Having a (Siem) Reap good time!

Dalat is one of those places. We'd read about it in our guides and on the internet and it just sounded too good to miss! Simply, Dalat is where the youth of Saigon (and the French before them) go to frolick among the hills, which offer a much cooler and pleasant climate than muggy HCMC.

Easily enough we'd been recommended a hotel in Dalat from our previous hotel in Nha Trang, and since both had been only $6 we found it difficult to turn down the offer. As a result, we were met from our bus by two "easy riders," pimped out moto driving Dalatters (who are actually glorified tuk tuk drivers, but still, fitting onto their motos with our rucksacks was an experience). They took us to our hotel and said we should shower and then meet them downstairs to "talk". Dubious. We went up to our room, which had a balcony! declined a shower (as it wasn't warm), but did go to put them out of their misery after a while. Unfortunately this is where the sales pitch began. The easy riders do tours to, well actually, anywhere (some people have gone for months and gone as far as Hanoi! And poor Peter was trying his best to sell us a tour. Unfortunately we could neither afford, nor had time to take one. It was a shame, because they did sound absolutely amazing, but we just couldn't. Once he'd got the message Peter turned a little nasty and arsey. Glad we didn't go with him then! But he had lost a sale, so we won't be too hard on him! After a chill out we headed for a rather long walk around Dalat and found a really delicious vegetarian restaurant for dinner. It wasn't mentioned in any of our guide books but it was a welcome find! Also by this point the temperature had dropped and it was decidedly cold, maybe 12 degrees! We weren't used to this! It had been a pretty long day so we decided to head back and get an early one.

For our first day we walked to the "Crazy House" an absolutely insane architectural marvel, which includes spiders webs made of string, giant giraffes, staircases to nowhere and even themed bedrooms you can rent out.

So random to find anywhere, let alone in a Vietnamese mountain retreat! Afterwards we went on a fairly long walk to find the Dalat cable car. After a few moments of doubt we found it and headed off over the mountains. The views were amazing, but it totally didn't feel like Vietnam. All fir trees, wild horses and rows of cabbages growing below us!

At the other side we arrived next to a large reservoir but we weren't headed there first. No. First job was the waterfall about 3km away, which comes complete with it's own drive yourself, downhill toboggan style rollercoaster AND Vietnamese cowboys!

First time down the hill we got stuck behind a boring couple who kept their brakes on the whole way down. Second time we barely used ours once! So much fun and at the bottom the waterfall was beautiful, despite the addition of a life size plastic tiger with glowing eyes....

After climbing back up the hill we headed to the reservoir which was really beautiful, and enormous! We had a drink then jumped back onto the cable car to take us back to the town. As we walked back we saw some Dalat sights such as the Cathedral, Eiffel tower style broadcast tower and the dried up lake (which still had the swan boats in it!).

Next we headed to the old Dalat train station (now unused except for tourists) which has a 1920's Japanese steam train, German wagons and a Russian diesel train. Needless to say, John was very excited!

After John had his fill of being the, not so fat, controller, we walked back to our hotel. Not ignoring the famous Dalat LAKE! Which is empty of water, supposedly for dredging, though we saw now evidence of anything being done to it; still at least they left the swan boats!

An uneventful evening followed, mostly to prepare us for another morning of motorbiking. We hired from our hotel and set off to find the elephant falls, which were beautiful and very impressive!

A temple with a giant Buddha whose stomach was a whole room!

And finally a silk farm which was cool. It was especially impressive to note the binary paper stamp system they used to make the pattern.

We then headed back towards town, and got a little lost looking for another of Dalat's famous attractions, "The Valley of Love". The guidebook wasn't overly clear about what the valley would be like so we didn't entirely know what we were looking for! After a bit of a fight over which way to go we did find "The Hill of Dreams" hmm not quite the valley of love but close....

Pictures cannot fully describe the hill of dreams (I mean how do you really capture the side of a hill covered by random plastic statues and even a mock great wall of china?!) but these three are a taster!

We then head off to find the real valley which was....

Just as random! Apparently these two theme parks are the kind of places middle class vietnamese like to come and holiday. Pretty hilarious really. We loved it!

