And onto New Zealand

Posted on 20/12/2012 by Vicky

Really I ought to write down first impressions while they are fresh, not wait till I’ve been in a place 5 days and getting used to the way things work.

The first evening I was wandering through Auckland I was struck by how dirty the pavements are compared to Vietnam, leaves, cigarette butts, chewing gum all sorts of litter, and just heaps of dust and muck in corners. In SE Asia every one is sweeping outside their houses, shops and stalls all the time, and someone is always going round picking all the rubbish bags up. And something that made me laugh, the huge wide, four-or-five-lane streets with a couple of cars (and no cycles or motos) with people waiting for the green man at traffic lights and no traffic approaching. The thing that really bugs me, is that wi-fi is NOT free in Hotels !! And you can’t get a meal after 7.30. So I’ m in danger of going hungry every evening.

Sorry, that was a lot of moaning. Good things…… There are plenty, it doesn’t get dark till about 9.00p.m.. You can have a shower, move an inch and still feel fresh and cool. I can, sometimes, understand the natives, though when I declared I had walking boots at Customs, I couldn’t understand why he asked my about a tint, does my hair need the roots doing that badly?? Of course he was referring to camping and talking about a T E N T. The lack of traffic has become a plus as I have now become a driver, though I’ m sure coach drivers here would be boringly safe.

Auckland is a great city, with the Sky Tower, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, and a sailors paradise, I would have loved to take a day out on an America Cup type yatch, but had neither the time nor the money, so I settled for a trip to a volcanic island, where they have maintained the original balance of nature, and there is an amazing museum, recommend if you’re coming here.

Sorry Ed…..

Posted on 20/12/2012 by Vicky

Just sacked the Editor, realised you had the blurb about Halong Bay and Hanoi twice. So now onto Singapore…….

It’s just so different. The architecture blew my mind, sky rise buildings you would never dream of. It’s very sterile after the places I’ve visited. It’s a clean, modern, law abiding , expensive City State, and everything works. There’s a buzz, but more like London on steroids, than other parts of Asia. I was generously put up by relations of Cheltenham friends, who showed me round and made sure I saw the best bits, and explained the politics and economy of it, which I would never have found out otherwise. Thank you Phil and Claire and of course, baby Olivia.

So much for being brave and travelling through Asia alone, and the only thing I lost after nine weeks was half a tooth, teach me to buy nougat as a way of spending my last Singapore Dollars!!!

Fallen off the edge of the world

Posted on 17/12/2012 by Vicky

I haven’t fallen off the edge of the world, merely slipped into the Southern Hemisphere. But before that happened I had a great time in Hanoi, Halong Bay, and Singapore.

At Hanoi Airport you are told how much the taxi will be, in dollars. The taxi seemed to go on for miles, so you start wondering if all is as it should be and also know it’s gong to be a roller coaster ride when the driver puts on his seat belt. The Old Quarter is tiny streets and alleys, so the hotel took a bit of finding, luckily the taxi driver took my luggage in, as it was the wrong hotel despite its name, “we have another Hotel round the corner”. I had read about scams like this!! Anyway they did, and though the taxi driver tried to extort twice the agreed rate out of me, I stuck to my guns, but he more or less threw me out this time!!

This was just an overnight stop, as I was off first thing next morning to Halong Bay. A “must see” when in the North, Vietnam’s umpteenth World Heritage site, and I had treated myself to a 3 day Cruise on a Luxury “Junk”. We paddled, (well, I didn’t, as the guide I was sharing the kayak with asked me to stop paddling, because we were going in a very wiggly line) through little tunnels almost having to lie down in the kayak, into lagoons, saw floating villages, how pearls are created and had a trip to an enormous cave. Those and of course eat a lot of delicious food and drink at huge expense (a bottle of Champagne was $50.00), made a great holiday.

The drive to Halong Bay was interesting as it showed how industrial the north is. Still rice fields and vegetables being grown but huge factories, cement works, dirty, dusty and driech. Obviously no building regs, houses all over the place with no order, or worse still deserted half built developments. Very depressing.

Back to Hanoi, and time to get my head round the streets, also time to eat real street food as I only had three days left. I took parsimony to a new level. A guided walk at 6.00 a.m. with breakfast. Then street lunch and a haircut, at the end of the day street supper including a beer, all for $12.00. The reason I really liked the Old Quarter, is that it is not a tourist ghetto, but still a working part of the City. As in a Medieval city the streets each have one sort of shop. The local people are also there in the evenings drinking and eating. It took me the three days to realise that Bia Hoi (the local draught beer, not too strong or fizzy) costs between 5000 and 12000 dongs, and I had been paying 20,000 ($1.00) for fizzy Bottled Tiger beer. Silly me.

