Vietnam - Hanoi, Halong Bay, Nha Trang and Saigon

Hanoi

We arrived at Hanoi airport, handed in our pre approval letters and got our Vietnam visas no probs (or should I say Viet Nam as its actually 2 words there) . Then we walked through customs and were delighted to find a man from the hostel holding up a board with our name on it, as it would have been a very long drive to the Old Quarter in a taxi.

My first impression of Hanoi was that it is really manic. There are scooters everywhere and people have actually built little scooter ramps so that they can get their scooters up on to the pavements (clearly the person that allowed this move should be taken out and shot). There are so many scooters parked on the pavements that you are forced to try and walk in the road (not a good idea). I hadn’t seen any photos of Hanoi prior to arriving and I was just not mentally prepared for the onslaught of scooters at every turn. It seemed as though if they were not driving at you, they were hooting at you, or something else nearby. It is loud, very loud.

We spent the first day trying to walk around town to get our bearings, which isn’t really possible in Hanoi. You have to relearn how to cross the road if you are going to get anywhere. We were told it is not a good idea to try and run across as its too unpredictable. However it is very hard to resist the temptation when you’ve got scooters coming at you from all sides. In the end you just step out, walk slowly and hope that the scooters will magically part around you. I found myself choosing places to eat, based on the number of streets we would have to cross to get there. I found the first day quite frustrating, probably worsened by the fact that we spent a fair amount of time looking for an English bookshop, which had actually moved address (thanks guidebook once again for the outdated information). However we did have a tasty stir fry for lunch, and frankly after three weeks of trying to eat in mainland China, the food in Vietnam was a complete God send. It was great to be able to sit in a restaurant, read the menu and actually want to eat more than one of the options available.

We had also managed to pick a hostel in a good location, which was across the road from a lake, so we spent a bit of time walking around there (no roads to cross yippee) as it was very scenic, with a couple of weeping willows hanging over the lake and a temple in the middle of it.

Another note about Vietnam is that the local people like to stay close to the ground. By which I mean that people either sit on the ground, or they sit on little child sized plastic chairs close to the ground. Its no wonder you’ve got to take your shoes off before you enter anyone’s house. I’m afraid to say that cooking in a pot on the ground offends my delicate Western sensibilities, and we were afraid of trying the true Vietnamese street food for fear of ending up with food poisoning again. However it is amazing to see how anyone can produce a meal (albeit a simple noodle soup) in the middle of a pavement with no access to electricity, or running water.

On our second day we took a rickshaw (much better than walking) to the tour agency to pay for our tour of Halong Bay, and then went for a look around the silk shops. They have some beautiful silk in Vietnam and I could have bought loads, if only the budget had allowed. That evening we went to see the new H.P. film (you need a little fix of reality every now and again when you’re travelling) although I’m afraid to say it wasn’t very good. Saying that it was amazing to find a cinema that played English movies, within easy walking distance of our hostel after our experience in China.

On the third day Steve was rather brave and went for a haircut at a local hairdresser, which did a good job. We also went to buy some tickets for the water puppet theatre later that night, before getting a taxi to the museum of Ethnology (so not worth the trip). However it is worth mentioning that on the way back from the museum to the hostel, the metered taxi fare ended up being more than double what it had cost us to get there. Funny that considering we should have gone the same distance. Steve had a go at the female taxi driver, who suddenly pretended that she didn’t speak any English and had no idea what we were going on about. We made a show of looking at her ID badge and said we would phone the taxi company to complain about her taking us on a joy ride, which of course we never got around to actually doing. It is just annoying when you feel like you are getting ripped off all the time just because you‘re a visitor. That evening we went for a nice dinner at a restaurant that was recommended in the guidebook (sometimes it is useful), which was inside a traditional Vietnamese long house. That’s another strange thing about Vietnam, no matter how much land seems to be around the house, the houses are always tall and thin. You can practically reach out and touch both walls with your hands and when a son gets married, they just built another level on top of the house, which makes for some tall houses.

