Day 18-THE END
Wow. I’m pretty slack.
It’s been ONE MONTH since i’ve been home. So crazy! I am so sorry I have not written about the rest of our trip. Let’s hope I can remember…
Well after Hue we went to Hanoi. We decided that Hanoi is like Vietnam’s Brisbane. It’s a beautiful place, but there’s nothing super amazing about it. There isn’t a lot to do without leaving the city.
We saw the lake, the Old Quarter, the French Quarter, the Mausoleum, One pillared pagoda… Had coffee, went shopping, saw water puppets!
That was pretty much it. We spent a day pretty much watching movies on the movie channel… haha which was actually super nice just to relax in our room and eat junk food.
We left the city and went to Halong Bay which was BEAUTIFUL which i’m sure you saw in my photos by now. Huge limestone mountains coming out of the misty water. We went kayaking around them and slept on a junk boat for a night! It was pretty awesome, although the food was crap. We also went inside these awesome limestone caves (although they had been made into a tourist attraction with coloured lights) it was still very cool.
We also went on another day trip to Mai Chau. This was by far one of my favourite places on the whole trip. I think I loved it so much because of just how un-touristy it was. Imagine mountains as high as the clouds, and below in the valley, rice fields with old ladies in conical hats working in the mud. Dirt roads, kids on bicycles and houses made of bamboo on stilts. It was absolutely beautiful. I would love to go back there one day and live and learn the ways of the country life! It was such an interesting place because the villagers were of Thai descent, they had migrated to Vietnam years ago and still maintained their Thai heritage. They did Thai dancing, spoke a combination of languages and were all so friendly and beautiful! I definitely want to go back. 1 day was not enough!
After some more Hanoi we hopped on a plane and went to Hong Kong! We met up with Crouton’s friends from uni and found our TINY hostel and went exploring. The city is made up of 3 main islands/areas. Kowloon, Central and New Territories. We were staying in Kowloon which was in the center. We did lots of shopping, we saw the clock tower, light show, Big Buddha, Nan Liam Gardens, Macau, ate hot pot and yum cha…! We woke at 11 and went to bed at 2am - very Hong Kong! That is their lifestyle! We sang karaoke, we took SO many photos. I loved it. I definitely want to go back to Hong Kong, it was a very cool place. And it’s surrounded by HUGE mountains. Beautiful.
Anyways, I know this is probably too little too late, but at least it’s now on record!
Wooot!
-Erin
Day 17: Hip-Hip Hu-é!
Hwey!
Hooway!
Hué!
They all sound the same.
Happy Valentines Day!! I had a nice start to the morning with a skype date with Bonnie and Steph. Then Crouton and I caught a taxi to the train station to buy our ticket to Hanoi!
After that we realised Hué was too big to explore by foot and so we asked the taxi how much he would charge to go to the famous tombs and the old Forbidden City, and he wanted to charge us almost $40. So we got motorbike taxi’s instead! Only $10 each on the back of 2 motorbikes.
So much fun!! Not as sketchy as when there were 3 of us on one bike in Sihanoukville. It was relaxing, wind in our helmetted hair, we set off to see the tombs!
The first one had a lot of stairs. I am so sick of stairs. After the Siem Reap temples and Marble mountain stairs, I literally never want to walk up another single stair in my life. Call me lazy, but I see stairs and yell “Nooooooo!!” and when we saw an escalator today I rejoiced! So many stairs. Big stoney ones, little concrete ones, boulders, tree roots… My legs hurt. My butt hurts. And I’m not even losing weight. Death to stairs.
Anyway. First tomb was of Emperor Khai Dinh. He seemed pretty cool. His tomb was epic - The building was all mosaics depicting dragons and flowers and things. So cool. There were lots of sculptures of him and photos from the 20’s too. (refer to future uploaded photos)
The next one was more of the old palace that Emperor Tu Duc lived in, and his tomb was behind it. It was by the water and forest so it was nice but the structure was pretty boring compared to Khai Dinh.
The last one we wanted to see apparently was being restored and it was pretty far away and probably not worth it. So we went and saw a few pagodas instead which were cool. To get to the last one we had to go across this train bridge and the side bits of the bridge for motorbikes and people were really narrow so we had to tuck our knees in, it was pretty cool.
Then we went to the Forbidden City which was like a little city with a huge wall around it, they also called it a citadel. The Royals and their staff used to live within the walls, I believe. But most of it was burnt down years ago. It was still pretty cool to see.
