Landed in China/Nam border town way earlier than the border was to open, people waiting for the gate to open lay on the streets but for us, having just spotted a rat the size of a cat and knowing there would be more went looking for a more suitable place to lay our heads. Landed at a pish posh hotel near the crossing and knowing we couldn't afford it, and unable to communicate with the security and night staff we cheekily crashed on the couches in the lobby.
Into Nam several hours later and we latch onto a bus to the northern mountain town of Sapa, supposedly very beautiful, in reality yes, but full of old and fat German tourists. Landed on a Saturday, February 5 which was interesting because Saturday, the first Saturday of CNY or Tet and is there local market day and a day in which the men try and find wives. They all, men, women, boys and girls wear a shiny smock type uniform, dreadful but soaked in blue dye, the result, hundreds of Vietnamese looking like dressed up smurfs.
Sapa, though beautiful and a welcome sabbatical from not knowing what you were eating while in China, was fecking cold, and colder still when the fog set in, everything got damp and I got a chest infection.
Bored of how touristy the town was, and having missed the Super Bowl, we decided to move on and boarded a bus for Hanoi
Oh Hanoi, beautiful and insane Hanoi, back to a crazy city in which I can at least understand some of what they're saying, good food, cheap beer, lots to see.... lots of snot, sooooooo sick. Crash for the day, the boys were busy and find the second of the Hanoi Backpackers, then new one, much better. With great effort and heavily anti-b'd up we all transfer ourselves to it. Bliss! A home to actually call home in crazy Hanoi.
Really Hanoi began when I started to feel better, which was also the first night at the NEW Hanoi backpackers where myself, Sean and Everett and an Aussie girl teamed up and won the hostel quiz night and a new Hanoi backpacker tshirt... which was a Good thing because I was, at that stage seriously lacking in clean clothes.. The first city excursion/ adventure was to see Uncle Ho in state in his mausoleum. For you who don't know, the great liberator of the Vietnamese himself, Ho Chi Minh left a dying request.... to be cremated. What did the people who loved him and who he liberated do.... stuff him and stick him in a box and charge $4 to have a look at him.
Solemn faced you enter the mausoleum, smacked in the back of the head by a stoney faced burly guard (defo a commie look) and try not to laugh when the weird smell in the room is the first thing you have consciously smelt in nigh on three full days because you have such a damn well stuffed up head. Difficult, grim.... painful when you draw blood you've been biting on your tongue so damn hard to stifle the giggles. Even more so when there is Vietnamese before and behind you with tears streaming down their faces.
While in Hanoi... the dog even occurred. Everret away on scoping bike duty, myself and Sean went a wandering and found what I later learned is aptly named dog street. What nobody told me was that one, its bad luck to eat said animal meat during tet and also during the first week of the month... both of which it was. We had been enjoying our stroll though random backstreets before the ominous sight drew our attentions, a woman hacking what vaguely resembled a friendly household pet on a chopping board. The moment had come, dog, one of the final frontiers, do I or do I not, are my ambitions to eat one of ever animal merely lip service.... no, I had to man up, have a cup of concrete and harden up. $1 dollar for 4 bits and a bag of salt, chilli and lime... writing this is therapy, getting it out there, even though I am so not proud. It was utterly repulsive, totally disgusting, not the meat, the meat was meaty, it was the texture, the thick skin that accompanied it and the tiny dog bones and ribs in it.... not fun... even less fun when we faced down the disgusted Everret who lambasted not I but Sean, knowing fine and well that I was the instigator and ringleader. Had corn on the cob accompanied by delicious and nutritious corn water, as well as kebab for dinner that night.... may have been dog meat, who knows... but because it was in a Kebab it all of a sudden more acceptable.
The next major leg of the Hanoi trip was the debaucherous one night on Halong Bay, nothing if not an excuse to get totally rat arsed and a place where I made numerable comrades, some of who I would later meet at various stages of my journey. The night fully included, alcohol, hip shaking, alcohol, cards and cross dressing, alcohol, more nakedness, I-pod Nazi-ism... more alcohol! it was a fun night and one in which I realised that it was the first night in many years that the sole process of me being there was to just get drunk and have the craic, sure its being done before but I had forgotten that it can be genuinely a good time, no worries, just for laughs, kicks and giggles, and it was!
