Cheryl & Neil Our Story

The way things are……..

Posted on April 18, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

It’s socially acceptable to come down for breakfast in a hotel in your pyjamas – whatever your age!

Thai people have no concept of consequences – hence no helmets on motorbikes, kids held in arms on bikes, appalling driving in general, not looking out for others before standing in the way (especially in a swimming pool when they seem to go out of their way to get into yours!) Seriously, having spoken to a number of long stay & permanent expats, if you get injured on a motorcycle it wasn’t your fault you were driving without thinking it was those pesky spirits to blame. In many ways this is a great way to live because you never worry about what might happen, something which prevents a lot of western people from taking any risks at all.

At home we feel Health & safety has gone mad with risk assessments for wiping your bottom whereas here in Thailand there are 10 year olds riding motorbikes & food hygiene at the market which would make Clive & Karen (both environmental health officers) squirm and yet we have been eating there without any problems at all. Sure, there is a middle ground but it is refreshing to live in a more relaxed environment and questioning your Western view of the world and what is ‘right’. At least kids get to be kids and have a lot of freedom.

Asian Mall shuffle syndrome. Shops, markets, malls etc, the only way to move around is generally to move at a snail’s pace and arm in arm if there are two of you so no one can get past. Stepping out in front of someone then grinding to an immediate halt is also popular.

There is a growing obesity problem. The number of sumo babies, toddlers & children is shocking. Especially compared to the incredibly slender ‘where on earth are the internal organs??’ body types.

Genuine honesty (we got very negative & untrusting following experiences in Vietnam). For instance, Cheryl needed a hair cut so in Phitsanulok we found what looked to be a busy salon with a number of stylists in smart uniforms. After the usual round of gestures, mimes, giggling and charades we agreed on a wash & cut but couldn’t understand what the price was, but hey how much could it be?. The wash was head massage bliss & the cut was started by a junior and then the senior stylist (young man with very trendy haircut) took over.

He was meticulous and produced an excellent result that Cheryl would have been very happy with at home. Dusted off and ushered out of the salon Cheryl got the wallet out but there was no one in reception. Gesturing with money didn’t help. “No pay” said the stylist, “but.. but , I must pay“ said Cheryl, “is free” said the stylist. During Neil’s long wait (attention span of a gnat) he observed that this was a training salon, and that most of the girls were under tuition of the senior stylist. Sunday was clearly “free cut day” for models. We had no idea so they could have charged whatever they liked so as a thank you we went back the next day with a big box of biscuits.

Sleaze. We met a very sad specimen in Nong Khai in an expat bar. Tony was about 60, overweight, ruddy faced, pretty charmless, unattractive……no real redeeming features whatsoever. He started bragging to Neil about how he always cheated on his women (yeah right) how he liked to go to girlie bars where they all knew him, and how much he could buy women for. He was a quite disgusting specimen of the human race and clearly had no respect for anything or anyone. As a fellow male Neil was astounded about his openness, bravado or was it a cry for help? He just doesn’t know, but thanks his lucky stars he is not a sad old git like him.

Sad. The number of old, fat bellied, generally unattractive western men with younger Thai wives/girlfriends. Neither of us can really understand how in the long term these relationships are supposed to survive. He is a walking ATM for her and all of her family, and she waits on him hand and foot, as Asian wives do. At best, they have a working arrangement, where he pays and she provides services. At worst, he gets thoroughly ripped off by her & her family and has no life of his own, some even become ‘flying farangs” – the term used in Pattaya for supposed suicides of expats from high-rise condos. Ok it’s great to be looked after, but Western culture is a relationship to be a partnership and to have things in common – what do these couples talk about? (from observation most sit & eat in restaurants in total silence). Neil commented that if he was inclined that way, and he had one of these women on his arm, he’d be walking with a spring in his step, “cor look at me“, and yet most of these men have such a hangdog expression making them look miserable…….what’s it all about!?

