Currently sat in Ho Chi Minh City in boredom, I've decided to write up about my travels through Vietnam, and may extend it to Australia and Singapore if I get bored again...
I've chosen to take out the names in case people on the tour didn't want to be tagged or judged for something that happened below... Or a parent reads it...
Having never travelled alone, or anywhere in the eastern world, outside of the western ideologies and way of life, I should've been more scared and prepared for when I was departing the UK for nearly two months... But for some reason, I felt nothing, there was no buzz to searching up Vietnam online. The only thing Google is spammed with when searching Hanoi is the various scams that the 'locals' try to feed you into. This is a slight issue everywhere (wait for Sapa), but as a large, white guy, a few rejections slightly getting more angrier got rid of them.
HANOI
In Vietnam, I think it's safe to say, stick by a 3 night rule. Never stay in any town/city for more than 3 nights, otherwise boredom will come for you, and trap you like a venus fly trap. I quite enjoyed Hanoi, the old quarter is easily navigated, and simple to find what you want. However, it's quite a redundant place if you're there alone. You'll get approached more and look more vulnerable, I explored a bit and did a food tour with a lady called Hien. When you're lost, and alone in such a big place, having a local show you around in great English is a life saver. The next day, I moved hotel to the tour group. Feeling a bit nervous, I packed my bags, slept and the next day got a taxi to the new hotel, a bit out of the old quarter. A few awkward hellos, and our tour guide Vinh, starts to explain the county and what kind of experience we should expect. He takes us to a traditional small Vietnamese restaurant, this is our first opportunity to get to know other people on our tour. The first topics are always, 'what's your name, where are you from and what do you do'. It came round to me and I say, 'My name is Ed, I'm from Essex and study Film and Television at Aberystwyth University'. The person sitting opposite me looked stunned and explains how they also attended Aber! When you travel 10,000 miles, you don't expect to find someone from the same uni of 10,000 students. But this wasn't the only 'small world' incident with me and other people in the group... Another girl used to live 10 minutes away from Brentwood, a road away from my friend. Another guy lives in the same town as my uni friend who I give lifts to occasionally. It was crazy to think how 10,000 miles could bring 13 people with so much in common together.
The whole group went to town for a few drinks, get to know each other a bit more, next thing we know, we're in a random, near empty club in Hanoi. One of the guys on the tour buys everyone 'Funky Balloons'. It was at this part I stopped and thought, 'Oh God, this trip could get out of hand...' A few more drinks, everyone's tipsy, not wanting to embarrass themselves or get judged by people they've just met. By around 2 am, we all decide to leave, finding a taxi in the scamming Hanoi tends to be more difficult than you'd think. 7 out of 10 taxis trying to take advantage of your western stupidity and alcoholic state, shouting at us 'ONE MILLION I TAKE YOU'. One million for a taxi?!? Yes we're ignorant, but we're not retarded. The taxis earlier had varied between 30,000 and 60,000 VND (£1-2). So I told a taxi driver, 60,000 and sent the taxis off. It was a good night, had a few memorable things, but most of all it was a bit of hungover jet lag, 'how are you this morning' conversation with everyone. The next day we had a few small touristy things to do, before heading for an overnight train to the northern town of Sapa.
SAPA!
I think my first thoughts of Sapa is, what a shithole... But that wouldn't be doing it all justice! Some parts were actually really nice! The view from the hotel was outstanding, but it had a few good places to drink, and most importantly, it introduced us to the three most important letters in South East Asia... BBQ. But this is jumping ahead too far. During the day, we went to a few bars, and people on the tour either shared a Shisha over a few beers, or went to have a massage... On the way home, we found the mighty night time BBQ. As we looked over the raw foods, an over-enthusiastic waiter helped us choose, whilst also pointing out that I was quite the large guy, and he insisted I needed to 'double up' on the small plastic chairs. He also introduced us to a few chili sauces... They went something like, 'Little Spice', 'Little medium spice', 'BIG spice' and so on... Anyways, he delivers the food, the beef is cooked to perfection on a skewer, and then he brings over our 'bird from the sky'. He cuts it up into little pieces and abuses my friends tattoo saying it made him scared and that he dislikes it, but in a happy and enthusiastic way. The bird was good, and it came to paying the bill, we all liked this guy so gave him about 50,000 tip, but on our way home released that he was actually a massive dick! This BBQ was an amazing feature of Sapa, and quite memorable, but it was sadly overshadowed by he drama queen of my roommate who got, and I'll quote here, 'The Fucks' which consists of stomach cramps, constipation, followed by non stop shitting, and chundering (throwing up) all night until about 4 am, when you decide to admit yourself to hospital... One of the worst nights sleep I've ever endured.