Following Halong Bay, I spun my way down to Hue, centre town in Vietnam, totally boring except for meeting up with Frenchie Xavier, from Halongsoon learned that Xaviers was non-existent and he promptly almost crashed his into a restaurant full of people. At this stage we met up with our soon to be realised 'crazy' guide, Bill, and Xavier was hubbing a life on my bike.
Bill brought us first to Boom Boom Hill, not called so because it was the scene of any great battle, though it did have a military hill base which overlooked the town, but named Boom Boom as Bill roared with appreciation because it was a spot often frequented by young Vietnamese couple... i need not say more.
Next was to a really beautiful series of temples, a Buddhist monastery, a quick stop for some Ban Mi, local sandwiches packed with pork pate, veg and chilli sauce, a snack which would become a daily staple simple because of its absolute deliciousness. It was soon after this, and soon after it had started to rain that the crash occurred. lined up at traffic lights, a bus pulls up idly by, Bill signals for me to pass it when the light turns green, I slip the bike into second gear, wait for the green light, bing, I take off, a little too quickly if I'm honest, a complete Catch U Next Tuesday pedestrian steps off the curb onto the road, I hit the road rather than the imbecile, the bike and me skids to a stop. Save for a scratch on my leg, a cut had and ripped shorts I'm totally unscathed. Lucky stars are counted, cup of concrete later and we're back on the road, slowly to continue our trip. Bill is all about the party, crazy Bill that is, Bill who was captured by the Americans and forced to act as a translator in interrogations of Viet Cong prisoners, he twigs out, wife leaves him, he twigs even more, Americans see this and dump him off their books and he totally freaks, shaves his head and joins a monastery where he stays for 5 years. Ultimately the highlight was leaving the city limits and driving through the outlanding paddy fields, taking a back road and passing before stopping at a house in whcih a 'plenty ceremony' is being conducted. Edjits that myself and Frenchie are we are quickly roped in, pay our respects and asked to dance, apparently dancing is good, I shake a leg and am handed a cucumber and a dong or two, frenchie gets a mellon and more dong.... its strange, we leave, Bill sticks his head in, popps out maybe 10 minutes later with dong stuffed in every pocket of his coat.
Hoi An next and love it. Beautiful french colonial, with a beach nearby and a canal. Here myself and frenchie end up meeting a veritable gaggle of people we had met in Halong. We get fitted for clothes and the whole time there was just a chill out. Rent some bikes and head off with gang from hostel up to Marble Mountain 10 km north of Hoi An, series of paths and nooks and crannys through the rock offering incredible views, dotted between are statuettes of Buddha hewn into the stone. Even more incredible is inside the mount, caves within caves, vast rooms excavated hundreds of years, lit by candle light, buddhas tower, look down beneavontly from the walls. really incredible.
Beach time next and the pink paddy I am, burned to a crisp, within day I will be pulling skin from my back like beef jerky and look like a leper.
Suits and done, travel further south still, splitting from frenchie who heads off to Saigon, I head for mountain town in the Vietnamese Highlands of Dalat.
Again, olde french colonial, its quite pretty, Dalat looks like a cross between Vietnam and the French Alps and is done in a day. Meet with German girl and adventure the town together, first night hitting the markets, second day hopping on the back of some bikes with tour guides and heading to see coffee plantations, buddhas, waterfalls, silk factories and drink some local rice spirit. when I said that Bijou was the worst thing I've ever tasted, it was basically methylated spirits, unknown strength, dirt cheap, stories of people going blind from drinking it, its not a nice drink and nor is it trying to be, rice spirit is the complete opposite, though with all the negatives said above attached to it. Even worse, it took a whole litre of water and half a bottle of OJ to get rid of the taste. The highlight of the tour, a supposed Easy Rider tour, was the Dalat crazy house.
