New Year’s Eve was an extremely strange time. Expecting Mui Ne to have at least one or two things going on we were stunned by the silence around us. Restaurants were relatively empty and the usual flood of people to the beach to watch the fireworks laid on by the posh hotels was just a trickle. Then we found out why. Not a single posh resort had fireworks to justify the $75 tickets for the New Year Bash…….cheap skates!!

However, we made the most of it with Marsela and Daniel, a German couple, who are travelling for a year. We sat on the beach, chatted over wine and watched a couple of Austrian women do their traditional thing……waltz on the beach to The Blue Danube that they sang to each other…..aaahhhhhh.

Mui Ne is a strange little place. It’s stretched out over around 15kms, with just one road running the whole length. There is no beach for pretty much most of its length, just a long concrete storm wall protecting the beach but, thankfully, the stretch by our hotel is fine. The hotel is also great value at $22, with a fab pool and pretty gardens. We looked in some places asking considerably more money for a lot less value. Well done Cheryl for persevering to the very last place as Neil had just about given up looking and he had planned to get the next bus out.

We also caught up with Catherine again who came to Mui Ne just the day before we left. We had a really good evening with her, Dani and Marsi and Michelle from Belgium who, apparently, has bumped into Catherine all over Vietnam. We all enjoyed the fresh fish and cheap wine and more cheap wine at the local restaurant whilst listening to an 80’s soundtrack.

Sad news today, January 2nd. Clive’s father died in hospital this morning in his sleep. Neil has so many memories of him…..at the rugby, driving Clive and him home from the pub on many occasions and, of course, always charming the ladies!! RIP Bert, you were a lovely man.

This is our third and possibly final trip to Vietnam. When we came the first time, 3 years ago, we left vowing never to return due the incessant hassle and noise. Within 2 weeks we decided we had to return because there were more things that we liked than disliked about the country and we had lots we still wanted to do.

Sure enough, the following year we spent 2 months exploring new places. This time we have had another two months doing some new stuff and going over some old ground. Sadly, the continuous noise from the roads and the fact that Vietnamese people are just plain LOUD has paid its toll! There is no awareness of others and no thought as to the consequences of their actions. This reflects in their insane driving and the fact that at 06.00 a.m. in a hotel dominated by western people, it’s OK to shriek from one end of the hotel to each other. When you point it out to them they appear genuinely sorry for their actions but we have this sneak feeling that the apology will be short lived. So, finally, it is Goodnight Vietnam and thank you for the experience.

Next stop is a night in Ho Chi Minh City before flying to Kuala Lumpur to catch our onward flight to Sri Lanka.

Our stay in Nha Trang for Christmas was pretty much as expected, albeit, much quieter than we thought it might be. The hordes of western tourists we anticipated did not materialise, in fact, it was downright quiet. Being downright quiet made our traditional walk on the white sand beach extremely tranquil other than the sound of waves crashing on the shore.

We made the most of it with Hugh and Catherine having a “traditional” English Christmas Eve Dinner…..several jugs of Bia Hoi followed by a curry…..excellent! Sadly, the only places offering anything near to a British Christmas Day Lunch were those that had a habit of playing very cheesy music.

This could have been tolerated in support of a traditional Christmas but the volume that they tended to play the music was ear splitting ending all hopes of conversation, storytelling, reminiscing and sharing travel information. Instead we opted for our favourite Italian Restaurant and we weren’t disappointed…….an excellent evening was had by all. Take a look at the pics for the silly hats we bought in China and some of the gifts that we exchanged.

Mick & Karen…..do the pictures bring back any memories?

Our highlight was seeing and speaking to our children, Leanne, Alex and Paul over Christmas via Skype. It still blows us away to know that you can talk to someone on the other side of the world for as long as you like for free…..now that’s technology!!

Congratulations to Alex for getting his job as Data Journalist for BBC World Service. One is very proud of one’s son working for Aunty Beeb.

Not much else happened in Nha Trang, we did a lot of planning for Sri Lanka plus our trip south via Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh City to catch our flight. We had planned to stay in Nha Trang until after New Year but the new sound of Vietnam, “building”, moved in next door to our hotel with the demolition starting before 07.00 a.m. We decided to cut our losses and move early to Mui Ne on December 28th.

We do have one interesting story about Nha Trang. Changing money in banks can be as slick as you can image, sometimes less than 5 minutes, or it can be so tedious you cannot imagine. Up until now the longest time we had to spend changing money was in Yangshuo in China. Cheryl was trying to change a traveller’s cheque and must have signed 6 or 7 documents and took around 25 minutes. Changing money in Nha Trang for Neil proved even slower but without the document signing. The bank we chose had obviously not had much experience of traveller’s cheques so the girls had to follow process “by the book” so 55 minutes later, and 25 minutes after the bank had shut, we eventually walked out with our 10 million VND!!

We hope you all had a great Christmas and that the snow made it just that little bit more Christmassy than normal.

We would like to wish all our readers a fabulous Christmas, a spanking 2011 and for those in Europe and the USA, a snowy white Christmas. For those in the southern hemisphere, a great beach barbie!

A special mention goes to our children Leanne, Paul and Alex. We miss you a lot and look forward to our chat on Christmas day.

We would also like to say hello to Clive & Karen as we are desperately sorry that they had to cut short their travels, and miss our joint Christmas party, due to Clive’s dad’s illness….we wish him a speedy recovery.

We have made our usual E-card to amuse you, copy and paste this into your browser:

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/coOrUtG6ifGKrPBH

Allow plenty of time for it to load. We had a lot of fun doing this and we hope you like it. Mark O, Chris and Andrew, if there’s any vacancies in your bands then we’re up for it!!!

We’ve been away now for almost 2 months and it finally rained during our journey south. Warm rain Paul!!

We travelled from Cat Ba to Ninh Binh where we planned to stay a day or so. The journey was pretty uneventful although the local bus did follow the “Never Full” principle! Fortunately, we were almost first on the bus so we did have a proper seat for the 3 hour journey rather than a tiny plastic stool in the aisle. Ninh Binh itself is used by some as a base for trips, others travel from Hanoi, but the town itself is pretty dull. Its saving grace is that just a few kilometres out of town you find yourself surrounded by fabulous karsts and rice paddies. We had read about a number of scams at the Tam Coc boat rides so opted for the newer and lesser used, Trang An Grottoes instead.

Our hotel is very grand and at $15 was something of a steal considering it had a huge, tastefully decorated room, with enormous bathroom, balcony and flat screen TV. The bonus was that it was very close to the railway station which was to be our next mode of onward transport.

