Roving round Asia

Ha Long Bay

2009-06-23T08:22:00.001-07:00

Well, now I have a lot of catching up to do, being now on the plane leaving Katmandu, so yeah, lets back up about 2 weeks + to the time just before a bad thing happened on my holiday. (The loss of my camera.)

But, here are the few shots that I do have.

We organised the tour through Hanoi Backpackers Hostel, pretty much the only backpackers in all of Vietnam with the exception the new Hue backpackers. (owned by the same company… )

It’s probably the most ritzy tour around for young people and it’s on the classy Phoenix Cruisers. The first night was on board the boat, and the second night of the three day tour is on the biggest island in the south of the bay called Cat Ba island. Its not really all that far from Ha Long city since the boat we were on was lucky to do more than about 6 knots at full steam.

The boat itself was 3 stories high above water, with the lowest level being for the crew and our sleeping quarters, the second being the large dinning room, and the third being the sun deck (see below).

Here’s our boat being overtaken by others.

The view was spectacular, these giant limestone cliff/islands everywhere.

All I could think of though, was attempting to boat around Ha Long bay on a boat made out of a scooter Top Gear style.

And, well, after this, my photos are gone, I had pictures of Nick having drunk himself to “the best time”. A few other great pictures, involving the use of a water bottle filled with not-water (but vodka), and other good things.

The following morning, we had to be up early, well, after having gone to bed at ridiculous o’clock, and I had the best night sleep with the air conditioner in the room having leaked all over my bed. We’re talking bucket loads of water dripping onto the bed, and my laptop… Hooray… good things to discover at 3am in the morning on a boat in the middle of a bay.

Anyway, we found ourselves on Cat Ba island at about 9am about to undertake a trek up a massive hill to a great lookout. The lookout had a big metal tower. It must have been a ridiculous age, the metal was well and truly rusting, the stairs made of just two metal rails, and the top step that was not there, was at one point of its life made of wood. Was somewhat disturbing.

Hrmmm trying not to dwell on the lack of photos, BUT, I did take an awesome photo of me on a motorbike that I hired in the afternoon of me in the mirror while driving. Just imagine awesomeness and it’ll be pretty close.

Good times were had by all if only I had pictures. Moving right along. Got back to Hanoi that night, and took an overnight train to Sa Pa for a two day trek. Of which I DO have some photos plus Nicks.

Flight to Vientiane

2009-06-02T04:32:00.001-07:00

I’m writing this now, whilst flying over the hills/mountains between Hanoi and Vientiane in Laos. It’s all the more fun because right now Nick is currently in a bus, and has been for the last almost 24hrs going to the same place. Now, having told a number of people that I was doing this, the general impression I got was that the extra $140 I spent was totally worth it. Keep in mind it’s only a US$14 bus trip vs US$154 flight.

But now as I sit here after my delicious in-flight meal I starting to believe them. I also got to sleep in a bed last night, Nick slept in a crowded bus with the A/C off packed to the rafters with animals and locals.

In other news, just before I headed to the airport, I bought a replacement camera, a IXUS 95IS probably for more than i would have paid back home, but now I can restart the chronicles of my journey, and in a random pleasant surprise, discovered I had a few more pictures than I thought on the other memory card I’ve been using, including some from Ha Long bay.

Here is my nice little plane, it’s almost empty too, I have 1 person sitting within 4m of me. I’m sure Nick is in a similar boat.

My leg room, (I got an exit row).

The view as we leave Hanoi, it was pretty hazy outside.

Yes, I even read the in-flight magazine, (as Sam and Harry suggested.)

My Lao’ian in flight meal, (the Beer Lao was served moments after).

The weirdest part of the journey was that since there was only 3 crew on board, the second pilot performed alot of the inflight service. Not sure what would happen if the other pilot had a Heart attack right now. :S

Ah well, that concludes this update, since I've discovered a few photos from Hoi An, Hanoi and Ha Long, I will update on them soon enough (went back and did them before finding internet and posting this so look below), plus I have a number of photos I took with my mobile phone from my Sa Pa trek through the northern mountains of Vietnam and the hillsides covered with Rice Paddys.