Having thought I had got to know my way around, realisation dawned when going back to the Airport, all I had done was the London equivalent of knowing a bit of Covent Garden and perhaps discovering where Soho is.

English?

Posted on 08/12/2012 by Vicky

My benchmark for puzzling English was in Spain when looking at menus with a friend, finding a restaurant we could take Mum to later in the day. We wondered what “died of vegetables” would taste like. Luckily the menu was also in French, where Ratatouille turned out to be the answer! So some of the choices I have seen on menus here doesn’t surprise me, but might put me off. Unfortunately I can’t remember any specifically.

But my favourite odd English was in Phnom Penh, where I went to a performance of Khmer dance. Before the production started, a screen had a message to the audience, telling us that King Sihanouk had recently died and is lying in State, so that before the performance please would we stand and, to show our respect, observe a minutes slice for the King.

And then of course as we all know you must not touch exhibits in museums….

Catch up

Posted on 07/12/2012 by Vicky

Hoi An is a beautiful 17th/18th century Vietnamese/ Chinese city with French Colonial thrown in, not destroyed by the American War as most places have been. It’s rather like going to Broadway, something slightly museumish about it, and full of tailors , dressmakers and shoe shops that will make you new shoes by next morning. Some of the silk is decidedly dodgy, the attendant in the silk museum showed me how you can test its purity, but as it involves setting fire to it, you might be hounded out of the market. The best way for you to find out more about the town is to look it up on the web, as I can’t do it justice.

Then on to Hue, a pretty big city and I thought I would need a couple of days there. Actually one day would have been plenty, as the Old Citidal, Palace etc, was largely destroyed in 1945 when the French were having a war here, then finished off by the USA. I could spend one hour at the Fine Arts Museum, and then there’s the Culture Museum, two hours? No…… a thorough examination of the former took fifteen minutes and the latter was closed for lunch. Never mind, a massage and a good book took up the rest of the day.

My passion for road travel has waned, as has your interest in it by now. Originally I wanted to take the next leg of my journey, the top half of Vietnam, by train, but decided that I didn’t want to sit on a train for 18 hours. So against my Eco-instincts I flew north to Hanoi. I have to say it was great to cover about 350 miles in 55 minutes, even though I feel I have cheated.

Arriving in Hanoi quite late in the evening is quite scary, especially as the taxi driver didn’t know where the hotel was, and there are two with the same name, hotel proper, and backpackers’ hostel, which I discovered I was booked into!! If I hadn’t been so hungry I would have stayed in my room, but had to find an ATM and food. The Old Quarter is like a medieval town, a mass of tiny streets and alleys. But the great difference between Hanoi and anywhere else I have been, is that this was not just a tourist Ghetto, but full of bars of locals too. I’m longing to have a proper explore in daylight.

I was a bit worried that the fortune I had paid to a travel agent in Nga Trang, might have been a scam and that the next part of the holiday wasn’t going to happen, but I should know by now, not to worry and that things turn out alright.

So now I am having a luxurious cruise in Halong Bay, 2 nights on a “junk” and like all cruises too much yummy food and tai Chi on the sun deck at sparrow’s fart!! Swedish, Swiss, Spanish, French, Oz, Korean, New Zealanders, Austrian living in Hawaii, USA, One Brit. 30 disparate nationalities !!!!

P.S. ( I’m not yet so wanton that I’ll pay $100.00 for a bottle of Champagne though)

The worst bus drive of them all!!!

Posted on 04/12/2012 by Vicky

To go back a bit to what hopefully will one of the last bus journeys in Vietnam, from Quy Nhon, the strictly Vietnamese tourist resort, to Hoi An. This should have been perfectly straight forward journey including a 6.a.m. pick-up from the hotel.

Firstly the non-English speaking Hotelier, (are you a hotelier when your rooms are £6.00 a night?) called a taxi as soon as he saw me come downstairs, the taxi- driver’s eyes glistened when he thought he was to take me all the way to Hoi An. The only way to get this sorted was for Hotelier to call the travel agent to check what was what…. We’re talking 5.45a.m. here. So dead on 6.00 a.m. a mini cab arrives and drops me at the side of the road by a bus stop. Why not the bus station????

I was told the bus would be 10 minutes and luckily just able to grab a baguette (or Baget , as I saw on one menu ), the second mini bus which I was bundled on to, proceeded for about an hour to drive around the town, very slowly, hurrah!! Picking up people, parcels and letters. Then we we out on the open road, and I knew this was for real, and we speeded up.

