Ho Chi Minh City
That night we met up with a couple we’d been in touch with – I had done my Teaching English as a Foreign Language course with Jess, and we agreed over a few beers to travel with her and her boyfriend Mark through Vietnam.
Once Baby D had climbed out, he realised he had lost his new sunglasses somewhere inside so we returned to the entrance of the tunnel, and yep, we went through again in search of the glasses! I think we must be the only tourists in history to complete the tunnel twice during the same visit! It is really not the sort of activity you want to do twice in a row. We didn’t find the glasses by the way.
By this time, it was pouring with rain but undeterred we walked right across town to the railway station and bought a ticket to the small town of Trai Mat, about 7km from Da Lat. There we visited the Linh Phouc Pagoda, locally known as the Broken Glass Pagoda because of its glass and tile mosaic design. There were actually 3 buildings there, all of which were fantastic designs and colours, depicting animals and flowers. There were huge laughing Buddhas carved from wood, and a giant Buddha seemingly made of flowers.
Last stop was the palace which was actually a number of buildings set in beautiful gardens with lakes and ponds full of carp. Hue is a beautiful city located on the Perfume River, so-called for its use for transporting sandalwood and cinnamon grown on its banks, which used to be lined with frangipani trees.
We took the bus down from Hue to Hoi An the next day which was only about 3 hours or so. We checked into a lovely hotel which was around a 15 minute walk from the centre of Hoi An, an ancient city probably most well known for its shopping. You can get anything and everything there, and most clothing, and leather or suede shoes and bags are made to measure. The town itself was lovely – lanterns hanging everywhere with a river running right through the centre of the town. A few kilometres away is the beach, so it was a perfect stop for weary travellers. We met up with our pals who we’d left in Da Lat as they had taken a bus directly to Hoi An from there, and we had went out for a bit of food and a few drinks.
There were 3 or 4 bars vying for tourists’ business by offering ridiculous deals on drinks and shisha, and we ended up having a couple of raucous games of jenga. The bars all shut up shop around midnight though, and we were directed to the only place in town still open which was a bit like a student union. When we got there, Spice Girls were playing. Most of the people in there were probably a twinkle in their dad’s eye when Spice Girls were around but they were all dancing and singing along. Good music never gets old so they say.
We had two more full days in Hoi An and we had arranged to do the sunrise tour at My Son, some Cham ruins, so we spent our penultimate day taking a scooter out to Marble Mountain before heading over to nearby city Da Nang for lunch and a look round. We hired the scooter from our hotel, and as we headed out we were invited to join them for lunch the following day which we accepted as our friends would have left by then.
Marble Mountain is a huge Buddhist site with a number of pagodas and caves, somewhere in between Hoi An and Da Nang (closer to Da Nang). You can take the elevator up to the main attractions then spend a good 2 hours walking around (in the blazing heat) looking at the pagodas and exploring the caves and the statues inside. We climbed up to the highest peak, which in the heat was actually quite tough, but worth it for the views. You can either walk down or pay a bit more (15,000 or 50p) to take the elevator back down. There is another cave at the bottom called Am Phu, a huge cave which depicts Buddha hell inside. Parts of it are pretty creepy although some of the demons that appear in the darkness look like they’d been made during art class by a bunch of 10 year olds.
Vietnam to be continued
#vietnam #hochiminhcity #hcmc #saigon #warremnants #cuchi #hue #hoian #danang #marblemountain #amphu #elephantfalls #dalat
After an 8 hour journey over the border from Phnom Penh in
Cambodia to Ho
Chi Minh City (HCMC) in Vietnam, we found our guesthouse and settled in.
The journey was fairly straightforward – the drivers organised everything and
told us what to do and where to go once we reached immigration. We were held up
at the border for around 45 minutes while our visas were checked and bags were
offloaded, scanned and reloaded. We were dropped in District
1 of the city which was the area where our guesthouse was. We were staying
quite close to ‘Backpacker
Street’ a well-known area where there are numerous cafes, restaurants, bars
and cheap hostels.