After one hours sleep, I got ready for what was going to be the most difficult trek due to having the wrong size walking sandals. My balance was all over the place. I don't remember much of the trek, apart from when the Sapa lady just comes out of no where with this super strength to kill or scare away a snake. Oh yeah, and my helper lady had her little baby on the back of her, so if I fell, she and her baby was coming down too. I may have also taken the 'banter' too far with a young Vietnamese girl trying to sell me bracelets.. I asked her how much it would cost for all of them, and her lack of English meant that she was near to tears. So I brought a few bracelets out of sympathy...
Bracelet photo
HANOI ROUND 2!
In order to go to the wonder of Ha Long Bay, we had to spend another night in the horrid Hanoi, a few members from the group and I went to a corner in Hanoi renowned for selling cheap beer, it's called beer corner, where the price of a drink costs 5,000 dong. 'A few drinks' slowly got out of hand, suddenly we were getting through a good number of beers and the next thing I know, I've purchased a load of balloons for 500,000 dong. Should I have felt bad for this? I think so, I'll explain later on the reasons why. One of the local ladies who sells balloons grew jealous of my monopoly, and probably western style cockiness of having so many balloons. As a result, she pulled a girl of the street to beg me for a balloon, this slowly lead to two members of the group handing out all of the balloons to local kids for free. Ruining the locals business and looking like paedophiles, instead of having a balloons party on our booze cruise of Ha Long Bay. Oh well though, it's just a ballon, not something that's big enough to worry about.
TIME FOR HA LONG BAY!
Beers on the train and become somewhat standard, our tour guide Vinh had brought us an ice-box to keep our beers cold... But beers on a coach was a different story, 9 am, and we started to drink, a few more beers whilst waiting for the boat, and by 1 pm, I was a wee bit tipsy whilst touring this cave. Back to the boat, and the first port of call, the bar, add one more 333 or Tigers to the tab. The next activity was visiting this artificial beach, which was really nice, most of the group being together and having fun in the waters, and of course... Having more beer. Back to the boat to watch sunset, and await for dinner. The dinner we had was an amazing something-course meal. King prawns were the highlight. This dinner was followed by an awkward game of 'I Have Never', which didn't last long when one of the boat employees comes up and offers karaoke. Karaoke in Vietnam is seen as a social activity, one that most young people do in their evenings, but they only had a handful of English songs. This meant a few more beers, and after most of the girls retired to bed, leaving me and a few guys. At about 2-3 am, we retire for bed. Whilst I'm getting ready and using the toilet, I see a drunken intruder shouting my name and attempt to enter the bathroom that I'm in, I open the door and its a guy who's somehow split his hand open! Que my super first aid of wrapping toilet paper around his hand.
The morning came, 7.30 am kayaking, it was quite fun, but hungover and a near sinking kayak is never fun. We ended up in the water on the last 100 meters. After a quick shower, it came time to return to mainland, and this meant paying the bill. The two rooms full of guys ended up costing 4 million dong. Again, wait until later on why I now feel awful regarding spending this much money. Back to Hanoi for an overnight train to Hue, which is actually pronounced Quay.