Dalat’s Hang Nga Guesthouse, deemed by locals “The Crazy House,” opened in 1990 and is indeed a strange and off the wall variation on natural aesthetics that began as one woman’s personal project and is now a tourist destination. Right that's the tour guide element of this scribble over, its, as its name suggests, 'Crazy', it really it. Think Dali-eque painting mixed by Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland crossed with itsy bitsy spider and cat in the hat. Filled with unexpected twists and turns at every corner,misshapen windows and friendly stone animals—a bear, giraffe, and spider, a kangaroo with neon red eyes, its... yeah, crazy!
Dalat left behind, Saigon next on the agenda, arriving very early, day one was spent sleeping most of it and then off to the war remnant museum, formerly known as the American War Crimes Museum. Very moving, very poignant, the feeling and ethos of the place is somewhat dampened by the horrifically amusing propaganda spewed by the Vietnam commie Government, the word American often substituted for things like 'War Criminal Overlords' etc etc. Hard not to laugh on one side when you read some of the bias nonsense and then hard not to cry when you are staring at a picture of a child blown apart. MOst impressive part is the photo expo, complied over years and including photos from the front line taken by the worlds then best news photographers. The difference in the Vietnam War and others was the way in which it was covered, the media attention granted made it almost must watch, big brother, I'm a teenage soldier carrying a dead boy... get me out of here of wars!
Also from Saigon I had noodles in the noodle shop where the Tet Offensive was planned, the owner of which only died a few years, the noodles still as good and the room in which the attack on the US embassy killing 54 people, is opened for people to visit. That attack was the marking point in the US history when it was realised by the people of the US that there was possibly no end to the war in Vietnam.
INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT... as I write this I now face into a further 12 hour wait at Singapore Airport, possibly the most boring airport I have ever been in, that includes Knock, but of course Knock has the whole large community centre with aeroplanes landing at it comedy value side to it. Why you my ask do I have an extra 12 hours to wait and why art thou lucky enough to be privvy to such valuable situation... well its like this, dearest dumbarse here decided it would be nice to set an alarm for himself to make it to the closing gate on time- GRAND SO FAR. dearest dumbarse here decided it would be nice to get himself something to eat before making his own casual way to the closing gate on time- GRAND AGAIN, SO FAR SO GOOD.
so what was the problem then, the flight was on time, Quantas are very efficient like that, I had checked in well on time, in fact the night before, I had my seat picked, bag put through, whats could possibly be the problem that would see this dearest dumbarse have to sit on his todd a further 12 hours in the biggest of airports... his clock on his phone was 20 minutes slow... I arrived at the closing gate to a very irate, physically small yet imposing Singaporean man who had just organised a veritable slue of ground staff, a team if you will, at, which he informed me, great expense to both the airline and the airport itself to find my bag among all the bags put on board the plane and bring it back to the terminal building. I was near terminal when I was told I wouldn't be able to board my flight... but told in the same sentence there was a night flight, 12 hours later. A few deep breaths, the news I'd have to pay a transfer fee and 'Gameball' I said, a cursory pat on the shoulder for the wee livid fella himself and turned on my heel to face a tedious wait for my eventual flight to OZ
So I continue to write this from Sing'er airport, I repeat, the biggest of airports, so fecking boring I can't even sleep in the place. Now where was I... Saigon... 2011
Yeah, so damn good noodles. Next day I said feck it to Saigon, booked a night bus to Cambodia but first also booked a cheeky trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, famous for their usage by the Viet Cong in launching guerrilla offences against the Americans during the Vietnam War.
Nuts how the soldiers lived in those conditions, think about living in a box the size and height of your bed mattress for maybe weeks and then think of sharing that space with 10 other soldiers just like you.
Even shot myself, not shot myself with, an AK47, the weapon of choice for the peasant man, the working prole. Shot 15 bullets, each time missing the target and sending sprays of sand backing the target into the air. Even with the ability to only aim within a central range as the gun is locked to a pivot so as to not go on any bloody rampages, these things are generally frowned upon, I still missed the damn targets... I'll not be getting that phone call from Gerry, Martin or Mary Lou to join the 'cause' any time soon so.
