Another day on the road

Today we have a morning of leisure, ha, ha, in Dalat until our transfer to the airport at 1.30pm. Our flight will take us to Siem Reap via Saigon, so we will be having a late night.
The princesses decide on a cable car ride so head off in a taxi for a 10 minute ride to the base station. From there it is a short ride to the other end over pretty patchwork farmland to a lake at the end. Trevor and I wander around town and have a coffee in a cafe on the far side of the lake in town because we really need to use a clean loo!

view of the lake from the cafe

We chat with the waiter about his English skills which are quite good and he disappears and literally skips back with the book he is teaching himself from. Anke and Bob also go for a wander and are the first ones back to Dreams. Uneventful transfer, check-in, flight and transit in Saigon, except for Trevor being caught out in the ladies loo at Dalat airport. Luckily it's Carolyn and Anke who alert him to the fact he's in the wrong place! 'Smooth as silk' Brenda is heard to say. Now, who has packed their Cambodian visa in their suitcase??? I wonder.........

And where is our f**king transfer from Siem Reap airport to our hotel??? Sorry about the language, but I'm tired..... Someone spoke faaarrr to soon. Siem Reap is a little underwater, the road between the Steung Hotel's 2 buildings is under, but luckily we are in the reception building so don't have to get our feet wet tonight getting to the other side. Breakfast is served here too. I want to go to bed - it's late and I've had many annoying little things going on, so I'm over it. But I'm waiting up to see if Janny, our guide for tomorrow is going to contact me. We've had some problems and Facebook is all we have at the moment. All we can do is be ready in the morning and see what happens. I'm sure if Janny has a problem getting here, he will send someone to cover for him.

Da Lat countryside tour

The showers in Dreams Hotel have many heads which spray you from all angles, very different to what we are used to, just in case anyone was wondering.
Breakfast is served in the basement kitchen, around one big communal table. Very good way to chat with your fellow travellers, but this morning there was only one, a young woman from Scotland who is here on a break between doing volunteer work in Saigon and Hanoi.
Hieb is our guide today, a 25 year old fellow, married with a 6 week old baby, so he is not interested in any of our breasts. We have a great day, visiting a flower farm, local village where women rule, coffee plantations, a rice whiskey still/coffee processor who process weasel coffee, you've heard of it I'm sure..... the weasel eats the coffee 'fruit' poops out the coffee beans and someone goes through the poop and collects the beans which are cleaned and made into coffee. $100USD per kg. Their rice whiskey comes in 3 strengths - 65%, 35% and 15%. What they sell to the tourists is a blend of all 3. If only there was some green mango slices to go with it! A cute little boy wearing his father's big shoes 'shoots' Trevor with a pop rivet gun, It's a great game!

'weasel coffee'

We enjoy a break with a cup of Vietnamese coffee, just the standard issue, not the weasel.
The Elephant Falls are our next stop. A very substantial waterfall but we only walk down a little way because Hieb tells us he doesn't think it is safe for us to go to the bottom. It is slippery. We think he doesn't want to have to carry any of us back up! There are fabric weavers on-site. How convenient! She's a sweet lady and of course we fall for her and buy stuff. I get a scarf which she has draped over me when I walk in, Brenda buys the most amazing wall hanging, all hand made by the woman's aunt with embroidery and applique. I think the others buy something too.

her family will eat for a month!

A very happy weaver, with Brenda's wall hanging. After we are parted with our money, we visit a pagoda, that has lovely gardens, and a very big happy Buddha. This is Bob's favourite thing. 

Hieb asks us if we are hungry and if we'd prefer to have an 'authentic' lunch experience or go back to town. We opt for the 'authentic' experience, after all, that's what we're here for. We walk a short distance to a little place that overlooks a big fishpond (small lake) and sit down. In a repeat performance of last night's dinner, the plates of food just keep coming!! How can we eat all this?? We ask Hieb if he will help us eat it all and he says he is sitting out the front with the driver. 10 courses with rice we count and there is no way we can finish it, but we give it our best shot. With beer or a soft drink, it costs us 70 000VND each - not even $4.00!
Barely able to move we lumber back to the van and climb aboard. The cricket farm was to be our next stop, but they were closed for some reason. And yes,  it's a cricket farm in the same way we have pig farms or cattle or sheep! They maybe don't need as much room though.........
On our way back to town we stop in at a mechanical silk weaving factory where the girls earn $100 per month with no days off unless they work a bit harder to accumulate some extra cash and can afford to take a day off. Man, we have a good life! Another buying opportunity.......yawn...........

Hang Nga Crazy House back in town is our 2nd last stop and it's as crazy as I'd hoped it would be. You can also stay here overnight if you want. We all agree, the creator of this vision must have had access to some pretty good drugs!! You have to Google this place or better still come and see it to appreciate it.

Hang Nga Crazy House

more crazy

and more........

Last stop was the XQ silk hand embroidery 'shop' and while the weavings they make and all the other items on display were simply stunning, we were all a bit over by now and wanted to call it a day. Hieb kept leading us around, and finally out the door to the outside world. Hooray!! Home time! We had a really good day and saw so much. We ate alone at the Peace Cafe and had another top meal for very little dong. The others went to the Sunflower Cafe just up the road.
It's been drizzly rain and much cooler here which has been really nice. The sellers aren't pushy either, but that could just be the rain too.

I spoke to Janny, our guide for the temples in Siem Reap. He tells me that our hotel still 'has flood', so that's going to make an interesting angle for SR.

Head for the hills!!

