Vietnam: What an ending

This is when we had a bit of a run of bad luck. We left our hotel in Hoi An rather hung over and arrived at Da Nang airport to some confusion. Our flight was scheduled for 16.15 but all the boards were showing it as leaving at 22.20, strange, nowhere did it say delayed. Everyone else around seemed to be just as confused as we were, so we followed the crowd and joined the que to check in in the hopes of being enlightened. 

We waited over an hour in this que which wasn't very long just very slow moving. This would not be such an issue had the yager (jagermeister) shenanigans of last night not been sending waves across us every few minutes and further unaided by little tit bits of information filtering through the que! Basically our flight and the next were delayed until 22.20. Instead of updating the board as such they explained the situation to everyone individually so everyone in the que could have their own moan, the stewart at the desk would then apologise and go and see if there were seats available with other airlines, a pointless exercise which only kept us in the que longer.

We listened as the two ladies in front of us discussed how this always happened with this bloody airline, "like, seriously this happened the last five times with bloody Jetstar!!" This leaves you to wonder why a person would choose to book with the same airline given that there are a number of budget air lines available. Having gotten to the desk, they took the dumb route and were in a desperate situation as the woman's imaginary daughter was getting married in the morning and they simply must be allocated another flight! Good effort, but to no advantage.

When we finally reached the desk we were informed of the delay but to compensate us for the inconvenience we were given a meal voucher for the airport restaurant and a discount for our next flight with jetstar. Great! At this point we only had 6 hours to hang about. There were several flights delayed so we decided to head straight to the airport restaurant and nab a seat before the rest of the crowd followed and reconsider our original plan. 

The original plan was to get to Saigon early and possibly get straight on a night bus to Cambodia or failing that head to the Saigon Inn where we'd stayed previously and arrange a bus through them for first thing in the morning. With no other option we decided we'd better just book the hotel and sort our onward travel in the morning, great idea if the bloody internet worked at the airport! Besides not being able to book a hotel 6 hours with no internet to entertain us made for a very long wait.

We chatted for a while with some other passengers before ordering our free meal. Despite the restaurant serving several different dishes we were given the option of "chicken" noodle soup or "beef" noodle soup with a bottle of water. Unfortunately it appeared to be parts of animals you don't normally find in food! The soup was more oil than water and confirms quite the theory that there is no such thing as a free meal. Realising that we were in the airport for some time yet it seemed logical not to spend our time in the bathroom so we tasted it and left it and the restaurant. 

After some time to recover our appetite and with few other options in the check-in area for food we decided on a change of scenery and went through to departures where thankfully we found a burger king. Despite the portion sizes being much smaller than we're used to it was very edible and the first real fast food we'd had in weeks. At this stage we'd had an update on the flight and learned we were delayed by another hour which made us a little nervous about the time we were finally going to arrive in Saigon.

The hotel we intended to stay in didn't operate a 24hr reception and while we were familiar with the area we were heading to we didn't fancy trying to find an alternate at 12 at night so we thought we'd try and call the hotel and make a booking in the hopes that they'd stay open until we arrived, but how to make that call. 

Our mobile for some reason while we were in Vietnam wouldn't connect to a network so we thought a pay phone, obvious right, wrong! The airport didn't have payphones and thinking about it I'm not sure they exist in Vietnam, all the currency is in notes so I'm not sure how they'd work. Anyway we thought it was jetstars fault we were in this mess so we went to their desk and thankfully they made the call for us and the hotel agreed to wait for us. 

All we'd left to do now was wait. We were eventually the last flight to leave the airport at around 11.30 that night and finally arrived at the hotel just after 1 for a sleep before rising early to organise our onward travel. 

On waking the next morning I went straight down to reception to organise a bus to Ha Tien, the most straight forward route back to Kampot. Luckily there was availabilty on a bus at 12.30 which gave us time to shower and eat before boarding, great until the next incident accurrred. 

I headed back to our room to have a shower and instead of unpacking my bag to get to everything I used the sachets of shower gel and shampoo provided by the hotel, bad idea. Struggling to open the first sachet I used my teeth and broke my front crown! (I've had a front crown for 17 years after breaking my tooth playing hockey) I was devastated, what was I going to do. It had broken in three and left me with a stump as a front tooth.

