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Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

a travel blog by The Happy Couple

Michael's view on the trip. This blog is really mostly for me, so that I'll have a clearer memory of the trip when it's done, like a journal, so please forgive me my obsessions like sampling and photographing all the local food and the booze. It's just my thing!

Also please forgive all typos, spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes. I'm usually doing this in a rush, and most of the time it's on such a slow PC that it would take even longer to check for mistakes and correct them.

The blog is usually 2 to 3 weeks behind, but I try to keep next few locations on the map up-to-date. You can see the schedule dates associated with the map if you go to http://blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?TripID=4517 and click "Show Newest First" or, if the maps are causing problems try http://blogabond.com/TripView.aspx?tripID=4517&slow=1
view all 2953 photos for this trip

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Still leaving China

Pingxiang, China

We arrived in Nanning after a rather nerve-racking bus journey, during which Joanne was constantly re-calculating when we were likely to be arriving in Nanning, and whether this would give us enough time to get across town to the other bus station (oops) to catch the last bus to Hanoi (oops). The journey to Nanning took longer than I had realised and I hadn't done enough research to realise that there were two bus stations.

I was quite relaxed. I knew that there were PLENTY of buses from the same bus station as we arrive at to Pingxiang. Ok, they didn't go all the way to Hanoi, but Pingxiang is right on the border, so we could get a taxi for a couple of dollars to take us to the border, and then we'd be in Vietnam and eveything would be ok. So when we arrived at Nanning bus station after the bus to Hanoi had left (so definitey not enough time to get across town to catch it), I confidently walked up to the ticket office and said "Pingxiang", easily securing us a ticket for a bus which left in less than an hour. Nae bother! But then Joanne started with the calculations again ("the border closes at 7pm"), a little worried about being stuck in a border town with nothing to recommend it apparently; we could find no information in the guide books or online, and even accommodation seemed to be absent from the available information. On the bus, though, we realised that it would all be ok because Vietnam time is one our behind Beijing time, which we were on. So the border "really" closes at 8pm if you're heading south. Only this bus too longer than we expected too.

When we got off the bus we COULD have got a taxi to the border in time, but we had no dong (Vietnamese currency of course) and no way of getting it as you can only get it in the country. In the end we decided we should cut our losses and stay in this nasty wee border town, in case we got into penniless difficulty on the other side. At least our money worked here. After wandering round for a bit we realised that there were NO roman characters in this town at all; a level of difficulty we had not yet been completely exposed to.


Room in Pingxiang (for 60 yuan a night)
So no street name we could decipher, no shop names (is it a hotel? - no they wouldn't have that butchered dog hanging in the window, would they? Or would they?), and certainly no spoken English from anyone we could find. Eventually we passed what looked like it might be a cheap-we-hoped hotel and walked in. Again no English at all. So I took a breath and tried "double room" in Cantonese. Amazingly she understood, whereas previously nobody has understood a single syllable I've uttered in Cantonese. And as if that was not enough reward in itself, the hyroglyphs she pointed to on the wall said "60" next to it, which was far far cheaper than any room we had previously. Obviously it was going to be awful, so we demanded to see it. Ok, I pointed at my eyes and then pointed up the stairs, but it did the trick. In fact the room was our biggest so far, for the least money. It even had a balcony! It was a little bit shabby, but the rule seemed to be holding that the further you are from Hong Kong the less you pay.

Old folks dancing in the square

We wandered out onto the streets, quite cautious, but were met by the noise of a public address system blaring out music over the town square, and the delightful sight of all the old folks (and a few younger ones too) waltzing, or approximating some kind of ballroom dancing. Apparently Joanne had read something about this place: this is how the people of the town take their exercise. The atmosphere was quite festive, the tail end of the New Year apparently giving the place a bit of a buzz. The huge explosions from the fireworks continued (thank goodness we had earplugs for later). Everywhere we went, though, people laughed at us and pointed. Clearly this was not a popular tourist destination. At least not for longer than it takes to catch a taxi to Vietnam. We rounded our evening off with some excellent street food at about 90p for the two of us, and went back to the hotel congratulating ourselves on having chosen the best, cheapest, and fastest option. We would get the early bus to Hanoi the next morning, as we had already bought tickets when we arrived.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on January 29, 2009 from Pingxiang, China
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Arriving in Vietnam

