Archive for March, 2008
I am utterly exhausted. I’m currently in Hue which was the Imperial Capital of Vietnam until 1945. It’s considered to be the cultural capital of Vietnam. I have one free night in the city…tonight. I am taking the chance to go to bed early. I am actually that tired. I need to be up at 7am tomorrow for a long bus ride to Hoi An. We got here on a sleeper train on um Sunday which was awesome but there wasn’t all that much sleep. More on all that later on.
Today I was up at 5.40 in order to take a tour of what was the DMZ between North and South Vietnam. Now it was mainly pretty boring to be honest. I really like the Communist/Soviet style of statues/art but it’s somewhat a case of if you have seen one, you have seen ‘em all. Again though more on all that later.
The highlight and indeed the reason for the tour was to spend the afternoon crawling around some VC tunnels. This was, simply, awesome. I have some photos to post but not too many. More tunnels to follow sometime in the next couple of weeks when we get to the fighting tunnels, today was mainly living quarters. Still awesome.
It’s just going 9.15 and I’m pretty much going to bed. I hope to use the trip tomorrow to type up some more. One thing, and something worth mentioning more but is actually pretty essential and perhaps something you’d not have thought of. It’s not the Vietnam war, it’s the American war. More on all that later too.
Nighty night.
I’m sat on the top deck of a junk cruising in Ha Long Bay. There are moments every single day where I pause as the thought strikes of where I am and what I’m doing. Those are good moments. The bad news is that it’s so misty, we can’t see very much. Unfortunately it’s taking away from what should be one of the most beautiful sights in the world. With luck tomorrow it will clear up, at least in the morning and I can take some photos. I do, of course, have my camera ready here beside me but we shall see how that goes. We are just crusing through some of the islands now and it’s clearing a little bit. Pretty awesome eh?
So we are 5 days into the tour and it’s an interesting group of people. There are, I am very pleased to report, 4 solo travellers. So that’s good news. There’s a brother and sister travelling together and then 4 couples.
14:15 Ha Long Bay Vietnam Thursday March 27th.
Alright so I got distracted on the last post. It’s a little hard to be typing about people as they float around the deck with you. Now I’m sat on the bus on the way back to Hanoi. It was a good couple of days but the weather never cleared up which was very disappointing. So people. Alrighty, the American girl, Jordan, was the poor unfortunate who got stuck with me as a kayaking partner yesterday. It was massive amounts of fun but rhythm ain’t really my thing and so we had a bit of a off course wandering from start to finish. Way way more fun than I expected though. Between three days of walking and several hours of rowing yesterday, I’m shattered but it’s all good.
We’ve had 4 new games so far. The above mentioned Werewolf and three card games, 31, Hearts and Uno. We’ll be working on a few more and I’m sure we’ll have many more rounds of ‘em over the coming weeks.
Now the kayaking yesterday was, as I mentioned pretty good, but the highlight was swimming. It was when we were docked somewhere around Ha Long Bay (must confirm the spelling for that) and well while the water was not cold, it was certainly not warm. It was lovely once you got use to it and unlike any swimming I can think of that I have done before it was taking a 4 foot leap from a boat straight into an ocean so there was no real anticipation like running in at a beach. A leap into the cold unknown and it was soon okay. I’m looking forward to spending a few days on the beach in Whale Island next week or so just swimming and reading. Don’t think we spent too long in the water, maybe just 20 minutes but it was nice.
Speaking of reading. I finished The Terror, I can’t remember if I mentioned that. It wasn’t great. I’m glad I’m finished it and it was gone from the hotel shelf by the next morning. Then I read The Interpretation of Murder which was just poor. I did not enjoy it one bit but it had to be finished. That was handily passed onto Suze. Now I’m reading Iain M. Banks’ The Algebraist which I’m enjoying a lot but I can’t shake the feeling I have read it before while I’m fairly sure I have not…
What else. Oh yes. Food is going really really well. Tons and tons of chicken and beef and pork and of course rice. Chopsticks are even going very well!
