Saturday, November 13, 2010

I need to explain why it’s do difficult to turn off the lights in our hotel room and NO my brain hasn’t fallen out. Picture a typical hotel room anywhere in the world. You have your bed, bedside table and usually a lamp on top. Vietnams version is similar, except located on the front of the bedside table are lots of switches, not as many as in a cockpit of an airplane, but you get the picture. Now some of these switches do absolutely nothing. Some just turn random stuff on. I often wonder if they turn on other peoples lights in different rooms and that’s why the reception staff keep smiling at us! Anyway you see my dilemma. I couldn’t just keep flicking switches while my beloved lay fast asleep next to me…… Much easier to just unscrew the globe. 

Some people on our tour have gotten sick from the local food. We have been pillars of health although every time I go to the toilet and do a solid ‘poo’ it’s like a gift from god. I know my days could be numbered…….

We have had a full-on day today. Left at 8am and didn’t return until 6pm. Dalat is beautiful and very mountainous. The region grows most of Vietnams fruit and veggies so there are plantations everywhere. First stop today was the Royal Family’s summer palace (there isn’t a royal family anymore), then onto the ‘Crazy House’, can’t explain this one, you will just have to look at the photos. Then we visited a lovely waterfall, with an equally lovely Vietnamese name, that I can’t remember.  

The waterfall was a long way down, a very long way down, with many, many steps. There was a Vietnamese lady walking up and down the stairs selling drinks, I bet she could crush you with her thighs if needed. They would have to be some very strong thighs.

After this we went to another pagoda and caught a cable car across some mountain range to another mountain range, spectacular. Who knew there would be cable cars in Vietnam.

  

After all of this Ian needed a beer. So while the boys went in search of a pub, myself and another girl walked around town. We came across a little tiny stall selling trinkets. The next thing we knew they had put seats out for us to sit on. Well not really seats, more like midget stools, they were approximately 10cm from the ground and I was worried that all four legs would go in each direction once my big fat bum landed on one. We were laughing so hard that the stall owner started laughing then all the locals joined in . I’m not sure if they were laughing at me or with me? Anyway they then told me ‘I have beautiful fat face’, like Budda.  Apparently this is a compliment but I’m still not convinced that they were just taking the piss! Tonight we tried porcupine and ant-eater. Anything you can catch , you can eat.



Look at the size of those chairs, are you kidding me.....



Tomorrow we drive to the sea side village of Nha Trang. 

Best thing seen carried on a motor bike today, a ladder and not a step ladder.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Well nothing to report today. We left Ho Chi Minh and headed north to Dalat. Although Dalat is only 300km from Co Chi Minh is took 8.5 hours! The roads are sooooo dodgy and narrow and there is absolutely NO road rules......

I sat toward the back of the mini bus behind someone who has a big head (yes apparently there are other people in the world who have big heads, it's not just  me) anyway getting back to the story, I sat behind the big-headed person so I couldn't see out of the window as it's terrifying....... These people are crazy......

We visited some beautiful villages along the way and saw a statue of a giant chicken, I kid you not! But mostly we just sat on a bumpy bus with our knees around our heads (our mini bus was built for midgets, poor Ian) and saw many strange things being transported on the backs of motor bikes. The winners for today were: a bike with 3 live pigs strapped to the back (my personal favourite), followed closely by a fridge. And we aren't taking about a bar fridge, this was a full size fridge. Finally I saw someone transporting a wardrobe, wow.

Dalat is beautiful, it's high up in the mountains and it's cold, arrggghhhh.... Can you believe it's only 20 degrees. Ian is very smug as he packed jeans, guess who didn't. However I do have my very fashionable 'man shoes' on with socks. As they now hurt my feet. This however is something that we can't mention and I can guarantee there will be no photographic evidence of them.

View from our hotel room....

We had a lovely dinner tonight and I'm glad to report that my fashion sense improved dramatically over the course of the evening. This was due to the fact that it started to rain slightly so I had to complete the look with a pink poncho. At least my hair isn't frizzy as there isn't any humidity up here. Thank god it only rained for about 20 minutes as I was starting to look very special.

Our accommodation has improved as we now have hot water, however we are on the second floor of a 3 story hotel and the ceiling is wood. Very thin wood, so we can hear EVERYTHING above us. I did warn everyone about this at dinner just in case they wanted to read out loud or something......

