CRISPINDOTORG

January 05, 2008

Day 16 - Ha Long Bay

Another long drive
We had originally booked to go to Halong Bay on the Emerude which is a large boat with a distinctly deco feel about it - the website and pictures looked great, and while it was expensive we were happy to go with a quality experience. However on arriving in Vietnam we realised that I had stupidly booked it for the day we flew out, meaning we would have to change the flight home or cancel - so we cancelled. Our hotel the Hanoi Elegance were keen that we did go and they booked us on the Bhaya which was a little cheaper but “highly recommended”! So we took the car back on the suicidal roads and drove 3 hours to Halong City where we were dropped to wait for other passengers and the tender to take us aboard our boat.

The Bhaya

The cruise itself is fairly simple and from what I understand it is replicated by most cruise operators you cruise a small part of the bay and islands, you visit the “Secret Cave”, you climb the mountain, you do some kayaking, you eat some food, you watch the sun set, you watch the sun rise, you cruise some more, you return to base.

Secret Cave - discovered by the French in 1901

It was magic - there is no other description for the place, it has an incredible serenity with calm waters, beautiful surrounds and amazing light. We kayaked, we swam, we jagged for fish and I took about 900 photos of the changing light some of which I will include here.

dawn

tai chi

Posted by crispin at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)

January 04, 2008

Day 15 - Ha Noi

Dogs, Frogs and Chopping Boards
Hanoi is the most cosmopolitan city we visited, and possibly for this reason many people seem to make it the first place they arrive in Vietnam and migrate south, rather than the northern approach we took. In the old quarter where we were staying there is a focus on tourism, mostly of the backpack variety, this is not all about the glamour traveller - yet. But while there is this focus on tourism, there is also an incredible local community that live there largely as they have for decades, sure there is some technology change but much is the same. The streets of the old quarter are largely named after the the trade that takes place there, for instance there are streets that sell goldfish, others that sell, joss sticks and paper money, another that has people making things out of tin (like the large tin letter box we purchased) - the street our hotel was on features people who make grave stones. They do this principally with marble and they cut them with grinding stones (in the street - from early in the morning till late at night) and then fill in the pertinent details and add a photo or etched picture of the deceased, its quite artistic if a little noisy - still the grinders made a change in noise from the bike and car horns.

Hazy Lake

Our street also had numerous street food vendors who interestingly changed during the day, one lady would set up around 6am and make some kind of rice breakfast thing in a banana leaf till about 10am and then she would go, others catered to the lunch trade and others still set up for dinner from around 6pm. The amazing thing was the level of set up some of these portable restaurants would go to, setting up burners and wood fired stoves, small tables and signs.

Food in the street

Dogs...!

Friday morning we got up and headed out of the hotel looking for breakfast, somewhere different so we wandered down to the lake and ate at the café that is along side it looking over to the tortoise pagoda and the island - the coffee was incredibly strong and we ordered the local version with sweet condensed milk.

We wandered on alongside the lake where we again saw the man who sells goldfish on the back of his bicycle and met an Australian who had been in Hanoi for 15 years and married a local. We wandered on through the streets of Hanoi with him listening to the stories of expat life in Viet nam - which led us to Hanoi's oldest market (right near the old jail known as the Hanoi Hilton) here we saw plenty of dog and other treats being prepared for sale, we were the only non vietnamese in the market and this is where we found the chopping board, some would say the buying a 3kg chopping board in the morning and then carrying it around Hanoi on foot to be foolhardy, but that is what we did.

Temple of Literature

We continued our trip onto the Temple of Literature one of the nicest buildings in Hanoi and surprisingly one of the only temples open in Hanoi we spent a few hours wandering around before continuing our trip. We made it to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum to find we had arrived on one of the days it is closed, so we took some photos (with our chopping board) and continued our walk slowly back to the hotel via the market.

Outside Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum with the chopping board

We had decided as this was our last night in Hanoi that we should splurge and go for a fancy dinner at the Metropole - the oldest and flashest hotel in Vietnam. So we frocked up and caught a cyclo down there, the cyclo rider had little english and decided that he needed to give us a tour of the old quarter before taking us to the Metropole so we took a lazy ride around town seeing most of the streets we had seen before and a few we had missed - actually it was a lovely experience.

