Primitive Vehicle Users Only.

The Archaeological history of the places we are visiting is something that I am finding most fulfilling. At Quy Nhon we saw the wonderful Cham sites that were fairly unvisited yet largely restored. This makes sense as the Vietnamese people take great pride in their history. We were heading to Hoi An next and this promised to be interesting for it’s great old city centre and for the ruin that lie outside the city in a site called My Son (pronounced Me Sun).

We climbed on the train and travelled to Hoi An via Danang on a soft seat in air conditioning this time. This wasn’t by choice, the hard seat wasn’t available at the time we wanted to travel. It was only an extra 40,000 Dong so we were complaining. Surprisingly, we were again, the only westerners on the train. This is fun because we get to be the only ones immersed in with the locals. At the same time though we are getting to the stage where we want to meet some people who speak English and are in the same backpacker boat as us.

We decided that in Hoi An we’d make more of an effort to meet and hang out with backpackers and with that in mind our driver and his sister (who was in the front seat) talked us into staying at the An Phu hotel in Hoi An. The place was a cool old building that had been turned into a hotel. We walked in and were shown a few rooms and after picking one of the cheaper ones with a private balcony we settled in. There was something a bit creepy about the hotel though and over the course of the first day we saw bats, rats and cockroaches. Granted the roaches are pretty common in SE Asia, but the bat flying in the hallway and the number of large rats I saw gave me pause. We were there now though and we were only staying 3 nights so I decided to stick it out.

We headed into town which was just down the road from the hotel (which was another reason to forgive them the animals). The centre of Hoi An is like the South East Asia that we had read about in old novels and see in old movies but just doesn’t really exist anymore. After walking down the first street we quickly realised that tailors were the main enterprise in Hoi An. One after the other the tailors line the streets with mannequins out the front clothed in their designs and even more hanging from every conceivable location inside the stores walls and from the roof. With much bemusement and a chorus of “come in sir/madam, see my store” or “you want a new suit, I make for you 12 hours” we headed towards the river and grabbed an early dinner at a cute little restaurant called cordon blue.

I’d like to note that I am enjoying the fact that we are finally in a part of Vietnam where you don’t have to search to find Pho Bo (pronounced fo ba, or at least that‘s how it pronounced here). I’ve been told that it’s more of a dish from northern Vietnam so I look forward to eating more of the fabulous beef noodle soup in future.

We were treated to a sunset like nothing else we’ve seen so far I think. The strong pinks and oranges were breathtaking and the view from one of the bridges with it setting over the old city just reinforces all of the old SE Asia images you didn’t even know you had. Walking around the city at night is just beautiful and at night there seems to be a rule where no motorbikes are allowed to be ridden. This means that you can walk around in the middle of the street with just push bikes around you and everyone is dressed beautifully.

We later found out that another rule for locals states that in the old city ladies must be dressed either in traditional attire or at least in clothes that covers them up conservatively. No one seemed to bothered with it though and it really did add to the relaxed feel of the city centre. In the end we made it an early night and headed back to the hotel for a drink. It was at this point that we saw our first huge rat and a bat flying through the hotel.

We headed out the next morning with an aim to get me an outfit for Laura and Headly’s wedding in Austria. Thanks to our exploration last night we were able to narrow down the areas we saw that looked like they had nice clothes shops. We headed into the city centre and after wandering around and seeing all the outfits that everyone had out, I hadn’t seen too much that I was hanging out for. I liked some of the Chinese style tops and there were lots of winter jackets, but nothing that screamed out that it was what I wanted…or needed. Drew finally suggested a tailor that had some beautiful jackets.

It was just inside the door that I found a lovely knee length jacket in a forest green that did up on an angle and had a really cute neckline. This was my first time buying anything to be made and I was worried that the price would be more that we could budget, in the end the lady said $37 US and agreed to make it up in a dark red with cute black buttons. She also threw in a think extra lining for free and said to come back the next day to check it. This was amazing!

We headed off to be inspired by something else for the wedding and finally found a shop that didn’t look quite as nice but had some great examples in the windows. In the end we settled on Thai Silk, also in red. We came up with a nice design and then after some consideration I agreed to get a suit jacket to go with it that could double for work when we got to England. I looked and looked with the girls for a design for the jacket, but could only find a few parts that I really liked. In the end I picked some parts from other jackets and designed a cute pleated part at the back that I had dreamed up myself. I was a bit nervous, but in the end with the Thai Silk outfit and the suit jacket was $59 US. Pretty nice if I do say so myself.

With all the outfits I could possibly need ordered, Drew and I headed back to the hotel and rented a motorbike and headed down to the beach. I wasn’t really in the mood to swim so I paid 10,000 Dong and rented a sun bed. The beach is under reconstruction after a large typhoon which wiped most of the beach out. It’s being rebuilt by moving sand down to the shore and planting big palm trees to try to stop the sea washing away. The water was nice, but the waves were mainly dumpers and the rips were really strong. In the end it got overcast and cold so we headed back to the hotel and then headed to a second hand bookstore.

It was run by an American expat who stocked some romance novels!! Finally. I ended up buying the 3rd in the Clan of the Cave Bear series, the first in the Mercy Thompson series and a Susan Elizabeth Philips book called Ain’t She Sweet. I got a discount because we ended up swapping them for some of the books that we’d finished. We then dropped the motorbike off and headed out to dinner at a place we’d seen the night before called the Before and Now bar. It ended up giving us one of the best Western meals this far. The Brusetta was lovely and I had a spag boll that was fantastic. We wandered to a bar and had some drinks and played some pool and then headed home to bed.