Hanoi, Vietnam


The first casualty of the trip
The morning of the 30th I had to admit that my boots had given up the ghost, but at least there would be more space in my bag (for Joanne's stuff)! We caught the bus with no incident and made it through the border, only slightly unperturbed by the long wait for our bus on the other side. In fact it wasn't the same bus; apparently a Vietnamese company had taken over.


Where the scamming bus company dropped us (14km from centre)
We had read in many places that a common scam in Vietnam is they drop you miles outside the town, forcing you to pay a taxi fare to get to where you really wanted to go, but we were prepared for this and determined not to get off the bus unti everyone else did. It was important because we knew the directions to walk from the bus station to our hotel. So we arrived in Hanoi and we stopped in the middle of nowhere. "This is the bus stop" they said. So everyone got off. Except us and an English guy, who was even more determined not to fall for this scam. Sure enough the other people, who were mostly Chinese and not Vietnamese, so as likely as us to fall for this scam we thought, started filling taxis and getting out of there. After a few annoyed words, the driver told us there was a bus stop round the corner if we didn't want to get a taxi. Russell the Englishman was still sitting on the bus ("It's a scam, it's a scam"). We gave up and eventually Russell gave up when they started threatening to drive hime back to China. We were determined not to give them the satisfaction (or kickbacks) of us getting a taxi, so we waddled up the road with our big bags.

A bus appeared and we got on it. Russell was soon engaged in a guerilla English lesson with the conductor on the bus. Russell, it turns out, has just finished a job as an English teacher in China, and seemed quite keen to spread his skills about. We determined that we were not on exactly the right bus, but we could change buses or walk at the end. Economic necessity prevailed. No, it was stinginess; the bus was only 3000 dong, but it seemed like a lot. In fact it is about 10p. The very nice, helpful conductor got off the bus at the terminus to walk some of the way, to make sure we were on track. We walked the remaining 1500m to our hotel. We needed the exercise I reasoned. Coincidence meant that Russell was booked into the same hotel as us. When we arrived, though, they had no double rooms, so we had to make to with a suite! Ok, we were now paying a bit more than Pingxiang, but at 14 quid a night, the further-from-Hong-Kong value-for-money rule seemed to be holding, even if the straightforward cheapness rule had broken down. This room was huge. With a big balcony.

When we had first crossed the border my first impression was that Vietnam was a far more agrarian country than China had appeared. Of course we did not really see much of rural China, but technology and industry seemed to be everywhere; the fact that we did not see any rural area, but we travelled quite far says it all. They are building everywhere! The countryside of Vietnam, though, really had people in tradiational conical hats using sythes in the fields. The pace seemed instantly slower, and the architecture far more charming than the modern, utilitarian towers all over (the wee bit we saw of) China. Some of the architecture has a distinctly collonial appearance, and some of it was reminiscent of Cuba, some of it Cape Town. The next thing to hit home was how easy the language was going to be to handle. Although Vietnamese still has the considerable difficulty that it is also a tonal language, this is lessened by the fact it is written with in romanised characters. It used to be written in chinese-based characters but, thankfully, what the catholic missionaries started in the 17th century, the French completed in the 19th century, and it makes it much easier to read street names, menus, or anything; and also much easier to have a stab at the pronunciation.


Bikes parked outside the "peaceful" temple
The third thing that struck me about Vietnam was the constant beeping apparently required by every vehicle on the road. A short beep seems to mean "I'm here, don't swerve", which is executed every time any vehicle passes any other, or a person; the long beep means "I'm coming through, regardless of any rules of the road. Get out of my way!". There were also a lot of motor bikes on the road. When we hit Hanoi the density of bikes approached critical mass. It's as if the entire city is over-run with Mods who have had a wardrobe malfunction, and lost some of their taste in bikes too. It's just like one huge, continuous biker gang that never ends. Also the pavements are all blocked by parked bikes, so you always have to walk in the road.

