The tale of a boy and a motorbike...

Once upon a time there was a boy called Simon, well isn't really a boy - more of a man given that he is nearing his 30th birthday...



Simon decided one morning that the time had come for him to learn how to ride a scooter (motorbike) you see he had never driven one before and he thought that the conditions on a remote Vietnamese island would be ideal - it had everything - narrow rocky uneven roads and large tooting trucks ready to push you into a ditch.
Simon had a wise girlfriend and she cautioned him against it, but the idea of speeding along the roads with the wind in his hair was too much.
The bike was duely presented to Simon, a shiney new black number with red racing stripes down the side - that will make it go faster Simon thought!
So he got on the bike, asked the man "how do you start it?". After learning this crucial lesson and noting where the breaks were he bunny hopped up the rocky drive out of site of the wise girlfriend and straight into a ditch and a tree covered in barbed wire.

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh City & Zero Degrees of Separation in Chau Doc

In one of my earlier posts I talked about how the Hanoi was incredibly busy. Well, Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon as I will call it because it is less characters to type) is like Hanoi on drugs. They have tourist police whose main duties appear to be helping foreigners cross the road, on account of the insane traffic. I actually preferred Hanoi to Saigon, and I can't quite put my finger on the reason. It may be because Saigon is so big that it is just another crowded polluted megacity. Hmmm sounds like London.....


The Reunification Palace in Saigon was the seat of the South Vietnamese government up until they collapsed in 1975. If you ever see a photo of the final helicopters evacuating the Americans out of Saigon, it is evacuating from the roof of this place. The palace has been kept in the same state as when it was overrun by the North Vietnamese. I found out that the head of the South Vietnamese government liked to collect animals. The photo at the top is an attempt on my part to capture a row of animal heads. Also, please note the stuffed leopard on the left.

After the somewhat dry Reunification Palace, we then went to the War Remnants Museum. To give you an idea of the ideological position of this museum: it used to be called the Museum of American War Crimes up until a few years ago. This museum had an extensive collection of planes, tanks and bombs from both sides of the US-Vietnam war.
It had an exhibition on photo journalists from around the world who died covering the conflict, including the last photos which they took. This was quite moving. There was also a section on the effects of Agent Orange and other defoliants, including a couple of deformed babies in formaldehyde, which was nearly unviewable.

Next we left for Phu Quoc, an island off the south east coast of Vietnam which is due south of Cambodia. Note that the Q is pronounced W, not K. I will let Marie tell the story of my accident there, all I will say is that my scooter riding ability is much less than I thought it was. Also, the Vietnamese like to wrap their trees in barbed wire.

Examples of why New Zealand is too interconected below the fold:

After spending an idyllic week sitting in hammocks, we came up through the Mekong delta into Cambodia with an overnight stop in a little border town called Chau Doc. We were about to go out foraging for dinner when we bumped into our old flatmate Paul, who we had lived with at 127 Hanson Street, in the hotel foyer. We hadn't been in contact with him for about six months, we didn't know he was travelling in Asia, he didn't know we were travelling in Asia.

New Zealand is a village.

This is the worst example we have come across. Other examples of NZ interconnectedness we have encountered on our travels as follows:
1) In Luang Prabang we met an expat New Zealander in the guesthouse lobby. After talking to him for a while, we found out that his last name is Rayner, which is Marie's mum's maiden name, and that he & Marie's parents both went to the large (2000+) Rayner family reunion a couple of years back. Plus, we worked out that his sister's ex-husband taught me piano.
2) I was on the beach in Nha Trang, and I wanted to buy half a pineapple. The old lady only sold whole pineapples, and there was a guy standing next to me who also only wanted a half. We agreed to split one. Chris turned out to be from Wellington originally, and he was returning to Australia from the UK with his Aussie girlfriend. We saw them again in Saigon, and again in Phu Quoc. We got chatting, and couldn't initially establish a connection. Then we realised that his oldest brother was friends with Dan Kalderimis, who we are going to be flatting with in London. Also, we had met Chris's oldest brother at Dan's wedding a couple of years back, and Dan's father was Chris's doctor.