Monday.
Today we leave Saigon for Dalat, or Da Lat as the locals say, Central Highlands, Vietnam. I've heard it referred to as "Dull-at" which is very unkind and totally untrue. Morning at leisure after packing and checking out, leaving our bags with the hotel. We all go our separate ways and meet back at 2.30pm to catch a cab to the airport. 115 000VND each taxi and they had a station wagon kind which took 3 of us and our luggage, so we only needed 2 taxis.
Recounting our morning stories, the princesses won with their story of paying a man one dollar to help them cross the street, only to walk further down the road and realising they had to cross back! L'il old lady to the rescue and another dollar later, they're where they wanted to be. L'il old lady walked ahead of them, holding her hand up stopping the traffic for their safe passage.
Smooth check-in and time to sit and relax, before our boarding call to walk down to the tarmac and board the bus to be driven to the outer reaches of the airport where our turbo-prop plane is waiting. The look on the face of one of the passengers (not us) was priceless - her chin hit the floor and her eyes bugged out on stalks............. 'that's our plane????!!!!!!" I remember feeling the same way when I saw our first one of those planes!

Great views of Saigon after take off, we must have gone nearly 360 degrees. The clouds looked beautiful and we experienced a little turbulence, but no worries. Dalat Airport was a surprise, so big and new. They are certainly preparing for the future. Maybe a bid for the 2032 Olympics?? Always nice to see someone waiting for you at the airport. We had arranged for our hotel to collect us and at first we thought $30 USD was a bit steep, but it was easily a 30 minute run, so in the end, we reckon good value and have booked for the return trip.
We are staying at Dreams Hotel, which is where I would have stayed if we were travelling  with just the 2 of us, not knowing how the others would cope with it. It's a basic hotel, what do you want for $25USD per room, per night?? It's clean, warm, and the included breakfast is terrific. Bob and Anke have the 'Presidential Suite' and the princesses, of course have the Princess Room. Only problem is, there is no lift and we are 3 floors up , B & A only 2. They could have had a room on the first floor, but the window wasn't big enough. They ended up in a front facing room, which looked very nice. It's late by the time we get here, just time to arrange our tour for tomorrow, give Mrs Dung (pronounced Zuung) our laundry, $1USD per kg and find some dinner.

Our room at Dreams hotel

We found the 'Art Cafe' just up the road and order several dishes to share. We want some fried spring rolls, so jumping right in, Brenda orders 6 spring rolls, thinking one each. We are taken aback when 6 serves arrive, each holding 8 small spring rolls. We burst into laughter as the plates keep coming, and the staff can barely contain themselves when they realise our mistake too. It was like something out of the 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'.  I think we will all be talking about that night for a long time to come!
Trevor heads home and the rest of us have a little explore, but we are tired so we drag our tired selves back up the 3 flights of stairs and go to bed. We are being picked up at 8.30 tomorrow for our 'countryside tour'.

Mrs Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter.

Sunday.

“You very lovely. You have big breasts.” No we weren’t watching the X-rated channel on TV. This is what was said to one of us today. Read on……

Thuong, who will be our ‘host’, arrives to collect us from the hotel and take us to the Saigon River Express boat waiting for us. We end up in a group of 11, the 6 of us, a very westernised Chinese couple, an older American man, his son and the son’s friend. The manager Phuong tells us we can pay by card, so hooray, we can save our cash, which has evaporated quicker than we expected this trip.

Manager Mr Phuong

Chau is to be our ‘guide’ and she is another lovely Vietnamese girl who was born in the north and has worked this job for 2 years. Before that, she used to guide Vietnamese tourists to Thailand – Bangkok and Pattaya, one of the few we have met who have travelled outside their country. The speedboat is fitted with a 200hp Mercury motor, and along for the ride, apart from No 1 captain, is an engineer which is a bit of a worry until Chau tells us that it’s not uncommon for the prop to get tangled in river weed or the odd fishing net. The engineer will deal with these issues should they arise.

We take the 2^nd river to the right from the main Saigon River and hit the throttle, this boat CAN go! We slow at times because we pass riverside houses, other boats who we might otherwise swamp, the water police office or boat, or large patches of water hyacinth which can hide all sorts of submerged obstacles. We are offered drinks and some fruit.

Our first stop is a Buddhist temple with ‘happy house’ that we are allowed to use. Squats. Oh well, at least they’re clean. Back to the boat for more drinks, some delicious iced coffee and a croissant before our next stop, a local riverside market. We are well off the tourist trail now and we are greeted by many curious looks but the people are very friendly, they might see a small group of ‘whities’ most days but the novelty hasn’t worn off yet. Trevor finds a large sized pair of chopsticks used for cooking and for only 30,000dong he gets them. The Chinese lady buys a round wooden chopping board for a few dollars, very nice. The children here love to have their photo taken and a pair of little girls that we see in one part of the market pop up again to pose for us. They’re cute and so funny.

These 2 cut across the market to see us again!

We walk round the market, down a side street and over the ricketty sounding bridge that we had walked under in the market. No wonder the Pope kisses the ground after a flight! I felt like doing the same, although I’m sure it’s quite a sturdy bridge, it just makes a lot of noise.

Continuing upriver, we are disembarked for a short walk (2km) along a small tributary to see some local rural life. The engineer also comes in handy for lending a steadying hand on and off the boat. It’s Sunday so no school for the kids and they all come running when they hear our voices, although they don’t venture past their front boundary. Chau says it’s ok to take photos of them. It's along this walk that one of the princesses, I'm not permitted to say which one, asks Thuong (who is 25 BTW) to take a photo for her. He gets close to see the explanation of how the camera works and whispers in her ear what you read above. To say she was shocked would be an understatement!! But we all got one of the best laughs of the day!! Not sure if the princess was flattered or stunned, probably a bit of both! She certainly didn't expect such a 'compliment'.