HUE
Welcome to Hue, another overnight train, another town where everything is exactly the same. Pho everywhere, an occasional place trying to serve western food, and a small pharmacy. Maybe an occasional glasses shop or clothes outlet. Here, we went to a few temples and the forbidden city, which is slowly being rebuilt all over. This is where I started to have a small issue with Vietnam as a country. Whilst it tries to conserve its traditions, they people always seem to be rebuilding and renovating their past. It ruins the past ideas of the country and its a bit sad to see. Another pointer in Vietnam sightseeing is the Top Gear hide and seek mission. 'Did Top Gear go here?' And all of a sudden, the tourist value to that attraction increases majorly.
Hue in the daytime is easy to forget, because there was literally nothing to do, however the nightlife was quite the opposite. The first night, we stumbled upon a gay bar, which had a distinct 'HEY' song, which we never heard anywhere else in Vietnam again. This night was quite fun, seeing as he were hailed like royalty by the Vietnamese, and security would always stop a Vietnamese man if he got too close. The second night, we were recommended this club called Brown Eyes. Free shots galore, some classified activites happened inside that club, which split opinions in the group, it was an interesting night to say the least. My journey home was possibly one of the weirdest ones I'll ever go on. After getting lost by going down the wrong road, a cyclo man approaches me giving the same bullshit that you'll be used to in Vietnam by now... Somehow, it ended up with me peddling to find my hotel around Hue for about an hour.
Hue was a bit uneventful compared to the other places that we went to.
Hoi An
I think we took the bus too Hoi An? But I can't really remember. Either way, we were on this small island just north, or was it east? Of the main town. This meant that we had to cross one of the two bridges to walk or cycle into town, and I think Hoi An is where true friendships were solidified, and the whole thing changed from travelling with people to travelling with friends. However, it's a weird place Hoi An. The old city looks like a western cowboy town, with swinging saloon doors and wooden structure everywher, bleached into a darkish brown. The day time was mostly curing hangovers and chilling by the pool or going to the beach.
In Hoi An they ban traffic between certain times on certain roads, so from about 5 pm the place becomes electric, people everywhere, people trying to sell you lanterns to put into the river, and this slowly ques the bar and club promoters to come out and attract the young travellers to their establishment. This seems like great fun, as on one night we got free beers, a free Shisha, free rum, then moved to get two free bottles of vodka, 2 for 1 drinks and then moved to another place for free shots, until it gets to about midnight. This is when Hoi An gets a tad weird. Everything turns dead apart from this club called, 'Why Not'. They'll hand you maps from their mopeds and drive into the distance, half of the travellers are under the influence and new to the town, so they get lost. It's about a 20 minute trek if you have an intelligent person leading the way. Once you arrive, it's 100,000 dong for unlimited drinks until 2am, and the place is open till 5 am. Outside you have people on motorcycles harassing you to get on for a 'moto-taxi', something I always refused in Vietnam. But it turns, this place is owned and run by the Mafia, usually they're more hard hitting and forceful to get on these bikes, and you end up getting robbed or something similar. Luckily, on my only visit to this place, I got home safely with another member of my tour, but the reason on why we left is quite unusual for myself. Usually, I refuse to take part in any kind of violence, and I'm quite open to other people. However, this night changed, and for the first time in my life, I feared someone would 'jump' me for something I said. A girl was taking a legal high off some gas in a balloon, however, when she laid down to take it, her skirt/dress ended up half way up her body. So I tapped her on the shoulder to tell her, just in case she didn't know and wanted to maintain her dignity. There was no immediate response, she kept on going with her balloon whilst others were laughing, I felt like I'd done the moral thing and all that I could do. This was until she finished, turned around and started going crazy on how I'd 'ruined her high', I apologised but she wasn't taking any of it. And then her boyfriend got involved and demanded I brought her a £1 balloon so she could experience what is probably the weakest high ever. I sat there apologising and explaining myself whilst this guy was just non stop, 'I had a great high, but you owe her one cause you ruined it!' Luckily, people from my tour were around me, and suddenly she changed her mood into, 'I understand thankyou'. I leave this bed like seating area with someone from my tour, and we go and get one of my friends just in case if this crazy psycho guy tries anything on me, he's got my back. My friend after hearing it didn't take it to well and wanted to find this guy and fight him, it may have been the alcohol, it may have been loyalty like I've never seen before, either way, we had to hold him back until this psycho had left and gone home for having too many highs... What a wanker, but a memorable night to say the least.