After dinner we went to see the show at the water puppet theatre, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Water puppet theatre is pretty unique to Vietnam as it was developed in the rice paddies and needs a special water stage for the performance. The puppet masters stay behind a screen and the puppets come out on to the water on these long sticks. The show was accompanied by some traditional Vietnamese singing and music and it was definitely the highlight of Hanoi for me, on the last evening before we were due to leave. We had booked to stay at a resort on Monkey Island over Christmas to get away from the craziness of Hanoi.

Monkey Island

So at 08h30 the following morning we were all packed and ready to go. The transfer turned out to be somewhat of an epic journey. Really we should have taken the transfer offered by the resort on Monkey Island, rather than arranging it with the Hanoi hostel ourselves, but who was to know. At 08h30 we took a bus from the hostel to Halong City, which took us about 3 hours. Then we waited around 2 hours on the pier while various people argued with the boat guide, that they wanted a direct transfer to Cat Ba island, rather than taking a slow but scenic tourist boat there. One Canadian man that had booked a sleep aboard tour point blank refused to handover his passport, and they wouldn’t refund his money, so in the end he just walked away. Eventually we got on the boat which very slowly made its way around Halong Bay (it even stopped for people to see a cave) and it took another 2 hours to get to Cat Ba island.

Unfortunately our first views of Halong Bay weren’t great as the weather was overcast and it rained a bit, but I could imagine what all the fuss would be about on a clear day. The cliffs towering up into the mist where massive and we hoped that as we were spending a bit more time in Halong, we would get some better views on another day.

By the time we arrived on Cat Ba island it was around 5h30pm. Then we had to get a bus 20 mins across the island to Cat Ba city, where they tried to get us in to a hotel for $5 a night. We asked the bus driver to call the monkey island transfer guy, and he said why you didn’t call earlier, now there will be no boats to monkey island as it is too late! At this point it was already dark and we were pretty knackered, so not great news, however he called Monkey Island and they confirmed they had a boat waiting for us at the pier.

Then 2 guys on motorbikes arrived to collect us with all our baggage, so we clambered on with our backpacks still on and they took us for a short (no helmets ride) down to the pier to get the boat. Hilarious. PS Its incredible what people will actually attempt to carry on a scooter or motorbike in Vietnam. At one point we actually saw a man with four massive vases tied to the sides of his bike. Anyway, we headed out in to the pitch black night on the bay, just us two and the driver, until after a 15 minute transfer we eventually saw a light we must be heading towards - and at last arrived at the resort. Exciting stuff. We arrived just in time for dinner (rather good, loads of seafood) and dropped our bags in our ocean front room. It was a relief to get out of the hubbub of Hanoi and get to somewhere quieter. We’d arrived on the evening of the 23rd, so the following day would be Christmas Eve.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we awoke to the sound of waves crashing and a rooster crowing (no jokes) and we looked outside to see a beautiful white sandy beach and a great view of Halong Bay from our beach bungalow window. This was going to be an awesome, if unorthodox, way to spend our Christmas while we were away travelling.

The only strange thing about the resort is that everyone else we met there was only spending the one night, as they were on a boat cruise stopover, so it was a bit like groundhog day for us. We would make friends with a group 1 night, only to find that the following morning they had gone, and there was a new group of recruits waiting for us again.

On our way out that morning we walked past 2 geese tethered to a tree behind the main house and we didn’t think too much of it. After breakfast we took a short 30 min hike over the top of the island and went to the beach on the far side to see the monkeys (yes its called monkey island for good reason).

