Hello, sailor! Cruising Halong Bay

The final leg of our trip was an overnight cruise on Halong Bay. It was only the day prior that we actually confirmed that we'd be going - the surrounding area has been badly affected by serious flooding during the current "wet season" (inverted commas because we've seen little evidence of wet, other than the perspiration pouring from us every minute of the day). It was a relief, because Halong Bay is one of the Grail Destinations that inspired the trip in the first place.

Before we could cruise, we had a 4-5 hour bus trip from Hanoi to enjoy/endure. More Vietnamese bum massage, and the scenic delights of coal power stations, astonishing electrical wiring, and more. A rail line exists, but is apparently only used for freight. Feedback: put on a high speed passenger train.

As we drew nearer, the horizon started to fill up with oddly shaped little hills as a teaser to what we were expecting to see. We hopped onto our tender boat, and headed out into the bay to our home for the night which in some ways was evocative of the Ichobezi houseboat on which we safaried on the Chobe River. Multi-storey, lovely little cabins, couches in the shade, load of glass for great views, and a bar.

Some renowned destinations can be a bit of a letdown (eg Circus Maximus), but there was none of that here. The place looks like you dream it might, and we spent much time just gazing rapt at the beauty.

Our tender boat, which we towed behind us, took us to an island with the largest limestone cave in the bay. Pretty amazing (wanted to write "cool" but it was anything but inside, which was surprising based on past cave visits), even if the lighting to highlight some features was a touch overdone.

Food on the boat was excellent, plenty of seafood (hopefully not caught in the bay, you should see the water- human waste is just dumped from the hundreds of boats) & characteristically impressive fruit/vegetable carvings. We were later shown how to make a net out of carrot, gonna need a lot of practice to achieve that.

The graceful notes of karaoke filled the evening air, demonstrating that even though everyone thinks it's cheesy all nations and people get involved.

We missed sunrise (thankfully Paul, the group's keenest photographer, reported that we didn't miss much), but found time to do some kayaking. Most of this was within a sort of amphitheatre, reached under a limestone arch. Lovely and peaceful, monkeys on the cliffs, beautiful light, we even managed to rescue a damsel in distress after Barbara & Bazza's kayak sank (the bung had been left out).

With a strong feeling of wistfulness we returned to shore. Not only was our time at Halong Bay coming to a premature end (we recommend to or three night stays to make the most of it), but the trip was also starting to wind up. Time for group photos before the grand scenery was too far behind us, then back to Hanoi (another 4-5 hours of bum massage) and the farewell dinner.

The crew L-R: Bazza, Anne, Barbara, Tracey, Andrew, Anna, Hannah, Neamh, Cat, Denise, Rebekah, Alfie, Paul, Liz, Grant, Colin.

Ahoy Hanoi

It The old quarter of Hanoi provides our pre-dinner entertainment via a water puppet theatre, "what the..." we hear you say. It is basically just puppets that are controlled by mechanisms that are under the water. The puppeteers hide behind a bamboo curtain but are hip deep (our knees, many Vietnamese are very short) in a water pool. It is all in Vietnamese but the most hilarious scene was (we believe) a duck farmer and his wife. They were herding their ducks in a rice paddy. What is funny about this...well, the farmer was wearing a g-string and brandishing a whip and his wife had on a top that had circles cut out for her protruding breasts. It was very bondage like. We're sure it must have been lost in translation. Hilarious viewing.

We jump in a taxi and head off for a decadent dinner across the lake, see other post.

Other things on the Hanoi itinerary was Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and palace and yet another Pagoda, this time worshipping Confucius. Andrew's favourite bit of the latter was the fact they sold beer, these Vietnamese are very reasonable.

Ho Chi Minh claimed to want equality and even wouldn't stay in the palace itself but instead lived in a modest building on the grounds. It is difficult to believe he wanted to live as one of the common people when her also had 3 luxury cars, most people in Vietnam can't afford even one.

It felt anachronistic, watching the soldiers almost goose step around the mausoleum for the changing of the guard. However, this regime is still going strong with no evidence of a change to come. Those who are interested in the details are advised to check out one of the regimes biggest challenges: how to provide electricity to meet demand. In short, they're ideologically committed to providing low cost power, they're broke, and the low price means that no external investors want to get involved because there's no money in it. Do some research on the inter webs to learn more - it seems like an insurmountable challenge, will be fascinating to see how it pans out.