The Metropole has 3 restaurants, one Vietnamese, one French and one more of a Cafe, we decided on the french restaurant which turned out to be one of the best meals either of us had ever eaten any where. We had foie gras, lobster, duck, truffles, you name it we had it and it was absolutely fantastic but then it would want to be with a bill of $370 USD (nearly 20 times the average dinner bill of $20).

pictures to come once they are uploaded!

Posted by crispin at 03:09 PM | Comments (0)

January 03, 2008

Day 14 - Ha Noi

Today we shopped
Its not so much that there is a lot of stuff in Ha Noi that you haven't seen all over the rest of Vietnam, maybe it is because we are coming towards the end of the trip, or we have a better handle on the money or whatever, today we further got into the swing of it buying all sorts of things from DVD's to replica Zippo lighters, to a letterbox, to more watches! I even found the jacket I have been looking for - we found presents for people and I managed to buy the digital camera that Rhonda wanted a little cheaper here than at home.

Silk Purses in the Markets

Vietnam is a cheap holiday we have spent much less than we budgeted, there are a few traps but it is so easy to come here and have a great time on a modest budget and I think we have done incredibly well. Our hotel the Hanoi Elegance boasts a 2 star price for a 3 star feel and that is all true with our deluxe room coming in at $55 per night!

We have another day here then we are going out on Ha Long Bay before we head home.

Posted by crispin at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2008

Day 13 - Ha Noi

We packed up and left the grandure of La Residence, and our driver hurtled through the Hue traffic to the airport to catch the daily flight to Ha Noi. The Hue airport is probably the same size as Avalon or Coolongatta (not big) and the process of ticketing was unbelievably slow, however we were not in a hurry and the lounge was hardly a place to truly relax. it featured 200 plastic chairs facing forward with a big LCD screen TV in the middle (turned off) and a small flickering colour TV which was some horrible vietnamese talk show shouting out at the room. We had a good flight and were met by our driver and taken to our new hotel the Ha Noi Elegance Hotel - where they had done a lovely job of welcoming us in. This hotel is right in the middle of the old quarter and our room has a small balcony that over looks the road chaos, amazingly its not too noisy, the traffic starts around 6am but maybe we are just used to the constant horns now?

Ladder Man

Fresh Chicken - killed & chopped up while you wait

We went down to the Hanoi Press Club for lunch and wandered around the lake looking for the mythical 200 year old tortoise said to reside there then we partook in the local custom of Hoi Bia, which is fresh beer served on the foot path in basic plastic chairs so close to the curb that the you can reach out and touch the traffic. The Beer is fresh daily with no preservative and so it is really cheap and the locals and tourists sit together seeing out the early evening, watching the various food stalls set up for an evening dining session. It is quite amazing to see how these mini restaurants that feature little more than a small fire some plastic stools and a tray of basic ingredients set up for the morning, lunch time and evening trade, each has a slightly different dish that they feature, few offer lots of choice - but they are very popular.

we had dinner at the 69 Cafe which is just around the corner from our hotel, the food was excellent, the service however was terrible and incredibly slow, it took an hour for our meal to come and we had to ask for the bill 3 times!

roses for sale in the market are often individually wrapped in newspaper

Posted by crispin at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)

January 01, 2008

Day 12 - Hue

Wet, Wet, Wet

today was ridiculously wet, we got up early and headed out on a tour of the tombs, first by boat, then by car and then by foot. There are 13 tombs around Hue all of them open for viewing by the public, but given the conditions we determined that we should visit the 4 most popular. The first tomb we arrived at was Thien Mu which is recognised by its striking Pagoda which looks over the Perfume River, our boat pulled in alongside 30 other tourist boats and we whipped up the stairs. Thien Mu has a huge bronze bell (cast in 1710) which supposedly can be heard 10km away, the pavilions are home to young monks who tend to the gardens, the temple and the tomb.

