The rest of Vietnam...

HUE

So from Hanoi to Hue we went… on a sleeper bus designed for the extremely small Vietnamese people. I just about fitted into my bunk while Rich had to sleep on his side with his legs curled up. Both of us almost spilling out into the aisle! On the upside the n

arrowness of the bunks at least made sure we weren’t flung to the opposite side of the bus with its crazy side-to-side lurching! But as we say about anything slightly bad… “it was an experience”.

Hue is in central Vietnam near the demilitarised zone, it saw some heavy warfare during the Vietnam war - so heavy in fact that villagers went into hiding underground. The area contains a network of underground tunnels set at three different depths… the deepest living area was 23metres and even below that there were bomb shelters! I could walk through them although Rich had to stoop, we saw wells, dedicated washing

areas, maternity rooms, kitchens, meeting rooms and

numerous exits and entrances. The tunnels also come equipped with a primitive drainage system and a smoke filtering system so their

kitchen didn’t give away their tunnel positions. It was all pretty impressive and we were shown around by the mute caretaker who was one of the babies born in the tunnels.

Our day to the Vinh Moc tunnels was also noteable for the local train we hopped on to get there. It was packed with locals who all stared at us and wanted

to chat. So we got out our Vietnamese phrasebook; they taught us how to count in Vietnamese… we showed them we were married and they found the Vietnamese word for honeymoon and all cheered when we said yes. The Vietnamese people have been so friendly… they love to chat to us, they always ask where we are from and before they try to sell you something they will often offer their help - in our case we got a few Vietnamese people laughing at us trying to open a local rice dish bought on the street. It is wrapped in a banana leaf and it looks nothing like rice.

Instead it was a transparent jelly substance accompanied by honey. We had advice on how to eat it, what it was, how to unwrap it and they even ran off to borrow a spoon for us.

Of course they also laughed at us throughout the whole experience!

HOI AN

We didn’t spend too long in Hue before hopping on a bus to Hoi An - a city FULL of tailors. A shoppers dream! We were there for 4 nights and we got drenched by heavy rain every day! It was a fantastic place purely for Café 43... A local café selling exquisite and cheap local food (and beer for Rich!). We spent a lot of time there! Hoi An is definitely somewhere I’d go back to with an empty suitcase just to get a few suits made…

200USD for a fitted suit is so worth it. We also hired motorbikes for a couple of days and headed out into the village towards My Son - an ancient Cham civilisation that existed in Vietnam. My Son is a collection of run down ruins set in beautiful thick bush

. It was a good day for beautiful scenery and for seeing villagers at work on their farms.

My Son ruins

NHA TRANG & DALAT

After Hue we set off on another sleeper bus to the beach town of Nha Trang. We had a luxury room booked over Christmas and treated ourselves with a

few great seafood meals. We met us with some Aussie and Dutch friends from Halong Bay and r

eunited over a few too many cocktails at Christmas eve. It was a great night dancing on the beach bumping into friends. The area is notorious for muggings and a few people had their phones/cameras/wallets stolen but Rich and I managed to avoid it. Christmas day was spent recovering (for me) and on the beach (for Rich). A big group headed out for some fancy seafood and had a pretty early night. Boxing day was spent luxuriating on the beach with lobster cooked fresh on a BBQ right in front of use (the sellers carry mini stone BBQs on their shoulders!) followed by a huge fruit salad… amazing! We finished off our Christmas celebrations with a divine Italian dinner (thanks Kath!) so all in all it was a great fe

w days.

Nha Trang was followed by a visit to Dalat… a highlight of ours because of the canyoning we did. Hiking, swimming, abseiling, jumping into waterfalls and sliding down natural waterfall chutes made for a great day in the canyon. An abseil down the middle of a waterfall was particularly tough because of how slippery it was but such good fun - we both loved it.

Our first abseil, 25metres

We went to bed exhausted and looking forward to getting to Saigon for New Year. (Oh and Dalat is also home to the Crazy house… it’s a house out of a kid’s fairy tale and we had a good time exploring all the nooks and crannies)

SAIGON / HO CHI MIN CITY

Say Saigon and the first thing I think of is motorbikes… HUNDREDS of them!!! Crossing the road was even more tricky than in Hanoi and yet Rich dec

ided to hire one! He is practically a local since he got through the city safely. He’s a great driver but the bikes get so close to each other that I still claw my nails into his tummy and make constant back seat driver comments (sorry Rich!)

Saigon was really lively… full of young westerners (and quite a few old ones with beautiful Vietnamese girlfriends!), street hawkers, bars and restaurants. We arrived just before New Year and headed straight to the War Remnants Museum which houses gruesome displays from the Vietnam War - it was often difficult to handle

because of the graphic images and even the bodies of deformed foetuses caused by Agent Orange chemicals used by the Americans during the war. The museum blames absolutely everything on the Americans… the south Vietnamese are excluded and the Viet Cong made to look heroic and innocent of war crimes (I am reading The Girl in The Picture which tells a different story) . Another thing that horrified me about the museum is that there was a group of school children (about 8-10years old) looking at the pictures and the deformed babies - there were photos there that children should never be exposed to! It kind of brought the word ‘brainwashing’ to mind simply because the museum was so one-sided that seeing and reading the displays would make children love their government

and dislike Americans. Still it was an interesting experience and a definite eye-opener.

On New Years eve we celebrated at a street party with thousands of locals. We cheered, we sprayed foam streamers and we danced… the locals loved us and cheered whenever we shouted Happy New Year in Vietnamese. Rich had a few of them sitting on his shoulders which got us a few more loud cheers - it was awesome. After midnight the street emptied quite quickly and we spent the rest of the evening in a dodgy little bar.

New Years Day = Sleep sleep sleep.

And the following day I headed to the Cu Chi tunnels - another network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the war. These tunnels were instrumental to their success in the war because it got them so close to the South’s headquarters. The tunnels are incredibly small - I went through on my knees in places. The tunnels also had a few booby traps on show - horrible things! Lots of spikes buried into the ground which would hurt you if you fell into a hole and then hurt you even more if you tried to escape. There was even a trap for American sniffer dogs - horrible but all very clever guerrilla tactics.

In the Cu Chi tunnels

After Saigon we headed on a three day cruise through the Mekong Delta - an area characterised by the huge Mekong River and the amount of rice the region produced. It was pretty, relaxing and really really hot. The cruise took us across the border and into Cambodia where we hopped on a bus in Phnom Pen.

The Mekong Delta cruise

More on to Cambodia to follow ASAP.

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