The second full day in Hoi An we headed out on a tour to see My Son (pronounced Me Sun) which is one of the most extensive Cham sites in Vietnam. The bus was a really dodgy tour that gave us a bus with a hole in the floor, but it was cheap at $6 so we didn’t complain. My Son was meant to be one of the main capitals of the Cham culture that migrated from Indonesia many many 100’s of years ago. We got a ride from the gate up to the walking trail in old American Army jeeps. We had an a very enthusiastic explanation of the site from our guide and then headed up the track to the first site.

The site is extensively damaged and you can still see the bomb craters. The site is intriguing to Archaeologists because the bricks that make up the towers and rooms you go into are not held together by any visible cement or glue. The most recent suggestion says that they were held together by honey and some other ingredient from the forest. The site is quite overgrown and the parts that have been cleared are beautiful, but the extent of the damage is devastating. The buildings that remain have had a lot of work and there is still work going on with the help of UNESCO.

The buildings are a light brown stone and are all dedicated to a Hindu god. There were some intriguing stone alters that I would suggest would be sacrificial stones that were the same as some we’d seen at Angkor. The guide on our tour that we were only following and listening to occasionally finally confirmed my theory, though in Angkor they swore it wasn’t for sacrifice but they couldn’t tell me what it was for.

Site A at My Son was clearly at one time the centre piece for the culture. It would have been huge if the dimensions of the destroyed portions of the part that remains is an indication. It would have had a temple that was easily three or four times the size of the other temple we had seen at another part of the site. The floor plan looked like it would have been similar and the carvings that remain on the base were of a similar style to the other existing temple. This is one of the sad losses in the war with America, they had bombed this site and when they couldn’t destroy it they sent a helicopter in to hover over it and blast it till there was nothing left.

The VC never occupied the site during the war and the USA only destroyed it to make sure they couldn’t occupy it in future or for some twisted psychological reasons. After looking at some more destroyed temples and some bomb craters where temples were, we headed back to the bus and then got transferred to a boat for lunch and a cruise down the river back to Hoi An. We stopped by an artists village and watched some amazing wood workers creating wonderful things.

When we arrived back in Hoi An we went to the coat shop called 'Na Na' first. The jacket was beautiful and fit me perfectly first time. With many thanks and a spring in my step we headed to the next tailor to pick up my jacket and silk outfit. The jacket was perfect and the skirt was lovely, but it needed a little tightening. The top was nice, but sadly was nothing like what I thought I’d asked for. In the end they said they’d remake the outfit to be what I wanted and the jacket was so lovely that I ended up getting a work skirt to match, we agreed to head back there in four hours and pick it all up.

We ended up renting a motorbike and heading to the beach again. The weather was a little warmer so I decided to go for a swim with Drew, sadly it was still dumping and had a strong rip so I didn’t stay in long. We headed back into town and picked up my clothes that were all fixed and fitted perfectly and I dropped some clothes off that needed to be taken in, we were told to come back in about 2 hours. We then we headed out to dinner at the Before and Now bar again. The last time we ate upstairs in the restaurant and this time we decided to eat in the more relaxed bar. It was just as good as the first night. We just needed a few good comfort meals to allow us to continue on our way.

On the way back from the restaurant we walked past a cute skirt, I decided to try it on, it was a little too tight and the girl agreed to let it out a little. As it was already 9pm she said she’d drop it at our hotel reception for me, after she was finished. Then we picked up the pants I was getting taken in from the tailor which was the shop next to the hotel. We headed out to have a drink at a bar around the corner from the hotel called the "Why Not?" bar. This is not the only 'Why Not' bar we’ve seen, but they don’t have anything in common. (Well... Other than booze -Drew)

We had some drinks and started talking to the people in the bar, there were people from France, Canada, Germany, a fat guy from Russia that knew no English and a few Aussie’s. We drank and chatted for hours until we found the bar closing. We then got "free shuttle" to a place called the "Last Stand Bar". The 'free shuttle' was three to a motorbike so a girl I’d just met and I climbed on the back in the rain and headed for the bar located just over the short bridge from old town on Cham island.

It was a great night fun and the next time I checked my watch it was 3am. We were catching a bus at 7am and I hadn’t even gone to bed yet. I left Drew at the bar and headed home on a motorbike taxi and after picking up my package of clothes from reception, I headed to bed. I hoped Drew would come back before the bus left for Hue in the morning…

Note: At this point we are about a week or so behind in our blog posts after travelling to Hue, then to Hanoi were we took a tour to HaLong Bay and have just returned to Hanoi from a tour to Sapa. Later today we take a bus to Laos and we have a bit of time near the internet to hopefully catch up, Facebook is still not working so hopefully we'll upload a bunch of photos when we get to Vientiene in Laos.

Comfort Food.

There have been a few times on our tip where we have found ourselves out of our comfort zone. While walking the streets of Dalat after dinner we stumbled into a night market in the middle of the road. The market was no more than a few rows of canvas bags spread out across the ground selling all of the seconds clothing. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the market itself, but as the vendors went about selling their wares they all had a unique chant like sales pitch which when combined with all of the market vendors created an orchestral rhythm. It reminded me of walking through Ankor Wat and listening to the band of landmine-victims playing local instruments on the side of the path. When you single out one instrument to listen to it, it just sounds like noise, but when collaborated as a whole it creates music.

Browsing the market stalls I turned to Prue and asked “are you out of your comfort zone yet?”. No sooner had she replied “no” with a shake of her head and a bewildered smile when suddenly all of the vendors starting yelling frantically and grabbed their canvas bags running and dragging them off the street, over the top of us, and retreating to the edges of the sidewalk. Within ten seconds the entire street had cleared of market stalls and while Prue and I stood in the middle of where the market had been, a truck with a tray full of baton wielding police officers roared around the corner charging into the empty space the market had occupied. Prue grabbed my arm and said “ok, now I’m out of my comfort zone” and with that we decided it was best to leave the area.