We proceeded on to the tomb of Minh Mang which is an impressive complex of beautiful lakes and gardens with a series of temples and pagodas which involve climbing steep steps as you pass over the undulated ground - finally arriving at a walled tomb where the emperor can enjoy the vistas!

We left Minh Mang in the rain and continued to Khai Dinh, which is a lot smaller and is built on hillside rather than in opulent garden surrounds, however what is lost in the gardens is made up for in the amazing temple which has walls covered in illustrations constructed of broken glass and china - a remarkable fresco that covers each wall and the ceiling.

Finally we ended up at the tomb of Tu Duc which is considered to be the most elegant of the tombs, it was also the most slippery, with lethal paths that followed around the expansive gardens, the various temples for his concubines, wives and mother during his life he was said to have preferred the tomb complex to the palace and spent much of his time there even building a theatre complex as grand as the one in the Citadel itself. Later when he died Tu Duc had all those involved in his burial executed to keep his final resting place safe from future desecration (comforting note!).

We returned to La Residence soaking wet and feeling that we had given it everything and not letting the Hue weather get in our way.

Posted by crispin at 07:28 PM | Comments (0)

December 31, 2007

Day 11 - Hue

The Citadel
We got up a bit late and waited out the first down pour of rain, then jumped on our rented bicycles again with a new found confidence headed off to the citadel, the guide books had said allow a couple of hours but after looking at the size of the place we had allowed most of the day and it was a good thing we did - the place is huge. We decided to hire a guide to take us around the first part through the various palaces of the royal court, Hue was the capital of Viet Nam for about 150 years, in that time they had 15 Emperors each of whom held rule over the country with a collection of Mandarins. It is quite a fascinating history, especially when you realise that this is relatively recent history (1700's-1945) and that the French ruled Viet Nam for much of that time.

We wandered around the temples, in the purple forbidden city (home to the monarch and his 500 concubines, and his mother - no other men were permitted!), we were amazed at how much has been destroyed both by battle (the french Indochine Wars, and the 'American' War) but also because the government originally decreed the site to be not of value as it reflected the feudal lords of the past.

After traipsing over every inch of the Citadel's inner sanctum, we returned to the nice man who was looking after our bikes for 10,000 VND and we cycled back to La ReSidence exhausted and starving - after waiting for lunch at about 4pm we went to the Hotel Spa for a Swedish Massage - an hour of relaxation before the “Party”.

New Year's Eve
To understand the experience of NYE in Hue you need to get a picture of the hotel we are staying in - think of a grand deco style similar say to the Hydro Majestic in the Blue Mountains, it has been renovated impeccably with no expense spared, beautiful gardens an enormous swimming pool big rooms and suites looking over to the perfume river and the Citadel, but the Vietnamese seem to be challenged in getting it quite right, so everything is a bit rough - the service is very keen to be good but actually quite intrusive and often chaotic - its all done in good humor and that is how New Year's Eve went. So we started with champagne in the foyer over looking the beautifully lit gardens and we then went through to the dinning room which was laid out to support a buffet to suit every nationality, what ever they eat, the entertainment was a duet from the Philippines an incredibly dodgy combo called Soul Sensation, who were interspersed with a fashion parade and one of the waiters breakdancing! Fireworks were banned in Vietnam a few years ago so there was none of that. We shared our table with a Finnish couple and their 6 year old son, an older French couple and some Australians (well Melbournians who have migrated to Whale beach). The company was great and it was a really enjoyable night - I have a video of one of the hotel guests singing a duet with the Soul Sensations that you really need to see.

Posted by crispin at 02:16 AM | Comments (0)

December 30, 2007

Day 10 - Hue

Travel day Hoi An to Hue
We left Hoi An in a huge down pour of rain, it was literally bucketing down and our little hotel had to serve breakfast inside by the pool rather than out on the back deck over looking the paddy fields. As we had collected all of our shopping purchases, (clothes and shoes) we needed to send some stuff home so the hotel arranged a friendly man from the Hoi An post office to come and bring us a box, pack our stuff up and send it all home Air Mail - not cheap but much better than the excess baggage costs! As I watched the man put the box on the back of his scooter and ride away, I sat wondering if we will actually see the clothes arrive at the other end - but not to worry I have his gmail address!