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| War Remnants museum |
On our first full day in HCMC we walked to the War
Remnants museum which was a couple of kilometres away. On the way we were
approached by a young Vietnamese girl who wanted to practise her English with
us. She ended up accompanying us to the museum and stayed with us for an hour
or so. She told us stories of her grandfather who lost his arm in the war,
fighting in the south of the country.
The War Remnants museum is really informative, being primarily about the Vietnam war, or the American war as the Vietnamese call it. As usual, aside from the films ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ and ‘Deerhunter’ we Brits knew very little about this, as we don’t learn about atrocities in this part of the world and as we had little involvement in the war. What we learned was compelling and horrific. The Vietcong was the communist group fighting for North Vietnam, supported by communist Russia against South Vietnam, supported by the Americans and the Australians.
The War Remnants museum is really informative, being primarily about the Vietnam war, or the American war as the Vietnamese call it. As usual, aside from the films ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ and ‘Deerhunter’ we Brits knew very little about this, as we don’t learn about atrocities in this part of the world and as we had little involvement in the war. What we learned was compelling and horrific. The Vietcong was the communist group fighting for North Vietnam, supported by communist Russia against South Vietnam, supported by the Americans and the Australians.
The museum focused on the atrocities of the war and the
effect on the Vietnamese people. As well as thousands of civilians being bombed
into oblivion, the Americans released chemicals on the country to destroy the
trees and consequently the Vietcong’s cover. This potent, deadly cocktail of
chemicals was known as Agent
Orange and the Vietnamese suffered terribly from deformities and burns.
Generations of children following the war were born (and are still being born)
with horrendous disabilities as a result. Around 3 million people were killed
in this conflict which lasted more than 17 years and is still leaving its
legacy on Vietnam and neighbouring Cambodia and Laos.
We were actually thrown out of the museum at 12pm for lunch
and we returned at 1.30pm when it reopened – we didn’t need to buy a new
ticket, but we should have done our homework as our chosen place for lunch was
around 1 and a half km from the museum.
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| Notre Dame, not in Paris |
After we had finished at the museum we
wandered up to Notre
Dame cathedral through beautiful tree-lined boulevards, reminiscent of the
roads in Paris and all with French names – a nod to the French colonialism. The
cathedral was not open to the public unfortunately, as it was a Sunday and
service was underway. The cathedral was an impressive red brick structure and
looked nothing like its namesake in Paris.
We then crossed the road to the Central Post Office building. This impressive yellow renaissance building was constructed in the late 19th century, and is famed for its high vaulted ceilings, containing gift shops as well as having the usual post office business of sending letters and packages, and paying bills.
We then crossed the road to the Central Post Office building. This impressive yellow renaissance building was constructed in the late 19th century, and is famed for its high vaulted ceilings, containing gift shops as well as having the usual post office business of sending letters and packages, and paying bills.
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| HCMC Post Office |
That night we met up with a couple we’d been in touch with – I had done my Teaching English as a Foreign Language course with Jess, and we agreed over a few beers to travel with her and her boyfriend Mark through Vietnam.
The next day we had arranged to visit the Cu
Chi tunnels, which is about 2 hours on a bus from the city centre. This is
the site of the most famous Vietcong tunnels and battleground.
The Vietcong were experts in guerrilla warfare and used their knowledge of the land, employing ingenious, if brutal tactics to capture, torture and kill the opposition. They dug out a 150km tunnel network here, and we saw the different types of traps used to capture the enemy. One was a replica of a termite mound which had an airhole. The Vietcong soldier would be under the mound and would be able to pick off the American soldiers as they passed through the trees.
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| Cu Chi tunnel |
The Vietcong were experts in guerrilla warfare and used their knowledge of the land, employing ingenious, if brutal tactics to capture, torture and kill the opposition. They dug out a 150km tunnel network here, and we saw the different types of traps used to capture the enemy. One was a replica of a termite mound which had an airhole. The Vietcong soldier would be under the mound and would be able to pick off the American soldiers as they passed through the trees.
There was a replica of a tunnel, around 100m in length with
exits at every 20m mark. We could crawl through the tunnels to get a sense of
what it would have been like back in wartime for the Vietcong. The tunnel was
dark and winding; only lit every couple of metres by a dim lantern. It was tiny
and claustrophobic; although this replica tunnel was bigger to accommodate
Western tourists. It was roasting hot down there; we were dripping in sweat by
the end of it.