Mostly being out of your comfort zone doesn’t necessarily mean being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is the only word I would use to describe our bus ride from Nha Trang to Qui Nhon, I might even add a curse word to the front of it. We were booked on a 16 seater mini-van for the five hour trip, 16 seats might work for tiny little Vietnamese, but when you try and shoehorn the two of us into the back seat, sealed in by two more locals, with one leg up in the air and our bags sitting on our laps in a mini van that decided it needed to be parked in the sun for fifteen minutes before leaving without the aircon on… Well it’s fucking uncomfortable

We had an opportunity to bail about ten minutes into the trip heading out of town, again the bus decided it needed to be parked on the side of the road for fifteen more minutes. Prue and I sat and debated whether or not we would get off, and after much debating we finally though “fuck it, lets get out of here”, we moved to get out, which would involve literally climbing over people. Suddenly fate raised its hand and bitch slapped us back down into our seat as the door slammed shut and the bus speed forward to Qui Nhon with 14 locals and us, crammed in the back sweltering, sweating, squished and so terribly uncomfortable.

We had decided to take the bus against our better judgment, as bus rides in Vietnam tend to be more like a death defying rollercoaster when compared to the safer and smoother option of the train. The train timetable didn’t have an appropriate departure time for us so we ended up crammed into our mini-van as we twisted and winded our way up through mountain trails along the beautiful ocean road, with gorgeous beaches and off shore islands on one side and gigantic mountains and cliffs on the other side. The Vietnamese could be forgiven for not bothering to visit our own Great Ocean Road, they have one, and it’s very bloody beautiful.

Or at least, we’re pretty sure it was. It’s hard to sit and enjoy the views. Not because we were squished uncomfortably into the back of the mini van. It’s hard to enjoy the view because you just cant take your eyes away from the road and the certain death that honks its way toward you at every turn, on every straight and always on your side of the road. Unless of course it is you who driving is on their side. We may have been under the impression our driver was Australian as he actually spent more time driving on our side of the road (the wrong side) than he did using the imaginary middle lane. Driving into darkness didn’t offer much relief either, as now their was no view to distract you from the road, and you are always wondering if the headlight of the scooter you are approaching head on to bully off the road, is actually a truck with one blown light.

It’s a bit of an adrenaline rush escaping death over and over, occasionally muttering an “oh shit!” or gripping the edge of you seat. It is truly frightening however, when the locals who seem mostly oblivious or desensitised to the road mayhem start popping their head up going “oh oh oh…” as the narrowest of margins saves you from being worm food. In the end we made it safely albeit uncomfortably to Qui Nhon.

Qui Nhon is a beach side city in the foot of the mountains and a place with little to no western tourism. it’s a bit of a shame that there isn’t much tourism as it is a lovely place. But I suppose it is made a little lovelier because of the lack of tourism. We were able to walk down the street without vendors pleading with us to come in and have a look, and we were able to sit and have a meal without peddlers walking up to us selling crap. We decided to do what anyone in a place without tourism would do, we checked into a resort.

Using modern technology we negotiated a cheap rate by bringing up the internet on Prue’s iPhone while standing at the reception desk, we found the resort mostly deserted as it is the off season and it kinda made us feel like the whole place was for us. So we relaxed in our complimentary bath robes, ordered Australian steak from room service, had a swim, a massage, a sauna and pottered around the quiet town of Qui Nhon, checking out a few nearby Cham sites. After two relaxing nights we set sail for the clothes tailor capital of South East Asia, Hoi An. This time we took the train.

Facebook is working sporadically in Vietnam at the moment, so here are the links to a couple of new photo albums:

The first album is our days spent in Dalat... [Click HERE]

The second album is our days in Nha Trang and Qui Nhon... [Click HERE]

We'll post a new blog post in the next day (hopefully), at the moment we are in Hoi An, clothing tailors paradise.

Mot, Hai, Ba, YO! (1,2,3, Cheers!)

We arrived back in Nha Trang to shitty weather, the clouds were thick and low and the wind was blowing with gale force, the patches of light rain came at us so far sideways it almost fell upwards. Prue and I were hungry from our long bumpy Bus trip down the mountain from Dalat and found the closest restaurant to have a burger each. We had an argument about spending time relaxing, Prue said she wanted to chill out and read a book, but I argued that I didn't want to spend all my time sitting in our hotel room. This statement when teamed up with our burgers, came back to bite us in the arse, quite literally.

Our first night in Nha Trang we learned quickly that the Gold Coast image that masks the appearance of the city, actually hides a deeply rooted dark side below its facade. We walked the street dodging the usual street peddlers and waving away the dodgy men on scooters who would offer all sorts of nasties, from massages with "boom boom" to Weed and Cocaine. Although we found a nice bar to chill out with a drink while we planned a tour for the day after next, we later returned to our hotel with the feeling that Nha Trang wasn't just the family friendly resort town we'd first assumed it to be.

Waking up the next morning we planned to spend the day unwinding and chilling out, maybe rent a scooter and see a few sights around town, but at a slow pace. Unfortunately our burgers from the previous day had other plans and by midday we were both feeling like shit and, well, feeling like shitting, a lot. We were pretty sure it was dodgy salad from our burgers the previous day and as I had picked out my tomato and cucumber I was only hit at one third strength. Prue however, having eaten all her salad like a good girl, was pretty much confined to quaters for the whole day.

The next day we were supposed to be picked up for a tour but as Prue was still really sick we postponed it for the next day, inevitably prolonging our stay in Nha Trang, the weather was still miserable and matched the way Prue was feeling, so I went out and explored the town on a scooter, checking out a few of the back-street locals only areas before stopping at one seaside cafe to drink dodgy coffee, then moving to another sea side cafe to drink more dodgy coffee.

