The Idiots Guide to Hiking

Dalat - the honeymoon capital of Vietnam, according to the Lonely Planet. Well the city had a lake, and some random restaurants, but not a great deal else, and not somewhere I'd recommend for anyone to spend their honeymoon (in case you were thinking of it).

It seems that the rain followed us from Nha Trang, as we were immediately forced to seek shelter in the sanctity of our hotel for a couple of hours. My flip flop had decided to break en route (my second pair), and it was so wet that I was unable to go and buy a pair, which left me hobbling around the hotel.

When the rain eventually stopped, we took a trip to the "Crazy House". The Crazy House, contrary to expectations, wasn't a mental asylum, but instead was a Gaudi meets Disneyworld style hotel. The architecture was a poor imitation of Gaudi, complete with melting wax style buildings, but the rooms were also equipped with plastic animals, making the place feel quite tacky. Personally, I wouldn't really want to stay in a room that hundreds of people had traipsed through earlier in the day.

Later that day, I had a walk through the town, trying to see what it had to offer. There was a lake, a food market, and couple of bars but not a great deal else.

The next day, I chose to do a 6km trek in the nearby mountains. This trek would take us 2160m high, and would take us through both pine forest and jungle.

Now the first rule of hiking is to wear appropriate shoes. Accordingly, I asked the woman at the hotel whether my flip flops would be OK. I pointed at my flip flops, asked in slow, loud English "OK?", and received an approving "yes". I felt that using the method, nothing would be lost in translation, but I couldn't have been further from the truth!

I lost my beloved Adidas silver shell toe trainers in Halong Bay, which meant that since then, I've constantly been wearing flip flops. Its been a liberating experience, but my favourite bamboo flip flops broke en route to Dalat (as previously mentioned), and I was wearing an unfamiliar plasticky pair.

I digress. I arrived at the hike, and walked for about 200m in these flip flops before getting them wet, discovering that they became slippery when wet, and preferring to complete the subsequent 6km barefoot rather than risk breaking my neck!

To cut a long story short, the ground got more and more slippery, I walked barefoot through substances unknown to man, and I fell over innumerable times. My travel companion took great amusement in telling me that I looked like Gandhi with my hiked up trousers, bare feet and large bamboo walking stick! A trek that was supposed to take 4 hours ended up taking about 6, and I returned to the bottom thanking my lucky stars that I hadn't broken any limbs, and cursing the hotel receptionist for her misinformation!

I had a great scare when someone further along the trek shouted out "Snake". I then refused to move until the snake had been cleared from my path!

Overally, it was a good experience, and as someone else pointed out, the mud (when it eventually washed off!!) must have exfoliated my feet more than any massage could have!

That evening, we had a couple of well deserved beers, a nice vegetarian meal, and an early night - what more could a man ask for?!

From Dalat, we took the 6 hour bus to Ho Chih Minh City, otherwise known as Saigon - Vietnam's largest city, and home to many war monuments.

Check back in a few days,

Nihal

A Vietnamese Guide to Animal Cruelty

Last time you left me, I was about to board a sleeper bus to Nha Trang. You may remember that I wasn't particularly enthused by the prospect, but the journey itself actually wasn't too bad. I took an anti-histamine prior to settling down (not recommended by medics!), and I pretty much knocked out for the duration of the journey. The most amusing moment of the journey was when one of the Vietnamese drivers grabbed the bed next to mine, and the whole journey we were silently fighting over him trying to cross the dividing line between the two beds. He would place a foot over the border, and I would immediately kick him back. Eventually, this culminated in me turning on the overhead lights at 3am and pretending to read, but just doing so in order to increase his annoyance. I think the man took particular pleasure in shaking me awake the following morning.

Nha Trang is a beach town with a largeish expat population, numerous Italian restaurants and Western bars, and not a lot else. As a result, I spent two full days lying on the beach, eating fresh bananas, taking the occassional swim, and trying to make headway through my thousand page 1920s history of the world.