Lunch at the Kung-Fu school

One of 2 whole fish for lunch

The sun is so hot away from the breeze on the river, but we are loaned brollies to shade us. They think of everything. Back to the boat and head upstream to another village where we will be having lunch. No tourists come here as a regular thing, so there are no 'tourist' restaurants, and the local restaurant is not 'safe' for tourists, so Chau tells us. They have an arrangement with the Kung-Fu school to use their community room to set up tables and serve lunch. The chef rides her motorbike 2hrs each way from Saigon to prepare our food. We start with fresh spring rolls, sour soup which isn't sour at all but very tasty, followed by steamed rice, a fish dish and a chicken dish. We are nearly full already when we are presented with 2 whole fish, deep fried so that the scales are edible too. OMG!! How many people were they expecting??

Chau tells us to save room for dessert..........More food!!?? A fruit platter is dessert and the pineapple is a bigger fruit down here in the south and the salt to sprinkle on it has more chilli in it, so watch out. The papaya is good too. Not wanting to sound ungrateful for all the wonderful food we've eaten, but I miss the food in Hoi An, I think it's been the best so far. Love the Cao Lau, but you can only get it in Hoi An.

Another visit to the happy house and lunch is over. We take a very short walk to the Cao Dai temple, and it's so colourful and happy, and the basic principles of this religion are so appealing, we think we may all convert! 

Cao Dai Temple

Every time we get back on board, we are offered cold drinks and refresher towels. They have taken such good care of us all day, we are happy travellers. The captain turns the boat for home and we are exhausted, even Tina. Some find the room to curl up for a siesta and it's a quiet trip back.

Nap time - every man for himself!

We are delivered back to the Duxton and go to our rooms for a cool off and freshen up. I'm keen to go to a fabric shop we saw up near the Ben Thanh markets and Anke wants to have a look as well. The princesses want to go into the markets and Trevor wants to check out a stingray keycase he saw earlier, so off we go, leaving Bob to rest up. I find some nice fabric, 60 000 dong per metre, so cheap!! We end up splitting up and don't plan to meet up again till breakfast tomorrow. Trevor and I go back to the first night market food place and have the coconut prawns, the princesses go to the Barbeque Garden and Bob and Anke find a spot to eat close to the hotel. A good day was had by all.

Erections in Saigon.

Saturday.

Happy surprise. Even though the Duxton charge a ridiculous price for broadband in-room it’s complimentary in the restaurant, so there are lots of laptops out at breakfast. Good breakfast, all the sorts of things we’ve come to expect.

On the to-do list today is organise our Mekong Delta boat trip tomorrow and figure out how we’re getting back to the airport on Monday. Anke got the Delta trip sorted and it’s a toss up between just taking a taxi to the airport or book a transfer with SaigonTourist. Taxi might be the go.  Pick-up time tomorrow is 7.30am. An early start! Hoooorrraaayyyy!! NOT!!!

Bitexco Tower

great view from up here

Our first erection (sorry, it's all the phallic shapes around town) for the day is the viewing platform at the Bitexco Tower. Inspired by the lotus flower bud, it’s 68 floors tall and costs 200,000VND pp to go up, cheaper for seniors. It’s a clear day today, some high cloud but visibility is good so we are treated to an amazing 360 degree view of Saigon from the 49^th floor. Very handy location for us, just around the corner from our hotel.

Anke has caught a cold and is not feeling like having a big day so with Bob, she goes back to the Duxton to change and have a cuppa and a rest. The rest of us head in the direction of the next erection, a Hindu temple we saw from the tower, Sri Thendayyuttha Pani. The people there are very welcoming and invite us to go up onto the roof platform to see another shrine. It’s lovely. We pick up the trail of the Lonely Planet walking tour which takes us past the Rex Hotel, so we just have to go up to the Rooftop Bar for a drink, after all it’s very hot. And the prices are a lot more than we've become used to. The walk takes us past the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, might have been worth a look if we had more time, then we find our way to the Reunification Palace and decide to go in, 30 000 VND each, so pretty cheap. Getting hungry so seek out some food. We find a terrific place between the Reunification Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral, our next stop. The Restaurant is called Au Parc, we think because there is a park across the road. The food is great and it’s a top find.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Reunification Palace

We’ve still got time to see a few more erections, so it’s over to the Cathedral and across to the Post Office, which was originally built to be the train station, but the train track never came to town. Brenda’s keen to go to the Ben Thanh market, I could go with her, Carolyn wants to call it a day, so with a bit of thought, we decide to head for home and try to get in a swim, but once we get to our rooms, that’s it. Bob and Anke are in their room following a mammoth shopping spree but I can’t say what they’ve bought, except that Anke has some lovely fabric that she’ll make into a couple of tops, and they’ll look very nice.

We enjoyed the night market so much last night, we head there again, but by the time we get there it’s already being set up. We’ve missed seeing the mad rush to claim their spots. Maybe they start a bit earlier on a Saturday? Anyway, we find food, probably not as good as last night, but you don’t know if you don’t try. It could have been better. If you stood out the front of the Ben Thanh, we went to the food place in the side street to the right of the markets the first night, and the side street to the left tonight. Bob and Anke hit the stalls again for more shopping (watches) so we leave them to it and go for ice cream at what's becoming our 'regular' spot, Blue Cafe in the street behind the Ben Thanh market. Time for bed for an early start tomorrow.

The Princess Diaries.

I forgot to mention earlier the reason why Brenda and Carolyn were given the title of ‘Princess’. This was due to the fact that in Hanoi and on the Halong Bay junk, their room was noticeably larger due to it  being a twin room. Then in Hoi An, when their room faced a school where the most irritating mechanical sort of ‘music’ was played from about 6am till 9pm, they enquired about changing rooms, then when a similar room for the same price didn’t really suit them either, they enquired about paying a bit extra for an upgrade. They were moved to another wing and given a junior suite. Basically a larger room with a sofa and a magnificent bathroom, where visitors weren’t allowed to use the toilet if it was for more than a ‘number 1’. We have decided that in future, we are booking twin rooms. Keep the princess tag in mind for later.

