Vientiane is pretty much the anti-Hanoi. If I'd arrived in Hanoi in the state I arrived here I'd probably have jacked it all and got right back on the plane however Vientiane is an easy city to explore on just 2 hours sleep (the neighbours had the TV on extra loud last night, then the dogs on the other side went crazy a few times so I didn't sleep much at all)! There are very few things that are similar to Hanoi so it's nice to have a change of scene, and be back in civilization.

I found a pretty decent cheap place to stay in the centre of the city then I headed off to get something to eat. I was anticipating food on the plane but this didn't happen so I was starving as well as exhausted by the time I got here this morning. Was briefly excited to discover that the international terminal at Hanoi airport has slightly more going for it than the domestic one. As well as the usual souvenir tat and Pho shops there was a chocolate shop that stocked Cadbury's and malteasers! The Cadbury's comes from Oz but the malteasers are the real British deal! I didn't feel much like eating chocolate this morning tho so I went off to find the Scandinavian bakery in Vientiane that my uncle mentioned to me. It's really close to my hotel which is good and sells decent baked stuff which helped brighten my mood. I then went for a walk around the city. Have checked out some of the Wats and just ambled along slowly taking the place in. It's a nice city to just wonder along in as it's actually pretty small and not too crowded. The buildings are all really pretty rather than ramshackle and falling down like a lot of the places in Hanoi, and the Wats here look different to the temples back in VN. Here they look more Thai whereas back across the border they have a more Chinese influence. The roads are calmer here too which makes the whole experience more pleasurable. People obey the rules of the road so I can cross a road on a green man safe in the knowledge that nothing is going to drive at me - in contrast a green man means nothing in Hanoi. There might be a bit less traffic but you're still unlikely to have a clear road the whole way across! There is also no beeping! This city is so quiet - it took me a while to get used to it. If someone pulls up to a set of traffic lights and there is a bike or car in front they just sit there patiently waiting for the traffic to get going again, rather than leaning on the horn and somehow expecting the person blocking the way to magically get out of the way even though there is nowhere for them to go other than through a red light!

There are a few similarities here however. There are Wats all over the place, much like the temples in Hanoi that seem to exist on every street. They also have very similar plinky plonky waily music here so not only was I treated to it on the way to the airport this morning I've also been able to hear snippets of it the whole day! It's also pretty hot and humid here too which is a killer when walking around all day. I did succumb to an afternoon nap when the heat was too much to bear, and once I was up and about again I spent the past few hours walking up tree lined boulevards to a monument very similar to the Arc De Triomph. It was a little bit like being in France! The view from the top was pretty cool at not very French though.

Gonna amble some more tomorrow and see some more of the sights, and probably shop a bit too, then the next day I'm getting the bus up to Luang Prabang. I was originally going to get the overnight bus up tomorrow night but that is just a regular bus whereas there is a VIP bus that heads up each morning which sounds far more comfortable and cots hardly anything more than the regular bus. There will be no chickens on the VIP bus either!

Am off to find some food now and enjoy being able to walk freely around a city without encountering motorbikes parked on or coming at me along the pavement/ plastic stools set up all over the place/ people pointing at me and shouting at all their friends to do the same/ animal carcasses being cut up on the pavement/ open sewers/ kids crapping in the street/ any number of other bizarre things that makes getting around Hanoi on foot such a trying experience.

I'm going to Laos tomorrow! Somewhat irresponsibly, I've just been to Derry's to meet Alison and Calder. I was just gonna pop up for a chat and maybe one drink but they'd been on the go since 2pm and were feeling flush after pay day so they coerced me into sampling some of the cocktails on offer. We had some funky drinks containing god only knows what but it was good fun. Unfortunately I have to get up in 5 hours to go wait at the end of my lane for a taxi that may or may not turn up to take me to the airport for my early flight :o/

Today I went to Jaspas with Alison and Calder for some Mexican food. It's in Hanoi Tower - a swanky building in Hanoi where the rich people live/stay and have office - and it was like leaving Vietnam when we went in. There was a plush lobby, a decent lift and a nice restaurant next to the poncy open air hotel. Mexican night involves an all you can eat buffet and free flow margaritas (it's classier than it sounds!) so we indulged. The food was good - burritos, nachos, chicken wings, Mexican rice and all sorts of goodies. It only cost 200,000 Dong - pricey for Hanoi but thats about £8 so it's not exactly expensive.

I've uploaded all the pics I took on my walk through the neighbourhood a couple of weeks ago - they're here if you fancy having a look: The Neighbourhood

This past week I've been riding my bike to and from work, and I also went up to Derrys last night on my bike. I can now drive the thing but its still quite terrifying to be in the midst of all the traffic, particularly on my afternoon ride to work as the traffic is starting to pick up when I'm on my way there. On the whole its not too bad I guess but I don't think its ever going to be a pleasurable experience to ride through Hanoi!

The food last night was so good and so cheap compared to what it would cost back home - anyone who comes out to visit is being taken there whether you like Japanese food or not! We ended up at Derry's again (of course) where a week on me and Calder can still mine some decent comedy out of the article below:

Push for aerospace research centre

(10-04-2009)

HA NOI — Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan wants a quick completion of the Hoa Lac space technology research centre.

The request was made on Wednesday during a meeting with leaders of the Viet Nam Academy of Science and Technology and the Space Technology Institute.

Space research was necessary, and the centre was an opportunity to develop the country’s science and technology sector, Nhan said.

The centre would have a key role in developing the space technology research industry and was a foundation for the co-operation with other countries in the sector.

