Indo China 4

Vietnam 2

My original roomie, Marvin, had, regretfully, left the tour in Hanoi and had been replaced by a young lad from Leicester, Dan, who was travelling with two mates, brothers Martin and Phil.

The 4 of us bunked up on the psychedelic train and made the best of the 15 hour journey, the tedium of which was eased by the availability of cold beer, which I discovered upon boarding, bought in its entirety and had delivered, cool box and all, to our cabin. No disco carriage this time but a few hours with the ipod through a portable speaker was a more than adequate alternative, before another uncomfortable night on the tracks.

We arrived in Hue, the former ancient capital of Vietnam, home, most notably, to a seven storey, 400 year old, pagoda, an ancient set of tombs of former kings, laid out in accordance with strict Feng Shui principles, and the ancient walled citadel.

 

In all honesty I don’t think anyone was that taken by Hue, I certainly was not, but this was not helped by the local guide we had, who unlike the others, was a bit bossy and intense, the weather, which was overcast, hot and oppressive and my foot, which continued to impair my movement. {For those of a strong constitution I have included a picture at the end of this blog .... it is not too pleasant!}

Indicative of my lack of enthusiasm for Hue is that perhaps the most memorable part of our visit was when a small group of us went out to a local bar for our evening meal, and we got involved in their Jenga challenge. We managed 32 levels which won us a round of very strangely coloured shots

Everybody back onto the bus’ was by now a very regular call and being rounded up to head out of Hue was a relief, I think, to all.

What back home, would seem like a real chore, 4 hours in a minibus, seemed to us like light relief, as we set off for our next 3 day stop in Hoi Ann. Hours spent travelling, in all sorts of vehicles, and/or waiting, had now become easy, just as well considering what was to come over the next few weeks.

A really different landscape this time as we left behind the flat lands and paddy fields, Vietnam is the 5^th largest producer of rice in the world, and it is also estimated that if global warming continues at its present rate, the rise in sea level will mean that up to 70% of Vietnam is likely to disappear before the end of the century, so get there fast!!

We passed picturesque lakes and then climbed up into the mountains high above the coast and passed through Bunker Hill, a scene of much fighting during both the French occupation and American invasion, as these are the hills outside Duanang, and then dropped down into the picturesque town of Hoi Ann.

 

Hoi Ann grew up originally as an important centre, predominantly for the Japanese and Chinese traders, who considered it the most important link to the rest of Asia in the early 15^th century. It lost popularity as the river got busier as it suffered from silting and the town flooded regularly. Flooding is still a problem today, as was explained to me by a local bar owner, and this is why no commercial properties within the old town have floor coverings on the ground floor as their premises will be underwater at least once a year .

It is now a bit of a tourist trap, as many of the old buildings still survive and in fact it has been giving UNESCO World Heritage site status. There are many bars and restaurants, many of which are lit by coloured lanterns and a great old fashioned day/night market. Also there are many speciality  tailors, who will run up a suit or, like some of the girlies on the trip had them do, copy a designer dress, in about 24 hours, for very little cost and the quality was pretty good, according to those that had stuff made.

 

There were various excursions available, but I chose to get involved in some serious R&R, as my foot needed it and also I had not really done nothing for a day, it felt, since leaving the UK. There was a lovely pool, that I decided would be silly to swim in, but was great for lounging next to, and the restaurants both in the hotel and nearby, down by the riverside, were very good and excellent value.

I thought Hoi Ann was a lovely place and it was also the scene of two remarkable occurrences. Firstly, the chance meeting with two mates from Cardiff, Rob and Linda, who were sat in a restaurant as I walked passed and spotted me. It was so good to see them and catch up on some home news .... go Bluebirds!!

Secondly an amazing, although a little gory, sight, when a bat flew into a restaurant from the street  ....... straight into a fan !!  Splat!! Onomatopoeic perfection, clearly his radar was on the blink.

