Backpacking Vietnam ... v12 ... on the way to Danang

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original hotmail email]

Morning came and we had a nightmare rushing for the bus. No time to even consume the breakfast that we ordered. Nice to know that we weren't the only ones though as two others were doing the same thing. Anyway, the bus and the other passengers were patient. They waited without complaining. The way to the Ancient Cham Kingdom is kinda out of the way. By those bumpy roads, the bus took a couple of hours to reach. Then it stopped in front of a "roadside" restaurant - the only thing on the menu is rice or noodle with pork/egg/spinach. Very extensive menu, huh?

Anyway, we trooped in to the govt controlled area and paid $$$ for a jeep that took us all further into the secondary forest before arriving at another outpost where guides were busy explaining the many sites available for viewing. Then we had a short walk and suddenly BANG out of nowhere in the green jungle there it was. The old temples and "palaces" of the ancient kingdoms. Imagine - stuff from more than a 1,000 years ago still there and u can walk and touch it. Two of the bigger areas have their interior cleaned out to store some artifacts. The rest is just one huge sprawling area. According to our guide, there was even more to it before the war. We could see some of the craters around the area. There were six sites labeled alphabetically.

After that, we went back to Hoi An and did some shopping since we were leaving.

We reached Danang late afternoon. The guidebook said that Danang has NIL attractions. Scary, huh? However, our flight was still two days away. We tried calling the airlines but it was still full. So we will try again tomorrow.

Dinner - at a roadside (and I mean that literally!) shop that cooked Vietnamese version of Chinese food - Beef Sar Hor Fun. Surprisingly, it was quite delicious but the portioning was so huge we could only ate half of it.

Then we went hunting for the river and walked the entire way. Since our hotel was rather crappy and the thought of spending another two days there was UGH! we went on a hotel tour. Most of the hotels were really crappy too. The nice ones were XXXpensive. After that, as we walked back to our hotel we were witness to a life "shagging" session. This man just parked his bike on the kerb and was humping a gal up against the wall. That's like freaking nuts!

We stopped by a few of the recommended "local" haunts such as this "westernised" cafe that sold unbelievably expensive drinks n desserts in a non-aircond room, then we also purchased more of the French baguette with local stuffings inside to munch while watching TV.

V13 - DANANG - cybercafe, directions, Western guides, airports n the usual rip-offs.
V14 - Ho Chi Minh - hassles, airport cafes, procedures, home.

My First Seaman's Book

[This is a re-creation based on my finding the above ... this is posted on 3rd March 2013]

This is weird. I joined Star Cruises last year in 2000 but hey guess what? After a year, I finally went around to get the above done when I am now home in Penang. Is it important? Honestly, I am not sure. My colleagues said it does get you some discounts with airlines, other ships and hotels. Why? Again, I am not sure but I decided ... why not if I am going to work for them?

So tomorrow is my next onboard sailing day and today I rushed down to Georgetown and finally obtained the above. It's an odd document. It says serial number is 5095 but the seaman book number is 1748. Go figure!

Apparently I also have a seaman registered number 200107016616

But they are so careless that they spelt my dad's family name wrong minus 2 alphabets. As I was in a rush, I didn't bother to correct them and just snatched it and head off home. Tomorrow I am joining Superstar Virgo!

Backpacking Vietnam ... v11 ... Hue to Hoi An

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 copied from an original hotmail email]

The joys of a good sleep-in is such a comfort that the two of us just wished we could hug to the pillows all morning. Unfortunately, we have already booked a bus trip to Hoi An at 8:00am this morning. So we crawled through the morning routine n into the bus. The bus trip is actually pretty good since it stopped at a few nice spots along the way:

1. Views of a splendid beach with azure waters, sandy slopes n an amazing little lagoon

2. Hue Van Pass - the highest, narrowest peak to travel north/south in Vietnam.

3. Marble Mountain

4. China Beach

When we reached Hoi An, to our surprise, all the hotels are more expensive than the big cities! Crazy, huh? And quite a few of them were already booked solid. Anyway, we went to our travel agent n spent ONE WHOLE HOUR trying to arrange for the next day's transportation out of there. Apparently, everything for the next two days (bus/train/plane) were booked solid. Even first class seats. Unbelievable, eh?