Deputy director of the Space Technology Institute and the project’s managing director Pham Anh Tuan said he expected Viet Nam to have one of Southeast Asia’s leading space technology research and application centres when the construction was completed, Viet Nam would be able to design and produce small optical technology-using satellites to observe the Earth, he said. — VNS


We love the fact that Vietnam is hoping to have on of the regions leading space technology programs! Calder reckons it will be a honda motorbike with some jet packs strapped on the side - given they all drive like lunatics on their bikes the one that hits space will no doubt flying around crash inot anything else up there and knoking all the other satellites out of space!

I mixed with the lunatis on their bikes today. Alison came by and drove with me to some of the places I'd go to most frequently eg work, her house and we spent a good hour or so on the roads. I also learnt how to get petrol and put air in my tyres today. I'm feeling more confident on the bike now and we might go out again tomorrow. If we don't I'm still gonna try and drive to their place tomorrow night and provided that goes well I'm gonna risk drivin to work on Monday morning!

I did it! I finally got the bike onto the road! It was terrifying but I did it!

I tried on Monday lunchtime but I was too scared to get out onto the road once I got to the end of the lane so I just did some more driving up and down the lanes. My new plan was to go out at night when there are fewer people around but as I have been working split shifts with early starts and late finishes I had to wait til my 3 day working week was over. I planned to go for a ride on Wednesday evening but instead I ended up going to the usual haunt for a drink or two after work. It was the birthday of one of the owners of Derry's and they'd laid on a big spread of BBQ food so when Alison called me afer work and informed me of this I couldn;t resist going along for some BBQ grub. I got sucked into staying late as we met some cool people there so it seemed rude to bail early to go and drive my motorbike! There were some butch guys working for the American military, involved in the team that is over here searching for missing military men from the war, and also a couple of Malaysian/Indian guys (Prakesh 1 and 2!) who were interesting guys so I stayed at Derry's til late. I couldn't be bothered to take to the roads when I finally got home so I saved that treat for yesterday night. It wasn't too bad once I got going. I got a bit lost as I was so busy focusing on riding the bike and avoiding the retards on the road that I didn't pay much attention to where I was. I did manage to get some good driving time tho, and I was even going fast enough to overtake people at one stage! I'm not sure exactly HOW fast I was going as my spedometer doesn't work, but it was definitely faster than I've been riding in the lanes.

I went out again this lunch time when there were a lot more people on the roads and I survived it. Other people still scare me but now I feel more confident in my ability to control the bike its slightly less frightening. There will be more riding at the weekend then maybe on Monday morning I can ride to work - it all depends on how confident I am about tacking the horrific junction on the way to work.

I'm off out for some awesome Japanese food now and I briefly considered riding there but the traffic is horrible at this time of day - I got caught up in it yesterday on the back of a xe om. There are so many people all doing dumb stuff, plus my road becomes gridlocked in rush hour with all the retarded car and taxi drivers who park up at the side the road and make it even narrower than ususal. No one is willing to wait on their bike briefly and then pass the car in single file so it all becomes such a mess. I don't think I'm as skilled as my xe om driver yet so I'll give the bike a miss tonight!

There was little chance to ride the bike these past few days so as a result I'm still alive!

I've managed to get lots of other chores done though so this week wasn't completely useless. I got my visa sorted for my trip to Laos in a couple of weeks and I've finally managed to get all my documents together to apply for a work permit. I've managed to send some money to my British bank account which was a lot of effort - lots of forms and several different members of staff were involved at the bank yet despite all this it was easier than I had first been led to believe. I also got round to posting the stuff thats been sitting in a corner of my room for nearly a month now - I had enough time to go and fill in the hundreds of forms at the post office yesterday so the stuff is now finally on the way to the recipients. I even found time to get a hair cut this week! It helped that this week was exam week so I only had 2 evening classes to teach. The rest of the lessons I had were exams, marking and parties! Friday evening was also the night we had some ace Indian food from a place called Foodshop 45. It does really nice Indian food and its cheap! It's also next to a pub where we often end up (the same place that stocks raspberry vodka!) and Friday was no exception. We were there well past curfew, at the stage of the night when the police come looking for their bribes.

Today I planned to go and drive on the roads for an hour during nap time but sadly I was thwarted by Vietnamese people in their hundreds. There was some sort of festival going on nearby which meant that the roads were full of douchebaggery as people made their way there, plus mini buses were being abandoned all along the street as well as endless taxis pulling in all over the place. I couldn't even drive up and down the lanes as there was a funeral group getting ready to set off further down the lane. They were all standing around a coffin on a cart and had abandoned their motorbikes all along the lanes. In the end I went for a walk through the lane maze behind my house as it was a really nice sunny day.

Mad motorbike skills.


The start of the lane maze.


The B52 bomber that was shot down into a lake near my house.





Shopping in Vietnamese lanes.

I then headed back to my house and got caught up in the funeral procession making its way through the lanes. This caused issues for all the traffic wanting to come down the lanes so bikes got stuck behind or had to wait at the other end of the lane. Once the funeral had cleared out there was then a scrum as everyone tried to continue their journey yet were unable to use common sense and drive single file in either direction. Instead they tried to overtake and cut each other up and made the situation even worse!



Mayhem after the funeral procession.


This evening I went over to Alison and Calders place again for dinner, and we watched some more Summer Heights High, as we started last week but didn't get through it all. Last week we started out at the pub and had some drinks at theirs then sat watching DVDs until fairly late in the night as Monday was a public holiday. Sadly we couldn't do the same this evening as both Alison and I start teaching at 7.45 tomorrow morning. Aargh! Still, as I finish at 12 and don't have to teach again until 6 that gives me time to get the bike out onto the roads when hopefully the locals are all asleep. Wish me luck!