A couple of times we had to clamber down another metre, going deeper underground and towards the end it got very narrow, so instead of walking, knees bent, crablike through the tunnel, I had to crawl on my hands and knees which Baby D had had to do the whole way because he is taller. We finished the whole route and I think we were the only ones to do that from our group. Our hearts were racing, our adrenaline was pumping and we were panting like we’d just run the 100m against Usain Bolt. I can’t imagine what it must have been like during the war when the soldiers would remain underground for days at a time.
A couple of times we had to clamber down another metre, going deeper underground and towards the end it got very narrow, so instead of walking, knees bent, crablike through the tunnel, I had to crawl on my hands and knees which Baby D had had to do the whole way because he is taller. We finished the whole route and I think we were the only ones to do that from our group. Our hearts were racing, our adrenaline was pumping and we were panting like we’d just run the 100m against Usain Bolt. I can’t imagine what it must have been like during the war when the soldiers would remain underground for days at a time.
Once Baby D had climbed out, he realised he had lost his new sunglasses somewhere inside so we returned to the entrance of the tunnel, and yep, we went through again in search of the glasses! I think we must be the only tourists in history to complete the tunnel twice during the same visit! It is really not the sort of activity you want to do twice in a row. We didn’t find the glasses by the way.
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| Vietcong trap |
On the way round we could hear guns being fired which made
the experience even more realistic, and the deeper into the site we got, the
louder they got. Finally we reached a gun range and we paid 500,000 Dong (about
£15) for 10 bullets to shoot an AK47. I think I nearly hit the target; it was a
bit of a buzz.
I had a work meeting on the following day so after that I
went to the big market, Ben Thanh, and wandered up to meet Baby D for lunch.
Later on we strolled over to Notre Dame Cathedral as we had failed to actually
make it inside on our previous visit. As luck would have it, the cathedral was
closed for lunch so we had to wait 40 minutes for it to reopen. It was not
really worth the wait in my opinion – we were only allowed in about 2 metres;
the rest of it was reserved for people that wanted to pray. Nonetheless, it was
beautiful inside with typical high vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows.
We strolled over to the opera
house which is a very grand building but we weren’t allowed inside which
was disappointing. I think if we had gone to see a show we would have had a
tour but we couldn’t really justify doing that on our budget.
Da Lat
So long to HCMC, and an early flight to Da Lat. Da Lat is further north in a mountainous region so we expected it to be cooler. It was beautiful when we arrived; the sun was shining, the sky was clear and the air was crisp especially in comparison with HCMC where pollution levels are off the scale. We soon settled into our guesthouse and took ourselves off for a walk around the town. We all really liked it there; it is a nice, cosmopolitan place with a huge lake at its centre, surrounded by lush greenery and mountains. We headed off to the Crazy House (Hang Nga) which is a really interesting building and is actually a guesthouse. The architecture reminded us of a cross between Gaudi’s work in Barcelona and Disneyland – surreal.
So long to HCMC, and an early flight to Da Lat. Da Lat is further north in a mountainous region so we expected it to be cooler. It was beautiful when we arrived; the sun was shining, the sky was clear and the air was crisp especially in comparison with HCMC where pollution levels are off the scale. We soon settled into our guesthouse and took ourselves off for a walk around the town. We all really liked it there; it is a nice, cosmopolitan place with a huge lake at its centre, surrounded by lush greenery and mountains. We headed off to the Crazy House (Hang Nga) which is a really interesting building and is actually a guesthouse. The architecture reminded us of a cross between Gaudi’s work in Barcelona and Disneyland – surreal.
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| Crazy House |
By this time, it was pouring with rain but undeterred we walked right across town to the railway station and bought a ticket to the small town of Trai Mat, about 7km from Da Lat. There we visited the Linh Phouc Pagoda, locally known as the Broken Glass Pagoda because of its glass and tile mosaic design. There were actually 3 buildings there, all of which were fantastic designs and colours, depicting animals and flowers. There were huge laughing Buddhas carved from wood, and a giant Buddha seemingly made of flowers.