Thankfully after calming me down Shane took hold of the situation, cancelling the bus which we hadn't yet paid for thank God and getting the details of a dentist which the hotel recommended. After getting myself together off we went.

Unfortunately the dentist the hotel had recommended was closed but we'd passed some on the way so left the taxi with Shane doing all the talking while I stood there with my hand over my mouth. The first place we tried after showing them the problem were very eager to help and even drew pictures of a new tooth and also wrote the cost alongside. Suspicious of the lack of talking and artistic display, Shane took the piece of paper and wrote "any English??" The response was not verbal, just a sorry looking head shake! Whilst having no English on its own could never be a detriment to the ability to do a job, not being able to quickly and effectively communicate with someone in this position is definitely a deal breaker so we left to try another. 

The second place we tried looked like a dental hospital but we couldn't find anyone to speak to believe it or not. Shane tried speaking to the security guard but he presumably had no English either as the only response received was the all encompassing twist of the hand so we carried on up the street.

The third place we got lucky. The young girl on the desk had perfect English and shows me to the treatment room. I did get a little nervous at this point, was she the dentist? She looked about 18 definitely not old enough to be qualified. Thankfully a much older man arrived, fortunately he was the dentist and appeared to have good English and a friendly attitude. With Shane standing at the viewing window arms folded intently studying the dentist, he explained that he'd examine me and then explain my options which put me at ease. A half hour later he'd prepped what was left of my original tooth, taken the impressions needed for me to return the following day for the new crown to be fitted.

Disaster averted we got some lunch and considered our options to get back to Kampot in Cambodia. Our visas were about to expire in two days but we didn't really want to leave the following day in case there was any issues with the crown but didn't want to over stay our visa and make things complicated at the border so we decided to book a bus for the last day on our visa and hope for the best. 

If only it was that simple, we didn't realise, and we should of given how much we'd learnt about the Vietnam war while in Vietnam but there was a three day holiday coming up. This meant there was no available buses going to Hat Tien until at least the 1st May. Our options were to go via Phnom Penh or over stay our visas so reluctantly we opted for Phnom Penh. Decision made the agent tried to make the booking but there was nothing available! Could we have any more bad luck! After explaining our predicament wearing our best sad faces, the agent made a few more calls and managed to get us on a bus but it wouldn't be a sleeper bus. We could live with that, it wasn't that long a journey and it was early in the morning and would eliminate visa issues.

Plans made we went back to hide in our room or at least that's what I was doing for the afternoon. Unfortunately I had to eat so that night we went for dinner and bumped into Shane´s ´snuggle buddy´ Ben from the night bus and his other half Emily (you might remember Ben who we mentioned in our Hue post). After a beer or two we then met another couple we'd spent some time with at the airport in Da Nang and had two more beers as you do before heading back to the hotel where we had yet more bad luck.

Our hotel was down an alley and didn't have 24hr desk so on arriving at the hotel we had to ring the bell. While waiting for the door to be answered disaster struck and my bag was snatched. The guy cut the strap and before I knew what had happened he was off. Shane took off after him but it was a futile exercise, the alleys are like a maze and he had the upper hand. On the bright side which I couldn't quite see at the time he didn't get much, thankfully we always separate everything and Shane had the bulk of our money but he did get my bank card which was another drama to sort out. 

Once we got over the fright of what happened we went about phoning the bank to cancel the card. We asked to use the hotel phone as our mobile didn't work only to find you couldn't dial international numbers from their phone, ridiculous if you ask me! I then had a brain wave and thought we can put credit on our Skype account but even that wasn't straight forward. 

We logged on and went about adding credit only to be told that because of our location the option wasn't available. At this stage we'd no choice but to call home on viber, explain our predicament and ask for them to put credit on our account. We were then finally able to call the bank and calm ourselves down enough to get some sleep. 

The following day we didn't do very much before heading to the dentist. After much pushing and pulling my crown was finally fitted and I was pleasantly surprised. It looks as good if not better than what I originally had. With a sigh of relief we were able to head back and pack up to finally move on the following day. 

Our final journey in Vietnam thankfully was incident free and we arrived in Phnom Penh that evening checked in to a hotel for the night and then straight on to Kampot the following day where we could relax and take in everything that had happened over the last few days.

