Ho Chi Minh City (Formerly Saigon)

A small sample of some Ho Chi Minh City traffic.

Who knows what side of the road they drive on and whose right of way it is.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at around midnight, and hopped in a taxi to our hotel. I’d arranged an eye test for when we got there, first thing in the morning, so we’d decided to get a hotel somewhere between there and everything else. It turned out the hotel was in the middle of nowhere though, and by the time we arrived at 1am, we headed straight to bed.

Attempting to work out how we’d get there, we figured we’d rent a scooter at reception as it gave us chance to do more in the day and work out cheaper. However, I didn’t want to put contact lenses in, so it was over to Diana to do all the riding. I’m not sure if you’re all aware of the traffic in Ho Chi Minh City, but it’s almost entirely moto’s and they’re literally everywhere. But we made it, with only a few flustered moments. My eyes were apparently fine with no change in prescription, so that’s always nice to know. Confident the traffic was going to be worse at around this time, I took over the driving and we headed off to the Cu Chi tunnels.

I can confirm that riding a motorcycle in Ho Chi Minh City is a very different experience to riding around England. That is, within the city itself. The place felt somewhat reminiscent of the traffic in India, in that no matter how wide the road is (or isn’t), there will always be one more vehicle trying to squeeze in. Vehicles with four wheels might as well have their handbrakes on permanently, as the sheer amount of moto’s sneaking around them, like water flowing around rocks in a river, meant they were progressing at such a slow rate they would often miss the changing of traffic lights. Never before have I felt the need to check my blind spots quite so frequently, as you can never know exactly where every vehicle was around you. Anyone at home who complains when a driver cuts them up with a couple of metres to spare, for the love of your blood pressure don’t consider driving here. If there’s a spare inch between you and the vehicle next to you, someone will try and sneak in.

That said, once we left the business of the city, everything calmed down dramatically. Suddenly it was the open road, wonderful openness and countryside, rural villages, the stuff you come to love about South East Asia and certainly the reason I will want to go back to Vietnam after this. A fifteen-day visa free entry just isn’t enough.

It took a little over an hour to get to the tunnels, where we learned of some of the history of the Viet Cong and how they operated from a vast network of narrow, dingy tunnels. During the second Indochina War between Vietnam and the USA, this was how many of the Viet Cong army remained hidden, doing everything underground from sleeping, cooking, planning tactics and building traps and weapons. An incredible feat, with vents hidden in areas that just looked like plants to allow air in, and other methods to baffle exhaust vents and cut down the amount of smoke exhumed from cooking. We were shown the entrance to one tunnel (which, if it wasn’t pointed out, I would never have spotted) and our guide told us we could go in. Looking at the size of it, I just laughed at him, thinking he was joking. But he was serious, the hole wasn’t barely as wide as I was, but the trick was to go in at a diagonal. Apparently this was very useful back in the war, as the Vietnamese were a lot smaller and wirey than their American enemies, and would be able to zip through without being followed.

We were also shown a number of the traps used, most of which involved false floors to impale an unfortunately recipient upon sharpened spikes. Some of the underground rooms were actually a lot larger than you’d expect, with large tables for discussing military plans with high ranking officers.

Ouch...

We were also given some of the food they’d have in the tunnels, consisting of cooked taro and a plate of crushed peanuts in sugar. As Diana and I went to try it, our tour guide quickly told us to stop. A little confused, he then told the two Koreans also with our tour guide they could carry on. He then asked whether we had a peanut allergy, which it seems only applies to Westerners and not Koreans, to which we assured him we didn’t. It tasted quite good, although taro seems to be incredibly sticky and hard to shift from your hands.

The site also had a shooting range, where you could buy a range of different ammunition to fire from various guns used during the war. As tempting as it was, it was extremely expensive for a single shot and a lot of the weapons, being automatic, would probably work out inordinately expensive as a $ per second ratio. We passed and headed back home.