We were a bit unsure as to what to do on the following day
because there are numerous waterfalls in Da Lat, but it isn’t really feasible
to do them all in one day. In the end, we decided against doing an organised
tour because of the cost, and our fabulous guesthouse owner wrote out (in
Vietnamese and in English so we could ask directions if we got stuck) a number
of sites to see and what was, in his opinion, the most impressive waterfall. We
were directed to the local bus stop and we each paid 30,000 Dong (£1) to travel
some 25km to the waterfall, Thac
Voi or the Elephant Falls, so-called because the rock is supposedly
reminiscent of an elephant’s head.
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| Elephant Falls |
The waterfall was huge in volume, force and height. We
arrived right at the top of it so we were able to see the brown water cascade
over the side of the rockface, and we were able to climb down to the base of the
waterfall where there was a cave and you could stand virtually behind the
curtain of water. The trek down was pretty hairy as it was steep and slippery
but we made it, and the force of the waterfall while standing underneath
getting soaked to the skin was exhilarating.
There were a few other things to do in the area but we
stopped for lunch and it began chucking it down in earnest so we stayed out of
the rain for a couple of hours. We didn’t go to the coffee plantation, the silk
making place or the rice wine making place which are both very near to the
waterfall, and we missed the cricket farm which was about 7km away. We did make
it to the beautiful and peaceful Linh
An Monastery which is next door to the waterfall though, then it was time
to run for the last bus at 4.30pm, which, in direct contradiction to everything
we know about bus timetabling in SE Asia, was 15 minutes early.
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| Broken Glass Pagoda |
Baby D and I had not been able to book ourselves onto the
sleeper bus out of Da Lat to Hoi
An because it was a public holiday in Vietnam (reunification day), but
luckily we found a flight to Hue
which was about 4 hours on a bus north of Hoi An. We would be doubling back on
ourselves but the cost of the flight was pretty cheap so it wasn’t a big deal.
Da Lat gets missed by a lot of travellers because it is a bit of a pain to get
to, which is a shame because it is a cool town in stunning surroundings. In
fact, there is a good bus service to nearby Nha
Trang, which takes about 3 and a half hours and the scenery is beautiful.
Once in Nha Trang, there is a sleeper bus and if timed properly, you can leave
Da Lat on the midday bus, then wait only an hour at Nha Trang before getting on
the sleeper to Hoi An. If the sleeper bus is full there is a train which goes 4
times a day to Hoi An from Nha Trang and takes around 9 hours. The flight to
Hue worked out a lot cheaper and it was direct so that was best for us.
Hue
We arrived in Hue, Vietnam’s former capital, around lunchtime and grabbing some pho (famous Vietnamese noodle soup) we went straight over to the citadel. We planned to stay in Hue for a night then leave early the following day but in the end we decided a half day and one night wouldn’t do it justice so we stayed for 2 nights. Just outside of the citadel we were accosted by 2 bike tuk tuks and because at that point we thought we wouldn’t have much time, we jumped in. We visited the Ho Chi Minh memorial house, and the museum of Royal Antiquities which included Cham artefacts and sculptures. We stopped to see the US tanks and aircraft left from the war. Hue was virtually destroyed because of its location near the DMZ (demilitarised zone between North and South Vietnam) and to the river, and it was not defended, so suffered greatly.
We arrived in Hue, Vietnam’s former capital, around lunchtime and grabbing some pho (famous Vietnamese noodle soup) we went straight over to the citadel. We planned to stay in Hue for a night then leave early the following day but in the end we decided a half day and one night wouldn’t do it justice so we stayed for 2 nights. Just outside of the citadel we were accosted by 2 bike tuk tuks and because at that point we thought we wouldn’t have much time, we jumped in. We visited the Ho Chi Minh memorial house, and the museum of Royal Antiquities which included Cham artefacts and sculptures. We stopped to see the US tanks and aircraft left from the war. Hue was virtually destroyed because of its location near the DMZ (demilitarised zone between North and South Vietnam) and to the river, and it was not defended, so suffered greatly.
