Vietnam Day 8, 9, 10 – Hoi An

Hoi An taxi rank

We’d asked our hotel in Hue to organise our bus to Hoi An (before we learned the valuable lesson that some companies are much MUCH better than others!) so we were picked up in a minivan from our hotel early the next morning and shipped to a small tour office in the centre. It was absolutely hammering down with rain and there were already heaps of people there waiting for the bus so we had to jam ourselves and our bags in just undercover to avoid getting drenched.

While we were waiting for the bus there were two couples arguing with the guys behind the desk – they’d pre-booked their tickets a week or so before and the guys working there were claiming they had no booking, even though they had the ticket in their hands! It became clear that our hotel may not have picked the most reputable company to send us on – but we were at least grateful they seemed to be honouring our booking.

Garden State?

The bus eventually turned up and it had definitely seen better days – there was no air con, just really tiny windows to open and near on no leg room whatsoever. Once we were all piled on the guys seemed to take pity on the two couples left behind and told them they could get on if they say in the aisles (for six hours!) They were obviously keen to get where they were going because they took them up on the offer.

Japanese Bridge

The journey was fairly hideous as expected, but when we finally arrived in Hoi An we received a bit of a royal welcome from our hotel with tea and home made macaroons, not to mention the first towel swans of our trip! (I had been holding out for a while…!)

We had initially only booked for one night in Hoi An and the day was still fairly young so after a quick shower we hit the streets to explore a bit of the city. Hoi An has built it’s tourism trade on it’s tailors and there are literally HUNDREDS of them, in fact pretty much 9 out of 10 shops were tailors. As a result our short walk into the centre was pretty much just us trying to avoid being dragged in!

Hoi An has it’s fair share of temples and pagodas too but we were feeling a bit templed out from Hue so we opted instead to just have a stroll around the old town and the river. It’s a gorgeous place, and in fact the whole town is UNESCO listed because all the buildings are original. During the day the main streets are pedestrianised as well so it was a welcome relief to get away from the beeping of horns!

Rain!

We walked the full length of the town and ended up in the market – which was as crazy as we’d come to expect, but Hoi An also has a massive cloth market where you can get tailoring done a bit cheaper. I’d bought a top in Bali that was falling apart and I was hoping to get it replicated so we gingerly ventured in to try and find a girl I’d read good reviews about online. It was a bit of a daunting experience – it’s basically just a giant warehouse stacked from floor to ceiling with material, and you have to weave your way in and out to the different ‘stalls’. Luckily the girl we were looking for ‘Miss forget-me-not’ was aware of her reputation because when we rounded another fabric corner she asked if we were looking for her! I handed over my top explaining that I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to replicate it (it’s a weird shape) to which she responded ‘I can copy anything…’ – okay then. After a bit of bartering, picking the material and laying down a deposit and for James, fighting off her insistences that he needed a suit, we left with the instruction to come back in 24 hours to pick up my shiny new things.

Market trudge

By this point the sun was going down and we’d been asked by our hotel staff to be back by 6pm as they were putting on a free dinner for everyone staying to welcome back some return Australian guests who had also arrived that day. We had just enough time to stop for a cheeky cocktail on the walk home (James managed to sweet talk the bar girls into starting happy hour 15 minutes early!) before heading back for the feast that awaited us!

Fresh

We were expecting maybe some spring rolls and rice – something simple – but they actually catered for all 20 or so guests out in their courtyard with eight or nine courses with free beer! We were so full it was actually a struggle to finish the last few courses and the female owner of the hotel kept preying on James to finish the leftovers from every plate! He looked ready to explode by the time we finished…

After dinner we got chatting to the two Australian ladies the feast had been thrown for and a young Irish couple over a few more free beers and then decided to call it a night. We’d booked ourselves in for an early cooking class the following morning so we knew we were going to need all the sleep we could get!

Someone wasn't having so much fun...

Unfortunately, we awoke the next morning to the sound of rain battering on the roof. It was torrential, and as part of our cooking class we knew we had an hour and a half walk around the open-air markets to contend with! Fortunately our rather awesome hotel provided complimentary GIANT umbrellas so we took one each and braved the weather.