The drive to Hue from Hoi An takes you back past Danang and we decided a quick trip up the Marble Mountains might be good, actually it was still drizzling down but we felt we should be out seeing the sights, so we climbed the steep, slippery, marble steps up the mountain - at the top there are a series of pagoda's and temples which lead further into temples in Caves in the mountains - it was actually quite fantastic and we were really pleased to have taken the effort, the feeble light that came into the cave made the experience even more serene. The Vietnamese are interesting in that they seem to pray to lots of gods as well as the elders, the fact that many of the religions seem to get a bit mixed up is not something they worry about, Buddhist temples are often beside Hindu temples and sometimes a temple will contain both Buddhist and Hindu artifacts.

We returned down the marble mountain steps past the thousands of people ready to sell you a carved marble something or rather - what is quite amazing is that they will ship you anything there to Australia for $60 per square meter!

We continued our drive on to Hue through the Hai Van pass and all the way into town to our new hotel La Residence. This is a big hotel built around a french deco theme, the building sits on the edge of the Perfume River and looks out towards the walled Citadel and Emperors Forbidden City. We wolfed down a club sandwich and rented some bicycles heading out to investigate the town, Hue is a more of a city than a town, and this was our first time actually in command of a vehicle while in Vietnam and Eve is not particularly confident on a bike, but we both had a fantastic time riding around (even if all the temples we visited were closed) we peddled all around the town then over the river and visited the markets (another opportunity for a watch) and on around the citadel. The rain had stopped so we really had a great time of it - when you ride past the locals they think it is hysterical to see a couple of white tourists riding around on bikes - all the kids say hello!

The outside walls of the inner city within the Citadel

We came back to the hotel and took a swim in the amazing L shaped swimming pool exhausted with the day.

Posted by crispin at 05:49 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2007

Day 9 - Hoi An

Today we cooked.
quite literally we went to Miss Vy's cooking school, we were up early and walked back down from our hotel to the old part of town - we passed a gallery that is run by deaf people, which had some great photo's we purchased some of the works which were amazing and quite cheap. Then on to the Morning Glory Restaurant and Cooking School - Miss Vy arrived though she was a little un-sure why we would want a private lesson not being chef's, after settling that we did indeed want the private lesson we traipsed off to the markets, which was fantastic in that we got a very personal tour - how to tell a fresh egg, which herbs to buy and how to select a ripe chocolate pudding fruit.

Back to the restaurant with our purchases and we got into the cooking, which was fantastic and well worth the money - we cooked about 7 dishes and ate some as we went with the rest as a feast on completion of the class.

Then we walked back up to the hotel, stopping into the tailor to have a final fitting! Tomorrow we are off to Hue, based on the recommendation of other travellers I think we are going to skip My Son - it is fairly busy and we just don't have the time.

Relaxing at Cafe des Amis with a cold Larue - the only beer to drink in Hoi An and Danang

Posted by crispin at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2007

Day 8 - Hoi An

We have been here a week now and have seriously dropped into the swing of Viet nam - note the space, here it is two words like Ha noi and Sai gon - not the way we Westerners have been taught. After a very comfortable night at the Thein Than Hotel and a lovely breakfast out the back next to the pool and the paddies that run behind the hotel.

We decided to get the tailor stuff out of the way first, we took the advice of our hotel and went to Toto which is near by, not crazy busy and had a good range of fabrics. The experience took most of the morning with Eve buying a suit, jacket, shirts and various other things and me ordering two suits, a dinner jacket and 5 shirts - all this for $800 and we felt they were probably over charging us. We then went to a shoe store where they will copy any design and make it fit your feet exactly again after searching the catalogues and going through some exacting measurements we ordered 4 pairs of shoes for $150.

We wandered the shops and went to a number of the historic buildings, Hoi An has an annoying system that means you have to buy a set of tickets 5 entries to various places for 75,000 dong - quite expensive by relative standards. The annoying thing is you might want all of the temples, this ticket only lets you visit 1 temple - so you would need 5 sets of 5 tickets if you wanted to see all 5 temples! Actually the working temples were fantastic and free and there are plenty of them, it is also a pleasure walking down the narrow alley ways and looking into the houses to experience the local lifestyle.