Me and the beast, and Calder looking cool

The plans for riding the bike of doom had to be postponed on Sunday as rain set in in the afternnon. There was a slight break so Alison left her house and headed over this way but it had started raining again once she got here so we gave up on the idea of riding on Sunday. Instead, I jumped on the back of her bike and headed off to the supermarket to buy supplies for dinner. I tested out my attractive plastic poncho thing and it does the jo of keeping the rain off! The raincoat I bought over with me is pretty useless in heavy rain so I have invested in a plastic poncho. Its possibly the most hideous thing I've ever owned but it will be useful once the rainy season really gets going.

Monday became the day for trying not to kill myself. I think expectations were a little high (we planned to go places and buy stuff) as I could barely get the thing going at first! I also had issues with getting it to stop - I'd break but still be cranking the accelerator which doesn't really achieve much! In the end we just drove up and down the lane so that I could practice stopping and dealing with gears. I think I'm getting the hang of it now but I'm still prone to accidentally accelerating when it's not necessary! I drove up and down the lane again today and managed not to cause any damage to either myself or others and I believe the plan at the weekend is to get me out into the traffic. Aargh!

Yesterday was pay day so I have been out spending! We went for dinner after work yesterday and we went to the Czech beer place near work where the sell the closest thing to decent sausages that you can buy in Vietnam. I sampled both the German and the Czech ones and whilst they were good in terms of what you can buy in this country, they weren't a patch on the ones you can buy back home!

Today I went into the Old Qarter and met up with Alison and Calder for a feast of eggs benedict then we set off to browse the DVD stores. Got myself a few more box sets, including the Blackadder one after talking about the show last night, and picked up a coupleof American trash mags at one of the DVD stores. I miss magazines! I also had to buy a new pair of hair straighteners as mine have finally died and I had to replace my hearphones after some lame Vietnamese person couldn't wait to let me our of the lift before getting in so instead chose to push past me. He caught my headphones on his bag and pulled them out of my mp3 player and trashed them in the process. Thanks!

The biggest expenditure of the day tho was hiring a motorbike. It has been delievered to me and is sitting outside my house looking menacing. Tomorrow Alison is gonna come and help me get to grips with it and then on Monday we might venture out of Hanoi to get me some biking experience. Aargh!

The sun has been out this weekend and Hanoi looks so much nicer in the sun! Sadly, earlier on in the week it was absolutely chucking it down and I got soaked. I've been told that it's only going to get worse - heavier and more frequent. Lovely! Can't wait til my lane floods and all the street become even more chaotic than usual.

As always, after work on Friday I headed off to meet Alison, Calder and Nat after work, and Lyle was there too. We went to an Irish pub next to an Indian restaurant and were able to get tasty Indian food delivered to us in the pub. This place stocked raspberry vodka and had staff who spoke enough English to understand what I was after so I finally managed to get a vodka with lemonade, rather than a slice of lemon or red bull (as has happened in the past when I've tried to order a vodka lemonade) and the food was great so it was a nice evening. At one point we agreed with Lyle that it would be a good idea to have shots, and we also got given some of the owners home made booze. It was good fun!

On Saturday I ventured out to a place called Big C. It's kinda like Walmart on steroids and was full of Vietnamese people paying no attention to where they were walking and crashing into me all the time. It stocked so much random stuff (this seems to be fairly common here - a random selection which changes every time you visit, from the tiny shops in peoples houses right up to the big supermarkets) but it was a good place to go to stock up on weapons for a war against mosquitoes. They keep biting me at night so I am on a crusade to kill them. One of the things I picked up was a tennis racket device that electrocutes bugs that fly into them. It works really well and is a good way to get revenge on the buggers.

On Saturday night I headed into the Old Quarter and met Alison and Calder at Bia Hoi corner. Beer only cost 3000 dong but it tastes pretty bad, plus the place is full of backpackers having an 'authentic travel experience' by drinking Bia Hoi with the 'locals'. The only problem with that is that the only locals at Bia Hoi corner are the ones trying to sell stuff. You have to head away from the tourist centre to drink with the locals but this doesn't stop them rambling on about how great it is. I hope I wasn't ever as obnoxious a backpacker as those guys!

We then went on to Little Hanoi for dinner but the place was full so we headed next door to a bar called Mao's place and ordered food from Little Hanoi to eat there. Once we were done we went to a place called Tet Bar to settle in somewhere for Earth Hour. There was a rumour that the government were gonna pull the plug for an enforced Earth Hour but that didn't appear to happen in the end. The bar we were at turned the lights off but thankfully left the fans going to keep us cool so we had a couple of drinks by candlelight. Later on Lyle joined us and we spend a nice night just drinking and chatting.

This evening I went to Alison and Calder's place for dinner. I went last week too and we had home made burgers then, and tonight we had chicken, potato and some Mexican fritter things. I hardly ever eat potatoes here so that was sadly quite exciting! I made dessert earlier so we rounded the meal off with some chocolate based dish. Had lots of food that I don't usually eat tonight and it was good! I'm now looking out for any recipes for desserts that I can make that don't require any cooking beyond a stove top, as I don't have an oven or a microwave, so that I can make more desserts in future. Alison and Calder cook dinner every Sunday for Lyle and I've kinda gatecrashed it now too!

Today I went to the silk village in the south of Hanoi with someone from work. I now have so many scarves!!