Eating out is a way of life and food is very cheap. Thai’s generally don’t eat out as a celebration they eat out as a matter of course, mostly quick and easy fuelling stops. It’s a grazing culture with someone eating somewhere just about all times of the day. Eat in the food court and you get a very tasty meal for £0.80. At home, in a Thai restaurant would be £8! The ambience might not be so pleasant but the ambience in a UK Thai restaurant is not worth the extra £7.20. In fact, roadside ambience, railway ambience and night market ambience sometimes have the edge!!

It’s hot here, very hot so it’s quite difficult to do too much between 11.00 and 16.00. It’s only crazy westerners that go on the beach in the heat of the day, Thais arrive on the beach about 17.00.

When it rains here boy does it rain! No grey drizzle that last for days, just rain on steroids for about 30 minutes then warm drying sunshine.

Queuing! It’s not a Thai thing. Jump the queue, well that’s OK as there is no concept of “first come first served”.

In most of Asia it’s not acceptable to flush your toilet paper down the loo. First, you use the jet spray positioned next to the loo to hose down your bum and then you use the paper to dry off before putting it in the basket

Splashy New Year!

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

New Year number 3 for us – Songkran in Thailand, and it’s a wet one……in fact it’s one huge water fest for all ages. Water hoses, pistols, foam, buckets, bowls – you name it.

The best part is the hordes of pick up trucks laden with barrels of water and water chucking posses driving around the streets just having fun. It is all good natured – and yes we did get wet. Its just the traditional way that the Thai’s celebrate, origins are to do with washing/cleaning for a new start to the year, but as it’s the hottest time of the year it’s more of an excuse to have fun.

As you do get very wet – we didn’t take the camera out, but we do have one picture of Neil with the Songkran garland given to him by the receptionist at the hotel (she likes him…..).

Hua Hin & 4 weeks of not doing much at all…..

Posted on April 12, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

Back in beach mode and sightseeing activities have all but stopped. Instead, we have been mainly doing:

1 Exercise (about time I hear you say), to whittle off the excesses of the past few months. Swimming twice a day for 30 mins. (approx 1km for Cheryl & 2km for Neil each day)

2 Calculating the cost of the trip. A grand total of £7k, or about £40 per day. We have travelled a lot, especially flights around Vietnam, so have been pleasantly surprised that it has all been so reasonable. We also calculated that by doing long stays and travelling less this could be as little as £25 per day – in relative luxury, and sunshine of course.

3 Assessing our finances. Including, getting to grips with SIPPs & ISAs (yawn…..but hey Cheryl was a beancounter and has to be tax efficient!!.) Current Income levels have been better than anticipated as there are winners & losers in every economic climate (thanks Bank of England for the unprecedented base rate).

4 Enjoying the benefits of the lovely hotel that has kindly given us the best value rates that we’ve ever had for taking a long stay. In fact we have swapped the usual backpacker hostel/budget hotel standard for 4* luxury, and all for £12 per night.

5 Thinking a lot about what we do next………Needless to say we will probably be coming back as we cannot live in the UK on what is the equivalent of £12k a year for both of us….bargain!!

Hua Hin – and how posh are we??

Posted on March 19, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

We’ve finally made it to the seaside for the last 5 weeks of our trip.

We’ve put all our negotiation skills to good use and bagged a very, very large room with Jacuzzi bath, TV, wifi and private balcony for 600 Baht/night (about £12!!) including a free upgrade that we weren’t expecting.

Big posh room with 7ft bed….and this is only half of it

The hotel also has a fabulous pool and we’ve been in twice a day to try and get a little fitter before we come home. There is also a “fitness corner” with some “interesting” machines. We’re swimming early a.m. and late p.m. and have the pool pretty much to ourselves. You can see from the pics that the pool is between 25 and 30 meters long so we’ve been able to do some serious training…..about 500 meters a session or 1km/day.

