« April 2005 | Main | June 2005 »
May 16, 2005
Vietnam | Kel and I in Dalat | 22-24 March 2005
Seeing as it was pretty hot in Saigon, Dalat, being a cooler mountain town sounded like a good idea. Upon arrival, I agreed for both of us to stay at the first hotel we were dropped at (I thought we were in the middle of the city, but we weren’t). Unfortunately it was a good 15-20min walk into town, but the room was nice enough for the money.
Dalat is a really chilled out, quiet, mostly uneventful town – it’s been compared to places in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, and it’s not a bad comparison. It’s absolutely filled with Cafes and local-focussed shops. One reason it’s so relatively untouristed is that the area was - until even recently - illegal for non-Vietnamese to visit.
During the one full day we had there we rented a motorbike and drove out to some of the sights – The Valley of Love (a theme-park style grassy and tree-filled valley, named the Valley of Love by the numbers of local University Students that made it their make-out spot!) – unfortunately I didn’t have my camera and Kels’ one wasn’t working, as it was quite a scenic location (even with the theme-park stuff). We also went to Bao Dai’s Summer Palace (a holiday home for the recent ‘playboy’ emperor) which still maintains it’s 70s western feel.
One really interesting spot we visited was the Hang Nga Guesthouse and Gallery (aka the Crazy House). This piece of art (still under construction, but open to tourists, as well as guests wanting to stay in one of the rooms) is being built by an eccentric local artist Hang Nga, and as you can see by the pictures, it really is a crazy house (treehouse to some). I found it to have a magical atmosphere – I really enjoyed the detail of all the rooms and architectural design of the structures! If I were on a holiday with a partner, I’d probably spend the money and stay there a night or two… Each room has a different feel and different price, but considering the uniqueness, the prices aren’t extortionate ($15 upwards a night).
Another place of note was the Stop‘n’Go Café, a very ‘bohemian’ style café run by an old Vietnamese guy who paints and writes poems and is just generally pretty funky and cool. We really enjoyed the atmosphere of the café, Kelly especially so - we even bought a poem for Mum :).
In the afternoon we went all the way out toward the base of Lang Bian Mountain, where the Lat minorities live. We were taken on a short tour of a traditional Lat style home by a shop-seller, we walked up and down one of the main streets of the village and then bought some interesting Lat silk items.
That night we were invited (by a slightly ‘out there’ Cuban guy) to join in a Lat wedding party. Or we were told it was to be a Lat wedding party. It ended up being a well-organised performance of drinking, eating and dancing (mostly by the performers, although after a few of the local rice-wines, they made us dance with them, hehehe). It was quite interesting, seeing the Lat traditional outfits and dances, as well as more than enough rice wine (it was in a big communal ceramic bottle, drunk out of with big straws attached to plastic tubes – we were told to finish the bottle!) – guess what? We even got Kel to take a sip or two! (See the photo!) At the end of the night we were asked to pay a fairly large donation per person – which wouldn’t have been so bad if it WAS a wedding party as promised, but it kind of felt like a bit of a setup, so we gave what we thought it was worth.
Unfortunately the next day I was violently ill. I think it was due to some dodgy meat in the Lat kebabs, mixed with a fair amount of the rice wine. I managed to get on the bus in the morning and make it back to Saigon without incident…
Posted by Dan at 04:17 AM | Comments (2)
Vietnam | Kel in Saigon | 20-28 March 2005
From Hoi An I caught a ‘wonderful’ 26 hour bus all the way to Saigon – I took some sleeping pills, but they didn’t work! I didn’t break the trip in Nha Trang because I needed to get to Kelly, arriving in Saigon, and I thought we might do Nha Trang together.
I finally arrived – pretty tired and cranky – to a pretty perky Kels. We booked into Miss Loi’s Guesthouse, now a favoured Saigon spot.
During the time Kel was with me in Saigon we saw some of the tourist sights, such as the Reunification Palace (which I hadn’t seen before) – which was quite large and took at least 1-2 hours just for the tour. We also did the Post Office, the Cathedral, the Benh Thanh Markets and some other local ‘necessary’ visits. Kel was pretty tired from running around Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines so we didn’t push for going to many other cities or even running around too much in Saigon.
In the middle of the week that Kel was in Vietnam, we went to Dalat for a couple of nights – see the next log.
It was really cool having Kel there, being able to show her around some of SE Asia, which had been my life for the previous year. Its definitely not typical that I’ve been somewhere that she hasn’t!