The rain was insane – so much so that it had flooded the streets meaning you had no choice but to walk through water at least three or four inches deep! By the time we reach the cooking school we were drenched and a bit disappointed with the frosty reception we received on arrival from the staff who didn’t seem to care. We were the first there, and slowly a few other people arrived looking wet and miserable. James and I smiled at everyone who came in (aware that we’d be spending the next four hours together) but all we got was icy stares from the staff and other people booked in. We were starting to regret our choice of class when an Australian couple in their 60’s walked in wearing rather hilarious ponchos and clearly laughing at how ridiculous they looked. Desperate for some human contact James and I must’ve beamed at them like we were lunatics because they came straight over to sit with us and spark up a conversation!

Soon we were split up into groups in preparation for hitting the markets. We stuck close to our newly adopted Australian grandparents, grabbed our giant umbrellas and hit the very wet streets of Hoi An!

Cook off!

The master at work

The market was just crazy at that time of the morning – made worse by the pounding rain! But it was a very amusing experience – James and I had already surrendered ourselves to the fact that we would be VERY wet by the time it came to actually cooking but others on our market tour weren’t taking the weather so well (namely one Irish girl who had the same sulky face for the entire hour and a half – see photo).

We got lead around to different stalls – fish (slightly traumatic), meat (more traumatic) and then fruit, veggies and herbs. We got to try a load of weird stuff we’d never eaten before and take some photos of the locals before taking our soggy selves back to get our cook on!

The Vietnamese lady leading the class explained that we had 5 courses ahead of us, all of which sounded suitably complicated! Fortunately her and her staff had already done some of the basic prep work so it was only up to us to actually cook and assemble things rather than chopping and peeling every ingredient.

Soon, we were off – ingredients flying left and right like we were battling it out on Ready Steady Cook. We made dumpling soup, spring rolls, BBQ chicken skewers, crispy pancakes and a spicy mango salad (that we can remember!) – over the course of a couple of hours. We got a little competitive and made our teacher judge us for the first three dishes (I was kicking James’ ass 2-1), but then we ate the last three too quickly for judging.

A highlight was during the crispy pancake section – clearly this one was more dangerous as they let you loose on a small frying pan over the gas flame, and half a dozen new helper boys emerged. Soon it became clear why as 30 seconds into the cooking – someone set their pan on fire, with the flames going a good 3 feet into the air.  Sure enough, James followed suit shortly afterwards – I was particularly concerned given the amount of highly flammable beard on his face but fortunately a couple of the helpers scrambled over to put a clay-pot lid over it and calm the situation down, before having to dart to the next explosion.

By the time we’d finished, we were stuffed and exhausted – and it was only 1pm! That afternoon I dragged James back to the cloth market to collect my wares, and also stopped by on the way to have some new sandals custom made for $10 (he literally drew around my feet on a bit of paper and said to return 3 hours later!)

That night we ventured back into the old town, which looked particularly spectacular all lit up at night. There are hundreds of paper lanterns lining the river and little old ladies sitting at the side of the road selling ‘wishes’ for about 50c (basically a 
candle in a paper lantern for you to send down the river.) I couldn’t resist and picked a rather lovely green one to set sail.

At the cloth market tailors.

After taking A LOT of lantern/river shots we headed to a street restaurant for food – then on our way home we bumped into Ben & Tara who we’d met on the Ha Long Bay cruise (well, Ben spotted us from a hideous looking bar called the Meet Market and dragged us in for a drink). It was full of dirty looking backpackers, all pretty drunk from drinks made from rhum (i.e local rum presumably made in Grandpa’s bathtub). It was good catching up though, so we hung around and had a couple of drinks – and played DJ on the bar’s genius YouTube jukebox’ ‘til the wee hours before dragging our slightly tipsy selves back to our hotel.

Making a wish...

The next day we had all day to kill in Hoi An waiting for our sleeper bus to Nha Trang – so checked out as late as we could, treated ourselves to a couples massage for about $10 and devoured some more tasty street food at Bale Well (which served up a couple of the things we’d learned to cook the day before – but 1000% better!).