Dining at Don's Tay Ho, Hanoi

Feeling the need for finer dining, we headed off to West Lake, to Don's Tay Ho bistro which promised a variety of cuisines, with the most promising to us looking to be French/Vietnamese fusion.

We reasoned that a rooftop terasse deserved attention, so we sipped cocktails as the evening fell across the lake. We resisted the temptation to have a Flaming B52 Hanoi-style.....

Entrees were excellent: fresh foie gras (Tracey's guilty pleasures) and a bowl of fusion lobster chowder. The fusion was apparent from use of coconut milk and lemongrass rather than butter and cream.....delicious, something like this is going to be added to our repertoire.

This deliciousness was followed up with Sapa duck confit and breast, with a good aromatic spice coating. However, we strayed from the fusion path when we spotted, ordered and loved the lobster & scallop Thermidor. Mmm.

A good bottle of Vouvray complemented it all very well, with the final piece of entertainment being the taxi ride back to the hotel - via a somewhat unnecessarily circuitous route. We haven't learned Vietnamese for "this isn't the most direct route, stop ripping us off", but it would have come in handy. Probably cost us 15,000 Dong extra....hmm, probably won't break the bank.

Hip hip Hue

Having shopped to excess in Hoi An (our bags are 5kg heavier each), we are back in the mini bus for the drive over a coastal mountain range to Hue (said as Hway). A five hour bus ride in Vietnam isn't necessarily our idea of a good time, at least we have AC (well, not when going up hills because our Little Bus That Could doesn't have enough power to haul our Hoi An loot up hills and also provide cool air). 

We did get to see a really neat dragon bridge, you have to love it when functional stuff gets gussied up. Actually, the Vietnamese seem to be excellent builders of bridges.....they haven't quite mastered smoothly linking them up to road though, as the big bumps getting on and off demonstrate (Nguyen calls this the Vietnamese "bum massage").

If it is possible, it feels even hotter in Hue. Even the locals are glistening with sweat. After checking in to our hotel we have 45 minutes spare, what to do...lets get some more clothes made (okay we might be slightly addicted). We only have a day here but that is more than enough to whip up 3 more tops.

Looking from our hotel balcony down to the street we see 16 rickshaws lined up, our next activity is a city tour by rickshaw. The rickshaws are single person, though we did see a who family of locals piled onto one. Rain and thunder threatens but yet again the weather remains fine. For the wet season we are yet to be stuck in a downpour so far. It is supposed to rain most days at this time of the year, we've been extremely lucky, except for the extreme heat and humidity. The first stop on our rickshaw tour is a street market containing mostly produce. We can call it fresh produce as there is nothing fresh about this. Raw chicken and fish have been sitting out all day in the heat with no refrigeration. 

The flies and rats don't seem to mind but we're all hoping the restaurants we've been dining at buy their produce early in the day. Back onto our rickshaws, we stop at a few other locations around the city and are all terrified as we zigzag through the traffic, feeling very exposed sitting is a seat at the front  of what is really just a push bike. The best moment was the sound of quacking behind us then seeing a scooter laden with 30 or so ducks cruising by us, quacking with the heads out of the basket's mesh.

Back at the hotel, time for a quick shower before dinner. Not wanting to brave the heat again we decide to eat at the hotel's restaurant. We went for the royal banquet, a 6 course feast. However, the food isn't what stands out at this restaurant, nor is it the lovely city view from the 11th floor. Before we start our meal we are dressed up in the garments of the king and queen. They then sit us down on a couple of thrones and give us a glass of Vietnamese rice spirit. Words do this no justice, photo below  tells you far more. Very cheesy but great fun, we are not sure why we are the only guests in the restaurant.

The next day we tour the palace, again we have the opportunity to dress up, naturally we take it, as do a few of our travel companions. Again hilarious but this time no airconditioning. We pose for a few photos then get the layers of clothing straight off.

The palace is kinda cool, but we're a bit surprised to learn it's more recent than our first house....mid 19th century. In all of Nguyen's info we don't touch on the subject of how the communist government feels about the glorying in royal history, so we ask some questions and yes, in history lessons, Vietnamese kids are certainly told all about the degenerate extravagances of monarch despots. However, it brings the tourists so gets very much glossed over for visitors.

Having not visited a pagoda or temple for maybe twelve hours, off we head to the Thien Mu pagoda. Surprise surprise, it's hot. Our crew are getting savvier at slinking around in the shade, so every time Nguyen explains things to us the group gravitates to trees, building shadows.....

