Hanoi (14th -17th Sept)
The rest of the journey was as good as it could be after having spent so long on the bus. We arrived in Hanoi a couple of hours late and it was dark by then too. The fun and games started with the taxi drivers as soon as we stepped off the bus. Reading up before we knew we shouldn't be paying more than $5 for a taxi to our hotel and the prices being quoted from the crew waiting was in the region of $30-40. We walked further down the road and out of the station where and got into one for the right price and headed into the centre to find out hotel.
We had booked our hotel in Hanoi before arriving and had managed to get a good deal on a nice room so we were glad when we finally got there and could freshen up and relax in a nice big room with a balcony over looking the Old Quarter of the city. This was by far the best room we'd had so far and being a 3 star hotel with buffet breakfast, we were pretty pleased with the offer found on Booking.com through the new 'Genius' status we've aquired through making some many booking so far.
We headed out for some food and sampled the Vietnamese street food - chicken noodle soup. It didn't taste too bad, although the lady chopping chicken heads off near Cherie put her off the meal...bonus for me as I was stuffed afterwards. After dinner we walked around the city some more finding a little street bar with a keg of local beers - Bia Hoi, which is made from rice and served straight from the keg and at 15 pence a glass it was pretty good too!! We sat on little stools on the street and enjoyed watching the motorbikes and pedestrians on the roads in front of us - despite lanes and traffic lights it's actually a free for all, where bikes are beeping and driving everywhere and the people just walk straight ahead to cross the road with traffic moving around them. We'd soon learn the art of crossing these busy roads - putting your head down and walking straight without stopping.
Chicken noodle soup in Hanoi
The next morning we enjoyed our buffet breakfast, I enjoyed it a bit too much and felt slightly ill after eating so much. We went and explored Hanoi for the rest of the day, walking around the lake in the middle of the city, visiting a few museums and an old prison. Feeling like we knew a bit more about Vietnam and it's history, we decided to try another local dish, Bun Cha - a mixture of BBQ pork patties, noodles and veg which you mix in a bowl with more herbs and spices. It tasted pretty good but we made a rookie mistake by not asking the price first as when we came to pay the lady charged us about 3 times the normal price and would not show us a menu to prove it was more than we were expecting.
Cherie tucking into some Bun Cha
We then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to sort out a trip to Halong Bay. There are many different boats and pricing options from budget to luxury and from 1 day to 3 days. We had decided to go for a midrange boat for 2nights but with trips already been cancelled over the last few days due to a typhoon, we weren't able to book on the day we wanted. We decided to spend another day in Hanoi and see if the weather would improve so that we could book. We had a nice kebab for dinner from a street stall and sat on our balcony with a few beers watching the chaos below us.
As we now wanted to spend another night in Hanoi to wait for the typhoon to pass we had to book into another hotel, unfortunately the normal rate was way too high for our budget and we checked into a cheaper place down the road - I was already missing the Oreo's and other snacks from our mini bar and especially when we checked into our new Hotel room. We were given a room on the 5th floor, right at the top of the building with only steep stairs to climb. I think there maintainance of the rooms was in progess from the ground up and they were nowhere near the top judging by the condition of our room. When the wind blew, the window shook sounding like someone was about to break in, the paint was peeling and we had an old tv and fridge in the corner that didn't work. Ah well, for 1 night we weren't going to kick up a fuss and dropped our bags and headed out into the city for the day. We found out that the Halong Bay trips had been pushed back again as there was another typhoon expected in the next day or two, so sadly we decided to give Halong Bay a miss this time and to carry on heading down the south of Vietnam so booked our bus for the next day - woop, another 16 hour journey to look forward to! We bought an open bus ticket which allows us to break up the journey from the north to the south, stopping at 7 main town and cities along the way and we can spend as long / as little time in each place as we like, which should work out nicely.
We went to experience the ancient art of water puppetry in small theatre near our hotel. Although we couldn't really understand what the characters were staying, the information sheet helped. It was mainly live music from a band and the puppets dancing in the water anyway, which turned out to be better than I was expecting although still a bit strange!