Getting to the grottoes was a little more challenging. Trips were available from hotels and agencies but as the number of tourists is low, there were no cheap group tours, just private hire car at $25. Having checked out the map we decided we could walk it let alone get a taxi for less than $25. It was about 8kms (5 miles) and we managed to get a local taxi that cost us $6 return trip! The grottoes were fantastic, and the ticket price of 100,000VND (about £3.30) included a 2.5 hour boat ride along the river in, out and through the caves in the massive limestone karsts. We went through about 9 or 10 grottoes, some up to 100m long, and some of them so low we had to lie flat on our backs in the boat. Our boat lady sometimes rowed with her hands and sometimes she somehow managed to row with her feet……pretty smart!

The Trang An Grottoes have recently been opened for tourists, with an impressive, but empty, visitor centre, and what seemed like hundreds of rowboats just waiting for the swarms to arrive in peak season. We timed our visit for lunchtime to hopefully avoid any tour buses from Hanoi and were rewarded with the river pretty much to ourselves. It was so peaceful, with only the sound of the water lapping against the boat. We met only one or two other boats towards the end of our trip. It was very much, “up close and personal” to the towering limestone karsts. The kingfishers along the way were a stunning blue, taunting us with their rapid fly-bys, and the very shy snake that swam in front of us soon disappeared under the surface when he spotted us. It was such a lovely experience, and our boat lady did not try to sell us anything or ask for a tip, so we broke a golden rule, and gave her a large tip which she seemed generally surprised to get.

The overnight train to Hue was dead on time and whilst it rattled a lot it was comfortable enough to get some sleep. Sadly our roommates, Swiss we think, were very unsociable despite us offering a snort of Hanoi Vodka. Fortunately, they were quiet so caused us no grief but it was a pity we couldn’t share some stories.

We selected our $15 hotel room including breakfast and a free beer, an idea more hotels should adopt we think. The restaurant also serves great cocktails at less than $2 each. We met up with Catherine, also en route from Cat Ba to Nha Trang, one evening and watched her stagger out of the restaurant after necking 4 of them! We also bumped into Chilla and Paul from Austria that we first met in Yuanshuo and then again on Cat Ba Island. They were due to leave the next day so we had dinner that night in a floating restaurant……very pleasant indeed!

We’ve been to Hue before but decided to use it as a place to break up the journey south. We also wanted to do one of the trips again, The Tombs of The Kings, as we now know much more of the history hopefully making the tour more meaningful. It was, as expected, a great trip and as we opted not to include a tour of the Citadel, we were put into a group of just 5 and taken to visit to a 100 year old traditional Vietnamese house and garden occupied by a very unassuming lady. Inside the wooden house there was a wonderful display of pictures of her ancestors and outside a serene garden with a myriad of fruit trees and spice shrubs. The trip was broken up with an excellent buffet lunch which we hadn’t bargained for. Our ticket price was to include a simple lunch. Being cheapskates, we opted not to upgrade for 50,000VND. By the time we got to lunch the tour guide seemed to have forgotten what we had paid and were cordially invited to tuck into a grand buffet along with everyone else.

Next day, we went further south to Quang Ngai which was to be just a stopover to break the 13 hour journey to Nha Trang. After a long walk we found ourselves at the Central Hotel (not so central) and managed to blag a room upgrade….nice one! We had a long walk from the station to the hotel, followed by a long walk around town and not a single westerner in sight……we appear to be the only ones here, hence all the strange ogling.

Tomorrow we’re on the final leg of our journey to Nha Trang, just a rather dull 7.5 hours on the train.

We came to Cat Ba Island we intending to stay maybe 4 to 5 days. After our less than warm reception we immediately changed that plan to leave first thing next morning. Then we discovered what lovely people we had bonded with during the fracas, what a great family hotel we had checked into and realised what an excellent place this is to just “hang out”. We eventually stayed for more than 3 weeks.

It’s relatively cheap to stay here, our spacious room is just $8/night, includes A/C, TV, mini bar and a view to die for. There are some simple things to do on the island that we can achieve without lining the pockets of the scummy tour operators and the seafood is as fresh as it gets.

We started our stay by doing very little, sussing out the options for sightseeing, getting our bearings for the beach, how to get back to the mainland and having dinner with our new friends. In the mornings, whilst drinking strong Viet coffee, we spent a long time just watching the view of the harbour from our bed as it changed, boats coming in here, boats going out there and the sun getting higher as the day gained momentum. How sleepy can it get?

Our first trip out was to take a local bus to Cai Vieng jetty. Not much here, in fact, absolutely nothing. However, it was a pleasant and cheap sightseeing trip of the island whilst “enjoying” the company of a bus load of kids on the way home from school…..ear plugs recommended!

One evening at dinner in the hotel we decided to share a large Grilled Red Snapper in Lemongrass. The hotel doesn’t have tanks for the fish so dinner was secured by Mr Tuan heading off on his moto to purchase our dinner. A couple of minutes later he reappeared only for Neil to spot something fall off the back of his bike about 30 metres down the road. The large object began flapping manically in its attempt to escape back to the sea. “Oy, that’s my fish!!” shouted Neil as one of the waiters legged it up the road, dodging the rest of the traffic, to retrieve our dinner. Despite the roadside incident the fish was delicious and, as we now know, it was very fresh! Watching our fish flapping around in the road being passed by motorbikes was one of the funniest things we have seen in a long time!

Our next trip was to The National Park where we had a hike through the jungle and a climb of around an hour up to the top of a hill 225 metres high. The views were excellent and it was a great place to have our picnic. We sat for about an hour and met other travellers and exchanged stories including similar “welcoming” receptions at the northern jetty.

We also started to chat to Mr Tuan’s brother in law, Mr Anh the hotel manager, about the benefits of the hostel booking sites, Hostelworld and Hostelbookers. He’s very much “front of house” as he speaks very good English so he was pleased to give it a go. We use these on-line booking agencies all the time for reviews, information and bookings and, surprisingly, not a single establishment on Cat Ba Island is registered with either of them. So, it’s back to work for us and over a period of a few days we gave some free ‘consultancy” to help him get set up. In exchange, Mr Anh fed us some excellent food and beers so, all in all, it was a very fair exchange.

Friday was Cheryl’s birthday, and we took another trip by local bus to explore the Hospital Cave. This is a 3 storey, 17 room building carved into a cave in 1963 with help from the Chinese. It was used in the war to house up to 300 soldiers, and was in use as a hospital until 1975. The rooms are now bare, except for a light bulb, but the excellent local guide, Ba, showed us around, and told us a little of its history. He took great pride in showing us where Ho Chi Minh stayed for the night, as well as the cinema, the swimming pool and the ping pong room!

We took a picnic including chocolate mini birthday cakes from the bakery and enjoyed our lunch whilst waiting for the bus back to town.