We debated actually going to some of the ‘sights’ – but were both a bit spaced out from the massage, so retreated back to the guesthouse to use their wifi before the bus pickup arrived. It was predictably chaotic getting to the bus station, and on the bus – but we had pre-booked seats so weren’t too worried.

We knew that it wasn’t going to be a particularly nice journey on our first ever sleeper having read many reviews online – basically you are in a bus seat that reclines almost all the way back, but you have to fit your legs into a box in front of you, under the seat in front. We were on the top row so at least had no one almost kicking us in the face as they got down, and a bit more room – but even so neither of us got more than a couple of hours sleep, even with the aid of valium!

At least it was cheap.

Vietnam Day 6 & 7 - Hue

James conveniently forgot to mention that despite a bad night’s sleep he still pretty much passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow, leaving me awake with stare-y Joe and the loud Spaniards until they finally decided to call it a night.

Another interesting experience came the following morning when the western toilet was out of action because an entire family had moved in there to sleep – meaning the squat toilet was the only option, and trying to use said toilet on a very fast moving and bumpy train is an experience I don’t care to repeat too often!

Miraculously though we had reached our destination – Hue – and after barely making it through the onslaught of people waving hotel brochures in our face at the other end we managed to flag a taxi to take us in air-conditioned comfort to our hotel.

Our initial (foolish) thought in booking the overnight train is that we’d save a night’s accommodation and arrive fresh as a daisy at our next destination ready to hit the streets. The reality was that we were two sweaty, exhausted and haggard shells of our former selves so the only real option was to sleep it off and that’s exactly what we did for the next few hours!

Market trudge!

We woke up ravenous so headed to a place nearby for lunch called Phong Nam, which had been recommended by some friends of ours. After a good 20 minutes of searching the back streets of Hue we found it. The place wasn’t much to look at (just a few plastic chairs on the streets!) but the food was cheap and incredible so we were glad we’d persevered.

After lunch we were feeling re-energised so decided to stroll across the river to Hue’s very famous and incredibly busy central market. We probably made it in about 20 feet before the shouting and being grabbed by people trying to sell their wares soon blitzed any energy we’d had from lunch and once we hit the dried fish and animal entrails section we knew it was time to turn around and head back out!

The heat was taking it’s toll so we treated ourselves to an ice cream on the walk back at the floating restaurant in the river. We’d read good reviews of the place everywhere and had been considering it as a dinner option, however, on careful examination of their menu we realised that unless you wanted to eat stewed seahorses or braised porcupine it really wasn’t the place for you. Plus the décor was straight out of the seventies! We enjoyed our ice cream and fizzy drinks like 6-year-olds though…

It was early evening by the time we got back to our hotel and after an hour or so of chilling out I was feeling train-lagged and hideous and just wanted to sleep it off. James however was ravenous so he left me snoozing as he popped out to the restaurant strip just outside to pick up some takeaway spring rolls. He returned about 15 minutes later with a bemused look on his face and told me that pretty much every guy on a motorcycle he’d passed had offered him drugs and girls! And we’d both thought Hue was such a quiet, historical city…!

The next day we were determined to be a bit more productive and get out to see some sights and after a good night’s sleep we were prepped and ready!

Hue is the former capital of Vietnam and a historical city with more tombs, pagoda’s and temples than you can shake a stick at, but they’re pretty spread out along the river with some up to 20km away from the centre. The traffic in Hue looked like a breeze compared to Hanoi so we decided that rather than pay for a city tour for $25 or so that we’d just hire a scooter for $6 instead! We hadn’t been too scarred by our Bali experience and if anything the roads looked in slightly better condition so we figured we’d be fine.

Our first stop was the Minh Mang tomb, it was the furthest away so we figured we’d hit that one first and do the others on the return journey. The roads were okay – not too busy but a bit dusty and rocky at times! We took a couple of wrong turns but finally figured ourselves out, and we were surprised at how friendly people passing us were – everyone was waving and smiling! (Probably the beard again…)

Minh Mang Tomb

It was for this reason that we weren’t overly suspicious when a woman on a scooter pulled up along side us to say hello as we were scooting along. A few people had done the same to ask where we were from before scooting off again, but this lady stayed with us for a while (which was a bit weird, having a conversation while you’re scooting along!) and was telling us how she was a farmer and all about her family. Every so often she’d scoot off ahead and I think we were both secretly hoping she’d turn off, but every time she’d slow time and spark up a conversation again. Finally she asked us where we were going and without really giving the consequences any thought we told her – and then she told us she lived nearby and knew a short cut so we should follow her.