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| Hue Palace |
Last stop was the palace which was actually a number of buildings set in beautiful gardens with lakes and ponds full of carp. Hue is a beautiful city located on the Perfume River, so-called for its use for transporting sandalwood and cinnamon grown on its banks, which used to be lined with frangipani trees.
There was a craft village festival in Hue while we were
there, and there were artisans from all over the place including many from
Japan so there was a Japanese theme everywhere. Along the riverfront there was
an art market selling paintings, wooden sculptures and porcelain jars. In the
evening there was a stage set up for crazy Japanese bands, and in front of the
stage there was sake tasting (you needed it to listen to the music to be
honest).
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| Phu Mong garden house |
As we’d decided to stay another day, we booked up a tour for
the next day and we asked our guesthouse if we could stay another night. It was
a great place; we had a quadruple room with breakfast for $12 and it was really
central. There was a selection to choose from for breakfast as well, but
because of the holiday, the guesthouse upped the price to $35. Not staying
there then.
We were picked up the next day and taken down to the river
on the back of a scooter to get a dragon
boat. We visited Phu
Mong garden house which is around 200 years old and showcases how well-off
(or royal) people lived in traditional buildings set in perfectly landscaped
gardens.
We then went onto the 7 storey Thien Mu Pagoda (or the Pagoda of the Celestial Lady (Lady Buddha) built in 1601; and Hon Chen Temple which was built for a Goddess by the Cham people. All of these sites are set along the river. After lunch we moved to a bus to visit the Minh Mang Tomb and the Khai Dinh Tomb. The tombs were huge sites where Emperors in the 19th and 20th centuries were laid to rest in impressive, ornate and imposing buildings set in tranquil gardens. There are a number of tombs around Hue for different Emperors, all very different in style and they are all magnificent tributes to the past rulers, but it would take days to visit them all.
We then went onto the 7 storey Thien Mu Pagoda (or the Pagoda of the Celestial Lady (Lady Buddha) built in 1601; and Hon Chen Temple which was built for a Goddess by the Cham people. All of these sites are set along the river. After lunch we moved to a bus to visit the Minh Mang Tomb and the Khai Dinh Tomb. The tombs were huge sites where Emperors in the 19th and 20th centuries were laid to rest in impressive, ornate and imposing buildings set in tranquil gardens. There are a number of tombs around Hue for different Emperors, all very different in style and they are all magnificent tributes to the past rulers, but it would take days to visit them all.
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| Khai Dinh tomb |
After getting back to our hotel, we moved over to the new
one, and got ready to grab a few drinks and some food with a couple we had met
on the tour.
Hoi An
We took the bus down from Hue to Hoi An the next day which was only about 3 hours or so. We checked into a lovely hotel which was around a 15 minute walk from the centre of Hoi An, an ancient city probably most well known for its shopping. You can get anything and everything there, and most clothing, and leather or suede shoes and bags are made to measure. The town itself was lovely – lanterns hanging everywhere with a river running right through the centre of the town. A few kilometres away is the beach, so it was a perfect stop for weary travellers. We met up with our pals who we’d left in Da Lat as they had taken a bus directly to Hoi An from there, and we had went out for a bit of food and a few drinks.
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| Hoi An |
There were 3 or 4 bars vying for tourists’ business by offering ridiculous deals on drinks and shisha, and we ended up having a couple of raucous games of jenga. The bars all shut up shop around midnight though, and we were directed to the only place in town still open which was a bit like a student union. When we got there, Spice Girls were playing. Most of the people in there were probably a twinkle in their dad’s eye when Spice Girls were around but they were all dancing and singing along. Good music never gets old so they say.
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| Hoi An lanterns |
When we got back to the hotel, the gates were locked. This
wasn’t much of a surprise – many hotels or homestays do this, and we’d been
told to ring the doorbell if the gates were locked, and someone would be around
to let us in. After 10 minutes, there was no sign of anyone so David climbed
the 8ft, spiky fence, and there were dogs barking everywhere at us. He made it
in and banged on the staff door – no reply. He found 2 bunches of keys on the
reception desk and tried the gate lock, to no avail. It was shut up tight.
