About 15km north of Siagon is an area called Chu Chi. There was a big pocket of VC resistance here throughout the war, aided by the infamous network of underground tunnels.
The Americans unwittingly build a base over part of the network and kept being attacked from within.
We took a tour around them with Lee, leaving Nam chatting with his old enemies back at the gatehouse as the place is run by the military.
First stop was a quick film and a healthy dose of propaganda. Here are a few quotes I picked up, you’ve got to admire the objective impartiality:
“The crazy bunch of American devils attacked … “
“This man was awarded the Heroic Medal for Killing Americans.”
Weaving through B52 bomb craters, we were then taken on a tour of the actual tunnels themselves.
They showed us one of the original trap door entrances, they are tiny. Lee got involved and in doing so showed me the technique of fitting down inside the small rectangular hole. I eased myself in – hands in the air until inside – and then as soon as I dropped in I was cloaked in darkness as the guide closed the entrance! WTF! A mild sense of panic rose up inside me, but I followed a dim light and the smell of fresh air to another exit just down the tunnel. I love the total disregard for health and safety in Asia!
We then went through a series if longer and deeper holes. Lau did well and relevtantly went down a few of them, although there was no hiding the shear fear in her eyes. I got some great photos!
At one point me and Lee were scuttling down one of the longer and deeper tunnels when a few bats passed us at very close quarters.
Very cool morning, but not for the clausterphobic!
Laura had done a bunch of research before coming away about hiring motorbike guides to show us the Central Highlands. As is becoming usual, we spent a good few hours looking at alternatives and then plumbed for the one chosen before hand. We couldn’t have known at that point just how good (or lucky!) a choice we had made in Lee (38 going on 10) and Nam (an ex-SVNA helicopter pilot).
Here’s the lowdown:
Day 1
- Flower farm
- Coffee plantations
- Rice wine farm – had a shot straight after fermentation, it was still warm! Much salivating followed.
- Silk farm and weaving – We saw the whole process from the cultivation of the silk worms to the weaving of the silk on huge mechanical machines, straight out of 19th century Britain.
- Elephant Waterfall
- Minority village
- Lake Lok
We finished the long day with dinner at the only restaurant in Lake Lok. Me and Nam got stuck into the rice wine as we talked history and politics. It’s not too often you get to sit down and chew the fat with a man who had to surrender to the North Vietnamese.
I’ll always remember Nam mock staring into his personal rice wine bottle with one eye and shaking it saying “just one more left”" … there was one more left several times!
Day 2
Today was waterfall day. We saw four, swam in (well nearish) one, walked to the brink of another (ignoring the keep out signs) and slept next to another.
We had a long morning on the bikes and the heat was intense. Lau had gone to her happy place by about 10:00 and we didn’t stop for another few hours! It was such a relief when we plunged into a river by the side of a remote waterfall. Bliss! It was just the two of us in the middle of nowhere. There were small fish eating the dead skin off our feet as we dangled them in a rock pool!
Just before lunch we we sat under a tree in the red dust and Nam started recounting his escape from the City we were in for lunch. He was drawing maps and battle sequences in the dust with a stick – very authentic, very cool. Nam had escaped from the city in his helecopter when it was taken by the NVNA.
After a lunch a fresh spring rolls (the DIY type, not fried – and at a cost of 60,000 Dong or 2 quid it was spectacular value) we headed out for another afternoon of local produce. We saw bricks being made right from men digging clay out of the ground with picks to them being baked in rickety furnaces.
Apologies, a brief inerlude as a type:
ND “What the hell is that noise”
LT: Look of horror and bemusement
ND: “Is it a monkey?”
LT: Look of horror and bewilderment
Pause
LT: “It’s inside. Look it’s a Gecko” Pointing to Gecko on wall.
ND: “Cool” (Dissapointed, thinking a monkey would have been way cooler. I could have trained it to be a monkey servant)
LT: Leaves safety of mosquitto net. “Reeaaaa, I don’t like em Nay”
Grabs broom handle.
“Go on, out you go. Out!”
I’ve just got back from another excellent dinner with Lee and Nam and as usual, the topic of conversation was varied. At one end of the spectrum I had Nam telling me about the “re-education” camp he was forced to attend after the fall of Siagon and 2 minutes later I had Lee telling me the one about the man with the duck down his trousers in the cinema! This was made all the funnier as freshly showered he had an almighty fluffy cone head!
Lee had tears rolling down his cheeks as he rocked his arm back and forth with a bent wrist imatating the duck. There is a childish streak to Lee in the most endearing sense.
