Vietnam

Sorry its been a while since we updated the blog but things have been hectic!! Also, we are now in China and the 'great fire-wall of China' means getting onto certain websites difficult, e.g. we can't see our own blog!! but Lorraine tells us ye can see it at home so here goes. Brian will update on China later and we will get a few photos up over the next few days.

We arrived in Vietnam, weary out from the tuk tuk drivers in Cambodia and found Saigon / Ho Chi Minh city a welcome relief. Really liked the place, it was hectic - bicycles, motorbikes, etc flying around the place but we had good fun and the city has really nice atmosphere. We kicked back for a few days wandered around the place and saw the sites. The one that really sticks out is the War Remnants Museum, a museum which has galleries of photographers who died in the vietnam war's last photos from the front line, a land mine impacts gallery and also a gallery about the victims of chemical warfare. This place was really worth visiting but gruesome, its crazy to think its all so recent and that there are loads of people still suffering the consequences of the war. We visited the CuChi tunnels too where the VietCom lived, fought, hid underground in tunnels and that was really interesting to visit, but there was a firing range in the middle of it - a bit of an odd choice in the middle of a place where the reality of war is being shown.

Brian heading into one of the tunnels

Me trying to escape the tunnel!

Us and some Viet-com statues!

As we had spent lots of time on the Mekong River, we headed down to its Delta, met two great Vietnamese-Americans Lee and Chou who showed us about. We got a lift from the bus on motorbike, our rucksacks between the legs of the motorbike driver with me on the back and my day pack on my back - same for Brian on his motorcycle, we must have looked mad!! There are some photos of the Delta and the floating market on the last post, unfortunately though both our camera batteries died and we missed out on a classic photo, so picture it, we are floating along the river when we spot toilet portaloos at the river edge with the outflow pipe hanging directly over the river and the portoloos were clearly marked as toilets!! Our suspicions of the river been dirty were totally confirmed then, didn't chance a swim!!

Started to move north along the Vietnam coast and the first stop was Mui Ne Beach, Fantastic spot!! We had a fab bunglaow a stone's throw from the beach where there was a 11km strand with kite surfers and wind surfers doing there thing so we spent a few days chilling by the beach, having a few drinks by moonlight and relaxing, bliss!

Back to the travelling then and onto the overnight bus to Hoi An. The relief bus driver took a fancy to the guy from Wales sleeping beside us and kept tickling his toes!!! Hoi An is a manic tourist town with 200 tailors all trying to get us to go in and get clothes made up. The town was pretty with fab architecture but after a day we were allergic to the tailors hassling us and decided to move north again. I went to see the anchor wat of Vietnam - My Son, which was really interesting ruins but had been heavily bombed during world war 2 and i can't imagine how nice they would be intact. In SE Asia, the locals tend to use the phrase 'same same but different' to describe how something is similar, and our guide at My Son was describing religions and said 'its like Protestant and Catholic - same same but different!!' I can't imagine how certain N.Ireland politicians would react if they were on the tour!!

Next stop Hue, the former capital of Vietnam, we went on a motorbike tour of the city and surrounding paddy fields and sights. We had a great guide and this was a brill way to see the place. The imperial city here had been bombed as well during the war and what we saw was impressive and its so sad that it doesn't remain intact. Another interesting overnight bus trip after that where a local guy decided to chat up a norwegian girl by playing the theme song from titanic from his phone and singing along in the middle of the bus!!

Last stop in Vietnam was Hanoi. To be honest we didn't do much here except a bit of shopping, walking around, eating at street stalls and hiding from the tourist touts in coffee shops so decided to exit swiftly from Vietnam and get the overnight train to China where hopefully we wouldn't be attacked by a hotel, tour or shop person selling something. What had taken the biscuit was a hotel owner spitting at us because we didn't want to stay at his hotel in Hanoi!! Roll on China :)