Then we checked out the markets, walked back to our hotel and I am now on a train to Hanoi! It is a 6 person hard sleeper cabin and we are sharing with other Vietnamese people. They seem really nice but dont know English. They let us sit on the bottom with them though!
Riding along on my pushbike, honey.
Day 16: Marble Mountain + Hoi An on a bicycle.
Today we woke up super early to go to Marble mountain. Our hotel had an awesome buffet breakfast so we ate lots of that first then headed out in our car. The driver that took us there flipped out this sweet dvd player in the car, but then proceeded to play euro trash rave music accompanied by unsynced video clips of it. Blerggh. Luckily it was only about a half hour ride and we got out and were pointed in the direction of stairs. So many stairs. We soon realised this was worse than the temples in Siem Reap! There was an elevator to halfway but we thought we may as well make the whole climb. After a gazillion stairs there was a huge pagoda on the mountain, numerous temples and some really cool caves. The first one you had to climb through behind a Buddha shrine to get to it but it was a pretty big cave with light shining through. Then we made the trek to a few view points. Up a gazillion more steps. And not concrete steps, like huge hunks of marble steps that are all different sizes and steep and literally a million of them. But we made it to the very top and that was pretty cool.
After climbing back down we found another cave that was absolutley breath taking. You go through a narrow part and inside there is a giant Buddha statue and youre in this huge carved marble rooom inside the mountain… It looked like something out of indiana jones…! It was set up like a temple though so people were praying and it was dark so I didnt really get a good photo.
The climb down wasnt as bad but i slipped on a marble stair but didnt hurt anything. There was no euro music on the way back - thank god. So we packed our things, had a quick second breakfast before it finished at 10am, then rented a bike, put Croute on the back (she cant ride a bike) and headed off to pick up our tailored goods. Yaaay.
The shoes and clothes are all sooo awesome. So happy. I also took Crouton down a quiet street and taught her to ride a bike! She still can’t really turn though.
Then we came back to the hotel, bought some schnacks and checked out and are currently on a bus to Hue!
Day 15: Hoi An
Our hotel was so great in Hoi An! Sunflower hotel. We arrived in the morning and they came and picked us up for free. Then they gave us free tea and got a room ready for us and brought our bags up! They gave us a map and the wifi was everywhere and awesome. They had a free shuttle bus into town so once we showered we caught it in and booked our next bus trip. We stopped by a shoe shop and asked if they had our size… We were amazed when she said that she tailor made the shoes! We knew Hoi An was famous for tailors of clothes but not shoes. So cool. I picked out some sandles and flats and crouton picked some heels and little leather laced shoes. There were some boots we liked too but she didnt have the leather for them anymore, it was golden and an older style apparently. Dang!
Next we went to a tailor to get Crouton’s brother’s jacket made into a duplicate because the original had ripped. We started looking at the catalogues and I ended up ordering some pants, a blazer and a coat… Woops. Crouton got a blazer too but in different colours.
Then we went exploring in the old town! We saw the Japanese covered bridge and walked across and ate lunch where Brendan told us too, but the girl he told us about (that knew english really well) wasnt working! :( The food was awesome though, we had veggie Cao Lau which is a weird type of noodle with veggies.
We were kinda tired after food so we just sat on a bench for a little while looking at the cool old yellow buildings and the river. Then we ventured down the road exploring allyways and ended up at the central market. Crouton bought a red bean pancake and then someone offered us a manicure for $1 so we did that too. I am currently sporting a dusty orange clay pot coloured polish while Croute opted for a dark purple (purpa gurp) colour.
We did some more exploring and then had dinner by the water including milkshakes and wontons and rice and asian veggies. Nom. City.
Then we went back to the tailor to do another fitting (our clothes were looking AWESOME!) and walked back to the hotel.
Vinpearl!!
Day 14: Vinpearl land
Vinpearl yaaaay! Brendan told us about this one! It’s a big island across the ocean from Nha Trang called Vinpearl (also a chain of hotels). The worlds (or Asia’s at least) longest cable car takes you across the water to the island where you will find an amusement park and a water park. So great!! Only $15 for everything! It’s no Dreamworld but we did go on a rollercoaster, bumper cars, arcade games, DDR, pirate ship and a merry go round. A few of the rides were closed for an hour or two so we missed those ones. It was so quiet there. Some tourists and some locals but no lines at all- we went on the rollercoaster 4 times with no wait.