Russell Christie
Anyway, the first day we did nothing really, since we arrived so late and were knackered from travelling and lugging our huge bags around, so we just sat on our luxurious balcony and had a wee drink and a chat with Russell.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on January 30, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Bia Hoi in Hanoi

Hanoi, Vietnam

On the 31st we decided to take it fairly easy and just get to know our surrounding area. I had one main mission in mind: sample the "Bia Hoi". It's a local speciality, so I had to. Bia Hoi is -- means, I think -- "Fresh Beer", which is drunk on the day it is brewed. Apparently there were Bia Hoi places all round where we were staying but we had failed to find them the previous night.

To try and inject a bit of organisation and high-brow into our trip we decided we first had to book some things: "Water Puppetry", a boat trip from Ha Long Bay to Cat Ba (Island), and also a bus to our next destination, Hue (pronounced like "whey" with an extra "h" at the start -- not Huey). We had planned to get an "open bus" trip all the way to Saigon, meaning we could move on to each next town whenever we wanted, but the prices had apparently "gone up for the holiday". This New Year was determined to continue plaguing us! In fact they bus tickets had doubled in price. Reasoning that the Spring Festival was in fact over now, so the prices would be coming down really soon, we just booked the first stop.


Drinking Bia Hoi (fresh beer)

Eventually we found a Bia Hoi place and sat down on little plastic seats at the street corner. (Disappointingly) it was all tourists there, but we got chatting to a few people and the Bia Hoi was rather pleasant: very light and, yes, fresh tasting. Apparently it's only a couple of percent maximum, so we had several and felt very little effect. But it was so refreshing, we could have sat and drunk it all day... just as a thirst quencher of course. While we were vendors kept walking by with trays full of books. Every now and then one of them would say to me "marijuana? very nice quality". Joanne complained that they never ask her; it must be my hair. We bought a couple of books from different vendors: a Lonely Planet Vietnam guide (haggled down from 340000 dong to 120000) as our Rough Guide to (all of) SE Asia was proving a bit too rough, and a Vietnamese phrase book (haggled down from 200000 to 80000). The books are, of course, copies; scanned and reprinted, judging by the occasional incorrect letter or missing space. The quality is ok, but the pages are a bit thin and some of them a little too faint.

Later in the day we were in a book shop to buy camera batteries and I noticed the same books on the shelves. The price tags were exactly what I had paid for them! Later we would meet some French tourist who had paid more than this and feel slightly smug. We took note of the price for the Cambodia Lonely Planet and moved on.

Encouraged by our new purchase we sought a particularly good restaurant, in fact it was the "Lonely Planet Pick" for budget Vietnamese restaurants. When we arrived the place was JAMMED full with Americans (apparently uniformly -- I didn't hear another accent or see a non-white face) and the prices must have at least doubled since it was listed under the budget section, because it wasn't at all cheap; near the upper limit of our price range in fact. That, of course, is the problem with using a Lonely Planet guide book. We went across the road and had a perfectly pleasant real budget meal.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on January 31, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Vietnam Phone number

Hanoi, Vietnam

Number in Vietnam is +841213165515, although it seems that text messages are not getting through -- at least not yet. Maybe they're going to be delivered very late, but there is certainly some sort of problem.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 1, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Day of Culture in Hanoi

Hanoi, Vietnam

After our day of organisation we leapt into sight-seeing properly. One of the nice things about Lonely Planet guides is that they have suggested "self walking tours" to get you out and seeing the city. We had arranged to meet Russell at 1pm for lunch and then a visit to the Museum of Ethnology, which we reckoned gave us loads of time.