Next day it was off to Saigon so we went back to our hotel to prepare ourselves for another bus journey!

We arrived at 8am, and were dropped off outside a $6 a night hotel. Score! It was fairly nice, if a little out of the centre, so we checked in. Then we headed straight out to get breakfast. We found somewhere that had a buffet breakfast, and for $3 each, we tucked into an eclectic mix of bread, cheese, dumplings, bacon, salad, fruit, rice, vegetables, soup, noodles, beef stew, sausages, eggs, and just about anything else that gets eaten (or the Vietnamese think gets eaten) anywhere in the world!!

We then walked along the seafront to the centre.

We got a tea, more because we wanted the free wi-fi than the tea too see whether our friend Flic from volunteering who was in Nha Trang had got back to us. She hadn't, so after another wander round, we headed back to our hotel to chill out for a while. After a bit we went out to try and find Flic. We didn't have any luck, so we went to a posh place called Louisiana Brewery. John tried all 4 of their beers for $4, and Susie had a VERY yummy chocolate cake for $2. Yummmm! We were going to have a swim in the pool that they have for free use, but it started to get a little rainy and it was very windy, so we decided against it in the end.

We set off to walk back to our hotel to see if there was any news from Flic, but on the way, who should we see but the lady herself, having a drink on the seafront with her friend Amanda.

They took us to the market, where they did some shopping, and we just window shopped, seeing as we had no money left after Hoi An! It was great to see Flic and have some other company! Then we went back to our hotel, chilled out and then headed out to meet Flic and Amanda for dinner.

We had a tasty tasty seafood hotpot for dinner, had a couple of drinks, and then went back and got a fairly early night, to recover from our overnight trip from the night before!

The next day we had noodle soup (called Pho, and it's the Vietnamese FAVOURITE THING EVER. WE just think it's OK, and are getting a little fed up of it to be honest!) for breakfast. We then walked out to a mud spa that Flic had recommended. It was further than we expected, at 6km, and down a rather muddy track. We definitely don't recommend walking it!

At the, rather posh, spa, we opted for the decadent 900,000 dong ($45) package for the two of us. In hindsight, it probably wasn't worth it, and the public mud/hot baths would be good enough, but we decided that after our horrible long bus journeys we'd earnt some pampering! Our time included 20 minutes in a warm mud bath - rather satisfying but horrible, but left our skin feeling silky smooth - followed by 45 minutes in a secluded little bath of our own, where we got given water and fruit, and into which they put some bags of herbs, which smelt nice, but made us feel rather like we were being made into a cup of tea!! Then we had a 30 minute massage - John's first ever - that was lovely, and left us both feeling very pampered! Then we could have gone swimming afterwards, but were both feeling too nice and soft skinned to want to go in the water again! It was a lovely couple of hours!

Then we went back to the city (getting a $3 taxi this time) to meet Flic and continue our extravagant day by having lobster on the beach for lunch! It was cooked by a lady who had a BBQ right on the beach, and we sat on a blue tarpaulin to enjoy it. It was slightly stressful, due to the wind and the waves that came right up to where we were sitting, but the food was delicious! We only paid $15 between us for 3 crabs, 3 lobsters and 3 shrimps! It was fantastic, and great eating right on the beach too, even if there were lots of people around trying to sell us stuff!

We topped off our day of luxury by having cheesecake and beer at Louisiana Brewery again, and then having another massage in an open hut right next to the beach. Ahhhhh, bliss!! Our day had been rather extravagant and luxurious, but the whole thing only cost us about $35 each, which is only 22 pounds! Not bad, when you consider the massage alone would be more than that at home!!

We then headed back to our hotel, where John started to feel a bit ill, so Susie headed out alone to meet Flic for dinner. They had a good chat over dinner, but the Indian restaurant we went to was very disappointing. Boo! Susie then said goodbye to Flic, and we arranged to meet up again in Saigon, when we were all there in a few days.

We went to bed, ready for an early start the next day to head to Dalat.

We woke up in Hoi An and took our time over getting out of bed. We felt we deserved it! The girl that had told us to come to her Uncle's hotel the night before had also recommended her clothes shop to us so we decided to head over there to see what they had to offer. When we arrived we were shown the dresses they tailor make and several English clothes catalogues. "You chose, we make," they said....

