Indo-China 5

I have to say that a one hour flight beats a 950km bus ride.    We shared a taxi with two Argentinian Lawyers with the topic of conversation being football as usual.   So only an hour and a half from Saigon to our hotel in Hoi An, centre of the Vietnam made to measure clothes industry.  It seemed like every other shop was at it and to start with most looked as if they were from the 1960’s/70’s with lots of frumpy clothes on offer.    This really is a tourist town but is none the less very attractive.

I know I wrote about traffic in Cambodia and it is very similar here in Vietnam.  Traffic is king, more motorbikes than cars, parking usually on the pavement and crossing the street is still ‘just get walking and let it flow around you’.   If our traffic is classical music in a controlled fashion, here it’s just like jazz, a bit of improvisation here and there, rules but only known to the cognoscenti and just like modern jazz sounding like a fire in a pet shop.   Which makes it all the more surprising that here in Hoi An  the centre is traffic free for most of the time.  It transforms the town and adds hugely to the appeal of the place.

Our friends Jan and Clive are making their way clockwise through Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia as we go anti-clockwise and quite by chance our hotels are only 50 yards apart.  Their tour guide has recommended a made to measure place which we go to and it is very good.  In 24 hours I had 3 shirts made for $50 and Heather has had a silk wedding outfit made.   They keep our measurements and we’re photographed rather like a police mug shot so we can get more things made to the same size in future, although choosing the material could be awkward.

 In several places we’ve seen charities helping to keep kids off the streets. In Cambodia there was a painting and education one but here in Vietnam we’ve seen several  restaurants which are set up to act as training centres to get the street kids a saleable trade in the restaurant/ hotel industry.  Seems like a great idea and the couple we used have been very good.   I did miss what I’m sure would have made a prize winning photo at one restaurant while we were having dinner.  It was Italian and the pizza delivery was a bicycle pedalled by one of the staff with the as usual diminutive waitress sat sideways on the pannier rack holding a stack of boxes.  They were just too quick for me.  

We weren’t to know it but our first day here was the last we would see of the sun for some time.  We had drizzle and grey in Hue, drizzle on the overnight sleeper bus to Hanoi, overcast  and cool in Hanoi and finally hot sun when we arrived in Luang Prabang in Laos.

I have to say that Hue was pretty much a dump apart from the citadel which was massive and quite stunning, especially the restored parts.   We were inside what had been based on the Chinese Forbidden City and it covered an area about 2 kms by 2 kms.  I doubt that many visitors see as much of it as we did and parts appeared quite deserted.   It was very impressive even in the drizzle.  The area had been bombed heavily in the Vietnam War and it seems a huge shame that the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement as they did for Hoi An, which was not to use it for military purposes on the VietCong side and not to bomb the old town on the American side.  Mind you I suppose even the bombing had some military justification.  When the French put down an uprising in the 1890’s they spent 3 days burning the contents of the Imperial library.   That was 1890, not 1490 0r 1590.  Bloody savages.

The overnight bus was quite civilised, no TV showing a poor quality unsubtitled film, no music blaring out of loudspeakers, just the view that we would lucky to get to the other end in one piece as we had the front seats and could see every time our driver had to swerve out of the way of an oncoming coach/truck/madman or our side of the road.   Couldn’t do anything about it so went to sleep.    I do remember as a kid being driven mad on coach rides because someone would start up ‘the singsong’ believing that a hundred verses of ‘Green Grow the Rushes O’ was far far better than a mere fifty verses. 

On arrival in Hanoi we got a taxi to our hotel, showing the driver the address.  Confusion on arrival as Hotel has different name.  Now, we know about this scam which we’re told is common in Hanoi.  Your hotel is ‘full’ or they’ve opened No2. “just as good, but better”.  Apparently some hotels just change their name to a better one and taxi drivers deliver you to the wrong place.  But we had the address and were extremely suspicious.  We asked which names they had bookings for and refused to say who we were.  The receptionist told us that they had changed the name two years ago; our name wasn’t on the bookings list.  Remember this is 8.00am after a 14 bus ride so I wasn’t in the mood to be messed about.  Everyone was very smiley and helpful, just like you’d expect from a good scam.  We finally worked it out.  Heather had booked the Hotel Elegance online and had then written the address down from a slightly old copy of The Bible (Lonely Planet).   Unfortunately, the Lonely Planet Hotel Elegance is not the same as the Hotel Elegance Sapphire, which is what H had booked.  The now helpful, courteous and friendly receptionist (rather than the scheming bastard he’d been 5 minutes earlier) called us a cab, told the driver where to go and we arrived at the right hotel  5 minutes later.   It was the best hotel we stayed in.  We had an immediate really excellent breakfast, the staff were good and friendly, our bags were delivered to our room while we breakfasted and  we had fresh fruit in the room.   It was central in the old quarter of the capital city and it cost us $50.  When we checked out I pointed out that we had had an extra breakfast and we were told we wouldn’t be charged for it.   When we got back in the afternoon to collect our bags we were given free tea until the taxi they had arranged arrived to take us to the airport.  Absolutely faultless and due to receive a damn good write up on TripAdvisor.

The big attraction in Hanoi is really the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, house and grounds so off we went.  I wasn’t interested in seeing Uncle Ho’s embalmed body especially as I would have to hand my camera over so H went in while I waited outside.   All very regulated, guards in various uniforms and most of them a cross between little Hitlers and a frustrated football referee.   Lots of whistle blowing, arm waving and pointing.   Ho just wanted to be cremated but those taking the decisions decided on an embalming.   Obviously we Brits missed a trick here.  We could have made a fortune out of tourists and all those people subject to mass hysteria if only we’d embalmed Diana.

And so we say farewell to Vietnam, a place I’ve found difficult for food having eaten Pizza and Pasta amongst other things.  The Vietnamese seem to eat anything although I daresay they would say the same about our diets.  However, the hard boiled duck eggs with a chick inside or the restaurant described as ‘serving everything you can imagine eating, plus a lot you can’t’ will give you an idea of what it can be like.  H has eaten a lot of noodles with vegetables.

We are now in Laos at Luang Prabang and due to head  into the wilds tomorrow  for 6 days.  We bus north for some hours, trek for two days, drive east and boat back to Luang Prabang.   Don’t know if we will be anywhere near an internet connection.