Now it all sounds very sinister when you put it like that, but it was a gorgeous day and there were plenty of people on the roads and she seemed nice so we agreed, but although we weren’t saying it to each other we were both a bit nervous!

As it was, she took us off the dusty, bumpy road and down a track next to the river, which was beautiful. It did get a bit hairy when we had to follow her off road, under a bridge and through a local village but soon enough we arrived at the entrance to the tomb.

We said our thank-you’s to Roy – our newly adopted guide – and were half expecting her to ask for some money for leading us there but what came instead was an invitation to visit her house for tea after we had explored the tomb, and that she would wait for us outside.

What could we possibly do?! We mentioned that we were on a pretty tight itinerary for the day (true) but it didn’t deter her, she said her place was only minutes away and we only had to visit for five minutes to see where she lived. I scolded myself for always being so skeptical of seemingly nice people and agreed (to be fair we didn’t really have much choice!)

Off we went to the tomb, and it was pretty spectacular – set among gardens and a lake with wildflowers everywhere... We didn’t get to enjoy any of that though because James was speculating about ways she would kill us once we got back to her house.

We spent about an hour exploring the tomb and when we left we were both kind of hoping that she might have got bored and left! But there she was, beaming and waiting for us. So we climbed aboard the scoot and followed her along the dirt track into a tiny local village, the whole way she kept telling us how happy she was that we were coming to visit her house, interspersed with comments about how beautiful our white skin was… James turned his head and said to me that he really hoped she wasn’t going to take it from us…

We pulled up outside her house – a fairly small wooden cabin set back from the road surrounded by others that looked the same with chickens and ducks everywhere! She invited us in and made us some Vietnamese tea and we sat around her table making polite conversation.

It was about 2-3 minutes before James asked her how she’d learn to speak English so well and she mentioned that she’d taught herself by speaking to tourists coming off the boat to visit the tomb. James and I shot each other the ‘alarm-bells-are-going-off-in-my-head’ look and then it started as we’d expected it to – the story of her two teenage children and how expensive their education is, and how hard it was for her to afford to send them to school in Hue. This continued for about 10 minutes, even when we changed the subject or asked a different question.

Pre-empting what we knew was coming anyway, James asked if we could offer her some money for the tea. She was instantly embarrassed and said that we didn’t need to pay her for the tea, that she was just so happy to have us in her house and to have met us…BUT, if we wanted to contribute towards her children’s education we could.

Inside the Citadel

While in the tomb we’d hidden most of our money in various places in the bag on in our pockets just incase our fear of being robbed had come to fruition and we had to hand over the wallet. James got his wallet out to give her some money and I explained we didn’t have much to give and she continued to protest that we really didn’t need to give her anything unless we wanted to…

James handed over 75,000 dong (about $3.50) and explained that was all we had at which point her smile dropped instantly from her face and she said ‘What, you don’t have 100,000?’

Feeling pleased with ourselves for our paranoid choice to hide our cash we thanked Roy for the tea and made our excuses to get on the road. By this point she looked bored with us anyway and it did make us wander how many tourists she managed to wrangle into her house each day!

Pleased to be back on the road we tried looking for a couple of other tombs but one was up the steepest dirt road you have ever seen and there was no way our scoot would’ve made it, and by the time we’d written that one off as a failed attempt time was getting on so we took the scenic route back to Hue instead to explore the biggest historical attraction in the city – the Citadel and Imperial Enclosure.

Forbidden Purple City

The Citadel is enormous – 10km around, and inside is essentially just a smaller version of Hue! Inside that is the Imperial Enclosure or Forbidden Purple City as it was once known. Built in the 1800’s it was where the Emperor lived with his concubines and eunuchs!