Not all the coffee is dodgy in Vietnam, but when you are served coffee it comes as a glass with some condensed milk in he bottom and then has a metal contraption that sits on top of the glass and coffee grains are poured into. Hot water is poured into the metal cup holding the coffe grains. Then you sit and wait as drip by drip your glass slowly fills. Normally you also get a flask of hot water to top up your glass with. The coffee is usualy delicious (although the condensed milk makes it pretty sweet) however sometimes the coffee filter just doesn't work and you'll sit there for 20 minutes tapping the glass to get it to drip out, meanwhile it goes cold.

A little after lunch Prue was feeling a bit better so we jumped on the scooter to go and visit the local Cham site. The Chams were a local culture that inhabited most of Vietnam hundreds of years ago before being oppressed or moved out by the Chinese. Similarly to the Angkors of Cambodia the Chams built whopping great temples all over the country side and many of them still stand today. The architechture is different to the Angkors with the buildings constructed of small bricks similar in size to common bricks we use today and the style resembles the Indian Hindu temles with Spade shaped pyramids on the top. The Cham site was pretty cool although the dark insides of the temples had a very eerie atmosphere. It was interesting to see that many people still practise the Cham religion today.

Prue had only been eating dry biscuts and steamed rice, but for dinner I ventured out to get takeaway Pho Bo for her on the scooter. It was a new experience trying to cart home soup on a scooter which came in plastic bags, but I managed to get the bags home without tearing the plastic and the Hotel lent us a bowl and chopsticks, but the only spoon they had was a large ladle. With a smirk I left Prue to happily eat her Beef Soup and watch a movie while I ventured out to eat "real food" alone.

Our experiences with massages in our travels have been fantastic up until now, from foot massages in a market to blind massuers, We have found them to be such a great way to re-energise and super cheap. All of these experiences were tainted when we decided to get a massage in Nha Trang. Prue had found a nice cheap place (about $5 per hour) and it wasn't until we had reached the point of no return that we realised we were in a massage "parlour". The girls wearing short skirts was probably the first giveaway, then they asked for tips as they were not paid any money, the money we paid for the massage just got us to them.

Luckily I didn't have a cent in my pocket (as I'd been embarrisingly short on the bill when paying for my dinner earlier and hadn't yet been to an ATM) and Prue escaped with only a small tip. The seediest part was halfway through the lady massinging me pointed to my crotch and winked at me saying "massage?". I eagerly declined and spent the last half of the massage feeling less than relaxed, although it atleast explained why the massage wasn't actually very good. We left the place feeling slightly violated and went back to the hotel and watched "The Beach" on TV. Spending a bit of time locked in the Hotel room hadn't been so bad after we found the TV played two movie channels. the first night we were treated to a Lethal Weapon marathon, the next night was Karate Kid and Twilight, the last being a movie that I hated the first time, but still managed to get absoulelty sucked into. God damn Emo kids.

Waking to another day of shitty weather we grabbed a quick breakfast before heading out to our "four islands" tour. About 3o of us crammed onto a boat, the first island was no more than a pier that led to an aquarium on the island, with the rest of the island completely inaccesable. We didn't want to pay for the Aquarium so spent 45 mins sheltering from the wind, before we set off again for the next island. On the way we passed floating villages of lobster farmers before stopping just offshore from the island for some snorkeling.

I dove from the top of the boat into the deep water and swam off to snorkel around. I couldn't tell if the water was really cloudy as again my snorkel was pretty crap, but the coral and fish were really pretty, and I got some cool photos of the fish underwater. Prue stayed on the boat as it was still fairly windy and she didn't want to get sick again. As we moved to our next stop we were protected from the wind by the islands and the sun even managed to poke it's head out a little bit.

The crew served us a feast before entertaining us with their own band, featuring a makeshift drum kit a fender and a bass. The band was really entertaining although a little out of time with each other. They asked our nationalities and played songs to suit, we were treated to Waltzing Matilda and the Canadian (who was actually Brittish) got Celine Dion. The most impressing part was when they played a German and Russian song sund entirley in their own respective languages, and they finished the jam with a bit of table dancing to La Bamba courtesy of the Spaniard.

Thus began "Happy Hour", the crew threw a bouy with a seat in the middle and a metal ring all the way around it into the water. We jumped into the ocean where we were thrown rubber tubes to sit in, and paddled over to the bouy, in which one of our guides sat and we all held on to "The Floating Bar" (all of the Western people anyway, all of the Vietnamese tourists stayed on the boat and watched). The floating bar had one rule; you could not say the word "no". This caused a bit of a problem for Prue, having braved the water she didn't really want to drink much, and each time she was asked if she wanted a refill, her reply of "no" was swiftly followed by a call to skull. Needless to say the floating bar got a little messy, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Our last stop was an island that we had to pay to walk onto. Seeing as the other option was just sitting on the boat we decided to pay the money and I became instantly intrigued with the Jet Skis waiting on the beach. The Jet Skis cost about $15 for fifteen minutes and after negotiating with the operators who were only going to let us take turns on the back while they drove it, we managed to convince them that I would drive and prue would go on the back. Naturally they made me sign a waiver, a waiver that included paying damages if anything happened and they couldn't fix it.

The Jet Ski was fantastic fun, for about four minutes. Perhaps it was the fact we'd never been on one before, or because Prue was clawing at my sides or maybe it was the dozen or so shots of vodka at happy hour... Either way I managed to capsize the Jet Ski, and we couldn't start it again. They sent out a boat to pull us to shore, and the guy accidentaly kneed Prue in the lip while she was being pulled onto the boat, for whch she now has a cut on her upper lip. We nervously avoided the operators while they tried to get the Jet Ski started on the shore, and I was advised to back to the boat and "make myself scarce" while the operator walked around looking for me holding the waiver I had signed... Ooops.