UPDATE:I’m now in Vientiane, found Nick fairly easily after running into other people from his bus who knew him, and am hopefully heading to Vang Vien tomorrow sometime although not sure how.

Hanoi – Uncle Ho’s “resting” place

2009-06-02T04:26:00.001-07:00

After my worst sleeping bus experience to date, Nick and I arrived into Hanoi on the 25th of May. We made our way to the famous Hanoi Backpackers. The only backpackers we have found in our trip through Vietnam, and one that comes highly recommended from everyone that has been there. And it was good, although a little overpriced, the people there are all like minded and the roof top bar and organised tours are all great fun. On Sunday arvos they even have free beer (useful for keeping ones mind off lost camera’s I’ve heard – but I digress).

After arriving frightfully early for what seems like an all too frequent a circumstance on this holiday, we headed out into town to see the sights. First stop was the big lake in the middle of town “Hoan Kiem Lake” which has two temples on islands in the middle. The one in the picture below is Thap Rua - the Tortoise Tower:

The Ngoc Son Temple is accessible by a bright red bridge shown below:

Here is an interesting statue just near the lake, one that clearly demonstrates the communist side to the city.

At 10am that day, we found a pub, (we were travelling with another aussie girl named Lisa and two kiwi blokes Andy and Sam. The pub was called “Le Pub” and whilst not the cheapest place in town for drinking, it was air conditioned which is always a bonus. So we started a game of 500 and tried out the local brews.

On the way back we tried some interesting street food and DIDN’T die, although I did take a photo in case I did.

That night, we went out for drinks with one of the workers at the hostel, who showed us the local markets Bia Hoi, (draught beer) and then onto Flannigans the Irish pub in the area and friends with the Hostel’s owner. At midnight, police came into the pub and closed it down, (apparently a normal practice).

The following day nice and early, we took a bus to start the Ha Long bay cruise.

I did miss out on the “opportunity” to see Ho Chi Min’s embalmed body since it is only on display for a short period each morning and not on Mondays. But yeah, not sure how that goes as far as resting places go.

Hue – Nams Old Capital

2009-06-02T04:21:00.001-07:00

(Note: with the loss of my camera, all photos in this post are courtesy of Nick)

Arriving into Hue, the bus stopped outside a hotel that was associated with the Bussing company (fairly common practice it seems) and we decided that we’d pay there price for a seemingly alright room.

We wandered around town, found the “Busy” section, which was all fairly quiet, and had some dinner, I ordered a “Mixed Hot Pot” which is essentially a giant pot over a burner put on the table in front of you, and you cook your meat until cooked in the soupish broth.

The mixed meats were as follows:

After dinner we found a local night club, “Apocalypse Now” (it seems that Apocalypse now and Good Morning Vietnam are common names for restaurants and clubs). As the only westerners there and with the place only full of about 8-10 people Nick and I played pool against each other joined with one of the Vietnamese waitresses each. After best of 3, turned into best of 5, and then still losing, I started to learn a bit of Vietnamese from the staff there:

The following day, after our first and only night in Hue, we headed out for breakfast, when we came back to the hotel to check out, Nick commented that it was dodgy that just as we walked in, the receptionist made a quick phone call. As we walked up the 7 stories of the hotel, I started to think I should start running up, as I got to our floor, there was a very nervous looking youngish looking man trying to get there key ring out of our door and pull it closed. He was empty handed and after a quick assessment his excuse for “fixing our hot water” didn’t really stick, but he didn’t seem to have taken anything valuable. Even though I had my laptop all but in the open although high up on a wardrobe where I assume he couldn’t see it. We checked out, took anything of value with us and left our bags “safely” in the hotel lobby.