Tonight is the last night in Hanoi before we head down south. First to Hue and then all the way down to Ho Chi Minh (formerly known as Saigon). No real plans for this evneing. I’ll grab net access at some point and probably a few drinks. Celtic are playing Rangers and our Scot is off to watch that. Will probably just join him if he’s hitting a pub. Otherwise I’m sure we can get a couple of people along for pints somewhere. Tomorrow morning I think I want to get up early and go to the Mausoleum. Again, I cant’ remember if I mentioned it but I headed there earlier in the week to join the queue to go and see “Uncle Ho” but it was massive and I was not going to spend that long queueing. Tomorrow I think I want to make the effort. While I have really enjoyed my time here and I like Hanoi (and surroundings), I can’t see myself coming back here so I’d like to get that done now.
I have some photos to post though I’m not sure I have a huge amount. Some of Ha Long Bay in the mist and some of the caves. I’ve posted the trek photos, there are only so many trees and rice fields that I can post to t’internet! Thankfully says ye!
We just made a stop off for toilet and water and I’ve just picked up my first real souvenir. Also buying a pack of biscuits or Pringles for the bus goes down very well so must do more of that
I’m not sure how I’m doing on the money front. I think that I haven’t spent very much but then again I’m not keeping track. I think that I really should be. Still it’s nice to be a multi-millionarie in one currency at least for a little while. Walking around with a million in your back pocket is really pretty sweet! I shall hit an ATM this evening and take out a million to keep me going…and just because!
I have just bought some postcards and so the plan this evening includes getting a small package back to my parents of local trinkets and the print I have just bought. I shall do my best to get a postcard off to folks too.
I’m carrying too many clothes. I packed light and bore in mind that I *always* overpack and still I have too many clothes. I’m going to dump some today or tomorrow and hopefully get my bag down in size a little bit. I don’t know why I bothered with a jacket. It made sense in London going to Heathrow but it makes none at all now and I’m just going to dump it. Seems like a waste but it’s by no means worth packing off to Dublin. I guess I just leave ‘em in the hotel, I dunno.
Lots of folks keeping a journal. Suze, Ola, Karen, Jordan and Fireman Jeff that I’ve seen. I know that Sheffield Dave is blogging as he gets to a net cafe but I get the impression that’s more just to keep family happy and let people know where he is.
Ooh I have decided that leaving aside money/credit cards and my passport, the most important thing I’m carrying is my iPod. I cannot imagine having doing something like this without some music to a) go along side the trip b) let me escape every now and again. So yesterday I spent a good couple of hours sitting at the very front of the junk with my legs hanging over the edge and listening to music. I find that Sigur Ros works better than anything else when you are seeing something just so wonderful. We missed out on some of it due to the mist but it was still wonderful!
13:47 the road between Ha Long Bay and Hanoi Vietnam Friday March 28th
(little edited for talking about others on the tour!)
I am pretty exhausted. I’ve spent the past three days way out in the countyside of Vietnam trekking around. As far as I can tell we were way off the tourist track, there was no-one selling anything, no local shops just fully working farms. We stayed with local families whose single extra consideration was to get some beer motorbiked in to sell to us.
Beer has rarely tasted as good.
18:53 Back in Hanoi, Vietnam Wednesday 26 March
Outside it is pissing down. I’ve had a decent day wandering taking some shots on the street and then heading to the Military History museum which was pretty decent. Now I’m sat in a Highland Coffee shop overlooking the lakewatching the rain fall and taking it easy. Sorry bout the rant and length last night. I should stop watching the same news reports over and over and perhaps watch some MTV instead…
16:00 Hanoi - Vietnam Saturday March 22
And about 10 minutes later I found a Mars bar and indeed a pack of M&M’s when I stopped for a bottle of water. It’s been a quiet day. I haven’t really done very much. I had a long lunch with net access, wandered around for a while and then just really faffed around for a few hours. All of a sudden it was going nine o’clock and I felt like I hadn’t done anything. So I figured that I’d stick my headphones on, take my pocket camera and go for a walk to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and see if it was lit up at night. I had what I thought was a decent idea of the way to get there and set out. Around 20 minutes later I realised that I was totally lost and you know what, it was awesome. I spent the next couple of hours just walking around the city listening to some music. It’s always been something I like to do. Headphones on and just wander. It works for me almost anywhere. It lets me think and in new places to get a feel for ‘em.