Our last night in Nha Trang we went and had dinner at a place where Prue ate the first legitimite steak we had seen so far. I played some locals at pool (Vietnamese are BIG pool players) and then pretty much passed out back in our hotel room after booking a bus to take us to Quy Nhon at 3pm the next day. Ironically we woke on our last day in Nha Trang to find the weather had cleared up, the wind had died down and it was beautiful and sunny. That would be fucking right.

NOTE: Either the Vietnam Government has blocked Facebook or maybe it's Aliens, either way we can't access the full features of Facebook at the moment. This means there wont be any photos for awhile. Maybe I'll upload some to a different website soon, but for now there is none.

The Fish are Communist.

Dalat is a quirky little place set in the central highlands of Vietnam at an altitude of around 1400m. Dalat is blessed with a climate of eternal springtime, the days are lovely and sunny mid twenties (with occasional wind and rain) and at night time the temperature drops to the mid teens. The landscape surrounding Dalat is covered with farms and greenhouses growing vegetables that are only available in this region and flowers, flowers and more flowers. All of this is set amongst panoramic mountains and valleys painted in a lush green hue. The city of Dalat itself is like nothing we have seen so far, more like the idealistic European mountain village, the city sprawls across the hills covered in French style villas, not just one or two, every house fronting the narrow and winding streets is in some way an architectural work of art.

Dalat is known locally as the Honeymoon city. Before we even arrived at Dalat we found the truth in the statement as we boarded the bus to take the “new road” we noticed that all of the other passengers on the bus were young Vietnamese couples, possibly on their honeymoon. Our other observation was that the level of wealth had risen amongst our fellow travellers and again we were the only westerners on our bus, a trend we have noticed while travelling through Vietnam is the rise in domestic tourism. With the bus mostly empty we spread out across two berths and enjoyed the scenery as we travelled the “new road” to Dalat.

The new road is the four hour trip between Nha Trang and Dalat, the other option is the “Old Road” which is a five to seven hour journey via Phan Thiet? The new road is actually quite new, only opening a year and a half ago and winds its way through the beautiful mountains and valleys, reaching into the clouds at its highest point and dishes out panoramic splendour at every turn. There is one catch… The “new road” is so new, they haven’t actually finished it yet. For the majority of our trip we bumped and bounced and gripped the armrests as we narrowly missed oncoming trucks, buses, scooters and bulldozers while the driver crunched the gears and mashed the brakes as bitumen gave way to gravel, and gravel gave way to dirt all the way avoiding giant holes in the road and certain death from a drop off the cliff. It was a great adventure though… Today as I write this we are on our way back from Dalat on the old road as two days ago the new road collapsed (again), and I must say from the two hours we’ve travelled so far, the old roads isn’t much better and is quite difficult to type this while sliding from left to right, not top mention being distracted by the view.

We were transferred to our hotel by the bus company and the ride through Dalat was another trip full of “ooohs” and “aaaghs” as we soaked up the atmosphere of this tranquil city. We chose our hotel from the Lonely Planet guide book based solely on the promise of Vegemite for breakfast, and were delighted to find a nice comfortable hotel. We hired a scooter for three days and set out to explore the town, our first stop was to the local markets as we were in urgent need of warmer clothing as Dalat was actually quite cool, especially when riding the scooter. Prue managed to get a pair of pants that were taken up for her while we explored the rest of the markets for a warm jumper each.

Our time in Dalat was spent mostly relaxing, Prue had caught a flu and was feeling shit, a flu she probably got from me a week earlier, although my ear had cleared up after poking it with toothpicks at a rest stop on the way to Dalat while a very friendly bird hopped around on our shoulders… Either way we spent our first two days going at an easy pace, heading out to indulge in the local restaurants and exploring the surrounding hills and town at cruise pace on the scooter. The traffic was a lot thinner in Dalat although the narrow winding streets created a new challenge when turning so we stuck to our mantra of “don’t look, just go”. With a decent wireless connection we also found time to Skype home and touch base with our family.

A couple of solo explorations of the town presented a few interesting occasions. Leaving Prue at the hotel curled up with a book feeling sick I ventured out on the scooter. Wringing the neck of the scooter I played “Vietnamese Slalom” ducking and weaving through the streets and hills of Dalat and at one point found myself launched twenty centimetres off the ground after getting air from a pothole down a dirt road that led to nowhere… On my pink scooter! My other solo adventure was to find a bar to have a quiet drink. Dalat isn’t well known for bars and even the guide book mentions its lacking nightlife. With this in mind I headed out to find myself a pub, I passed up the multitude of seedy looking Karaoke bars and local cafes and eventually stumbled on a place advertising a “Beer Dungeon” with free pool and music. Walking past the front I was pulled inside by an eccentric French-man called Nono with a genuine smile behind his long pointy beard. At the back of the building I was led downstairs to the dungeon hidden behind a large padded door.

The bar inside wasn’t much more than a brick room with a bar on one side, a pool table at the end and a few barstools scattered around tables. However the atmosphere was exactly what I was looking for, with a room full of like-minded travellers, an Aussie Ex-Pat publican, pumping tunes and walls covered in the scrawling graffiti of every traveller who had passed this way before me.

I found a little sanctuary to chill out before the infectious insanity of the bar absorbed me. I watched as Nono the French-man tried to convince an English girl that you can’t crush an egg with one hand by squeezing it, then watched as egg exploded in every direction across the pub followed by cries of astonishment and a barrage of insults from the Aussie Bartender who cried bloody murder as that was the last egg and someone upstairs had ordered a Carbonara 45 minutes ago. I had to defend my Bic lighter from being pocketed after it was explained that Bic lighters are a valuable commodity in Vietnam and upon the Aussie Bartender learning that I had a full black Bic at home in my backpack he swiftly offered me any bottle from behind the bar in exchange. Knowing the value of my lighter I declined his offer and left the bar at the strike of midnight and the start of curfew for the pub to close.