The next day we decided to check out the number of museums in the area, renting the scooter for a second day. First port of call however was to book our bus to Siem Reap, as we would either be volunteering there with almost immediate effect or we’d have plenty to see there anyway. We headed into town and arranged a bus (actually two, a transfer in Phnom Penh.)

Our next touristy stop was the War Remnants museum, an extremely informative, if not somewhat depressing overview of the second Indochina war and its consequences. A whole floor of the 4 storey building was devoted to the atrocities of the USA ‘Agent Orange’ herbicidal warfare attack, a horrifying attack of around 20 million US gallons of a toxic herbicide “dioxin” over southern Vietnam the result of which has caused the death, disfigurement and disablement of generations of Vietnamese people. Extremely sobering, as well as depressing and anger inducing, we looked around the rest of the museum which included information on the run up to the war, the costs associated with it, now defunct guns, weapons and vehicles and post war paraphernalia. All very interesting and well worth visiting, far too much information to ingest in one visit.

Shocking stats...

Our next stop was an attempt to visit the Notre-Dame cathedral, but, in typical backpacker form, we didn’t realise what day of the week it was and it was closed. It was still interesting from the outside, although we have no idea what it was to look at from within.

Looked good from outside anyway...

The last stop for the day was a medicine museum, built in a very traditional style building (although with a lift in the middle of it. Can’t have it all I guess.) An interesting insight into traditional Vietnamese medicine, where we got to dress up as traditional chemists and try some herbal teas.

Various different herbs, minerals and, in some cases, insects used as medicine.

How may I help you?

How to grind herbs

Even a green one for Diana!

This about wrapped up our time in Vietnam. With the rest of the evening we found ourselves a local coffee shop and ordered two ‘ca feh sua’s (Coffee with sweetened milk) with a fancy coffee drip that took far too long for my liking, and worked out what we thought about Vietnam. Definitely a country to revisit in the future, so many beautiful places and lovely people. We’ll be back!

I've never waited so long for a coffee

'Nam.

Onwards to our next country, Cambodia, Siem Reap!

BOO.

For all of our photos of Ho Chi Minh City, see here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157663613681954

Hue, the Hai Van Pass and Hoi An

For the sake of only a few dollars, we popped to Da Nang on a flight and worked out where to go from here. We’d heard about the Top Gear motorcycle route, the most popular part of it being a mountain pass road between Hue and Hoi An, called Hải Vân Pass. Figuring we wanted a few days in Hoi An, we left the airport and worked out how we’d get to Hue. Unfortunately, our only option to get to the bus station was a taxi and they were well aware of that, taking us a somewhat longer router than we expected on the meter, then taking us an extra 20 metres through a gate that would have cost an extra chunk of cash, which we outright refused to pay.

We took a minibus to Hue and a short walk from where we were dropped off to the road with guest houses. We’d had a recommendation of one but we were poached on the way to it as there appeared to be many cheap places to stay on the same road, with eagle-eyed receptionists standing on the steps waiting for people with bags. The room was cheaper than we were expecting (although later we did find out it came with a little cockroach friend running around, putting Diana on edge for a while). We found out we could arrange the motorcycle trip at reception. Whilst the most expensive motorcycle rental option we’d ever seen, they also had our backpacks taken in the morning on a separate bike to a hotel at the other end. We made arrangements for the next morning and took a look around.

We didn’t really get up to a lot in Hue, other than getting lost in a supermarket and watching the sun set, working out our route for the morning. It was a fairly simple route once we got on to it, but a little bit of a maze at first. After enjoying the beautiful view from our window and checking the room for cockroaches one final time, we headed to sleep ready for the long journey ahead.

A view to die for.

Like clockwork someone was ready to take our bags ahead of us, cramming them into sacks and somehow draping them onto the back of a scooter. We hoped and prayed they’d make it there in one piece, but seeing as the Vietnamese are well versed in riding bikes we had little doubt they’d be okay. We hopped on our somewhat unreliable looking scooter (who needs a fuel gauge or working speedo anyway??), Diana up front, found a petrol station and just about handled that transaction, and were on our way.