 

Thursday, November 11, 2010

The Mekong was everything I expected. After leaving our home stay we cruised around the river for about 2 hours, we visited floating markets, a fruit orchard and some local factories. They call them ‘factories’ but they are more like people’s homes. One was making fish sauce – very stinky, another rice paper. The processes here are so incredibly time consuming and labour intensive. The last one we stopped at was making local sweets, this was my favourite. They even made popcorn from rice, yum, yum. Of course Ian somehow found the local moonshine, AKA ‘snake wine’. Basically a huge jar of fermenting snakes yuk… At this stage he appears not to have suffered any lingering effects from drinking it....

After leaving the Mekong Delta we headed back to Ho Chi Minh where we spent the afternoon wondering around. It’s nearly time for dinner then a shower. I haven’t been able to have one for 2 days and I wasn’t using the bucket and river water. No point having one before dinner as you get filthy as soon as you walk out onto the street. Tomorrow we have a 7 hours journey to Dalat.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wow what a day, we got up bright and early and left Ho Chi Minh and headed out of the city to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi tunnels are a system of tunnels created in the war by the local people to fight the Americans. The tunnels go on for more than 250km…… It was an incredible and heart wrenching site to visit. Some of the tunnels have been widened so that western people can fit down them, poor Ian still had trouble fitting as his shoulders kept scraping the sides.

 

After seeing the tunnels we travelled to the Mekong Delta where we went on a 45 minute boat ride to our home stay. We were guests of Mr Moi and his family.



It was a lot better than I expected, I thought we would be sleeping on the floor. Instead we had camp stretchers and our own mossy nets. We were divided in half to accommodate everyone and we slept in two big dorm rooms. That night we helped the family cook dinner, the kitchen certainly wasn't like home but the food that was produced was outstanding. We had ‘elephant fish’ ugliest fish I have ever seen but surprisingly tasty, tiger prawns and a few things I couldn’t distinguish….



Hi, Mr Moi

I slept better than anticipated, I think it’s the heat and all the good food. It was lovely listening to the sounds of the river and the fishermen that seem to fish all night? No one ever seems to sleep in this country. The constant hum of all the bugs was annoying and if I ever find the bloody roster that's been crowing since 5am I'll ring it’s friggin neck! It was a bit hairy going to the loo this morning as it was still dark and the house is literately over the water, thus you have to walk over a gang plank to get onto solid ground – not so good at 5am in the dark. The gang plank is approximately 10cm wide which is challenging when your 5 foot 7, weigh (lets just say a considerable amount more than the locals) and have enormous feet. Of course it would be no 'biggie' if you fell into the Mekong River given that the water is in such pristine condition. This is me being facetious, if I didn't immediately get washed away or was mistaken for something the locals could kill and eat I'm sure some weird arse disease would take me out within 24 hours......

 

Elephant Fish

Today we spend the whole day exploring the river. Oh! How funny, before we left Ho Chi Minh I bought a pair of thongs from the market. The only pair I bought with me got wrecked in the torrential downpours of Saigon. The lady on the street sat me on a tiny stool and bought over a pair of shoes that were about size 6. When she saw the size of my feet she said ‘oh your feet too big will need ugly man shoes, no nice shoe for you’ she then gave me some ‘ugly man shoes’ and proceeded to invite all the local woman that she could find over to have a look. She was so stunned that I was going to buy them that ‘she gave me big discount as poor nice lady has to wear ugly man shoes’. Thank god I didn’t try on any cloths…..   

Monay, November 8, 2010

We meet the rest of our tour group last night, there are 12 of us in total. 5 couple and 2 girls. 3 of the couples are in their late 50's and the other couple is around the same age as us. The 2 girls are in their 20's and we are all Aussies. Our tour guide is Vietnamese and is called Tan. He seems fabulous! I think he will make this tour really fantastic. He took us to a local restaurant for dinner last night, we had a 4 course meal including beer and it only cost $6 AU. It's crazy how cheap it is to eat over here. Everyone on our tour said that they would prefer to eat in local restaurants over western food (not that you have to stick with the group) but that made us both really happy. And with Tan leading the way I should come home at least 20kgs heavier!