Our transfer to Danang airport was arranged for 11am so all we had to do this morning was have breakfast and pack. We see 'Hoi An lady' at breakfast with her family, it's her birthday today. They are leaving today as well, and looks like we will be in Siem Reap at the same time. Any thoughts of finding the well for the Cao Lau water were washed away with the rain, which hasn’t stopped since it began last night. If anything it got heavier. We saw a radar image on the news this morning and the rain cell heading for Central Vietnam was bordering on red. On the way to the foyer to check out, we saw the smallest frog we’ve ever seen hopping across the path – it would have been lucky to be the size of your pinky fingernail – just hopping along, minding his own business. So cute!

So the pick-up arrived on time and we were loaded and on our way. 5 minutes into the trip, cue Bob: “are we there yet?” This is becoming a continual question for Bob. The minute he sits in any sort of vehicle, that’s the question. It’s getting to be quite funny. You can nearly set your watch by it. Anyway, for some reason we had a driver and a guide. We figured they must have had a backload from the airport. He was a very safe driver and we thought he did a great job in the crazy traffic. Driving through Danang, he did battle for right of way with a truck bigger than him, which usually isn’t the done thing. The bigger the vehicle, the more right of way they have. Anyway, we all caught our collective breath till we won and continued down the road. The guide said something which we couldn’t really figure out and as we mulled it over, we realised he had called the driver Schumacher, as in Michael Schumacher!! I don’t think that’s the right spelling, I’ll have to ask Carolyn again, she knows. Anyway, we all thought that was so funny! These guys don’t know much English but what they do know is bloody hilarious!

We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare, the check-in counter hadn’t even opened. Great! We can get through security and sit down and enjoy a relaxing cuppa and maybe a bit of lunch, except, at Danang airport there’s stuff all to eat. We find a shitty cup of coffee and a beautiful baguette filled with shitty ‘ham’ that didn’t look like ham, some tomato and cucumber. It’s now late at night and no-one has been sick, so it must have been ok.

shitty airport lunch

I think that this was the first check-in process that flowed smoothly. In Sydney, Brenda had her visa headache, and flying out of Hanoi, Bob and Anke had problems finding their passports and ticket.

As sometimes happens, the ride from the terminal out to the plane had it's annoyances. The weather was still threatening and it was lightly sprinkling rain as the bus stopped and we were all meant to get out. What is it with the Asian culture and getting wet?? They really hate even a few drops of rain - bit like redheads going out in the sun! These girls were squealing and trying to get their umbrellas up, even before we were off the bus! It took all my strength not to give them a shove!! Unkind thought probably, but come on, it was just a few drops of rain!

After a short flight with only a little turbulence and a bottle of water, we land in Saigon. If only getting out of the airport was as easy as it was to get in at Danang. They are very consciencious  about people having the right bag and they check your luggage ticket stuck to your boarding pass against the tag on your bag. We all get through no problem, except for Brenda. She can’t find her boarding pass and therefore has no luggage ticket. She can’t exit until she finds it which she eventually does….. her Princess title is slipping……… The nice man holding up the sign with our names on it goes to get the van and off we go into Saigon city and the Duxton Hotel. It’s s’possed to be 27 degrees with a clear sky, but it’s actually 23 degrees and threatening rain. No-one minds because it’s much cooler and we’ve seen what real rain looks like in this country, so we’re not scared!

We get settled into our rooms and make plans to book a Mekong River trip but can’t access the details we need because we have no wi-fi in this hotel and they want an exhorbitant amount to use their broadband. We need to find a café with wi-fi. Brenda wants to look at spectacle frames so off into the mad Saigon afternoon traffic, we know there’s a street full of spectacle shops behind the Ben Thanh markets. Many streets are crossed successfully but Brenda can’t find the frames she wants. We are all getting hungry and we know there are night markets due to be set up in the streets on the sidestreets of the market block. Shame they don’t close the road to motorbikes as well as cars, but you can’t have everything. It was an amazing sight to see all the market holders race into the street at the appointed time to claim their spot and get set up as quickly as possible so they can start trading. Worth going back again tomorrow night to watch. 

We wandered around a bit and found a food vendor who had quite a good range of choices. Trevor had mussels and the rest of us ordered banh xeo, the crispy Vietnamese pancake. We had them in Hoi An and they were terrific. I’ve gotta say, these ones tonight weren’t as good. Brenda thought the ‘turned over egg cooked with tamarind' sounded good so she ordered that as well. It came out first and this is where the ‘princess’ title slipped in a major way, and Carolyn is going to take great pleasure in reminding Brenda of what happened next for a very long time. The ‘egg’ came out first and looked quite nasty, truth be told. You could see the white and the yolk, disjointed from each other but pushed together during the cooking process, and a grey squishy looking thing sort of attached to it all. The white and the yolk had all grey veiny things running all over them, and Brenda tentatively put one of the little lumps which didn’t look like egg, into her mouth. It was nice. She passed the plate over to me for closer inspection and I cut through the white and the yolk to confirm that’s what they are. The girls were making ‘icky’ noises, so I called them all big girls and ate a piece of yolk. It was nice. Brenda felt a bit bolder now so she ate the rest of the egg, then started poking the grey squishy thing about trying to decide exactly what it was. Trevor sitting next to her, reckoned it had a beak and was an unborn chicken!! Yuk!! The look on Brenda’s face was priceless!!

"oh no!!"