The beach itself was decent, not quite as nice as the one at Hoi An, but somewhat ruined by the beach peddlars trying to flog me sunglasses, paintings, lobsters, beer, massages, books, and a number of other useless items. This would have been bearable had it not been happening every other minute. In addition, whilst the weather was beautiful for the majority of the day, from 4pm onwards, the heavens opened, and the rain didn't abate til the next morning. Kind of annoying on a beach paradise.

By the third day, we were crying out for something cultural, or even slightly different, and for this reason, we booked ourselves on an island tour. The tour promised an opportunity to feed local ostrich and deer, to see an "elephant and bear show", to visit Monkey Island, and to see a "dog, goat and monkey show".

We boarded the boat at the ungodly hour of 9am, to be greeted by about 40 Vietnamese faces, complete with screaming kids. Our first stop was to feed the ostriches and the deer, and I can honestly say that this felt like a primary school trip to the farm. We were provided with animal feed, given some rules and regulations, and had 45 minutes to feed the animals - riveting!

We got back on the boat and headed to the next island for the animal show. When they say that Asian countries treat animals badly, its a bit of an understatement! We were subjected to displays of bears juggling footballs, riding bicycles, riding a moped, and all the while wearing dresses. How the hell do you get a bear to ride a motorbike?! Not in a nice way, I assure you! All the while, the Vietnamese people were loving it, as the three of us looked on in horror. The elephant was made to play football, jump over some people lying on the floor and some other un-elephant like tasks.

The rest of the day continued like this. We saw monkeys in wedding dresses, being led on a carriage by two dogs. We saw goats(!!) doing tricks, and other stupidities! It was a day that the RSPCA wouldn't have been amused with!!

Following on from this experience, and the incessant afternoon rain, we decided that it was time to move on from Nha Trang into the next city, Dalat.

Sun, sea, sand and... tailors!

These past few days, I've been soaking up the sun, getting suits made and not a great deal more. I didn't intend it to be this way: Hoi An was supposed to be a small stop en route to Saigon, but I've been infected by the holiday spirit and have spent the past 4 days here.




Before all this, I had to endure the hells of a 14 hour sleeper bus from Hanoi to Hue. The man at the travel agency sold it to me saying that I was in the first class seats, and that it would be the same sort of comfort level as the sleeper train - this wasn't to be the case however. I can't sleep on planes as it is, and on the sleeper bus, I was confined to a cramped, weirdly shaped seat, with the air conditioning permanently blasting on my feet. The even better news is that I have to do it again today.




Hue was a small stop en route to Hoi An. Here, I had a much needed shower, and took a motorbike taxi round some of Hue's sights. As Vietnam's historical capital, Hue houses the citadel and a number of pagodas. The day was beautiful so it was good to visit these.




Following on from this, I had a great vegetarian lunch and a beer, all for the princely sum of 20,000 dong (80p) and got back on the bus for the 3 hour journey to Hoi An.




Hoi An is a quiet seaside town, turned tourist trap, that is home to various tailors, shoe shops, restaurants, art galleries and not a lot else. Despite this, it has a charm that I hadn't yet seen in Vietnam. The people are friendly, the streets are clean, and not all of the stuff they sell is cheap rubbish. As befits a place like this, I haven't done a great deal: I've been spending my days lazily wandering the streets, and my evenings sitting by a pool chilling out.




The highlight of my time in Hoi An was undoubtedly my half day cooking class. I found a restaurant offering one on one lessons, got them to adapt the menu to my vegetarian needs, negotiated a decent price, and I was good to go. The food I made was very simple, yet tasty and healthy.




I was taken on a tour of the local market to buy our produce. Amazing to see how fresh everything was.







For starters, I made a banana flower salad, garnished with fresh Vietnamese mint, basil and coriander, and flavoured with a lime juice based dressing. Simple but effective.





Then I was taught to make Hoi An style spring rolls, using sweet potato, chinese mushrooms, carrots and a vegetable called yellow spring. Beautiful!




For my vegetable dish, I stirfried some morning glory (green, beany looking vegetable) with some garlic and chilli. And to finish off, I made a pineapple fried rice.




Pretty much stuff that most people could make with their eyes closed, but it was interesting to learn about the different flavours and to be taught how to present the food well.