Posted by Dan at 03:03 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
Vietnam | Hoi An | 16-19 March 2005
From Hue, my southward Vietnamese wanderings led me straight to Hoi An, fortunately a relatively short bus trip. Hoi An has become known for being a tailor-city, every other shop filled with copious amounts of cloth, the sellers using every ounce of salespersonship to get you into their store to buy their custom made clothes. Being in Hoi An I ‘had’ to get some clothes made for myself. I got some casual pants and a trendy evening shirt made for about $17 – definitely not the cheapest place, but they seemed to have good quality products. I was also tempted into buying a cashmere (or something) suit, which, after a lot of ‘I don’t need a suit’ got it from $70 to $30. Unfortunately the ‘I don’t need a suit’ worked too well on me, and I realised I didn’t need to spend $30 on something I didn’t need! (Hey, $30 is two day’s budget for me!) The work on the clothes was quick and relatively painless. The fit and the quality a little lacking, however. I’ve had mixed reports about the quality of Hoi An clothing – both good and bad. You still generally get what you pay for – eg. If you go for a $25 suit, and you pick it from a book, don’t expect to get any more than the run-of-the-mill style. Not that its bad, but I spoke to a guy who had that happen – they churn out the same suit style en-mass.
Hoi An has become an historic town with private and public buildings preserved and prepared for tourists to visit. Situated on the river, the old part of town does have a ‘ye olde’ atmosphere, making wandering both relaxing and pleasant. Being a riverside town, like many others, there is a significant focus on seafood. The main market is right on the edge of the river and I was fortunate to watch the arrival of a fishing longboat back from a successful trip. Upon nearing the market, busy hands were fighting to get theirs on one of the crates of fresh produce – hustling and bustling – it seemed almost like “First in, best dressed” in that whoever got the crate got the sale!
In the market I first encountered the most well-known speciality of Hoi An. I was meandering around the food section of the market, reasonably hungry, saw some interesting looking noodles and sat down. I pointed at the food and the seller was away – noodles, lettuce, pork, various sauces, crouton-looking things, etc… This ended up in a pork-noodle-salad mixture which was quite liquid at the bottom. This is Cau Lao. This tastes INCREDIBLE. The mixture of textures – noodles, crouton-things (broken up from a large round pappadam thing made from rice), meat and lettuce, dunked in delicious juice… mmmm… Apparently what ‘makes’ Cau Lao is the noodles – water from some very specific spring is used to create a very off-white colour (don’t think about it), enhancing the noodles’ flavour. Whats more, Cau Lao can be found at most restaurants and is the cheapest thing on any menu (5-8000 vnd)! Other delicacies to be tried at Hoi An are the boiled prawn wonton-like dumplings – called White Rose as well as friend wontons.
I stayed at Thien Thanh Hotel – by far the best value I found in all of south east Asia. $7 a night (for one double bed) bought me 5 star luxury – opulent bathroom (including bath), soft towels, minibar, cable tv, even flower petals on the freshly made bed!!! This is clearly a high-standard hotel city, with great bargains during low-season. I definitely enjoyed staying here :)
Again I met up for some drinks with the guys I had seen in Halong Bay and Hue. After the bar closed at midnight, we were rounded up and put on a minibus to the Full Moon Bar – a few kilometres out of town. The entertaining continued on for a few more hours before it became a bit too quiet and we were too sleepy. The two other guys got on a moto-taxi, the last one in sight, while I was almost stranded… Almost, I say. I saw 2 bikes with some locals (who had been drinking and playing pool inside) sitting, ready to ride. I politely introduced myself and asked if they were heading into town. Yes. Great, could I get a lift? Sure thing. One bike had two people on it already, so I sat on the bike with only one rider. Upon sitting down, the rider turned and told me to sit on the other bike – the ‘other’ girl wanted me to sit behind her – fine by me! We took a western couple that seemed as stranded as I would have been and off we went. Upon getting into town the western couple left and the rest of us went for late-night pho :) I became friends with this little local group, who used to work at a family restaurant together (that had just closed down – thus plenty of free time).
The rest of my time in Hoi An was entirely devoted to hanging out with this cadre of really cool locals – I got the full local Vietnamese experience – a family luncheon with soups, fried chicken, baguettes and beer (and a whole bunch of mostly non-english speaking, very friendly Vietnamese); the Vietnamese café experience (sitting around for literally hours drinking iced coffee); Hanging out on the beach, eating seafood rice-soup, cracking into mussels; attempting one or two of the teeny-tiny little shell-worms (picked out using a device that looks like a large toothpick); Drinking and playing pool in the evening! – I had an awesome time with the guys, I had an experience that you cant ‘order’ and got in touch with the local side of Vietnam. I didn’t go into any more historic buildings or do any other touristy things – and I’m definitely not disappointed!
The ‘localising’ time I spent meant that the only relevant photo I took was a quick snap of the beach – the rest of them are just play photos, taken by some of the other guys messing around.
Posted by Dan at 06:21 AM | Comments (1)