However there is a silver lining to every cloud.The journey was alleviated by Mrs Motor-mouth. A stout middle aged lady in a blancmange pink sweat shirt and a flowery pink sun hat . She caused much hilarity when she turned to me with a toothless leer, and asked “woss your na’e?” And repeated Vicky back. The rest of her harangues was probably about dumb foreigners but she made everyone laugh. She had no on/ off switch nor volume control, thankfully after about 2 hours her batteries ran out.

As we went through towns and villages the driver’s assistant lent out asking people standing on the verge where they were going, occasionally people got on, or handed a shopping bag to him. There was no stop on this ride for food or a pee, no free water or hand-wipes. After a bit people started to get off, but quickly, he didn’t even stop properly. The driver would race past three or four lorries at once,then pull sharply in front of them all to stop to collect or discharge a letter or passenger. On one occasion a guy on a motorbike appeared on our near-side and a shopping basket was exchanged on the move, like the baton in a relay race.

I was thrown off at what was obviously the end of the drive, but even I could work out it wasn’t Hoi An. Umpteen taxi and moto drivers hassled me, but the bus driver gracelessly pointed out the local bus. That slowed things down a bit, but I reached Hoi An in one piece….. So though the journey was not at all what I’d expected I was so relieved to reach my destination I even took a moto (20 kilo suitcase and all) to my luxurious hotel.

Imagine my joy when the room had a bath and a kettle………

Shut your eyes, lie back, and think of England…..

Posted on 30/11/2012 by Vicky

Shut your eyes, lie back and think of England (or the equivalent, listen to Radio 4 on Podcasts) I have reached the conclusion that the Vietnamese draw the curtains on the bus not so much because of the sun, though that’ s a consideration, but so they don’t have to see what’s happening on the road. But it’s like driving through the Lake District and showing no interest in the landscape.

Nga Trang has a beautiful beach and all the usual tourist bars and travel agents, with more signs and menus in Russian than English. It’s become a popular sunshine resort, only 7 hours from Vladivostok. Would you want to be there at this time of year? Three direct flights a week.

It was great diving and snorkelling, I went out twice on a dive boat. I was worried that it wouldn’t live up to what I’d seen in Thailand, but it was much better. Many more varieties of coral and fishes. I also had a “countryside trip”, on the back of a motorbike. It must be 45 years since I’ve ridden pillion. Mr Dong was a very careful driver, and we never went over 20kph. Saw lots and it was good to get away from the tourist hot-spots.

Vietnamese coffee is incredibly strong, maybe that explains the driving. If you are lucky enough to have it as the locals do, dripped through a little tin filter into a glass, sweet and thick, you get a glass of iced green tea with it. The coffee’s delicious, it has a slight vanilla, chocolatey aroma too.

From Nga Trang I went to a Quy Nhon. Not a European resort at all, nor even a Russian one!! A long beach with not a soul on it, though after work every one spills out, swims, used the exercise machines on the promenade, volleyball on the beach, football on the pavements (I’ve seen worse football watching The Robins….. Cheltenham’s team) and everything is suddenly very alive. There’s a large fishing fleet, including little coracles that are still used for fishing. No signs in English, no menus in English, so when I went to get something to eat it was point and hope.

After being really mean, ( it’s not worth it) and paying £6.00 for my room in Quy Nhon, I have splashed out (£30.00 a night B&B) and have a room that my house would fit into comfortably. The floor is highly polished teak, not the usual cold marble tiles, huge teak furniture and The Great Bed of Ware would look small beside what I slept in last night. From the balcony I’m sitting on I can see the wee swimming pool. This is Hoi An, a World Heritage site, a town largely made up of 18century merchants’ houses. I had a walk round yesterday and am going to buy a ticket today, so I can see inside everything. Tomorrow off to see My Son,( temples!!!!!) .

Forgot the picture again

Posted on 24/11/2012 by Vicky

Sorry, here’s the picture I should have attached to the last blog!!!

Hope the rain stops soon, it’s well past drinky time………

North to Nga Trang

Posted on 24/11/2012 by Vicky

Well this beats National Express. When the bus pulled into the bus station, my heart sank as I thought “it ‘s a night bus” . Not seats, but fitted out with about 15 bunks, upper and lower, three abreast. First you have to take your shoes off, and are given a bus-company bag to put them in! The seats are more like day beds, and you can lie down or sit, with your feet sticking out in front of you, a little space for your bag, shelf for food and drinks , and even a TV strategically placed so only about 3 passengers can see it. I will try to get a picture, but don’t want to upset my fellow travellers. Down side?? The low seats are at about floor level, so I’ll probably be stuck here for life and I suspect there’s no loo on board, but that’s probably not a bad thing. So time to relax for the next ten hours!!