This is a picture I also took on my once mine camera, I still find it quite amusing that the new and the old clash so often here in Vietnam/Asia. The straw hat wearing workers under a monstrous bridge crossing the “Perfume River” in Hue.

And then you get the cyclo drivers that seem to double as truck drivers, carrying everything from full size fridges and furniture to this one, carrying a huge number of push bikes.

The Imperial city, one of the few sites to see in Hue initially came off as pretty but fairly small, then you start to realise, it’s in fact massive, whilst mostly in ruins, you can wander around the entire thing and access almost everything in the walled area.

The ruins, whilst expansive, had hidden jewels (not literally :P) in numerous places:

Big lakes/motes around the palace too filled with big fish and lily's. Not that I would go swimming in there.

Reconstruction work was going on everywhere, but it seemed like there was a lot more to be done if it would be returned to it’s glory days.

We returned to our hotel that evening, and prepared for our big overnight bus trip to Hanoi, the real capital of Vietnam.

Hoi An – A Tailors Paradise

2009-06-02T04:16:00.001-07:00

Around the 23rd of May early in the morning, (dates are starting to blur already… :S) we arrived in Hoi An off the overnight bus from Nha Trang. Its a town famous for it’s glorious beaches including it’s proximity to China beach (the beach used by marines for R&R during vietnam) and the streets and streets of Tailors offering custom made suits, dresses and shoes for anyone asking and the money to pay for them.

The beaches are about 3ks outside of town, so we hired bicycles for the first time since we’d been in Vietnam. For the low price of just $0.75 for the day.

Amara, Nick and I arrived at the beach to be greeted by what seemed to be a compulsory parking area for bikes and motorbikes. We later worked out, the asking price of 10,000 VND is very flexible and Amara who stayed in Hoi An longer than us refused to pay more than 2,000 VND for the remainder of her stay.

The ride to the beach was along a quiet road that followed the river that runs through Hoi An:

The beach was similar to Nha Trangs, with beautiful clear water and straw umbrellas for hire.

We decided to ride a bit further North of the main beach and encountered another path back to the city riding past rice paddy’s being tended to by water buffalo and countless straw hat wearing workers.

Eating dinner in town was a classy affair, overlooking the beautifully lit river I suddenly changed my entire opinion of the city with its French style architecture and shops filled with paintings, Chinese style lamps and other nick knacks.

Returning through town we discovered a dessert bar that served some of the most delicious pastries and desserts I’ve tasted in a long time and all in the price range of $2-3.

A bunch of kids thought that they could take me with there plastic swords, I didn’t have a bar of it and showed them who was boss. Nick was there to take a photo.

I had a lot more photos of Hoi An, but these will have to do, the daytime Hoi An was “less” beautiful when you could see the colour of the water and other less appealing details, but overall the town was quite fun, and the people very inviting.

I didn’t really want to carry around a suit or other custom made clothing for the rest of my holiday so didn’t bow to temptation and get one made. BUT, I did end up getting a satchel bag made to my specifications after struggling to find a simple shoulder sash bag at the countless numbers of bag shops that are scattered across Vietnam. Mainly since they all have “North Face” knock offs that are all reinforced with foam and the like making them much to big to fold up into nothing in my bag. After two nights and three days there, Nick and I headed to Hue.

The Real Easy Riders part 2 – Nha Trang

2009-05-28T06:24:00.001-07:00

After our eventful road trip we arrived in Nha Trang at around 5pm, met up with Sam who had been put on a different bus company for some reason, and found ourselves a hotel. I think our first night was fairly quiet after a tiring few days.