After a very pleasant few days we left Hoi Ann, travelled to Duanang airport to take an hour long flight to our last stop in Vietnam, the former capital of the South, and still the major commercial centre of the country, Ho Chi Minh City, which used to be called Saigon, and here is the man...

HCMC is huge, over 7 ¼ million people live there, and they own over 5 million motorbikes!!  I think only about 36 of them were off the road when we arrived....... don’t worry, I won t bore you again ...... but it really was incredible.

What we saw of the city on arrival was very different and pretty impressive with some very grand buildings and parklands, also avenues of top hotels and expensive shops. At times it felt like a European city, no doubt largely due to the heavy French influence on the architecture - they even have an opera house and a church modelled on Notre Dame -  but a European city hosting ‘everybody go to work on a moped day’..... stop it!

 

We had 2 excursions from our base in HCMC.

The first was a fascinating trip to the Cu Chi tunnels accompanied by a brilliant guide who had actually fought alongside the US troops in the war, in that area and had many anecdotes and a huge amount of detail that he shared with us.

The tunnels, 75 MILES(!!!!)  of which have been preserved, show the resilience, ingenuity and determination of an army facing a vastly superior enemy in terms of firepower and resources. Have a look at this link for information, it really is staggering

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cu_Chi_tunnels

The second was a full day spent with, or should I say on, our old friend, the Meekong. This time we were on the Delta, a huge flood plain covering up to 15,000 square miles, (dependent upon the season), where several rivers converge and eventually flow to the sea.

This is not only a vitally important food growing area, due to the nutrient rich sedimentary soil laid down over tens of thousands of years, but also has been described as a ‘biological treasure trove’ as up to 10,000 new species of life have been discovered there. We were not on a scientific field trip, rather it was a chance to sail the Delta, take a small motor boat up one of the many rivers and then transfer via horse and cart to an oriental ‘punt’ and then

 

 

 

 

 we were ‘rowed’ through the network of canals to a small village for a traditional lunch.

As always, the people we met were charming – especially the owner of the python, get it? – the scenery spectacular and the experience unforgettable.

On our return to HCMC I did suffer quite a disappointment. Unlike some of my mates, I went back to the hotel before heading into town to visit a couple of, what I considered, must see attractions, namely the former presidential residence and the war remnants museum. When I got there, the whole of the centre of HCMC had been affected by a total power failure and the guards were not allowing any admissions, by the time the power came back, they were shut and we moved on next morning. Bugger!

With the exception of Hue, and maybe that was more me than it, Vietnam was fantastic. With hindsight I feel that it would have been quite easy to do alone via public transport and I do think I will be back, especially as there are many more areas that I didn’t get to.

Next stop, a taster of what I just alluded to, Cambodia .... by public transport !!


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Indo China 3

Vietnam 1

From the outset Vietnam was a country I was really looking forward to visiting and that anticipation pushed to the back of my mind the talk, from the scaremongerers in the group, about the shocking statistics for air safety that Laos Airlines has, the chosen carrier to take us into Hanoi

Having done the trip without incident, I must say the aircraft was spacious, clean and newer than some I have used, the staff terrific and I would certainly have no issues using them again, but don’t try and book them in or out of the UK, as they have consistently, failed to attain the safety standards required  to acquire an operating licence!!

I noticed immediately, travelling into town from the airport, the architecture. Many of the buildings/houses were tall but also narrow. Apparently the French, the former colonial governors of Vietnam, imposed punitive taxation on property based on its footprint and so the locals made their buildings narrow but tall in an attempt to circumvent their tax liability, and the style caught on.

I know I have banged on a bit about transport, but Hanoi really does take ‘bonkers’ to another level when it comes to traffic, there are more motorbikes here than insects and they swarm around the city, funnelling from the main roads into the side streets like grains of sand flowing through an egg timer.

