It is famous for its tailor made clothing, where, in about 12 hours, you can have all manner of things made to measure. It is also where the Top Gear presenters got their ridiculous outfits on the TG Vietnam special. We spent 3 nights in Hoi An and despite our best efforts to avoid buying too much - had suits/skirts/dresses/shoes/shirts/ties made..... and then also had to buy a bag to put it all in! We are now not the lightest travelling backpackers you have ever seen!!
We also visited the My son temples, which, though not as impressive as Angkor Wat, were still well worth the effort.
From Hoi An, we traveled 5 hours north (130KM - see what I mean about the buses?!?!) to the city of Hue, which used to be the capital of Vietnam. Here we looked round some of the old rulers' tombs, and also the old city. These too had sustained a heavy battering during the war, but were still very interesting:
In Hue, we also found an Indian curry house. It was exactly the same as back home. In every aspect. I'll leave it at that! ;)
From Hue, we took a 12 hour train north to Hanoi - the nation's capitol.
To say that we got off on the wrong foot with Hanoi, is something of an understatement.
We arrived in the dark and the rain at 5am on a platform, somewhere near the centre of the city. We knew where we wanted to stay as we had looked it up in the Bible (or Lonely Planet as it's also known), therefore when a taxi driver came up and we told him where we were going and asked the price and he said "I have a metered taxi" we were in raptures. However, 2 minutes later, when the meter was spinning like the Tasmanian Devil and we were randomly driven in the opposite direction in which we wanted to go, our optimism started to wane.
After a frank discussion with the driver, which involved me opening the door and demanding him to stop, he agreed to take us to the hotel for a fixed fee of 30,000 dong ($2 - still too much but we were tired).
He arrived at blatantly the wrong hotel and had just called his mate and told him we were coming so to open up so he could get a commission! ARRRGGGHHH!!!
On seeing this we got out and refused to pay, so the driver and his friend tried to kidnap our bags. Having released the bags, and my hand from the boot, I threw 20,000 dong at him for petrol and we stormed off into the dark leaving them standing there swearing at us.
From there we had to try to find a hotel in the dark using only the rather inadequate map from the Lonely Planet which not only had streets missing, but also incorrectly named.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the Hanoi-ans, as well as being criminals, are also lazy, as there was not a hotel for under $100 per night (10x our budget!) where we could wake the night porter/receptionist. We did find a couple of rooms, that could have doubled as kennels for exorbitant rates from the few places that happened to have their shutters half up - notably these establishments sported bewildered looking tourists outside swearing after a hastily disappearing taxi. Therefore we trudged around Hanoi for the best part of 2 1/2 hours before finding somewhere to stay.
After a power nap, we decided that the best part of Hanoi to see next would be the road out, so we hastily booked a 2 night trip to Halong Bay (where they end up in the Top Gear special).
That turned out to be a fantastic experience with stunning views of the bay, cruising around on a luxury junk boat.
No prizes for guessing which are my legs!!
We spent one night on the Junk Boat awakening on Halong Bay, and one on Monkey Island in a hut (with aircon!) awakening to a monkey fighting a dog outside our door! We had a really good time although we were partly stalked by some Australian Jehovah's Witnesses.
So, returning from Halong bay, brings me neatly to my last post regarding the rat (still with me..? Good) The next morning we flew to Hong Kong for 3 nights, and had a great time meeting up with Jim and Gareth. The picture below is taken on Lamma Island where they live, before the night out in LKF:
From HK, we took a flight to the Philippines, and the island of Cebu, where we have spent the past 10 days doing more relaxing and Scuba Diving. This morning we saw Thresher Sharks and Manta Rays! Fantastic diving! We don't have the pictures yet, but we will put them up either on facebook or here at some point.
We have a flight to Donsol tomorrow to search for whale sharks, and had better leave it at that considering the internet cafe actually closed 15 minutes ago and we're going for dinner and an early night having gotten up at 4.45 for a breakfast appointment with the aforementioned marine life.
Bye for now.