The first couple of hours on the beach were pretty uneventful and we didn’t see much of the monkeys. We did have a couple of tourist boats that stopped to offload people that came for a walk around. Then around 15h00 a couple of monkeys came down on to the beach and starting walking around us. Then one cheeky monkey stole one of Steve;s socks out of his shoe, and started to run off with it. Steve gave chase, whereupon the monkey called for a number of reinforcements and they started coming after him, teeth and nails out, ready for a fight. Steve did somehow manage to get his sock back before high tailing it down to the sea (they didn’t seem keen on going in to the water), only to then have this kikoy stolen by another monkey who promptly ran up a tree and then on to a roof top with it. It was around this time that I decided I should probably pick up the backpack, as one nearby monkey had looked at it with some interest (I reckon he would have been clever enough to unzip it), so I grabbed it and then he came after me, teeth and nails out, ready for a bite as though I‘d stolen his bag! I backed up down the beach as quickly as possible and he came after me, again eventually giving up when I neared the water. Pretty scary stuff. The last thing you want on an island in the middle of nowhere is a bite from a rabid monkey. Not that they were frothing at the mouth, but you never know. Fortunately we both came out unscathed. Then at around 16h00 the owner of the resort appeared with a couple of day trippers to feed the monkeys. We later found out that the owner comes out to feed the monkeys at the same time every day, which is why they had come down to the beach for a look around. We also found its not a good idea to bring any food along with you as they can sniff it out (there was a half open packet of Oreos in the backpack) so we’d been asking for trouble.

I was surprised to see one monkey pick up a small plastic water bottle that a tourist must have dropped, bite a hole in the end and tip it up to drink out of it (I reckon he might have done that before!). It was also hilarious to see how schizophrenic the little buggers were, as one minute they were ready to chew our heads off and the next they were sweet as pie, eating peanuts out of the resort owners hand and posing for pictures. Needless to say we kept our distance after that as we knew their true natures!

We made our way back over to the resort and that evening they cooked us a massive feast for Christmas Eve dinner, which just happened to include 2 spit roasted geese (yes the same ones we’d seen earlier that day had honked their final honk), along with a load of various different types of braaied seafood - delicious and way more food than we could possibly eat. They’d also put up a Christmas tree complete with tinsel and baubles, so we ate like kings and made friends with a group of people on a tour, and had a great night telling travel stories.

Xmas morning we woke up and opened our cards and presents to one another (the smart phones we picked up in Hong Kong). We had planned to go kayaking from the beach on Xmas day, but the wind was quite strong, so we ended up having a lazy day instead playing with our new gadgets and later a bit of beach football. Another tour group arrived, and that evening after dinner we ended up playing a fantastic new card game with them (Bang) over some local vodka (the 7 of us finished 4 bottles). We stopped play for a couple of welcome phonecalls from our families at home wishing us a Merry Christmas across the miles. It was a bit sad to be spending Xmas so far away from our families, but we had some good company that were in the same boat, and we ended up getting totally plastered. Neither of us had been that drunk in a very long time and we had great fun playing Bang!

Boxing day morning we woke up with the most G-d awful hangovers (not surprise there then). However it was a sunny day, so we took the kayaks for a paddle around Halong Bay and stopped at a small island where we had the beach all to ourselves - sweet! We pulled in our kayak, got our kikoys out (half monkey eaten) and lay around on the beach in the sun, nursing our hangovers with the cokes we had brought along. Unfortunately despite our best efforts we didn’t manage to hook up with Zuzana who also happened to be on a boat cruise of Halong Bay around the same time. So close yet so far! That night there were 2 new recruits from Hungary at the resort, and they were really friendly as well. So after dinner we sat by the fire outside and chatted about our travels. They were keen to have a couple of drinks, but we were still feeling rough from Xmas day, so we weren’t keen to jump back on the wagon that quickly.