Neil planned a surprise birthday cake and asked Mr Anh if he could help him buy a small one, about the size of a tea plate. Mr Anh said no problem and asked how to spell her name. Neil’s intention was to have him bring out the cake after dinner. All this planning happened several days before Cheryl’s birthday and then, on the day, Mr Anh came up with his own plan. “You be in your room at 7 p.m. and I will bring cake and flowers with the two children”. OK, Neil thought, I can’t argue as he insists on paying so we’ll go with it. It was something of a close shave getting Cheryl showered and fully dressed, without appearing too pushy or spoiling the surprise, before the family arrived with a huge cake and some beautiful flowers. Dinner was excellent and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday as Cheryl blew out the candles and cut the cake.

Mr Anh continues to show his appreciation for our “consultancy” and the fact that we’re now also “touting” his rooms to any traveller that we see looking for rooms with a back pack. So far we must have introduced half a dozen new guests and in exchange we have been invited to eat with the family several times. Take a look at the pics to see what great food we’ve been fed. We’ve also tried a couple of the hotel home brews, Snake Wine and Sea Horse Wine. Basically, they are home rice spirit with a little extra in the jar to provide that added touch of “mystique”. Take a look at the pics of the snakes in the jar.

We’ve also had good fun with the family playing games. Ludo with Mr Tuan’s youngest son who is 7 years old (yes and he did whoop Neil’s arse) and card games such as gin rummy with the staff. These guys are cards mad but we’ve yet to even remotely understand how to play any of their games. Other than playing games we’ve spent a long time re-planning our trip due to the body swerve in the direction of Sri Lanka and also finalising visa dates to match flights home.

Blimey, what a day December 3rd was. Booked tickets to New Zealand for next year’s trip, got Mr Anh live on Hostelbookers, made E-Christmas cards and bought tickets for several games at the cricket world cup in Sri Lanka. Phew, time for a rest followed by a journey from the island to Ninh Binh and southwards.

We spent a couple of days in Halong City trying to work out how to get to Cat Ba Island without giving the scummy tour operators shed loads of money for doing “jack”. We finally sussed out that we could catch the Government Tourist Boat to the island and catch a bus from the jetty into the main town. Cost of the boat was 130,000 VND (£4.30) which included 30,000VND to get us into Halong Bay which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The boat was due to depart at 1pm and would include a stop at a cave, and tour round the bay, the whole trip to take 3.5 hours. Once on the island the public bus should cost us about 10,000VND, “It’s easy” said the nice lady, in the smart uniform.

Whilst waiting for the boat we met an American couple, Rob & Erin, who had been teaching English in Korea, and were now on a short break before returning home to the US. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts to get the official ticket themselves, they ended up trusting one of the “helpful” people who offer to assist with ticket buying. They didn’t know he was a tout until they spoke to us so needless to say they were just a tad hacked off. It wasn’t much money but it is just annoying that the scum make a living out of lying through their teeth to make money out of people who cannot speak the language. We’ve learnt over the last couple of years that it pays to do your homework and if you don’t have time then just accept that you will pay over the odds.

At 1.30 p.m. we finally got on board what turned out to be a tour boat, not a Government Boat at all, after having to wait until the main tour party bus arrived. All had paid varying amounts for pretty much the same trip, most of them all the way from Hanoi. The majority on board had booked a longer trip, including spending a night on Cat Ba and/or a night on the boat. By this time we had already moaned at the boat “captain” about the late start, and got a telling off for going up on deck whilst still at the jetty. The four of us had to put our names on a passenger list, and the captain added a note alongside in Vietnamese. The boat captain refused to explain this but we guessed we had been noted as being “different” from the main group.

We finally set off only to grind to a halt 1km out of the wharf. Lunch time for those on the tour, we didn’t want to pay extra for lunch, but at least we were allowed up on the deck where we made ourselves comfy on some loungers. Some of the main group, who were staying on the boat that night, joined us and we spent a very pleasant trip chatting and watching the stunning scenery pass by. The boat stopped for about 40 mins for the visit to the cave. There was then another stop, around 30mins, for the tour group to go to a water cave at another charge of 50,000VND. We stayed on board the tour boat. When they got back, an exuberant young lad decided to jump off the top deck into the sea, much to our amusement. The captain however was not amused, “no swimming” he bellowed grimly. Several of us shouted to him “no pay, no swim, and no fun!”

Off again and we finally pulled in to a deserted looking jetty at about 4.30pm. Not so bad after all the delays and stops we thought, but strange that Lonely Planet suggested the trip would take 5 – 6 hours. We got off, along with the others who had booked transport only, and those who booked a night on the island as part of their tour. We walked a short way and waited a little apart from the tour group for a bus to arrive. A scruffy beat up green bus pulled in. A Vietnamese guy told us “that is not your bus, your bus in 15 minutes”. We told him we wanted the public bus as we were not part of the tour, and he again said, “not your bus”. Only after the bus left did we see the sign which showed a picture of the scruffy bus and confirmed it was indeed the one to Cat Ba town. He Lied.

It was now that we realised that he was a motorbike taxi driver and we had been turned over and it become very heated between us and the lying little scumbag. His scam was to prevent us getting on the local bus, wait until the tour bus had gone and offer us a motorcycle taxi ride to town at a rate of 700,000VND. We decided with Rob and Erin that we were getting on the tour bus if they liked it or not. If we didn’t then we decided to start a fire, stay the night rough and see if the motorcycle taxi driver could swim!!

It started to get dark and things continued with moto man, and to make matters worse another guy, claiming to be the “Manager” first denied that there was a local bus, and then told Erin off for not getting on it! Our tempers were raised, and it got more and more heated. Finally, after about 40 minutes the tour bus arrived and then it got really sh***y. Neil grabbed our bags and as soon as the arrival tour group got off the bus he tried to get on. Then the tour group organiser shouted that we weren’t allowed on so Neil took his place at the entrance to the bus door so no one could get on or off. It was an ugly standoff between us and the 3 guys from the tour bus, the driver being particularly big and menacing. Neil stood his ground, Cheryl joined in and Rob continued to threaten moto man.

During the “negotiations”, in an effort to get us on the bus we were instantly adopted by Sarah, a wonderfully feisty American girl, who had bought a ticket which appeared to include the bus for her. “You can’t leave them – they’re my parents” she shouted. For a split second the tour guy was confused, her moment of inspiration nearly worked. Then one of the boat guys shook his head, “They not your parent” the tour leader shouted, “you liar”, “ME LIAR??” Sarah bellowed back.