We were measured, fitted, coloured and walked out with a new dress, some trousers and a suit with a rather swanky waistcoat and were booked in for a 5pm fitting. We left 'Su's' and had a coffee which sent John buzzing for the rest of the day. Vietnamese coffee is amazingly tasty but very strong! We walked around Hoi An some more afterwards and found ourselves in another shop where Susie bought a new red and white spotty jump suit. Very kitsch! Then we walked some more.....we seemed to do an awful lot of walking in Hoi An, but the streets just beg you to. As it's a world heritage town, all the buildings have received funding to be renovated. Also many of the streets are sort of pedestrianised (though nowhere in Vietnam is truly safe from motos!) which makes it much safer to walk about than anywhere else we've been!

After a wander we used the first ticket from out Hoi An visitor ticket, which allows you to visit 5 attractions over 3 days, and in theory permits you to actually enter the old town, though noone seemed to be checking entry points anywhere, and to be honest I don't know how they ever could! Our first choice was a small museum about Hoi An's history. Although it contained one or two old photographs, and a rather nice old map of indochina from the 19th century, the museum itself didn't have alot to show. Ah well, back to the shops we headed! A pair of leather shoes and a coat followed. Sigh. Hard life. As it was approaching 5pm we returned to Su's for our first fitting. Everything was pretty much in order and Susie left with another dress on order.

Day two!

Day two was our 3 year anniversary so we decided to go out for a nice dinner in the evening. First off we had some more shops and attractions to visit though. To begin with we headed to a temple which was unremarkable, aside from the small carved giraffes which adorned their entrance, random even for Vietnam! Next we headed to a restaurant Susie had found in the guide book which was on an island across from to the majority of Hoi An. It was called the lighthouse and was run by a Dutch man and his Vietnamese wife. The setting was beautiful and sitting on the 3rd floor with Vietnamese wine, looking out on the town, we certainly felt that this was the life! We had a few more fittings after this and had probably our best indian yet for lunch! In the afternoon we headed to a cultural performance of music and drama which was surprisingly entertaining.

More shopping. Then, in the evening we found a rather tucked away restaurant down a back alley. In reality, there was nothing back alley about the "Secret Garden" and we had an absolutely delicious dinner, despite being told by our waitress (who wasn't in any sort of uniform, we assume that she did work there) we were eating most of our dishes incorrectly! Fortunately she corrected us, though rolling up a Vietnamese dumpling in a lettuce leaf, with chili, and dipping it into a sauce, and managing to put in into our mouths without spilling any, was a little beyond both of us! That said it really was delicious and the live music added to the evening (though it took Susie far too long to realise it was actually live!)

The next day we headed to the oldest original house in Hoi An. After being told, with no arguments, where we should sit to listen to the tour we were told about the Japanese and Chinese influences of the house and also that it had been in the same family for 7 generations. We were also shown the level where the waters flooded to in the rainy season, over 1.5m, during which time they move all the furniture upstairs. We also saw some beautiful wooden panels with chinese characters carved in mother of pearl. Even more amazing was that the characters were made up of tiny models of birds!

After the house we visited the "Japanese covered bridge," one of the most famous landmarks in Hoi An, but to us, pretty unremarkable. I mean, the name kinda describes it.

Next on the tour was another original house, which was essentially identical to the first one, perhaps unsurprising given they were only built 20 years apart, but a little disappointing. With 4 hours to go until our bus, Susie's insistance that John should get a lumberjack shirt finally reached a head and it was added the the pile. More impressive than the tenacity of the credit line (thanks again Mum) was the fact that the shirt only took 2.5 hours from it's first try on to being completely made to measure and finished! Hoi An certainly don't want to stop you parting with your cash! 5pm eventually came and our time in Hoi An was at an end. Phew!

Our tally was therefore one 3 piece suit, 2 pairs of shoes, 2 shirts, 2 dresses, a jump suit, 2 coats, one pair of trousers, some plates and some other things.......which cost.....ENOUGH!