The bus stops at Bus Company restaurants which have space to seat about 500 people, and serve cheap, basic food.( the loos vary, if lucky they’re western). I realised after the first stop, that you don’t even need to faff around with your shoe-bag, a bin of flip flops is provided as you disembark.

Being in the front lower “seat” I could see the dash board and a little screen on it…… No of course it wasn’t SATNAV…….just the DVD that was on, and the driver was watching it avidly. So probably a good thing we dragged along at about 40kph, though there were the usual sudden bursts of energy and overtaking. These DVDs which ran continuously, aren’t subtitled or dubbed, but just have quite a soft female voice-over, presumably telling the story, however when there are car chases or shoot outs (a regular feature) the volume overcame whatever I could find on my iPod.

For the first two hours we never really got into countryside, always some sort of habitation or industry. Eventually lots of rice paddies, which are intensely green, followed later by miles of orchards of dragon fruit. These are about 4 or 5 feet high and the branches look like huge Easter cactus. Then more rice, not much evidence of variety here. The villages are a lot more prosperous than in Cambodia, with substantial brick built houses, and neat gardens with crops of vegetables and rice.

Very soon we had mountains on our left. I’m no good at describing countryside but it is very beautiful. We didn’t actually see the sea till towards the end of the journey, and arrived well after dark.

Today there has been torrential rain ,with huge slate blue and black clouds. So much for my beach dream. But I managed about 2 minutes in the sea! See what tomorrow brings…….

Phnom Penh to Saigon

Posted on 22/11/2012 by Vicky

The road from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh starts very impressively, smooth, flat, straight and wide enough for nearly everyone, but not the whole way. Once again air conditioned mini bus, so there was a great deal of overtaking going on, and when we actually got to a double bend sign, the driver thought he had hit lucky , was Justin Button, and had a chicane to negotiate. So the bumpy parts of the road were an odd relief. Lots of road works to “upgrade” the road, but that doesn’t stop things, you just bump more.

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, is very pleasant, plenty of classic French colonial buildings, as well as 1930s and some art Deco apartments. The city is on a big river, with the Royal palace and lots of temples. There are huge government buildings, and the Central Market was built in the late 1920s. There’s one sky scraper being built! One Department store, but more like a market, and high high blocks of flats, which go back a long way and I guess half the rooms have no windows. picture below.

The road in front of the Palace is closed at the moment, so people can pay their respects to the King, he is lying in state, but not publicly, just a picture of the ornate coffin in a gold painted room in the palace. He was much revered, despite the rather bizarre history of his reign.

There was also an ASEAN ministers’ conference ( guessing that’s Association of South East Asian Nations) also Obama came to address them after being in Myanmar. So there were roads that you couldn’t go down as there were cavalcades of politicians driving along. I managed to be in the wrong place and have a policeman blow his whistle and shout at me!!!

So after three nights there, I took the fast boat to the border with Vietnam, 5 or 6 hours, lots of floating villages and fishermen, then hung around and caught a coach to Saigon another 7 hours. Best thing all day, when I checked into my hotel, no window, but who cares with aircon, but a BATH. Oh bliss!

Had a wander round yesterday, having trouble getting my head around the currency, cashed $100.00 and got over 2 million dongs. Was certainly ripped off by a cycle rickshaw and in the market, but just put it down to experience.

Ho Cho Minh City is a complete contrast to Cambodia, but then they’ve had longer to recover since their war. Sky scrapers and some very very expensive, chic shops, and hotels. Burberry, Chanel, Gucci, not fakes . Not the sort of communism the Americans were fighting.

I warned you that I would have more useless facts sooner or later. The population of Ho Chi Minh City is 10 million, and there are 6 million motorbikes, I think they all drove at me at once when trying to cross the road. About 1000 road deaths a year, mostly in the country where they drink Happy Water! rice wine. The authorities are obviously trying to do something here, as there are helpful green uniformed zebra crossing guides, they don’t stop the traffic, but I guess if too many tourists get squashed they will stop coming here.

Today I went to the Cu Chi Caves, the tunnels that the Viet Cong lived in to hide from the Americans and fight their guerrilla war. Well worth the visit.

Tomorrow off to Nga Trang, about 450km, so another 10 hour coach journey. (Eqivilant of national express this time…….not hairy scary) Hopefully a good bit of sea and some islands at the end of the trip.