We had a great lunch and slowly made our way back buying trinkets as we went (we so need to post stuff back) we got back to the hotel and had a rest and a change before dinner at the the renowned Cafe Des Amis where Chef Mr Kim cooks a set menu with what ever he thinks is interesting and good today - as you get the food they come round and show you how to eat it poking at it and making it up in to small amounts for you. When we left Mr Kim said to us that every night the food gets better and that our last night in town should be the last time we go, then it would be the best food ever.

We wandered back past the pretty shops with all the coloured lanterns, the ferries taking the workers back to there homes and up past the tailors making clothes for the travelers to take away tomorrow its a strange town - touristy, but beautifully historic, generous and warm, fabulous food and a shopping mecca!

We arrived back to the lovely Thien Than Hotel, where we were warmly greeted and welcomed back... these are lovely people.

Posted by crispin at 12:53 AM | Comments (0)

December 27, 2007

Vietnam - Day 7 - Coco Beach and the trip back to Sai Gon

So after a brief couple of beach days we are on the move again, today was the big travel day, four hours in the car back to Saigon, then an hour flight to Danang and another hour in the car back to Hoi An.

After an early walk on the beach, a swim and another lovely buffet breakfast, (I loved the french patisseries, probably a little too much) we finished our packing, said our goodbyes to our neighbours and got in the car. As mentioned previously the road is absolutely chaotic and the driving is mad, Eve started to worry when we were passing on the left of a bus, which was over taking a truck, which in turn was overtaking a motorbike or a gaggle of school kids on bicycles. (this in effect means you are using the whole road and driving into the oncoming traffic - using all of their available road as well) It is a really common for the driver to just head down the other side of the road into the traffic with his hand on the horn, and strangely enough everyone just gets out of the way - no waving of hands or abuse, just ok you must be in a hurry! That said I did see two truck accidents, in both cases the people were fine, but the trucks were not pretty...

Around Phan Tiet there are less cars, trikes etc.. and still quite a few Ox or horse drawn carts, there are also small herds of cattle along the roadside. As you head out of town to the more rural area's the crops are dried on the side of the road on large sheets.

On the road you see all of the industry, the shops that carve stone Buddha's and enormous lions etc, the places that sell second hand truck wheels and axles, another place that is making dining furniture - again there will be two, three or four of the same time of shop in a row on the street. It was interesting also to see so many of the small cafe's (mostly empty) each with a series of hammocks and chairs, many under a bamboo thatched roof - there are literally thousands of these - who are they waiting for? Most of the houses on the road have some form of shop or industry in the front and then the big house at the back or on top. There were also hundreds of churches with bright garish nativity scenes set in a huge rock faces covered in foil (they were all nearly identical).

Our driver got us to the airport in record time and we dealt with our excess baggage and took a very comfortable flight on a modern Vietnam Airlines 777 plane to Danang, we arrived there at 5pm and were met by another driver who whipped us down the beach front road from Danang to Hoi An and our hotel the Thien Thanh (or Blue Sky) Hotel which is extremely cute providing us a lovely room with good ensuite, king size bed, fan and air-conditioning for $35 US per night.

We walked down to the river where the restaurants are marveling at the number of tailors in Hoi An, sure we expected a lot but this is quite ridiculous for a town of this size. The first thing we really noticed about the town (after the tailors) was the number of tourists - arriving here we felt that we had hit a very pretty tourist town, lots of Australian's, American's, French and a few Germans - not at all like our experiences down south. We wandered around for a while before deciding to eat at the Cargo Club one of the more upmarket places facing the river - the food was really excellent and the bill including drinks, while high for this part of the world was very reasonable about 230,000 dong - say $20.

We walked the short walk home through the meandering streets back to our hotel.