Being in Hoi An, it seemed obligatory to get some clothes made. What started off as a pair of trousers quickly developed into 2 pairs of trousers, a pair of shorts, 2 suits and a shirt. The quality was far superior to what I'd previously had done in China, and you can see the results in three months time!




What would one of my blogs be without mentioning some alcoholic beverage? Strangely enough, I met a friend from primary school, staying in the same hotel as me (I hadn't seen the guy for 10 years!), and together with a few friends, we went to a pretty riotous beach party not far from the town centre. To cut a long story short, almost everyone was swimming at like 2 in the morning.





I also visited the temples at Myson, which were some 1800 year-old Hindu influenced temples 45km from Hoi An. Many of these structures had been destroyed by the Americans during the Vietnam war, but what remained was pretty impressive. Even though the area of the complex is significantly smaller than Cambodia's Angkor Wat, this set of temples is actually older, and it was interesting to see some Hindu imagery in South East Asia.

I made a trip to China Beach (in Hoi An, not in China!!) and it was one of the best beaches I've visited for a while. Miles of white sands next to crystalline blue water were helped by the fact that the sun was blazing down, and the water was the perfect temperature. The minute we left, however, we were subjected to a tropical rainstorm!

So now, I have a two hour wait til my 14 hour sleeper bus. My ipod headphones are broken, and my current book is arduous and boring (HG Wells' An Outline of History - it reads like an encyclopedia) so I have no clue how I'm going to cope.



Wish me luck though!



Next stop Nha Trang.

Its currently 9am and I've accomplished all of my tasks for the day. Its a great feeling... I bought the adapter plug that I needed to buy, and I booked my bus tickets to Hue. I've explored much of what Hanoi's old quarter has to offer, and was relatively unimpressed, so now I'm sitting here writing this blog.

The reason I'm up and have done everything so early is because I returned from Sapa at 5am this morning.

Sapa is a hill station in North Vietnam, surrounded by several small villages housing the Black Hmong Tribe.

I took the night train up there on Tuesday, arriving at the ungodly hour of 5:30am on Wednesday morning. My train journey was ok - I was sleeping in a four person sleeper compartment with 3 Vietnamese people, but I got a good night's sleep so I couldn't complain.

Upon arriving at Lao Cai station, we made the one hour journey to Sapa - I hadn't fully woken up at this time, so this journey remains a hazy memory, between small naps. The hotel itself was fantastic - it was full board, situated on the top of one of Sapa's hills, and I was allocated a room in the "VIP section" - what a privilege!

This first morning, we trekked down to Cat Cat village, a small village inhabited by members of the black Hmong tribe. The walk was beautiful, but I noticed that, like everything else in Vietnam, the area had become incredibly touristy. Local tribal people were rendered pedlars of touristy gifts, and in the town centre, every so often, one would see an Indian or Italian restaurant - hardly indigenous tribal food!!

There's not much more to say about this trek. The weather was fantastic, and I guess I'll let the pictures do the talking.

On the second day, the heavens opened on us, so I had to wear a huge plastic cape, some wellington boots, and carry a staff. The result was that I looked like one of the hobbits from Lord of the Rings! We visited another village, and some more waterfalls, and there was a strange mist around Sapa, meaning that we could only see a couple of metres in front of us. The whole effect rendered the scenery both mysterious and beautiful. Aside from tourism, the local's people's other industry is farming, and we passed several paddy fields and other crops en route.

This evening, we were to stay in a village home, and it was a unique experience to say the least. Amenities included a squat toilet, a barrel of cold water and a jug for the shower, and the resident dogs, chickens and the occassional buffalo wandering onto our land. All the food was cooked on a small fire, and surprisingly, it was all delicious. During dinner, our tour guide and host family introduced us to "happy water" otherwise known as rice liquor - and after 7-8 shots of this, the evening was always likely to be raucous. After dinner, we were treated to the sight of our drunken tour guide dancing to both Boney M and some Euro Dance music - it was a sight to behold.

Eventually, we retired to bed - I say bed, but the bed consisted of a thin mattress on the floor, covered with an even thinner sheet. I didn't sleep a wink, largely due to the incessant sounds of crickets croaking, and when the roosters crowed at 5:30am, I got out of bed, and read a book for the whole morning.

