Vietnam Part Two

After spending a couple of weeks in the north of Vietnam, it was now time to start heading further south, and our first stop was a town called Hoi An. The journey from Hanoi via night bus then day bus took a total of seventeen hours - quite a beast, but we were getting used to it by this stage!

Getting off the bus in the midday sun, we had our usual problem of wandering around for an hour in sweltering conditions before finding a guesthouse that ticked the right boxes. Having accomplished this, we went into town to have a look around.

Hoi An was a very pretty town indeed, set on the Thu Bon River, there was loads of old French architecture, narrow streets and beer for 14p a mug - yes, 14p. Now, I’m all for wandering around looking at buildings and Cham ruins and stuff like that, but do they really expect you to do that when the beer is so cheap and the weather so hot?

Aside from the bargain beer, Hoi An is particularly well noted for the quality and quantity of tailors that seem to line every street. Following a couple of recommendations, Lauren and I threw caution to the wind and got some stuff made. I got a couple of suits and a shirt, and Lauren a few dresses I think. They all looked very good indeed, fitted well and are now in a box somewhere on a ship headed for Surrey. I’m told they’ll arrive back in mid-December, shortly before us.
After a couple of days in Hoi An, taking in all the sights and other activities, including the full moon lantern festival, where people light paper lanterns and put them in the river, we were heading towards our next destination Nha Trang.

We stayed in Nha Trang for a couple of days, but there really wasn’t a great deal to keep us entertained. The main focal point of the town was the white sandy beach, but it was so overcrowded it wasn’t really worth the bother. Plus, I saw a mother holding up her naked toddler, who then proceeded to do droppings(the toddler, not the mother) into a hole in the sand which the mother had dug, before filling it in again when the job was done. Bon Appetit, enjoy your picnic!

Glad to leave Nha Trang and the beach behind, our next destination was Saigon, or as it is now known, Ho Chi Minh City. Miraculously, getting off yet another night bus, we managed to find a guesthouse almost straight away and hit the streets to do some sightseeing. First off, we headed to the War Remnants Museum - some fairly gruesome exhibits and photos of the Vietnam War - very interesting, but also extremely sad and disturbing at the same time - well worth a visit, but most definitely not for the faint of heart.

Following on from that, we headed to the Reunifiactaion Palace, where a tank crashed through the gates in 1975 on the day that Saigon surrendered. The palace itself was not quite as interesting, but had the original war rooms of the Vietnamese leaders in the basement, and they were pretty good to see. Finally that day, we headed to the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, which was alright.

We went out for a few beers and cuttlefish that night, and both agreed that Saigon is much, much better than Hanoi. Crossing the road was always interesting as this video shows - bear in mind that this is a pedestrian crossing!! (Apologies for the clip changing from normal to upside down half way through!)

The following day we were up early to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. This was an underground tunnel network stretching more than 200km that the Vietcong used to hide and live in during the war. The tunnels were absolutely tiny - much smaller than those we had visited in northern Vietnam, and extremely claustrophobic! As well as seeing the tunnels, there was an exhibition of all the dastardly traps that the Vietcong used to hide in the jungle - very nasty indeed.

Having spent a couple of fantastic days in Saigon, it was nearly time to head into Cambodia, so we booked a three day trip around the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, from where we could get the boat across the Cambodian border and onto Pnomh Penh.

The trip was slightly cheesy, but we saw some pretty fun stuff - first was the coconut sweet workshop - the sweets were delicious, but I felt quite sorry for the ladies working there who’s job it is to wrap up each individual sweet!

After the coconut workshop, we headed further along the Mekong to a local bee farm where we were given honey tea which was delicious. They also had a massive Python for some reason, which seemed friendly enough.

Lunch on the first day was a fairly amusing affair. There were six of us around the table and the meal was pork, rice and salad. (Tofu for the lady). It seemed whichever guidebook these people had, determined what they would and wouldn’t eat. “Ooh no - you can’t eat the meat here, it’ll give you gut-rot”, followed by someone else chirping up with, “my book says not to touch the salad when more than ten miles from the English coast because it might have been washed in sewage”, before the inevitable, “I wouldn’t touch the rice here, you won't be off the loo for a month”. So when the meal was finally finished, one chap had left his meat, another his salad and a girl had left her rice! Luckily, I hadn’t read the guidebook that morning, so wolfed the lot down in seconds before looking longingly at the plate of the chap who was too chicken to eat his meat! Indeed, Lauren and I were the only ones with clean plates. Luckily, we didn’t get ill, or I would have omitted this rather long paragraph, tail between legs.

On the second day we visited a floating market, which was pretty cool - loads of vivid colours and people shouting and throwing stuff around.

Following the floating market, we visited a local authentic rice paper making place, which was genuinely relatively intersting.

The next day we were up early again, stopping to see a Mekong Fish farm which stank to high heaven, and also a Cham village - home to some of the area’s indigenous population.

Then we were on our way up the Mekong on a fast boat towards Kaam Samnor, where we’d cross into Cambodia for the next leg of our adventure.