The waitress had very limited English but when Carolyn asked her if it was chicken by making chicken movements and chicken noises, the waitress responded with similar movements and noises. Yes!! It was an unhatched baby chicken!! Again, cue the horrified look on Brenda’s face as the rest of us laughed that much we nearly fell off our red plastic chairs!! OMG!! Laughing so hard I couldn't keep the camera still for a photo! Bob asks what’s for dessert, can we go to the icecream shop we saw earlier? Only problem with that is, we have to walk past all the other market stalls selling all the usual stuff. Bob buy another 2 watches, one for himself and one for Anke, Brenda gets one too. Carolyn buys a t-shirt and Bob buys one too. Are we ever going to get to the ice-cream shop?? It’ll be time for breakfast soon! We finally get our ice cream, and very nice it was too, head back to the Duxton and agree to meet for breakfast at 8am. Tomorrow’s another day.

P.S. We find a café with free wi-fi internet just down the road at Angel-in-us Cafe.

Anyone for Morning Glory??

Thursday 22nd.

Now we're cooking! We are again up early to be at Morning Glory Restaurant for our market tour and cooking class. Didn’t catch the guide’s name but he took us to the local market in town, not the one Ngoc took us to the other day. Showed us all sorts of fruit and veg, spices in their raw form which was interesting to see, then we walked through the wet market. Saw skinned frogs, and Brenda’s right, once something has been seen, it can’t be ‘unseen’. It’s raining again today and it looks as though it might be going to set in. Well, it is the start of the wet season in these parts. There is a lady in the group with us who will come to be know to us as 'Hoi An lady', a woman from Melbourne visiting Vietnam with her family and when we see her kids, I realise how much I have seen them around town. They were at Mermaid Restaurant the same time as us and it turns out they are staying at the Hoi An Historic with us too.

"Hoi An lady" with Carolyn and I at the cooking class.

Once the tour was complete, we walked back to Morning Glory and upstairs to meet the delightful Miss Loi who will be our teacher for the morning. She is a real sweetie. The set up for the class is really good and if we can’t see what she is doing there is an overhead mirror. She demonstrates, then we cook, cabbage soup which sounded very ordinary but tasted lovely. This dish is used as a guide by the man’s mother to check to see if the prospective daughter-in-law is capable of looking after her son. Little bundles of shrimp mousse wrapped in blanched cabbage leaves really set this dish apart from what we imagine the soup will be like.

don't talk with your mouth full

We eat everything we cook and there are 5 dishes all up, summer rolls, char-grilled chicken, green mango salad, banh xeo (crispy Vietnamese pancakes) which are my favourite.  Again, worth the money. I try to find the Hoi An chilli sauce when the class is finished but no luck. We pick up the last of our tailoring and say our goodbyes to Na, Kim and Anh. I buy some metal julienne shredders from Anh and she is very happy that I finally buy something from her. We have had so much fun talking to these girls, especially Kim who acted as Trevor’s minder on the first day we went to the Cloth Market for tailoring. He told her his name was Joe, so we all have to remember that is his ‘name’. 

The thing that Anke and I have both noticed today is the mood of the stall holders. Our theory is that they are very subdued because the rain is setting in. They aren’t all calling out to us and their main concern for the day is keeping dry. Even the ones in proper shops aren’t calling to us as loudly or as often.

Gorgeous Hoi An. Love this place!

Even though it was raining it is still hot and I was determined to go for a swim. The water in the pool was actually cool due to the lack of sunshine heating it up. Lovely! Bob and Anke had jumped on the hotel’s shuttle bus out to the Hoi An Beach Resort, our sister hotel in Hoi An. They said the beach was very long and the surf was rough, again due to the weather here. Trevor and I got together with the princesses for a sundowner and to chat about dinner tonight and Saigon tomorrow. The princesses decided they were too, too tired to go back out so were going to have room service (again…). When Bob and Anke got back from the beach we made plans to go find ‘Chips and Fish’ over on the Islet, taking some night shots along the way.  It’s over the footbridge across the river near the Japanese Bridge, then turn left and walk to the end. A big sign says “Hoi An Eating and Drinking area”. Chips and Fish is on the other corner. We all found something that appealed so in we went. B & A had chips and fish and we had Cau Lau with pork, a big bowl for 25,000 each. Hopefully we got some pretty night pics. Looks like it when I looked at them on the laptop screen. OK, I looked and it seems like we got some good ones.

the eyes on the boats are to keep the crocs away and they work

No need to get up early tomorrow, we are off to Saigon, pick up at 11am, so all we have to do is eat breakfast and pack. If it’s not raining I might go and try to find the well where they get the water to make the Cao Lau noodles.

Photography tour

Wednesday 21st: We are not used to getting up at 4.45am, it’s still dark! But as the day unfolds, we realise that it is SO worth it!! Etienne is a French ex-pat who has a wife and 6 month old boy and has established a business for himself after deciding this is where he wants to live.  He is a photographer who realised he spent a lot of time giving photography advice to tourists in Hoi An, so that’s how he found his niche. He had $600 or $800 left in the bank, he set $80 aside for living expenses for a month and spent the rest on a website and flyers for his business which he stood on the street and handed out. Now he runs a sunrise and sunset tour 3 times a week and does a bit of other photography work on the side.

the sun is barely up!

So he picks us up at 4.45 and we pick up a few more on the way to the river to catch the local ferry across to the other side. We stand on the open deck with nothing to hold onto and brace with feet apart for the bumping into the dock when we arrive. All survive unscathed. Before the ferry (term used loosely) departed we had a glimpse of sunrise through the clouds. There had been a thunderstorm during the night and it was still sprinkling rain and was overcast which helped keep the heat down. Etienne explained a lot about different settings on our cameras and different things to experiment with, lighting and composition. It didn’t matter what level of experience we had or what sort of camera we had, we were all treated the same.