Hua Hin has really exceeded our expectations. We anticipated lots of high rise condo’s and hotels and for it to be really busy….it’s not!! It’s very clean, not at all Thai!!, and very well kept with an extremely long and clean beach which goes for miles and miles, All the development has been done quite tastefully and so far we think we may come back for a longer time.

There’s a shopping mall not too far away with a large Tesco Lotus where we can get some healthy foods and, in the mall, a number of eateries varying from food court pricing to top end restaurants. Alex, note the pic of the Jappy Hot Quick Restaurant including the classic plastic food display in the window. We haven’t tried it yet but we will report back after we’ve popped in for a setto.

As we’re back in beach mode we’re not doing very much other than eating wisely and trying to get lots of exercise when it’s cool. The hotel has a free shuttle bus which allows us to explore and the main road is 5 minutes walk away which us allows us to catch local buses to go further a field.

We have discovered that long stay in relative luxury can be extremely cheap so we’re using our time here to look into long term Condo rental for next winter. So far, it looks like a good quality apartment with sea view balcony, full kitchen etc can cost as little as 12,000 baht a month (£240). With the cost of daily living being so cheap here you can easily live very well, including some expensive wine, on £10,000/annum for two of you.

Sukhothai National Park

Posted on March 14, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

A return visit, following our unsuccessful attempt about 6 years ago when we chose the only day the park was closed, and in those days we were on a tight schedule so ‘come back tomorrow’ was not an option.

Sukhothai National Park is one of Thailand’s most impressive World Heritage sites. We explored the central section within the old city walls and there are an additional 70 sites within a 5 km radius. This was the original capital of the first Thai kingdom and ruins date from 13th – 14th century. The park is beautifully kept, with lawns, ponds and trees between sites.

We had planned to bypass this region as we were worried about the soaring temperatures (38+), however, taking a tip from the locals we purchased umbrellas with silver reflective coatings and were able to promenade like Edwardian ladies under parasols!! Using the parasols and an early start to avoid the heat of the day we managed to tour the entire central section comfortably on foot and managed to cover the same sites and bump into the same people using vans, tuk tuks and bikes – losers.

The pics can’t fully capture the scale and beauty of the ruins, but we have attempted to include a selection of the best. While we were there a film crew were taking location shots. Finally a picture of eye candy (well, a number of fit men wearing loincloths) for Chloe!

Phitsanulok – The Town of Flying Vegetables

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

There’s not much here in Phitsanulok. It’s a staging post for most tourists on their way to our destination, Sukhothai. Having said that, we’ve found a small hotel which is great value, we’ve seen the second most revered Buddha in Thailand, come across the biggest outdoor aerobics class we’ve seen so far, around 200 people, witnessed flying vegetables and decided that is generally a very pleasant town with more to offer than Lonely Planet gives it credit for. On way back from Sukhothai we will stay again and discover a little more. Of course, the outstanding and free, internet connection at The Princess Green Hotel has nothing to do with that decision!!

Phitsanulok burnt to the ground in 1957 so there’s not much character about “downtown” but it is a vibrant city with a long promenade along the river. At night it comes alive with aerobics classes and people jogging. We’ve never come across a town so hell bent on staying fit!

We also saw a ridiculous activity on the promenade which made us both laugh. We’ll try and get a video and pics next time we come back. In the meantime, try and picture an outdoor restaurant, chef with large wok cooking greens on a flame engulfed hob. Got the picture? Now, picture a tourist standing on top of an old van, dressed in a hula skirt and wearing comedy breasts about 12 feet up and about 20 feet away from aforementioned chef. Tourist has a tray in hand. The next activity happens very quickly so be prepared. Chef has cooked the greens, tourist is hungry so chef turns his back on the tourist and hurls the greens over his head from the kitchen 20 feet and 12 feet up onto the tourist’s tray ……..hoorah shout the crowd and a huge round of applause follows…….plus more orders for Beer Chang!!

Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat (sometimes known as Wat Yai) houses a Buddha which is second only to The Emerald Buddha in Bangkok. Donations at the Wat are in excess of £250,000/year which is quite staggering when the average wage here in Thailand is less than £2k/year and there are Wats getting donations on almost every street corner. When we visited there were no other western tourists but bus loads of Thai’s come to pay homage. See the pics.

We will update this entry when we return in a few days.

Ayutthaya

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

Yet another change of plan. We haven’t headed for the cool of the beach we’ve headed for the heat of the north!!

Our first stop is the ancient city of Ayuthaya about 2 hours north of Bangkok. It was the Siamese capital from 1350 until 1767 and the ruins are quite amazing. In 1991 the area was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.

We won’t give you the history as we think the pictures tell you all you need to know……..if you want the history take a look on’t tinternet.

Sala Kaew Ku Sculpture Park

Posted on March 6, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

For those of you who know Neil well, (Mark & Sally!) you’ll know that art isn’t his thing.

Neil writes, “Wow…..in four months this incredible park has been the highlight of my trip so far, it made my feel quite inadequate just like seeing the Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona, visiting the Miro Museum and reading Roald Dahl to the kids. These men were truly inspiring to a artistic Neanderthal like me”.

Nong Khai’s most enigmatic attraction is the Sala Kaew Ku Sculpture Park. It’s a surreal sculptural journey into the mind of a mystic shaman. Built over a period of 20 years from 1975 by Luang Pu Boun Leua Sourirat who died in 1996. The park features a weird and wonderful array of gigantic sculptures ablaze with Hindu-Buddhist imagery.

As his own story goes, Luang Pu, a Lao national, tumbled into a hole as a child, where he met an ascetic named Kaekoo. K introduced him into the manifold mysteries of the underworld and set him on course to become a Brahamanic yogi-priest-shaman (whatever that might be!). Shaking up his own unique blend of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, mythology and iconography, Luang Pu developed a large following in north eastern Thailand where he had moved to following the 1975 communist takeover in Laos where he had been working on a similar project. (It still exists but we didn’t visit).

The park is a real smorgasbord of bizarre cement statues of Shiva, Vishnu and Buddha and every other Hindu and Buddhist deity imaginable, as well as numerous secular figures, all supposedly cast by unskilled artists under his direction. At the entrance to the park there are two very large unfinished statues. Some of the sculptures are quite amusing, the serene and stately elephant wading through a pack of anthropomorphic (yes I did have to look this up) dogs. (see pics). The tallest sculpture, a Buddha seated on a coiled Naga with a spectacular multi-headed hood, is more than 25 metres high.

The greatest sculpture of all is the Wheel of Life at the far end of the park. Life in Luang Pu’s view, is a cycle of influences and phases, which start at one’s conception and end at one’s death.

The Buddhist elements of heat, breath, wisdom and change are represented, as are the stages of birth, aging, suffering and death. Finally, one follows the Lord Buddha over the wall of life to nirvana.

The main shrine building is full of framed pictures of Hindu and Buddhist deities, temple donors and Luang Pu at various ages. Some of these pictures have been “touched up” giving him a Groucho Marx heavy eyebrow style……quite bizarre. Many of his every day objects are still in the shrine, the bed that he was nursed in as he aged, his unplumbed plastic bath and his wheelchairs. His mummified body is still under a glass hemisphere and ringed by flashing lights in true Hindu style. (See pic). Disciples claim his hair still grows and must be cut once in a while!

If there is an “after life” we think that Luang Pu is up there having a beer with the likes of Gaudi, Picasso, Dali, Dahl, Miro and other artists who had big unconventional ideas and followed their dreams.

Sabaa-dii Laos & ..Sawadee Kaa Thailand

Posted on March 3, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

The temperature is rising fast so before we melt we’ve decided to head for a beach in Thailand where, hopefully, it’ll be a little cooler.