Trains, trains, trains

We caught a train from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh city. But not just any train, this was the recently inaugaurated 5 Star Express. This train was nearly brand new, having started in Decenber 2006 which is very new for train rolling stock. Marie pointed out that the carriages may have been refurbished rather than new rolling stock, but I am not quite enough of a trainspotter to be able to pick the difference. They might just have been dirty...
My trainspotter contribution is that the Vietnamese break up their ballast (the rocks under the railway sleepers and track) by hand with picks, whereas in western countries this is done by machine. Also, the train was motoring along - faster than long distance trains in NZ- so either the Vietnamese track network is in exceptional shape, or they do not have the same level of safety controls (and the resultant speed restrictions) as in NZ. For my sake, I hope it was the former.

I counted 25 passengers spread throughout the eight carriages (with varying prices and standards of seating), and 24 visible service staff. Marie commented that for the staff it was like her summer job working on the NZ interislander ferry: very few passengers, so you can sit around or sleep for most of the time.

We were in the lowest level of seating, which was still very comfortable and double decker. There were another couple of levels of nicer seating, and the flashest seats were sold by the compartment, where you pay 2.4 million dong for a compartment which seats up to four people in very plush comfort. That sounds like a lot of moolah, but it is equivalent to USD 150. I reckon if you were travelling in a quartet and making your trip in a higher level of comfort than our current trip, then USD 150 for four people for a eight hour train ride is not too bad.
I managed to get the following photos of the the lower grade seating, but by the time I went back to the compartment area they realised that riff raff were able to enter so they had locked the door.






To give you an idea of the entertainment options on this train: there was a dining car, and a separate 'multi purpose' carriage. I saw mention of a massage train in some of the promotional material, but I couldn't find this particular carriage. The multipurpose carriage operated as a disco from Fridays through Sundays, and played movies the rest of the week. Disco on a train!


When we went into the dining car the six staff promptly got up from where they had been sitting, and tried to look like they were doing something- it only takes one person to pour our beers (into plastic cups, haha) and a second person to fetch a rather tasty grilled mackeral, so this is the definition of 'make work'.

Nha Trang

After Hoi An the original plan was to head south to Ho Chi Minh City. Then we realised that the Hoi An- Ho Chi Minh bus trip was 22 hours, so we stopped off in Nha Trang, a beach resort type town about halfway down, for a couple of nights. Which turned into four nights.


The prime attraction at Nha Trang is the beach, which is the focal point of the tourist area. We spent three days lazing on the beach, without needing to leave it for any of our daily needs. At one particular seaside bar you can rent a lounger under a thatch umbrella, with the only condition being that you don't consume food or drink from any other sellers on the bar's section of beach. Did I mention that this bar has a pool, in case you get tired of swimming in salt water? And it also brewed its own beer, five different varieties?



For lunch, we walked up the beach to where old ladies were grilling crayfish over hot coals, purchased a large crayfish (or a selection of smaller crays, crabs, whelks and scallops if we wanted a bit of variety), ate it sitting on the beach, and then wandered back to our lounger. I tell you, Nha Trang was a real drag...



As an aside, please note the glorious mullet on the right, captured in Nha Trang.

The other attraction of Nha Trang was the nightlife. In Hanoi the city closed down around 1030-1130pm, whereas we could stay out to the early hours in Nha Trang without too much effort. Marie managed to beat me two- nil at pool, which I attribute to me being 'tired and emotional'.

On our last full day we went out to the local mud baths, and spent a few hours impersonating hippopotami. Pictures of us cooling our blood, and wallowing in glorious mud as follows:

Hue & Hoi An

One of the difficult things about a blog with two contributors is trying to work out a free flowing thread of discourse. For example: if Marie talks about Hoi An does that mean that any thoughts I have on Hoi An are redundant, and vice versa? I think I will just stick to commenting about things on our trip which interest me- hopefully this will not make for too much repetition between Marie's and my posts.