Vietnam conclusion
Despite the ending we had to our visit to Vietnam we did enjoy it and both Halong Bay (despite the mist) and the Hai Van pass were real highlights on our travels so far and we met some great people. It's a much more developed country than you might think and has really embraced the tourist industry but not always in a good way. Scams await you everywhere and unlike India in a lot of ways are well disguised. There must be more travel agents than anywhere in the world especially in Hanoi but they're not always legit. 

We also learnt a lot about the Vietnam war and its long term effects still present today. War is pointless and the more I've learnt about the Vietnam war the more I realise just how pointless it was. It should never have happened, but the Vietnamese are very resilient. While the country may be poor in parts it's never squalid and as a race they've come out the otherside of some serious atrocities, the village at the Vinh Moc Tunnels being a case in point.

The Vietnamese are very social and like to party and there are karaoke bars everywhere. The bar scene particularly in Hanoi and Saigon is huge where people sit on little plastic stools on the street outside the often just an open shop front with a beer tap or cooler.

Vietnam was the first space where we struggled a bit with food. Their food is quite basic and lacks flavour but they serve a type of fish sauce with most dishes. If your on the coast and like seafood however there's plenty of fresh options to choose from. The best food we had was in Hoi An which is probably to be expected given its largely a tourist town. For coffee lovers though Vietnam is the place to be, it's very strong so beware.

Other things I'll take away from Vietnam is that there is nothing that cannot be transported on a motor bike. Across Asia you'll see everything and anything being taken on a moto but I think some of the funniest things we've seen have been in Vietnam. A 20ft. ladder being dragged along by the driver with his foot through the top rung, a whole family on the back with a babyseat to the front for the youngest and even uncaged animals balancing happily on the back. 

There's nothing that can't be put in a plastic bag either, soup, coconut milk absolutely anything, the bag is filled and tied with a straw in the knot for you to drink the liquid. 

One big irritant while in Vietnam was the ATMs, because everything was so cheap most bank machines would only allow a maximum withdrawal of 2,000,000 dong which is about £55. This means you use them more and are consequently charged a currency fee and a charge for using your card abroad which can add up over a month especially when you consider how far the charges will get you here.

It really is a very beautiful country with some breathtaking scenery and has so much to offer the world. It definitely should be on everyone's list for a visit and unfortunately the sooner the better as is the running theme in South East Asia it is changing fast and not entirely for the better.

Hoi An

Hoi An

This trip would be a nice easy 4-5 hour bus ride compared to our previous bus treks and thankfully we arrived in Hoi An still in daylight allowing us to leave the bus and the army of relentless tuk tuk drivers and guest house reps behind. After a rather warm 15 minute walk we arrived at our hotel. The hotel was really nice too with a pool, basically a brand new building so the rooms were a really good standard too. It was situated roughly halfway between the old town centre and the beach with the hotel providing free bicycles we could be at either side in less than 10 minutes.

After a much needed swim we headed towards town for dinner and a drink. It was very noticeably hotter here than in Hue both day and night with figures averaging 35 in the day and between 28 & 32 at night. When we got to the old town we just walked down the street towards the riverfront and enroute we were stopped by a lady in formal attire just repeatedly stating "ticket", not really knowing what to make of this I carried on walking however the lady became quite insistent and then Geri; "hmm...........ya actually i remember reading something about this somewhere, yeah we have to buy tickets". There is indeed a ticket system in place for the old town part of Hoi An! I must confess to having a little difficulty processing the fact that we would have pay to walk down the street!! Thankfully my inately irish utterance was heard but not understood, "hmm better be a damn good feckin street for this feckin craic!!"

It's a good job it didn't disappoint as it really is such a nice experience on the old town streets and riverfront. With the majority of the buildings retaining their traditional architecture (19th and 20th century), two storey buildings. Among the many many tailors and tourist orientated shops in the narrow lane streets were lots of religious buildings, such as temples and pagodas, etc., including meeting/assembly houses in which public meetings were held by the local 'clans' there to discuss all current matters of the time. The traditional lifestyle, religion, cooking and customs of this city which originated as a port community have been well preserved with lots of festivals taking place there annually.   

*Just as a side note on the tickets' thing:
Purchase of a ticket does actually entitle you to free entry into five of the sights within the old town and part of the concept was "the money from the tickets is used to support and maintain the old town as it is.

