A message from Ms. Saigon

Well here we are 3 weeks into our trip and I've managed to avoid blogging until now but Mark's insisting I add my two penneth. I'm not too sure where to start as he's doing such a good job of reporting the edited hightlights but here we go.......

 

I can't believe we've only been gone 3 weeks, Vietnam is such a varied country and we've managed to cover a good variety of what it has to offer. 

 

The two mains cities, Hanoi and Saigon have a very different feel - Hanoi is really gutsy and Asian, especially the old quarter which has narrow little streets, crammed with people making and selling their wares and transporting everything on the back of their motorbikes. I've seen a farmer with 3 fully grown pigs (each in a basket) balanced on his bike. Lots of people transporting panes of glass, front doors and even a family of 5 on a bike. Avoiding them while crossing the road is an art in itself - my current tactic is to close my eyes, hold Mark's hand and and hum 'Scotland the Brave'. 

 

Saigon has a more western feel - much wider streets, lots of fancy hotels with roof top terraces to look over the city drinking cocktails and  'Gloria Jean's' coffee shop which is Cafe Jigsaw in disguise.

 

The museums here are very moving, particularly the War Remnants museum previously called the War Crimes museum. It has an amazing exhibition called 'Requiem' of photographs taken by some of the photographers who were killed or went missing in the war. A damning one-sided picture of the American tactics. 

 

After visiting the museum we took a trip out to the jungle to Cu Chi where there was a 200km network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong to infiltrate the Amercain bases - they used to pop up in the night and shoot the GI's in their tents, and leave barbaric spear traps and land mines for them. Such atrocities on both sides, it's difficult to say who's side you would have been on....

 

Anyway, we've met some really nice people when we've been on our trips, it seems that most of Ireland are here at the moment but also a fair chunk Holland and Australia.

 

Hotels have been very good for the money - we're paying about $15 to $20 a night for nice double rooms with bath. I've been very glad of the hair dryer as most days there is monsoon type rain and I end up like a drowned rat - talking of which, a rat scurried out of its hole in the pavement when it was raining last night straight into my leg -ugh!

 

Highlights so far - the magical Full Moon Festival in Hoi An last week, kayaking in torrential rain in the beautiful Halong Bay - Mark says crawling around in pitch black in the Cu Chi tunnels was his!

 

All for now, jxxx  

Tunnel Rat

Mark emerging from the Cu Chi tunnel
Originally uploaded by mark&june

The photo above is of me after having crawled through 100m of the Cu Chi tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong during the war to hide from the Americans and launch surprise attacks.

The tunnels have been expanded a bit for tourists, but even so I had to crawl on my hands and knees to get through them. The best / worst bit about it was that it was pitch black inside, so you had to negotiate solely by touch. I really enjoyed it, but am glad I don't have to live and sleep down there for weeks on end as the VC did. Certainly one of the highlights of the trip so far.

What's in a name?

Hello from Saigon. The city was re-named Ho Chi Minh City after the war, but everyone still refers to it as Saigon. Its a busy, modern city - it feels a bit more like Singapore than Hanoi. There are lots of gleaming skyscrapers and tree lined avenues, which makes a change from the claustrophobic old quarter we stayed in in Hanoi. One thing that is the same though is the traffic. There are millions of motorbikes and a lot more cars than anywhere else in Vietnam, and as usual none of them seem to obey any rules of the road. Crossing the road is actually more difficult here than in Hanoi, due to the roads being a lot wider. The only rule is to walk slowly and steadily across the roads and trust that everyone swerves to avoid you. Although there are zebra crossings they are universally ignored! June was on the verge of a panic attack in the rush hour, and at one point it looked like we were going to have to spend the night on a traffic island.....

 

We went to the War Remnants Museum yesterday, which contains lots of photos, weapons and stories from the American War. It was pretty harrowing and moving, and some of the photos were incredible (both good and bad). The museum painted a pretty one-sided story (I'm sure the Viet Cong weren't entirely blameless in terms of war crimes) but it painted a damning picture of the US involvement in the war, and of war in general. Scary stuff.

 

In the afternoon we went to see the Reunification Palace, which is a beautiful place which used to be the residence of the South Vietnamese president. It was the place where the war ended, when the VC tanks crashed through the palace railings on 30th April 1975. It was interesting to be somewhere with such a recent history. Normally when we visit historic sights they remember things 200 / 500 / 100 years ago, so it was good to feel so "close" to history.

 

OK, we're about to head off into the city now. We'll post again soon - we may even have a blog from special guest star June.....

Here Be Dragons

Hello again. We're still in Hoi An, really enjoying the chilled out vibe here. Its a pretty town on the banks of a river with lots of old houses that are unchanged since the place was a port back in the 17th century. The town was undamaged in the war, and has a real charm about it.

 

At night time though its anything but chilled out. There's some kind of autumn festival going on, and every night all of the boys in town parade around in dragon costumes, banging their drums and clogging up the streets. Its a really amazing atmosphere, and some of the boys' exploits as they climb up 10 ft vertical poles supported by their friends are a little scary!

 

We're going to stay here until Tuesday, as on Monday night there is a full moon festival, when all the electricity is turned off and the town is lit solely by lanterns - its supposed to be beautiful.

 

OK, what else have we been up to? We went to Me Son this morning, which is a ruined 11th century temple in the jungle, which was really nice. Yesterday we attempted to have a day on the beach, but that was a bit thwarted by the weather - really strong winds off the South China Sea. We managed to get a bit of sunbathing in, but the tan still ends at the shoulders and knees....

 

The food and drink is still lovely and amazingly cheap. We've begun to mix in a Western meal now and then - there's only so many days in a row that you can eat rice and noodles. We really like the local speciality here though, which is a noodle and pork dish called Cao Lau.