We went to the fishing village to watch the fishing boats come in after their night of fishing. Stand back! Don’t get in the way of the fish women who come to the dock to buy the fish. Etienne says you can fight with anyone, anytime, no worries, but never fight with the fish women!! Etienne has built up a good relationship with a lot of the villagers and they don’t mind us taking pictures of them. He pays some of the very poorest, and refuses to give money to a bloke who he says will only go buy rice wine and get blind. He gives money to the little old lady who waits around for someone to drop a fish on the ground and not notice – that’s her food for the day…….. very confronting and very sad to think this is how people live.

my favourite lady

It’s quite light now and we are getting a bit hungry so we head to the equivalent of a café for coffee. On the way, there is a ‘sandwich’ stand, and Etienne asks if we want one. Everyone does so he orders 10, some with chilli, some without. They are a fresh, crunchy baguette, stuffed with assorted meats, and goodness knows what else! Delicious!! Coffee is a different story. So was the Lipton tea…. I should have stuck with the lemon juice.

smelly.... now we know where fish sauce comes from

There are puddles everywhere from the rain and it’s an interesting walk along the dirt road to the  place where they make fish sauce, dodging motorbikes and pushbikes while keeping on dry ground. The smell at the fish sauce was overpowering, it was certainly the place you could find by following your nose, but after while you get used to it. It’s an interesting process, probably more information than we needed, and Carolyn says she will never eat it again! Still more photo opportunities here too. After the fish sauce we visited the cake lady. She makes hundreds of little cakes each morning. She used to get up at 3am when she had a wood stove, but now with modern technology, she gets up at 5am! She has a big pic of the Sydney Opera House on her wall. Apparently they love it over here! Who knew??

Going round in a loop we arrive back at the riverside for a few more pics before heading back for the return ferry. There’s a lot more crowded onto this one, so we don’t have as much room as we Aussies like. There are pushbikes waiting for us when we get back to ride into town, 5k away, which is quite a nice ride along the river till we hit the main road, then it got scary, even though it was still early in the day. No photos here – both hands held the handlebars in a death grip! Once we arrived back to the studio, Trevor and I went for a walk over to the Islet but then remembered we needed to be back at the tailors for picking up clothes, so we headed back to base. The rest of the day is a bit of a blur because we are so tired from our early start. I think it was lunch at Mermaid Restaurant, where they should be giving us frequent flyer points, then at some later time Brenda and I were there having a ggggiin sling. And we were back there with the whole gang for dinner. The waitress, Im, asked me what I would like to drink and I said ‘you tell me’ and she replied ‘gggiin sling’, which cracked the lot of us up.

It’s been raining on and off most of the day but regardless, the ‘Honeymooners’ and the ‘Princesses’ go for a walk round town before heading back and Trevor and I head home. I’m really tired.

Forgot to mention, the Swiss guys from Halong are at same hotel in Hoi An, they got the earlier flight from Hanoi because they didn't hang around on the boat eating lunch like we did. Must remember to tell the real Tina about that.

I went back to try on my shorts and they were terrible with no hope of redemption. Na will have to make another pair from scratch. She takes my measurements again and has a few snappy words with her offsider. Someone has made a mistake.........

Tuesday: No work, no food!!

Brenda has sold us into farm labour at the Tra Que Herb Village. Don't let the name fool you, growing herbs is hard work! The hoe was big and heavy, the sort you'd see working the street in Kings Cross... oh, no... sorry.... not that sort of hoe!! Back to the story. We were picked up from our hotel at 8.30am and taken to the local market - a world away from the tourist trap which is the Central Market in Hoi An. Ngoc, our guide, showed us lots of different fruit and veg and also took us through the wet market, not too bad early in the morning, but might get a bit wiffy later in the day.
A 4km drive saw us at the herb village where we had a short tour of the things they grow, how they are grown, and what they are good for. Then it was down to work.

dig, dig, dig

hard work

so glad I wore closed in shoes!

seaweed for fertiliser

Tina standing around looking beautiful......

Hoeing, carrying seaweed for fertiliser, digging it in, and generally preparing the bed for planting. Then we transplanted some small lemon basil plants, and Tina helped.

Next 'station' was the foot soaking and massage which was enjoyed by all. We found ourselves on the other end of the camera when a large group of tourists came through and started taking our photos. We all put our hands out and said 'one dolllaaaarrrr'!!

we became the attraction

Even Tina got a massage!

Watch the cook, be the cook, eat the food! Delicious!!

After that we headed inside to the cooking demo and lunch. The food was terrific and we didn't need much for dinner later on. We all agreed that this tour was well worth doing. Ngoc returned us to our hotel a bit after 1pm.
We just had a bit of time to freshen up before going to the cloth market for our fittings with Na, the tailor. The clothes she has made for us seem to be very good, so I ordered some more, which I need to go have fitted tomorrow. The women at the market are such good fun and we always have a good time talking to them and sharing a joke. Kim, who makes shoes is copying a handbag for me. It's a back-pack style, you'll know which one it is, and it's design amused her no end. I'm sure anyone visiting Hoi An in the next few days will see shops selling them for a good price.
A couple of Gin tonics and it was time for dinner. Carolyn and Brenda decided to stay in as they were a bit weary so Bob, Anke, Trevor and I headed off to the Mermaid Restaurant where we ate the other day. Bob was craving pizza and he was a happy boy after sharing one with Trevor and then a banana pancake for dessert. Anke and I had salads which was all we needed after our big lunch.
Some of us have a very early start tomorrow. Pick up at 4.45am to go on a sunrise photography tour to a fishing village.

We love Hoi An.

Our flight left Hanoi at 21.30 last night, so it was a very late arrival to The Hoi An Historic Hotel. Reception staff were very pleased to see us because it meant it was bedtime for them once we were sorted! We didn't see much of it last night but this morning we could see it properly and it is amazing! The pool looks very inviting.