For our last day in Dalat we hired an Easy Rider Motorcycle guide named “Joseph” to take us on a tour around Dalat and the surrounding countryside. I rode my trusty pink scooter and Prue (still not feeling well) rode on the back of Joseph’s ‘big’ 125cc Honda. Big bikes aren’t common in Vietam (or much of anywhere in SE Asia) the Police ride 250cc bikes which are considered “big” by locals and I had a chuckle when negotiating our guide as he asked if I could handle a “big bike” like his 125cc. The main reason is the cost of the licence for a larger bike being roughly the equivalent of US$1000.00.

Joseph spoke English, French and Vietnamese and was an absolute gold mine of local knowledge as well as a very informative political commentator. Wherever we stopped he would tell us stories about the war, the government and its communist doctrines. I felt a little left out as Joseph liked to talk so much he Chatted away to Prue while cruising through the winding mountain trails surrounding Dalat. Of course I could hear none of this following behind on my scooter, but Prue filled me in the important parts later on. We visited a local temple with a gigantic flowing statue of a Dragon that largely resembled Bendigo’s Sun Loong and travelled out of town through the hills covered in tiered fields of Vegetables to a scenic spot by a lake.

Travelling up again into the mountains we stopped at a panoramic lookout of the valley and mountains with a small town perched in the cradle of the hills in the distance. Joseph explained about the effects of Agent Orange and how the Pine Trees we were seeing everywhere were planted by the US many years later as they had destroyed the jungle with napalm so that VC Snipers picking off convoys using the mountain roads had nowhere to hide. We slowly wound our way down the mountain dodging the occasional truck and into the small town occupied by the local ethnic group Kho (Koho).

We scrambled down a make shift staircase engraved into rocks, clambered over and between more rocks and squeezed through a small opening to reach a cave behind the Elephant Waterfalls where the spray swept back on us cooling us off. Then we clambered back around to the front of the waterfall along a path, that wasn’t really a path, more like a collection of stepping stones placed at random heights and the challenge wasn’t just finding the next one, but also trying not to fall off the slippery and muddy stones.

Back at the top of the falls we chatted to Joseph for a bit while we caught our breath and he told us stories of Police corruption before directing us to some local Kho people weaving ornate designs by hand. Prue fell in love with one of the scarves (which she bought for about $10) once she learnt the larger pieces can take up to two months to make. We were then treated to a massive spread of lunch in a nearby café where we sat next to a small lake full of very hungry fish that ate all of the scraps that the local dog didn‘t want. Our lunch was a large spread of about a dozen different local dishes which were place on the table for the three of us to sample. Our meal cost just 30,000 Dong each (about $1.70).

After lunch we went to a Silk factory where we saw silk worm cacoons being turned into rolls of fine silk, we rode through the fields of coffee stopping to watch an 84 year old lady weaving baskets and then riding through hills covered in greenhouses we called in to wander through the flowers and watch the local family prepare the flowers to me shipped off to the markets in Saigon. We had a fantastic day with our guide Joseph and his relaxed pace and wealth of knowledge made the day so much more enjoyable and after a cruise back through the mountains and into Dalat, our day was topped off with a trip to the Crazy House.

The Crazy House is one of Dalat’s tourist attractions, it is actually a house and the lady who designed and built it still lives there, she also rents rooms out for the night like a hotel. But the Crazy House is not a house. The crazy House is like its namesake, absolutely crazy. Prue giggled and squealed like a four year old as we explored the labyrinth of free flowing staircases leading to rooms with strange themes like the kangaroo room which has a large sculpture of a kangaroo with sinister looking glowing red eyes. There are no square traditional rooms or windows as everything has been rendered and sculpted with concrete and gives the place an almost organic feel.

After eating dinner for our last night in Dalat I dragged Prue to the Dungeon Bar “Subterrain” where we played a few games of “Prue’s-rules-pool” and chatted to the Aussie bartender where we played “who do you know that I know” only to find that even though we both lived in the same places in Melbourne we didn’t know anyone. Prue gave Nono the French-man optometry advice (as you do) and we left again just on the strike of curfew leaving behind my trusty (but almost empty) blue Bic Lighter to much thanks and shouts of victory by Nono the French-man.

As I type this I’m still on the “old road” bus heading back to Na Trang, we’ve survived the hazardous mountain pass road, dodged cows, scooters and ox drawn carts while bouncing up and down all the way back to the coast. We have started heading north sitting behind a truck while the driver continues to mash his horn at all of the oncoming traffic. The TV on the bus is playing the Vietnamese version of “Dancing with the stars“ and again we are the only westerners...

Sorry 'bout the long post, we have photos to post but Vietnam has no access to Facebook at the moment, although the Government has denied blocking it. Will put some photos up again when it is working.

The Soundtrack of SE Asia (Long Train is Long)

We decided to spend the day just wandering around Saigon and seeing some more of it’ sights today. We wandered out of the hotel after another breakfast of a fresh bread roll and some jam. We stood on the edge of the road trying to figure out how to tell who was just riding a scooter and who was actually an ex om motorbike taxi rider. We took a guess that the ones sitting around with peaked caps were the people we wanted to speak to and approached them. They jumped into action on our approach and we agreed on a price to take us to the Jade Pagoda that we’d been told was amazing. After flying through the Saigon streets on the back of a motorbike we were much more in sync with the city. It is really an amazing place when you just go with the flow.

We got to the Jade Pagoda and realised that it wasn’t just a tourist attraction, this place had a steady stream of worshipers that were moving around us going about their prayers. The building was quite unimpressive when you saw it from the outside. But once you got inside the rooms were filled with beautiful statues and amazing carvings and wall frescos. There were many Taoist myths and stories that seem to be shared across many religions in the area. There were some amazingly vivid pictures of the 10 levels of Hell. We took our time and slowly and respectfully made our way around the area and then finished by patting the mane of a giant horse statue and ringing it’s bell for good luck in travel.