Anyhow, after that fracas, we went out to lunch. It was almost five pm already. This place is famous for 3 things (yes there is more to Vietnam than springrolls, fish sauce):

1. White Lotus - actually it's like steamed wanton

2. Cao Lau - a dried noodle served with different condiments

3. Wanton - this is the huge sized deep fried version

Then we purchased a ticket to walk through some of the "preserved" cultural heritage areas. This township is famous as a Chinese home ground of sorts - there were Cantonese, Hainanese and Fukien Associations - huge areas with intricate designs on the walls/roofs/ etc. We also saw some of the ancient family homesteads n these are a beauty n of course the famous (and overrated) Japanese bridge.

The absolute highlight is that this is an ARTISTIC VILLAGE. Several streets were just dedicated to handicraft. We visited one of the silk weaving cottages, embroidery cottages, artists at work painting modern pieces, traditional realistic paintings, etc and of course, lantern making n wood carving. Then there is one whole street filled with just tailors to design anything u can imagine with silk or cotton or polyester.

The night was spent trudging along the wet market and we ended up at the riverfront. It's really nice. U have all these small restaurants hanging traditional silk lanterns everywhere as lighting with none of our garish modern street lamps.

We had a late night dinner at this cosy place where the table lighting is really unique: they have two candles on a candle stand that's never been cleaned. So u have all those dripping tears turning into huge mounds that look like stalagtites or is that stalagmites?

So all in all, it was a quiet way to spend an evening, quiet, nice n relaxing.

V12 - HOI AN - "Cham Dynasty". DANANG - city of boredom & the hotel tours.
V13 - HO CHI MINH.
V14 - HOME

Backpacking Vietnam ... v 10 ... Hue

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original hotmail email]

Well, since we were pressed for time, we couldn't exactly join any of the day trip packages. So in the morning, we went over to the Purple Palace. It's a huge palace of the old Emperors back when Vietnam had emperors n the like. A really lovely place. The govt has rebuild some of the areas to house historical items n some retail stuff but on the whole, there are substantial areas where the original architecture still stood firm today. There were also areas where we could peek into the depths underground i.e. there are cellars that no one wonders. One of the strangest thing was that the govt permitted people growing vegetables in certain parts of this place. Very weird.

The place took up our entire morning - it was that huge.

Then inspite of the drizzling weather, we rented a bike and went searching for the old Emperors mausoleums. We found Vietnam's most "holy" site from long ago - now it's nothing more than a platform for the occassional monks to come n pray.

Next, we came to the smallest of the mausoleums. Unfortunately it was looked. Then we made our way through many small villages constantly asking for directions until we arrived at the most glorious one of all - the Lonely Planet folks are prejudiced against this one but we thought it was grand. All the original architecture was still there. It was massive, intricate, black in many places but within - very colourful. This was also the place we were pleasantly surprised by how cheap the souvenirs were. Of course with all good things, there were some bad. A couple of old ladies let us park our bikes for free. So in return we thought we would order a drink from them. To our shock, they charged us four times the normal price. Talk about highway robbery.

Anyway, we wend our way to find the "largest" most tranquil mausoleum next. For this we went to a small town, boarded a govt operated river ferry (we were charged double!) and got across to another side of the land. Riding through some rough country, we finally reached the place. It was kinda dull actually - more like a walk in the park than anything else. The final gateway to the "burial" area was under lock n key.

On our way back, we decided to really rough it. And boy was it a mistake. U see, in the morning, there were rains n for many a kilometer, the roads were not properly tarred. So it was muddy and at times, it was almost faster to walk. We had to get off the bike n pushed it along until we were both covered in mud.

We did pass by a few of the other mausoleums on the way and the famous Pang Mu Pagoda. This is significant for modern reasons i.e. politics as well as historical - a fairytale relates to why it was constructed.

The short n long of it was it took us nearly 1.5 hours to reach back to HUE by then we were both dog tired n slumped into an Indian Restaurant for some good food which turned out to be crappy. Sorry lah but after so many days of Vietnamese fare, we just had to taste something different. Anyway, it was kinda embarassing to return the rented bike to the owner seeing as it was so caked in mud.