Our rough route

First step was through a small village alongside a beach. The road passed alongside a number of people drying out rice and stuff, creating unnecessary obstacles along the way but nobody seemed to really mind. Next was through a number of graveyards, we have no idea why there were so many in this particular area but a lot of them were incredibly fancy and ornate. Then through a small green hilly area, surrounded by trees and countryside, before a bridge with an absolutely incredible view.

Honestly, there wasn’t much about this journey that wasn’t absolutely stunning. Even the main highway, where we had to cover our faces to prevent inhaling tons of diesel fumes, had amazing scenery all around. With my role as motorcycle photographer, I did my best to capture what I could. Then we approached ‘the’ road, the mountain bypass road so heralded as the highlight of the trip. Of course, first we managed to almost take the wrong way which ended with a security man running out of a hut after us to tell us to stop and go back the other way, as the route we tried was only for cars and trucks. Hoping we were still on track, we followed the route he pointed us down.

Wow. Just wow. The most incredible views on a perfect windy road, with surprisingly little traffic considering the fame of the route and it being the main road around here. We did see the odd tourist riding pillion on the way, but it was a surprisingly clear route. We finally reached the top, where many couples were taking advantage of the incredible views and getting professional wedding photos taken in odd, yet beautiful places. The buildings around this area had been peppered by bullets, although the actual history on the area wasn’t very obvious from anything around. We followed the road higher up, to a point where we were able to see the whole area, almost 360 degrees of the region.

The way back down from this view had just as stunning sights and scenes, an absolutely beautiful stretch of road. Top Gear were absolutely on point with this one!

Puppy off to find love

Good luck pup!

As we approached the bottom and headed on our way towards Hoi An, the heavens opened with some insanely heavy rain, to the point it was stinging my eyes whilst riding. Stopping a couple of times to confirm we were going in the right direction, we eventually decided to duck out entirely and stop for a coffee until it passed. Unfortunately, as soon as we resumed riding again we caught it back up. It seemed we had a bit of a stop/start journey coming up to avoid the bullet-like torrential rain.

Someone off to brave the rain

Eventually we made it to Hoi An, soaked to the bone and distinctly prune-fingered. We checked into the hotel we’d been told our luggage had been forwarded on to, and within 10 minutes were reintroduced to our bags. A much required shower and off to explore Hoi An!

We’d been informed, both by looking up the area and from that Top Gear episode, that Hoi An was the place to go to get clothing tailor made. Whilst this was of no interest to me, Diana set about the task of getting a tailor-made Ao Dai for her mum, the traditional dress of Vietnamese women. Finding a tailor and material she liked, we were informed it would be done the next day. Easy peasy!

The following day, we decided we’d hire bicycles and go for an impromptu cycling tour of the area, with absolutely no idea where we were going or what we were doing. With a vague route worked out on a map, we headed off into the unknown. This took us through along a surprisingly long bridge over the Thu Bồn River. Hard work on the way up, but great fun on the way back down!

From here, we had a quick look at our map and headed off to the right, to make a vague circle. We stopped briefly for a drink at a local shop, where they were playing a card game. They didn’t seem too familiar with Western people stopping here, and Diana attempting to go over and understand the game they were playing to little avail. We went off on our way again.

Riding through roads between huge rice fields, with people putting their rice out on the sides of the road to dry in the sun, we attracted fair amounts of attention and it was clear this wasn’t the typical route that the tourists of the area would take. At this point, we were getting hungry and tried to find a local place to eat. This is easy enough in tourist areas where people are eating at any hour of the day, but in this area where people were more accustomed to eating at certain times, we didn’t find many places with food still available. Crossing over a bridge, Diana spotted a little place where it looked like they may have food options and attempted to ask for a menu.

It probably comes as no surprise that the entire menu was written in Vietnamese and the lady there had not a jot of English. So we moved to more traditional tactics, where Diana walked over to the kitchen area and started pointing at things, making exaggerated mimes of eating and I’m fairly sure there was an attempt to do the action of a noodle in there as well. She seemed to get the general idea and asked us to take a seat.

