the person doing the booking "How long will this take?" and the responses, without exception, have borne absolutely no relation to the actual time it has taken.  See the chart below:


From                To                       How Long? Answer                  How Long? Actually
Saigon              Ninh Chu              Three and a half hours                 Nine hours
Ninh Chu          Nha Trang            One hour                                    Two and a half hours
Nha Trang        Tuy Hoa               One and  half hours                     Three hours
Tuy Hoa           Hoi An                  Five hours                                  Eight hours            


Now I have relaxed A LOT since I left, but I mean... come on!  That's pretty inefficient.  And it's not like I was accosting random strangers on the street for the information - this was from the people who were booking tickets!!  I can tell you that it's a bit of a mental readjustment when you are prepared to get on a bus for a three and half hour trip and you find out ON IT, that it's going to be eight hours, and then it ends up being nine.  I should probably document this on TripAdvisor / Lonely Planet for the benefit of other travellers.  

Originally I intended to do the majority of my overland travel on trains in Vietnam, however the leg between Nha Trang and Tuy Hoa was a train job and it was too awkward with my big heavy suitcase.  I couldn't lift it it over my head to the racks (I doubt they would have held the size of it anyway) and it was difficult to maneouvre up and down the aisle.  I sat it next to me and hoped that no one had bought that seat (they are numbered and allocated) and thus was tense for most of the trip.  For the sake of convenience I shall take buses from hereon.  You see I'd love to just take a light backpack like everyone else but when I'm travelling for the amount of time I am through a bunch of different climates I need to be prepared and also I can't die from boredom wearing the same five outfits for a year or a pair of togs and a sarong.  Most of the bus experiences I have had since the foot-smelling, suspensionless bus have been comfortable and fine, although I've been the only non-Vietnamese person on them all, and everyone stares at me.  On the minibus from Tuy Hoa to Nha Trang there was a really excited guy who knew about thirty English words and spent the entire trip trying unsuccessfully to teach me how to say them all in Vietnamese.  I appreciated his efforts, but this language is an absolute jaw cracker!  I have to write everything down because I can't even pronounce the names of the towns or the hotels that I'm staying in, and if I try, I just get these blank looks.  Thank god they use the same alphabet as we do, cause I'd be screwed if I had to write in script, like Khmer.  The people here I have noticed tend to speak less English than people in Cambodia and Thailand, and when they do speak it they are much, much more difficult to understand.  I have had many language barrier issues here, and have learnt that just being patient and good humoured about it gets you a fair way.  80% of communication is non verbal anyway, and it's not their responsibility to learn my language, as I'm in their country.  I would know more Vietnamese, if it were easier to pronounce and understand!

View to the left from my Nha Trang hotel

Nha Trang is just so picturesque.  I was staying in a fifteen storey hotel across from the main beach (which was gigantic) and it had a pool on the roof which had a spectacular view of the curved bay, palm trees along the shore, mountain ranges behind the beaches and the few little islands just offshore.  I could have stood there and stared at it all day.  Unfortunately the north of Vietnam is experiencing an extended rainy season and it has rained almost all day every day since I left Ninh Chu, so over a week ago, and it's actually been quite cool as well, so no good for beach and pools.  An obvious side effect of this is a fading tan, which I noticed when a Vietnamese lady pointed out how much she loved my pale skin.  I doubt I'll be getting much of a tan in England over Christmas either.  I'm relying on you, Morocco!

There are photos of a couple of the little towns you can see by clicking here, but I'm afraid the ones of Nha Trang don't do it justice.  It's also funky and quite touristy, and as a result you get your fair share of hustlers. I was given to understand, the day after I arrived, that it's one of the hot spots for tourists getting robbed on the streets, or ripped off by tax drivers (I understand that Hanoi is also quite bad).  It made my previous night's solo street walkabout seem quite ill advised and I actually started to feel a little bit agoraphobic for the first time in the trip.  It had been building: Lots of people in Saigon were giving warnings all the time about not wearing shoulder bags and I met someone who was robbed by a taxi driver and left on the side of the road, and there were these annoying teenage boys surrounding me holding their hands out and they really ambush and corner you if they can.  They're older so they can seem a bit threatening, particularly in a gang.  One of them, pretending he was just holding his hand out for money, grabbed my breast which made me furious.  I pushed him away from me quite roughly (onto the road, accidentally, thank god he didn't get hit!) and gave him a death stare, and it was the first time I have been rude to a beggar or a tout since I got here no matter how pushy they are, but really.  In a couple of years if he did that it would be sexual assault, not that the police here would do anything about it.  So I didn't go out much more in Nha Trang, partly because I didn't feel comfortable there and partly because I couldn't walk properly and didn't fancy taking another spill in the rain. The place I did go was very cool however, and I do recommend it to anyone who goes there, it's called Crazy Kim's and they have a slogan "Hands Off the Kids!" Some of the profits from her bar and travel agency go towards the fight against peodophilia and sex trafficking of children so I was more than happy to support her place.  It was huge and had pool tables, dance floors, the works.  I presume that the younger travellers were out there partying on til the wee hours, unlike Nanna here who was home in bed by ten :D