Arguments continued, the official tour group got on the bus plus a few locals and then the tour guide graciously offered to negotiate to get us on the bus, as if he was doing us a great favour. We could get on the bus but it would cost us 100,000 VND (the local bus would have cost 15,000VND!). It had got pretty scary as Neil was pushed, shoved and manhandled by the 3 tour people and he and the rather large driver came pretty close to blows.

At one point during the mêlée he did raise his fist towards Cheryl only to be given a serious verbal threat from her that seemed to make him think and back off. A petite French woman was roughly pushed and shoved as she believed she had paid but the bus man did not think she was included, but eventually let her on. Meanwhile, Robin from Canada, was videoing the whole thing so we hope one day to get a copy if it comes out.

It was pitch dark, we guessed given the time it took for the boat to get here that we must be at the far North of the island, not at the jetty we had been promised by the ticket seller and it was probably too far to walk. Our options were limited, and we definitely were not going to pay the scumbag moto man, so Rob, Erin and us reluctantly handed over the cash, whilst still swearing at the guide and driver, and got on. The bus man passed money to a number of Vietnamese guys, including the moto driver and the boat tour guide, it was clear they had all played a part and were entitled to a slice of the bounty.

The final blatant piece of profiteering took part halfway on the journey. The bus stopped, the tour man screamed at the French couple, Ronan & Clemence, “you not include, I speak to your boat, pay 100,000VND, or I throw you off”. They argued, and our group stood in support, but eventually they paid and we finally arrived in Cat Ba Town at around 7pm.

Cheryl writes, the thing which disappointed me most was the reaction, or lack of reaction, of the people on the official tour. They had been delayed by nearly 2 hours, they had witnessed the ugly standoff and Sarah explained to them what was happening to us when she got on the bus. Even when the French couple were threatened with being abandoned in the middle of nowhere, and Neil asked them if they were going to let them throw them off, the tour group sat in silence. One of my favourite quotes sums it up, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” Edmund Burke.

In real terms the scammers cost us 170,000VND, a paltry £5.50. However, it makes you seethe to think that this treatment gets served up to tourists on a regular basis thus giving Vietnam such a bad name. It only seems to happen around Hanoi and Halong Bay and we know that it’s just a minority of scammers. It just leaves you trusting nobody…..and that’s sad for the majority of people in Vietnam who are very friendly and just trying to make a relatively honest living.

However, in hindsight, the £5.50 turned out to be a good investment as we have “truly bonded” with some very nice people. We’ve been “adopted” by a lovely American girl and we now have a number of friends with integrity to visit on future trips…..overall money well spent. Since arrival we’ve also met other travellers who suffered the same trauma who have also bonded with fellow sufferers so maybe, just maybe, something good is coming out of all this crap.

We’re back in Nha Trang to extend the visas one more time before we head for home.

We were originally going to spend the last month of our trip chilling in Thailand, but we decided to stay on in Vietnam due to the political protests going on. We have to fly out of Bangkok to get home so fingers crossed that all will be ok with our overnight stay near to the airport. The airport hasn’t been targeted by the red shirt protesters so far, but we do remember the chaos caused by the yellow shirts in November 2008.

Nha Trang seems so big, noisy and bustling after the relative calm of Quy Nhon. The place was packed on the Sunday we returned and it was difficult walking along the beach promenade as it was blocked by people, bicycles, and motorbikes. We are both getting really frustrated by the lack of consideration given to pedestrians so have decided to hold our ground when a bike is coming towards us on the pavement beeping for us to get out of the way, or driven at us or cut across us with the driver completely oblivious to the danger. Neil has even grabbed hold of bikes and their passengers to make sure they notice and this has shocked a number of bike riders so we suspect the locals just give way at all times. We have been surprised at the lack of accidents given the chaotic state of the traffic and some of the idiotic behaviour of both drivers and pedestrians we have seen.

Accidents do happen though, and we got chatting to an English girl in her twenties who was unlucky enough to come off the hire bike driven by her boyfriend as he skidded on gravel. Travelling at only 30km/hr she was wearing shorts and lost a fairly large strip of skin along her elbow, lower arm and all along her leg. It didn’’t look too bad on the first day, and we were impressed with her positive, almost cheerful attitude despite her injuries. As the wounds dried up it started to look at lot worse and she was obviously in a lot of discomfort. Added to this, it turned out her travel insurance company, Insure and Go, were being really unhelpful and it appeared that they were looking for a loophole to avoid paying the claim. It didn’’t help that the hospital doctor was cheerfully adding lots of expensive treatments and fictitious overnight stays to the bill!

There was no ‘hire agreement’ as the bike was rented from a guy on a street corner so we suspect the insurance company will do all they can to ‘prove’ they were not on the 50cc bike they hired, as most will not cover for more than 125cc. On her last day we found out the insurance company were sending an agent to look into it. We took her email address and will follow up to see how it all turns out.

We have enjoyed our last few weeks as there is a relaxed pace to life here. It’s hot during the day so we are doing as the locals do and getting up at 6am for a 6km walk along the seafront. It’s relatively cool at this time and the locals are out swimming, walking, running, Tai Chi, badminton etc. The beach is very quiet during the day, apart from the mad dog westerners frying in the sun. At 5pm it cools down and we join the locals once more for another long walk before dinner.

The food here is very good, especially in our favourite Italian restaurant, so it was a surprise that the dreaded holiday tum has struck……and Neil is suffering! I suppose it was about time. The very hot curry at Omar’s Tandoori Cafe probably didn’’t help matters. Omar’s does have a slight reputation for dodgy food, but, there is a real Indian chef, the smells wafting from the restaurant are fabulous, and Neil had a craving for curry that got the better of him. Looking on the bright side, if this bug is anything like the one he picked up in Goa a few years back, he will lose about a stone in weight.

Neil writes: My dodgy tum, fortunately, comes without the sickness. However, “Vietnam’s Vengeance”, as I have named it does have one or two quirks. The first trip to the bathroom at 01.30 was accompanied by really chronic pains in the abdomen. After that, it was regular business as usual until dawn. That was the time that I started to ache and develop a fever, just like flu, so this is more than just a bad curry!! The fever lasted about 24 hours and left as quick as it arrived. During the following night I woke up around 05.00 to find myself lying in what appeared to be a river…..I had been sweating out the fever so much that the bed was very wet. Well, my side of the bed was wet but Cheryl’’s was very dry and that was the way it was going to stay! The fever had completely gone and the next day went well, back to normal, walks along the beach, exercise etc. It’s now 24 hours later and whilst the fever has gone the regular trips to the bathroom have come back. Oh well, still looking on the bright side at the weight I’m going to lose.

Finally, after weeks of endless sunshine the rain came last night, thunder, lightning and heavy, heavy rain. But it is warm rain unlike our return home when we know the rain will definitely NOT be warm!