I got the bus down to Hanoi university, which is near where Minh lives. She then drove us the rest of the way out to the silk village. We browsed in heaps of shops, and saw some silkworms as well as the machines that make all the pretty silk designes. I found so many cool types of scarves that I've never seen before - ones with two different coloured thin pieces sewn together with butterflies sewn in between, really nice embroidered scarves with two different colous on each side, sparkly scarves, multi-coloured scarves with really strange textures just so many scarves! What's even better is that they're all so cheap! Yu=ou can buy some for under £2, and even the more intricate fancy scarves that would cost heaps back home are only a few pounds here. Primark prices for much more than Primark quality!

Halong Bay

Working every evening last week wasn't actually too bad in the end. I've got a couple of new classes this term as well as the evening class from last term. My afternoon class consists of 15 boys and only one girl but thankfully there are a few older guys in the class who keep the rest in line and they're not too boisterous for me.

I went out on Friday night after work again and yet again I succumbed to peer pressure and stayed out a lot later than I intended. This was a bad idea as I had to get up early yesterday morning to go to Halong Bay. It was quite a hideous journey out there on a cramped mini bus with an incredibly enthusiastic tour guide. We also had to stop at a random tourist rip off store on the way where they were charging ridiculous prices for things. I tried to sleep on the bus but it was uncomfortable, plus Vietnamese driving doesn't exactly ease you to sleep. I saw so much retarded driving yesterday, some of it courtesy of our driver. The stupidest thing of all is the way drivers overtake on a blind bend or when there is something coming the other way. They go at such speed that the only option is to pray that there is space for all 3 vehicles on the road otherwise someone is going off the road or crashing into someone else.

It was worth enduring the journey though as Halong Bay was really nice.



We headed out on the boat into the bay and stopped at one of the floating village places. People spend their whole lives living out on the water and never set foot on land. Weird. They are all set up with satellite dishes though!




We then got back on the boat and had lunch - lots of sea food, some rice and noodles and some chips (?)- and then had a choice between going in a boat around the village and caves with a guide or hiring a kayak and exploring by ourselves. We opted for the kayak and paddled though a cave into a lagoon place. It was good fun.



After that the boat sailed around for a bit more...




...then we visited a bizarre cave system. It looks man-made but is all down to nature. It has been fitted out with lots of coloured lights and looks pretty cool in a weird sort of way.



We walked through the cave system with a billion tour groups full of Asians who kept holding evyone up to get a photo. If you visit a popular tourist place back home you fully expect to have random people in your photos. Apprently that isn't acceptable to Asian tourists though so instead everyone else has to clear out of the way and wait for them to get their photo without any randoms in it. This gets annoying after a while!

The cave was the last stop of the day so we got back on the boat and sailed back to the mainland for another ling bus ride to get back to Hanoi. It's even more ridiculous at night. All the lorries and buses seem to have souped up their full beam headlights to even fuller beam lights and leave them on their brightest setting the entire time they are on the road, blinding everyone else. There were also a good few motorbikes going along with no lights whatsoever so you can't see then until you're practically driving into the back of them. They also drive the wrong way along the highway with no lights on and swerve out of the way at the last minute. This is just stupidly pointless - its not a one way street, theres no central reservation to get across, just one lane either way so why not drive on the correct side of the road?!? They also keep up their deadly overtaking craziness after dark. We did pass a pretty bad motorbike accident on the way. There were two incredibly mangled bikes in the middle of the road along with a big pool of blood and some police officers with tape measures recording distances between various parts of motorbike. I sincerely hope that any Vietnamese people who head to places like England aren't allowed to get behind the wheel of any vehicle at all as based on what I saw yesterday they would dramatically increase the accident rates. They just do so many ridiculous things that aren't necessary. I see it in Hanoi too - people will go through a red light and cut across the flow of the traffic just to save 30 seconds on their journey, and if they are approaching a set of lights just as they are about to turn green they won't sit patiently at the back of all the waiting traffic. Instead they cross the middle of the road and drive down to the lights on the wrong side of the road to be the first through when the lights change, even if this means driving into the path of an oncoming bus. Why would anyone think driving like this is a good idea?!?!?!?!?!?!?! Why risj your life to get to you destination a few minutes quicker? This stupid driving along with blaring horns and a bumpy ride meant that I didn't sleep on the way back to Hanoi either. After only 3 hours sleep the night before this wasn't good! And yet despite being exhausted I went along to a party down the road on a random person's roof terrace for a bit last night before finally giving in and going to bed. There were some cool people there but I just couldn't stay awake any longer.

I also had to get up at 6am this morning to escort Zoe to the bus stop so she could get out to the airport for her flight to Thailand. I would've had to get up anyway due to the fact we have several locks between us and the street and so there is no way to get out of the house and lock it up again without a set of keys. As Zoe was leaving Vietnam for good she couldn't exactly take a set of keys with her and so I had to get up to unlock everything anyway so decided to go to the bus with her. There was a market in full swing just down the road on the way and I got to see the wonderful sight of a chicken being killed and sliced up for a customer. What more could you hope to see at 6am?!

This afternoon Alison let me have a ride of her bike as I think I'm gonna try and get myself a motorbike soon. Once I'm sorted with a bike I'm going to be driving like a granny rather than a local and I'll use my Western driving skills such as stopping at red lights, looking both ways before pulling out across a road and using my mirrors to reduce my chance of having an accident. That still doesn't stop me being caught up in other peoples stupidity but I'm gonna be hyper aware of other people around me so that hopefully I'll avoid any dodgy situations. I only rode Alison's bike up and down an access road that was fairly empty but it was good to get a feel for how a bike works. I'm going to cycle around Hanoi a bit to try and get a bit More of an understanding of how the traffic works before doing much more with a motorbike as I don't even have to think about what I'm doing on a cycle so I can devote all my attention to working out what to do on the road. Then I'll rent a bike for a bit and see how that goes. Fingers crossed it doesn't kill me!