 

We've decided to fly down to Saigon. The alternative was a 15 hour train ride departing at lunchtime and arriving at 4am in the morning - not nice! The flights were only 25 quid each, so it was a no-brainer really.

 

I think that's it for now. We're both well and enjoying ourselves. Only seven and a half months to go.....

On the road

Hi all. We're in Hue at the moment, which is in the middle of Vietnam. It used to be the capital, and has an old walled city which we visited yesterday - its a bit like a mini version of Beijing's Forbidden City, but a lot smaller and less impressive. The Hue version suffered a lot of damage in various wars and is being rebuilt in a number of places. Still an interesting place to visit though.

 

We're off to Hoi An this afternoon. We've been doing a bit too much moving around so far and hopefully will stay there for a few days - its supposed to be a lovely town close to a beach, so we should be able to have a nice relax. We haven't spent two nights in the same place for ages - in fact our last 9 nights have been spent in a hotel, boat, hotel, train, hotel, train, hotel, bus and hotel respectively! The night in the bus was probably the least comfortable, but at least it had beds in it. The only problem was that the roads were very bumpy so we spent the whole night bouncing up and down.

 

We're really enjoying Vietnam, and everything has gone pretty smoothly. The only hiccups have been Mark's camera breaking (was a few years old and have bought a better replacement) and leaving our Lonely Planet in Hanoi! The Lonely Planet is a bible to travellers, and we were a bit lost without it, but it was actually quite refreshing to have to explore Hue un-aided and to find somewhere to stay and eat by following our noses. Having said that we picked up a pirate version of the book last night though, so its back to normal from now on.

 

Bye.

 

 

 

 

A few photos from Sapa

OK then, as promised here are a few photos from our weekend in Sapa. This one is pretty typical of the rice fields cut into the mountainside :














This is us beside a river on one of our treks...














And this is June with a couple of the H'mong girls.



For more photos, check out our Flickr site (link on the right).

Minority Report

Hi everyone. Thanks for adding your comments to the messages below - we always enjoy hearing from you.

 

We've spent the last two days in Sapa, a beautiful mountain town in the north of Vietnam, not far from the Chinese border. The area is populated by ethnic minority hill tribes, dressed in their brightly coloured traditional clothes. The area is stunning - tiered rice fields cut into the side of steep mountains, the tops of which disappear in the mist. We've actually had 2 days of unbroken sunshine which has been great, but which has made the trekking very hot work!

 

The locals are very friendly but they are continually trying to sell tourists their embroidery, which gets a bit wearing after a while. We've made a few purchases (including a new bracelet you'll be glad to hear Keith), although we've tried to not load ourselves down too much so early in our journey!

 

We feel a bit sorry for the minorities here. Although they live in a beautiful place they seem to spend their whole time (from 6 to 60 years old) pestering tourists. This wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all competing with each other - they all sell exactly the same goods. Maybe a bit of diversification might help? Having said that, they are apparently a lot wealthier than they were just a few years ago, so they must be doing something right.

 

OK then, its back on the train to the hustle and bustle of Hanoi tonight. We'll try to upload some pictures of Sapa when we get back. Bye!

 

On our bikes

Hi everyone! We haven't posted in a couple of days as we've been on a boat, cruising round Ha Long Bay. Its an amazingly beautiful place - lots of limestone pinnacles, a bit like Yangshou in China or Krabi in Thailand but on a larger scale.

The weather has been interesting! Each morning it gets hotter and hotter until there is a monumental rain storm that lasts about 30 mins. We've been caught in it for the last 3 days, and are getting used to being drenched either with sweat or water.

Today we discovered yet another way of getting wet. On a bike ride on Cat Ba island our guide suggested we take the "low road" across the island. Little did we realise that because of the rain the low road was actually the "submerged road"! We cycled as best we could until the water started rising above knee level, and then had to resort to pushing our bikes through waist deep water (my waist, not June's!). It was a really funny experience, made even better by the fact that it started to p!ss down as soon as we came out of the water.....

What else to report? We're really enjoying the food and beer, although drinking snake wine today was an experience due to the presence of a (dead) snake at the bottom of the bottle. Tomorrow we head back to Hanoi and then on an overnight train to Sapa, which is a mountainous area inhabited by Hill Tribes.

June is coping admirably without hair-straighteners and we're both having a fantastic time, although had a brief home-sick moment yesterday.

We'll try to upload some more photos when we get the chance - the ones from the first 2 days in Hanoi are here :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markfuhrmann/sets/72157601933580365/

bye

Hot in Hanoi

Another day, another country!

After a jet-lag interrupted night's sleep we flew up to Hanoi this morning, and have had a quick wander through the hot, busy and colourful streets. Everyone seems really friendly and apparently beer is 10p a glass, so we should have a great time here!

The weather is very hot and sticky - luckily our hotel has AC. There seems to be free internet / wi-fi everywhere, so there'll be no escaping us!

Off to have a wander round ho Hoan Kiem lake now.....

One night in Bangkok

June taking a dip in the rain!
Originally uploaded by mark&june

We're here! The flight went very smoothly and we've spent the evening relaxing in our hotel. A little taste of luxury before the hardships ahead!

Just off to have a Thai meal and then to bed before flying to Hanoi in the morning.

And they're off!

So this is it. In 30 minutes we get picked up by Sally and head for Heathrow.

Today has been a bit stressful - lots to do and to pack. Once we head off we can start relaxing and looking forward to the excitement ahead.

As you can see from the photo, June managed to get everything in a backpack with no problems!

Hopefully we'll be able to post from Bangkok or Hanoi to let you know we've arrived safely.

Bye!