The next day, after our return from Halong bay, we had a slice of leftover pizza for brekkie, before heading downstairs, where it transpired that we had breakfast included at our hotel. So, two breakfasts it was! Susie had a desert, by having a banana pancake, while John had an omelet.

We then set off, very full, on attempt 2 to see Uncle Ho! When we arrived this time, the presence of guards, scanners, hundreds of tour groups, etc, alerted us to the fact that HCM was available for viewing. Hurrah! After getting a little lost, and then being put through an airport style scanner, where you weren't allowed to take water through (more security than the land border we entered through, where a guard just had a little rifle around in our bags!), we had our camera taken off us, and then we joined a queue ready for our sighting! As we headed in in our line, past LOTS of armed security guards, we were told off for talking before we'd even entered the building! Then we thought we'd better be quiet! We were walked into the Mausoleum, where we walked past lots more security guards, in\\to the room where Uncle Ho himself is (except for the 3 months of the year when he goes to Russia for maintenance of course!). In the room there were 6 security guards around the sides where you can walk, and 4 more in the central bit, surrounding a glass coffin/case with the big man himself in. He is is lying down, and looks rather fake and waxworky really, but would do you expect when he's been dead for 40 years??? Apparently, so we found out later, his head looks big, because of how many times they've had to re-embalm it, but because he's dressed it's not all that obvious. It was the most surreal experience, but a definite must do for anyone in Hanoi!!!!

The Mausoleum

We headed out, past all the horrible gift shops that would have HCM turning in his grave, if he was in one, and then went to the 'Hanoi Hilton', an old prison that is now a Museum. It was built by the French, when Vietnam was under their control, and has since been used by the Japanese, and by the Vietnamese against the Americans (when it held mostly American pilots, including John McCain), when it gained the nickname it now holds.

The Museum was interesting, but most of the prison has been knocked down now, and the Museum was so biased that it made for irritating, if funny reading. Lots of talk of the horrible oppression of the French and Japanese (which, don't get us wrong, we're sure was awful), but only a little bit of information about it during the Vietnam war, and that was highly complementary to the Vietnamese. The exhibits actually said that it gained it's nickname because of the good conditions...apparently the Vietnamese don't get sarcasm!!

Some slightly scary models demonstrating conditions under French oppression

After that, we headed back to the city centre. We went to try and find somewhere to exchange the books that we had finished reading, but despite finding two places were unsuccessful - one didn't seem to exist (it turned out it has moved recently) and the other one sneered at our books, since one was a hardback and one a photocopy, and refused to give us any money off the books he had to sell, despite having about 1,000,000, and pricing them waaaaay too high (even an old, tatty copy of Rebecca was $3, and most were $5 or more for second hand books), so we gave up. We then went and had lunch at a little cafe, which was boring and average, and then chilled out for the rest of the afternoon, reading, using the internet and just chilling by the lake.

Finally, we set off at 5pm for our fistr overnight bus experience to Hoi An. We were picked up in a car, and taken to the bus. It was completely mental, and had 3 lines of bunk beds, and had about 8 rows of them. We were the first on the bus, and so had the pick of the beds...after trying about 10 each, we made the controversial choice of two of the ones at the top at the back. We made this choice because they were flat and had the only opening window on the bus! We waited for about 2 hours until everyone else made it to the bus, and then eventually set off at 7:30pm. We had the last of our leftover pizza for dinner en route, and then settled down for the night.

We're not going to lie, it wasn't the best nights sleep either of us have ever had. But we did both sleep (yes, even Susie who never sleeps on transport), and probably just about got our 8 hours, during the 11 hours or so we tried to sleep! It was very bumpy, but our seatbelts held us in, and the choice of beds proved worthy, as the bed being flat made a lot of difference!

We arrived in Hue at 9am, feeling a little dazed and sleepy but not too bad considering, expecting to catch a connecting bus straightaway (that was what we'd been told!), but it turned out we had a 4 hour stopover. Grrrrrr.

Oh well, we decided to make the most of it and to explore Hue. We had tasty noodle soup for breakfast, then wandered over to the Citadel, which is where the capital of Vietnam was for a long time (don't ask me when or for how long, I don't remember!). We had a tea, and then walked all the way around. It was really impressive, but we decided not to go inside.