This final day was more of the same - it continued to rain, we trekked through some more of the hillside, and returned to the hotel in the afternoon, ready to have dinner and get back on the train.

The three days in Sapa was a big change from the noise and big lights of Hanoi, and was also very different to the night at sea in Halong Bay. The night in a village home was a once in a lifetime experience, and the place itself was beautiful.

Vietnam

As I said at the end of the last blog, things can only get better from that low of being stopped by the customs officials, and to a certain extent, they have.

It continued to pour down in Hanoi for my second day there, and I was wondering whether I'd ever be able to leave the hostel. I met some people in the hostel, and ended up playing scrabble with them.

When the rain eventually subsided, I went out to explore Hanoi. The city itself is quite strange - the rules of the road here seem even more scant than in China/India, and you are regularly confined to the pavement by crowds and crowds of mopeds driving past.

The architecture is equally interesting. It looks almost European, with brightly coloured houses surrounded by hanging creepers.

Hanoi itself doesn't have a great deal going on. We are currently staying in the old district (with the millions of other foreigners), and there's not much to do hear. Everything shuts at 11pm, there's no famous monuments or museums, and most of the city is indistinguishable from the rest. However, it does retain a certain charm, given to it by its lush greenery and brightly coloured buildings.

I haven't yet formed an opinion on the people here. They speak slightly more English than the Chinese, but I still feel crippled by inability to communicate with them. They also tend to pester tourists more than in China, and I constantly feel that I'm being cheated here, by a street peddler or hotel clerk trying to get one up on me.

For the first couple of nights, I stayed in the Hanoi Backpacker's Hostel. This place came recommended by the Lonely Planet and by a number of other travellers. The place was OK, but it seemed to be full of 18-19 year old British gap year students, who thought that they were on a booze cruise to Magaluf, not in an Asian city that shut down at 11pm.

After a day of doing very little in Hanoi, I took a trip to the Perfume Pagoda, a couple hours outside of the city. It was raining heavily, but we still took an hour and a half's trip up the river in a boat that looked like it had it was meant for one person, not the 6 of us that sat on it. The river itself was beautiful, despite the rain, and this meant that even sitting on a small wooden bench for 90 mins was slightly more bearable. The pagoda was a cave at the top of a small hill - the cave and height of the structure was very impressive, but aside from that, I felt like I'd seen it all before!

The next day, I took a bus to Halong Bay, where I was spending a night on the Ocean Wave. Halong Bay is aiming to be voted as one of the new wonders of the world, and I can see why. The place was beautiful. The whole area was this still, placid expanse of water, punctuated by the occassional hill or island. It helped that the weather was good, and that the people we travelled with were good fun, but I had an amazing time.

Tomorrow I go to Sapa, a former hill station in the north of Vietnam. The place is home to Vietnam's village people and minority groups, so hopefully I'll have a lot of nice photos.

Hope all is well back home.


Nihal

A warm welcome from the Vietnamese customs officials

Its been only a day since my last blog, but I had promised you the harrowing tale of my arrival in Hanoi, and I like to deliver on my promises.

Flight was ok - had a stop in Guangzhou - nothing of note to comment on.

I arrived at Hanoi airport at about 10pm, and expected to get through problem free. I was mistaken.

They initially gave everyone a bizarre health questionnaire, which I filled in and handed to the appropriate authority. Then they took everyone's temperature, using an in-ear thermometer. I have no idea what would have had happened had I been running a temperature, but fortunately, I wasn't.

Anyway, I got to the customs, desk, handed my passport and experienced a slightly longer wait than most people. No problem, I thought. Then the customs official asked my why I had a British passport if I was Indian - I patiently tried to explain that I had spent my whole life in England, and that my parents had been in England for the best part of forty years. This didn't seem to get through to him, and he called a couple of his friends over. It didn't help that they spoke heavily accented, broken English, and that I knew no Vietnamese whatsoever.

I admit that some of this ordeal was partially my fault - I had (due to a miscalculation of my dates) had to get two Vietnamese visas, and this did somewhat confuse them. I tried to explain simply enough, that I had miscalculated my dates, and had to get a second visa because of this.