After shower, we took the bike out to the river casing everywhere we could and even visited all the other 3 star hotels before finally settling to walk through the main shopping thoroughfare for some souvenirs.

Today has got to be the best day of my trip so far.

V11 - HOI AN - "Artistic Community".

V12 - HOI AN - "Cham Dynasty". DANANG - city of boredom & the hotel tours.
V13 - HO CHI MINH.
V14 - HOME

Backpacking Vietnam ... v9 ... Hue

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original Hotmail email]

Train journey from Nha Trang to Hue was quite scenic especially during one part when we had a view from the mountaintop all the way to the fields n beaches below. That's simply breathtaking n makes u just wanna stop for a dip in the blue sea. Other strange n wonderful things we learnt on the train are: the ticket is inclusive of meals. Don't follow the Lonely Planet guidebook which says u can buy stuff from a cafe compartment. No such compartment exists. Whatever they served u, just eat the damn food or starve. So we had a bowl of porridge at 6:00am while some people had noodles. And around 11:00am, it was rice with different side dishes. Someone tried exchanging the dishes but the serving lady scolded that person so we all just kept quiet n ate what we could. Another wonderful learning experience was that after u ate, throw the dishes/utensils out the train window. That was what the cleaners did when they were to lazy to collect them back to their station. Oh yeah! And a precious commodity were the plastic drinking bottles n soft drink cans. Children n women would climb the train at each stop begging to be given these.

We arrived at Hue in the afternoon and sampled some of the local food like crispy pork skin/minced shrimps on sticky rice/flour cakes etc.

After checking into the hotel, we went for a stroll through the town. Hue is famous as an educational hub of sorts. We saw one of the famous national schools where folks like Ho Chi Minh studied there, then there were the missionary establishments including one of St Xavier's - reminds me of when I was in school ... more than a decade ago now that was. Wow! That's a scary thought, huh? I am sooooo old. Sigh!

Then we went across the river that was famous because of a fight during the Vietnam war between the North n South. After that we passed by the Purple Palace but it was closed. So we went through some souvenir shops before ending the night at Morin Hotel . As no river cruises were available that night on the Perfume River, this was the best bet for local entertainment. So we were the only Asian in the hotel dining area - it was shaped like a park with lanterns everywhere - a mix between East n West with a traditional folk performance. The food was a mix between normal Vietnamese/Western & Hue food - buffet style and all for USD5 per person. Rather good value for money. The entire place was packed.

The notable yummies include:

1. Springroll - fried n steamed

2. Vietnamese New Year Cake -fried sticky rice with stuffing

3. Hue Fried Cake - looks like a huge flour urn - rather sweet n nice

4. Miscellaneous grilled items

5. Soups

6. Sticky rice

V10 - HUE - "Dirt Biking"

V11 - HOI AN - "Artistic Community".

V12 - HOI AN - "Cham Dynasty". DANANG - city of boredom & the hotel tours.
V13 - HO CHI MINH.

Backpacking Vietnam ... v8 ... Nha Trang n then some

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original hotmail email]

Wow! This is really a belated report. The last few days have been hectic but a real eye opener. That's why I only replied emails but didn't send any long write-ups. Anyway, here's a catch-up of day #8.

Started the day slow with a lie-in and MTV. We went to a local economy rice shop to try the local food. Not really to my taste as the meats were generally tough n the food, saltier than what we are used to back home in Malaysia n Singapore.

Then it was a slow walk hrough the streets n local market to the train station since the nice station master told us we can only purchase the tickets at 1:30pm. As we were early, we went back to the previous night's cafe place for a snooze. There were quite a few people doing the same thing. Guess Vietnamese people know a thing or two about taking a break too, eh?

Anyway, the train station is a real lesson. First the ladies are these severe looking old women with a perpetual frown - a regular dragon lady. Then they have computers but used for checking only time n rates, not generating tickets etc so it was manual. It gets worse. We queued up 15 mins to get to the front of a booth marked FOREIGNERS. The lady said we have to go to the next one marked LOCAL as the one we queued up only sells tickets to SAIGON. So we wasted another 1/2 hour n then, to really piss me off, they sent me back to the first one.