Posted by crispin at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2007

Vietnam - Day 6 - Coco Beach

Wednesday - Boxing Day to be exact..
At home they are running the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, and Rob who is here from Ballarat (the only other Australian family in the resort) said that Melbourne has had a lot of rain, well there hasn't been rain here in Mui Ne, rather the perfect weather has continued, today we got up at 7.30 and had a swim in the perfect sea before the day got too hot, I trod on a skate or something that shot out from under my foot, there is obviously plenty of marine life here as the fishing fleet is quite huge and they trawl right across the beach foreshore in the little blue boats in the morning before the wind and waves come.

This photo is so cheezy!

After another enormous breakfast we decided to brave the Xi Om's - this is the local cheap way to travel on the back of a scooter, so after a little negotiation we organised for two bikes to drive us around all day for 15,000 dong (about 90c Australian) we rode down to Phan Tiet, passed the local fish sauce factory (the major local industry) they initially took us to the big supermarket and department store, which was interesting but not really what we were after, so then we got them to take us to a more traditional market (where everyone else shops for fresh fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, clothes, jewelry and pretty much anything else you can think of. I purchased the traditional red t-shirt with yellow star (XXL and it is still tight) and Eve got two strands of beautiful pearls and a pair of pearl earrings for $50.

They took us to the docks where the fisherman were pulling up and landing the daily catch, and we saw some fish sorting and sales, we then got them to take us to the Cham towers on the hill where we had a great view of the bay and back across Phan Tiet, the Cham's themselves were interesting being built in the 9th century.

Then we went back to Mui Ne and along to the fishing village about 12kms further down the road a really fantastic trip, having finished our trip we wanted to surprise our drivers a little so massively over paid them $10 US each - sorry if this spoils it for others but we felt they deserved it!

Posted by crispin at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2007

Vietnam - Days 4 & 5 - Coco Beach

Christmas
On Monday we left the New World Hotel and Saigon and our trusty driver “Manh” took us the 4 hours of mad driving through traffic that seems to know no rules, north east to Coco Beach which is about half way between Phan Thiet and Mui Ne, a really beautiful coastal resort - just the way you imagine it should be, largely unspoilt, coconut palms, small pools, recliners on the beach, bungalows facing the ocean, and a mass of kite surfers and windsurfers. We arrived on Christmas Eve and had previously been told that there was a Christmas dinner which was compulsory for all guests to attend (no problem by us) they then asked if we would prefer to be on a long table (shared with others) or our own table - we elected for the long table, which was a great choice as it happens.

They put together a lovely Christmas Dinner, with drinks on the deck then turning on a mass of beautiful coloured lights around the pool and the tables set for dinner, they had a Viet Santa with his Reindeer / Water Buffalo. We sat with an English couple, who now live in Tokyo (Peter and Emma) and two guys from Munich and an assortment of other French and Germans. They did a great dinner, with everything including Turkey! and then Santa came back and they had individual gifts for everyone - all personal things selected and wrapped, a very generous touch.

We crashed a little after midnight, to the disappointment of the Munich Boys who were looking to party on ! but that gave us the opportunity to wake early (6ish) and watch the sunrise and the fishermen (and women) bringing the boats in which was a magical experience - lots of photos.

Kite Surfing Santa

The afternoon was more predictable with the wind building around midday and the boards and kite surfers taking over the water and us retreating to the couch on the deck overlooking our beach, relaxation heaven! We met an Australian family from Ballarat Rob, Lyn and 4 daughters, 1 son in law, and a boyfriend in tow - very generous people we had breakfast with them and met again over lunch - nice to have a sense of community with people when you are away at Christmas.

We have one more day here then we head back to Saigon before we fly to Danang and head down to Hoi An.

Posted by crispin at 07:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2007

Vienam - Day 3 - Ho Chi Minh City

Cholon - China Town
We read up the guide books and decided a trip to Cholon to see the Pagoda temples and the markets would be a great trip, today has been another hot and steamy day so after a quick breakfast we started to walk, and walk and walk our way about 15km by my guestimates down to the Cholon district, the area is distinctly poorer than other parts of HCM that we visited and quite different.

I don't know what this is that he was selling but it looked a bit like a massive pine cone with white jelly kernels inside which he cracked open with his machete and sold in small plastic bags to passers by.