The next day was all about the beach, there isn’t many surf beaches in Vietnam, but they certainly have a nice outlook even if they are ferociously hot. (Even now, as I sit in Hanoi now at 8pm I’m have sweat dripping off me)

The biggest downside to Nha Trang as beach is the constant hassling by street sellers, even if you’re asleep on a sun bed they will attempt to wake you just in case you wanted to buy another pair of fake Ray Ban sunglasses. Or as I have mentioned in an earlier post threaten to kill you or de-man you if you don’t buy something from them. I did buy one thing though, for $1 I got a whole pineapple that had been nice cut up and served in a plastic bag. They do it all while sitting in front of you and even cut out all the slightly deeper bits of peel with a spiral shaped cutting technique.

Saturday night was the night we had been planning for for a while, it began with 2hrs of free beer or spirit mixers with any meal.

Me battering with a street selling child over a fan, that I didn’t need nor want, but she still felt compelled to hassle me while I drunk my free beer.

It then progressed into the organised pub crawl by local canadian-expat Gerry for his birthday. Things after that begin to get a little Hazy.

This one in particular I have little recollection of partaking in, but the photo says I did.

Straw beach hats were distributed to all on entry to the highlight of the evening, the Sailing Club.

The night was themed with a Hawaiian theme and Vietnamese dancers put on a bit of a show.

Andrea and Amara used their charms as pamphlet distrbutors during the day to get free entry and free drinks.

The night ended around 3pm, good fun was had by all, Sunday turned into a relaxing hangover curing day, and as such, no photos were taken. Enter Monday and the return of the Real Easy rider team as we made the trip to Ba Ho waterfall about 27km North of Nha Trang on there national highway.

Similar to the Mui Ne trip, this one followed the coast closely for much of it with spectacular views of fishing villages and sheer cliffs besides water.

In this photo, I believe Nick is taking a picture of a dead pig on the beach below, I didn’t feel the need to take a photo of this one.

This scooter was dressed up to look like an awesomely fast race bike. It wasn’t.

Along the way, we lost Sam with what he suspected was Malaria. (it wasn’t just a slight cold but he needed to sleep it off anyway). Andrea, Amara Nick and I continued on found the waterfalls through an intricately poorly signed series of unsealed roads and minor creek crossings. (I felt very adventurous… haha)

After a 10-20minute hike we found the falls. The heat left us desperate for a swim.

The water was superbly cool and I enjoyed the slightest bit of a chill for the first time since I’d been in Vietnam.

With a final glance of the water, we made our way back down the mountain, and promptly found ourselves as hot as we were before the swim. Gotta love hot weather.

Tuesday, we took on the infamous Nha Trang boat cruise and snorkel trip. Who would have thought my pale skin could take this much sun…

Here is Sam and Nick waiting while the boat departs from an overfilled marina.

There is an island here that is accessible by a cable car, and we’ve since found out has a great water park. Ahh retrospect is annoying at times.

We took the Mama Linh boat tour as it was reputed to have the most young people, and was supposed to be the most fun. It turned out alright, although our friendly vietnamese guide was sure to tell us she wasn’t “Mama Linh”. You’ll not how she is wearing so much clothing, everyone here is paranoid of the sun since it darkens there skin, as such they tend to go around in huge amounts of clothing including gloves and masks to avoid any exposure.

Lunch was served a banquet fit for many more of us than was on the boat.

After lunch the “entertainment” started. Enter the impromptu rock band. Hilariously enjoyable.

They had drums made of buckets complete with a kick pedal arrangement.

A guitarist, and two lead singers.

Nick was called upon to sing Waltz Sing Matilda to which he did quite admirably.

Sam did a less good rendition of Yellow Submarine, their choice for a British Song. As it turns out not many people know much more than the chorus of that song – me included.

(note the hole above Sams head, it was for “tall people”

Then we were all asked up to dance on the tables, I barely fit, well I guess I didn’t. I had to pretty much be on my knees to fit between the tables and the roof.

Then the swimming began. Right next to a fish farm. Water parasites anyone? Or other dodgy water born stuff.

The floating bar was a bit of a let down at first, haha, but it turned out alright once everyone was in the water.

