Hue + Hanoi

So Mum.... You know how you said you didn't want me riding a bike... but if I did, not to tell you when.
Well, that was the other day... we rode from Hoi An to Hue.

 I had an absolute ball, and we're all still alive. We drove north and visited Marble Mountain where Georgie and Sanaya's bike decided to stop working. Pat set up camp and organised replacingthebike while the rest of us had a look at the mountain.
It was really cool, the views were great, but after being followed by various locals asking us for money in return for their services (which involved following us for 45mins and repeatedly saying over and over "swreeping buddah yes, swreeping buddah, cave buddah"...etc) I was ready to leave.

Luckily not far from where we were was a guy who was friends with Hendo; who we borrowed the bikes off initially, so we swapped the girls' bike and continued north.
We missed our turn off at Danang and drove about 40mins out of the way following the coast and ended up at the entrance to Monkey Mountain. It actually ended up being worth the detour because the views were amazing.

After back tracking to Denang, it took us an hour to get through Vietnam's 3rd biggest city. The roads were packed with traffic, it was hectic, but extremely entertaining watching all the amazing things people carry on bikes... multiple trees, balloons (so many I'm suprised they didn't take off), 30m long steel rods bent in half, dogs, families, pretty much anything and everything.

After Denang were the cloud-covered mountains... Bloody freezing... after performing a clothes shuffle so Georgie didn't slip any further into hypothermia, we made it to the top. A brief emergency coffee and oreo session was had, followed by the purchasing of ponchos for extra layers and waterproofing.

After dodging some trucks carrying pigs (particularly dodging their smell), we headed into the villages below.
We got to a point where we kept seeing strange water jets shooting up into the air, spraying water everywhere, we later worked out it was a pig wash...
Along the rest of the way we received a lot of stares (even with locally bought token asian face masks on), got heaps of "herros"/waves, and dodged many buses, trucks, bikes, push bikes, pedestrians, cows and dogs. This was made more difficult by the line in the middle of the road, not actually being acknowledged by any of the prior listed various vehicles and obstacles. As well as this, the majority of buses and trucks don't even acknowledge your existence on the road and therefore aren't really afraid to try to run you off the road either.

Eventually after dark, we got the hostel in Hue which Hendo (Pat's mate) runs. Hendo greeted us and was very eager to help us out with a few free beverages.

We then went out to dinner followed by a local bar where I found some guys who spoke indonesian with me while playing pool, the rest of the night was a blur of drinking a mojito bucket with Georgie while dancing, helping the DJs select music and drinking flaming ouzo in a glass tower given by one of Pat's many mates (they keep appearing, I never knew Pat had friends... haha)

I didnt really move outside the hostel the next day... I felt like death, sitting on the floor eating chips and m&ms was the only remedy.


That afternoon we jumped on the overnight sleeper bus... after sitting on the bus waiting for another passenger to turn up for an hour and a half, we finally left Hue for Hanoi.
14 hours later, we arrived in Hanoi. The bus actually wasnt too bad, I was so tired and still worse for wear from the previous night, so I slept virtually the whole way.
The night we arrived, we headed over to the backpackers where Pat used to work for a couple of months. It was the hostels 6th birthday, so a free BBQ and beer was up for grabs. Pat's mate Mick who runs the place gave us free alcohol and offered us free accomidation in a private room for the rest of the time we are here (the rooms are normally $40 a night).

We checked into the rooms this afternoon, and they are a LOT nicer than the $6 a night we are paying for a 8 person dorm room.
I love Hanoi, great place. It seems much less westernised compared to Saigon. There's still quite a french influence, but that makes the food around here amazing. There's more street culture here and fewer empty shops compared to Saigon.

Here, most of the streets are named after the product that is sold there in every shop. So there is a street for shoes, sunglasses, pots and pans, futniture, even grave stones. It doesn't make sense that every shop keeper sells the same thing, but its making navigating around her a lot easier.
Looking forward to being in the one place for 9 days and being able to unpack!
photo update will happen soon!
xo

Dalat to Hoi An

After Saigon we had 2 nights in Dalat.
Dalat is in the mountains, so its about 10 degrees cooler than everywhere else and less touristy than Saigon. The night life in Dalat is less active, and there are more things to see naturally around Dalat, particularly with the adventure tourism kind of activities.
So we decided to check out what activities were available. Canyoning Bear Grillz style was our adrenaline hit of choice.
Canyoning basically involves, jumping off cliffs, sliding/abseiling down waterfalls and scrambling along the banks of rivers.
So we were taken a couple of kms outside of Dalat where we were dropped at the side of a road. We hiked down a steep hill, had a brief abseiling lesson on the way before descending into the Vietnamese jungle.
First up was a fairly basic 15m cliff, followed by some hiking, sliding down a waterfall (not unlike a natural waterslide) both feet and head first, then some more hiking. Next... abseiling a 25m big mother of a waterfall... I think we all had a bit of a freak out.
Bear grillz was my inpiration, (sorry Kristin if you're reading this) he had done the section of river we were covering.

