Ground Hog day - in Ha Noi

I was considering several names for this city - one was even Sin City... but sitting in a cafe today and watching the same thing happen over and over like a visual broken record day by day made me think of that classic Bill Murray movie.

It was quite a strange introduction for us when we arrived, as you can live very different lives here by the kind of budget you have. We met up with some friends and decided on going to the InterContinental Sunset Bar for some cocktails. We sat over the incredible water view and imagined trading our $20 rooms for these stunning stilted $400USD rooms over Westlake. A few drinks later and the bill was presented at $64USD.. which is mind blowing really when you are used to $1 beers. A taxi took us into the Old Quarter which had its daily peddlers replaced with drug lords trying to sell us black squares of opium and weed. Shrugging them to the side we entered some 'closed' but open bars for the remainder of the night. Heading back to our hotel on foot felt strangely sinister as there were dark dodgey peddlers and huge RATS scuttling down the street gutters.

The day is the complete opposite here. The deserted streets suddenly fill with life - it is like taking Ho Chi Minh's 6,000,000 (registered) people and vice gripping them into a district a quarter of the size - making manoeuvring a task on it's own. You learn to block out the insistent cries for moto taxi and beggars screeching for existence through your wallet.

Going back to the option on how you can live in different ways, well we have opted for the better half, and have found a large scale life for ex pats and their ritzy joints and high class lunches. Below is a pic of the Press Club -- an upscale bar where the higher class are known to hang out and smoke their cigars over a fine cognac. We drank a gin and tonic with a $15USD bill.


Once you leave the \Old Quarter, you can relax to some degree as personal space returns and you can take in the sites it has to deliver. We have been here in rain and overcast days so any pic I have is grey.. but I imagine it is fantastic on a summers day.

One thing you can do here is visit Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, where his body has been preserved since 1974 behind glass walls. Apparently it is shipped to Russia 2 months a year for retouching.. but as lonely planet suggests, that he may actually be a wax model and we are being eternally duped.. kind of interesting as his last request was to be cremated. Going by how pushy and disrespectful they are up here, I can see how his people would rebel against any wishes.
This was actually mind blowing for the shear volume of visitors (I imagine hundreds of thousands per day) which I've tried to capture in a photo.. you can see only one line at a time, but try to imagine 2 more lines at right angle to this one. It is very militant and you are told to be 2 abreast at all times. I was told off for talking, wearing sunglasses and having my hands in my pockets.. I was very obedient as they order you with rifle and bayonet in hand. No photos of the man himself though, as the flashes may melt his wax features ;)

There is a lot of culture to this city and some exquisite antique shops selling incredible vases and marble figures right down to old chess sets made of bone, ageing and cracking.. they know the value - but it is a bargain for the history you feel in hand.

In Vietnam you can get some pretty frugal housing - but never have I seen a whole house being built in what seems a fissure between 2 buildings. The next pics shows some condensed lifestyle options.

It seems to be a place you can get anything though.. this was quite random, A Flight of the Conchords flyer that has been printed onto a t shirt in the middle of the old quarter. I've always wanted to wear a flyer? Just a good example of the Asians catching onto a popular avenue quickly to make some more coin.

Well - off to spend some more of my western wallet now. Hope this hasn't seemed like a negative post.. but this definitely hasn't been our city of choice so far. We are city folk that have started to enjoy the sleepy towns and sandy beaches.

Desh and I earning some coin for lunch


This sign left me intrigued as to what the ... could possibly mean. Maybe it gets a little crazy under red lights at night

With 90 Million people sharing your country - space is not an option - so you come and play badminton on the streets.. I actually really liked this concept

It's pretty rare to see graffiti. So far on the way I saw a strange piece on a wall that said "easy riders are fucking cool" .. mmm and a few tags.. but Ha Noi has gangsters.. I even saw East side scrawled up today. They are trying their best to adopt cultures and you can see it happening more in the youth and their hip fashion .. refusing to wear helmets on their scooters too parade the new hair or hat..

Hoi An by night light

On our last night we decided to take the camera into town, as this place does an incredible transformation as the sun sets. To be honest - this is half of what it was on Sunday.. but you can get a good idea of why the waterfront is so attractive.

The Midnight Cabaret

So we have been having the best time in Hoi An.. and especially comforting is our sweet lil' hotel we call home.