I spent the weekend in Hanoi this week rather than heading off to a random place in Vietnam. Friday was the last day of term for my full time class so I had a pretty easy day on Friday. On the last day we show a film at a cinema so beforehand I went for lunch at a nice Italian restaurant nearby. Bizzarely they were playing an obscure kiwi song whilst I was there. When I went back a couple of days later they were playing Crowded House - the place must be run by a kiwi!

After lunch on Friday I then had a (soft) drink with the fellow teachers outide the cinema then we watched Happy Feet with the students. I then got a lift back to work woth Alison where I had to give the students their certificates and have a little party with them before sending them off on their way. I had to teach my evening class but it was only for two hours. After work I went for dinner with Alison, Caroline, Air and Calder as we got paid on Friday. We went to a really nice Japanese restaurant and had some sushi and other random dishes, and then we went to the bar near me, Ete to have a cocktail or three. It was a nice night!

On Saturday I got up kinda late and then made my way into the Old Quarter to go to Le Pub for a nice Western breakfast. I then made my way down to the cinema for a bit of Western escapism. Before the film started there was a ad for road safety with a family of three on a motorbike, with the kid standing at the front without a helmet. They got to a red light and stopped at the white line then slowly edged forward into the intersection then a truck came out of nowhere and crashed into them killing the kid. The entire audience gasped in disbelief as if it had never occured to them that going through a red light and riding helmetless might not be a great idea. That is the thing that annoys me most about Vietnam - their complete inability to drive safely on the roads and consider the consequences of their retarded actions.

After the film I went back up to the Old Quarter and had a look at pretty scarves, then I went to a cafe for a drink. Whilst there I flicked through an English language newspaper and saw an ad for a day of music in Hanoi with a kiwi band Minuit. That excited me greatly as I miss live music! That might be the week Im going tp Laos but if I'm in Hanoi I think I'm going to go along as there are a few other bands and DJs. I then met some history people from Sussex, Nick and Katherine, and we went for dinner at a place called Bia Minh with beer for 40p a glass! Met some people I worked with there too and they went on to a place called Green Mango for an open mic night. We went along too but it looked a bit pricey for our liking so instead we went to Le Pub and had some cocktails. It was another fun night and again I got home after curfew and had to get down my lane in the pitch black. Bizzarely there were a bunch of construction workers dumping carts of sand and pebbles for their work but they were doing it in the pitch black. It's crazy!!

Yesterday when I got up I had to meet potential new housemates and we decided on the one we wanted then I had to head back into the Old Quarter to pick up some badges I'd ordered the other day. I got a badge from each country I've been to and I'm going to get some fabric to sew them onto. I didn't feel up to much more the rest of the day so I watched movies and spoe to people on Skype. Finally got to talk to Nina which was nice.

I have to work this evening and every evening this week which is why I didnt go anywhere this weekend. I might be going for a day trip to Halong Bay next weekend though with Zoe as she is leaving on Sunday to go to Thailand. I need to try and sort out my trip to Laos too this week. Yay travel!

Some pics from the weekend

I spent this weekend down south and it was ace! I flew to Danang but didn't spent any time there. I headed along the coast 20kms to a nice little beach place and spent some time on the beach as well as visiting Hoi An and a tiny Vietnamese version of Angkor Wat. I was far enough south to be in the tropical kinda zone so it was really hot and humid. Sadly this also meant the sun was more powerful and despite an excessive amount of suncream I still had a slightly red glow going on.

On Friday night I went for a drink after work with Alison and Caroline again (and partners, and Nat was there for a bit too) which was nice. I nearly didn't go as I finished work at 8 and had to pack and get sorted for Saturday and my horrible early start to get to the airport but in the end I decided to go and be sociable for a bit. I'm glad that I did as besides being good fun I also got a recommendation from Caroline of a place to stay (I had been meaning to book something in Danang during the week but I never actually got round to it. This turned out to be a good thing!) that was ace and helped make my trip so fun.

I wasn't so enthusiastic about the night before when I woke up at stupid o'clock on Saturday to head to the airport. I couldn't doze in the taxi as VN driving just isn't conduce to a nice restful nap. You spend the entire journey on the edge of your seat unable to believe the crazy things you are seeing on the roads. I planned to sleep on the plane but sadly all the vomiting Vietnamese around me stopped that happening. Every time is was drifting off I'd hear someone puke into a bag which jolted me back awake. Thankfully the flight was only an hour and then I could escape the vomity hell. I got a taxi from the airport to the place Caroline recommended - Hoa's Place. It is in a tiny hamlet between Danang and Hoi An and really just consists of a couple of tiny hotels, a few houses, a cafe or two and a police training place. It was right next to the beach (you could walk to the beach in less than a minute from Hoa's Place) and was really quiet and peaceful - hardly any motorbikes! The hotel itself was nothing special in terms of the rooms but Hoa and his wife were really nice people and had a good setup going on. His house was small and the front area had become a kinda dining room place that was open on two sides and was set up with a bunch of tables and a chiller full of drinks that you could help yourself to as and when you pleased. They cooked food in their kitchen and everything worked on an honours sort of system whereby you wrote down everything you had and paid up at the end. The accommodation was provided in the other hotels in the hamlet and Hoa pimps them out to the guests. I guess he acts as a go-between as there wasn't much English spoken by anyone other than him. The accommodation in my hotel was very basic - a small windowless room with a bed and an en suite but for $5 a night it's a pretty good bargain. I didn't spend much time in my room other than to shower and sleep so it wasn't really a problem. Maybe there are some nicer, more expensive rooms available but I didn't mind my tiny musty room too much. Plus the atmosphere at the place more than made up for it.