Next stop Ho Chi Minh City, (still called Saigon by most locals), for a couple of days before heading to Bangkok…..and Home……volcanic ash permitting!!

The seaside town of Quy Nhon is a lot less touristy than Nha Trang, so much so that only one or two restaurants have menus in English. Whilst this did narrow the opportunities, we found enough variety to keep us covered for the three weeks we spent there. It was refreshing not to be approached by so many people wanting to sell you sun glasses, cigarettes or usher you into their restaurant.

Our hotel, The Seagull (in 3 weeks we didn’t see a single seagull!!!), was right on the seafront and you can see from the pics that we had a stunning view from our superb balcony. We managed to negotiate a rate of $25 a night, including a splendid buffet breakfast, it was a little over our budget but it was very, very nice.

We didn’t see many westerners in Quy Nhon, only the occasional tour group in/out of the hotel staying 1 night before moving on the next day. This is a tourist town but not set up for or frequented by westerners. We spoke to a few guests in the hotel who looked Vietnamese but were proud to say they were from California, and had been living there since the end of the war. We learned that San Francisco has the largest population of Vietnamese outside the country.

We were here to do not very much and, to be fair, we were very successful so not much to blog about. However, here are a few snippets:

1. Mobile Music Man. How’s this for ingenuity. Get yourself a moto, fit on the back a very large car battery and amplifier, invest in a quality radio mic. and, hey presto, you have a mobile music business. Now you travel around town, singing all those favourite tunes outside all the restaurants in town. Just wander around the restaurant taking requests from the tables and pocket the cash!! Brilliant…… if not a tad annoying when you’re trying to enjoy a quiet meal!
2. Another great business idea is the mobile ice cream man aboard his push bike with a large box at the front. Sure, nothing new here, it happens all over the world. But, playing the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly as your signature tune seemed to us to be inspirational!
3. Around the coast, about 5kms south, there’s a Leper Hospital and Rehabilitation Site. They have their own private beach with gardens and you can visit for 5000VND (about 15p). It was surreal. Very quiet and clean, totally unlike Vietnam, and it had a small village attached to it where the “cured” can live and work in the gardens, rice paddies and fishing. Altogether a very pleasant place to visit and see disabled people just getting on with their lives rather than begging in the streets.
4. While we were here the town celebrated 35 years of Liberation from “the US aggressors”! A big party in town with lots going on and, in true Vietnamese style, very noisy. We even had a famous Vietnamese Boy Superstar staying at our hotel who gigged just one night at the town’s stadium as part of the celebrations. He was very pretty but we don’t know how good his singing was! Lot’s of filming and interviews in the hotel foyer seemed to be boring him to death!
5. Quy Nhon has a large University and we were often approached by students wanting to polish up their English. One girl, in particular, was studying to be an English teacher. We were out for our evening stroll and she politely asked if she could walk with us. She was the first person in her village to attend Uni and her English and vocabulary were excellent. She walked with us for almost an hour and it was great to have been able to help her.

That’s it, we said it was short so it’s now back to Nha Trang to extend the visa once more.

t’s been a while since we wrote a blog and that’s because we are well into wind down, chill out mode before the return home at the end of April. One thing we have learned is not to rush about from one tourist hot spot to another, desperately ticking off the ‘must sees’ as we go. It’s just as interesting to stay in one place and simply observe life going on all around you and appreciate the differences in culture and outlook. People get to know you and after a while you can have a bit of banter with them.

The bus journey from Dalat was eventful. We were on the 2.30pm bus, had seats at the front and were waiting for the bus to leave (it was only 25 mins late at this stage…….) when the drivers mate fiddled with a couple of switches and what looked like clouds of dry ice descended over the steering wheel. We laughed…..then decided to get off the bus….quick!! The people at the back were coughing and spluttering by the time they spilled out…hmmm..not good we thought. About 10 mins later, the bus guys put a young lad from their office in the bus, closed the doors, left him in for 5 mins,…. he lived, ….so it was back on the bus and off we went. Canaries and mining come to mind.

The scenery was spectacular as the road winds through mountains, climbing up and down, and swerving side to side round hairpin bends. After 3 hours, and on the steep downhill descent, there was a smell of burning. We pulled over and everyone got off the bus while the brakes at the back had 15-20 mins to cool off and stop smoking. Back on the bus and about 30 mins later there was a loud bang. This didn’t sound good and the driver brought the bus to a slow halt just as he limped in to the normal stop restaurant. What fabulous timing to have a tyre blow out!

Everyone off the bus again for toilet break, food & drink while we waited for the driver & his mate to have their food before taking the bus for repairs in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Set off again (about 2 hours late by this time) thinking it won’t be long before we get to Nha Trang, only for the road to turn into a rutted dirt track for the next hour. Average speed was about 10km/hour. Finally we got to the sealed road and waited for the driver to put his foot down…..and waited….and waited….average speed did not get above 40-50kms/hour. We suspect that the brakes were now completely shot and the driver seemed reluctant to take any risks.

Finally arrived in Nha Trang around 8pm to be greeted by our friend Hugh pointing to the nearest watering hole……well done Hugh……..”see you in 5 minutes” we said!!

Nha Trang is a well established beach resort with a 6km beach, park like promenade and plenty of bars, restaurants and hotels geared towards both foreign and local holidaymakers. The westerners bake on the beach during the heat of the day and drift away by late afternoon. That’s when the locals arrive for huge games of football, family picnics on the beach and flying kites. The beach area is even floodlit at night!

We found a great hotel for $20/night a few steps away from a ‘Bia Hoi’ where you get a litre jug of beer for 7000 VND (about 25p) and you get to sit on kiddie size plastic chairs and watch the world go by. The place is tiny but very popular and spills out into the street as nearby businesses close for the night. We enjoyed the great food on offer at the restaurants and were such frequent visitors to one Italian place we got a leaving present of a bottle of wine on our last night.

Next stop is Quy Nhon around 200kms up the coast.

The bus journey from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City was much better than we anticipated including the border crossing that we thought would be such a pain.

We met up with Hugh in HCMC for dinner and a catch up on where we had all been. Next time we catch up will be in about a week in Nha Trang. HCMC continues to be such an exhilarating city, full of excitement for New Year, masses of colourful flowers, bikes everywhere, noise and just pure Vietnamese life at its most vibrant.

The next day we flew to Dalat, a city in the mountains that we hadn’’t been to before. Despite the flight being like a maternity ward, lots of families with kids on holiday for The New Year, our first reaction to Dalat was that the temperatures were so much lower. So much so that even we felt more comfortable with a thin fleece on in the evening: of course, the locals are wearing anoraks and woolly hats!!