Geeez! And to top it off by the time we wasted an hour, they told us there were no more seats for the 8:30pm train only 11:30pm. Do we have a choice but to accept it? Oh yes. Foreigners paid about 3 times more than locals. Wonderful system, huh?

Since we have so much time to spare, we walked all the way across town to another tourist attraction, a CHAM (ancient people) site. It's really cool though inspite of the bloody heat. We passed a charming river and this place was just at the top of a hillock. There were leftover ruins of the original temple/palace base left and u can see the weather has done some damage to it in addition to mankind. The originals were of Hinduism inflected designs while the Chinese have added their deities to it. So it's a fusion of sorts.

After that, we just trudged around town n ended up sampling the local roast duck. Half a duck for USD1.50. Not too expensive n quite nice too. The place was really dusty though. Then it was looking for souvenirs. We bought nothing. And finally, we stopped by the beachside to chit-chat with some other tourists b4 heading back to our hotel to collect our bags and went for another round of yummy Vietnamese food. There is so much more to Vietnamese food than spring rolls n noodle soups.

The train - yeah! This one is another shocker. We found our compartments to be occupied. Apparently, there were free upgrades. How nice. Then they took us to another compartment and asked the people there to move back to their own compartment. So it was like a cubby hole with "rubber" like mattresses and a fan. Very hot, stuffy n dark n they expect u to sleep. One old man from the top bunk advise us to lock the door and also put our bags further away from the doorway as someone may reach thru the grill n slit open our bags to look for stuff to steal. Like I said - there are nice people n then there are others.

V9 - HUE.
V10 - HUE.
V11 - HOI AN.
V12 - DANANG.

Backpacking Vietnam ... v7 ... Island Hopping

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original hotmail email]

Well, the island hopping programme is one long ride in getting drunk. That's it. There were about twenty of us on this boat where the PIC is a Caucasian woman while all the staff are Vietnamese. All the patrons except me, my friend and a honeymooning couple were Caucasians. At the first stop, it was a snorkelling experience with some dead corals n minute jelly fish. As per my experience in Trengganu, Asians felt the sting n came up but the Caucasians can just ignore n continue swimming. Must be something about the thickness of their hide or something.

After that, it was buy your own beer every ten minutes. There was a Norwegian couple where the wife was so knocked out from last night that it took her nearly 3 hours to wake up the moment she hit the boat. And the first thing the boy friend did was buy her a beer. That's her staple diet until the end of the journey.

Second island was a stop whereby we had our lunch. Nothing special but it was a lot.

After that, we had an event called FLOATING BAR. It simply means that there was free flowing red wine from DALAT and that to drink this, u have to be in the water. I couldn't be bothered sincet there were those nice little stingers about.

Stop Number #4 was on a govt run island where everything was bloody expensive. Imagine having to pay about USD3.50 to sit on a beach reclining chair. Crazy! We all walked about n then had a drink in an oceanfront restaurant. Cheaper this way. It's quite popular with the locals though since it was kinda crowded.

Final stop was at a fishing village where they used BUMBLE BOATS. It's like a round rattan basket but big enough for about four people to sit. We paid them VND10,000 and they even let me have a go at driving it about. Then they took us to their island homes n let us see how they live their lives. Very poor. Very sad.

Dinner was another all u can eat affair at this nice restaurant we found for less than USD10. After that we walked to the train station to check the schedule to HUE. It's really strange that they can't sell us tomorrow's ticket n asked us to come back at around 1:30pm tomorrow. Ah well!

We ended the night with a coffee (real Vietnamese style!) in this place called Cafe Fuji. The place is simply beautiful with three types of seating arrangements set inside a semi-wooden structure complete with gardens n birdcage. There was traditional n modern Vietnamese music interspersed with TV broadcasts of wrestling for those so inclined.

V8 - NHA TRANG.

V9 - HUE - a first look.

V10 - HUE

Backpacking Vietnam ... v6 ... Nha Trang

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original hotmail email]

V6 - nothing much happened except for one loooooong bus ride from Saigon at 7:30am to Nha Trang reaching the place at 5:00pm. They gave us a small bus - Saigon Tourist. What a rip off! And the aircon was not working so we have to open the damn windows. About the only good thing on the way was the scenery and the food.