It was far cooler out on the river, where we take a short cruise on a dragon boat. Being descended from a riverboat captain, it was only right that Tracey should take a turn at the wheel.

Lunch was at a "nunnery", and was probably the most polarising meal of the trip. It was all vegetarian, which may have put some hardened Westerrn carnivores off. It was also hot (nothing new there), and some of the crew thought there was an unpleasant smell (fermented tofu) and didn't eat at all. Much of the leftover food was sent to our end of the table, as hardened travellers who will happily eat Epoisses (the cheese that smells so bad it is banned on the Paris Metro). Some of the food was excellent - really fresh, crispy salad, a good hot pot (sadly, said hot pot was on our table and made things even hotter). A trip out the back to the "happy room" revealed a pretty relaxed approach to kitchen hygiene...but we suspect the only difference between this place and others we've been eating at is that we actually saw the food prep here.

Last stop for the day was the Kings Tomb, which took us longer to get to than many of us wanted to spend there. By this time we'd seen so many temples and palaces (we think it was six palaces for the whole trip (including Thailand and Cambodia) that we'd become jaded, maybe the 45 degrees (feels like 50) took a toll as well. A bit of a dampener was that the king isn't actually in the tomb after all, but is buried somewhere so secret that the workers involved were all executed to preserve the secret. Seriously?

Dinner was a quick & easy fluffy pork bun from the street, lots more meat than we encounter at yum cha, with a lotus seed at the centre. Most agreeable.

Other things we've learned from Indochina

- You can buy a bottle of rum for around $3 and it doesn't taste like rocket fuel.

- They eat a lot of noodle soups for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

- A million Vietnamese Dong does not get you very far (sometimes, not even as far as the next ATM)

- Beer is often cheaper than a bottle of water. And all local beers taste much like one another, just like water.

- Cocktails are cheaper than wine

- Diet coke costs more than normal coke

- They will put just about anything on the back of a bike or scooter (bar fridge, 100 or so ducks)

- If you want to use toilet paper, bring your own, otherwise be prepared to use a 'bum gun'

- You will never cross the road unless you bravely just step out and walk slowly so the traffic can swerve around you

- Beds here are like planks of wood with a sheet on top

- When you think you've had more of the heat than you can bare, it will get hotter

- The two most promising-looking businesses are in bike/scooter repair and selling electric fans

- For all of the hype about theft/pick pocketing/etc, it feels very safe. Noting that we never seem to be out later than 9.30pm....

- Kramas really work (wet cotton neck scarfs)

- The reputation of Vietnamese as persistent/pushy salespeople is entirely undeserved

- For a Communist country, Vietnam is not very Communist

- There are a lot of cats in Cambodia and a lot of dogs in Vietnam

- Long legged chickens are roaming the street everywhere, even in the middle of big cities.

- This is the land of the Very Neat Omelette

- Visitors are unusually diverse, in both age and country of origin. While there are some concentrations (eg Koreans in Cambodia, Russians in Nha Trang), it doesn't feel like this is only on the Hot List for one or two countries.

- While wifi is ubiquitous, upload speeds are largely lousy. Get yourself a bigger memory card for your camera - 16Gb or more should cover two weeks as long as you're not shooting RAW images.

- It's normal to feel a lesser person when you realise the locals aren't even glowing, let alone dripping litres of sweat every hour.

- The Vietnamese communist government persists with loudspeaker systems for "news" (aka propaganda). Andrew is fairly sure that he's learned the Vietnamese words for "correct dialectical interpretation of Ho Chi Minh thought inspires united, educated, patriotic people and guarantees unquestioned success of 2015-2020 Five Year Plan"

- for the amount of traffic and chaos on the roads, mostly it seems to work (no real traffic jams), though  there are 20,000 road deaths a year.

Hello, tailor! Foodivores undercover as Clotheivores in Hoi An.

A short flight from Nha Trang to Danang, from where we are bused to Hoi An, a.k.a shoppers paradise. Hoi An is a quaint village that contains over 300 tailors. They can whip up entire outfits overnight...we are somewhat confident that the "tailors" are not a child sweatshop...somewhat.

There are a few tourist options - ancient temples, cooking classes, beaches - but feeling we'd done a bit of all of those already, we felt justified spending our entire three nights shopping, eating, roaming the streets of the old town....and drinking cocktails.