I UNDERSTAND MUCH OF WHAT I HAVE WROTE HERE IS TOTAL NONSENCE BUT I FULLY INTEND ON FILLING IN THE BITS THAT ARE AT LEAST INTERESTING WITH ACTUAL FACTS AND DETAILS AT SOME STAGE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE
Into Nam several hours later and we latch onto a bus to the northern mountain town of Sapa, supposedly very beautiful, in reality yes, but full of old and fat German tourists. Landed on a Saturday, February 5 which was interesting because Saturday, the first Saturday of CNY or Tet and is there local market day and a day in which the men try and find wives. They all, men, women, boys and girls wear a shiny smock type uniform, dreadful but soaked in blue dye, the result, hundreds of Vietnamese looking like dressed up smurfs.
Sapa, though beautiful and a welcome sabbatical from not knowing what you were eating while in China, was fecking cold, and colder still when the fog set in, everything got damp and I got a chest infection.
Bored of how touristy the town was, and having missed the Super Bowl, we decided to move on and boarded a bus for Hanoi
Oh Hanoi, beautiful and insane Hanoi, back to a crazy city in which I can at least understand some of what they're saying, good food, cheap beer, lots to see.... lots of snot, sooooooo sick. Crash for the day, the boys were busy and find the second of the Hanoi Backpackers, then new one, much better. With great effort and heavily anti-b'd up we all transfer ourselves to it. Bliss! A home to actually call home in crazy Hanoi.
Really Hanoi began when I started to feel better, which was also the first night at the NEW Hanoi backpackers where myself, Sean and Everett and an Aussie girl teamed up and won the hostel quiz night and a new Hanoi backpacker tshirt... which was a Good thing because I was, at that stage seriously lacking in clean clothes.. The first city excursion/ adventure was to see Uncle Ho in state in his mausoleum. For you who don't know, the great liberator of the Vietnamese himself, Ho Chi Minh left a dying request.... to be cremated. What did the people who loved him and who he liberated do.... stuff him and stick him in a box and charge $4 to have a look at him.
Solemn faced you enter the mausoleum, smacked in the back of the head by a stoney faced burly guard (defo a commie look) and try not to laugh when the weird smell in the room is the first thing you have consciously smelt in nigh on three full days because you have such a damn well stuffed up head. Difficult, grim.... painful when you draw blood you've been biting on your tongue so damn hard to stifle the giggles. Even more so when there is Vietnamese before and behind you with tears streaming down their faces.
While in Hanoi... the dog even occurred. Everret away on scoping bike duty, myself and Sean went a wandering and found what I later learned is aptly named dog street. What nobody told me was that one, its bad luck to eat said animal meat during tet and also during the first week of the month... both of which it was. We had been enjoying our stroll though random backstreets before the ominous sight drew our attentions, a woman hacking what vaguely resembled a friendly household pet on a chopping board. The moment had come, dog, one of the final frontiers, do I or do I not, are my ambitions to eat one of ever animal merely lip service.... no, I had to man up, have a cup of concrete and harden up. $1 dollar for 4 bits and a bag of salt, chilli and lime... writing this is therapy, getting it out there, even though I am so not proud. It was utterly repulsive, totally disgusting, not the meat, the meat was meaty, it was the texture, the thick skin that accompanied it and the tiny dog bones and ribs in it.... not fun... even less fun when we faced down the disgusted Everret who lambasted not I but Sean, knowing fine and well that I was the instigator and ringleader. Had corn on the cob accompanied by delicious and nutritious corn water, as well as kebab for dinner that night.... may have been dog meat, who knows... but because it was in a Kebab it all of a sudden more acceptable.
The next major leg of the Hanoi trip was the debaucherous one night on Halong Bay, nothing if not an excuse to get totally rat arsed and a place where I made numerable comrades, some of who I would later meet at various stages of my journey. The night fully included, alcohol, hip shaking, alcohol, cards and cross dressing, alcohol, more nakedness, I-pod Nazi-ism... more alcohol! it was a fun night and one in which I realised that it was the first night in many years that the sole process of me being there was to just get drunk and have the craic, sure its being done before but I had forgotten that it can be genuinely a good time, no worries, just for laughs, kicks and giggles, and it was!