The walking tour was around the Old Quarter, where our hotel was too. It starts at the Den Ngoc Son temple in the middle of Hoan Kie Lake, "Lake of the Restored Sword"; Le Loi, a 15th century Vietnamese hero, had his miraculous sword swallowed by a golden turtle/oise in the lake. There is another small island in the lake known as Tortose Tower, and people apparently still see turtles in the lake from time to time, which is a very auspicious event. The guide says something about taking a respite from the bustle of Hanoi in the peaceful surroundings of the temple. What rubbish! This was certainly the busiest temple I've ever been to. We think it may have been down to it being the last day of the Spring Festival ("Tet" in Vietnam), but I had to fight my way to the kiosk to pay our entrance, then we had to barge our way around the little island to get a glimpse of anything at all of the temple. Children were running wild, Vietnamese people were burning (fake mostly) money all of the place, and the smoke from the incense was unbearably thick. We think the money burning is something to do with sending money to your dead anscestors, but it's defintely got something to do with luck. You can buy $5000 notes on "Fake Street" we discovered later on the walking tour.

Eventually we were able to shove our way back out of the temple and continue through the streets. By now we were getting the hang of the traffic: you just start walking across the road, because there is no point waiting for the lights as they mean nothing to the bikes, and try to maintain a steady pace; this way the mopeds are able to swerve out of your way to which ever side is most convenient to them. At crossroads, they take the same approach and just zigzag past the orthogonal mopeds and cars. The cars seem to be large 4-wheel drives mostly, which seems rather unfair and completely out of place next to all the mopeds. We visited an old restored Chinese Merchant's house, Memorial House, which was lovely and also had lots of lovely arty things for sale. We past one of the old city gates, only standing apparently because the emperor Ly Thai To prayed at a temple we also passed, after the city walls collapsed several times.

We passed a couple of markets and saw the bundles of fake notes for sale for use in Buddhist ceremonies.


A traditional house at the Museum of Ethnology
We didn't have time to finish our tour before we met Russell and headed to the Museum of Ethnology. On the bus on the way there we were joined by another tourist, Laura from England, who realised we were also heading to the Museum. Although this is a big museum, a large tourist attraction there were no signs up for it or anything, and the guide book only had directions as far as the bus stop we had to alight at. After a bit of asking and pointing we found it. The outside area of the museum was quite good fun: they had all sorts of activities engaged in by the various ethnic groups, and a little bit of a historical background to how they arose. We watched people making "clay crackers", which are like large clay ashtrays (still wet), which are then dropped from a height, upsidedown. They pop.

Stick fighting at the Museum of Ethnology
And the one whose cracker spreads the furthest wins. Apparently it's got to do with defending the river against dragons or something, but now it's jsut a bit of fun. There were also reproductions of loads of different dwellings from a variety of ethnic groups, some of them inexplicably populated by on or two school children doing their geometry homework. Then there was the stick fighting, which seemed to be all about children being humilated by their parents urging them to have just one more go with the opponents who have already beaten you three times in a row. And of course, no museum is complete without a swing.
The inside of the museum was incredibly dull. Maybe it was all just a bit too highbrow for us, but it was one of those museums I hated as a child: lifeless artifacts; glass case after glass case. We didn't spend long inside. Even the visiting "Catholicism in Vietnam" exhibition couldn't hold our interests.


Water puppet performance

So on to the Water Puppetry for our final installment of culture. Joanne had decided on this event, so I had really no idea of what it would entail. All I knew was that the name reminded me of "Puppetry of the Penis", which was so successful at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I hoped it was nothing like that. When it started it was obviously just going to be puppets in the water, which I thought was going to be awful, however it was actually quite good; the puppets were very cleverly made and they were very skillfully brought to life, but best of all was the band who played the sound track of traditional Vietnamese music on traditional Vietnamese instruments.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 1, 2009 from Hanoi, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Leaving Hanoi and Ha Long cruise