It comes to our final night, and after a spectacular feast in town we returned home to prepare for our early flight the following morning. At 12.30 am we were rudely awakened by an acoustic guitar and 4 wailing ladies and gents. We were confused and disoriented as we couldn't remember there being a hotel band?? Especially of the bohemian Vietnamese kind..

It just got worse and worse.. as they were obviously attacking the rice wine with a vengeance.. and possibly the river weed.

An hour ticks by and the lobby phone is ringing off the hook. Ladesha called through as well and stated slowly and clearly "You.. must.. come.. sort out.. loud NOISE.. in room"

A pitter patter of dainty 30kg flesh tried her best to appease the situation, and as their room door closed the guitar started up again with more laughter. Ladesha lost it and with flailing arms and a flapping hand slapped the wall until they shut up. .. for another 30 seconds. There was nothing to do, we had to sit it out..

At 3am the guitar wore itself down and the talking became a subtle murmur.. but this wasn't the end.. you see, one bohemian lady decided that she needed to cough and hoick into tissues, and flush the toilet for the rest of the night.. Christ.

We awoke in the morning, to a flood in our room - as obviously the cistern workout had catastrophically overspilled our way. To make matters worse - my denim shorts floated past me with 4,000,000 wet dong glued inside.. Ahhhhh

I tried to get a discount - but they never understand, and this girl is just too darn sweet. Instead she packed us 4 bananas for our travels and 2 souvenir silk purses with business cards intact.

Oh well.. you got to have a lasting memory I guess.

I'm a ma-model, you know what I mean? Hoi An fashion shoot

You can't come to a town like this without an award winning catwalk show afterwards. So with cameras flashing, here are the results of;
3 skirts
1 dress
1 pair of custom sandals
1 pair of custom kickers
1 coat

Hoi An - tailorville

This place is really nice. You can easily spend some time here if you're sick of the traffic in other busy towns/cities. There is a new breed of hassle here - Tailors! Every second shop seems to be one - and they can make anything for you it seems?/seams?
Because you aren't constantly busy sight seeing, you tend to wander into these shops and temptation takes hold.

I didn't really plan on much - but when I sat down and had a flick through their catalogue I decided some new hightop kickers were for me. seeing their craftmanship is not really a confidence booster with wonky nike logos and stitching that looks like a crazy 'B' road. I thought about it and waivered the risk by strict modifying. It goes like this;
1) Choose your favourite sweat shop... I mean shoe brand in the book
2) What leather would you like sir? I'll have black, black stitching, no logos, metal eye holes, snakeskin detailing please, and black soles.. oh and phat laces
3) Pay more for leather.. then when you receive them realise that they are made of vinyl no matter what,
4) come back in 24 hours and bingo - new nike.. hightops.

they actually aren't all that bad.. but they weigh about 40grams and may rip apart if you were to accidentally stand in gum.


Ladesha has had 3 skirts made - and is now getting her favourite dress replicated along with some sandals from a magazine picture she brought with her.

We get asked so much "hullo, you come in, you buy, moto bike, bicycle, what you like" that we decided to adopt a family technique started by Cousin Andy Gardner for little Hannah's listening skills. Basically if you think they don't understand you but pestering you anyway ..and you are a bit sick of the questioning you just say "RHINOSAURUS" and they smile and turn away.

This is a really pretty town and is built around French and Chinese architectural influences.. so the places are pleasing to look at and even better to go into with loads of timber and exposed beams. They are currently raising money to restore the oldtown.. I think we're actually sposed to be contributing by buying tickets to wander through.. but no hassle, no sale sorry.
Along the front of the town is a canal system full of boats taking you for 1 hour tours and the such.. a few pics.




Another attractive part of this city is the culinary delights. Around the oldtown are fantastic restaurants offering great local food and western food also. They are really into Lassi drinks and so are we (fruit with yoghurt - traditionally Indian).
This is a pic of yesterdays lunch;
Lemon shredded chicken with rice crackers and a strawberry lassi.. Mmmmm


We love the dogs here also.. they are total mongrels - but adorable lil creatures nonetheless. Here's a Chihuahua crossed with Street dog modeling a faux pearl necklace.. Paris Hilton would love her.


