sendeuros

Brrrrr…. It’s cold up here in Hanoi! Happy Easter Everyone!!

We last left you in the hills of Da Lat, about 10 days ago! Sorry for taking so long to post, we have just been having to much fun!

After a short (about 6 hours, yet only 150km from memory), uneventful bus trip we arrived at the sea-side city of Nha Trang – think of a Vietnamese Gold Coast, circa 1985! Our bus driver recomended a hotel upon arrival (I’m sure that he got a kick-back) which we eagerly accepted as it was cheap and clean; however we soon learned otherwise as white ants had also decided to make it home (you could hear them munching at the walls in the middle of the night).

I scoped the town out, for what appeared to be the best hamburger place and somehow managed to drag Philippa and Rob there for dinner. Afterwards I enjoyed a US$3.00 foot massage at the “Relax Hut” … hmmmm, they have a broad definition of what constitutes a foot,… I was centimeters away from being *really* relaxed!! Philippa however opted for a US$1.00 manicure (somewhat cheaper than our Bali experience) and spent the hour chatting to a newlywed from Frankston receiving the same treatment. The Frankston couple had been to the “Relax Hut” every day that week!

Philippa had decided that it was high time that we sent some birthday gifts home and took us on a death march to find the post office (she refused to take a Cyclo after our previous experience in Saigon). After what seemed like hours, and lots of “it should be just around this corner”, we finally found the place. We huffed and puffed up to the counter and handed over our neatly wrapped packages. We were politely informed in broken English that we had to unwrap the packages for inspection, and than fill out half a dozen forms – groan… all up, it took almost an hour to translate and fill in the correct forms and re-wrap the packages! Happy bloomin Birthday, hope you enjoy your pressies kids! 😛

Following our ordeal at the Post Office, Rob took us out for dinner to the best restraunt in town for Philippa’s birthday (a day early as we had planned to catch a bus the following day) – it was the “Sailing Club”, not exactly sure where it got it’s name as there where no boats! This place offered Indian, Vietnamese, Italian and Mexican cuisine. We opted for Indian and wow, we were not dissapointed, the best meal we have had on our trip!

Philippa’s birthday didn’t pass unnoticed – I think that she woke up at 5am and requested breakfast in bed. I comprimsed with her and took her back to the great hamburger place for breakfast (at about 9am, had to get my beauty sleep). Rob and Philippa spent the rest of the day on the beach, while I ran around town trying to organise a birthday present… that girl is hard to buy for. We met up for a late lunch/dinner (again, at the burger place) and it was Rob’s turn to bring up his lunch (and by the sound of it, his breakfast and dinner from the previous night too), he did so as we sang happy birthday to a candle lit icecream. The plans for the night bus to Ha Noi were aborted and Philippa went on a scouting mission for a hotel with a few less insect inhabitants. The “Dream Hotel” proved to be just that, compared to our prevuous experience. We vowed from then on not to take the first place offered by the bus company – no matter how cheap it is!

Rob was a terrible patient until he realised that he didn’t have the capacity to get out of bed – he slept for about 20 hours! As he was feeling much better, we decided to jump on the evening bus for the 12 hour trip Ha Noi!

Again, the trip was rather un-eventful other than the 2.30AM stop where I purchased a can of “coke” from a 7 year old! Apart from the fact that she should have been sleeping – getting ready for school, she tried to rip me off (price wise) AND… once I got back on the bus, I discovered it wasn’t coke (it was the equivalent of AC Cola from K-Mart).

Being all bright eyed and chirpy when we arrived at 6.30AM (yes, thats me being sarcastic) – we decided not to go for the first hotel our driver recommended,… or the second,… hell, even the third was no good! The bus driver ended up dumping us in town and we had to hoof it (well, Rob did – we stayed with the bags)! Lucky we did, we ended up at the nicest and newest place in town!

….oooops, I’m being kicked out of the Internet Cafe — Will finish soon!

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh city pretty tired from our three day trip through the Mekong-Delta (which dad has filled you in on) – and were happy to indulge ourselves in the three star comfort that Matt had organised. By far the nicest hotel that we have stayed in to date (however the price tag also reflected that).