Pale skin that doesn’t tan, versus Andrea and Amara’s which does.

The beach cost 40,000 dong to go ashore, so people just jumped in and swam around the “toll booth”.

After that we returned to the mainland, and had a quiet night out. The next morning, I went SCUBA diving for the first time overseas, went with a mob with the creative name called “Scubadiving” run by a bunch of French and French canadians. Was a good dive with a really nice boat, but I had a bit of a problem with the path they chose through the water, preferring to rush over the reefy area and explore the plane sandy bottom further offshore. The reasoning they gave was that the reef was fairly shallow at between 5-10m and they wanted to take us deeper. Stupid frenchies. Anyway… Was a great dive and then on that Wednesday evening, the real easy riders was disbanded and Nick Amara and I took the bus to Hoi An, and Andrea and Sam headed to Saigon. The night bus was good, slept really well and woke up in the small town of Hoi An with little or no difficulties.

Mui Ne – Beach Resorts and Sand Dunes

2009-05-24T18:37:00.001-07:00

On The 15th of May Nick and I got on a morning bus to Mui Ne and arrived around lunch time. After getting off the bus, we proceeded to the nearest hotel/beach resort and asked them how much. At US$30 a night, it was/is to be probably one of the most expensive nights we’ve paid to stay anywhere, with the average hotel with own bathroom and A/C costing only about US$9-12. The room however was the nicest we’ve stayed in and had a door at the back that opened to the beach.

After a short dip into the resorts glorious swimming pool complete with bar and Water fall, we decided to try the beach that was a whole 10m away. (Literally, here in Mui Ne, they’ve had some significant issues with erosion and much of the beach has become reinforced with concrete sandbagging.) Along the beach we ran into Andrea, Amara and Sam, people who were part of the tour in the Mekong Delta and it was here that was the birth of “The Real Easy Riders” in honour of the countless number of motorbiking tours here that call themselves “Easy Riders”. Mui Ne is famous for a number of things, in particular the beach and Kite Surfing, if you come the right time of year, which we apparently just missed, the water is filled with countless numbers of people kitesurfing or learning to kite surf. Its also famous for the neighbouring sand dunes, those that remind you of a desert scene in a Hollywood movie. The trouble is, they start from about 10k’s out of town, so we as a group decided to hire some scooters and set off to find this sandy wonders.

The First stop on our bikes, was one that just needed a picture to describe, from up on a cliff overlooking this small bay, we discovered the Vietnamese fishing culture.

And here is me, overlooking said cliff in my trendy biking gear.

Once out of town however, we were in for a treat, the roads were empty, the sky’s clear and the views were spectacular. Travelling along at speeds anywhere from 30kph to 80kph on our scooters we ALL wore huge smiles.

After only intending to find the closer of the dunes, (the red sand ones), we got a little lost and decided to try for the white ones, a little over 25ks out of town. We weren’t disappointed, and after paying 5000 dong to park our bikes in the shade and negotiating with a boy of about 8yo for 5 sand toboggans we headed up towards the sand.

Right beside the dunes was the Lotus pond, a superbly picturesque lake with a great outlook.

The sand was pretty hot, so it was a trade off as to where pluggers or not as we made the climb up the largest dune we could find.

At the top, Nick and Sam posed for a photo before starting a race to the bottom. It was kind of a let down with both of them coming to a stop within about 2m from the start. We modified techniques, and I found the best result came from a dive down onto the sand to get the momentum going.

After staying as long as we could, we packed up and headed back into town so we could make our buses coming in just after lunch time.

The cafe just next to the hotel was gloriously cheap, and served some of the best food around, and resulted in us eating there for pretty much every meal while we were in Mui Ne.

Kite Surfers just before we left. There were also a number of wind surfers trying the wind too.

It was suggested we take a sleeper bus for a little more comfort than the sitting buses, and boy were they right. Each person has there own bed and I could even stretch out almost completely. Haven’t taken a sitting bus since this trip for that added room. It’s three beds across by 2 levels, something that would make bus trips in Oz and probably everywhere else much more enjoyable.