Ha Long, Vietnam

By Monday, when we were due to leave Hanoi, we had had enough of the breakfast at the hotel. On Saturday morning, we were asked "Eggs?" when we arrived at breakfast, so we said "ok", although I really wanted the noodles with beef, chillies, peanuts, and beansprouts that the staff were eating when we arrived. Eggs arrived. Absolutely destroyed, drenched in grease, two horrible fried-to-death eggs. This was accompanied by two slices of poor white bread and sweet red stuff that was probably supposed to be jam. We got coffee because we had already discovered that it was not possible to get the nice looking green tea that the Vietnamese were all drinking; tourist are given Lipton tea, which is like Tetley, but not as good. So on the Sunday morning I had asked "Is there any choice, could we have a Vietnamese breakfast?" - "No. Eggs." so we had the same again.

So on Monday we said "No eggs, thanks" hoping we might get more bread instead, or something else, but it was just two slices of bread with red sugary stuff. Apart from the hotel breakfast and their refusal to give us green tea anywhere, I was quite sad to be leaving Hanoi; I don't think we really saw enough of it, and I felt like I was just getting to know it -- and it seems like a fun place, where the cheap food was good (apart from hotel breakfast). However we have to keep moving to get places, and we were stll keen for warmer weather as, although the 20C we were blessed with in Hanoi was a huge improvement on the freezing temperatures in China, it still wasn't really the beach weather we were keen to get some of.

We caught our bus to Ha Long Bay, where we were going on a boat trip. Half way to Ha Long we stopped at a service station. By that time we were already starving, having foolishly rejected the eggs that morning. Unfortunately we had run out of money, so all we could afford at the very expensive tourist trap full of vases and the like, was a wee packet of biscuits between us. We hadn't thought to buy food in advance, but we did make sure we had a bottle of vodka and a bottle of lemonade, along with our usual supply of water, as we were sleeping on the boat that night and figured that the booze would be as expensive as their captive consumers could stand.


Floating village next to fish farm
We were able to draw money when we got to Ha Long Bay then, on the boat, we realised that the booze was not as dear as we anticipated, but their was corkage charged on your own supplies, which we resolved to keep hidden. After a quick visit to a fish farm run by people who live in a floating village (cheesy techno blasting out of the wooden houses), lunch was on the boat: an unappetising mix of unpleasant fried (whole) fish, fried peanuts, chips, and some salad; not the Vietnamese food we had been buying on the streets of Hanoi, and of course Lipton-not-green tea.

Backlit "Dragons" in Ha Long Bay
A few Chinese people had told us that they call Ha Long "Yangshuo in the water".
It's true that the Karst formations look almost identical to those around Yangshuo, but they are the more beautiful for being in water, or maybe it was just that we could see more of here. Ha Long means "Descending Dragon", a reference to the collection of unusual peaks in the water, which are supposed to be dragons. We sailed through the dragons long enough for us to take far too many pictures of them, which of course we did. The scenery really was stunning, though.


Lime formations
Next stop on our wee cruise was a cave. We've all seen plenty of caves before, and it was like that -- except maybe with a bit more neon that your average cave. After the cave, those of us who had elected to sleep in a hotel, rather than on the boat were dropped at Cat Ba, leaving only a few people, including a pair of Dutch guys we'd been speaking to earlier, Marty and Jochem. They are four months into a trip, which started in Turkey and followed the Silk Route through lots of countries ending in "stan", and lots of places where bribing officials in a daily requirement.

Jochem and Marty (and Santa!)
It sounded like fun though -- maybe for the next trip! We settled into sharing our sneaked vodka with them, and chatted until it was dark (probably about 6.30pm). It gets dark here early in winter, due to the extra hour west of China they've set their clock, despite not being west of China. Back in our wee room on the boat, the staff kept us awake watching loud TV on the deck, but we just finished off vodka and secreted the empty bottle in the same cupboard as someone else had left their empty vodka bottle, and an empty whisky bottle.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 2, 2009 from Ha Long, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Cat Ba Island

Cat Ba, Vietnam

The morning we woke up on the boat, I took advantage of the fact they obviously don't check or clean out the furniture very often, to leave my first bookcrossing.com contribution: I left Paddy Clark ha ha ha in the drawer above the vodka bottle in the hope that another (English-speaking) traveller would find it and take it with them (http://www.bookcrossing.com/6924642). We were treated to "eggs" again for breakfast. I was starting to worry about my cholesterol.