Following Halong Bay, I spun my way down to Hue, centre town in Vietnam, totally boring except for meeting up with Frenchie Xavier, from Halongsoon learned that Xaviers was non-existent and he promptly almost crashed his into a restaurant full of people. At this stage we met up with our soon to be realised 'crazy' guide, Bill, and Xavier was hubbing a life on my bike.
Bill brought us first to Boom Boom Hill, not called so because it was the scene of any great battle, though it did have a military hill base which overlooked the town, but named Boom Boom as Bill roared with appreciation because it was a spot often frequented by young Vietnamese couple... i need not say more.
Next was to a really beautiful series of temples, a Buddhist monastery, a quick stop for some Ban Mi, local sandwiches packed with pork pate, veg and chilli sauce, a snack which would become a daily staple simple because of its absolute deliciousness. It was soon after this, and soon after it had started to rain that the crash occurred. lined up at traffic lights, a bus pulls up idly by, Bill signals for me to pass it when the light turns green, I slip the bike into second gear, wait for the green light, bing, I take off, a little too quickly if I'm honest, a complete Catch U Next Tuesday pedestrian steps off the curb onto the road, I hit the road rather than the imbecile, the bike and me skids to a stop. Save for a scratch on my leg, a cut had and ripped shorts I'm totally unscathed. Lucky stars are counted, cup of concrete later and we're back on the road, slowly to continue our trip. Bill is all about the party, crazy Bill that is, Bill who was captured by the Americans and forced to act as a translator in interrogations of Viet Cong prisoners, he twigs out, wife leaves him, he twigs even more, Americans see this and dump him off their books and he totally freaks, shaves his head and joins a monastery where he stays for 5 years. Ultimately the highlight was leaving the city limits and driving through the outlanding paddy fields, taking a back road and passing before stopping at a house in whcih a 'plenty ceremony' is being conducted. Edjits that myself and Frenchie are we are quickly roped in, pay our respects and asked to dance, apparently dancing is good, I shake a leg and am handed a cucumber and a dong or two, frenchie gets a mellon and more dong.... its strange, we leave, Bill sticks his head in, popps out maybe 10 minutes later with dong stuffed in every pocket of his coat.
Hoi An next and love it. Beautiful french colonial, with a beach nearby and a canal. Here myself and frenchie end up meeting a veritable gaggle of people we had met in Halong. We get fitted for clothes and the whole time there was just a chill out. Rent some bikes and head off with gang from hostel up to Marble Mountain 10 km north of Hoi An, series of paths and nooks and crannys through the rock offering incredible views, dotted between are statuettes of Buddha hewn into the stone. Even more incredible is inside the mount, caves within caves, vast rooms excavated hundreds of years, lit by candle light, buddhas tower, look down beneavontly from the walls. really incredible.
Beach time next and the pink paddy I am, burned to a crisp, within day I will be pulling skin from my back like beef jerky and look like a leper.
Suits and done, travel further south still, splitting from frenchie who heads off to Saigon, I head for mountain town in the Vietnamese Highlands of Dalat.
Again, olde french colonial, its quite pretty, Dalat looks like a cross between Vietnam and the French Alps and is done in a day. Meet with German girl and adventure the town together, first night hitting the markets, second day hopping on the back of some bikes with tour guides and heading to see coffee plantations, buddhas, waterfalls, silk factories and drink some local rice spirit. when I said that Bijou was the worst thing I've ever tasted, it was basically methylated spirits, unknown strength, dirt cheap, stories of people going blind from drinking it, its not a nice drink and nor is it trying to be, rice spirit is the complete opposite, though with all the negatives said above attached to it. Even worse, it took a whole litre of water and half a bottle of OJ to get rid of the taste. The highlight of the tour, a supposed Easy Rider tour, was the Dalat crazy house.
Dalat’s Hang Nga Guesthouse, deemed by locals “The Crazy House,” opened in 1990 and is indeed a strange and off the wall variation on natural aesthetics that began as one woman’s personal project and is now a tourist destination. Right that's the tour guide element of this scribble over, its, as its name suggests, 'Crazy', it really it. Think Dali-eque painting mixed by Tim Burton, Alice in Wonderland crossed with itsy bitsy spider and cat in the hat. Filled with unexpected twists and turns at every corner,misshapen windows and friendly stone animals—a bear, giraffe, and spider, a kangaroo with neon red eyes, its... yeah, crazy!