Halong Bay

The next day we needed to catch our Halong Bay cruise. We caught a small boat to Cat Ba island and then transferred to a bigger boat that would take us to Halong. According to the email from the travel agent we were due to meet the cruise at Chuan Tua port. So at around 11h20 (10 minutes early) we arrived at Chun Tua port and got off the boat to start looking around for our cruise boat. Luckily we happened to ask the man on the boat to call Mr Dong to check where we could meet him in the port. Mr Dong then said we were in the wrong port, so we had to catch a taxi over to Halong City port which was very annoying. However once there we found another friendly local that was prepared to call Mr Dong again, to arrange a place to meet up at the city port.

Then we got on a small boat to transfer across to the cruise ship and we were surprised at the quality of the boat. We had opted to pay a bit more to have a slightly more luxurious cruise, to try and get away from the little boats we had seen in the bay. However the one we got on to was very luxurious, and our room was bigger than a lot of hostels we had stayed in. We had lunch immediately (mostly seafood) and then spent the rest of the day touring Halong Bay and visiting a cave (well lit with different colours pretty impressive). We were racing to get to the little beach for sunset, but unfortunately just managed to miss it. Steve did climb to the top of the hill to get some pictures and the views were awesome, but I just got some pictures from the beach. Then it was back to the boat for another seafood dinner and afterwards some squid fishing off the back of the boat, while the more cultured listened to the traditional music in the restaurant. Actually it was easier to scoop the fish out of the water with the net, than to try and catch anything with the rod and lure. Steve stayed out there for hours and finally managed to catch a squid using a lure, which was more than any of the rest of us caught! We were really lucky with the weather that day (it had been hit and miss over Xmas) as we got some great views off Halong Bay. The bay is really beautiful and I can see why it’s a Unesco world heritage site. I was glad we’d opted for the boat cruse after Monkey Island as we managed to see other parts of the bay that we hadn’t seen before. We also saw a couple of the tourist junk boats with their sails up, which was great.

We had opted for the 3 day, 2 night cruise option which basically meant that we would have a 2 day tour, and disembark on the morning of the 3rd day. However the vast majority of the people onboard were only spending 1 night onboard and getting off the next day. So on the morning of day 2 we transferred over to a small boat which took us down to the Cat Ba area. There we went on an awesome kayaking trip to a lagoon, which was very quiet / peaceful and away from the madding crowds which was a relief after the queuing at yesterdays cave. Then we had some time on the boat for lunch, and later went on another kayak expedition in to a long cave, which ended in another hidden lagoon. The lagoon was beautiful but the cave trip in the pitch back was quite scary as you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and every now and then there would be a long stalactite coming down from the ceiling. Fortunately I had been given one of the 2 torches, so we could see a little better than the 2 boats in the middle, definitely an adventure! Later we visited another cave, and this one involved a bit of climbing under and over things to get inside, where it was pitch black. However when the guide shone his torch on some of the rock formations, they glittered like diamonds, very cool. Later we joined the big boat again for dinner and listened to the traditional music they had onboard. One man was playing something that looked like it was made of a number of pieces of slate strung together like a keyboard, and each piece of stone made a different note when he hit it. Very Flintstone! Now I should note that that night Steve was up at least 5 times being sick and generally feeling unwell, probably due to the seafood we had for dinner the night before.

The following morning we packed our bags and waited a while for the boat transfer back to Halong City. While we were waiting we met a South African couple who were on holiday from Joeys. It was nice to hear some saffer accents again, as we haven’t had many on our trip, and they were positive about the situation back in SA which was good to hear. Then we had a quick lunch in Halong City before catching the 4 hour bus back to Hanoi.

Nha Trang

We had one night in the same hostel in Hanoi before we were due to fly down to Nha Trang for New Year’s Eve and it was another restless / stomach cramping night for Steve. However he trooped on and the following morning we packed up again and got the hostel’s transfer to the airport (the owners brother), as it was a good 1 hour drive away. When we tried to check in, the lady behind the counter kindly informed us that our flight (which was only meant to be 1.5 hours long) had been delayed by 5 hours! So we ended up sitting in Nha Trang airport for most of the day which was a pain. We considered getting a taxi back in to the city to see the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum, but it would have taken at least 2 hours return, so we decided against it and just found a coffee shop with some free Wifi instead.