Day 3
Today was the biggie – 260Km in 35C heat.
We took in:
- Rubber tree farm - I’m suprised rubber isn’t as expensive as gold after seeing the process of getting it.
- Cashew farm – I’ll think twice (at least for another year or so!) about stuffing handfuls of them into my gob in one sitting knowing how much work goes into harvesting and preparing them.
- Plywood manufacturing – teenagers using heavy machinery in flip-flops
By late morning we were on the Ho Chi Minh trail, and this is not one of the Tarmaced section, this was the real deal. We passed soldiers making repairs to the road under the watchful eyes of officers. At points we were only metres from Cambodia. This part of the country saw a lot of covert action during the war and it was an eerie place to be. There were absolutely no other tourists about as it was a route Nam had found and kept to himself.
We stopped for lunch beside a lake and had DIY chicken broth cooked at the table. We’re not talking Waitrose chicken fillets either. A Chicken had been clevered into bits that very morning and Nam had just tipped it in the pot. Laura had a bit, but then mainly stuck to the veg!
Just got back from another boozy dinner (instigated by Nam). We tried to order dog, but unfortunetely (fortunetely?) they were fresh out. We settled on goat hot pot instead.
After the slightest of encouragments from me, the tired and homesick Lee furnished us with more elaborate jokes. I’m sure one of them had a sub-plot.
I’ve not seen a Westerner for days. Marv.
We’re off to the Chu Chi tunnels tomorrow. Lights out.
Day 4
We headed stright for the Chu Chi tunnels in the morning before heading down to Siagon in the afternoon, after a long lunch and a snooze in a hamock.
Summary
As Lau put it in a way only she could “this is BOTH ****s deep travelling Nay”. It took me a few minutes to recover, but she’s right, at least in sentiment!
The overall theme of the tour was seeing the various cottage industries and local trading that enabled families and communities to subside.
Nam was greeted at most places as a long lost friend or uncle. This was great as we got a taste of the warmer side of Vietnamese culture away from the tourist beat.
Hoi An in the Saville Row of Vietnam with literally hundreds of tailors scattered around the city. You can get virtually anything made overnight.
We had a butchers around at a couple of the bigger tailors to get a feel for them and take a look at the fabrics they had. In the end, and after negotiating a tiered discount plan, I predictably went for the most exclusive place – Adong Silk – and the lovely Loan, my personal stylist!
First off I went with just the one suit, a classic English cut in navy, with a pink silk embroided lining. Nice. The cloth was from Lancashire! I opted for a four-button (overlapping) cuff (fully functional, of course) and a straight cut lapel hole, you ain’t gonna find any of that off the peg. I also got a light blue shirt – wing collar and double button on the cuff. Nice.
After the fitting the following day I went in deep with two more: a black suit in a similar cut to the navy (same material), but with slanted pockets and a double vent at the back, and a light summer suit in a top-end Italian fabric (Super 180 for those in the know). Oh, and 5 more shirts!
There was a huge debate about the lining in the black suit as I went for a rather floral one. It’s was a bold choice, maybe too bold. We spent a good day agonising over it between fittings two and three and eventually ran out of time even if I did want to change it, which I didn’t (I don’t think!).
All in all we must have gone into Adong 6 times over 2 1/2 days; at one point I found myself being dragged into the staff quarters and 2 minutes later I was merrily singing Happy Birthday along with the other staff. I even got a round of applause myself at one point, not too sure why!
The second fitting was an interesting one as I’d made the faux pas of going commando that morning. As you can imagine, commando and fitting don’t mix to well; especially when Loan had by that point become quite familiar to groping me with her tape and bounding into the changing room whenever she saw fit! There were a few near misses, but in the end we both managed to retain our dignity!
We picked our stuff up (Lau got a few shirts and trousers made) on the morning we were leaving Hoi An and trundled to the Post Office. It was quite a contradiction as we were hauling a bounty of fine clothes along with our backpacks on and travelling scruffs.
We sea-freighted them and so they should arrive at Lau’s Mum’s place in a few months. Fingers crossed as I need one of the suits for Si’s (Lau’s brother) wedding in July.
My only concern now is that once you’ve gone tailored there is no going back and it’s a tad more expensive back in the UK.
Hoi An is cool. A little touristy, but that also means it comes with a few creature comforts – a decent coffee for starters!
We got there by taking the famed Re-unification Express to Da Nang and then grabbing a cab (after a fake walking away saved us another USD2 on be fare) to Hoi An. We took in some stunning scenery on the train as it hugged the mountainous coast line on it’s meander from Hue.