Our first couple of nights were spent at The Mecure Hotel in relative luxury care of a deal offered by Accor Hotels. Not much to write home about except that our 4* B&B cost us $5/night!! The only real item of note was that we had breakfast one morning with lookalike Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood. We moved to our usual guesthouse level for the rest of the week, and have to say that it was superb value compared to the $65 the Mercure should have cost. For $20 the room was just as good, the view of a pagoda from our room was better and the breakfast was superb. In guesthouse style we sat at the large communal table and got to meet and chat with fellow travellers. So much better than the clinical atmosphere and isolation at the Mercure.

Our sight seeing started with the cable car to Truc Lam Pagoda. It was such a lovely day, families out all dressed up in celebration of the New Year. The views were magnificent and everyone was so friendly.

Next day we visited The Crazy House, built by Mrs Dang Viet Nga who was inspired by Gaudi: need we say more!!?

After Crazy House, we visited The Summer Palace of King Bao Dai who reigned until independence from France in 1954. Built in the 30’s the pictures say it all. Note the old guy who we found sleeping in a number of locations about the Palace.

Neil, a true romantic, celebrated Valentine’s Day by buying Cheryl a Gucci watch that cost a cool 80k!! Wow, what a guy!! Well, actually it was 80,000 Dong which at today’s rate equates to £2.73 – last of the big spenders!

Wednesday we visited The Flower Park. Mmmmm, nice but not quite what we expected and it didn’’t seem to use its potential. Pleasant enough and just as well it wasn’’t too exciting as Neil’s “system” was a tad over excited as it was.

Next day we took a local train to visit another Pagoda which is decorated using broken crockery! It’s called Linh Phuoc and it was really amazing.

The colours are fantastic and the view from the top was superb. Our problems started when we went back to the station to find out we had missed the train!! Oh well, we weren’’t the only ones as a local family had also got the times wrong. One hour later a bus arrived and we made it back to town cramped in with at least 3 million other people. Well, not that many but it was cosy and, thankfully, no pigs or chickens.

Finally, we travelled to the ultimate in kitschiness, Vallee D’Amour, Valley of Love!! It’s just beautiful park with lake and covering hundreds of acres of forest and hills with great views. Add onto that the truly Vietnamese touches of ‘romantic’ statues , swan shaped paddleboats, cowboys and Indians, and very unrealistic wild animals, giving unlimited photo opportunities and you have a “theme” park that the locals adore!

Next stop – the beach at Nha Trang.

We have seen some spectacular natural and historical sights, and we have met some lovely people (as well as the scammers), however we both feel it’s a country we won’t be returning to.

Obviously there is a lot more of Vietnam to see and we know we’ve only scratched the surface. The major thing that would deter both of us from coming back is the incessant traffic noise. It’s a habit now, not a necessity, that most drivers of bikes, cars, buses, lorries and especially taxis drive around continually honking horns. It’s totally unnecessary, as our minibus driver to Halong Bay proved.  They drive around making an incredible din from the start of the day (around 05.00) until the end of the day (around 24.00). To start with, in HCMC, it was a novelty but after 4 weeks it now  grates and it’s the one thing that will keep us away. We’ve learnt to cope with the scammers and whilst they are a pain in the a**e, we now feel that we can play them at their own game.

Now a couple of short stories. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.

The Legend of The Turtle in Hoan Kiem lake, Central Hanoi.

As many legends of giant turtles exist all over we won’t bore you with the detail. Suffice it to say we actually saw what many claim to be mythical only, a giant turtle in the lake. He/she was around a metre or so in length and was just slowly paddling along the lake taking in the scenery and the ambience. So as legend has it we are very lucky indeed………or there are hundreds of them put in for gullible tourists to spot! We would like to believe it’s the former.

The Legend of The Corkscrew.

On the flights up to Hanoi Neil had the penknife/corkscrew “lifted” by a baggage handler from one of the outside zipped pockets on his backpack. Desperate (ok Cheryl needed wine) for a replacement we visited a small shop selling “stuff”. Neil used a bottle of wine as a prop and after some gesturing with his arms the lady produced a large corkscrew. Again using sign language Neil suggested something smaller. This time she disappeared out to the back and returned waiving the twin brother of the “lifted” corkscrew!! Was this spooky or was her husband a psychic baggage handler who lured us to her shop and got us to part with 40,000VND? (less than £2). We’ll never know….

Here are some observations on Vietnam:

One legged cyclists who just get on with their day without begging. They just balance themselves with a crutch and pedal with the one good leg….respect!

Women wearing traditional “pyjamas & conical hats”. Mainly roadside sellers of fruit etc but also those working in the rice paddies.

Beautifully lush green paddy fields with traditional labour intensive farming with few tractors but lots of buffalo.

Telegraph poles and lines everywhere…..what a mess.

Tall, thin and very deep buildings – often referred to as Tube Buildings, sometimes in total isolation.  We stayed in one in Danang.  See pic

The sheer driving chaos on the roads but it does seem to work.

Kids shouting hello

Overall the food has been disappointing and has lacked flavour.  Street food is limited to pho (noodle soup with beef or chicken – eaten everywhere, at all times of the day,….a national addiction) or filled baguettes.

New Year celebration was restrained -hordes of people watched the fireworks and then went home with no cheering, hugging etc.  Abba’s ‘Happy New Year’ is the song of TET.

Manchester United Brand….bigger than Coke, KFC and Pepsi!  Neil gained much respect from the locals when they saw Manchester as his place of birth in his passport.

The red flag flies proudly from nearly every building, house, hotel & boat

Pavements are not for pedestrians. They’re for parking bikes, cars washing up or extending your shop front.

Burning lucky money at the roadside.

Here are some more pics and videos.

There was a lot of stuff that we missed, about 100 chickens travelling on a bike, the same number of ducks showing the same “mouth open” tendancies as excited dogs leaning out of a car window and, we’re told but never saw, small cows on a bike…..enjoy!

More pics of us having fun while the snow falls back home which, sadly, has caused Paul to ‘remodel’ the front of our car!! 

Includes the ‘opening night’ for a beach hut restaurant which turned out to be hilarious. Including smoking oil lamps all over Neil’s face, a waitress who couldn’t speak a word of English running away from us in sheer panic, and bbq beef tasting of bbq lighting fluid!

Note the tower of meat served up to Chris & Viv – and yes they did finish it all.

We are now enjoying the beach again, this time on the island of Phu Quoc (pronounced Foo wok). However, before we talk about the island and our old friends there is, yet again, a tale to tell!!

We stayed overnight in Danang (don’t go there) and after another night of scams (see previous diary) we refused to play along and ended up with a liquid dinner watching The Fantastic Four in our strange but very adequate non-scamming hotel. (see the nice pic!).