Laos has been an interesting experience. The gentle people and relaxed pace of life are great, but It’s nowhere near as cheap as we had been led to believe. $8US trips in Vietnam are costing $30US here. There is a charge to enter several small wats, and even to go up a hill in Luang Prabang!! Rooms are not as good value as Thailand and Vietnam and certainly not what is quoted in Lonely Planet. The food is equally inflated in price. It’s almost as if Laos has suddenly woken up to the fact that the tourist $ is good news so we’re going to charge more, a lot more.

In fact, we calculate based on LP rates published Aug 2007, approx 150% tourist inflation. It’s a pity as there would have been a number of trips/things that we and a number of more savvy travellers would have done. It’s still cheap compared to prices back home, but nowhere near what it should cost based on the local cost of living. Someone somewhere is making mega profits because the money is not going to ‘Joe Public‘! It wasn’t so much the cost that put us off. It was the fact that the money didn’t seem to be getting where it belonged…….to the people still living in wooden huts (if they were lucky) and to those kids still without a pair of shoes. Interestingly there were a few brand new 4 x 4 pickups about!

We do have a small confession to make. We’ve been running down the Laos Kip to make sure that we don’t have loads left before we leave. On our last night in Tha Khaek we had food and drinks but miscalculated.…….we were 500 Kip short of being able to pay the bill. So, we left what we had and did a runner!! Phew we got away with it ……We left owing 4p!!

Crossing the border from Laos to Thailand was pretty easy but not without the additional charges we have come to love and expect!! It was Saturday so overtime for the immigration guys. $1US in Laos and $0.30US in Thailand (see point above on inflation!). Arrival in Thailand and after immigration, Port Tax, $1.50US!

Then the bus journey. We made a knee jerk decision on the ferry (the journey took all of 5 minutes) to travel North instead of West. This took us to Nong Khai and it’s turned out to be a nice town. However, what it really means is that we had a 5 hour bus journey down The Mekong through Laos from Vientiane to Tha Khaek to do a trip that didn’t happen because of the cost and hassle. Then we crossed The Mekong into Thailand and travelled 7 hours by bus up The Mekong to arrive in Nong Khai. We are now on the opposite side of The Mekong to Vientiane where we started about a week ago. In fact, at night we can see the lights of Vientiane……are we dumb or what!!………..or have we become bus masochists secretly enjoying the numb arse and the endless crap Thai singalong karaoke pop videos???

Not much to do here, it’s just a place to hang out in cheap accommodation and cheap but good food. There is a Chedi sitting in the middle of The Mekong. It started it’s slide into the middle way back in 1847 and is only visible in the dry season. Look at the pics and you’ll see that the local people dress it with flags when the river drops. There is also a new Chedi (see pics) in the original position to the old before it went slideabouts. It’s worth noting that The Mekong rises on average 13 metres during the wet season……about as high as a house! Imagine how much water that might be……13mts high by at least 250mts width here in Nong Khai…….wow!!

Vientiane – the Sshhhh Capital of The World

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

Well, we thought that Luang Prabang was quiet!! Apparently Laos has 2 speeds, slow and stop. There’s more life in downtown Bradley Stoke than there is in the capital city here in Laos.

You should see rush hour……hah!! Not a single traffic jam in sight, in fact, hardly a line of traffic at the lights. Never have we been to such a pleasant capital city, it’s more like a large village, no hustle and bustle, no horns, no road rage just easy going people getting on with life.

We found a great guesthouse and our balcony overlooked a number of Wats as well as the Hare & Hound Pub! (no we didn’t go there). We’ve been here 5 nights and done very little which is great. The temperature is beginning to climb and is now peaking at around 37C and it doesn’t let up in the evening.

Even The Mighty Mekong is not so mighty here at this time of the year. (see pic). It looks dry from one side of the river although it obviously isn’t. Having seen it in Vietnam where it is so mighty it seems really strange.