Unlike  Sri Lanka, people rarely sound their horn and a strange ordered chaos, occasioned by common sense and courtesy, prevails. It is amazing to watch but a real bugger if you want to cross a road. The secret is (and this applies in all of the Asian countries I have visited) ‘just walk’. As silly as it sounds, it is true, and the only way. If you just walk and don’t stop, don’t alter course or speed, they will work around it. Stop, and you may end up as a traffic island forever, change speed or dither and you will almost certainly cause an accident, that will almost inevitably involve you!

We stayed in the old quarter, the original heart of the city that was based around just  36 streets  each, supposedly, representing a different trade. It now teems with hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes alongside shops, laundries and frontages for one of the great things here, a shop that provides nearly every service you could imagine. You can book a holiday, have a massage, arrange a funeral, get a tattoo, learn English and do the weekly shop all at the same venue.
Also a great institution in Hanoi is their incredible telecom system, look up and admire the wiring!!

The place is permanently bustling, motor bikes block every pavement, street vendors approach you every couple of metres, but are polite and usually take a shake of the head as an indication that you don t want a $5 pair of 'genuine' Raybans, a wooden frog or Manchester United woven bracelet, but more than anything else there are backpackers everywhere. There cannot be any German youth left in Germany, they are all in Asia, and frankly, despite my fondness for their homeland, who can blame them, its terrific fun.

Another thing to mention about Vietnam that you need to deal with from arrival, is their currency, the Dong. A trip to the cashpoint to get a few drinking vouchers, ended with me becoming a cash multi-millionaire for the first, and probably last time, in my life, I withdrew 3 million dong, but I didn t even have £100.

Talking about drinking, I forgot to record last time how good Beer Laos is. I understand it is being shipped to UK and is well worth sourcing, it remained the beer of choice for myself and my German drinking partner, Udo, for the whole tour and was certainly the better option than the, still perfectly acceptable, Hanoi Beer in North Vietnam.
 

The weather in Hanoi was HOT, reaching 42 degrees one day and as soon as you left the air conditioned lobby of the hotel and merely walked to the pavement you were sweating, by the end of the road you were soaking, but everyone was the same and you just got on with it, occasionally ducking into a doorway of a bank or larger store for a blast of cool air. With this in mind I decided to take a cyclo, pedal powered rickshaw, from my hotel to the local theatre, where we had tickets to see the famous Hanoi water puppets.

 My 8 stone driver nodded enthusiastically when I had told him where I was going and I had allowed 45 mins to take, what I had anticipated to be a 20 minute journey,  but ........ half an hour after we set off we seemed to be nowhere near where I thought we should be. Pointing at my watch I urged him to get me there and he nodded, grinned through the sweat and put on a spurt. Five minutes later he exhaustedly announced our arrival  .........  back at my hotel!!!

I made it clear that I was not happy and that I had wanted to go to the theatre, and that I was now late and went to get out. He apologised for his misunderstanding, gestured furiously, as if he now knew what I wanted and we set off again.

It was no good. We were still not on the same hymn sheet, I needed help. By the time I saw someone that looked like they could speak a few words of English, to help me,  the show had already started.

By the time the driver got me to the theatre there was only 20 mins left of the show.

By the time I finished arguing with him, and a couple of his mates that joined in, about paying, or should I say not paying, for his epic workout, had got into the theatre and persuaded security that I was with with the party inside and got to my seat, there was less than 10 mins left of the 45min show.

Due to my tardiness I glanced around, embarrassed, towards my group and the look on the faces of my fellow travellers said it all ...... it was terrible. The puppets consisted of crappy wooden figures on sticks, badly painted and at best having a very limited amount of movement in a single limb, that were held out to 'perform' over an 8 foot square paddling pool, whilst the puppeteers stood behind a canvas screen.

I am sure it might have been both amazing and entertaining during the middle ages and probably has some deep cultural relevance, but for me it made the WoodenTops look like a multimillion dollar Spielberg production and the final straw was that it was accompanied by 3, stern and a bit scary, Vietnamese women, belting out some medieval chants accompanying themselves on discordant instruments that all appeared to have, and certainly sounded as if they had, bits missing. Not recommended!