Dalat left behind, Saigon next on the agenda, arriving very early, day one was spent sleeping most of it and then off to the war remnant museum, formerly known as the American War Crimes Museum. Very moving, very poignant, the feeling and ethos of the place is somewhat dampened by the horrifically amusing propaganda spewed by the Vietnam commie Government, the word American often substituted for things like 'War Criminal Overlords' etc etc. Hard not to laugh on one side when you read some of the bias nonsense and then hard not to cry when you are staring at a picture of a child blown apart. MOst impressive part is the photo expo, complied over years and including photos from the front line taken by the worlds then best news photographers. The difference in the Vietnam War and others was the way in which it was covered, the media attention granted made it almost must watch, big brother, I'm a teenage soldier carrying a dead boy... get me out of here of wars!
Also from Saigon I had noodles in the noodle shop where the Tet Offensive was planned, the owner of which only died a few years, the noodles still as good and the room in which the attack on the US embassy killing 54 people, is opened for people to visit. That attack was the marking point in the US history when it was realised by the people of the US that there was possibly no end to the war in Vietnam.
INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION...INTERUPTION
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT... as I write this I now face into a further 12 hour wait at Singapore Airport, possibly the most boring airport I have ever been in, that includes Knock, but of course Knock has the whole large community centre with aeroplanes landing at it comedy value side to it. Why you my ask do I have an extra 12 hours to wait and why art thou lucky enough to be privvy to such valuable situation... well its like this, dearest dumbarse here decided it would be nice to set an alarm for himself to make it to the closing gate on time- GRAND SO FAR. dearest dumbarse here decided it would be nice to get himself something to eat before making his own casual way to the closing gate on time- GRAND AGAIN, SO FAR SO GOOD.
so what was the problem then, the flight was on time, Quantas are very efficient like that, I had checked in well on time, in fact the night before, I had my seat picked, bag put through, whats could possibly be the problem that would see this dearest dumbarse have to sit on his todd a further 12 hours in the biggest of airports... his clock on his phone was 20 minutes slow... I arrived at the closing gate to a very irate, physically small yet imposing Singaporean man who had just organised a veritable slue of ground staff, a team if you will, at, which he informed me, great expense to both the airline and the airport itself to find my bag among all the bags put on board the plane and bring it back to the terminal building. I was near terminal when I was told I wouldn't be able to board my flight... but told in the same sentence there was a night flight, 12 hours later. A few deep breaths, the news I'd have to pay a transfer fee and 'Gameball' I said, a cursory pat on the shoulder for the wee livid fella himself and turned on my heel to face a tedious wait for my eventual flight to OZ
So I continue to write this from Sing'er airport, I repeat, the biggest of airports, so fecking boring I can't even sleep in the place. Now where was I... Saigon... 2011
Yeah, so damn good noodles. Next day I said feck it to Saigon, booked a night bus to Cambodia but first also booked a cheeky trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, famous for their usage by the Viet Cong in launching guerrilla offences against the Americans during the Vietnam War.
Nuts how the soldiers lived in those conditions, think about living in a box the size and height of your bed mattress for maybe weeks and then think of sharing that space with 10 other soldiers just like you.
Even shot myself, not shot myself with, an AK47, the weapon of choice for the peasant man, the working prole. Shot 15 bullets, each time missing the target and sending sprays of sand backing the target into the air. Even with the ability to only aim within a central range as the gun is locked to a pivot so as to not go on any bloody rampages, these things are generally frowned upon, I still missed the damn targets... I'll not be getting that phone call from Gerry, Martin or Mary Lou to join the 'cause' any time soon so.
I UNDERSTAND MUCH OF WHAT I HAVE WROTE HERE IS TOTAL NONSENCE BUT I FULLY INTEND ON FILLING IN THE BITS THAT ARE AT LEAST INTERESTING WITH ACTUAL FACTS AND DETAILS AT SOME STAGE IN THE NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE
hi seamus enjoyed your bloggxx
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