Very slow start this morning, and first job on the agenda for Brenda was to go to Morning Glory (yes, that's right) Restaurant to pay a deposit for our market tour and cooking class. We headed down to town to see the tailors. We were coralled by a motorbike hawker to go "look my shop, 1 minute..."  Well, that was it. They had the fabrics I wanted (eventually) so I ordered a shirt and pants. Brenda turned up, probably coralled by the same hawker and ordered 2 shirts, a pair of pants and a pair of shorts. Fitting tomorrow and should be ready either later tomorrow or Wednesday. If she does a good job I might get another top. Shop 52 in the cloth market and her name was Wa (pronounced Na). While we were checking out the tailoring a very nice lady stood around giving us all shoulder massages. We should have realised what was going on...... once the deals were done, she pipes up "you come my shop, massage for you". How much?? $5 20 minute. ......Ok, let's go. It was lovely and might even go back and see her tomorrow.

We find out later that Anke found herself a tailor too and ordered some clothes. She went to Phuong at Thinh Lien shop at 8 Nguyen Thai Hoc St. We paid Phuong a visit as Anke had seen some fabric there that she thought Carolyn would like. I had another shirt made, Carolyn got shirt and pants and Brenda got something as well. She was a lovely lady and treated us a bit better than Na did. Na was a bit dismissive of us once she had us on the hook. 

It's actually very sad to see how few tourists there are here now. It's more noticeable here than it was in Hanoi, although the hawkers there told us numbers were down.

a very quiet Hoi An

Lunch at the Mermaid Restaurant opposite the Cloth Market and dinner at Streets Restaurant which trains up the poor local kids into hospitality jobs.

We spent some time talking to the women in the Hoi An market. Stand outs were Anh, a souvenir seller at shop 5, and Kim, a shoe maker at Phu Thien, shop 12.

            Streets Restaurant in Le Loi St

Hello Halong!

8am pick up from Maison d’Hanoi  for our road trip to Halong Bay on Saturday 17th. Our guide for this part of the tour is Joe, a lovely man who has made us laugh quite a lot. We will leave in 5 and a half minutes. He has been a very helpful and informative bloke. Note to self for next time: don't go to Halong Bay on the weekend - the traffic is heaps worse than during the week on the road out of town. Mr How is our driver and we ask Joe if he is a safe driver and Joe says 'I will tell you tomorrow when we get back to Hanoi'! And lunch will be in 35 and a half minutes.  Our boat belongs to the Bai Tho Group and is Halong Sails 89, at first glance seems safe, and as it turns out is. We take a tender out to our boat and are served the most amazing seafood lunch once we have cleared the main docking area and find a nice quiet patch. Joe tells us it is 5 and a half stars.

Our cruise companions include a couple of guys from Switzerland, 2 girls from Japan, a lady from France and another couple, not sure from where.

After lunch we go by tender to the Surprising Cave, Sung Sot Cave. Joe tells us about 600 and a half steps, some up some down, but mostly round and round. Carolyn and Brenda count the steps and tally 722! Joe says he will adjust his talk for next time. It is amazing that such caves exist out here, they made us all think of Jenolan caves. It was a fair haul up to the cave entry, but once inside it was a little bit up and down, but as Joe said mostly round and round. Would have loved to take the tripod in there with us, but didn’t realise we would have any use for it out here and have left it back in Hanoi. Just have to hope for the best. Back to the main boat for a short cruise to Titop Island where there will be 45 and a half minutes for "schwimming" and if anyone wants they can climb to the top and see the view. Well, much as I’d love a schwim, I HAVE to go to the top for the view. It was less steps, but straight up with a few landings on the way (in the heat) le puff, le pant………. It was SO worth the effort. Almost 180 degree view across the eastern side of the bay, not so good to the west as the sun was low in the sky, so very glarey. Once we got our breath back and took some great photos, we reluctantly headed back down, with just enough time for me to jump in the water and cool off.

Lots of scenery in Halong Bay

Worth climbing Titop for this!

By the time we got back to the Halong Sails, the sun was setting and while Joe said there was time for showers etc before dinner because dinner was in 35 and a half minutes, Trevor and I weren’t going to miss the sunset, so we headed up onto the roof deck and saw a very lovely sunset, and just when we thought it was finished, there were rays beaming across the sky in an amazing blue and gold. There was time before  dinner to adjourn to the top deck and take up positions on the sun lounges to watch the stars and chat about the journey so far. Dinner was 7.15pm and again, a seafood lover’s paradise. We were worried about Anke and her allergic reaction to seafood but she survived unscathed. A bunch of very tired travellers by now, so some had an early night, and we came back downstairs to check out what we hoped were some good photos from the day.  

Amazing.......

The plan was to get up for sunrise but it had been raining and was overcast, so we rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. No such luck, the boat was waking up and the crew had their jobs to do. When we did see the sun it didn’t compare to the sunset, so we’re glad to have stayed in bed! Breakfast scheduled for 7.15 but was ready a little earlier. Bacon, egg, toast, juice, tea/coffee, banana and some laughing cow cheese. Filled us up. No sooner finished than Joe tells us we have to go to see an open cave. It’s where the roof of the cave system collapses into the middle, leaving a ring of karst formation around the outside and a bay in the middle. In Thailand they call them a ‘hong’, don’t know what the name is for them in Vietnam. Once again back to the boat to pack up and be out of our cabin by 9.30, so the cleaning can commence for the next cruise. Early lunch today is the plan and back to Bai Chay wharf for disembarkation around midday. The lovely girl who has been our waitress is also the jewellery sales rep and when we come back to the main room, she is (again) showing her goods to Brenda, Carolyn and Anke in the hope that they’ve changed their mind from last night. I don’t think they have………… she goes away disappointed.