The only people that seem slightly annoying are the 2 young girls, blow-up barbie (I have affectionately named one of them) who only left Au for the first time 48hours ago, decided she would let me know how the barter system worked, what type of ice to drink etc..... So I had to punch her in the head - only joking. I only thought about punching her in the head. It might come to that after 3 weeks. 

Ian seems to have found a couple of drinking buddies and no one has heard of Dt Coke in this country so I have given up trying. Haven't found any chocolate yet, but if there is any to be found I will sniff it out!

Today we went on a cyclo tour of the city (seat with a bike on the back), it was heaps of fun - except for the poor guy that had to peddle me. We were out for about 2 hours and it was fantastic. After this we left the group and went our own way. Myself and Ian stuck with the other couple that are around the our age (Lucy and Damien) and went and explored some more of the city. We saw war museums, pagoda, monks, famous buildings and eventually ended back at the Ben Than Markets. Here we went from stall to stall sampling the local food. The locals kept laughing at us as the boys didn't fit on the tiny seats and I can't use chopsticks. I still managed to shovel it into my mouth though.... I have no idea what we ate, we just kept moving around pointing to different things on carts, it all tasted amazing and was sooooo cheap.

 

We spent another hour or so exploring the markets and getting hassled, we then returned to our hotel. Tonight we are heading to another local restaurant so we will be leaving soon to go and check it out. The rain came again about 4pm this arvo (seems like the norm) but we were better prepared today and had our rain jackets ready to go this time.

Tomorrow we head to the Mekong Delta and our first 'home stay'. We have been told not to bring to much with us (we are leaving our bags in Ho Chi Minh as we are coming back here) as we have limited bathroom facilities, no hot water, no bed rooms.... Tan said bring mossie repellent and ear plugs, sounds interesting......

Saturday, November 6, 2010

After a 2.5 hour train journey, 3 hour wait at Sydney airport, 5 hour flight to Darwin, another 2 hour wait there, then another 5 hour flight we finally arrived at our destination - Ho Chi Minh City, thank god!!!! I had forgotten how crazy the roads are in Asia, thus the taxi ride from the airport was very interesting. After realizing that I probably wasn't going to die I was able to point out to Ian all the beautiful hotels that we wouldn't be staying in. The taxi eventually pulled up outside some dodgy lane way and the driver pointed out the equally dodgy looking hotel that was located down it. Yep, that would be us..... Our room was clean, as the Internet had stated, however if failed to mention that water was leaking down one wall, Ian fixed that by placing bath towels down one side of the bed. Then there was the light that wouldn't turn off, Ian fixed that by unscrewing the bulb, the window we couldn't close, Ian used a pen on that one, and the trusty ear plugs blocked the noise from the night markets located outside..... Oh! How funny it is this morning.... .

Hello Asia....Oh how I had forgotten how crazy you are......

Anyway moving onto our first full day.... We were both awake and bored by 5am (because of the time difference) eventually the sun rose and we meet our chef outside the Ben Than Markets as we had a cooking class booked for today. The markets were amazing, so much wonderful fresh food. Didn't like the meat section though - they tend to eat everything over here. The seafood section was fantastic. Live eels, crabs, tiger prawns, snails, frogs anything that lives in fresh or salt water. After shopping for all our ingredients we went back to the restaurant and cooked a 3 course meal. Yum Yum Yum the food was unreal and there was so much that I couldn't finish it all, I know, totally unlike me! I can finally make rice paper spring rolls, of course Ian's were better than mine. After lunch we headed out to explore the streets, we struggled crossing the road (you would think we would know how to by now) and sometimes just gave up trying and went another way, ha ha ha.... We saw some interesting temples and locals then checked out the Reunification Palace - very interesting. 

After leaving the Palace (about 4pm) we got caught in a tropical downpour and guess who forgot to put the rain jackets (that mum kindly lent me) into the back pack. So after walking 2kms in the rain my beautiful shoes (again that mum lent me) are soooo wet that I probably wont be able to wear them for days. I currently have on lovely blue thongs that the hotel provides it guests. I'm a stunner!! And to go with my blue shoes I have blond frizzy afro hair....

  

We join our tour in an hour, meet and greet dinner, so here's hoping the other people travelling with us are normal, relatively speaking. Ian just informed me that the air conditioner in our room is now broken - at least we still have a bed....... 


The man himself, Ho Chi Minh!