Familiar thirst quenching god send.
After spending the day doing not very much at all we headed into town late evening for a meal in the famous restaurant, The Mermaid. It was by far the busiest place in the old town with tables hard to get as 'walk ins' we were lucky to be seated straightaway and enjoyed some delicious Vietnamese cuisine nicely washed down with some ice cold beer. It was by far the hottest, most humid night of our travels given a quick temperature check on the way back at 10pm showed a whopping 32 degrees with 'real feel' being 36 and a humidity level of 86%!! We stopped at a convenience store for a bottle of water and as we both reached the fridge at the back of the store from either side of its one aisle we opened it, looked in, looked at eachother and both assumed that we were suffering hallucinations from the heat?! Having closed the doors and taking a moment we peered in through the condensation on the doors and once again saw the most miraculous sight, It was a familiar colour bottle with a very familiar label...............MAGNERS CIDER!!

Excitedly we picked up two each, got to the counter and paid and before heading for the door got the nice man behind the counter to free the bubbles of the amber nectar that I sadly missed on my travels as this side of the world has yet to discover cider, yet alone proper cider. As there was a table and chairs on the street outside the door, we sat and drank our bottles marvelling at the taste of one of the best cold drinks on a hot day or in fact night. They disappeared quickly so we decided another one each for the rest of the walk to the hotel was not too much and even shortened the road. This would not be a one time deal during our stay in Hoi An as we may have enjoyed just one or two more visits to the most convenient store ever.

Familiar faces.
Having known before we left that some friends of ours would be in Hoi An on holiday at this time we kept in touch, confirmed their arrival and were very happy to arrange going out for dinner and drinks. Dawn and Steve, Dawn is a former work colleague of mine and her partner Steve did the plastering work in our house. They arrived to our hotel and we were delighted to see familiar friendly faces in such a far away place, we strolled into town and decided oddly enough on an Indian restaurant as we had been told by another guest at our hotel that their food was really good. It did not disappoint at all, it had been a while since our trip to India and I had nearly forgotten how much I love their food.

Everyone enjoyed their meal and a sociable tipple afterwards before we headed off to a bar to have a few more. Steve seemed to attract quite a bit of attention in town as his physique bears some similarities to Buddha and with an admirable level of patience he smiled and laughed at the locals patting his belly and calling him "ahh lucky Buddha". We really enjoyed a catch up with these guys and probably bored them to tears with stories of our travels to date.

We agreed that we should have round two before we left Hoi An and did exactly that the night before we left Hoi An for Da Nang airport and our flight back to Saigon. Another amazing night was had by all before wishing eachother a fond farewell and safe onward travels.

Having been to town we decide on the opposite direction today for the beach. As the hotel provided free bicycles we figured that was quicker than walking in the searing heat. After about 10 minutes enjoying the short wheel base bicycle experience (after the tandem disaster in Da Lat only further reinforcing by now firm belief that tandems are an idiotic unnecessary, quite frankly evil monstrosity!) we arrived by the main entrance to the beach.

Taking us completely off guard was the ambush of vendors calling to us and pointing to what appeared to be their own individual, garage sized plots of land?! When we attempted to confer as to what this was all about we were interrupted by the most persistent lady resulting in Geri having to take action; very calmly and serenely returning the lady, verbally of course to her metaphorical box in a most beautiful way leaving no doubt to the rest of them that we needed a moment here. Having received our moment we concluded that these plots were in fact "pay and display" parking! You have to again marvel at the ingenuity of the situation, there's literally nowhere else to put the damn things as they are not allowed on the beach and luckily they are there to solve the problem.

Having 'paid and displayed' (ain't no time printed windows stickers here, it's all about a chalk number on your saddle, which if you don't remember to wipe off will leave you looking like a literally numbered idiot some time later in the day) we head on to the beach and yet another ambush, this time for sun beds for the different beachfront restaurants, long story short: "you eat, you sit free".

Despite the ambushes and hawkers, the beach is definitely worth it. The creamy coloured sand hot enough to burn your feet meaning that most people including us, ran quite quickly between the gently lapping turquoise waves and very necessary bamboo parasols providing shade. Stunning views, insane temperatures, long beach and not too many people along it makes it very easy to see why Hoi An is becoming such a popular holiday destination from everywhere in the world.