We headed out and our riders had hung around so we negotiated another amount to take us down to the water front area. About half way they stopped off at the Notre Dame Cathedral which is opposite the beautiful post office built by the French when they were in control of Saigon, The drivers let us jump off and go into the post office (which was open on a Sunday) and post a card home.

We then headed down to the water front which we’d been told was amazing and beautiful and after saying goodbye to our bikes we wandered for a bit, the area was silent. There was nothing much happening, no one was around and all the shops looked so stuck up that we couldn’t be bothered to really stick around. We had lunch at a Korean food place that turned out to be very nice and pretty cheap and then started walking back through the city towards our hotel. We shopped at some local places and had a drink on the way.

We headed back to the hotel and tried to book our tickets for the train the next day. Sadly the train station office was closed so we figured that we’d just risk it the next morning. We wandered around the area and I had another blind massage. This one was pretty hairy. No one spoke any English and the only thing I can say is “thank you” in Vietnamese. After getting through it and heading for a dinner of Pho Bo, Drew and I went to the Crazy buffalo.

This is a bar that specialises in cheap drinks and the soundtrack of South East Asia. The music varied from classic hits of the 80's and 90's such as some classic Red Hot Chilli Peppers and AC/DC to I Swear by All for One. I hadn’t heard this song since probably my year 8 high school dance. There has actually been a lot less soundtrack of your life going on in Vietnam and never was it more prevalent than in Thailand where every second song you heard led to the conversation starting with ‘omg! I remember this song’ and then proceed to remember all the words much to your own dismay. Drew wanted me to mention that the toilet in this place was crazy and that in the boys urinal you were peeing on a LCD television.

The next morning we got up early and headed to the train station with our fingers crossed that we’d be able to get a train. So with much nervousness we checked out of our hotel and after being told it was booked out and to catch the bus we made it to the train station. We walked in and were immediately pointed in the right direction and headed to the ticket counter. We grabbed a numbered ticket and were about to sit down when one of the lovely train ladies approached us and asked what train we were planning to catch? We told her and she checked and double checked with us that we didn’t mind that it meant we were in 3rd class and only had fans and windows that could be opened. We told her that sounded perfect and she did a bit of a ‘ok, well if you’re sure’ and helped us buy our tickets.

Each ticket cost us 95.000D which works out to be about $5 US to get both of us from Saigon to Na Trang. We headed out to the train and we ushered aboard. We found that there was a family in our seat and the train guy was trying to get them to move for us, but we insisted that we’d just find a spare seat and with many smiles on both sides, as I don’t think they understood we found our seat. It was another lovely hard wood seat number like on the Thailand trains, but this one wasn’t nearly as busy. We made ourselves at home spreading out in our booth and watching all the locals get on the train.

Pulling away from the station we opened our windows and prepared for our journey. We were surrounded by families with kids and Drew played peek-a-boo with a kid who was about 6 for most of the trip. We had some of the food off the trolley’s they brought around and enjoyed the experience and the people. Drew went down to the dining car at one point and on his return said that without a doubt we were the only western people on the train. They smiled at us and we all had our non-verbal conversations. When Drew and I were taking photo’s of the countryside and marvelling over the rice paddies and then the mountains and then the sand dunes and the sea some of them jumped up to see what we were so excited about. It was great to see their faces light up when they realised that we were just appreciating the country. We got into Na Trang a bit after dark and after both waving enthusiastic goodbyes to the kids and their parents and having them shout first attempts at “good-bye” back we headed to our hotel.

Yet again we had no booking, but on rocking up we got a room with what we guessed would be a great view of the ocean but it was to dark to tell so we headed out to dinner. We didn’t spend too long out in Na Trang. It didn’t feel like Asia at all and was like a western resort town. After much discussion we decided to head to Da Lat the next morning and booked a bus with the hotel before we headed up to bed for the night.

Chapter 3: Good morning Vietnam

We left the peaceful tranquility of Shianoukville via the service of the Mekong Express Bus Service. We opted for one of the (slightly) more expensive buses to ensure we had aircon and a toilet. Unfortunately our planning back fired somewhat as neither of us used the toilet on the Bus and after spending about eleven hours on a heavilly airconditioned bus, I finally got off the bus having a hard time breathing, and as I'd already had a cold and a blocked ear (plus the sunburn) I was feeling quite miserable by the end of the day. The bus was nice and comfortable, we even got served free water, breakfast and cake-ish things, but not being able to close the vents for the aircon and having only warm weather clothes made it a very long trip, although we were treated to a viewing of the movie "Taken" which was broadcast with the english soundtrack and very ammusing Engrish subtitles.

The bus trip took about four hours from Shianoukville to Phnom Pehn where we had a three hour stop over. We went back to the Foreing Correspondents Club (FCC) again for lunch, and it still remains the nicest place we've eaten on our trip, although it does feel like we are out of place when sitting on the balcony at the FCC, as you feel it is a members only type of club even though it isn't. From Phnom Pehn we had a seven hour trip across the border into Vietnam to reach Ho Chi Mihn City. The border crossing was made smooth by the bus company who took our passports to be proccessed at each point, and gave them back to us as we needed to be presented.

Crossing the border from Cambodia into Vietnam was the reverse effect of our crossing at Poipet two weeks earlier, the roads widened and became smoother, the streets had gutters and street lights, and there was a noticable lack of rubbish strewn around. Not that we could see all that much as it was night time as we arrived, but almost the whole way from the border to the center of Ho Chi Mihn City (HCMC) was urban, with shops and houses fronting the highway, broken up only occasionaly by a rice field.