Sunrise came, my roommate receives a message which looked like a cry for help from a girl on the tour. Now usually it wouldn't have been an immediate issue for me, but when thinking 'Why Not' + Mafia + single girl traveller, it becomes an important concern. This created the weirdest, cheapest and most hungover search and rescue mission of all time. With her location sent on the message all the way across town, my roommate and I rented bikes with our tour leader Vinh to go and find her. After about an hour, we found her safe and sound in a home stay. This bike ride saved my hangover, so I wasn't too fussed over it at all. The next thing in my list to do was complete the fittings for the suit I had got tailor made. It's weird, but it's a great experience, choosin from all the materials and styles to your liking. Later that evening, we went out for a light drinking session, with only a few of us out. No one could be bothered with any clubbing tonight, so after a few drinks meant the famous, and one of my favourite photos, the bridge photo! The weird poses make it something so special for some reason.
Hoi An shall never be forgotten, it created the most memories from the trip, and gave me many cuts and bruises. How I fell off a pedal bike head first, face planting into the muddy ground? I'll never know. With a few open cuts and a few grazes, I continued the bike journey. I made a small joke that my arm had broken, it's what I told all of the promoters in the evening... Was it broken? Who knows, but it still hurts now, and it's been like two weeks. 'DO YOU WANT COME IN MY BAR? FREE SHOT FOR YOU' - 'Nah, broken my arm'.
NHA Trang
On to a bus to NHA Trang, what a weird, and quite horrible, place this is. There is genuinely nothing here. We went on a snorkelling boat to a reef which has about 10 meters worth of fish, and we rented jet skis which was quite an exciting and exhilarating experience. We then went back to the mainland, where there was nothing to do but drink alcohol, this is the sad story of Vietnam, that drinking alcohol is one of the only things you can do there. NHA Trang introduced us to the amazing beer towers. Five liters of beer in a tower where you can pour yourself your own drinks. If you have a few people to drink with, it ends up being a mega deal, and another night that gets out of hand. I still wouldn't rate Nha Trang majorly, that's probably the reason I have no photos from there. Apart from pranking my friend by putting sun cream all over him whilst he fell asleep on the snorkelling boat.
One more thing before we leave NHA Trang, I found a street vender who weirdly made the best burgers I've ever had. 60,000 dong, and this wasn't the alcohol talking, they were literally the best burger anyone has ever had.
Mui Ne
To continue to our next leg of the journey, we took the sleeper bus to the small town Mui Ne. Now I quite liked this small town, but I don't think it was the place for the tour group to go to. The resort was awful in an awful location, 15 km to the main strip, even further for a beach that was up to any standard to safely swim in. Luckily, I rented out a scooter, which meant I could drive into town whenever I wanted and just escape the resort, and the same tiresome food and small restaurants. However, it was the end of the world, the pool was nice, the beach loungers were comfy enough to sleep on... Which I nearly did one night, but was lucky enough for one of my fellow travellers to wake me up and force me to my room. Oh, and the communal toilets was quite entertaining too, a synchronised hose session occurred. Something that will be hard to understand unless you've visited the eastern world. The nightlife in Mui Ne was insanely good, possibly one of my favourite clubs that I'll ever get to visit. The first night there, we went to this place called Dragons Beach, a club on the beach where there was beds on the edge looking out to the sea whilst you had your drinks, and then behind the beds was a dance floor with some of the best music mixs I've heard for a long time. It was all good until one of my friends got so drunk that she was breaking the clubs wooden, ikea styled furniture. Not one, but TWO benches she broke! As the owner looked broken hearted, I went and apologised to him, he said it was fine, but I gave him 50,000 dong to apologise, and he said something along the lines of, 'yeah, that's cool, come back tomorrow', and come back tomorrow we did! This time with the whole tour group. This is the first night where I got truly smashed. 2 for 1 cocktails before 11 pm, but as the time came closer, I thought I couldn't be bothered to fork out the money, so I ended up with about 8 cocktails on my bed before I could for the dance floor. This lead to me being in the state of asking the staff and security, what I could throw into the sea and what I couldn't. A lot of shit got thrown into the sea that night. On the third night, we returned again. The bar tenders knew our drink orders, they knew what we wanted, and how we wanted it. But tonight was only a light night, home by 1 am, and in bed for the 7 am bus to Saigon.