We wandered down to the beach next and got an ice cream. I think it was a fake beach with fake white sand, but it was really beautiful clear water so it looked awesome. Then we went on some of the big water slides with tubes which were awesome, and I went on one that spat you out of a ‘space hole’ at the bottom, haha. We also went on the racing ones and one thats like a half pipe where you go pretty much vertically down and then slide back and forth until you’re at the bottom and then slide out.
I could go into more detail but those were the best ones and we had heaps of fun. We checked out their aquarium (pretty dodgy so I left a suggestion to give the fish some more space) and then went back to our hotel.
Ainh gave us a snack and a hug goodbye and we went to our sleeper bus.. Ahh haha we were up the back on the bottom on the 5 sleeper bed!! But luckily it was just one other couple and a bed between us, although i had to sleep right next to Crouton which was a pain, hehe.
12 hours of bumpy bad sleeping and we arrived in Hoi An!
Mud bath. Like pigs.
Day 13: Nha Trang! Mud.
We arrived in Nha Trang this morning and set off walking towards our hotel. We soon realised that the map was wrong as our hotel was not there. (There was a similarly named museum though!) So we got a taxi to our hotel and got organised, made friends with the reception girl, and went to the beach! The waves were really strong… Like super strong current so we didnt really swim, just layed on the beach for a while. Then we realised the sunscreen we bought was dodgy (claimed SPF 90) and we were burning so we went back to the guesthouse and thought we might go to the mud baths.
The cute receptionist organised them to pick us up in like 5 mins so she was like running up the stairs telling us to be quick hahaha she was so nice.
We got to the mud baths and organised mud bath entry and a massage.
It was sooo cool. We got to a big empty bath and we were with an old Israeli man as well, and we got in and they turned on the tap and sooo much mud came out. It’s not very thick though, it’s like runny mud. It feels so weird at first, but so exfoliating and nice. We had little buckets so we poured it all over us and put our faces in it aaand it was awesome. We took pictures on Crouton’s camera.
Then we went through a range of mineral showers and baths to clean the mud off, so we could use the pools and swim under the waterfall, which was also really fun.
We went to find where our massages were and finally found them. They were two little asian girls. We were put in separate rooms and the massage involved them walking on us, pulling our hair and cracking our necks. It was awesome.
After the finished they showed us a form with Very Good already checked and asked for a tip. So strange. We gave them a dollar.
We got back to our hotel and then went for a walk to book our next bus trip. On the way we saw a cool place that had vegetarian so we went there on the way back and had a feast of fresh and fried spring rolls. Nom.
I was super tired after our feast and may have passed out at like 8 but then I ended up waking up like 15 mins later so we went for a walk along the beach and found some night markets! They were mostly same same so we didnt buy anything. Crouton tried on a dress and then felt bad that she didnt like it, they have a way of making you feel guilty for not buying things.
When we went back to the hotel our receptionist (Ainh) (Ann?) had organised our Vinpearl Land tickets for us. So great. So that would be tomorrows adventure!
Day 12: Cu chi tunnels
We had a decent breakky before the tunnels today - Oj, scrambled eggs and kinda milky toast.
We found our bus and hopped on - another tiny bus for a 2 hour trip to Cu Chi. We stopped at a handicap painting place again, a different one but with all if the same artwork. Same same.
We got there and watched a short dvd about the tunnels, in poor english, so I didnt really know what was going on. It was also in black and white and was fuzzy… (for effect?)
After that we walked around to a few of the tunnel sites. We saw the original sized hidden entrances to the tunnels, covered in leaves, and had a go at fitting in them (I just fit through…!) We saw the booby traps they set and the air holes they made to look like ants nests.
Then we shot a gun. Crouton and I did 5 shots each from an AK-47! Pretty crazy, but something too tick off a bucket list. It was so loud and pushed back into our shoulder pretty strongly.
Now was the really fun part… We got to go IN THE TUNNELS. The original sized ones were like 80cm by 60cm but these ones were for the tourists so they were 120 by 80cm. It was still pretty dark and scary down there though! I came out at the 30m mark for a break but then I went back in and finished it all. I was soo sweaty afterwards - how did some of these people live down there for 8 years!?
We also saw one of the kitchens and dining rooms they used during the war that were partially underground.
That was pretty much it for the tunnels! We got dropped back in Saigon at the War remnants museum and were shocked after learning a bit more about the war.
1. United States - mind your own business! Why would you start this war and commit genocide just because Vietnam wants to be a communist country!?! Let them work it out and stop killing innocent people.
2. Makers of Agent Orange - idiots!!! Why would you supply America with this chemical that has ruined so mny lives, even to this day?