We visited The Patuxai, also know as the vertical runway. Why? Easy, the concrete purchased from the US was originally intended to make a new runway. Started in 1962 it never got properly finished so from a distance, along their version of The Champs Elysees, it looks like The Arc du Triomphe. On closer inspection, and particularly inside, you could easily be in a multi storey car park in Bristol. We really liked it’s quirky charm and surrounding gardens. (see pic).

Pha That Luang, which means “world precious sacred stupa“, is the most important national monument in Laos. It is very impressive against such a blue sky (see pics) and it wasn’t very touristy which was great. It was also good to see local people paying their respects throughout the shrine.

Also worthy of a quick mention is The National Museum. 16 rooms of Laos history in a dilapidated building. Dominated by photographs and bizarre everyday objects from the early communist struggle to take control of the country from the imperialist French and US colonialists.

Alms giving

Posted on February 18, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

We got up early to watch the alms giving to monks which takes place every day around 6.30am. Monks scurry out of wats and assemble to walk around a circular route accepting alms from the local people, mainly handfuls of rice, placed carefully into the monk’s begging bowls. It has become a draw for tourists, and the sellers who line up to sell them rice or bananas ‘for monk, for monk’. There were so many tourists teating the whole thing as a photo opportunity, we were wondering if any of the locals still took part. Then as we followed the monks route back to our guesthouse we saw our very own guest house lady on the corner of the street giving alms. She was pleased to see us and told us she did this every day.

Ssssshhhhhhhhh!

Posted on February 16, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

We’ve arrived in Luang Prabang in the north of Laos and wow, what a difference to Vietnam!!

Orange robed monks wandering the streets, quietly spoken, gentle people, pavements are for pedestrians not bikes, no horns blasting, traffic gives way to pedestrians and other road users and generally it’s another world,. It’s a town that is extraordinarily pretty, with traditional wooden shophouses alongside French colonial buildings on the banks of the Mekong and numerous wats with masses of vibrant colourful flowers. We think it’s a place that the whole world would like even though it is a tad touristy. On the good side, it’s definitely not a party town, things start to close around 10 P.M. and we even got locked out of our guesthouse at 10.30 P.M……dirty little stop outs!

We’ve found a guesthouse that’s very traditional and very peaceful, much in keeping with the city. Neil was concerned by Cheryl’s over excitement at getting soft white sheets and fluffy white bath towels…..maybe we have been staying in too many low budget places!! By the way, as we type this on our balcony we can hear the drums and cymbals from the neighbouring Wat….cool huh!! They say that tourists come to L P for a few days and end up staying a few weeks. We’ve been here 2 days and can see why.

Yesterday afternoon we bumped into Brig and Lyn, Canadians about our age, who we met at Zackry’s on Langkawi Island just before Christmas. Yes, it really is a small world! Since we parted company they have been to Cambodia and Vietnam in the reverse direction to us.

We have also met with Sarah & Jill are here from Hanoi and had dinner with them and as they are here for a few days we’ll keep bumping into them again.

We’ve made our first local friend, a novice Monk called Oun Kham. (see pic) He’s 19, been a novice for 4 years and his English is excellent. He wants to move into tourism, like a lot of young monks, but he’s smart enough to know that the market is saturated with English speaking guides. As an ex French colony there’s also a lot of French tourists and French speaking tourist guides to go with them.

So he’s decided to learn Spanish which he sees as a niche area. Very smart! One small problem, he has no senior monks to learn from as none of them speak Spanish. No problem, he’s decided to teach himself! That is with the aid of the one text book from the local library and a guy from Dublin who happened to overhear our conversation and sat down with Oun to pass on his knowledge of Spanish.

Becoming a monk is a great way to get an education. For people like Oun who come from a small village, becoming a novice gives him the opportunity to get an education that he couldn’t get in school and that he could never afford at University.

