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.

Mr Blue, Bamboo Train and Boats

Posted on 16/11/2012 by Vicky

Mr Blue was the tuk-tuk driver, who despite charging an exorbitant amount when I got off the bus in Battambang to the hotel, I paid to take me on a drive around the countryside the next day, forgetting to bargain for a price again!!

First we went to the bamboo train, this is only a tourist attraction but run along the track that used to be the main line from Thailand to Phnom Penh. It consists of a bamboo palette resting on the axels of a set of small train wheels, and is driven by a diesel motor. So you’re sitting fairly low to the ground where it is easy to see the rails , which are neither smooth nor parallel. The tracks runs ( thankfully) in a straight line for about 10 k through some villages, and flat flat countryside, to a village where there are brick kilns. Three beautifully built kilns, fuelled by rice husks.

What do you do when a train is coming in the opposite direction? Simple, passengers get off and your train is dismantled, two or more trains going in one direction, win over a single train in the other direction.

The trip round the countryside was very beautiful. Very few of the old wooden houses left. Here, when you do well and get rich, you build a new house out of modern non sustainable materials. Mr Blue thought the English were mad, when I explained it is the opposite and we aspire to a 300 year old house. I saw a village on the river where the exclusive business is drying fish, palette after palette of what looked like kippers lying in the sun to dry, some fish are smoked and they also make fish paste in the village, which goes into a great many dishes for flavour. It involves leaving fish to ferment for about three months, ( maybe I heard him wrong) and then doing various things to it. To my surprise it didn’t smell much. I must be getting acclimatised!

There were other industries, still done in the old way, making rice paper that is used for wrapping spring rolls, weaving, and drying thin strips on banana, 3 kilos can be sold to the shops for $1, that’s a lot of bananas and work.

I visited a temple that is now closed as it had been used by the Khmer Rouge, as a detention and torture centre, before slaughtering people, men, women children and babies. But I didn’t want to visit the caves that they threw people into, dead or alive, it didn’t matter to them. It seemed appropriate that it was Remembrance Day, these horrors should never be forgotten either.

The return journey to Siem Reap was on the boat, this was long and crowded , but included a few local people who had obviously been to Battambang to stock up on the goods that the shops in the local villages don’t have. The journey was along a river where there were lots of fishermen in their little dug out boats, and our boat weaved between them, so as not to get tangled in their nets( their livelihood). We then travelled along the top end of Tonle Sap lake (claimed by the Cambodians to be the largest lake in South East Asia) where there are many floating villages. The stronger houses are on stilts but the poorer ones are built on bamboo rafts. So every time a boat with its huge wake goes by their house rocks.

Before leaving Siem Reap , I will tell you a little about the school. Lunch break finished now, back to work!

On my way…

Posted on 21/10/2012 by Vicky

I’ve lost track of what we have seen and done since I last wrote! A day on Lake Inle, which is still in the hilly region of Shan, so still cool. it would be very peaceful except for the speed that the boats are driven, throwing up an impressive spew of water behind them. Being a bit of a tree hugger I was worried about the environmental damage this causes, let alone the wake that rocks the local people , who live in stilt houses and know no dry land, who get around in what is little more than a dug out. We were up and down the canals that run off the lake and in and out of ” cottage industry” shops.

There was a bonus, as once a year there is a huge 16 day festival, when Buddha statues are taken round the villages on the lake in a huge gold dragon-painted barge. Long boats with 20 rowers each side with dancing girls, all of which we saw, and some time in the week they race these huge barges on the lake itself. Don’t ask me to describe how it’s done, but they stand as they row, and with their lower leg twisted round the oar they row the boat. If you’re rowing you own little boat, fine, but with rowers each side, you need an equal number of lefties!

A cycle ride was a good break one day, I think it might even have been temple free. One day in Rangoon, and now I’m at the Airport and off to Bangkok

So now the travels really begin, but Asia is no longer quite so strange to me.

Kalaw

Posted on 19/10/2012 by Vicky

The hill retreat for the summer, the railway station is mock Tudor, and there are a couple of house that would be 1million in an estate agents window in Surrey. Beautiful countryside. We had a trek today through some villages and counted over ten crops, from avocado to ginger and rice, some of which is sold locally but a lot goes to the bigger cities.

On the trek we passed through a village where there was a big annual ceremony, a lot of noise and jollity, monks and fire crackers.Tea and chilies on mats drying in the village square. Tea and snacks in a house where a woman was weaving cloth, it takes 6 days to weave a lenght for a lunghi. Lunch of noodle soup was cooked for us later on the walk in a villagers house. ( under close inspection of our guide, who I’m sure was in the kitchen to see that hands were washed and plates clean, sick customers aren’t good for donations to the local school)

The village is helped by an organisation that sends some students on to university, purifying water etc.

Picture of village to be added

Not yet posted Remember heading this time

Mandalay

Posted on 19/10/2012 by Vicky

Very much busier than Rangoon, with more big stores, white good shops etc. The town is built on a grid system and far from being romantic, as we think it should be (Kipling etc), the streets are 81st and 64th street!!!

The Irrawaddy river is still flooded from the rains, so incredibly wide at the moment. There are trees and even the roofs of houses in the water.

Early morning walk on the longest teak bridge in the world , U Bien’s, 1km long, that goes from the bank to bank. We set off in time to see the six o’ clock sunrise, but the sun rose unannounced from behind the clouds. Nevertheless it was beautiful with a slight mist. The bridge was busy with people crossing it with their bikes laden with fruit and veg to sell in the city, Monks and people doing their morning exercises and stretching, no yoga classes to join though.

When we turned back another hundred photo opportunities looking the other way! But the sun came out before the walk was over and it was all worth while.

The rest of the day was spent on a trip on the river, visiting a couple of temples
( just for a change) but a very peaceful and restful day. All finished off with an excellent Chinese meal.

Travelling in style

Tag Archives: Asia