View from the top of the tower at the top of the hill
We docked at Cat Ba just after breakfast and the boat picked up the people who had spent the night in the hotel. We set off into the Cat Ba nature reserve, where we were taken on an unexpected hike up a small hill.

Us at the top of Cat Ba Island
The going wasn't too bad, but there was a couple of about 60 years old, who the Vietnamese guy in front of us repeatedly referred to as "old people", telling the guide to take it easy so the "old man" could keep up. I imagined how my parents would feel being referred to in this way.
The view at the top was very nice, although I wasn't at all sure about the steel tower they had built there, presumably to improve the view; it reminded me of the fire escape at our flat, which we needed to have taken down due to its instability. The top step before the platform was particularly fun. It was nice to get a bit of exercise, and very nice to see the sun again.


Joanne paddling the kayak
Then it was back to the hotel for the same rubbish again for lunch. Vietnamese food so far had been very disappointing, except when we had bought it from street vendors. "Included" Vietnamese food is terrible though. I think at some point someone has told them what westerners like and they've just stuck with the "winning formula". We got chatting to an older French couple sitting next to us in the hotel, who decided that they were going to join us for a bit of sea kayaking after lunch. On the way to the kayak place, we had our first first-hand experience of the mopeds in Vietnam, as we were taken by "xe ôm" to the harbour. It wasn't at all bad, but there wasn't that much traffic on the island. The kayaking was very pleasant, although my arms felt like they were going to be very sore afterwards. Team Shedden easily outstripped the Team France and we reached Monkey Island after about 30 minutes, well ahead of the competition. On the island we saw no monkeys, but had a chance to sunbathe, for the first time this trip, and swim in the sea.

The arms held out OK and suffered no ill effects afterwards, although the hangover from last night's vodka was still lingering on, so we resolved to cut down on the alcohol consumption. Same rubbish for dinner.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 3, 2009 from Cat Ba, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Goodbye to Cat Ba, hello Hue

Hue, Vietnam


Last photo of the dragons
At the hotel it was eggs for breakfast again, then off to a much nicer boat that the one we'd stayed on, to sail back to Ha Long City.

Tourist trap
We said goodbye to the dragons and took the last photo in Ha Long Bay. At Ha Long City, we were taken to a terrible tourist trap restaurant where a hall full of people were all served the same rubbish we'd been eating for several days now. I decided that we would ask for a discount instead of getting any included food in future. I took advantage of the large concentration of tourists to leave another book, My Favourite War, lying casually on the steps in front of the restaurant (bookcrossing.com/542-6924659). I felt slightly unhappy leaving a book I'd really enjoyed, but my bag was starting to get lighter!

The bus took us to the hotel we'd been staying at, in Hue, and very kindly waited for us while we collected our bags. As I was picking the bags up, the guy behind the desk signalled to me to wait while he was on the phone; however the guide from our tour had grabbed one of my bags and was on his way out, so I followed him, worrying that the hotel had decided to charge us an extra two days for leaving our bags or something. However, why he got off the phone, just as I was going out the door, he said "I just wanted to say goodbye to you". Strange, but sweet all the same. I like Asians.


Happy on the sleeper bus
Then it was straight onto another bus at the travel agency: a "sleeper" bus to Hue. We didn't really know what to expect, but the first slightly unusual occurrence was that the driver asked us to take our shoes off and put them in a plastic bag as we got on the bus. The shoes were to go in little cupboards under the seats, which were in three rows and two layers, very reclined, but not quite flat. They also inclined to an almost sitting position; if you have short legs, that is. I have a theory that these were invented by the Vietcong during the American War to torture the much-taller-than-Asians Americans.