We’ve done a few touristy things, visiting Wats etc but generally done nothing as this is a very chilled city which, for an ex-capital, feels more like a village. Cheryl has had the only real bit of excitement, our first real dodgy “something”, that stayed inside her stomach for about 3 hours before deciding to violently eject itself into the “big white telephone” throughout the night. Gladly, all is now well and she’s back firing on all four cylinders at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

BeerLao is famous throughout S E Asia although you can’t get it outside Laos (we don’t think). It is “the brand” in Laos, bigger than anything else, and something that The Laos people are immensely proud of. They also have “lao lao” a rice based spirit. Neil was offered a sip from a shopkeeper and even he thought it was likely to make his hair fall out …tee hee! However, at 6000 kip (£0.50) a half litre he’s more than likely to get a liking for it before we leave. It’s generally home made and is supplied in empty water bottles…an excellent example of recycling!

Goodnight Vietnam

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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.

Hanoi, Halong and Uncle Ho

Posted on February 11, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

Hanoi has a different feel to HCMC. It comes across as less touristy (despite loads of tourists!!), the traffic is still noisy but less in your face and we found much more French influenced architecture. Altogether, the “old quarter” feels a lot more untouched and lived in.

We spent our first day on a Lonely Planet City Walk around the Old Quarter. With a stop for lunch it probably took us about 4 to 5 hours and we saw so much interesting stuff. Entire streets specialising in tin boxes, rope, blacksmiths, fake money (they burn it for good luck), fruit & veg, buckets, spanners & ratchets, grease, leather and PVC (not kinky stuff) and you name it there’s a street full of it. It does make shopping easy, (to man shop that is), know what you want, go to the street and buy it!

Halong Bay is quite astounding. It’s limestone karsts thrusting out of the sea, almost 2000 islands and guide described it as “a descending dragon”, which we thought quite poetic and very apt. Our pictures really don’t do it justice and we only scratched the surface.

The trip included a visit to a cave as all the karsts are riddled with them. This one had a lovely legend of a wedding where most of the guests were animals and our guide used his laser pen to pick out elephants, dragons, unicorns and jelly fish all shaped in the stalagmites and stalactites. As with most legends, there were fertility symbols, in this case a very large breast with an equally large nipple…tee hee, snigger snigger!

When Neil was working at RAC back in September, he took a call from Jill who wished to cancel her membership. In good RAC practice, a long conversation ensued and Neil agreed to meet with Jill in Hanoi!! So 5 months on we did, we met her and daughter Sarah, who is doing voluntary work here, for dinner and so as not to be confused with all the other tourists we wore RAC T-Shirts. We presented Sarah with some books and clothes etc that she could sell and put into the charity. A great evening was had by all and, maybe, we’ll meet again in Laos as we’re going to be there at the same time.

No visit to Hanoi is complete without paying your respects to the great man himself, Ho Chi Minh (Uncle Ho). He’s been embalmed and lies in state for all to see. He’s just come back from his annual MOT in Russia and looked quite serene in his mausoleum. No pics allowed for obvious reasons and all bags and weapons had to be handed in before entry. Needless to say we deposited our AK47’s, rocket launchers, tear gas and Neil’s catapult before we went in!! It was actually a quite frustrating bureaucratic affair, “no go this way, must go that way” Blah blah blah!!! But it was worth it as he is “The Man” in Vietnam and we feel proud to be able to pay our respects.

On yer bike 2!!

Posted on February 9, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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!

Eating & drinking on the beach

Posted on February 7, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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.

Old Friends on The Beach

Posted on February 6, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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!).

Typical very narrow tall building……land prices must be steep

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.

I think our hotel was planned with giants in mind

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…….

Scam Central !!!!!

Posted on January 29, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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 – The Vietnamese Lunar New Year

Posted on January 27, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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.

Hue and the DMZ

Posted on January 24, 2009 by Cheryl & Neil

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?

	chris morriss on In The Summertime
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