Un fortunately we had our second flat tire of the holiday just out of town adding about a half hour to our trip while the local tire shop (read: every 100m down the side of the highway there is a tire shop) repaired the inner tube in the tire. Apparently pretty much all the tires here are tubed which I find fairly intriguing.

After a 4-5hr hour journey, the Easy Riders were in Nha Trang, the bigger beach city in Vietnam.

Cu Chi Tunnels

2009-05-17T05:15:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday Nick and I headed to the Cu Chi tunnels about 75km outside of Saigon. These were the staging grounds for the Viet Cong on their attacks on Saigon, and the place where they gathered after travelling down from the North through the mountain region.

They say there are about 220km worth of tunnels varying in depth from the surface to about 10-15m deep. They developed intricate methods to disperse smoke and intricate ways to hide the massive amounts of dirt they were accumulating. They wore shoes made from car/truck tyres, and ate little more than a limited supply of rice and tapioca. They carried little more than a water bottle, torch, gun and rice. Unlike there well equipped American enemy.

Its been quite interesting seeing the “other side” of the Vietnam war with the vast majority of the documentation stating how bad the americans were. In fact the “war remnants” museum we visited used to be called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes.

So anyway, history lesson over, the Cu Chi tunnels are surrounded by a load of Rubber plantations:

In Vietnamese culture, the Men aren’t supposed to cook, so the “sections” of troops making up a team of Viet Cong typically had a woman in the group to cook and tend to injuries. Seen here is a mock up of a woman: (haha)

The VC were proud of their exploits, and here is a destroyed tank that they managed to get:

The holes that they used to enter and exit their tunnels were always very small, and they were typically made of timber in order to help keep out water when it rained. Plus they found that when wet it expanded and sealed it even better.

When entering the hole they ensured that all tracks were erased and then put an appropriate amount of debris on the lid and closed it up. Before you know it, it’s disappeared in the ethos of the jungle.

Besides guarding each hole vigilantly, they also set numerous traps in each of the tunnels and the jungle, for the GI’s.

This one below was something I found really interesting/clever. Just by fixing some pipes in the wall of this hole, and tying the ropes to the end of the spikes, you get a perfect side spike action. Simple yet effective.

This one is good to spike your entire body as you fell into it. Hrmmm Painful.

The one below on the right, was used to get you when you entered a doorway, and just when you thought the average GI could fend it away by grapping it at the top, you’d discover the bottom half is jointed to pivot up into your crouch when you stop the top half.

They were adept at using the unexploded ordinance too using them to design there own explosives.

Then we headed to the shooting range, where we had a choice of weapons to fire ranging from an M60 to an AK-47.

The price you paid was per bullet, with a minimum of 10 bullets purchased. So it was about $20 to shoot the guns, and Nick and I went halfs for 5 shots each.

We headed down the range, a whole 10m to get there, and the noise was INCREDIBLE, these were all very loud guns, and the hearing protection was questionable at best.

The headphones they provided didn’t even have much padding, and were of the brand SONYO. Nothing but the best.

RAMBO bullets!! Looking at the bigger picture, you can see a mix of the quality of each bullet.

Here is Nick behind the M60. Guns and the Guns…

I had a go first and the gun jammed after the first shot, the shots were so loud I think I was a little confused and thought I may have shot more. But a reanalysis of the video suggests just one worked before the dodgy bullets and overused guns jammed it. (The video is a whole 196Mb so a little too big to upload in the short term) but here is Nick. Ironically when I went to shoot again it jammed as well after another 3 shots.

The tunnels were next, they were interesting, alot of people chickened out, but Nick and I went the whole distance, about 100m+ at times they were pitch black and sometimes they were really narrow. At the end of it my legs were very sore and I was soaking with sweat, not sure I could have handled those conditions for the kind of periods the Vietnamese did.