Unfortunately, during the Vietnam war Hue was heavily bombed and most of the fighting was centered around the Citadel, meaning many of the grand buildings that were once there are now just a few bricks and an ornate doorway here and there. They’re currently undertaking a huge project to recreate all the old buildings that were bombed, but James and I agreed that some of the remains were much more interesting than the reconstructions, so we were on the fence as to whether it was a good thing or not. 

Given the sheer size and scales of the walls surrounding the enclosure though it was an absolute sun trap and within an hour we both felt like we were suffering from heat stroke so we decided to call it a day and head back to our hotel for a much needed ice-cold shower!

Vietnam Day 4 & 5 - Ha Long Bay, Hanoi to Hue on the Sleeper Train

The hat and beard caused quite a stir amongst the village.

We were miraculously the first guests up and about for a coffee the next morning. We later found out that the older Brit couple (Harvey and G) had gotten drunk, then stoned up on the deck (apparently an old lady gave them some marijuana for free up in Sapa as she only uses the stem of the plant and usually throws it away!), and locked themselves out of their room until about 3am! They looked a bit ropey over our 5 courses of breakfast.

That morning we were on our way to a floating village nearby for a look around and to find out about their lives (or, more likely buy something from their floating gift-shop). At around 11am – we arrived and downed anchor. Soon, there was a fleet of ladies stand-up-rowing out to us in little boats. We all got in them in couples and set of for the village. Our lady gave us conical hats to wear for the trip and also didn’t insist on our life jackets (unlike everyone else’s escourt) so we were the coolest kids on the water. She was very nice – but spoke no English. All the ladies were chatting amongst themselves and laughing – presumably about the spectacle of us all, or whether they’d ended up with the fatties on board.

Our taxi service.

It took 15 minutes or so to reach the town – we all got off an were treated to some local Tea, and a brief history of the village. Apparently – they live out there, in their modest but fairly large houses (two or three bedroom shacks with a  kitchen and front deck) all their lives, the women weave and cook – the men fish. The big ones – they sell, the smaller ones they keep in fish-farms attached to their houses until they are big enough to generate more cash at the markets. Apparently a good sized fish with get you 25,000d – or about $1.25 – and it takes them 3 or 4 hours to make it to the mainland.

Floating dogs - there was a cat a few houses over, across the water
which must've driven them crazy.

There is a population of over 1200 in villages across Ha Long Bay, but only about 60 or so in ours. When the kids get to a certain age (15 and up) they are married off – sometimes the girls to a completely new village to promote a bit of genetic diversity. We saw a school which the tour company helped build (in return for access to the village), and a couple of houses on the inside – plus one of the fish farms and (as suspected) the gift shop. It was all tat, but one German woman paid $15 (300,000d) for a small picture which made the whole boat feel like they got off the hook and we slipped out of there.

Woooooooo!!

Then we got picked up by our boat ladies again for a tour of the village where we were stared at by the locals who looked like they saw a boat load of people a day and were pretty unimpressed by the whole situation. After being whisked back to our boat and tipping our driver/rower (some tight bastards didn’t – naming no names but it was just the Germans) we were underway again. After a brief stop for a jump off the boat and swim in the ocean (massive current so it was more like punishment than enjoyment so you didn’t drift away!) we were off again.

As the sun was setting again, we dropped anchor in a popular spot and headed out for more kayaking – this time for a longer venture, Tom reckoned 90 minutes. Everything went fine on the way there – again it was very picturesque and the going was easy, we stopped at a beach after 45 minutes or so for a break and some pictures. On the way back, we were the last ones to leave and as I was going solo with the rowing – never caught up to the pack. It got dark really quickly, and although we never really felt in danger – it was a massive struggle getting back. We soon discovered that we were heading into the current for most of it, and at one point started getting dragged out towards the open waters. We thought we’d caught up and made it back at one point – and were lining up to get back on the boat when I noticed I recognized none of the faces and we were in fact, at the wrong boat! In my defence it was now pitch black, and we were at the Dragon’s Pearl I – an identical boat.

Clearly a pro.

Kings of Kayak.