Next morning bright and early, off to HCMC via JetStar and then went to check in with Vietnam Airlines at 09.45 for the 12.45 flight to P Q.

“You not on flight list……ticket cancelled, you must call agency”. Here we go again and so as not to bore you with all the crappy details we’ll get to the point. After much discussion and refusal to move we eventually were told to return to the ticket desk at 12.15 for standby tickets if they had any. They also booked us on the 06.20am the following morning should standby tickets not happen.

12.00 arrived and we went to ticket desk. “15 minutes more, you come back”. So Neil went back and eventually we were told we had seats & to check in. 15 minutes to go before take off, the bags went off down the conveyor, we sprinted through security and eventually got on the plane at 13.00. We were still putting bags in lockers as we taxied.

Surprise!!! We arrived and so did the bags….phew!

Oh, by the way, just for good measure, our return flight on Feb 7th and our flights from Hanoi into Laos on Feb 12th were also cancelled!! Tee hee, don’t you just love it when an agency and an airline blame each other for the cock up and you the paying customer get all the stress?

Anyway, we’re now here. The accommodation is fine, on the beach, and right next door to Family Morriss staying in the “posh resort” for people with jobs who are cash rich and time poor.

Chris and Viv plus sons Paul and Mark are here for an annual holiday. Neil knew Chris as far back as 1975 when they worked together, drank together and generally had a good time together when they both first started work. Chris & Viv emigrated to Oz in 1982 and Neil last met Chris in the UK about 15 years ago.

What can we say? Life on the beach is tough. Sleep late, swim, snooze, sunbathe, etc. So much to talk about, so many beers to catch up on (we’re now buying it in bulk by the crate at (30p/bottle) and lots of good food to eat. We’ll get through it somehow…….

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Apologies for the length of this entry, but read on if you would like to know how we fared against the hard core tourist rip off.

It had to happen, we have been dreading it but finally we hit scam central and the Vietnam that we hoped did not exist. It was a day trip by so called ‘dragon boat’ to the numerous tombs of the 18-19 century emperors located along the Perfume River.

This was the morning of TET, and as we set off from the hotel we were told by the hotel staff that moto taxi’s would not be included in the trip and that at a couple of  sites we would have to walk, but walking was possible. No problem we thought. We were also told that as it was a public holiday admission fees would be waived.

As the boat sailed our beaming tour guide plied us with home made “fruit brandy” to celebrate the New Year. Then he told us that moto taxi’s were available but at a special TET price. Here we go we thought!!

Next the girl came around with the menu card that contained food at highly inflated prices. “But lunch is included in the price?”. The reply came, “Ah, it’s TET, you have rice cake only so order more food’.  We continued to protest, and the guide got involved, ‘Market shut, only rice cake, so order more food’.  We refused and decided to see what would happen at lunchtime.

First stop, the Thien Mu Pagoda, one of the symbols of Hue and home of the monk who burned himself in protest of the actions of the South Vietnamese Government during the war. See pics

Arrived at the boat stop for the first tomb which required a short walk from boat to the site.  Guide told us ‘need moto to save time, only 90,000 Dong! (approx 4 GBP), and as you no pay admission fees today the money you save  go to the moto driver‘.  We refused to pay, and in protest along with half the boat set off for the site on foot.  A 10 min walk later and on arrival at the site, of course, we had to pay to go in!!

Cheryl decided to tell the guide what she thought of the situation, and following her ‘rant’ he sulked, and all ‘guiding’ came to a halt from then on,  Neil joked with a fellow traveller, ‘I love it when my little rottweiller gets going!’

The tomb was spectacular and serene, see pics. The whole site was like a country park and we could easily have spent half a day there. The king, Tu Doc was only 153cm tall and suffered from short man syndrome as he had the honour guard of stone mandarins made shorter than himself (see pic with Neil standing alongside)

Much confusion when we got back to the boat, as the guide had not bothered to tell  everyone what time to get back and  he had to go and find two Scottish girls who got lost (his fault as he didn’t bother to check the walkers knew where to go).

On the boat, the table had been set for lunch so we took a place and looked at the unappetising fried rice cakes and a plastic cup of goo which turned out to be pumpkin.  Several dishes were placed in front of those who ordered from the menu.  We asked the guide for assistance – what is supposed to be included? He babbled on about Tet, rice cakes and order from menu, we stood our ground and asked what can we eat without charge?.  Things got heated, the guide said market shut, market shut!  We said so where did all the ordered food come from? Oh that’s the boat family’s own food, he said. Finally he lost his temper and stormed off, I no talk to you no more!  Neil chased after him – and bellowed ‘you are the guide, do you job and explain what’s going on’.  The boat owner lady finally pointed to a dish of pork & prawns and one of noodles and said that was ours, no charge.  The two Scottish girls sat quietly, did not complain and got nothing.

We didn’t enjoy the conflict, or the meal as it was pretty ropey, but were really disappointed in our fellow travellers who didn’t protest, not even on behalf of the Scottish girls who would not say “boo to a goose“.  I guess that’s why the scammers keep doing it

In the absence of any guiding we reverted to Lonely Planet , and Cheryl took on a mini tour guide role for some of the other travellers who were interested in the sites.  There was another spectacular tomb, Minh Mang, who didn’t appear to be vertically challenged like Tu Doc.

Last stop was for a tomb built in the 1920’s which didn’t get a great write up in LP and looked to be approx 2km from the boat landing point.  After the fuss at the first stop we were running very late as we arrived at the docking point.  The guide leapt to his feet. ‘This tomb is 4 km walk and there are no motos here.  I don’t go here. You can have 40 minutes.  The trip back to town will take 1 hour 45 mins’  He didn’t want to bother with the stop and was trying to persuade us to just head back!  Of course we spotted the ruse so decided we were getting off and going………for a sneaky coffee in the village!  A few other people got off the boat and did pretty much the same thing, waste 40 minutes just to annoy the tour guide.

Overall, the trip was very good and the sites were really fascinating. It’s just a pity that the guide chose to be an arse when he grew up.

That’s pretty much all of our travels in Hue. We’ve since met up with Frankie, a lady from Oz who gave us lots of tips for Hanoi and Laos. In addition, as TET continues for some time after “the day” we’ve had a number of attempted scams by quite a lot more arses!

“It’s TET, Government say all tourists must pay double fare for bus!. Yeah!!

“It’s TET, your meal cost 50,000VND each not 40,000VND as in menu”. Yeah!

“It’s old menu, wine not 50,000VND it 90,000VND”. Yeah!

“Water cost 20,000VND”. Yeah! (Actual cost 50mts up the road with our nice man was 8,000VND!).