Here is a video Nick took of the tunnels, gives you an idea of the intensity.

Mekong Delta continued

2009-05-16T02:59:00.000-07:00

So here is some more photos. The biggest city on the Mekong was called Can Tho (as I think i mentioned in the previous post, and its accessible by ferry only since there is no bridge to the city across the river. So as a result, all the vehicles in the area must take these ferry's. This means the queue up is ballistic. Unless of course you're a motorbike. Then you an skip the queue and go stright on.

As seen here. Think a ferry filled with over 100 motorbikes.

Here is a daytime photo of the bridge that is being built to replace the ferry crossing, I have no doubt it will bring a great change to the reason. I can't help but think about the comment that the top gear guys said that vietnam is sooo traditional interspersed with major engineering projects dotted across the landscape. Its really inte

We boarded the boats on the Delta, and they provided us all with the trendy life jackets, something that certainly gives you alot of confidence in the old wooden boats, but I guess there is legal requirements. It seems at times that the law has no power on somethings. Like traffice lights are almost universally ignored. However, almost everyone has bike helmets on, and all the boats had an oversupply of life jackets. Can't complain though.

The Boats were noisy on the river, with the vast majority of them running without a muffler. And they seem oblivious to the fact that the noise is almost unbearable.

There is nick above on a seperate boat, we were a group of about 40 odd people.

Here we got the pleasure of a boat ride down what could be best described as a creek. With which the sole purpose seems to be to give tourists a feel for life on the river. Interestingly/annoyingly, the boats we passed all seemed to expect us to tip them, for what I am not sure, considering they were doing nothing. But hey, it must work, else they wouldnt do it I guess.

Here is where all the vietnamese catfish comes from. Under peoples houses, they keep a cage and grow about 20,000 fish to about 1Kg, then they get US$1 for each one. Then they start the cycle again. They estimate that it earns them about US$6000 every 6 month period after food.

Here is something I found interesting, rather than using a water pump to get water out of the river to cool the motor, they just put a funnel in front of the prop, and used it to pump the water back up. Simple yet effective I guess. :P (you can tell I'm an engineer.)

So, this kid must have been about 5, puts on quite the show as he comes up beside the boat, gets everyones attention looking cute, then about 1m away from the side of the boat reaches down and lifts up two softdrink cans. Child labour works the treat here in Vietnam, seeing it used everywhere. In fact, today in Nha Trang, I was told that if I didn't buy from this one girl, (aged 8) she would either kill me.... OR cut off my banana and make me into a lady boy. Great tactics I don't think. She then proceeded to hassle us including stamping on our feet, pinching and pulling our hair.

But yeah, this kid was young and already living life on the river.

More to come, particularly from our trip to Cu Chi tunnels, Mui Ne, and now Nha Trang were I am writing this from. Heading out to a big Party tonight supposed to be good, but not before we head to a restaurant that offers free drinks for 2hrs with any meal purchase. Then there is our A/C room, with own bathroom etc, for US$5 each a night. Or the beers going for less than a dollar. Im spending less than $30 a day here (easily) and living very comfortably.

Mekong Delta

2009-05-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update, turns out I've been pretty busy and haven't had alot of time to upload pictures, but:

In the last few days I've been in the Mekong Delta Region of Vietnam (see Map)
So it's a region just off to the south of Saigon and is the "lifeblood" for fruit and fish products in at least Southern Vietnam. On the river they farm catfish, up to 20,000 per cage. They grow heaps of coconuts for use in candy, drinks and more, dragonfruit, pineapples, rice, honey, in fact, you name it they probably have it. In fact, they even dredge up the dirt from the bottom just to sell it to construction.

So essentially I've been "On a Boat" for the last two days. Overnight I was in Can Tho the biggest city on the mekong and have met a number of fellow travellers with good advice on the destinations ahead.