The first thing I did once I'd dumped my stuff was go to the beach. It was nice to be by the sea agian. It's a really quiet stretch of beach and its really pretty. White sand and blue sea is always a winner!



I didn't do much else on Saturday expect cross the highway to explore the marble mountain area. There is a small village where every other house doubles as a workshop for marble carvers and there are some hills with various assorted caves and temples going on. The biggest one has been made tourist friendly and so I walked up and had a look around. Stupidly I did this at the hottest time of the day and the humidity was a total killer. Everything was such hard work! It was nice and cool in the caves though, and there were some nice views from the top of the hill. Once again I was struck by how much effort you have to go to if you want to worship at one of the temples - they don't like to make it easy for you to pray here.


Once I was done with marble mountain I finally gave in to exhaustion and had a nap and then I went to the dining area for dinner. This is what made the weekend for me. Each night Hoa's family cook up a meal and its served at communal tables. Admittedly by the third night it was kinda boring having the same food again but it was good food, particularly the spring rolls. However, the atmosphere is what really stood out. You're forced to interact a bit more when sitting around a table to eat from a bunch of dishes in the middle of the table so it was a good chance to chat to other people. There were some really good people staying there whilst I was there which made the evenings so much fun. I guess if they had all been lame people it would have sucked and I would have resorted to spending time in my dingy room but everyone was interesting and it was good fun. I didn't last too long on the first night though before I had to give up and go to bed but I did have a good chat with a Japanese girl and a Finnish couple which was nice.

On Sunday I went down to Hoi An and ha a look around the place. It's an old place with narrow streets and really old buildings, plus a lot of temples and assorted otehr buildings. It's on the river and is a nice place to wander around for a bit. There are also a lot of tailors there and eventually I caved and got a dress and a skirt made. I really regret not bringing my dresses over with me but now I finally have another dress! I also did a bit of shopping as there were lots of pretty things available there. I got a scarf or two and some oil and watercolour paintings. It was a nice place to spend a day and a bit of money and it was really hot and sunny so provided me with an excuse to eat lots of ice cream.


I got back about 6 and was going to head into the village to see what sort of local food I could find but before I went I decided to go get a banana shake at Hoa's Place. I got chatting to people and then the food came out so I gave up on the idea of going to the village and instead ate at Hoa's again. After dinner I joined in a game of uno with some other Brits and two crazy Aussies. We combined two decks to get a monster uno game going on. It was good fun! Then at about 9.30 we headed to the beach and sat around a bonfire! I love beaches and I love bonfires so it was the perfect mix. The company was good too and the Aussies provided that sort of entertainment that only comes from drunken Australians. After about an hour it started to rain so we stole a couple of beach umbrellas and tried to set them up which didn't go so well so soon gave up and just resigned ourselves to getting wet instead. It's warm rain at this time of year down in that part of the country so its all good. It was a really nice night!


Monday was another early start which was hard work but I feasted on banana pancakes which helped get the morning going before heading back down to Hoi An to join a tour to My Son. The tyre on the motorbike had a puncture so we had to stop a couple to times to fix it, and the third time it happened just outside of Hoi An the driver flagged down a random passing motorbike and got the driver to take me to the bus! As soon as we left Hoi An it started to chuck it down and it was still raining when we arrived at My Son. This wasn't promising but thankfully by the time we'd got our tickets and made our way up to the first set of ruins the rain had stopped and the sun came out for the rest of the day. We spent a couple of hours exploring the ruins and learning a bit about the Champa belief system before getting the bus back to Hoi An. I then got a lift back to the beach and spent the rest of the day sitting either on the beach or at Hoa's Place with my book. The beach was really quiet as there's not much around that area- there are resorts some way away on either side but the beach by the village is not at all developed and is really quiet. There were some fishermen pulling in nets and there were a few people at the small cafe next to the beach but that was it. It was so nice and peaceful, and clean! Sadly that might not last for much longer. The area is being developed for tourism and a lot of the land along the sea front is all walled off and earmarked for development. That might soon mean the end of Hoa's Place as the developments are quite fancy - the one up the beach cost $200+ a night - and so the hamlet might not survive. That would be a shame as Hoa's Place is awesome!


I stayed around for dinner again last night and then kept a couple of English guys company whilst they waited for their plane. They were supposed to fly out at 14.30 but their flight had been delayed until 1.30 so they were killing time til they could go back to the airport. Another British couple joined us and we spent about 2 hours playing cards and chatting. As we were all British this was the first conversation I've had in a while where I've not had to explain random British phrases or deal with accent issues and it was nice to chat about British things with British people!

I'm definitely going back there when I need to escape the noise and mania of Hanoi and just want to chill on a beach. I'll also probably go to Hoi An and get some more clothes made - they can make anything you want so I can pull some designs off the net and get them custom made to fit. Sadly next term I am working 5 days a week (admittedly only 2 hours on Mon and Tues) but this means my random travels will have to be put on hold for a term. Maybe the following term I'll get a chance to go away to more places, and back to the beach and Hoi An.