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We had a great time in Hoi An. The town is very pleasant, the pace of life is most agreeable, the shopping was surprisingly fun, and we found some excellent Vietnamese food.

First food visit was the one our guide took us to, called Green Chilli. It was okay and the chef was without doubt most theatrical and exuberant, however we did end up feeling it was a little more pricey than needed to be. We sampled the one of the local specialities, white rose, which is small shrimp wrapped in rice paper and shaped to look like a White Rose. I guess it was attractive enough to look at, but fairly bland.

The next morning dawned and we began our shopping. The town is famed for tailoring, and we had planned to acquire some new outfits. It was a little daunting to begin with admittedly, because the tailor shops have literally hundreds and hundreds of bolts of cloth available to select from… and dozens upon dozens of albums of pictures of clothing styles.

We occasionally needed a quick break from shopping and being measured up...very thirsty work, thankfully bars were frequent and cocktail extremely cheap...and yes it is still morning, don't judge, it is veeeery hot here. Andrew and Tracey head off in different directions in search for those who would tailor our new wardrobe. Moving toward lunch time, Tracey took a quick rickshaw back to the hotel...again don't judge, it is really hot and our hotel is a 25 minute walk. We meet back for lunch (having shopped up a storm) at a place we'd been recommended, Morning Glory...it is the name of a vegetable here, get your mind out of the gutter. The food was outstanding, the highlight being the pigs ear salad, below:

The eggplant with garlic and chilli was also delicious and, pleasingly, not saturated with oil as is too often the case with eggplant. We also sampled Ms Vy's prawn curry (she's the owner and chef).

The afternoon was a little more of the same, shopping punctuated with refreshments before back to the hotel as the storms hit, gee what to do...let's sit by the hotel's lotus pond for a cocktail.

The next day it is time for our first fittings. Andrew's first (of many) shirts is already done and looks great. So good, he orders 7 more that will be ready by that afternoon...seriously. While at it, Tracey has a dress whipped up...why the heck not. This place is better than Christmas. Next, Andrew picks up his resoled shoes, yes they make custom made shoes here also. 

Time for lunch, down a small alley we find a peaceful haven, Secret Garden Restaurant. We felt lucky to have found it, down the end of a very anonymous and uninteresting-looking alleyway. A small glass of fresh passionfruit juice (this was a first for us, but hasn't been the last subsequently) led us into a delicious meal. The Vietnamese galettes (soft and rice noodles wrapped around shrimp, pork mince and wood-ear mushrooms) were smashing and by a long distance the best "wrapped" starter we've had this trip.

Taking care to fortify ourselves for the upcoming afternoon of fittings (you might as well make sure your clothes fit after a good lunch, rather than thin-first-thing-in-the-morning), we also sample the orange braised beef and a decent crab with plenty of garlic and chilli. Mmm yum. A decently priced bottled of South African rose was just the tonic.

A few more fittings at a few more stores, it is amazing what they have created overnight. You can just show them a photo of an outfit, pick out your fabric then like magic, it appears in a few short hours. 

There are numerous little oases in which you can hide from the afternoon heat, one of the more picturesque below:

Fitting experiences differed, ranging from the cramped and hot (ok, they're all hot but some have more fans), to the processed (Yaly, who seem to have done very well indeed since appearing on Top Gear some years back) and the far more personal touch at Blue Eye where Thy (pictured, with Andrew in new Blue Eye shirt) and Tracey in new not-Blue Eye top) helped us through numerous measurings and fittings over two days. Every time we turned up we were given cold water (hurrah!), sat in comfy large couches and were treated very hospitably. They expect more than one fitting to make sure everything fit perfectly for you.

Once all the fittings were completed, we had so many bags that we considered getting a pole to put on a shoulder and hang them off........but we resisted the temptation, agreed that lunch had been outstanding, and returned to Secret Garden for dinner......and cocktails.

FOOTNOTE: based on glimpses behind the scenes in tailor stores, we are now confident that no children were involved in our garment manufacture.

Nha Trang

We were meant to arrive at 5am. Thanks to the vagaries of Vietnamese rail, we pulled in to Nha Trang at 7.30 instead. Far more reasonable. An obliging chap climbed a metal ladder to hold up a live mains cable so we could walk beneath to exit the train station.....we haven't asked for a translation, because we think that the concept of OH&S hasn't arrived here and anyway is probably at odds with the push-ahead-at-all-costs ethos we've observed.