Instead we wandered along the river to the local market, where we window shopped for a while, before going back to have lunch...a very Vietnamese caesar salad and chips. Yum!!

We then went back to get our bus...it turns out when you're told the bus will be there at 1, that's just accounting for Western stupidity, and so that actually means 2:10...Since we'd been there since 12:30, we were slightly annoyed, but we bought some oreos, and Susie made John play fun fun cards games (that he strangely didn't enjoy!), which kept us both entertained (if stressed on John's part) until the bus came.

Another four hour bus journey later (still on a sleeping bus...this is where we realised how good our choices had been - these beds only went down to a 45 degree angle, and we both struggled to sleep much. We arrived in Hoi An, finally, at 6pm, 25 hours after we started the journey. Pheeeeew!!!!

The hotel we were dropped off at wanted $18 a night...screw that, we started to walk down the street, when a lady on a moped called to us "you come to my uncles Hotel, only $10". Brilliant, we thought, only to have her drive off and leave us to guess the way, and keep driving past, shouting "England" at us. Very confusing, and then by chance we did end up in her Uncle's hotel! It was very nice, and they were all very friendly. The lady who'd taken us to the hotel (kind of) then came into our room and told us about her dress shop. We decided to go and see the next day, since Susie did want one dress. We then went and had a surprisingly tasty dinner at a restaurant a couple of doors down - Susie had very spicy but yummy chicken with chilli and lemongrass and John had some other chicken dish! It was the nicest Asian food we'd had since Cambodia! Hoi An was off to a good start! We then went and collapsed into bed, glad of a real bed!

NB - Sorry for the lack of photos at the minute, we'll upload them soon. We're having camera-computer connectivity issues at the moment!

Halong bay is one of those 'must see' things in SE asia, possibly even a must see in the world really. So we decided we must see it! Fortunately our lovely hotel booked tours, and despite them understandably trying to sell us the Deluxe, VIP, SUPER DUPER $70 tour, we decided to opt for $40, 2 days in the bay and one night on a boat, Susie's favourite!

Simply enough we got picked up from our hotel and driven the 4 hours or so towards Halong City. One the way we stopped off at the mother of all tourist traps, a traditional arts shop, in the middle of nowhere, which probably knocked a few quid off the cost of our tour. Of course we didn't buy anything and to be honest everything there you could get cheaper in Hanoi, still they had clean toilets. Only 20 minutes out of our day and we headed off again.

We were greeted from the bus by tourists who had taken the tour the day before. They looked rather bedraggled, sleepy and fed up, but we didn't take too much notice. We were told to wait for a while by our guide, and meanwhile, we were overtaken by several very organised Japanese tours (who didn't have to wait, naturally)! Next, onto a boat which "moored" by constantly running it's engine and driving its bow into the pier, mmm eco! Fortunately, we only had to hang about long enough for a random member of staff to arrive with some food and we were off!

Soon we arrived at our rather fancy "Junk".

(Susie expects this luxury on Drommie from now on!)

Several blogs and LP heavily criticise the unauthentic and touristic origins of the junks, but we found ours rather charming. It might have been contrived, but it had some charm and hey, Halong is a tourist spot, what youi gonna do?! At lunch we sat with 2 Aussies and two Scottish girls who were on a gap year teaching in Malaysia. In fact, they were on the same scheme, Project Trust, that Susie had turned down before going to York (John considers his options whether this had been for the best or not....:p)Lunch was a fairly ordinary affair but there were CHIPS! Although not nearly enough, but still.

After lunch we arrived at a pier and were pointed towards a rather large and impressive (though no Kong Lor) cave. We had heard it was often dubbed the disco cave, and we could see why as the whole thing was lit up like a giant night club! Kind of beautiful, if somewhat ridiculous. Of course the Japanese were ahead of us, but they were being told, in intricate details, about the rock formations. We declined the explanation and continued out. We visited another smaller cave and then headed back to the boat.