Ho Chi Minh was an interesting city – they have a saying throughout Asia “Same, Same – But Different”, usually people who are trying to sell you something will use it to get a better price (it is cotton not silk, same same but different). But it could also be used to describe most of the big cities that we have visited. When you have worked out some basics like how to bargin and to watch where you are walking when going down the street you can survive in any Asian city, however there are always little customary things that you stumble upon, only through embarrassing yourself or others. So Ho Chi Minh – same, same – but different. One thing that really stands out in a city of similar size to Bangkok is the lack of development, much fewer shopping centres, high rises and general sight seeing attractions.

After meeting up with Matt he took us to the best budget restaurant in town, that he specifically sussed out for our arrival. It was very nice – on Matt’s recommendation I had an Aussie burger for dinner. We visited the Reunification Palace the next day and got our dose of propaganda – which I suppose just balances out the propaganda that we are indoctrinated with through other sources. The Vietnamese propaganda is just so blatant – and it leaves me feeling sad, because it appears to leave room for only one way of interpreting history. This has developed what appears to be a very patriotic nation – but some of the distorted facts that it (“The Peoples Party”) comes out with are almost laughable when you take into consideration other nations perspective…come to think of it there are a number of nations that you could charge with the same crime 🙂 This is a very strange, complex community – in some ways as Matt has commented we feel very at home here, but in other ways we are really struggling to understand it. You only hear quietly from some people about the hard years – no museum we have visited or famous war site have spoken of the the severe rations on the people which lead to starvation or the “re-education” camps.

The next day Dad and I spent a half day cruising around on the back of motor bikes seeing the sites (while Matt was having his turn of fighting off the food poisoning) – the highlights included some Chinese pagodas, visiting some shops that sold Chinese medicine (I bought Matt a small vile of wine with a cobra in it – medicine), a floating market on the blackest river I have ever seen (pretty much an open sewer), a visit to the Chinatown (every country has one) and a stroll along the river front. It was really good to get out of District One (tourist central) and get a look at how people live in Ho Chi Minh. Dad and I hit the central market that afternoon, I think that dad is now at the stage were he requires a candy bag to get all his wares home! I never realised how much of a shopper he is – and he wouldn’t buy anything for more than half of the original price! The shop keepers often look impressed at his bargaining skills. By the time we got back from shopping Matt was was begging to go to KFC – it was good that he had his appetite back!

The next day we visited Chu Chi tunnels – an area 60km from Ho Chi Minh city were the Viet Com built complex tunnel systems to live and fight from. These systems had everything from a hospital, an ammunition manufacturing factory, kitchen and sleeping areas. It was very eye opening, even frightening to see the way that these people lived. One thing that the Vietnamese people do very well is get across the horror of war! Our guide was an ex-south Vietnamese soldier (another contradiction that it is hard for us to get our head around), who appeared almost pro-vietcom. He was an old guy that would go off on tangents and then come out with really inappropriate jokes and you would wonder if he was joking. He loved the microphone and spent the 90 minutes bus trip telling us stories of the war. Next to the Chu Chi tunnels was a rifle range – so as we were walking through the forest and looking at the tunnels, you could hear the constant sound of gun shots…. A little too realistic for my liking. But never the less Matt was able to satisfy one of his goals for this trip – he shot off 20 rounds on an AK47, at the cost of US$1 a bullet. You can’t be too trigger happy! This was all a bit surreal.

That afternoon it was Matt and my turn to go shopping and we headed down to central market to make some purchases. Afterwards we decided to catch a Cyclo back to our hotel – we were quoted 15,000VND for both of us, which is a bit expensive (about US$1). But we were tired and wanted a lift back to the hotel about 800 meters away, so we agreed to the price. When we arrived around the corner from the hotel we were told that the drivers were not allowed to cycle down the main street at that time of day (about 200 meters left to our hotel) – which was all good, then Matt went to pay them – when he handed over 15,000 they complained that they had asked for 50,000 (just under US$4) for their 4 minutes of work. Matt had been ripped off by a cyclo driver two days prior, so we were very careful to be clear on the price before we took this trip and we felt as though these men were playing us (wanting 50,000 – for a trip that we had received for 5,000 a number of times prior). Feeling disappointed – because we hate the feeling of being ripped off, we explained that we felt that this was a bit a rich. When they dug in and said that they would starve if we did not pay them – a card regularly played with tourists, we also dug in and I said that if they wouldn’t take the 15,000 we would not pay them at all. They threatened to call the police at which I said I would be happy for this to happen as it was clear that we were the ones being ripped off (how self righteous was I). At that they played a different tact and asked for 15,000 each, to which I stated no – then they said 10,000 each and Matt being the wise man he is paid up (as by this time nearly the entire street was involved) to dissolve the situation. Sitting in the hotel room, I felt crap – quivalling over such a small amount of money! How far do you push principles? They were ripping us off – it is so hard to swallow your pride and just pay up! It takes away from the joy of travelling and it leaves you feeling cynical about the general population.