Here we both gathered some attention, when (we assume) her children gathered around us. A boy seemed incredibly drawn to my camera, so I figured we weren’t going anywhere for a while and handed it over to him. Meanwhile, Diana attracted the attention of two girls, who had their eye on her phone. Duly handed over, we waited for whatever food would materialise and watched as the two girls fought over who’s turn it was to play with Diana’s phone, and the boy started up a miniature photo shoot.

I forget exactly what the food was, but without a doubt it was noodle soup with vegetables. The girls at this point had found Temple Run on Diana’s phone, a game that was installed when she bought it, as she didn’t even know it was on there. By the time the boy had finished with my camera, an additional 200 photos had appeared, ranging from us looking vaguely confused at the menu, the girls arguing over who got to play, us stuffing our faces, and extreme close ups of my face. Priceless photos I will one day sell for a small fortune, no doubt. Once we’d finished, we got the impression their mother was pretty concerned they might break our gadgets, said some things to them and they immediately handed them back. We then attempted to pay for our food but she outright refused to take anything from us after attempting to offer three times (I mean, that might be because we had no idea what the corresponding item on the menu costed so we just threw a random amount of money at her hoping it was enough. Maybe we were just offering an insultingly low amount… She seemed to be smiling and shaking her head a lot though, so I think she was just being very generous…)

First class photography!

Om nom nom

Thanking her profusely and with all our possessions back in our possession, we headed on up the road, following a little route on my map that should get us back to the town again. That said, the route suddenly changed quite dramatically, down narrow little roads where only a bicycle would be able to pass. We crossed a very narrow bridge over a river, where a lot of the bridge was actually missing stone slabs, resulting in a dunk should we fail to navigate them successfully. From there we went through a number of fields and past very rural houses and villages, still apparently on route to what looked like a bridge over to town again. Except it wasn’t a bridge, it was a boat crossing. It seemed wherever we were, this was the way back to Hoi An, so we loaded the bikes on and were on our way back over. 

One of the reasons we stayed in Hoi An as long as we did was their monthly ‘Full Moon Festival’, which we’d arrived only a couple of days before. We looked it up and there were a lot of positive reviews of it, where apparently people would float candle lanterns down the river and all sorts of street activities were performed. Whilst wandering back over to our hotel we could see everything being set up for this, new floats had appeared in the river and stalls were appearing all up and down the streets. During this period, vehicle traffic was explicitly prohibited and you were only allowed to wander the streets by foot (some people went by bicycle, I’m not sure if this was allowed or typical rule ignoring, but certainly no motor vehicles!)

The evening was absolutely heaving with people, but extremely beautiful, with lanterns set up outside shops and little stalls all around the place. People everywhere were attempting to sell you a lantern to float down the river, but due to the sheer amount of them we decided we were quite happy just to observe. Street bands were playing and the little streets were nicely decorated for the event.

We took a while working out the best way to get to our next destination, Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon.) After a while looking at prices and durations for night buses, and then looking up flights again, we realised it was almost entirely pointless considering a bus when internal flights were such a bargain. With a flight booked for the evening of the next day, we spent our day arranging to post some stuff we’d gathered along the way back to England. Opting for the cheapest method, by sea, we were told it would take 2-3 months to arrive back home. Seemed a long time, but we were hoping to be pleasantly surprised it would arrive home sooner as we’d been estimated a long time from India and it only took a couple of weeks (It didn’t take less time in the end, it was almost 3 months and Diana was anxiously waiting for her mum to get her new outfit!)

Light drizzle...

We also took this time to finish applications for Grace House in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Diana had been looking for a place for us to volunteer whilst there, and found they had use for Occupational Therapists. It looked like a great place, so we spent the day filling out all the relevant information on the application forms and sent them off. That said, it was a weekend, so we’d have to wait and find out whether we were okay to go there or not.

But anyway, onwards to our next destination, Ho Chi Minh City!

More photos from Hue can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157659433633803

More photos from the Hai Van pass can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157659433764123

More photos from Hoi An (including plenty that were taken by a child in a restaurant..!) can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157661183199340