Next on our tour was a floating village, not unlike the ones we had seen on our Battambang - Siem Reap boat trip, only this time it was at sea! Our boat was also approached by "floating coops", ladies with rowing boats filled with crisps, drinks, fruit, you name it! Kinda cool really, too bad we weren't hungry. Our guide also pointed out that one of the rocks in this bay was on the back of a 200,000d ($10) note.

After the village we continued on our cruise along the bay for what felt like years, and the whole time all we could see, from horizon to horizon, were limestone karsts. Endlessly. John kept exclaiming, "there are too many rocks!" it was insane how many there are and for how long they continue. It was incredible. Pictures say it all.....

Eons later we moored up with every other boat in Halong bay (which is alot) and were told now was the time for swimming! By this point it was getting dark, and it was pretty cold, but John was keen (Susie less so) and an Irish guy and the Aussie from earlier were goading excessively. Of course John had to jump in off the top of the 3 storey boat.....while Susie could just about manage to slide herself in from about 1m up. Hehe it was fun, but freezing, and the water was full of oil (which John swallowed of course, as he couldn't keep his mouth shut during the drop. Tasty!)

After we dried off it was time for dinner, another indifferent affair, and I'm afraid we had to concede to tiredness and headed off to bed at around 830! Ah well early day tomorrow, kayaking!

Now this kayaking business was a bit of an enigma to us, because we'd never been told about it when we were sold the tour, but the Scottish girls had. Anyway, 6:30AM, bright and early we got up ready for a paddle. Annoyingly our boat seemed to arrive last and all the boats were already out, meaning we had to wait another 20 minutes. Not a long time, but a pain since we'd been told we had to get up early. Also it was only the company our boat had booked with that was out of canoes, there were plenty sitting around not being used, grrr. Anyway, after a while we headed off into the water, and, despite a little argument we managed to make it about as far as we could around the bay. It was really beautiful, shame about the rubbish in the water, but we did rescue a plastic bottle!

After Kayaking we were taken to a small island which had a rather nice beach and a karst to climb. It was 50,000d ($2.50) each to visit but we decided the view would be worth it. It certainly was….

Afterwards we slowly headed back to Halong city and joined a convoy of boats doing the same. It was strange because we hadn’t seen any on our first day, despite reading it was a bit like a conveyor belt, but now we could see what they meant! Though it wasn’t annoying at all, it’s not like they can make Halong Bay bigger!

Once we’d docked we found out why the tourists had been so aggravated the day before. Despite being ushered off the boat, we then had to wait 45 minutes for the bus, which would take us just 5 minutes down the road for lunch. Not cool. Lunch was pretty dire too. Meh. Finally we got on the road again (not before stopping at another tourist trap, whose saving grace was ice creams this time, which we recommended to 4 other people and saw about 10 with before we left, note to tourist trappers, ice creams, not giant statues of Buddha, no matter how happy he looks!!)

As we pulled away from the trap our tour guide got out of the bus and was replaced by another Vietnamese and an American who seemed a bit confused. A discussion followed with him being told he would be taken to the airport. Hmm…we didn’t want to go to the airport, and nor did anyone else, though he had only agreed to come on our bus because he’d been told in advance that we were all going. This was a 1.5 hour detour for us and noone was very happy about it, oh except the Vietnamese and the driver, who pocketed an above market rate, $20 for the journey. Meh nothing we could do in the end but a shame. Eventually we got back to our lovely hotel to meet a shocked and upset looking receptionist who had, the day before, promised to save our room for us. Guess what, she’d forgotten! She was quick to offer us an apology and a room in another hotel. Hmm we thought, how much is this going to cost us? $15 she said, the same as we’d had before, and she’d pay the difference. Well it was a shame, because our new hotel was technically nicer, but the staff weren’t nearly as friendly and the room didn’t have a view, but you can’t beat that for customer service!

Finally, to top off the day we’d promised ourselves a little naughty treat, after a recommendation by one of the Scottish volunteers. PIZZA HUT! It was a long walk, to a suitably faceless mall, filled with rich Vietnamese, there to buy tvs and cars and things 90% of the population can’t afford, and we did get two larges between us (which drew shocked looks from pretty much everyone) and we did take half of it home and have it for breakfast and lunch the next day, but DAMN WAS IT DELICIOUS!