We alighted the bus in the centre of HCMC's tourist precinct. A hub of cafes, restaurants and tall narrow hotels all with flashing lights and hosts standing on the stoop waving us inside. I suppose it is obvious when you walk down a street with gigantic backpackes strapped to your back at 10pm at night that you are looking for somewhere to stay. Almost everyone on the street tries to guide you, the pedal taxis and moto-taxis ask if you need a ride, the hoteliers come out on the street and try to chauffer you inside and the local barstaff wave brochures advertising their happy hours. I suppose I should also mention that the streets are also full of people who want to sell shit to you, and it is "shit". Usually cheap sunglasses or knock-off zippo lighters, but occasionaly random people walk up to you with a handfull of chewing gum or some other random peice of crap you don't need, but they're are pretty sure that you want it and your dissmisal is just an elite form of haggling.

The hardest thing to ignore is the beggars, they have been everywhere on our travels so far, we even have them at home obviously. The beggars here come in different forms, mostly people who are obviously poor looking will stand next to you untill you look at them then make a prayer sign with their hands and put on their saddest looking face. These ones can be easliy ignored as they are only about level 2 novice beggars. The next step up are the child beggars, usually around level 5 apprentice, the lower leveled child beggars will mimick the prayer/sad face combination where as the higher level child beggars will grab your leg and say "dollar" over and over until it wears you down. Child beggars can sometimes work in pairs, where an older sibbling will torment the younger sibling in its arms until it cries, then get your attention for a bonus multiplier of sadness and "Awww".

The real heart string pullers are the victims beggars, these guys can range anywhere from a level 10 Journey man with a missing leg or arm who is usually the victims of a land mine and go up the a level 20 Battle Mage the shortest straw drawn victims of the terrible atrocities of this country and the use of Agent Orange. I guess it seem a bit heartless to see all of this with a sense of humour, but there is no way that we could make it through our travels if we allow ourselves to be affected by every single beggar, the weight of the emotions would be heavier than our backpacks, and the toll on our wallet would drastically shorten our adventures. So we smile back and say "hello" and hope that the NGOs continue their good work to help these people so they they stop relying on the emotional tourist dollar.

Our first morning in HCMC (Still known as Saigon to everyone but the officials) we woke to the local soundtrack a cacauphony of scooter exhausts and horns. The streets are a chaotic mess off traffic, it is the most amazing thing to watch as about a billion scooters flanked by a handful of busses, trucks and cars travel in every single direction, interweaving with absoulutely no sense of formal road rules, yet the absoulute chaos of everything work perfectly with a harmonious fluidity. We join the traffic on the front of a cyclo, a chair mounted to the front of a bicycle. Our first stop was the Reunification Palace, the palace occupied by the South Vietnamese goverment during the war years and was where the liberation army drove their tanks through the front gates. We were lucky enough to arrive just as the last English propaganda filled tour was leaving for the day as the "Palace" was being used for official purposes later in the day.

Our next stop was the War Remnants Museum, a museum dedicated to the memory of the attrocities commited during the war years, we went expecting to find it very heavily weighted with propaganda supporting the North Vietnamese and luckily we weren't dissapointed. After passing through the front garden full of Tanks, jets, artillery and a Cessna with rocket launchers... We walked in to the museum filled with photos of some of the tragedies of the war years. The photos show the truths of the war, with photos taken from both sides of the fence and a large section setup by an American that documents the timeline of the war through powerful imagery and personal stories. It is somewhere along this point that I realised that I didn't know much about the Vietnam war other than what I had seen in American films, what I know now has profoundly changed my outlook. I guess the North Vietnamese propaganda worked as I am trully disgusted at the United States and found myself a little ashamed that we as Australians had some part in the war.

After a long day of deppressing war shit, we headed home via the local markets. The market was a massive building housing hundreds of tightly packed stalls selling everything from local souvenirs to clothes, shoes, and very smelly spices. Walking through the clothes stalls the vendors would grab your arm and physically pulll you into their stores to view their goods. A fantastic place to shop although again we had the sad realisation that we couldn't buy anything unless we wanted to carry it with us for a long, long time. We did buy a few more clothes items and I was most dissapointed to get home and find the Versace shirt I bought didn't fit.

After a night out for dinner in the nearby restaurant we organised our second day to do a tour down to the Mekong Delta region. Although our one day tour only reached the tip of the region we crossed the mighty Mekong river by boat, then changed to a few smaller boats to travel down the small canals that traverse the tropical islands. Our tour was the most "tour like" tour we have been on so far. After a rest break 45mins into the bus ride we were already calling it a souvenir tour as most places we stopped were tourist traps that probably paid the tour companies some type of commision for bringing the punters.

Netherless we learn't about the many uses for coconuts and were shown how coconut candy was made, even bought some for later. We paddled down one of the canals in a row boat, which would've been fantastic if it wern't for the fact that every row boat we passed in the opposite direction held out money and pointed to our row boat steerer saying "tip, tip". Then we listened to local music, sampled strange tropical fruits, honey tea and banana whiskey. I even tried a bit of the Snake infused whiskey, just a minute or so after holding one of the large pythons that would inevitably end up as the whiskey. We headed back to Saigon and ate dinner in a restaurant where the hosts cooks a BBQ in the middle of your table while drinking uber cheap beer at two for one prices.

Today we decided to chill out in the morning, before we head out to explore a bit more of Saigon and organise our train tickets for tomorrow, we are hoping to head for Na Trang or Dalat. Saigon is an amazingly intense city, with action packed traffic, lively bars and nightclubs and a general hustle and bustle we haven't really felt since leaving Bangkok. Although though Vietnamese people are quite nice, we are looking forward to moving on as our first impressions of Vietnam have been a little underwhelming when compared to the warm hospitality of Cambodia or the fun loving Thailand...