After Nha Trang I headed to a very surreal little place called Tuy Hoa (I'm still not sure on the pronounciation but I think it's Twee Howah) also on the coast.  The only thing it boasted was a supposedly stunning stretch of beach that can be viewed from a high vantage point / lookout somewhere in the town, after a short climb.  I thought it sounded like a nice enough place to break up my trip north for a night or two and headed there, however the rain kinda wrecked things again.  Trip Advisor recommended this cafe that was supposedly to die for so I grabbed a map and my poncho and went for a walk, only to discover that it didn't exist anymore, in fact no cafe or restaurant or anything at all existed.  It's just not a tourist town at all, and I was definitely the only white person that I saw for the entire time I was there.  It seemed like I was also the most exciting thing to happen to Tuy Hoa in a while, because while walking the streets I was constantly tooted and shouted at by passing motorcyclists (in a friendly fashion, they were saying HELLO!) and when I passed a school, the madness had to be seen to be believed.  Every student in the school ran to the windows frantically shouting and smiling and waving at me, and when I waved back they absolutely screamed hysterically, jumped up and down, grabbed each other etc.  It was like being famous!  I just laughed and shook my head. As nowhere in the town was open I had to go and order food from the hotel, which proved to be a task and a half.  I went to the restaurant and said I would like to eat in my room (I hate eating by myself in big empty restaurants, and the several staff members there would just openly stare and stare at me the entire time which made me super uncomfortable).  Apparently the guy who takes orders wasn't there, so they asked me, largely through gestures and scribbles, to go to my room and call back down in a few minutes.  So I went up, waited, rang down, the guy who answered couldn't understand a word I was saying so he just hung up on me, so I went back downstairs again and finally ordered something from the manager, one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen and the only one there who spoke even a few words of English.  They were, however, all very sweet, and it made for an interesting experience.  I do like these glimpses of "real" life in other countries, where it isn't all about tourists and tourism.

White Rose

As soon as I got to Hoi An, I fell in love.  It just has a beautiful vibe here.  The people are the friendliest I have encountered so far in Vietnam, and a large percentage of them speak English.  Four out of every five shops is a tailor, which makes me concerned for their economy (aka Frogstar World B and their shoe shops for the Douglas Adams fans), and the food is to die for.  Best I've had since I left Australia.  One of their specialties is White Rose, which are these small steamed shrimp dumplings with the rice paper casing made to look like a flower.  They top them with deep fried crispy shallots.  To. Die. For, and they're about a dollar for six.  Also yesterday I was walking in the rainy weather and smelled that amazing sweet fried dough smell you get at carnivals, and bought something from the street vendor without even knowing what it was.  Turns out it was like a thin crunchy sweet pancake (tasted like it had honey in it) topped with thin battered slices of deep fried banana in turn topped with sesame seeds.  DROOOOL.  Of course it was just the worst thing I've ever eaten in my life, nutrition-wise, but bloody delicious.  Speaking of food, I realise that I have been neglecting my food album AND my 500 Kisses album.  I just keep forgetting about them!  I think I might have to let myself off the hook and just add as I remember.  The kisses may have to remain incidental, because I haven't remembered to take any photos for that project since I left the country, and it seems like a waste, because of all the people I've already met and kissed so far (on cheeks, people!)

If I had to describe Hoi An in one word, it would be "quaint".  I'm staying in the ancient town, about a twenty minute walk from the current town centre and every minute of it an absolute pleasure.  The footpaths are relatively clear, the roads are reasonably easy to cross within a couple of minutes, it's safe and clean, the buildings are sweet and interesting to look at, the motorcyclists and taxis seem to follow some semblance of road rules... well, most of them do.  Let's say three fifths of them do ;)  It all adds up to it being about 95% more pedestrian friendly than Ho Chi Minh City, at any rate.  There is also draught beer being sold at a local cafe for 15 cents per glass, so... I'm moving in, basically.  I have extended my stay here until Friday because I feel like settling somewhere for a minute.  The constant packing and repacking is getting on my nerves.  Also, on Thursday they close off the min city centre streets to traffic and set up food stalls and lanterns and all sorts of stuff for a street / food festival type thing, so I don't want to miss that!  They do it every month apparently.


I've got two coats being made for me, one off a Burberry design and one off an Asos design, so I'm very excited, and in fact I just got back from my third fitting.  They should be ready tomorrow, and then I am armed and ready to take on England!  Look out London, I'm there in eleven days... eeeeek!


Til Next We Speak
*LOVE*
N