Every time you buy something, if it’s not priced as it is in HCMC, you can see them looking at you and working out how much they can fleece you for. 

TET is the most important festival in the Vietnamese calendar. In the days leading up to it there are flower markets everywhere and in the same way that every household in the UK buys a Christmas Tree households buy TET trees, Bonsai, Kum Quat trees and Chrysanthemum flowers.

Our guest house gave us the traditional TET rice cake, (see previous entry), and households produce a TET table to celebrate the new year with the Spirits of the Hearth.

New Years Eve we went to the area just outside the Citadel set out for the celebrations. It seemed like the entire population of the motor bike world was arriving (see video). We watched a couple of Asian Pop bands and decided that viewing the fireworks would be best outside the Citadel or we would be there all night!!

Bizarrely enough, and to kid you not, the top tune for new year is ABBA’s Happy New Year from their 1980 Album Super Trouper!! It’s played day & night everywhere, shops, buses, taxi’s, yup everywhere. At midnight we were about 1km+ away from the Citadel Festivities over the Perfume River. At midnight the fireworks started accompanied by ABBA…….15 minutes later the spectacular show finally ended but ABBA continued, probably until dawn!!

Back to the guesthouse and we were greeted by our hosts with more TET treats, candied fruits, nuts and hot beef, plus a glass of “stuff”.

Next morning we were going on a trip and waiting in reception for our bus. Some of the owners friends arrived, dressed to the 9’s, and they cracked open a bottle of Johnny Walker at 8 a.m. Neil was invited to imbibe and, feeling obliged, he joined in!!

Happy New Year …. Chuc Mung Nam Moi.

We are now in Hue which is about 180km further north from Hoi An. It has  proved to be a much more enjoyable place to stay with less of the pushy sales stuff that we had to endure in Hoi An.

We had booked a hotel on-line and they threw in a free pick up from the bus station.  This turned out to be a very nice man waiting with our names on a sign and his motorbike!  One at a time we arrived at the hotel which proved to be very good but on a major road. As Vietnamese drivers can’t even park at the side of the road without pressing their horn it proved to be a noisy and early morning!! However, we discovered on our quest for dinner that there were lots of hotels in quieter streets just around the corner costing 10USD (less than £7) rather than the 20USD we were paying. Needless to say we moved next day and now have a room with satellite TV, high speed wifi, bathroom, fridge, A/C and a little balcony to sit on whilst drinking our aperitifs (how posh are we!??).  The young woman in charge seems genuinely pleased we are staying for Tet, and even brought us hot soup (yum) and a special Tet cake thing (yuck – glutinous rice, salty stuff, no idea what else and wrapped in a strong smelling banana leaf), when we got back wet and cold from our day trip.

The trip was to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), this included Vinh Moc Tunnels, the 17th Parallel and Khe Sanh American Air force base.  Apart from the shitty weather – constant cool breeze and rain, and the poor tour guide, it was an interesting experience, the one that Neil really wanted to do.

The DMZ was 5 kilometres either side of the river that formed the 17th parallel. It was originally set up at the end of the second world war and the whole episode was reinforced when  the French formally partitioned the country. It became one of the focal points of the war between the North and the South in the 1960’s conflict. The whole area is now paddy fields with any bomb craters now used as fish farms.

The Vinh Moc tunnels are unbelievable. They are similar to those of Cu Chi outside HCMC but are more spectacular and genuine, with more of the original tunnels open to visitors. After the US destroyed the village of Vinh Moc the people went underground in a maze of tunnels, over 3 levels, and up to 30 meters deep. Some of the people lived underground for more than 6 years, 17 children were born there and lived their early years underground. The tunnels are more accessible as they range from 1.6m to 1.9m high.  Just as with Cu Chi, the US found it almost impossible to find them and lost many soldiers to the “guerrillas” from the underground popping up, destroying and killing, then disappearing into nowhere.

Khe Sanh was the scene of one of the bloodiest battles of the war, a 75 day siege. It was another wartime example of some “big nob” in the military making a snap decision that the airbase was to be secured at all cost. 500 US troops were sent home in body bags and 10,000 VC were killed. General Westmoreland‘s, tour of duty ended and within a week the whole idea of defending Khe Sanh was abandoned.

A marine officer had expressed this opinion months before the decision to defend: “You’re not really anywhere. You could lose it and you really haven’t lost a damned thing”.  Westmoreland was obsessed by Khe Sanh as he thought that the TET offensive was a decoy for Khe Sanh. As it turned out, the TET Offensive in the south proved to be one of the final nails in the US coffin as Khe Sanh was the decoy. Hell, it was an airbase on the top of a plateau with nothing but jungle as far as the eye could see. Why could anyone think this was so important?

We’re now in Hoi An which is about half way up from HCMC in the south and Hanoi in the north. It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site with buildings going back to the 17th century. Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and other traders would have come here as they did to Melaka where we visited in Malaysia. One thing we have noticed is that it is much cooler in the evenings and people here are wearing more clothing, puffer jackets, anoraks and woolly hats.  We have a pool at the hotel and even after a full days sun it was freezing!!

It’s great that the buildings are not “prettified” and you can see them “raw”. It’s also interesting to see a slightly, and we mean slightly, quieter city. There is one disappointment, we have seen our first glimpse of the one thing we feared in Vietnam. Pushy traders wanting you to “visit my shop, just lookie and see”. We’ve also experienced the first instance of “how much can I rip off the tourist” syndrome. Unlike HCMC nothing in the shops is labelled. Instead, when you ask how much something is the price is dependant on what they think you can afford. Twice the price of HCMC is not unusual and when you laugh and walk away suddenly the price miraculously falls. Neil refuses to do business this way. He doesn’t mind doing “deals” in a market but if a shop tries to con him he tells them so and walks away despite the fact that the price is now reasonable.

Note the picture of the two dogs. They were tethered so that they could not leave the chairs. A guy with a very posh camera and a huge lens tried to take a picture of them very close up. The dog on the right turned around to bear his backside which made us and a family of locals burst out laughing. I took this pic to see if I was to get the same treatment.…no, he must have liked me.

Today we went on yet another tourist trip (we’re getting to be quite the little tour guides pet!!), to My Son, another World Heritage Site going back around 1200 years. It’s the most important site of the ancient kingdom of Champa, and is a collection of ruins, some in fairly good condition and others obliterated by US bombing, stretched across a small valley surrounded by jungle and mountains.

We were surprised to find that the tour company had used a ‘sleeper’ bus for the trip, so we had a relaxed trip on our fully flat beds at the back! Pity it was only an hours journey……We also chose the option to go back to Hoi An by boat and didn’t realise that lunch was included, so all round a great day out for $7 each!