Anyway: my last post was about Hanoi. From there we caught a twelve hour night train to Hue. We were planning to go to Halong Bay, which everyone says is beautiful, but unfortunately tropical storm Frances came through and sank a bunch of boats the day before we were due to go out. Rather than wait for the storm to clear, we decided to head down to Hue.

For me, there was one primary reason to go to Hue: the Demilitarised Zone just to the north, which marked the boundary for a number of years between the Vietnamese Communist forces in the North and US affiliated forces in the south. The picture in the top left of this post is from inside the Vinh Moc tunnels. These tunnels were just north of the Demilitarised Zone, and were used by communist forces to assist in the resupply of nearby artillery placements. The artillery placements happened to be on an offshore island within range of the US emplacements, so any time they were running low on supplies the villagers from the Vinh Moc area would resupply them. By rowboat.
Now you don't have to be Donald McNamara to realise that this resupply depot would be extremely vulnerable to US air strike. Thus the Vietnamese got around this problem by building a tunnel complex large enough to sleep 200 people, with the depth underground ranging from 12 metres to 25 metres. There was a maternity ward down there, with I think 12 babies delivered underground.
The tunnels themselves were small but not to the point of claustrophobia. The average height within the tunnel complex is anywhere between 1.6 and 1.9 metres, so I couldn't stand up at any point underground. It is definitely worth a look if you are in Central Vietnam.

The other thing I found of particular interest in Hue was within the old Imperial City. I think the Imperial City was very impressive until the French and then the US took turns bombing it, so there is not too much left standing now. However, there is an area where you can put on the vestments of Imperial Emperors or Empresses. Very touristy, but dress ups is fun. Pictures of our dressup fun and my thoughts on Hoi An below the fold:








I think Marie covered the highlights of Hoi An quite comprehensively- made to measure tailoring and food. One point I would like to add is that I think Hoi An has a lot going for it. We spent 4 nights there, and the only reason we moved on to Nha Trang was that it rained constantly. Not that the rain was bad as it was 25 degrees and not windy, it was just wet. We were never bored in Hoi An, but there were a couple of things we didn't get to do because of the weather.
For example, on our first night there we wandered down to the waterfront, where some enterprising soul had put out a bunch of paddle boats for tourists to make fools of themselves in. Not just any kind of paddle boat mind you, these were in the shape of swans. Now I am not sure how your brain is wired, but when I see swan paddle boats, I can think of only one thing: swan boat racing in the cool evening air, washed down with a bia hoi or two. I am not sure whether the optimal timing of this racing would be before or after dinner- really there is no downside, this is swan boat racing we are talking about here. Unfortunately this was not meant to be as there were no dry evenings, so this will have to wait until next time along with a trip to Halong Bay.

More about eating

Enjoyment at eating establishments is a common theme of our travels and blog posts. With the torrential rain and flooded streets of the last 3 days Hoi An has proved no exception.
On our first night here we went to something of a Hoi An institution, Cafe de Amis. Along the river near the market this place only serves a set menu (about 6 courses)for 40,000 VND (about $5US), with a choice of meat, seafood or a vegetarian menu. The menu changes every night and is whatever the chef/owner Mr Kim decides to cook that night. Apparently if the menu is the same you eat for free. Mr Kim is more front of house these days I think, he was very attentive to all the guests, explaining the dishes and showing us his book with recommendations from visitors - including for us all the ones from New Zealanders. He even greeted and farewelled us with Kia Ora and Hare Ra.
The three of us (we were with an Australian girl K) ordered three different menus and all were delicious in thier own way - the only problem was the number and size meant that getting through all of them was near impossible (and made my clothes fitting the next morning a little difficult).
Our other major discovery was a wonderful place called Cafe 43. I noticed it is in the newest addition of Lonely Planet, but unlike many of the other places they recommend it has not suffered what Simon and I have termed the "Lonely Planet kiss of death" where sufferers are afflicted with very poor service and/or have turned into something akin to a family restaurant (Cobb&Co/Valentines for NZers). We went there three times and I honestly don't think it will change - the food is fantastic and the family are generous, inviting and very humble. Our second visit was for a cooking class, where they took us behind the scenes and taught just Simon and I to cook up dishes we chose from the menu - awesome I now know the secret to their delicious steamed fish in banana leaf!! If you go there make sure to talk to their daughter, she can write English very well but doesn't get to practice her English and is too shy to ask. We found out so many more interesting things about Vietnam from her.