As it happened my driver had inadvertently done me a huge favour and I even felt a bit guilty about not paying him especially as he had probably burned more calories than the average Tour de France competitor, whilst ferrying me around town.


The next morning, in massive heat, we braved the traffic, and walked across town to visit the number one attraction in North Vietnam, the former home and eventual resting place of, probably the most famous Vietnamese man, former PresidentHo Chi Minh, (which if you want to pronounce correctly insofar as ‘the party’ is concerned, requires you to exhale 99% of your breath and with the remaining 1% force out his name in three successive explosive bursts :  Ho / Chee / Minh). Despite being the leader of a party that were responsible for untold amounts of pain, suffering, intimidation, mutilation and murder of tens of thousands of his own people, he was still revered as almost a god. His face appears on all of the banknotes his pictures and busts are everywhere and bus loads of kids are ferried to his tomb everyday with  clearly no understanding but it starts them off the 'right' ( or more to the point LEFT) way

It seems really weird to me, that such a guy, whose dying wish was to be cremated and his ashes split and distributed equally in the north, middle and south of his beloved country, should, instead, be ‘stuffed’ and put on permanent  display in a huge concrete monolith of a mausoleum in Hanoi, but hey that’s symbolic communism for you.

A game of ‘make the soldier laugh’ here can end up with you being hung upside down by your unmentionables for the rest of your days, but a straight face is a small price to pay in order to spend 8 minutes inching past Mr Minh, in the best air conditioned building in the country, especially after having queued for half an hour in the baking sun.

A couple more temples, a few hours in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ -




the former hell hole French run prison that symbolised the oppression exerted against the indigenous population, - several great meals and a few late nights in the local bars and it was time to get out of Hanoi, with some regret, and head to Halong Bay, 5 hours to the west, for some nautical activity.

We all boarded a small ferry/taxi  at the port side that took us out to our boat, which was quite a swanky vessel



 and we then set sail towards the hundreds of small islands and limestone rocks in the bay.


It stretched the imagination a little to try and match the enthusiasm of our guide and see some of the rocks as ‘the two chickens’ etc., but immediately prompted a series of slightly silly suggestions for future renaming, I was quite fond of ‘Hitler’s moustache’, ‘skateboarding badger’ and ‘melted brie’.

We passed the scene of the Top Gear ‘build a boat out of your car’ episode and eventually anchored in a cove, a couple of hundred yards off shore from quite a big island. The small ferry then took us ashore and we climbed 70 or 80 steps up to a cave overlooking the cove. This was just a taster, over the next 45mins we went deeper into the rock into three progressively more impressive caves the final enormous cavern was easily the biggest I have ever seen and was frankly awesome


 

And then.....just as everything was going so well.......my biggest nightmare, I had been nursing a small blister underneath my big toe, unfortunately  I picked up a small stone or something similar that got into my sandal in the cold and wet cave and ripped the blister to shreds and punctured my toe.

I had had a similar injury before I left UK and that had taken months to heel as it requires, ideally, complete rest as everytime you stand on your toe, stretch your toe ie walk or climb, it opens the wound.

Previously it had required two courses of antibiotics and dozens of dressings for it to clear. With the schedule I had, rest was not an option as I would miss out on so much but against this was the risk of further complications. With the climate, early healing was unlikely, the drugs and dressings I thought I could get, but my main paranoia centred around avoiding picking up an infection, especially something waterborn, which could essentially put pay to the whole trip.....................oh bugger!

 

A great sunset, a good meal on board ship, a morning climb up 275 steps to a temple, (needless to say I passed on this) a demonstration of how to make a fishing net out of a carrot –
for food presentation purposes -  4 changes of dressings, a 6 hour bus trip back to Hanoi – due to several cloudbursts – a quick bite to eat and a well earned beer and then it was off to the station for a super duper 13 hour train journey to our next destination, Hue (pronounced H-way).