Misery on the sleeper bus
As it was my feet were stuffed as painfully as I could bear against the end of the metal "leg pouch", but my bum was still halfway up what would be the seat back if it were upright. So it wouldn't go up. Joanne seemed quite happy though, until I realised that my bed was actually shorter than her and we swapped, due to my additional height. Now we were both roughly equally uncomfortable, but much less than I had been before the swap. We did actually get some sleep, when I discovered my feet fitted better if I slept on my side, but I can't say it was the best sleep of my life. The shoe cupboard seemed like the ideal place to stash Flight Paths of The Emperor, another book I'd really enjoyed (bookcrossing.com/817-6924653).

The next morning we arrived in Hue, which is much smaller and much quieter than Hanoi. Even the traffic was calmer. After getting a hotel, we found a wee Vietnamese place to have brunch. The food was a huge improvement on what we'd been eating, but inexplicably we still got Lipton tea, when everyone else there was drinking green tea. Just after we left there, we passed another, Western and Vietnamese place who actually had Vietnamese tea on the menu. Finally! I now wonder if the key is that asking for tea doesn't get you it unless you specify Vietnamese tea; unless you ARE Vietnamese in which case I guess you have to specify Lipton tea if that's what you want. Anyway, it was worth the wait -- delicious -- and very cheap too. While we were on a roll, we decided to try the Vietnamese coffee too. Also excellent, and very strong.


Uncle Ho above the entrance to the Imperial City
Back at the hotel the two Dutch guys, who'd been on the boat with us, appeared. They had coincidentally booked into the same hotel. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the Imperial City, a fortress within the fortress of the Citadel. It's modelled on the Forbidden City in Beijing. The Emperor was so paranoid, he even had a third, interior fortress, where his concubines lived. The Imperial City is huge, but parts of it are in quite a state of disrepair, bits of it having been destroyed in successive wars, and the Communist government not having taken much interest in preserving Imperial relics; however the restoration is well under way now that tourist money is pouring in. Walking around inside, we bumped into the French couple we'd been kayaking with in Cat Ba. It was becoming obvious that the tourist circuit here is quite small, or maybe just linear.

Outside the Citadel we picked up some unusual street food. I think it was potato with some other stuff over it, but it was quite nice. Later the good food continued with some delicious steamed spring rolls.

The downside of the day was I sustained the second casualty of the trip: I lost my sunglasses.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 5, 2009 from Hue, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Brrrrrrooooomm!

Hue, Vietnam

Free from the tyranny of eggs, we went for a Vietnamese breakfast the way it should be: noodles.

Having seen the Imperial City the day before, most of what remained to see nearby was further than walking distance, so we decided that the traffic here was sane enough to hire a moped. Great fun! And the traffic isn't that bad once you get into it. You just need to go with the flow, and behave as if you are walking rather than driving: you might be heading straight towards someone, but you just need to change your direction slightly to miss them; none of this stuffy signalling or rules regarding right-of-way. The first attempt to get petrol failed though. I watched people getting fuel before us, and the guy in front got what read 2000 on the pump; it seemed to take a good wee while, and I reckoned it would be enough fuel for one day. So I took my cap of and handed over 2000. The woman with the pump gave me a look, and then squirted about 1 second's worth of fuel into the tank, but the meter only read 200. I was obviously being ripped off; another foreign sucker to take money from! So I tried to object and indicate I wanted ten times as much, but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The woman seemed quite indignant and was obviously saying something about me to all the other customers. So I stepped back a bit an watched the next customer. Sure enough he only got about 1500 of fuel, but then I realised my mistake when he handed over 15000; the machines have obviously not kept up with inflation so they've just dropped one redundant zero. I stepped forward and bashfully handed over 20000 and was rewarded with a "at last you get it" face and a tank nearly full of petrol. Of course you could argue that this would all have been quite obvious if I'd only done the maths and worked out that the first time I was asking for about 8p of fuel, after all this is petrol we're talking about, not pick'n'mix ha'penny chews.