Now along the streets, certainly the more touristy streets are tourist info kiosks. They are basically touch screen jobs with the usual local attractions and stuff like that but each one of them opens up with a very handy “you are here” map. So that was good…I managed to find the Hanoi Hilton by randomly walking past it. I somehow ended up on the opposite side of the city to where I set out to get to but then again I had given up caring about direction and was just walking! I now know how to get back there tomorrow. I sat down by the lake for a while and then lapped it a couple of times before heading back to the hotel.
Continue reading ‘Yeah it’s overwhelming, but what else can we do?’
Alright so I have found two things important things in Hanoi. Firstly, obviously, net access! Hurrah. Photos are uploading now. Just a quick snapshot.
Secondly, Guinness!! Double hurrah. Last night I went out looking for the single Irish bar which is an entire three blocks from my hotel. So that was easy to find. When I got in it was fairly busy but I found a spot to stand down the back, I thought the taps were just for display and so I had a couple of local beers. A short time later while flicking through the drinks menu I noticed that they acually had Guinness. Now it was expensive, about 4 times the price of a beer but I figured for the two pounds that would cost me, it would be worth it to have a pint.
And so lo and behold moments later I had a pint in front of me, pulled properly. At least it looked to be but something about it just looked wrong. The head was way off, it was all frothy. Figuring oh well a bad pint but at least I found one, I tucked in. But no, wait. Something else was wrong. It was chewy! For all the jokes about having to eat your Guinness, this was actually chewy and it tasted different. It tasted like Guinness but at the same time not. It was heavier and less creamy and well it tasted stronger (in every sense!)
A couple of minutes later I managed to get a table and it all became clear! The beer mats on the table all advertised Guinness Foreign Extra! Of course, now it made sense. I had never managed to try it before. I’m not really sure what I thought of it. I had a second so at the very least it wasn’t objectionable but I switched back to the local beers after that. I’m not sure I could have drunk many of them and while it was Guinness, at the same time it wasn’t!
During this second pint there was a pub quiz starting and I joined up with a couple of astoundingly young American travellers and another American now living here. After a very poor showing in the first round we did a very respectable next three rounds before coming into a glorious last place. Oops.
This was followed by hooking up with a Canadian and a couple of Swedes for a drink or three before we decided to go off and find another bar for some late night drinking. This was fine except that our Canadian who was very drunk somehow managed to start a fight with a US marine who took exception to something minor intended in high spirits. I don’t remember what it was but luckily his buddy was straight in there and we grabbed our wayward Canadian. The bar we went to was a) shit and b) empty. So one beer later we headed back to the Irish place and had a few more drinks. I eventually called it a night, and a good one at that, around 4am. I was shocked to find my hotel padlocked when I got back but the night clerk brings in a sleeping bag and sleeps inside the door and it was open about 10 seconds after I knocked…phew.
Knocking is an interesting tip to know around here. If you go somewhere and it’s closed, knock! Even if the shutters are down, just knock. It’ll open up! Even the bars, they don’t close but officially they have to shut up. There doesn’t seem to be any regulations about serving, just about having open doors. How very civilised!
I’ve just had a bit of lunch (crispy fried duck with chilli sauce…lovely) in a large enough, probably tourist, restruant overlooking Hoan Kiem Lake. It has handy free wi-fi hence being able to jump on for a bit.
I have got use to crossing the road. It’s actually very straightforward. You just walk out and across and trust that no-one will hit you. It’s good for the most part, I find it helps to take a deep breath and close your eyes. I’m still alive which surprises me a couple of times I make it across the larger roads but it’s all good. You only live once right?
Oh you know what I’d love right now? A Mars bar. There just aren’t common western goods available here that I’ve come across. Sure the beer and of course coca-cola is all over the place but no choclate or crisps. I haven’t even seen a newsagents I guess is what I want. I’m going to take a wander again in a few minutes, see if I can find it.
Speaking of being able to find. Hanoi is small, it’s entirely walkable at least around where I am. I cannot, for the life of me, find the Hanoi Hilton. Google is entirely failing me. The fact that the Hilton chain now has a hotel in Hanoi is really throwing off my queries. I shall ask I guess.
Alright so tomorrow. The plan is go get up early and get into the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, then wander to the nearby war musuem. I had lunch in it’s cafe yesterday and that was excellent so might just plan that again. Then guess I’ll wander back towards the lake and close to the post office which is handy. I have some cards to get off. I grabbed mail now so I have a few more addresses for folks.
Alright, it’s wandering time.