Next is an example of the female role here. Before this shot she was being used as a human towbar on this motorcycle for her husband. Very effective - just hook her up and drive with maximum load.


I thought I would include a shot of our hotel. It's really sweet - nice large room with quiet A/C.. we do have a loud Hoicker next door - but he just removes the lung butter in the mornings. French styled shutters and Vietnamese tea and clay pot for refreshments. There is a lil restaurant balcony on our floor for breaky too.


One last story - our post office saga today. The mission was simple. Walk in with a coffee mug each, ask for a parcel and then send to NZ. We had one each.. after 20 minutes in a line that made no sense at all we were given 3 customs forms to fill. After filling them we returned to the line, only to get snaked 3 times by the locals and their damn language.. after finally getting there, she took my tiny cup and laughed - then tapped the worker next door and joined her in on the joke. She then proceeded to spend 20 minutes building a bespoke box for the mug and creating a cellotape ball over it until it had soft corners and could be used for footy practice.
They weighed it in and it came to $7 to send - that's fine. Poor Ladesha had the same parcel as me - but got snaked even more - so she was 15 minutes behind.. when it came to her turn for a box they applied double tape - and her bill came to $9. We tried to dispute - but apparently hers had a customs charge on it and mine didn't need one. The logic blew our minds so we left confused and scared.. very scared indeed.

trains, planes and automobiles

We woke up for a fresh start at 4am ready to catch our 5.30am train. As soon as we arrived at the train station a nice old duck of a lady was trying to sell us baguettes. This was actually perfect as we had NZ sliced processed cheese to accompany bread. For those who haven't been here, Vietnam makes a great living selling baguettes and cheese to Western back packers... yum. Sometimes in these situations we get generous - and I felt like giving - so when she said 3000dng (30c) I said no - here's 20,0000 ($2) keep the change thinking yeah - she'll love this.. but it only spawned her on to try sell us coffee ..

On arrival we were pretty confused and the locals were only too kind to help in their weird native language. Luckily 3 Catholic nuns came to the rescue and adopted us as friends, and Desh as a recruit. it was pretty funny as she had a big wooden cane and decided to use desh as a poking device! So as I was boarding the train, Desh was being poked on with Catholic guilt.

Aboard the train and it wasn't too bad - reclining soft seats and A/C.. but we weren't aware of the onboard entertainment, consisting of unavoidable TVs at max volume ready to play for 8.5 hours inbetween communist music and announcements.

Here's a pic of the train inside;

I think it's pretty important now to lay down an example of one of these shows they play on the Train TV. Although I don't understand their ridiculously loud squawky language - I think I got the gist of how it went down;

So - there is this guy sitting at a street table cafe (they are everywhere in this country) and he is super sad because he has no friends. After talking to the unattractive lady owner he decides to recruit a friend from the street. he walks up to this Vietnamese tourist taking photos of bland buildings and squaks at them until strangely they start hugging one too many times. After a few more hugs they sit down.. and with his new friend at the side he gets some male confidence and starts yelling at the owner until she delivers 2 slabs of Heinekin beer (only 48 cans).. but this only mildly pleases them, so he yells at her and slaps her on the ass until she gets a big feast of noodle broth too.
So the 3 of them start getting really HAMMERED and the hugging starts again - but worse than this, the show turns into a really bad MUSICAL - a nightmare train situation for us. At this point I put the ipod on and closed the eyes.. so sorry - no idea how the program got any worse and then ended..
Interesting note to make though - I think it may have been off the cuff - as they seemed to be drinking the beers for REAL.

Next up was lunch - Ladesha has this really big problem with eating noises - so this was pretty entertaining for me when most of the carriage got given trays of meat and rice, soup and even sausages to gnaw on visciously - poor Desh started to feel ill with the noise which we drowned out with 'Pearl Jam' on full volume.
You've heard me mention the trash problem before - well this is a new level. If they don't like something they just spit it out - so there was these chicken bones and rice deposits landing everwhere around us.. Then a carriage worker comes through with a mop and cleans it up.

The highlight for me after the lunch affair was seeing someone get a shaken up coke can and click the tab - only for it to explode over a nun.. she calmly had to get a towel and give her glasses a full wash and chamoise.

One last note to make - the bathrooms. There are 2 choices;
1) A normal looking toilet connected to a holding tank - 8 hours in the tank is full and she's backing up bad.
2) A silver bowl that when flushes you see the flap open to the tracks - cool huh?