In the evening it started to pour with rain so Cherie and I went for dinner in a nearby restaurant and had another noodle soup. Next door to the restaurant was a small place selling our new favourite Bia Hoi and we got chatting to the friendly staff and by the end I was pouring my own beer from the keg. A combination of nice cheap beer and not wanting to go back to our hotel in the rain meant we ended up feeling a little worse for wear the next morning, although I still think it might have been from the food!
Not a bad attempt!
We had to check out of the hotel at 12pm but the bus to Hue that evening was only at 6pm so we left our bags with the travel agent and walked around the city again. Still not feeling 100% we tried the Asia fast food equivalent of McDonalds which wasn't too bad they had a happy hour on with ice cream at 10p so we tried that too. We then went and visited the War Museum with a lot of trophy American planes that had been shot down in the war on show. We stocked up on a few essentials for the bus - water, Pringles and biscuits! As usual the bus was late and after waiting at one bus station and some confusion from the staff about which bus we should be getting on they sent us on a smaller bus down the road to catch another overnight bus! We eventually got on the right bus heading to Hue and made another half dozen or so stops to pick up more passengers. After an hour down and 15 more to go, the driver decided to stop for about 45 mins at a roadside cafe and have some food whilst the rest of us waited.
Cherie had also now joined me in feeling a bit dodgy and the blocked toilet smell wasn't helping the situation much. Sitting at the back of the bus again and the road seeming much more bumpy than the trip a few days before everyone was getting bashed around the bus. I managed to get some sleep and woke up as the sun was rising. It looked pretty cool, although after being bashed around for so long I couldn't fully appreciate it and tried to get comfortable again whilst being launched towards the roof.
Hue (18th - 20th Sept)
When we eventually arrived in Hue, we were both feeling pretty ill and headed straight for our guesthouse. Reading the reviews before we booked it sounded almost too good to be true - a rating of 9+ out of 10 for a budget hotel! But gladly we realised as soon as we got there the reviews were genuine, we were given cold face towels too cool us down, some fresh lemon juice and offered some lunch. I knew I still wasn't feeling good when I turned down a free meal after not eating properly for 16 hours. We then checked in and were shown to our room and pretty much slept for the rest of the day. That evening we'd both turned a corner and starting to feel a bit better but in need of some western food. We met up with Ayalon, an Israeli guy who we'd met on our bus earlier and went out for a pizza. The pizza went down well and we sat and chatted in a little cafe whilst drinking milkshakes before heading back to the hotel. P
The weather was good the next morning and we were both feeling a lot better so headed out to explore the small city of Hue with an old forbidden city in the middle of it, which used to house the emperors palace and other important government buildings before the majority of them were destroyed by various natural disasters and wars along the way. The forbidden city sits behind 2 meter thick walls and there was restoration work going on to rebuild some of it. It was interesting to see the 3D models of how it used to look and the little bits of ruin that stil remain are impressive too.
Hue is much quieter than Hanoi, there is still a lot of motorbikes going in all directions but it's seems less hectic and for us it was a welcome relief as it seemed no escape in Hanoi from the constant beeping and nearly being run over by bikes. There is also a river called the Perfume River, here that divides the town and makes the whole place look really nice and added to the chilled out feel, we ended up staying in Hue for 2 days and had our clothes washing done again before heading further south on the bus.
Our next destination was a costal city called Hoi An and we had a nice early start with an 8am bus journey to take us to there. Fortunately, this was a 6 hour trip so we would make it there the same day. The bus was surprisingly running on time when it picked us up, however 2 hours in and the bus pulled over at a garage. The driver and crew got off and started checking around the wheels. Next thing they are jacking the bus up and taking off both front tyres and replacing them. Not quite F1 standard but also not too much of a delay and 30 mins later we were back on the road. I'm still not sure if we hit something or if it was a planned stop to change the tyres but it was good to stretch our legs anyway.