14:12 Hanoi - Vietnam Friday March 21
Alright third time is the charm.
Hanoi is a terrifying place.
It’s full of motorbikes. It’s actually full of motorbikes. In many places you cannot walk on the path because it’s covered with parked bikes. You have to walk on the street where you are taking your life in your hands amongst a sea of bikes. I can’t remember a time where I feared for my life more than I did when I want for a walk earlier. It’s astounding.
So country number two. I flew into Hanoi from Bangkok this morning on Nok Air. For all the Ryanair comparisons I’d heard, I have never seen a cleaner more friendly airline. For all I knew from the state of the plane, this morning was it’s first flight off the production line. Not only that but they obviously have given thought to their staffing policies and thoughts that’d be illegal in any place that has any sort of equality laws. So bonus points there. They’d have gotten the extra bonus points if the crew were actually wearing original Star Trek uniforms but the skirts were a tad too long.
So a grand flight and then a taxi into the city centre. I think I got ripped off again but I’m so beyond giving a fuck when it all adds up to pennies. The hotel is lovely. It’s exactly what you expect if you think French colonial Vietnam. I’m sure it’s not authentic but it looks great and while a tad small is very comfortable. So I went for a quick walk and found out that there isn’t actually much to do in Hanoi. I was flicking through a guidebook earlier and I had been struck that most of it’s 10 landmarks to see weren’t actually landmarks so much as things to do. There are, it seems, only about three sights and I’m staying right next to one of them so I did that already today. I’ll go and check out the Mausoleum of course and the “Hanoi Hilton” which is now a museum and I’ll take a wander with the camera but I suspect it’s going to be a quiet couple of days pre-tour. There is an amazing lack of Western brands around here. While BK and McD’s weren’t all over the place in Bangkok there were still a good few of them around, here I haven’t seen a single store name that I know. The only brand that seems to be common is Nokia.
So a late lunch/dinner out and now I’m taking it easy. It’s much cooler here than in Bangkok. To the point of where I might actually want a light jumper if I go for a wander now as I’m planning to. There is a bar across the road which is about the only one I spotted in a couple of hours wandering so I might go take a look in there…though it’s a jazz bar and I’ve never managed to really get into jazz.
This is country number two on my itinerary. Just for context before this year, I had been to Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, USA, Canada and Japan. So with Egypt, this is my third for the year with lots more to follow. When I’m done, I’ll have been to over 30 countries which while it might sound like a small number, well it isn’t really and I think it’s pretty awesome.
There appears to be no wifi around here, secure or otherwise. Also a noticeable lack of internet cafe’s which were two a penny in Bangkok. I guess as it’s not a central hub it doesn’t get as many tourists as Thailand and so doesn’t need to cater to ‘em. I did notice a place I had marked down to try lunch in tomorrow had a sign up for free wi-fi for customers. It seems close by so I might just check that one out tomorrow or so. There isn’t even an option to plugin somewhere in the hotel which I am a little surprised by. Then again, I haven’t got a clue about the telecoms infrastructure in Vietnam!
In other news, well I’m pretty tired. I got almost no sleep last night for a number of reasons. Next time that I even suggest I’m looking forward to packing my bag I’m going to shoot myself. I think that a quick local wander and then an early night might be called for. Then tomorrow i can get up and get out with camera. See how all of that goes. At one end of the bar they have two exceptionally attractive young ladies playing what I assume is some traditional music. I’m sat at the other end of the bar as I didn’t really want to be sat here typing away while they were playing but this end has the TV which has just switched over from something local to Army of Darkness. The mind boggles.
Oh speaking of the mind boggling. Sit down, I have amazing news. Now are you sat down? Good. MTV Asia actually plays music! I know, I could barely believe it either. It reminds me of the good old days where the most non music you got on MTV was Bevis and Butthead and The Real World.
Somewhat related to that I think my most successful first date ever was to UCI in Coolock to see South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. Scoff as you may (and probably should) but it’s still a funny movie to this day. I laughed so hard and well I guess that if you spend the first couple of hours of a date with tears of laughter streaming down your face then the next few can’t really be bad. And, in fairness, they weren’t That was a good night. I can’t remember how long we went out for after that, it was a little while I think. Now was that out in 98 or 99? Hmm.