When we eventually got on the plane, the flight was mercifully short, so we arrived in Nha Trang not long after, and found a taxi to take us in to our hostel in Nha Trang. As we arrived around 6h30pm on the 30th, we were keen to find out if there were still any tickets left for the New Year’s Eve Party at the Sailing Club. So we went for a walk to find the place. Unfortunately all the tables were already reserved, but the lady assured us that if we arrived around 6h30pm the following day, we could choose one of the unreserved tables and keep that for the rest of the night. Night three wasn’t much better for poor Steve’s stomach.

So the following morning (our first full day in Nha Trang) we found the address of the local general hospital online, and went looking for A&E (although it wasn’t strictly an emergency we figured they were bound to have a doctor, albeit Sunday the 31st Dec, besides the website had claimed that they had English speaking doctors). After the taxi dropped us at the address we had written down, we realised the website must have been wrong as the hospital was definitely not at no. 19 and so we walked up and down the street until we found it. It was just a little farther along the same road. Then the fun began. We walked in to what looked like the main entrance, and started walking around inside looking for a sort of Reception / Registration area. There were plenty of signs up overhead, but they were all in Vietnamese only, so they weren’t much good to us. Eventually we found a woman sitting near a door that spoke some English, and she took us to a couple of seats to wait for the doctor to be available (no pre registration necessary it would seem). After a short wait we went in to see her, and she did fortunately speak some English and managed to diagnose food poisoning (probable) and gave us a prescription to fill at their clinic. Then we paid for the consult at a desk outside (still no details of who we were required), and went on to find the clinic. Fortunately on our earlier roaming around the hospital we had seen a queue of people at what looked a lot like a pharmacy, and it turned out to be the right place (big red sign with arrow all in Vietnamese probably said Pharmacy!). So we got the meds and then headed outside. Steve was fine once he took the meds, but it sure made for an interesting experience in Nha Trang.

Afterwards we had a walk around Nha Trang and checked out the beach. Nha Trang is a small beach town, filled with tourist travel agencies and dive centres, and for us it was a relief to be back near the sea again, as we’ve been travelling through cities for so long.. It was also a relief to finally have some warmer weather. As soon as we arrived we had to change in to shorts and flip flops as it was really warm and humid. That evening as was suggested we got to the Sailing Club around 6h30pm and managed to find a table for two near the bar where we could have dinner (great food there although quite dear) and waited for the celebrations to begin. Frankly we were surprised at how organised their New Year’s Eve party was for a small beach town in Vietnam. We had a fabulous time dancing the night away on the beach to an ex Ministry of Sound DJ, and stumbled home around 3am. Happy New Year everyone!

The next day was a bit of a right off (hangovers from hell), however we did manage to book ourselves on a snorkelling trip for the 2nd Jan, as Nha Trang is supposed to be Vietnams top diving destination. I should also mention that there are a lot of vendors trying to sell you everything on the street, from sunglassses to photocopied books (yay I found the Girl in the Picture at last), and it does get a bit annoying saying no thanks every ten minutes. However there are less scooters on the streets than in Hanoi which was a definite bonus.

So around 8h30am the following morning a man arrived at the hostel saying something or other, in what sounded to me a lot like Vietnamese (unintelligible). However it turned out he was saying ‘Snorkelling tour’ so after repeating it about 3 times we eventually got up and followed him to the bus. We spent the day cruising around Nha Trang on their boat, and stopped at 2 spots to go snorkelling. We did see a number of different sorts of fish, but the visibility wasn’t great and the water was pretty cold, so we didn’t spend that long looking. The coral wasn’t particularly colourful, except for one big bright green coral that we found that was cool. Basically I think it was the wrong time of year for snorkelling, but it was still nice to get out and in to the sea for the day.