This led to the most harrowing part of the ordeal: yet more Vietnamese customs officials came along, and they started commenting on how the photo looked nothing like me (admittedly, I had a shaven head then, and now have a full head of hair), and I attempted to explain that my hair could grow in 3 years - it didn't have to remain the same! They then claimed that my passport was a forgery. At this point, I wanted to shout that I was a British citizen, that both the Chinese and Indian governments had verified this passport as real, and what right did this tinpot country have to question my passport. I didn't though, and just shook my head worriedly.

They then went off, WITH MY PASSPORT, to consult with each other for half an hour, and I was left sitting in an empty Vietnamese airport, wondering if I'd have to spend the night in a Vietnamese cell through no fault of my own.

They did come back, and eventually acknowledged that my passport was real, and that I was free to go.

All in all, its a horrible experience to be harrassed by government officials, when you're alone, don't speak the local language.


Hopefully the only way is up from here.


Nihal

Last Week in Beijing

Morning/Afternoon/Evening all,

I'm writing to you from a hostel in Hanoi (but more on that later).

So I left you all in suspense, mid-way through last week. Was he going to book his tickets to Vietnam? Wasn't he? Was he going to extend his Chinese visa by another month? Exciting stuff.

Anyway, I bought the flights to Hanoi, and booked my hostel for the first night, and here I am now!

Last week, we had another bank holiday in China, meaning that I had last Friday off. This meant that Thursday night constituted part of the weekend, and accordingly, we went out. What started off as a quiet dinner and drink with my teacher and classmate, rapidly degenerated into a night of drunkenness (as standard). There's not much more that needs to be said on this, but in my drunken state, I stumbled (literally) upon a bar playing the sort of Roots Reggae music that I like back in England.

As expected, I slept in on Friday. Woke up, went to a cafe to work, met one of my classmates and we ended up talking, so I didn't do any work. Then another friend called me, telling me that some of our other friends were in the area and I should join them for dinner and a drink. I wasn't one to refuse, and the result was another big night out.

On Saturday, we decided to change it up a little, and went to Beijing's annual Strawberry Music Festival. The festival actually had nothing to do with strawberries, or fruit of any sort, but we had a great day out. Most of the Chinese bands were influenced by an equivalent band in Britain/America, and it was quite interesting to hear what sounded like 1990s Brit-Pop, only in Chinese. They had a drum and bass tent there, where we spent most of the evening. It made a welcome change from some of the bars and clubs playing generic RnB.

I'm struggling to remember what I did on Sunday, but I'm sure that it was pretty uneventful, hence me forgetting it.

The rest of the week consisted of a series of long goodbyes. I had my last dinner with the family on Tuesday night, the mum had made (I say made, but there's not much making involved) Hot Pot - which is basically a pot of boiling water and spices, into which you dip vegetables, tofu and the like. She actually started to get quite tearful at a couple of stages this week, which was quite touching. The family kept telling me to come back and stay with them again, and now, I feel like I would definitely be welcome to come back.

I had a leaving do with my schoolmates and other colleagues on Wednesday night, organised by my friend Adam. I was really touched because several of the teachers and the staff at the school decided to join us too. We started at a pizza place, washing down the pizza with copious amounts of beer. Then we moved on to a bar which had half priced drinks, and finally (and this part gets a bit blurry), we went to a karaoke bar. The night literally ended with a bang, when one of our group collided with a table, knocked over lots of bottles and glasses, and we made a swift exit!

Today, feeling ridiculously hungover, having had only 6 hours sleep, I packed my bags, said my goodbyes, tried to keep some food down and went on my way.

I would go so far as to say that this time in Beijing was even better than the last. My Chinese is at such a level that I can understand 60-70% of what people say, and communicate my meaning for the most part. I have started to watch Chinese films, and am finding that I am understanding large chunks of the dialogue. During this time, I have experienced life living in a Chinese household, and paradoxically, have also realised what the Beijing ex-pat lifestyle would be. I have made lots of new friends from around the world, and am now even closer to some old friends. And most importantly, my love affair with China remains intact, and I could see myself spending some more time there.

Next up: Hanoi,


Love you all,

Nihal