Scenery - there's a township along the way where we saw the KARST formation. It's like what we studied in school. Mountains and hills of hard stone were swished into various outcroppings of pure white stone sculptures everywhere and the water was so blue, it was near perfect. Along the way, we also past by two enormous pillars of the old Cham empire. It's a race that has been more or less wiped out from the face of the earth long ago.

Food - we had a delicious local vegetarian fried noodle. Simple but really yummy n not at all greasy. Dinner was unbelievable at USD8 for two. BTW the dishes are fixed size n can feed 4 people. Anyway, the food are: a "tomyam" like fish soup, Vietnamese springroll n fish sauce (huge sized springroll n not like those I had in SSLeo or Malaysia), fried rice, wild boar in lemon grass, n a funky western/vietnamese salad. Oh yeah! And we finished off with SAIGON beer. Local brew. Quite smooth.

NHA TRANG - after dinner, we went for a walk to the beach front. Pretty long stretch. There's the usual cuttlefish, junk food, an amusement park, lots of hotel but not on the beach itself, some coffee place and some art n souvenir place. We visited the handicraft display-cum-musuem and it's really terrific with both ethnic n modern pieces of silk paintings, silk sticthes, pottery, etc.

After that, we visited the local COFFEE BAR and watched some locals performing their tunes. It's karaoke on the stage with a live backing band. And like home, some people were great while others simply sucked.

V7 - island hopping.

V8 - ancient civilization.

V9 - HUE.

Backpacking Vietnam ... 4 days later ... Day 8

[This is posted on 14.02.2013 from an original hotmail email]


Wow! It's been like three days since my last email. What to do? Very busy with the good holidays, man. So many things to see, so many things to do, so little time and definitely not enough money.

Anyway, right now, I am typing this from a cyber cafe in Vietnam's most famous beach city, NHA TRANG. In fact, this place is just behind the beach. I am stuck here waiting for the night train. That is one long story which we will save for another V Review.

V5 - Mekong Delta. At 6:00am, just as I went to the shower, the damn phone rings. I kid u not. It appears that this phenomenon happens even in Vietnam. Heh heh! Anyway, it was my friend. He was at the lobby waiting for me for breakfast. Now isn't that considerate of the dear fellow? We went to Vietnam's #1 breakfast - thin koay teow in either beef or chicken soup. I had the chicken and it was really delicious. And of course wherever we go, we must try all the different Vietnamese coffee. Oh yeah! White coffee in Vietnam is Kopi Susu. I got a little surprise when I ordered it.

My "river" cruise began with a two hour bus journey through southern Saigon to the river mouth. There we saw the ends of the morning floating market (sorry but the one in Thailand is so much more impressive). Here the people are really poor. For USD1.50, u can have a meal of several dishes with your friends. Sad, huh? The river is so full of silt that it's colour looks perpetually muddy. And the locals will go wading in and pulling out buckets of grayish gooey stuff which they then turn in "ceramics" and "brick". We did visit one of the riverside "factories" to see this process. Other things we did were to watch how they pop rice - yeah the Western world introduced popcorn. Vietnam's answer is poprice or as they called it, grilled rice. They served this with many different types of spices and sweets. We had a sample of five types. Another place we visited was a rice paper cottage industry. It's a tedious process and the end product is so cheap. BTW rice paper here is the edible type u get in Vietnamese restaurant not the one we use for other purposes. Heh heh!

At night, I went out with this guy from my first hotel. He's from Hanoi and doing a proposal for ALLIANZ in Saigon. He met another chap who is an American Vietnamese. So we walked to this 5-star hotel supposedly with the original HARD ROCK cafe but nope, it was called SAIGON BAR. It's a nice enough place at Level 10 open air and very cooling breeze from the river always wafting through. There we met one of the famous local singers (from the way he tosses money we know!) and another CEO of some huge advertising firm in Saigon. The latter knew the Hanoi guy's dad. So he generously bought us a round of drinks.

After that, we went on a midnight walk of the town stopping by at a local 'stewed' rice shop for dinner/supper before going to some backpacker clubs but these were just plain crowded n boring. Even the music was crap.

V6/V7/V8 - all about Nha Trang.