Saigon
Welcome to Saigon, an eye catching westernised city at first, but it slowly turns into a death trap of nothingness as you spend more time here. Why I now hate it so much, could be due to losing my friends that I've spent every minute with for nearly a month. They'd either gone home or gone onto another tour with someone that they met on this tour. It was so disheartening and lonely. My new hotel was so far from the backpacker central of Beer Street, I felt lost. The fact no taxi could ever get the right street made me so homesick. My immediate thoughts was I must move into a hostel, I took one nights rest in the hotel and then moved into a capsual hostel in the backpacker district. Best decision I've made for a long long time.
SAIGON TO BE FINISHED.
Mekong Delta
Mekon Delta, nothing really happens here. Yeah, theres the odd Snake and the odd rat, but there's nothing else really but to sit in a hammock and chill.
Summary
Vietnam is an interesting country, one which I don't think I would've enjoyed if it wasn't for the people I was with, there for me day in, day out, giving me valuable life lessons as the journey went on. Without my friends going out drinking every night, I would've probably drank a quarter of what I did, and my experience would've been very different. By Nha Trang, some of the people on the tour were so close, that whenever one person said something, multiple people would turn around with the same reaction. The 'banter' was on the same wavelength, and that's something that's very rare to find, especially in under 25 days of being together, and especially in such a 'peaceful' country of Vietnam. Whilst you have the various sights and the various towns, nothing really changed... Nothing was breath taking to me, apart from maybe Ha Long Bay and some of the view in Sapa and on a road trip... Anything that was nice in Vietnam was mainly overshadowed by the behaviour of the locals. Offering weed, cocain, opium, sunglasses, shitty braclets, dried squid, endless happy hours, cigarettes, tours, massages... The list is endless. I don't mind them selling the products, but it's the hard sell and man handling which ruins it. Even when you're having a meal they'll come up to you. And it's not even as if it's a cultural issue, as I got lost in a non-touristy part of town, and there's nothing. No one trying to sell you anything. But then, maybe I'm being too harsh, when you consider the countries unequal economical status. Our tour guide was in an above average job in Vietnam, and he earned in one month what I would've earned in Papa Johns in one evening on tips alone. This is where I need to go back to the balloon night. Buying all of those balloons was a big percentage of his monthly wage. Us westerns think it's so cheap in Vietnam, yet, we never really think about the living wage in the country. No wonder they try the hard sell with white people, we're spending their months wage in under three days most of the time. Which also makes me sad... Sad that people in this country will never have an opportunity to travel, they'd have to have no bills for 4 months just to save up for a flight to so,we here else in South East Asia, let alone hotels or hostels. A holiday for these people is so far out of the question it's impossible to even think about.
To sum up, I could be stuck anywhere in the world with some people and still enjoy it. It's the people you travel with, not where you travel. When I finished my first year at uni, I thought fair enough, let's pack up and go home, stay in touch and I'll see everyone in September... But when the tour ended, I didn't want to say bye, it was a culture shock in itself. Not waking up to someone to talk to, no jokes or banter, everyone had gone home. The whole of Vietnam changed fully into a whole of loneliness. I went from feeling safe and on top of the world to being as small as an ant. Maybe it was time for the real travelling to begin.