Blogger in Vietnam

We have concluded that blogs are blocked in Vietnam, as we have been unable to access our site or any of the other blogs we regularly read. But all of you at home say you can. However, we can access the blogger website and add posts. This means that if there are problems with the posts we can't see them. Hopefully Cambodia will be ok...

Hitting the shops Hoi An style

So we made our way from Hue to Hoi An - I love Hoi An but my credit card and baggage allowance do not!
Hoi An is a small town best known for its tailoring. Apparently there are about 200 tailor shops and just about everyone you talk to has some kind of "relative" that is a tailor who there are very keen to recommend. This makes knowing who is good and what price is a fair price an absolute mine field. Everywhere you go you hear other travellers talking about the bargins they got, I have just overheard a Brtish girl saying she got 6 suits for 100pounds...

I am writing this post as I count the cost of what Simon and I have purchased. Not the costs of the clothes themseleves but the costs of shipping them. Simon is behind me doing the organisation keeping the Vietnamese staff busy taping up boxes and recording what is going in. Most hotels and many of the better tailors offer a shipping service (the organisation not the cost as a free service).

We gave a test shirt to a couple of tailors and at one that I thought was slightly better I got a dress made from a picture and pants copied. In the end my intuition was right and we went with B'Lan. Lan is wonderful, she didn't do a hard-sell and was professional to the end. On day one we spend 4 hours choosing clothes from pictures (or our own heads), choosing fabrics and getting measured.

When we came back the following evening all of the clothes were completed, no matter how complicated, and only a few of the clothes we ordered needed alterations, and they were so small that we were unable to see why changes needed to be made. But she insisted and the product was better as a result. She even called her brother the tailor (her actual brother, not just a "relative") and got him to come down to the shop to talk about the finer points of making the underarm area of Simon's suit jacket sit slightly better.

She also took on a role as my defacto mother, noticing that I have a cold and was a little tired and insisting that I drink some hot lemon and honey for "medicine" and wanted me to take lemons away with me.

In total we are sending about 20kg of stuff. This includes clothing, detailed below, very cheap DVDs (cheapest/best in all of asia) and various nicknacks.
Lesson for the future: come to Asia with lighter bags and spend less.

Simon
1 x 3 peice suit (and a pair of extra trousers) in highgrade cashmere and wool
3 x trousers
1 x fine velvet jacket
6 x work shirts
5 x ties
3x casual shirts

Marie
1 x suit (and a pair of extra trousers) in highgrade cashmere and wool
7 x shirts
3 x trousers
1 x waistcoat (to go with trousers)
1 x wool dress
1 x wool jacket
1 x cord jacket
3 x 70% silk pashminas

hmmmm I think that is all, there may very well be more. All of this was less than $1000, I am trying to forget how much, it will make enjoying the rest of the trip and not worrying about money easier. For perspective, I have to remember that the last suit Simon bought at home cost more than all of this and was not in such good fabric.

For those of you in the UK, please remind me that I am swearing that I do not need to buy any clothes for 6 months at least.

For those who come after me I would recommend talking to other people about who they have gone to and think about the following:
- does the shop tout for business (ie yell at you as you walk past "please come in and buy something) despite the official ban on touts...
- do the people in the shop know anything about clothes or are they just sales people?
- are they doing a hard sell or trying to up-sell you?
- are they honest about what will look good or not - a half hour in a tailor shop does wonders for your self esteem - "oh you so beautiful" "it look so pretty - very beautiful"