Vietnam was living up to expectations

Indo China 2

Firstly an explanation for the delay  - not that I am under any conditions to post this stuff  - but I have been asked if I had stopped blogging. Although I have been able to access the net to download, getting a good enough connection to upload, especially with HD pictures has been really tricky lately. So blogs will continue but only when I am able to do so and I hope you keep enjoying them.

No doubt you will recall the almighty thunderstorm and my misgivings about its impact on our progress, fortunately my fears were unfounded. The torrential rain soaked away quickly and by the time we left for the border it was back to normal with a clear sky and breakfast temperatures already in the mid 30’s

We had to cross the Mekong to get into Laos and after a formal, red tape laden 10 minute check out from Thailand we all piled into a dodgy ferry and sped across the 60/70 metres of muddy water to the second country of the trip.

Although neighbours there are aspects of Thailand and Laos that put them worlds apart, evident even from getting on and off the ferry. On the Thai side it is a walk down a tarmac path, a step onto a small concrete plinth and from there onto the boat. Don’t get me wrong, the Health and Safety Executive would still have had a field day here, but on the Laos side – and by the way you don’t pronounce the  ‘s’ -  the boat rammed itself into the mud and you had to walk  a very unsteady plank, from there up a mud bank to a steep, broken concrete path, not that easy with 30Kg of luggage!!

 

A totally disorganized border office, a clear disinterest in Duty Free facilities and a rather daunting beetle were the entertainment for an hour whilst immigration did their best to chat up every young female entering the country

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and then it was off in a small bus to meet our next transportation, a slow river boat, which was to be home for the next couple of days as we ‘cruised’ some 350kms down one of the great rivers of Asia

The boat was a family run affair with dad as captain steering at the front and mum and daughter confined to a rear room that doubled as both the kitchen and their sleeping quarters, but was also home to a deafening, hot, smelly engine. We were also joined by the first of the many encyclopaedic local tour guides that we would pick up on our travels, and a pilot to help the captain navigate some of the more treacherous parts of the river.

 

The boat was open sided affording a cool breeze as we sat, on what I was sure used to be, the seats from half a dozen old Ford  cortinas, nailed to planks of wood in pairs  around wooden tables, but everyone was in good spirits, mum cooked us a superb lunch and we watched the countryside drift by only interrupted by the odd rice carrying barge, fellow slow boat or motorcycle helmet wearing, speed freak water taxi that sped up and down the river seemingly oblivious to the risk of hitting any of the huge amounts of tree debris that floated on, or lurked perilously close to, the surface of the water and which we scraped over from time to time.

Either side of the river the rich green vegetation varied between forest and crops and the river banks and waters edge was populated by kids playing and swimming, fishermen, gold panners, women doing their laundry, spreading out the clothes on the rocks to dry, men collecting wood and the occasional herd of water buffalo.

As the scenery changed, so did the river, from placid slow moving pools to hectic rapids and violent reverse eddies, that caused you to doubt which way the river was flowing, especially when we passed some of the huge rocks that studded our route, and which the pilot helped to navigate us through.

All of this against a mixed backdrop of soaring mist wrapped peaks or flat, seemingly endless plains, it was  stunning.

Laos is a particularly mountainous country with less than 15% of its landmass available for what might be deemed ‘standard’ cultivation so farmers attempt to cultivate mountainsides and are clearing them by the slash and burn technique (cut what you can, set fire to the  rest), this technique leaves huge black scars on the landscape, no doubt reminiscent of what it must have looked like following the US’s deforestation attempts during what is known here as the ‘American War’.

This blog was always intended to be a predominantly light hearted diary-type record of my adventure, but the plight of Laos was quite disturbing and I wanted to note something about it.