We were the only foreigners in the street markets, which were selling daily produce, fresh fish, meat (lying chopped up into rough pieces and out in the open - un-refrigerated of course) a huge range of vegetables and fruits and other household items, we havent seen many general stores let alone super markets so many people do all of their shopping in these places.

The temples were fantastic and seem to be in full use rather than tourist destinations - the spiral incense was an amazing sight, in fact the clouds of incense as you entered was quite a unique experience for me.

We wandered up one of these narrow alley's lined with shops and stalls - this one was entirely beads, button's and lace - Eve found some beads to make decorations with which really pleased her, what is amazing is that even thought these alley's are only wide enough for one person to push through at a time and they were full, the scooters keep going up and down them - a testament to the crazy driving in this city.

We stopped at a small roadside café for a drink and a break from the noise, heat and steam which was desperately necessary before continuing our adventures trawling through side streets. This part of town is definitely dirtier and reflects the communal wealth but there were still amazing scenes, the street which had nothing but bolt after bolt of fabric (lots of polyester) was quite amazing, as was the numerous bike repair guys sitting on street corners with various tools, tubes and compressors fixing the scooters and bicycles as they pulled in with punctures and minor issues. Another surprise for us was the bike wash places where they cleaned scooters with high pressure hoses and rubbed the down afterwards.

We visited a department store again to get us out of the heat - which was good, nice cold air gave us a brief respite and then a taxi back to the hotel. The pool at the New World is actually very good and we went back twice today for beer and a relaxing swim. in the afternoon we went to the Danh Sinh market which was full of army relics - bit like a massive disposals store, quite odd however we did manage to find a great door knocker and I added to my collection of watches.

Antique Street
We then went back to a street we found yesterday and looked at some amazing antiques, we even bought a few small pieces which we are fairly confident we can bring back into the country - some dragons painted gold, some 60's china fish and a wooden gold painted turtle. (all for $23 USD) I then went looking at watches (again) while Eve went and found some amazing beads.

Dinner
after another swim, a freshen up and tackling the traffic (tonight Sunday night was the worst we have seen since we arrived - absolute madness, bikes going up the wrong side of the road on the pavements on the street just flooding every space, the only good thing being that with so many scooters out there they were moving very very slowly. We ate in one of the night market restaurants and had an amazing cook your own soup, meat, fish, vegetable thing (which tasted fantastic) while we watched the world pass by at 2km per hour. Somebody said that there are 4.5 million scooter in Ho Chi Minh city - you have no idea how many that is until you see them pouring like ants from every where, filling every possible parking spot, bikes carrying 2 adults and 2 children, carrying ladders (sometimes three), pushing small foot powered trucks along, or my favourite was the guy who had been to purchase 2 big screen TV's for Christmas and had strapped them both (one on top of the other) on the back of his scooter (I have no idea how he was planning to ride it).

The view from our hotel on Saturday night

This city is ingenious in that the people use everything they have, the kids are out with the parents each night (many in Santa suits, even some parents) helmets are a new thing here, they were made mandatory in the middle of December so helmet shops are quite crazy places and seem to be a major fashion item. The ingenious nature lends itself to the way the same space is used for different purposes day and night, or how the building sites just continue building 24 hours a day, or how the garbage is collected by people sweeping everything up and recyclables are collected by other people and other poorer people will recycle old sacks and cardboard for different purposes.

One of my favourite and regular sights is the souped down scooter, gone is the 50 or 100cc engine replaced by something so small it looks possibly able to power a sewing maching (15 - 25cc) as the bikes rarely travel over 30kph I guess it turns out to be a frugal choice!

Posted by crispin at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2007

Vietnam - Day 1 - Ho Chi Minh

Melbourne - Bangkok - HCM
So today we arrived in Vietnam, in Ho Chi Minh City in fact and after 9 months of planning (3 guide books and hundreds of hours researching online) it is all a reality. We flew out of Melbourne following the biggest downpour I have seen in years - masses of water dumped onto the road and nearly washed us away, our flight left at 12:50 (in the evening) so we were quite exhausted by the time we got on board, but the lovely people on Thai Airways spent quite a lot of the next 9 hours feeding us - 3 course dinner, followed by a two course breakfast, and when we arrived in Bangkok - amazing airport by the way - we went to the lounge and well did the obvious thing picked at food. Our flight from Bangkok to HCM was business class as well so they served breakfast - by the time we arrived I think we had eaten two dinners and three breakfasts and Eve was hungry again.