Geri went for a dip, (I'm still dealing with jelly-fish issues) and read for a while and I went for stroll up the beach at the shore line to try to retain most of the skin on my feet. It really is a very enticing and when there is nobody being ambushed a very peaceful place. We had lunch and decided that we had probably had enough scorching morning sun so we retrieved our bicycles, wiped our saddles and headed back towards the hotel. (Ha! I bet you all thought that because I said it earlier that we were those numbered idiots........ Well, no as we had already seen a few branded backsides and no longer wondered why!)

As we stayed in Hoi An for a week we enjoyed some time to catch up with ourselves physically and enjoyed that time including a full day by and in the pool in the hotel, few beers some snacks and even a bottle of wine, not a bad way to wile away another scorching hot day.

The Hai Van Pass (Another Top Gear inspired adventure)
We hired a moto from a lady who had quite cleverly set up a little stall across the road from the hotel selling western snacks, cold drinks and cigarettes. She had told us that we wouldn't need to put any more than 100,000 vietnamese dong (£3 approx) petrol in it as that would be loads. As we were short on dong until we got to an Atm we said we would put in 50,000 dong and get money and more fuel in Da Nang (approximately 40km north of Hoi An). We went to a local station, asked for 50,000, paid and the "very helpful" attendant put in what seemed like too little and put the fuel cap back on! I looked at the pump and as it only showed 5,000 I reiterated 50,000 and his response was to say yes, reset the pump and then end of conversation because you can't argue if you can't prove it! Reluctantly deciding what we'd lost probably wasn't worth getting locked up for assault on the smug little git, we carried on for Da Nang.

When we got there we refuelled the bike and our water supply and headed for Hai Van with our ultra basic and fundamentally useless map. Following the directions, we came to a T junction that didn't exist on the map we were a little unsure which way to go however having been stopped on the corner less than a minute a lady came out of her shop and said "Hai Van Pass?" We confirmed her suspicion and gratefully headed in the direction she pointed us in.

As we got to the bottom of the mountain road we could see the climb ahead of us but thankfully the road seemed quite and we ventured up. Not very long into the climb we passed a collection of large American style articulated lorries stopped on the road with drivers milling about with ropes and chains. My assumption was the one of the lorries  had stopped for some reason and was unable to pull off again given how steep the road was. We carried on climbing and stopped at a safe point to properly take in the view we now had, take some snaps and drink a little water. The heat was such that our five minute stop with no shade had left the black vinyl seat of the moto untouchably hot however our options were to just leave it get hotter still or toast our backsides and carry on.

With very toasty posterior's we continued to climb continuing to be distracted by the absolutely incredible views. We did start to wonder how far we should go with 'switchback' after 'switchback' (hair pin bends to us) and the moto feeling even less enthusiastic with the altitude. We were so glad we continued as when we got to the top we were rewarded with some of the most beautiful views I have ever witnessed on all sides. As with everything beautiful in this part of the world there are always entrepreneurial opportunities for locals to make some money. On arrival at the highest point there is a sort of lay-by with a dozen or so make shift 'cafes' and shops with a catcher running out of each one telling you park in the shade of their 'cafes', they'll help you with photos and of course offer cold drinks and snacks. Again given the heat a cold drink was absolutely a god send, we took some  photos, took in the view and reluctantly decided we should descend and make our way back. The descent was just as exhilarating as the climb leaving me wholly disappointed that we were not riding a proper bike (as opposed to our 125cc moto).

Unfortunately our return to Da Nang was not straight forward as the roads were twice as confusing coming back. We picked a direction and drove for longer than I'm willing to admit before deciding that we should be pretty much back in Hoi An by now never mind not actually at Da Nang! Very hot and bothered we turned around and with a lot of guessing and one or two more u-turns we were delighted to recognise being back in Da Nang made even better by knowing the road back to Hoi An and heading straight for it. After pretty much all day on this moto we opted for a change of rider and swapped seats for the last of the journey back, still sat on it but at least in a different position. What a day but worth every frustrating little moment during the day as it is one of the most memorable trips of my life and will be forever with me.

After a week here we finally moved on and started to make our way way back to Cambodia, via Saigon by plane which is where things started to go wrong.