As I've been writing this I've been listening to a link my mum sent me a while back - http://www.radionz.co.nz/popular/music/live?473894_result_page=F - and the Neil Finn and friends one starts with a Split Enz song. Now I regret not bringing my DVD with me as I'm really in the mood to watch it now! Maybe I'll go check out some of the DVD stores in Hanoi and see if I can find a bootleg copy. It seems unlikely it will be available here but you never know! I walked into my class one day to hear Crowded House playing on the radio which was certainly very unexpected!

For non-Facebookers, here are some photos from Ninh Binh:

Ninh Binh photos

My internet is back!! Time to bore you all with a long post about what I've been up to recently.

Last weekend I joined my housemate Zoe to go on a walk in a random bit of Vietnamese countryside with the Hash House Harriers. A long rickety bus ride out to the middle of nowhere and a walk through the countryside. There was another group that ran the course but I wasn't up for that. The walk itself was fine but afterwards there was all this lame standing round in a circle ritual crap. That dragged and was rather tedious. Then it was another bumby bus ride back into the city.

On Sunday I up with Lou's friend Rachel and her friend John in the old quarter. We went to my favourite Pho place for dinner and then went for a drink at Le Pub. We wandered around the Old Quarter and then went for some ice cream as well as picking up soe tickets for the water puppets thing the next day.

On the Monday I had to go to a meeting at work all about the fun and games that is the Vietnamese tax system and then I went to meet Rachel and John at the Temple of Literature. We went to KOTO for some lunch and then went to the temple. We then walked into the Old Quarter and went to a second hand book store. I couldn't resist and picked up a couple of books! Then we sat by the lake for a bit before going to the water puppets show. It's a very strange thing - a group of musicians and singers sit to the side and sing a story whilst some puppets are manipulated on the water. It was good to finally get round to seeing the show after being in Hanoi for so long.

On Friday after work I went for a drink or two with some people from work, Caroline and Allison, and their partners. We started at a Czech beer hall near the language school then we went to a couple of other bars. It was good fun, and Caroline offered to teach me to ride a motorbike - I'm going to see if she's still up for this when she's sober!

On Saturday I got the train down to Ninh Binh. I travelled hard class and got to sit on a wooden seat for 2 1/2 hours. Good Fun! Once I'd checked into the hotel I went for a walk around Ninh Binh to see what I could find - not a lot! Plus there was this horrible drizzly rain going on that was very off putting. In the end I went for some food then went back to the hotel and watched a bit of TV and made good progress with my monster 1000 page book.

On Sunday morning the rain had stopped but it was still a bit overcast. Despite this I had a good day sightseeing. The hotel arranged a motorbike and a driver for 2 days for me and he took me off to all the places around Ninh Binh. We went down the back roads and through villages rather than along the highway which was cool as I got to see a bit ore of the country. The first stop on the day was a place called Mua Caves. I had to climb up 500-odd steps cut out of the hillside to a small shrine at the top. The view wasn't clear as it was misty and rainy but it was still pretty cool. All the rock formations looked pretty atmospheric, shrouded in mist and clouds.



Next up was Tam Coc. It's the biggest tourist thing in the region and you get rowed along a river through more of the crazy rocks and some tunnels. The place was full of tourists and it was pretty busy and although the scenery was cool the amount of other tourists kinda spoiled it a bit. Once the boat ride was over I got some really lunch in a restaurant recommended by my driver.
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After lunch we went to Hoa Lu - an ancient citadel that is apparently very important judging by the number of Vietnamese visiting it. It seemed to consist of two temples where everyone was making offerings. There was also another set of steps carved into a hill and at the top there was another shrine - they seem to believe in making you go to a lot of effort to worship a at a shrine! There was also a group of schoolkids clambering all over the rocks who kept calling out hello to me as I passed.



The next day the first place we went was called Van Long. It was a similar idea to Tam Coc but the boat was a rickety woven thing, the scenery was even more impressive and there were only a handful of other tourists. It was so peaceful - just the sound of oars cutting through water, birds chirping and locals who work on the river shouting out to each other every so often. It was much better than Tam Coc. The cloudy weather added atmosphere to the area.




After lunch I then went on another boat trip - this time a big engine powered boat with a couple of Aussies. We sailed along a river to a palce called Kenh Ga. It was originally a floating village thing but now most people live on the land. The river is still an important part of their life though. We sailed on down the river to a random shrine in the moddle of the river in the middle of nowhere - again its an awful lot of effort to get there!



The last place we went to was a massive pagoda complex in the middle of nowhere. The main pagoda was at the top of a monster hill. The devoted were walking up through all the smaller temples to get to the top however we whizzed up the hill on the bike. Inside the top pagoda there were three massive gold Buddha statues as well as statues of the heron things and turtles that can be found at a lot of temples and pagodas. The place appeared to be under construction - whether they were just improving the existing layout or building it from scratch wasn't clear and the driver didn't speak much English so couldn't understand what I was asking. Either way it was a monster complez and again seemed to be very popular with Vietnamese visitors.


In the evening I got the train back to Hanoi. Again I went for the cheapest ticket but this time it cost more as the train was more modern. Even though I was in the cheapest class again this time the seats were upholstered and reclining, and there were Tv screens showing lame Vietnamese TV shows. This ticket cost closer to £2 rather than the £1 I paid for the journey down which is still dirt cheap compared to trains back home. In future I'll be trying to catch the more modern ones as it was much more comfortable coming home than heading down!

It was nice to get out of Hanoi for a bit, and to be able to walk on the pavements. Unlike in Hanoi, the pavements in Ninh Binh aren't crammed with crap so I didn't have to walk in the gutter over the weekend! IT was also a lot quieter there. It was nice. Next weekend I am escaping again, this time to Danang. I'm looking forward to it!