Unfortunately ours was still another 20 minute paddle up-current, by the time we arrived I was exhausted and the metal plate on my collarbone ached like the day I had it screwed in there. Everyone else had only just got aboard and was equally traumatised  - especially Harvey and G who apparently had a huge verbal slinging match at eachother, with their swearing echoing through the bay and making all the crews around laugh – we could relate from previous kayak trips. At least this time, it was just me rowing so we made it through ok…

The final night was again great food, toasts and speeches from the captain and chefs and even a cake. We drank too much and stayed up too late – keen to drag it out as long as possible as we knew tomorrow we’d be back on dry land, back in a bus, and onto a train…

Our final morning on the boat just consisted of an early breakfast and packing as we headed back to the port. Lunch was uncomfortably early at 10:45am but we ate as much as we could, knowing we had a long day of travels ahead.

Worth the back-breaking paddle.

After more speeches from the Captain and Tom we were disembarking. It was suggested that if we enjoyed our service we should give a tip to the captain on the way out – despite my initial thoughts of “take it from the $500+ we spent over three days” and making a break for it we paid up. I let Lisa do it, but she had the money in the wrong hand so when the Captain went to shake it – she ended up slipping him the note like it was a drug deal – I laughed all the way back to the bus!

Boarding the bus we immediately noticed that customer service had now gone out of the window. We’d already filled out our customer satisfaction sheets so they couldn’t really care less. Our driver was worse than on the way in – the bus was older and less comfortable and took longer. To top it off, when we got back to Hanoi – we were the last ones to be dropped off and they messed up the location so he tried to kick us out on the other side of town. After insisting he took us to the train station and not budging, he made a phone call and begrudgingly took us with a sour look on his face.

We were over 2 hours early for our train – and after speaking to four or five people at the station finally found out where to go come 6:30pm, so headed to the nearest bar we could see and had some dutch-courage drinks in prepararion for our 15 hour sleeper train ride. On arrival back at the station, one of the guys I’d spoken to ushered us to our seats – looked at our tickets and told us to wait. He looked like he worked there, so we followed him. Five minutes later, he rushed back and before we knew it had picked up all 40kg or so of our backpacks and was skipping through the station with them towards the trains! An impressive feat from a guy in his 50s weighing about the same as our luggage.

Final night centrepiece - made from
 watermelon and carrot.

We flashed our tickets and ran after him, struggling to keep up. At this point, it dawned on us that this was probably going to cost us some money – it was Bali airport all over again! We walked briskly for 5 minutes or so, following him and hoping he at least knew where he was going! He took us to our carriage and found our cabin, it all seemed to match the tickets and he placed our bags down. I went to hand him 50,000d and he immediately saw the note and said “no – 500, 500! ($25) ”. Fortunately, now savvy in such matters I stood my ground and ended up agreeing on 100,000 – but gave him 150,000 as he amused us.

After a stock up on beers and snacks from the ladies outside on the platform we were off. The cabin itself left a lot to be desired. The beds were like concrete, with damp on the walls and underside of the top bunks. We did at laest have the bottom ones – which come with a table in between and you can sit up and chat – and move around pretty easily. There was a Spanish couple in their 50s sharing with us who looked soul-destroyed when we showed up and claimed our bunks, especially as they had friends in the next cabins. They were up and about for the first hour or so, we were just chatting away having our dinner (baguette with laughing cow cheese and crisps!). Soon, the train stopped in at a few more stations picking up more and more locals – only the regular seated carriages were too full so they were being put on ours, given small plastic seats and put in the corridor right outside the room! At one point this guy was stood in the doorway just staring at Lisa for a good 5 minutes – then me – then Lisa again, until I finally said something sarcastic to him but it didn’t help.

My glorious view for 15 hours...

Then – without warning one of the staff just came into our room and sat on the end of Lisa’s bunk – pretty much on her feet, whipped his phone out and called his girlfriend! It lasted five minutes or so, complete luvvy-wuvvy smooches and all – then another five minutes playing a game on it before he finished his break and left! We just sat there amazed.

After another half-hour or so, fortunately the other couple got tired and went to sleep – so we could close and lock the door.

Neither of us really got much sleep – the sporadic motion and noise of the train, the frequent stopping and shouting outside the room, and the prison cell beds all contributed to reaching our destination feeling thoroughly shitty… but, we made it!