Hoi An (20th - 23rd Sept)
We pulled into Hoi An without any other dramas along the way. There was the standard procession of taxi drivers waiting for us as soon as the bus arrived but we thought we'd walk to our guesthouse as it was a nice sunny day and not too far. We'd booked a few nights at a homestay, for some reason or another it seems all the guesthouses call themselves homestays in Hoi An... our one had some great reviews online so we were looking forward to staying there.
'My House Homestay' is a nice family run guesthouse near the river front. The young son who seems to do most of the leg work was very helpful and you can tell is trying hard to improve his English. After checking in and dropping our backpacks we took a couple bikes out and went for a ride to the beach which is about 4km from the guesthouse. It was so good to see the beach again as it feels like we have been getting on and off buses every other day for a while now so we were looking forward to chilling on the beach again for a while. That evening we met up with Ayalon who had travelled down the day before us. We went for a nice Indian with some of the biggest nan breads I've ever seen. We later found a nice cafe on the way home and stopped for a smoothie before retiring for the night.
The next day was Sunday...although everywhere here is open 7 days a week and there is no real difference in the days so we've lost track by now too - anyway, Sunday being the day of rest was good excuse for us to go and spend the whole day relaxing at the beach and a welcome break from the busy streets of Hanoi and Hue. We left our sun beds a couple of times too cool off in the sea and to have a nice lunch at a beach cafe before heading home later in the afternoon. We arranged to meet up with Ayalon and another 2 guys from his hostel for dinner and found a nice local restaurant and a walk around the old town. Hoi An is pretty beautiful at nights with lots of coloured lights and lit up bridges across the river in the old part of town. After dinner we all headed to a couple of bars and sampled a few more Vietnamese beers and made a plan to hire motorbikes the following day and drive to the bigger coastal city 40km north called Danang.
Hoi An old town across the river at night
We set off earlish the next morning after breakfast for Danang, taking the road running along the beach which was cool to drive down and stopped for a few beachside photos along the way. I'd read of a place called Monkey Mountain that supposedly had some awesome roads and views from the top of the city below - both the roads and the view lived up to expectation and more - from the top you could see for miles and we got a sense of how big the city actually was. The roads leading up to the viewing area were pretty spectacular too as they twisted and turned round the mountain with the sea right next to us.
Not quite the Top Gear - Vietnam Special but we had a great day riding around on the bikes and despite Cherie and I having a pretty weak and inefficient bike that almost ran out of fuel, we made it round in one piece. Cherie was also getting the hang of the bike too and drove us around for part of the day. We got caught in the rain on the way back but luckily were down the mountain by then. We had a late lunch when we arrived back in Hoi An and said goodbyes to Ayalon who was heading south to Nha Trang where we will also be heading a day later.
Me and Ayalon ready to set off
View from the top
With us planning on leaving Hoi An the next day, Cherie and I decided to go to a nice restaurant nearby for dinner that evening. Both of us in the mood for some western food ordered a pizza and some pasta. The meal tasted so good and even a rat running through the middle of the restaurant didn't spoil the nice meal.
We had booked our overnight bus to leave for Nha Trang at 6pm so we had time to do some shopping and fit in a hair cut after checking out of the guesthouse. There was a lot of choice for haircuts in Hoi An and one of the recommended things to do in our Lonely Planet was to get a hair cut, so I thought why not. I had asked for my hair to be shaved off but I think the message got lost in translation and the hairdresser pretty much did what she wanted! It didn't look too terrible in the end so I was happy.
Hair cut in action!
We went to the beach for the rest of the afternoon and headed back an hour before the bus to have some food and shower before the next 12hours sat in the seat on the bus to Nha Trang. Fortunately this time we had a bit more of a modern bus that was a lot more comfortable. This bus even had wifi on it to waste the rest of my iPhone battery and pass some time. There was no toilet on this bus though so it did have it's pros and cons I guess...for starters it didn't smell! Pulling over on the side of the road wasn't too bad for me either. The 12 hour bus journey was actually pretty good as far as our journeys so far had been. We arrived in Nha Trang at 6am on the dot and exactly on time - the icing on the cake in terms of the journey!
Halfway to Nha Trang and time for a stop at 1am!
Beds for the night on the bus
No comments:
Post a Comment