 Although not a direct participant in the conflict, the people of Laos suffered, and continue to suffer, appalling casualties as a result of the American decision to bomb the country back to the Stone age and the figures are mind boggling

 A massive aerial bombardment against Laos and NVA forces was carried out by the United States in an attempt to prevent the collapse of Lao's central government and to curtail the use of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It has been reported that Laos was hit by an average of one B‑52 bombload every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. U.S. bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of the World War II and of the 260 million bombs that rained down, some 80 million failed to explode and a high proportion of these were cluster bombs ie dozens of small bomblets that spread out from the one shell, leaving a deadly legacy. Laos is officially the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world and casualties from unexploded ordnance are still reported almost daily.

Ironically some good is coming out of addressing the problems as it provides work for the lucky few, but for unfortunate individuals, the cost is catastrophic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhVq-9Y5n-Y

This is what a cluster bomb would look like on impact

 

We spent our first night in Pak Beng, a small village half way through the river trip and the following day carried on for a few hours before stopping to allow us to climb up to the Pak Ou caves. They were not  amazing, but it is considered a spiritual site and is home to thousands of Buddah statues, but what was remarkable, was that at about 25 metres above the water level, there was a line drawn marking the river height in 1966. From the cave, apart from the odd isolated hill, as far as you can see the surrounding countryside is flat, it is not as if a valley flooded, it was 25 metres deep for miles!!!

Eventually, after about 10 hours, we arrived at our next destination Luang Prabang where we spent three nights. It is a UNESCO World Heritage town, regarded by some as one of the most charming in SE Asia, and a great chance to check out some of the 32 local temples   ....  o joy.

The light relief was the chance to visit a busy and extensive night market, a great day out visiting a very impressive waterfall and lake system and a charming evening at a local home where a couple of old ladies cooked and served us a traditional evening meal.

 

Another full day travelling, this time in a small mini bus through some quite hairy mountain roads, bought us to Vang Vieng. Again we had three nights here, the first in a homestay  ie living like a local in a small village. Think Tenko with a smile and you are half way there. The villagers were a delight, especially the kids, but the accommodation.....OMG..... hard, uncomfortable beds in a smelly, unventilated, un air conditioned room you share with a couple of geckos and few dozen mosquitoes and the delights of a squat toilet. ( You were lucky, we used to dream of having a squat toilet .......)

 

The next day it was only a 10 minute drive back to the 21st century  and to be honest if I had known that the night before I would have cut and run from thr homestay and splashed out the probable £6 cost of staying in a hotel on my own.

We had 2 nights in Vang Vieng which I had hoped to use to take a hot air balloon trip over the mountains but the weather was not favourable and having learned that there had been 5 recent balloon incidents (!!) I was not happy to risk it in anything other than perfect conditions.

These were a couple of days chill out and gave me a chance to sort out laundry, take a few walks and have a few nice meals, especially an unexpected combination of Laos/Austrian cuisine from a little restaurant I found in the backstreets, where a local was busy entertaining a few visitors with, and later gave me the opportunity to play, a diggeridoo, although perhaps ‘play’ is gilding the lilly somewhat, as it was more like an elephant farting in a pressure cooker when I tried it, much to the amusement of my fellow diners, but the food and cocktails were fab.

 

The final leg of the trip was a relatively painless 4 hours drive to the capital Vientiane. More of the same stuff culturally ie temples stupas etc plus a visit to a centre dedicated to helping the victims of the unexploded ordnance I have referred to above which was quite moving, and then that was it.

Laos was great, simple, in many ways backward, but charming, friendly and honest, but for how much longer?

 My one fear for the place is that China is befriending Laos and offering to build roads and rail links which, it cannot be denied it is desperate for, but in exchange for what? Laos has very little apart from its timber and its potential for HEP generation both on the Meekong and in the mountains, and China needs both in ever increasing quantities. It also needs major construction projects for its own workers. It may be cynical but I picked up some of these reservations from talking with people as I travelled and I just hope that someone will ensure that Laos gets a fair deal out its dealings with its ‘benefactor’.

Ok   next stop Vietnam