Travel Zulu

One thing I am enjoying the most about Vietnam is the food - Chinese style dishes, noodles and the best spring rolls you will ever eat.

I got the overnight bus to Hanoi last night. It was a long trip and I didn’t get much sleep. I was thinking about taking the train and getting a sleeper bed, but the tour buses pick you up and drop you off at a hotel, making them pretty convenient and they are also much cheaper.

One of the first things which stuck in my mind coming into Hanoi, were what looked like skinned dogs lined up for sale. “Pork?”, the girl beside me asked, “looks more like dog to me”, I said. Her face then turned a slightly different shade of colour.

I am staying in the so called “Old Quarter” of Hanoi. The Old Quarter is a labyrinth of tiny roads and alleys, with shops, restaurants and small hotels. The architecture is a mixture of French colonial and traditional Chinese.

I am planning to spend a bit of time here, with a couple of side trips to Sapa and Halong Bay.

I don’t take too many tours while I am travelling. I enjoy trying to find my own way to the things I want to see. Yesterday afternoon I sat down in a cafe for a beer and within about two minutes Ms Tu had me signed me up for her brother’s tour of Hue.

The cafe has comments and testimonials written all over its walls and even on the roof. The tour started around 8:30 am and I was taken all over the city and into the countryside. I couldn’t understand a lot of what my guide was talking about, but he had me in stitches laughing. The tour was done at break neck speed, which is my kind of tour - no leisurely messing about.

I did get to see Hamburger Hill, where one of the major battles of the Vietnam war took place, unfortunately the battery in my camera had gone flat.

This picture is of an Austin which in 1963 a monk, Thich Quang Duc, who in protest of the discrimination Buddhism was facing drove it to Saigon and set himself alight, where he burned to death. I think this was a precursor to the Vietnam war.

This picture is of a young monk who is making an offering of rice and water. His head is shaved after five years of living in the monastery.

My visa has almost expired so I am trying to get an extension for another month. I want to spend some time in Hanoi, Halong Bay and Sapa.

I arrived in Hue yesterday from Danang. I only stayed one night in Danang. The only cheap hotel I could find was like a sauna, and I had this motorcycle guy annoying the hell out of me the whole time.

I always try to be polite to people, but to most Vietnamese people it shows that you might be interested in their service. The constant hassling while walking around is one of the main negatives in Vietnam. I do realize that the people are poor and they are just trying to make a living, but it does wear you down after a while.

Like another Aussie guy said to me, if you gave money to everyone you met who you felt sorry for in Vietnam, it wouldn’t be long before you were broke.

I am renewing my visa for another month and since it is Friday I won’t get my passport back until Monday. Hue seems like a nice place to hang out for a couple of days. I am thinking of taking a tour to the DMZ which sounds interesting.

I got into Hoi An very early this morning. Hoi An is a small town on the Thu Bon river just south of Danang. Hotels are a little more expensive here and finally settled on a place with a pool, free internet and WiFi, free breakfast, hot water, AC, a bath and free bicycle rental for just $10 a night.

Hoi An is World Heritage Site and famous for its traditional Chinese style architecture. It reminds me a little of Dali, China. For the ladies it is a shopper’s paradise. There are street after street of tailor and Asian homeware shops.

It was very hot however, close to 40 degrees. Nha Trang wasn’t nearly as hot. Hoi An also has a few local specialties, including fried wontons and steamed fish in banana leaf.

I checked out of my hotel this morning where I have stayed for the past eight nights. I was starting to loose track as to how long I have actually been here. The longer you stay in a place you become more familiar with it and you have more opportunity to make friends. I could probably stay here longer, but I now only have 8 more days left on my visa. I believe that it is fairly simple to get an extension. A few people have told me that they really liked Hanoi, so I might spend a bit of time there.

I am catching the overnight bus to Hoi An this evening. I wanted to catch the train but it doesn’t stop at Hoi An but at Danang, which is a little further north.

I am in Nha Trang now, a beach town north of Saigon. The beach is not so great, but it has nice enough sand and goes on for a few kilometers. There are few islands offshore where you can go diving.

Today is the first time I have seen blue skies in over a week. My hotel has a balcony and is just one street back from the beach. A bargain at just 5 bucks a night. Just down the road at a big hotel there is free wireless internet.

I suppose because it’s rainy season there aren’t so many tourists about, but there does seem to be a high number of Australians. With different troubles going on in Bali and southern Thailand, maybe Vietnam is becoming more popular with Australians looking for a cheap overseas destination.

It has rained almost two days solid here in Dalat. Dalat is in the mountains, so it is much cooler than the coastal cities of Vietnam. I put shoes and socks on last night for the first time in three months. I also had a great night’s sleep.

I came to Dalat over 10 years ago with a couple of friends when I was teaching in Japan. One of my friends lost his passport in the bus on the way to Dalat, so it is place I will never forget.

The town has narrow, windy roads and cafes everywhere. There a few tours you can do out of the city, but with the weather the way it is I don’t think I will bother. The motorcycle tour guides are also very pushy and don’t leave you alone wherever you go. Their tours through the Central Highlands look interesting, but I don’t know if I could stand sitting on the back of a bike for so long.

Mui Ne is famous for its production of lovely smelling fish sauce and the desert like sand dunes that are nearby.

I rode out to the sand dunes today. Just as I made it there, it started to pour, so I sat in one of the restaurants there and just watched the rain and the lightning over the sand dunes.

As soon as you get there, a bunch of kids almost attack you to get you to ride on one of their plastic sheets down the sand dunes. Most of them spoke excellent English, even if it was just the usual kind of where are you from type questions. Even though it was pouring with rain it didn’t stop them running around outside in bare feet, doing the occasional cart-wheel.

I am off to Dalat tomorrow morning.

I got a bus to Miu Ne today which is about 3-4 hours north of Saigon on the coast. It is a famous wind and kite surfing spot in Vietnam, but now it is out of season and there is very little wind.

The beach is fairly nice and there are plenty of both cheap and expensive places to stay. One problem I have is that I always compare the beaches and the places I stayed at in Thailand. It is pretty quiet here so I am thinking of moving on fairly quickly to Dalat and then on to Nah Trang.