Once in Danang we caught a cab to Hoi An - which is refreshing comfort. Our driver handed us a card and it stated his name is 'Kill Bill' - one of our highligths for sure.
He had his own car - A Kia - which he paid $50,000 - - bam, I didn't have the heart to say they are pretty much scrap metal where I come from and half the price.. instead he is a P.I.M.P with his ride being one of about 2% of the population driving something other than a motorbike.

right now - getting hightop sneakers made based on Nikes. Getting mine stealth with no logos - black leather and snake skin... quality is something toworry about - but will just make it funnier if they turn out to be dire.

Desh is hooked on getting skirts made - and is getting some cool stuff with great fabrics. Next post will reveal all.
Caio

Nha Trang

I'm not going to rave - I'm not going to rant - this place is what it is.
Full of suckers who don't know about Jungle Beach 30 minutes thatta way. We've come in to use the HBO channel and saddle tomorrow's train at 5am.

I do have 1 story though. Our plan was to sleep in and go grab brunch around 11. That plan went really well until 6am when I was wide awake and really hungry by 9. Desh was fine - so I decided to go brave it at a local cafe in a hole in a wall down the road. Of course it was near impossible to communicate - but after a bit of pointing I got a plate of rice with Pork, a chicken drumstick, veges and soup for $3NZ.. I also had an audience of locals who politey sat and watched me eat. Well, I came back to the room hyperactive which lead me to believe they lace their food with MSG - sure enough an hour later I got hungry again and my mood crashed big time.. and kinda remained for the day. Needless to say I went for a 2nd breaky to try recover at 12 for a cheesey omelette and fresh mango juice... mmmm

I decided to show you this instead of the beach - cause you probably would have seen a similar one in a brochure for the Gold Coast.

























I thought I would post a pic of the room we have to give an idea of how we live. This is $20US - you can get a room in this town for $7 with no TV and no space - but this is a newish hotel with rooftop swimming pool - aircon - balcony - TV with cable - Bath - and 2 double beds.. which Desh has used as an opportunity for alone time and star fishing.

Jungle Beach

Since the movie 'the beach' - hoards of tourists have scanned South East Asia for that special spot. the truth is it doesn't really exist - - chances are you will get a semi nice strip of sand littered with trash and people (white trash).

This is the exception - started by a Canadian and Vietnamese couple 7 years ago.


They have a white sand beach and have constructed simple open air huts from bamboo for lodging. As part of the simple luxury you get fed 3 times a day plus a fruit platter for snacks. Unfortunately the lack of exercise and mass amount of food has detrimental effects on the single abdominal muscle of mine.

Your average day may pan out like this;
- Get up at 5am for sunrise on the beach
- Go back to bed at 6am
- Get up for Breaky at 8am
- Swim at 10am after chatting for too long at the table
- Read on the beach or return to your hammock at the hutt
- Lunch time at 12
- Return to beach
- Fruit platter at 3pm
- Retire to read outside your hutt
- Dinner at 6pm
- Head to beah for bonfire.. so on so on everyday for 7 days.

It doesn't get much better than that.. and since they feed you, and train you to eat at certain times, you find you are like a trained animal listening for the food to shake in the bowl. Much longer and you may stop thinking all together?

Another great attraction is the random wildlife - you get giant lizards.. squaking geckos in your room, giant red ants.. and on the last night a red neon snake - amzing! At 4pm you can look through a telescope at the native monleys playing in the jungle - truely a spectacle that we will remember - this was one of our favourite non thinking activities.

Here's some kodak moments.




This is the sunset from this morning - one of the best I have seen - usually a blood red ball lights up and bleeds across the sky and sea - strangely alien from what I have seen before.
Notice the clouds in the distance that look like rocky islands, and the night boats coming back in from their fishing trauls.




This is our guard dog "ugly dog". She learns who you are and then barks at any stranger coming close on the beach. There is another chained up that can't go anywhere as he has bitten too many people. There is another pup called "stinky" which literally stinks - but he is great and allowed to run free at night. At the rear shed is another dog that look like Ugly who has given birth to 10 puppies.. really cute.


A few shots of the walk to the waterfall and the waterfall itself. The first shot looks down to where we were staying.