It was a pretty sad museum, we found ourselves almost in tears a few times but we learnt a lot.
After that we went to the markets and I bought a Jimmy Choo bag for about $25. It feels like really good quality too haha so I think I did well.
Then we ate Pho at thr same place as Bill Clinton did (woo hoo). The Pho Chay we had wasnt very good… I didnt eat much of it haha. I have only ever had pho once before in Canada and it was awesome soo maybe because we got veggie pho.
Then we pretty much just went and got organised with our bags and waited for our sleeper bus!
Mangoseen - A.K.A “Purpa Gurp” This deceiving little monster is actually a delcious fruit! You may crack it open using either your teeth or hands. We recommend using your hands as the outer layer tastes nasty. Locals are usually the only ones game enough to bite it.
Once you break the outer shell, you will be astonished by the little white gurp inside. Usually 2 or 3 sections have a seed inside, which comes as a disappointment after biting into a seedless gurp.
They taste like sweet sweet sweetness. Under a rainbow. In an orchard full of golden vines. Much like in the above picture.
The bottom of the outer shell has a small stand out shape like a flower, giving the mangoseen a diverse range of uses, ie. as a stamp.
I hope that one day you too can share the joy of the mangoseen fruit.
Day 11: Mekong Delta
So apparently they love kareoke in Vietnam. There were wailing vocals until about 4am!! Ridiculous, but thank god I brought earplugs for us both.
We got smoothies for breakfast and waited on the steps of our guesthouse for our bus to the Mekong. Someone around the corner was coughing and spluttering and hacking super loudly…so we didnt finish our smoothies.
We got on our little tiny bus and out guides name was Lionel Ritchie and whenever we were leaving or he needed us at a point he would yell LIIIIOONEELLLL! On the way we stopped at a local handicap artists workshop where they make paintings using eggshell and seashell. Some of them were really cool but they definitely put the price up because it was a tourist stop.
When we got to the Mekong we got on a big motorized boat to go across to one of the islands. It was a very poor area because most people are farmers. Our guide told us that most people have no electricity only candles so they go into their dark rooms and it’s hot and there is nothing else to do but make babies, haha! When we got to the first island we did a fruit tasting which included dragon fruit, jack fruit, pomello, pineapple, and baby bananas. The pineapple was probably my favourite, so much less acidic and sweeter than Aus.
After that and some green tea we got on our little wooden boats paddled by ladies in pointy hats and set off down the narrow muddy canals of the mekong river! The water level is very low at the moment so there were a few traffic jams on the water. It was really cool though, the locals were waist deep in mud catching little fish with their bare hands, and we were just paddling by - i even had a go paddling!
Once we left the canals we got back on our motorized boat and went to another island where we learnt how they made coconut candy - and we got to try some that was still warm! It was alright, pretty coconutty. We also tried coconut wine (more like vodka) and it was really strong and icky.
Back on the boat to yet another island to see a bee farm! We drank honey pollen tea and tried Royal Jelly. Its the food that the Queen bee eats and its meant to be really good for you, make your skin really soft and give you longevity. I bought a small bottle for $10 so we will see how we go.
Theeeeen we headed back to land and got our bus back aaand Crouton and I went to the markets briefly before they closed and got some yummy dinner of Viet spring rolls and a veggie noodle dish. Mmmmmm
Aaand the kareoke started again at 10pm. If it wasnt all in Vietnamese I would have joined them!
Day 10: Ho Chi Minh
This morning we caught a 6am bus from Phnom penh to Ho Chi minh! It was actually a really nice ride, considering it was for 6 hours. We crossed the border into Vietnam without any troubles and got to Saigon at about lunch time. We took a taxi to our guesthouse (no more tuk tuks!) and he dropped us at the end of a narrow alley way filled with locals eating and talking, cleaning, sitting on their steps… It was pretty cool. We followed the signs and after a few turns we met some ladies chilling on the steps and they showed us to our room. Haha so random but the room was pretty nice.
We went sightseeing - the Reunification palace, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Saigon post office… We ate some NOM spring rolls and veggie vermicilli, booked some bus tickets through Vietnam.. Just had fun exploring pretty much. So far Vietnam is waaaay nicer than Cambodia. The people are nicer and it’s cleaner, and I like that they have little parks and trees and flowers around.
Basic history lesson #2: The Reunification palace is a government building used during the Vietmam war. There are underground bunkers for protection, offices and conference rooms, lounges and a theatre room. They are all still set up exactly how they appeared in the 60’s.