Having checked in to our "day room" (this is a welcome concept, so when you arrive too early or are leaving too late, you share access to a room between four people which permits luggage storage, showers, toilets, and the opportunity to read/relax/recharge essential electronic devices etc), we selected our days pursuits.

Tracey did the girl thing and went to the mud baths with 7 others from the group. First you shower to clean before they pour your mud bath...yep, need to keep the mud clean. The mud is slippery and there is no way to be glamorous as you wallow in it. All eight of us share the "bath". We have ladles to pour the mud over our head and shoulders. It supposed to make you look 10 years younger...not sure when it kicks in. Though it is difficult to discern age, gender, race etc when you are covered head to toe in mud.

Next you shower again to remove most of the mud, it is impossible to get it all out of your swimwear and crevices during phase 1 of the cleaning. Phase 2, you walk through a stone wall passage with jets of water coming from all directions, some jets were very personal indeed. Still not clean enough, phase 3 is the hot tub soaking. It feels like 50 degrees outside the tub, inside the tub feel only slightly below boiling point. Phase 4 a massaging waterfall, thankfully with cool water. We then have a choice of a 39 degree swimming pool or 26 degrees, clearly the later was chosen. Mostly clean by now. When an icy mango daiquiri was offered, certainly it was just for medicinal purposes to bring down the body temperature.

Meanwhile, Andrew got all mannish and went with Bazza (New Zealander) and Colin (Scottish) to play golf. Diamond Bay: first ever genuine Championship course, with a caddy per player.......and endless acres of white sand. There were moments of glory, and many of strong rebuke from the golf gods who clearly were unimpressed at the chutzpah of so unaccomplished a player attempting the challenge. But wow, what an experience.

Day Two was all about the sea. We embarked on a comfortable old wooden craft, with Thi our local guide for the day. He was at pains for us to not confuse him with Mr T, who he tells us is a friend. Thi was loads of fun, with good jokes and better timing.

We were taken across the bay to a local fishing village on a small island which we traversed and got a better look into the local mode of life. These cuttlefish, having been bathed in chilli and garlic, are being partially dried for one day only, following which they'll be pickled. A single day in that sun would be enough to fully dry any of us, those cuttlefish are hardy types indeed.

The pick up point is on the other side of the island. This bay is much shallower here and boat is moored 50m offshore. How to get to our boat? gee, let's ride in a large floating basket that has been sealed by cow poop (a coracle). 

The woman who rowed us to our boat did so with good humour. Particularly when Andrew tried to row the 'basket'..."row faster, row faster...no, you too slow, I row". 

Having arrived safely at our vessel, we head out to the snorkelling site. On go the flippers and mask and it is time for the cooling reprieve of the South China Sea. The sea life and coral are much better than expected. Plenty of colour and schools of fish, sea cucumber and a really funky langoustine-like critter with frondy anntennae and stripey claws. The large blue jellyfish pulsing its way through the water with glimpses of tiny fish swimming inside was particularly memorable.

Having flippered up some hunger, lunch is prepared. Again they are trying to feed a small army and we all consume barely a third of what is provided. It was a delicious banquet prepared in a makeshift kitchen on the boat. The women who helped prepare our food is also a masseuse and manicurist. Tracey never having had a manicure or pedicure before decides for around $10 it was worth being just a little bit girly.

Back to Nha Trang for a quiet evening, a couple of quiet cocktails on the 11th floor rooftop bar, then some street food for dinner, a Vietnamese roll.

We'd been nervously looking forward to this sort of thing: there are little carts (well polished) every ten metres here, and so we took aim at one and did our best to order Vietnamese pork buns. We like to think we overcame the language barrier, and our hostess was most graceful as she navigated us through options. 

Verdict: fabulous value (~$2.50 for two), the chilli pork with freshly omelette winning out. Both decent though and, for anyone wondering about the food hygiene of street food, no consequences.

To round out the visit on our final morning we walked (how virtuous) to an old Hindu temple nearby. It's been very sympathetically restored, so much so that the throngs of selfie-stick-wielding tourists nearly obscured our own tourist-camera-wielding impulses.

Of course, not all of Nha Trang is beautiful and ready for tourists. Our walk back for the temples, past every car, motorbike and scooter repair shop reminded us of Moonah and Parrametta Rd.....the really nice bits of both.