September 21st - October 1st 2011
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| Hoi An Boat |
We left Hanoi by train on September 21st with some pot noodle type snacks and blueberry ice cream flavour oreo's. The journey would take about 15 hours but to save money we decided not to choose a sleeper carriage but sit for the entire journey. We settled into our seats which reclined right back in to the person behinds lap and watched the movie that they had on in the carriage. It was S Club 7's 'Seeing Double' the most random choice of film ever to be shown on a Vietnamese train journey. We tried to get some sleep and after finally drifting off a little bit with my head resting on Craig's shoulder he suddenly jumped out of his skin. It turned out that there was a family of cockroaches living in the arm rest/window sill and one had taken a walk on to Craig's arm giving him and me the fright of our lives! He stuffed a blanket down the side of the chair to keep them at bay which seemed to work and slowly morning came.
Our ticket was to Da Nang which is about half way from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh but we weren't really sure what we wanted to do there. As the train was coming to a stop we got chatting to a French couple who were on a backpacking holiday. They said that they were going to Hoi An which is a taxi/ bus ride from Da Nang. With no guide book/map to hand we decided to join them and along with some Malaysian girls we met at the taxi stop all went to Hoi An together.
We had a look at the French couple's Lonely Planet and found a cheap guesthouse to stay in. After settling in we explored Hoi An which already seemed so different to Hanoi. The streets and buildings felt European and the traffic was far less chaotic. Hoi An is famous for making cheap tailored suits and dresses so the streets were lined with dozens of tailor shops. We wandered down to the riverside and had lunch. It started raining as apparently it is monsoon season. Something we were not aware of!
Rain would be the theme for the whole time we were in Hoi An as it rained everyday and sometimes all day. We spent most of our time walking around ankle's deep in water with soggy rain mac's on. The rain gave us an excuse to go in restaurants and cafe's alot so we sampled many tasty dishes, some Vietnamese like fried noodles with vegetables and Cao Lau and some Western and Indian. One night we had two beers, one soft drink, two main dishes and two puddings and it came to about 6 pounds 70 pence.
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| Hoi An Structure |
The sleeper bus felt like The Knight Bus from Harry Potter, we were led down on beds but swaying all over the place as the bus avoided all the other traffic. The journey took a long time (about 20 hours) but I felt it was definately better than the cockroach infested train. We got a taxi into the backpacker district of Ho Chi Minh and found a tiny little room for about $10 a night with a bathroom and air con.
For our first day in Ho Chi Minh City we went to Ben Thanh Market which was huge, an indoor maze of clothes stalls, shoe stalls, food, accessories, jewellery, cosmetics and lots more. We also visited the Independance Palace as even though we hadn't done any research on it the building looked impressive and was only one pound to enter. The building was very interesting to walk through and we learned all about it's history in the Vietnam War. The views from the top balconies were also impressive so well worth the small entarnce fee.
After the Palace we went to the war Remnants Museum which tells the story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of Vietnam. Some of the images were very upsetting. They had huge photographs of men, women and children lying lifeless on the floor or being dragged into trucks to be disposed of. Some sickening images also included American soldiers posing with mutilated bodies of Vietnamese civilians, shocking to see and soemthing I will never forget. We learned that 3 million Vietnamese people lost their lives in the war, 2 million of which were civilians, ordinary people. I struggle with the idea of war anyway and the imagery and statistics of this particular war only confirmed my personal belief in pacifism.
After the harrowing war museum we wandered back to our district and had dinner at a place that specialised in Vietnamese, Italian and Mexican. The menu was huge and the food actually really good as we've found all Vietnamese food to be.
The next day we toured the Mekong Delta and enjoyed a boat ride along the huge Mekong river, a demonstration on rice paper making, lunch by the river, a traditional Mekong band and singers, honey tasting, coconut sweet demonstration and tasting, fruit tasting, a horse and cart ride and a canoe ride through the small creeks of the Mekong. We could have also tried snake wine but decided to skip that one! It was a great day learning about the life of the Vietnamese people that choose to live by the famous Mekong river and how they make their living.
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| Mekong Delta |
The next day we did a tour of a Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. Caodism we learned is a religion based on lots of other religions, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. They respect Jesus, Allah, Buddha and many other God's because they believe that the purpose of religion is to do good to prevent bad things from happening. The temple was very impressive, incorportaing themes from all different religions to make it different from anything was had ever seen before. We went in and watched mass unfold before moving on to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels are very famous in Vietnam as they are the sight for alot of the fighting in the Vietnam War. We learned about the history of the tunnels and surrounding area and also had the opportunity to crawl through a fifty metre section. Craig and I were the only ones to complete it out of the group and emerged the other end to a round of applause. Although I do get clautraphobic I was very proud to have taken the leap and crawled on hands and knees through the tiny space with only a minimal amount of light.
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| Cao Dai Temple |
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