Felt pretty amazing to do it. The water is so powerful and pelted your whole body minus your head (apart from Sanaya who was so short she completely dispeared in the water).
Our last stunt of the day was a 15m overhanging cliff which drops you into the waterfall that hits you from the side and sends you spinning in a circle while your hanging just by the rope.

My love for Bear Grillz has been tainted slightly though... as after watching the youttube video i realised the whole time he is canyoning, he is no further than 500km from a road and there is actually a path the whole way along the river. As well as this, the episode is edited so that he looks like he's going downstream, but he actually chops and changes from downstream to upstream... etc... (I can see Kristen smiling with satisfaction right now).
But check out the video to see our cliff jump spot and where we slid head first down a waterfall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FW5QN7ErG0&feature=related

The last day in Dalat was spent on bike exploring around Dalat and some of its the touristy sights like the "crazy house"- its like a haunted mansion/disney house mad of 5 different buildings, I didnt see any square rooms or doorways. Its taken 20 years to be built so far and has another 5 years to go at least.
A really random place, built by one scatter brain, for another scatter brain. A logisitical nightmare for anyone who knows anything about designing or building.

After Dalat, we came to Hoi An.
A really pretty city, minimally effected by the war, so its like taking a step back in time.

The night life is much bigger than Dalat, the shopping is awesome and there are a lot of laterns and lighting on buildings and along the river that i seem to taken a slight obsession with and filled half my camera memory with.
There are tailors everywhere vying for your business. Im about to go pick up a coat and dress i had made, costing me all of $65.

However i have maintained self control and instead of shopping the whole time ive spent a fair bit of time on the beach getting some R and R. The beach isn't far off Bali's beaches, harrasment by local old ladies is a common occurance, and once you give in to one of them the whole gang flocks to try for a sale.

Other than the beach, the day is generally filled with delicious cheap food (many spring rolls), cocktails and vietnamese coffee (an espresso shot over ice mixed with a bit of sweetened condensed milk- dont knock it before you try it....yum).

Thats the story so far... Drinks on the balcony are calling.... I think I had an hours sleep last night and maybe an hour today... (shell, im doing you proud).

xo

Saigon

After a few tears in Melbourne, a 5 hour wait in Sydney, followed by a 5 hour wait in Bangkok (including being reunited with Georgie- Pat's sister and her friend Sanaya), then another 1.5 hrs in the air it took us 25 hours after take off to arrive in Saigon.
I feel like a wide eyed little kid. There is so much going on all the time, everywhere.
The traffic is organised chaos, alot of nudging and beeping with not much roadrage,
Aparently the rules as a pedestrian are to walk forwards, slow down if you have to but don't walk backwards.
We found our guest house in a little alley way off one of the main streets and after a small tap on the bum and being told "you're vewy nise, yes" we had a brief visit to our room and were off to take a look around.

The architecture here seems like a higglety pigglety juxtaposition of grown up cubby houses. All the buildings are tall and only one room wide (taxes used to be paid on the width of buildings not the height).

Pat decided he needed a haircut and lead me to one of the hairdressers down the alley and after agreeing to pay a whole dollar for a hairut we took a seat (everything is fantastically cheap; $2.50 is on the expensive end of the cocktail continuum). While Pat got his head shaved I made faces at a girl in the shop across the way, not long after she was in the hairdressers spinning me around in circles on my chair and waving her sword of straws at Pat (took some pretty cute photos-they'll come soon).

We had a walk to the markets and got harassed most of the way there, and not unlike the rest of the city they were cram packed.
Afterward we took a visit to the North Face store; I bought a pack for $40 (aparently real-good quality regardless).
(Sorry mum, went against your advice and bought the pack... Its alot easier to carry. Our suitcase has been lovingly donated to a guest house in saigon.)

Dinner was delicious and a massive $6 and included 2 cocktails and plates between the four of us. After attempting to party on I crashed at about 10pm and struggled to push out the last hour before heading back to our room.


Today we travelled to Dalat on a 7 hour bus trip.
Infront of us sat Ed....
Ed was a nice American... However he had the most amazing ability to out talk anyone I've ever met (almost; he didnt quite beat the other American I met on a flight on a previous trip who talked to me with my ipod in, confessed that she had seen over 100 countries, couldnt recognise a blister on my hand yet was a doctor, nurse, lawyer and psychologist...).
Ed could probably talk underwater...
Luckily most of his chatter was addressed toward Georgie and Sanaya, who by the end of the trip were struggling to give Ed the attention he wanted.
Ed resorted to chatting to us while we read books and slept and told us every life story possible. According to Ed, they have lines painted on the road in America which helps control traffic, they also have road rage, and in Southern America, the people have accents! -who knew?

Georgie resorted to yawning while he was talking at her (not with), the next tactic was to hit her head on the seat infront of her, then feeding him pineapple to stop him talking. All of these stratergies hadn't worked, so diversion was the next option. It failed, as Georgie was soon after asked what her name was, was then told a brief history of her name, and then informed that she had "peaches and cream skin", followed by an explanation of what peaches and cream skin was.
All the while I cried with laughter, took photos of the girls faces and pretended to sleep when he turned around to Pat and I for a chat.

Anyhoo, Im off to go check out Dalat and have some dinner!

The Plan

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