Bangkok International Airport

The 700,000 dollar taxi
Arriving at HCM the noise, the crazyness and the mass of people is quite something to behold, I had called ahead and booked a car to take us to the city, my research indicated that this was more expensive but the easiest way to get where you want to go rather than where the taxi driver wants to take you. Well of course the New World Hotel car did not turn up, there were probably 500 taxi drivers touting for fares and they jumped on the westerners as soon as they saw us - after a while of waiting we selected an honest face. One of the things you don't immediately take into account is how long it takes to get your head around the money, the Vietnamese Dong is worth 1/16,000 of the US dollar. that means when you change $100 US you get about 1.6 million dong back and that is quite a lot of paper if you get my meaning. Of course the obvious happened our Taxi driver told us it was 700,000 dong for the ride (should have been about 70,000 dong) never mind the difference of $5 to $40 is sure to mean more to him than us.

That trip was an eye opener for us, I have travelled around Asia a bit, Hongkong, Jakata and other parts of Java, PNG, Malaysia, Singapore but never have I seen traffic like this. They say there are 4.5 million scooters in this city alone - and you believe it, they come at you from all angles like locusts running in rivers, loaded with people and packages, the amazing thing is we have not seen a collision yet. Traffic lights are meaningless, if you are in a hurry it seems you just put your hand on the horn keep going and steer around the on coming cars and bikes. The noise of the horns actually never stops, it is a 24 hour cacophony that initially makes your head pound until you no longer seem to notice it. Our expensive taxi driver was a man on a speed mission, he raced up the inside pushing past the bikes and scooters, through the cars and buses, if the traffic was at a standstill he would just head up the wrong side of the road for a bit, till he found a space, to cut back in - and yes there was traffic coming straight at us!

The New World
Our hotel was not my first choice, in fact it had been quite hard to get the hotel I wanted in HCM, numerous attempts to book directly online or through online travel agencies were not successful until eventually I was offered a reasonable rate for the NW and decided it met the criteria - being that the hotel was central, it had a pool and was a reasonable size. On arrival we discovered the amazing and garish christmas decorations that seem to cover most of HCM were all over the hotel - but we checked in with no issues and the room is very good (though internet access is expensive).

Ben Than Markets
One of the best things about the location of the hotel is that it is very close to the Ben Than Markets which are fantastic, yes you get hassled by everyone as you walk around to look at this and buy that, but it has an amazing fresh food section with lots of live seafood crawling out of bowls. The other thing you note in the heat of the day how the people just find a bench near their stall and go to sleep for a while. We wandered the stalls and the surrounding shops, still trying to get our heads around the value of stuff in the new money, so we bought a pocket calculator for 25,000 VND (about 1.75 AUD) and now we get through the complicated math!

I have found myself in fake watch heaven, they have the most amazing range of fakes here, anything you can imagine has been copied and the prices vary enormously from the obvious Rolex and Omega's to Philipe Patek and even Bell and Ross (I was tempted but not for $700USD) the problem is there is also a huge range of amazing vintage watches to be found but how many are vintage and how many are dodgy reproductions well my factoring is about 1/50 - so you need to look very very closely.

Ben Than Markets

After wandering the markets and shops for hours, we felt the need for some relief from the heat and noise, so spent some time in the pool and enjoyed a few Tiger Beers, then a brief nanna nap before dinner.

Dinner at the Grand Hyatt
Thanks to Di and Will for the suggestion of going to the Grand Hyatt, we didn't stay there obviously but this is a magnificent hotel and the restaurant is truly lovely we had a cocktails and then dinner on the terrace over looking the Opera House it was expensive by Vietnam standards but still a great price by ours (dinner drinks etc $125 USD). We walked back to the hotel exhausted but the millions of scooters were all still out there!

PS there are lots more photos on Flickr so click through if you are interested.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/crispin/

Posted by crispin at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)