That night we went for a walk around the shops (everything is open late in Nha Trang) and then ended up in a backpackers bar and had a couple of drinks, whilst listening to some western music (yay even though it was just on a CD its funny the things you miss). I had left a note for the woman at our hostel to try and arrange some train tickets for us, and although we didn’t get to see her, she assured me on the phone that she had our tickets to Saigon.

So the following morning (our last night in the hostel), we packed our bags, had the free breakfast in the hostel (first time in 3 days) and then went and sat on the beach for a couple of hours. It is worth mentioning that the beach in Nha Trang is quite short, and that the waves are massive and break just on the beach, so it pretty much impossible to swim. Although we laughed at a couple of people that were trying. Then we went back to the hostel at 4pm to meet the owner, pickup our train tickets and passports, and arrange to get to the train station for our train to Saigon that night. Nothing like a bit of last minute organisation. We ended up getting ripped on the train tickets at 24 dollars each, as she said she had to get them on the black market as the train tickets were officially ‘sold out‘, my fault for leaving a note and not checking the price I guess.

Saigon

We got the train to Saigon (aka HCMC) which was an interesting experience. I’m afraid the train in Vietnam was just not up to the same standard as the ones we’d grown used to in China. The sheets in our hard sleeper bunks were a bit dirty and the train was old and a bit worn out. However the train arrived early at 3h30am which was too early for the hostel check in, so we waited around in the train station until 5am before getting the taxi to the hostel to drop off our bags. Then we had to hang out at an open bar until 8am for a room to be ready and they put us in to a sister hotel on the fifth floor (no lift) in a tiny room with an internally facing window. So the following morning we asked to be moved back to the hotel we had actually booked in to, to which they responded they would see what they could do. Which was an interseting reaction given that we had actually made a booking with them. In the end we did get moved so it all worked out okay, but we had to push to get it.

The first day in Saigon was pretty much a write off as we were knackered after the 3h30 wake up and needed more sleep. However we booked to go and see the Cu Chi tunnels the following day. So we got to see the scary man traps (bamboo spikes in a loosey covered hole in the ground), and then crawled through the little tunnel. Actually the tunnel was not as small as I’d thought it would be, although the one we went in to has been widened for the tourists. However as Steves legs are longer than mine, it wasn’t long before he wanted out, and it was stiflingly hot, so we didn’t stay under there very long. Its hard to believe that Viet Cong families lived underground for months on end. Actually the highlight of our day there was that we got to shoot guns at a firing range (you pay for your 3 bullets, they set up the gun and then you pull the trigger). Of course I didn’t actually hit the target, but as I’d never fired a gun before, it was an interesting experience. The guide had to put his hand up against the back of my shoulder to prevent me from falling back when it went off! Later that day we went to see the War Remnants Museum with the photography exhibits on Vietnam, which were really really good. They will have an amazing picture and then underneath a caption saying that this was the photographers last roll of film before he died. Really moving stuff and of course they had the picture of Kim Phuc there (from the book I was busy reading) running from the napalm attack on her village.

The following day we met up with Connie and Loz and spent the day with them generally eating, drinking and catching up. It was great to see them after all that time, and is so nice to see some familiar faces when you’ve been travelling for a while. We also tried to play a bit of foot shuttle cock in the park with the locals, but its harder than it looks. I think the guys were the best and managed a rally of about 3 kicks lol.

The following day we were due to get a boat to the Mekong Delta for 3 days, which would end up in Penom Penh in Cambodia. Steve had already started reading the book The Killing Fields about the Khmer Rouge in preparation for our arrival there.

It was also around this time that our thoughts started to turn to our return home, as we had to give notice on our flat on the 1st January…it really felt like the last 6 months had flown by and we couldn’t believe that we only had 2 months left of our trip - eeek!

I think that’s about all for Vietnam.
Love to all at home, Kirst x