Lunch is another delightful meal, not so much seafood this time which worked out well. We were off the boat by 1200 and back on the road again. The trip back seemed a bit quicker, as it always does, despite 2 stops for 'happy house' and inspection of crafts with the opportunity to buy, of course. Joe has been an absolutely brilliant guide and if/when we come back we will be checking to see if he is available. Plus he gives a really good massage!

We’ve all decided that booking a twin room is definitely the way to go, as so far Brenda and Carolyn have scored bigger rooms than the doubles we others have had.

Found ourselves at the REAL 'Kangaroo Cafe' and had something to eat while we wait for our 7pm transfer to the airport for the flight to Danang for Hoi An.

Tina takes over

Hello everyone! Tina Tour Guide here, with my report from Hanoi, in the lovely north of Vietnam. Today I decided to get this group moving so first thing this morning, we hailed 2 taxis for a short ride to the Hanoi History Museum, as the group were foot weary after yesterday's wanderings in town. We tried to tell Bob the taxi he was going to get into was the 'wrong' sort, not Mai Lin or VinaSun, but the guy quoted him $5 US for the trip, so he was happy. The Mai Lin taxi we got in ticked up 30,000VND for the same trip, but we didn't tell Bob. I always enjoy this Museum and I think the group enjoyed it as well. As expected Anke found the jewellery displays, lucky there is CCTV protecting the treasures! When we finished there, we took a very short walk to the Hanoi Opera House and admired the architecture of this building and those nearby.

While sitting in the shade on the steps, a very shrewd business man (cyclo driver) offered us his services for one hour ride round the Old Quarter, which we didn't really need because that's where we walked our feet off yesterday. Bob commenced negotiations for a ride to see Uncle Ho's mausoleum, but the cyclo driver told us it was closed after 11am. So maybe we go to One Pillar Pagoda and the nearby gardens then over to Dong Xuan Market? How long? How much? One and a half hours $15USD per person/cyclo. !!!! Are you kidding me??!! That's double what the cyclo's out the front of our hotel wanted! Bob gave up in despair and Carolyn stepped in. Smiling and cajoling, she soon had him down to our price. He made some calls and out of nowhere more cyclos arrived and off we went. At a very leisurely pace, you see so much more and get closer to the everyday life of the locals.

Cyclo time

Once we arrived at the markets, we decided it would be too hard to stay together, so off we all went on our separate adventures. T & T weren't very interested in the markets so I suggested we follow a bit more of the Lonely Planet walking tour. So after finding a bar for a cold beer, we were off. It seemed much hotter today, no cooling rain shower, and after about an hour or so, we'd all had enough and headed home. We found a bit of interesting street food to sample. What looked like potato fries clumped together, battered and fried. Very tasty and only 15,000VND, so not even $1.

After we got back, we headed up to the roof as Bob had told us there was a bit of a view to be had. The lift only goes to the 10th floor, so we had 3 more to walk up. It's a different perspective and Brenda and Carolyn joined us up there too. Oh! Good news! Carolyn is ok after her brush with the motorbike yesterday and it looks like Brenda's bag has been found and should be delivered here by 8pm. Happy all round.

Hanoi rooftops

Off to Halong Bay tomorrow for an overnight boat trip.

First full day in Hanoi.

Tried to sleep in a bit today after such a long day yesterday, but it didn't really work. I'll sleep when I get home! Anke and Bob were up with the birds and walked down to the lake for an early coffee and watched the locals doing Tai Chi and playing badminton. Sounded so nice we have all decided to do it tomorrow. Brenda managed to buy a few bits and pieces to keep her going till her bag turns up (hopefully).

Ticket office for the water puppets didn't open till 1.15pm, so glad we didn't rush over there as early as we'd been told we had to. Got our tickets for the 5pm show, 1st class, 100,000VND pp.

Found a nice looking place to eat lunch, in Hang Be St called Lucky Restaurant, opposite Aubergine Restaurant. We'll be lucky if we're not sick later, the chicken was a bit pink around the bone, but it was lovely, and cheap! Had a feeling the weather was changing because the lady across the street kept looking up at the sky and within 5 minutes it was pouring. Very interesting to watch the plastic ponchos come out, even ones with a clear section over the handlebars of the motorbike so they can keep an eye on the speedo.

Our perch for lunch

The rain lasted a good half hour, just long enough for a leisurely lunch. It was getting late and we decided we had to fit something else in before the water puppets. History Museum was the plan but as we walked there we realised we wouldn't have time before the show so headed back, seriously browsing the shops along the way. We just had time for a coffee and we chose a place called the Whole Earth Restaurant. Carolyn and I headed towards it and as we were about 2 steps away from the far kerb a motor bike cut in between us and the kerb, just missing me but bumping Carolyn!! I still don't understand why the bloody idiot didn't go behind us! She was so lucky it was very low speed and wasn't knocked over, but it was the Coaster bus coming the other way that scared me. Carolyn spun around and could have ended up in any direction, but she was able to save herself, she's lucky she's fit. We were all stunned and realised how much worse it could have been. The guy on the motorbike asked was she ok and apologised, then took off. The people in the Whole Earth saw it all happen and also came over to make sure she was ok. Her arm was very sore after the water puppets, and I think she'll be a lot more sore generally tomorrow.

The water puppet show was very good, better than the one Trevor and I saw in Saigon a few years ago. The weather was holding so we headed off for a lap of the lake. Always so much going on here! Getting late by now and a little dark, so headed back to base to make plans for dinner. Bob and Anke decided they weren't hungry, so stayed in, not sure what Brenda and Carolyn did, and Trevor and I found the Gecko Restaurant just across the street from our hotel, so headed upstairs for some spring rolls and beer. So many stairs!! Up and up and up. Had the camera and tripod with us, so went back to the lake for some night shots, ended up doing another lap of the lake before heading 'home' to call it a night.

Lovely Hoan Kiem lake by night

Another day of drama. Hopefully tomorrow will be uneventful.