Anyway what got me thinking of that was Bevis and Butthead of course. The Halloween episode from sometime in the 90’s where I believe we see the debut of Cornholio cracked me up so much. I recall being on the floor of the playroom (now renamed as the TV room by my youngest sister) in hysterics. It still makes me smile to think about it. Ah those were the days though I don’t think I would want to watch it again…
Oh yes. I meant to do this before I left but I wasn’t very organised. So if you wish, please send me your postal address to one of my gmail accounts and I’ll send a postcard or trinket or something along those lines sometime over the next 12 months….maybe. I have some ready to go already, I just need to find a post box. I do know where the post office is so that’s on the list to check out tomorrow.
I’m reconsidering that walk already. The idea of another beer and then a lot of sleep is becoming more and more appealing. Just means that I need to get a proper breakfast in the morning and make up for a couple of missed meals in the past day and a bit.
Ooooh here is something that I wanted to ask the internet rather urgently this evening. How wide-spread is French here? Most menu’s and tourist signs so far have been in Vietnamese, English and French and I don’t know if French is widespread among the people living and working here. If it is, then I could at least feel like I was making a small effort. It’d make me feel better! I think I’ll be in Vietnam for another three weeks touring around so I should be well able to get my spoken French back enough to work through anything I could need. It’s already flooding back just from reading a menu earlier. Quite the opposite with my Irish which at this point is non-existent. I was trying to type out a basic phrase in an email earlier today and I couldn’t for the life of me think how to start spelling it. I suspect I mangled it but sure oh well.
Yeah actually that walk is now out. Back to my room and a little bit of music and a few more pages of my book and then sleep glorious sleep. So much for great adventuring huh?
Oooh wait, I see a computer or two at the back of the room. Perhaps there is net access! Will go and check it out in a moment! It would be handy to take a quick scoot on Lonely Planet and grab mail etc for a second and by handy I mean it will keep me going until my real fix…
I guess that’ll just have to be part of the world for the next while. No internet and none of the luxuries it comes with. It’s been alright in the hotels so far, both have had BBC World which despite a whole load of shite repeated over and over gives at least some news headlines on a semi-regular basis. That’ll be another thing gone from the weekend. So is no news good news?
21:02 Hanoi - Vietnam Wednesday March 19
Alright so off to Vietnam. I am sat in Bangkok airport waiting for my flight. I’m going on Nok Air which I believe is the local equiv of Ryanair but I don’t care. It is dirt cheap and the cute girl at the checkin desk just smiled when my bags were overweight and put them through anyway!
No wireless available here so it’s been a handy chance to actually get to emails. 7 lined up in the outbox at the moment. With luck I shall get some access later on in Hanoi. I’d better do, I don’t actually have a guide book. I’m totally on my own so I’d like to be able to at least take a look for a few bits and pieces to do.
I’m not sure i have much else at the moment. Bangkok was cheap. I’m spending less than I expected which is good. I’m leaving with over a 1/3 of the Thai currency I had brought with me still in my wallet. That bodes well for the next few months. Now I just need to get some local currency for Vietnam.
Speaking of cheap. The taxi to the airport was 32km and a total cost of 260 Baht. That’s around 4 pounds. Now what I need to do is get things even cheaper by heading for the buses and the like. I can’t believe that I paid for some hotel transfers later on in the trip, I should have just taken it all into my own hands. Still I know better now!
I dunno what else I got at the moment. It’s been nice being without a phone for the past while. Of course last night I turned it on because I needed an alarm clock for this morning and I left it on and of course it rang about 3am local time. Fuck sake. So sorry if that was you (why were you ringing me if it was you!) but I’m on a text or email only basis here for the next while and even then it’s gonna be pretty limited.
I’ve been surprised by how much net access I’ve had. I wasn’t expecting to pick up wireless networks so easily. So that’s good news. It does mean that to little degree I haven’t really started into a proper travel journal and working through some stuff. We’ll see how that goes now. I’d sit down and make an effort but that’s likely to just put me off doing it.
Man the Japanese are odd. There’s a whole group of them loudly running around here and taking photos of everything and everyone. The pretty girls, and there are a few of them, are all getting snapped by each one of them and even the children running around are being made pose. I don’t think I could just wander around and shoot pictures of people off the bat.
Gotta go, flights getting close to boarding.
09:57 Bangkok - Thailand Wednesday March 19