On Monday we jumped on a bus and travelled north to Da Lat – in the high country. Da Lat is much cooler than Saigon and I felt cold for the first time in a while on our first night here. We are staying in a lovely little guest house for US$7 a night. Soon as we jumped off the bus we were recruited for a “cooking class”, which turned out to be five tourists crammed into a one room “house”, watching the “chef” and his 5 assistants help prepare a meal on the floor. The learning side of the evening was pretty light, but the hospitality and the humour of the people made the evening one that we wont forget! The food was also fantastic. Today we took a tour (with the chef of last evening now turned tour guide) around the hills on the back of three motor bikes. It was great fun! I can see why people like riding – you feel a lot closer to it all. Da Lat is a funny mixture of the natural and the really tacky. With theme park like attractions set in the hills amongst a thriving farming community. Tomorrow we head to Nha Trang on the coast.

So if you have gotten this far I have to commend you for getting through my late night babble – we are off to pack our packs and tomorrow is an entirely new adventure 🙂

The Mekong Delta down stream from Cambodia.

Starting out from Phonm Pen, the bus ride to the first big boat was full of excitment as we left the centre of Phonm Pen. Traffic only as you can find in Asia surging in all directions taking on a life pulse all of its own, bikes loaded with everything inmagineable [up to 5 people, livestock, building materials or the latest purchase’s from the market, boxes and boxes on one bike] weaving in and out on both sides of the road with constant blasting horns to let everyone know that they are there and are coming thru regardless, all this on bikes 50cc to 200cc in size.

Interspaced with this was the local taxis [utilities or small minivans] with loads of up to 20 persons plus all thier gear, we saw two mini buses with approx. 15 people on the roof this was not unusual what made us look again this time was the motorbike sitting upright on the roof of the minibus surrounded by people.

Arriving at the Mekong river we walked thru a small village then down a muddy bank to walk a narrow plank to board our first big boat. Arriving at the border we wondered what awaited us as we passed thru the Cambodian border to Veitnam, officials we discovered are the same the world over, they like to be official, the border crossing went without a hitch except one of our group who was given a hard time for a few moments.

The Mekong river has fishing villages scattered along its bank and a lot of houses built on it, they were ranging from very basic, built in the old style and looked to be quite impovised to houses built out of modern building materials and reflected a higher standard of living. One interesting thing we noticed was that all the huts and houses along the bank of the river had tall T.V. antenas , how did they supply power to thier tellys? with car batteries, when the battery needs recharging they take it to the nearest settlement and swap it for fully charged one.

The river at this point is up to one kilometre wide growing to three kilometres wide two hours down stream. Canels naturaul and man made branch off both sides of the Mekong it was up one of these canels that we left the river to go to Chau Doc where we were to spend the first night the canels kept getting smaller and smaller with the banks closing in on the boat, this gave us a very close look at the communties that resided on the banks and the houses that were built on the water, these houses have fish farms underneath them, we were to visit one the next day. All along the trip people were waving to us from the edges of the waterway with big smiles on thier faces, particularly the children.

When we disembarked from our first big boat, we were met by a small motor bike with a covered in tralior, this bike was 50cc. At the front of the trailor was placed our luggage and into the back hopped 8 yes 8 people all europeans [big people] and we set off to our nights accommodation attracting a lot of attention along the way, locals pointing and having a good laugh. There is one hill in the delta and you guessed it, that was where our nights accomadation was, so as we started to go up we came to a stop, poor little bike couldn’t cope, from there we hoofed it. After we surrendered our passports which was requested of us now that we were in Vietnam, and settled in to our rooms, we with others climbed Sam Hill to look out over the delta, rice paddies and canels as far as we could see, the rice is been harvested at the moment so we saw a lot of activity with it been transported along the waterways. This was typical of the next four days as we navigated our way thru the delta, which is called the nine dragons delta by the locals.

*yawn* – will finish this post tommorow!