And today I saw the "Floating Markets" essentially the bulk fruit and vege market for Ho Chi Min region, and then took a fun filled bus trip back over the course of 5hrs.

Will throw some pics up in the next couple of days. Gotta head out to the pub now, so will fill in more later.

Frst day in Nam

2009-05-10T04:31:00.000-07:00

Well I've officially survived my first day in Nam, and the first impressions are:

Noisy, the sound of horns could be considered a symphony.
Busy, the number of people here is pretty intense,
Noone walks, if you are walking around, you're noone. Quite literally - the only people who walk are tourists.
Crossing the road is intense (see the video Gunz took)

Eating has become a chore, Im very skeptical about what foods I eat, and the result is, I've haven't eaten much. Im working on it though, and attempting to identify the best/most reliable places to eat.

Stuff here is generally pretty cheap, am going on a 2 day river cruise of the Mekong Delta tomorrow, and it's costing a whole $28 including buses, accomodation and some meals.

Here are some photos:

The superb wiring done by electricians here ensures everyone has the basic power and phone requirements. (This wiring runs along every street pretty much).

The Saigon River, that "landmass" is actually just

This is a drink Nick ordered, he didn't really realise what he was getting, and then kinda chickened out of drinking it since it was probably tap water. We won't mention that I somehow ended up with his Chicken meal instead of the Beef I ordered and ended up eating nothing but the noodles.

More to come, but yeah, I'm doing well, and enjoying it all, particuarly the whole being on holidays thing!

Night before the night before

2009-05-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

I have now pretty much finished packing for my trip. For my first post I've decided to show you the pack that I have chosen to take with me. Its a Deuter Futura Pro 38L day pack. Yes you heard right, it's just a day pack.

I've managed to get in it everything I hope I need over the next 7 weeks. I'm sure you'll hear me complain via this Blog if there is anything that I wish I had packed later.

Amongst my list is:
60 odd anti-malaria tablets.
Pluggers, Chucks and trekking shoes.
1 pair of trousers, 2 pairs of shorts.
5 shirts total, 5 pairs of socks and 6 pairs of underpants.
Various electronics to support my habits.
Various toiletries.
and thats about it.

Theres the pack in all its glory. Stuffed to the brim. Its really comfortable to wear, and has a huge gap around the back for airflow. (Of course that takes away from valuable storage space) Its only about 8 or 9 kgs all packed.

And here is the bag next to a Woolworths green shopping bag just to give you some perspective. Its essentially the same size as it. And considering I spent almost $200 on the bag, it's a little disconcerting that I could have got an equivalent size bag for $0.99 at the supermarket. :)

Lost Camera... REWARD 4,000,000 VND

2009-01-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

So, I took some really great snaps in Ha Long bay the other day, the place was incredible, having seen bits of it on Top Gear, I wasn't left disappointed, the boat we were on was superbly comfortable (airconditioning leaking on my bed as an exception) Nick had a good time, hit the booze hard and maybe had a less good time for a while there. And we trekked around an island in the south of the bay called Cat Ba, I hired some motorbikes with another couple from Ireland and we saw some great countryside. Soon after our return, I managed to get my Camera stolen! Hooray!

I even had a plan to always have two copies of my photos, but I got complacent. So I've now lost on the better side of 500 photos, some of which I've posted on here, but not nearly enough.

So yeah, anyway, expect a few less photos in the next few updates. In many cases, the pics in the blog are the only pics I have left from a large portion of the journey. But hey, such as life. I'm off to file a police report so I can hopefully get something for it with my travel insurance, then tonight I fly onto Laos.

Nick on the other hand has taken the bus to Laos to save a little cash, I'm willing to bet I had a much better nights sleep than he did on a local bus on the Vietnam Lao border.

On another note, if by some weird chance someone finds my camera and notices that the photos on this blog are on the camera, I'm more than willing to offer a significant reward for it's or in the very least the photos return.