Nothing else for it, I had to climb. After nearly impaling myself and almost
ripping my shorts, I was also over. We were not impressed.
A bit worse for wear the next day, we found ‘gate-gate’
hilarious and when we mentioned it to the hotel staff, they were adamant it was
not locked. It was, but I wasn’t going to argue. We did a bit of shopping and
relaxed before meeting up with our friends and the couple we’d met in Hue and
the 6 of us did a cookery class. We went to Hai
Café and paid 450,000 Dong, or £15 each for a 5 course menu which was
superb. Chef Linh was hilarious, ‘Don’t say Yum! It means horny!’ she exclaimed
at one stage. We made spring rolls, grilled beef, papaya salad, mackerel in
banana leaf, and we had wontons, white rose (a Hoi An prawn and pork dumpling that looks like a white rose) and fresh fruit as well.
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| Hoi An |
We had two more full days in Hoi An and we had arranged to do the sunrise tour at My Son, some Cham ruins, so we spent our penultimate day taking a scooter out to Marble Mountain before heading over to nearby city Da Nang for lunch and a look round. We hired the scooter from our hotel, and as we headed out we were invited to join them for lunch the following day which we accepted as our friends would have left by then.
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| View from top of Marble Mountain |
Marble Mountain is a huge Buddhist site with a number of pagodas and caves, somewhere in between Hoi An and Da Nang (closer to Da Nang). You can take the elevator up to the main attractions then spend a good 2 hours walking around (in the blazing heat) looking at the pagodas and exploring the caves and the statues inside. We climbed up to the highest peak, which in the heat was actually quite tough, but worth it for the views. You can either walk down or pay a bit more (15,000 or 50p) to take the elevator back down. There is another cave at the bottom called Am Phu, a huge cave which depicts Buddha hell inside. Parts of it are pretty creepy although some of the demons that appear in the darkness look like they’d been made during art class by a bunch of 10 year olds.
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| In one of the caves at Marble Mountain |
We had been in contact with our friend Rav who we’d
travelled through Laos with, and he was reaching Da Nang that day so we met up
for a drink and went up to see the big Lady
Buddha in Da Nang before the sun went down. On the way back I invited
another friend we had met in Hue to join us for the sunrise at My Son the
following day as she was also in Hoi An. I emailed our hotel to book it and
when we returned I confirmed everything with them. They told me they had
replied to my email which I hadn’t seen, and I read the email in front of them,
which berated us for not returning for lunch and telling us to hurry back to
get the leftovers.
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| Lady Buddha, Da Nang |
I reminded them that we had been at Marble Mountain and Da
Nang all day as they knew, because we had rented the bike from them. They knew
we wouldn’t be able to get back in time for lunch if we had a 60km round trip,
but that fell on deaf ears. The next thing she told us was that the My Son
sunrise tour started at 4am, not 5am as stated in their brochure. When we told
her we wouldn’t be going as it was too early, she refused to cancel it and got
quite angry. She didn’t believe me when I pointed the time out in her own
leaflet even though she could see it said 5am. At that point, I lost my temper
and yelled at her about the gate being locked, the lunch being on the wrong day
and the tour time being wrong. They don’t like to lose face in SE Asia, and I
think that was why she argued with me about everything, but we were in the
right each time and I got fed up of being told we were wrong! Brits are pretty
polite to a point but cross the line…!
The last full day in Hoi An, and we caught up with friends,
going to the beach nearby for coffee, then out for dinner and drinks. Yep, we
ended up at the student union again. We were on a bus for 2pm the next day to Phong
Nha, via Hue, where we changed buses. On the 2nd bus we shoved
our stuff into 2 seats at the front. The driver yelled at us and told us to
more to the back where the only free seats were next to the toilet. It is quite
common for bus drivers to reserve the seats for the locals which is exactly
what had happened with us. A couple of hours later some Vietnamese guys got on
and sat there. Things like this really get on my nerves and although Vietnam is
beautiful, the people are not always the friendliest.
#vietnam #hochiminhcity #hcmc #saigon #warremnants #cuchi #hue #hoian #danang #marblemountain #amphu #elephantfalls #dalat
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