On Saturday my friend Chi took me to a festival outside of Hanoi. It took over an hour to get there on the back of a motorbike through deadly traffic. People would apparently rather risk their lives driving madly through the traffic then wait for a minute or two for the danger to pass.

The festival itself was very strange. There were a bunch of stalls selling a random selection of things and then were was a parade of sorts through a field. The temple was very popular and there was a sea of people trying to get there throughout the day. There was also a selection of strange entertainment. One game involved being blindfolded in a pen with a goat and having to walk around trying to find the goat. Another involved being blindfolded and walking in a straight line towards a piece of pottery suspended from a post that you had to hit with a stick. There was also an incredibly dangerous looking swing thing. It was made out of wood and the aim of it was that two people stood on the bar at the bottom and used their weight to get the swing moving. As far as I could understand the aim seemed to be to get the swing as high as possible. It looked incredibly dangerous! The whole structure creaked and wobbled and on a couple of occasions the bar was hammered back into place at the bottom but that didn't seem to stop people from swarming around trying to get a go at killing themselves!


A lot of Chi's friends from uni were there so I was a source of fascination. They all wanted to talk to me and have their photo taken with me! They were all lovely people though so it was cool. We ate some random snacks (everything seemed to be made from rice!) drank beer and then went for some pho. I'm still not great with chopsticks so everyone was hugely entertained by my efforts to eat my lunch! As weird as the festival was it was good fun in a strange stepping back to the past kinda way.


Getting out of the festival was another adventure. We had to walk along the main road to get to Chi's bike but this was made pretty much impossible by the number of people jamming up the road. Unlike back home where people will sit in a relatively orderly fashion here everyone tries to push their way forward. It's evident in the country as a whole - for example getting on a bus is a scramble with people pushing and shoving their way on - but was even more extreme at this festival than usual. The road was surrounded by flooded fields and so there was nowhere to go except along the road. People were pushing through the crowds on their bikes and trying to get ahead of everyone else even though there wasn't really anywhere to go. Pedestrians were relegated to the very edges of the road and sometimes we had to walk right on the edge in the slimy mud.


Once back at the bike we had to drive along dusty mud paths between the fields to get back to the main road. It was insane!


Never again will I complain about getting out of festivals back home. At least there is some semblance of order there!

For people who don't use facebook I've put my pics up here - http://picasaweb.google.com/Nukulah

There are 3 files, one for KL, one for Brunei and one for Borneo. Enjoy!

I keep finding other things to do than sort through my photos! I'm going to try and get some up online tomorrow to stop people pestering me but for now here is a photo from each day of my trip:

All the first day consisted of was travel, and once I arrived I had a strange Malaysian dish for dinner. Nasi Lemak consists of rice (good), chicken and potato curry (good), cold anchovie stuff (hmm), half a boiled egg (ok.....) and some peanuts (wait, what?)


The next day I spent in KK, investigating options for trips to the mountains and shopping at the markets. In the evening I went to watch the sunset at a viewpoint up in the hills behind KK.


This day I spent in the mountain national park. It was kinda wet and coudy, but here is a pic of me at the start of the path to hike to the top of the mountain.


This was the day of my trip to an island just off the coast of KK. I spent a big chunk of the day lying on the beach!


On my last day in KK I went to the bird sanctuary and then the museum complex before watching the sunset and checking out the fruit and veg night market. These kids escorted me to the bird sancturay!


My next stop on the trip was Brunei. On the boat I met two Canadians and a German so we stuck together for our time in Brunei. In the evening of the day we arrived we went to the mosque as the sun was setting. It's a pretty impressive building at the best of times but that evening it looked even more spectacular.


We had a day visiting the tourist sights the next day - we went to a local waterfall, got a view of BSB from the top of one of the tallest buildings in the city and then went on a boat cruise to see the water villages, mosques, palaces and monkeys. Heaps of kids in the water village waved at us and called out hello.



We had a quieter day the next day and went to the mosque to have a look inside.


The others left early the next morning and I jumped on a speedboat to a place called Bangar to go for a hike up to a viewpoint in the middle of the jungle. It was hard work but totally worth it!


My last day in Brunei was quite slow. The weather wasn't too good and Chinese New Year was in full swing so I checked out some of the shopping centres and wandered the city aimlessly. I also went for one last roti and blueberry juice before flying to KL.


Had an early start to my first day in KL and went to the Petronas towers. I also saw a lion dance to celebrate Chinese New Years and in the evening I went to the KL tower.


My last full day in KL was alternated with shopping a tourist sights. I got a bus out to a cave system and climbed to the top to see some Hindu temples and crazy monkeys, and I also had a look around Chinatown until the rains started.


I had an afternoon flight back to Hanoi and spent the morning trying to cram all my stuff into my bags. I have make many shopping! Notice the jar of marmite - possibly the most exciting thing I bought!


The day after I arrived back I discovered that I had provided a feast for some bed bugs in KL. Both legs and arms are covered in these minging red bites:

Today I had a fun experience in a pharmacy trying to get some sort of treatment for the bites. The local pharmacy staff don't speak English and my phrasebook didn't tell me the translation for bed bugs so I had problems getting them to understand what was the cause of my bites. In the end I gave up and headed to a pharmacy in the Old Quarter where they spoke a bit of English and knew what bed bugs were so now I am stocked up with creams and tablets. Fingers crossed the bites go soon as I don't want to scare my students!

Also: This made me laugh hysterically:- http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blog/editors_corner/article/11975/