Thien Mu Pagoda
First stop was the Tien Mu Pagoda, not far along the Perfume River from the Citadel. It was originally built in 1601 when a Fairy Women (Thien Mu) told the provincial governor to build one for the country's prosperity. It's been destroyed and rebuilt many times since, and since the 60s has been a centre for political protest; in keeping with this, the area behind the pagoda houses the car driver to Saigon by Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who set himself alight there, in protest of President Ngô Đình Diệm's suppression of Buddhism. They also have a huge marble tortoise and a giant bell.

After that we zipped across the city to Nam Giao Temple. It was a bit disappointing, but at least it was free, apart from the moped parking, which we had not anticipated.


Tomb of Thieu Tri
After this, we wanted to see one or more of the mausoleums dotted around the city, but most of them were charging 55000 entrance according to the book and, as we'd already discovered, the prices of some things had doubled since the book was published (in November!), but most had gone up by at least a quarter. On our budget we decided the only one we could afford was the 20000. The only map we had was in the guide book, and we ended up having a rather pleasant tour around the semi-rural suburbs of Hue without much luck on finding it. Just after we'd given up and headed home, we found it. It was closed for renovation, but some of the outer buildings were still open.

Finally we thought we could fit in the house "Uncle Ho" (which they Vietnamese really do call him) grew up in, but we encountered further navigation issues and, although we did see some nice building who-knows-where outside Hue, we completely failed to find the village of his birth.


Banh Khoai

Defeated, we returned to town for some Hue specialities for dinner, following a Lonely Planet recommendation. Same story as the last one: very expensive; they must have at least double their prices since the stamp of approval. So we went up the road just a block or two and found another really nice cheap authentic place instead where we had Banh Khoai; a local speciality, so we had to try it. It's a rice pancake with beansprouts, bacon, Spring onion, and so on, on top. The place we found was a local place for local people, so it was all phrase books and gestures. Most of the local places are actually pretty easy in Vietnam, because they serve only one thing. Most of the street food we've eaten have been places where you just need to say (or signal) how many you want and you get what they do; no menus no choices. Simple! This place was the same. Until then we'd been eating with chopsticks everywhere without much difficulty; noodles, mostly. But these things we really quite difficult to tackle with chopsticks. I had a clumsy bash at it, breaking it apart a bit by jabbing the chopsticks in, but I was sure it couldn't be the correct approach. I had a wee look around the restaurant and watched some other people; they were doing exactly the same thing. The real problem is that chopsticks aren't the right tool for this; what you need is a knife and fork. Especially the knife.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 6, 2009 from Hue, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Arrival in Hoi An

Hoi An, Vietnam

From Hue we got the sleeper bus again, except this time during the day, to Hoi An. Arriving in Hoi An, we were hassled by loads of hotel touts, but we were determined not to reward them with commission for hassling people and trudged around looking for hotels from the Rough Guide. We were prepared for it being quite busy because the following night was a full moon festival. After two full hotels we got one on our third attempt for not too bad a rate.


Bia hoi getting poured
As there wasn't much of the day left, we just wandered around and checked the town out. Quite a pretty place, but that's always the way with river towns, and quite touristy, but not in too invasive a way. We quickly found a bia hoi place, although there seemed to be a cartel operating, where the price was fixed at 4000 everywhere, a full 1000 more than it had been anywhere previously; still OK at less than 20p a beer, though! After a couple of beers, we found a place that does bia hoi and platters of all the local specialities, so we had to. And there I finally plucked up the courage to try one of the local brandies, which wasn't at all bad, though a bit strange tasting: mint / bubblegum, and at only 29% it was going to give anyone a hangover.

Set meal of Hoi An specialities

Across the road from our restaurant there was a square full of local outdoor food places, which sold the same specialities as we'd had for tea. The names of some of the places were quite amusing.

permalink written by  The Happy Couple on February 7, 2009 from Hoi An, Vietnam
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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