While looking for a hotel we bumped into Mike and Kate who we’d met on our Halong Bay trip. The loose plan was to meet up with them for beers when we bumped into each other later, but we didn’t see each other again.
We spent 2 nights in Hoi An to re-coup and split our time between wandering the town – stopping for the occasional beer or coffee -, relaxing on the beach (a short cycle away) and Getting Tailored.
We had a stunning Valentines meal at on of the top-end restaurants on the quite side of the river. The place had just opened and the food was excellent.
We also found a nice little chilled out wine bar that served decent wine at a fair price (wine in Asia is relatively expensive…5-10 times cost of beer). We had a night cap here on both nights.
We boarded our flight to Hue (pronounced who-ay) at something like 7am, which had meant an alarm that had a 4 in it – we weren’t overly chatty on this particular flight.
We’d pre-arranged the hotel and jumped in a car after the usual quick round of bartering that accompanies leaving any airport or train station.
Within 30mins of arriving at the hotel we were fed and on the back of a motorbike for a tour of the city and surrounding countryside.
The hotel was family run and our guides for the day were part if the extended family. Lok was the leader and had lived in Hue all of his life, through the bad and the good.
Hue was the Imperial Captial of Vietnam until 1945, when at the end of WWII the country was divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam at the Postdam Conference with their respective capitals of Hanoi and Saigon. It saw heavy fighting during the Vietnam war and at one point was under the control of the North after one of the war’s bloodiest battles.
We saw so much on our day trip that it’s difficult to remember everything without looking back at the pics we took. I might update this post one day with all the things we saw, but the standout was the Citidel – the former seat of various emperor’s throughout the ages.
One of the main things that sticks in my mind is that the Hue countryside was the first place that looked and felt like the version of Vietnam I had in my minds eye before I came – dense forests of tall palm trees with small canopies. This is the version gained from all those war films just before the Napalm hits.
The pace we’re travelling at is beginning to catch-up with us – we’re getting tired and craggy! Time to take things a little easier now me thinks.
Here’s a random picture of the bridge over the Perfume River at night. We were drinking beer and being eaten alive my mozzies at the time!
Halong Bay is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.. That may seem like a bold call, but it puts the previous holder of the title (the Amalfi Coast, Italy) to shame!
Halong Bay is made up of hundereds of vegetation clad limestone formations that dramatically rise out of the South China Sea. Halong Bay was named by the French and means “Land of the Dragon” as the formations represent the body of a dragon.
After hours of deliberation in Hanoi the day before, we opted to indulge in a bit of luxury and splashed out for a high-end 3 day tour – one night on the Pinter Cruiser and one night at a 5* resort on Cat Ba Island (Flashpacking Gone Nuts). Well worth it!
Having just got off the over night train from Sapa we camped out in a cafe for a few hours before being picked up by our mini-bus. We were both knackered after very little sleep, a string of early starts and the trekking.
We got to the harbour at noonish and boarded the Pinter, a lovely traditional style junk boat. We were greeted with a fresh watermelon smoothy 
We cruised out into the bay and after a while anchored for lunch. We shared a table with Kelvin, an old-timer American who was hard of hearing. Laura’s normally loud voice got louder!! We learnt on this first sitting the need to pace ourselves as the excellent food just kept on coming, wave after wave … it was an onslaught!
After lunch we, and seemingly every other boat in the vacinity headed to the grandly named Amazing cave, which lived up to it’s billing.
We then headed to a secluded spot in the bay, away from the plebs 
, where we anchored for the night. It was a full moon and the views were breathtaking. We got talking to a brother and sister (Mike and Kate) from New England who were in their early twenties – spent a lot of time talking music; I felt old after catching myself saying tossy things like “back in the mid-90′s I was living in Manchester when the whole britpop scene exploded”. Jebus!
We were up early to watch the sunrise (I’ll link to some pics once they’re uploaded), which was even more breathtaking than the rising full moon. Totally stunning. Ethereal.
After breakfast we took to the water in kayaks and bossed around for a few hours. We ended by paddling through a floating village, equiped with a school, electricity and dogs!
After re-boarding the Pinter Cruiser we packed up and were decanted onto a smaller boat to get us to Cat Ba Island, the main island in Cat Ba National Park.
We weren’t to know it then, but that was the last time we were to see the Pinter!
As I write this we are stuck at sea!
We’re on our way back from Cat Ba Island and although the Sun is beaming, there is a low fog that is hugging the sea and rocks.
After waiting for about an hour for the mist to drift by, I playfully asked Duke if the captain had any charts. Unsuprisingly the answer was no as I was told the captain used his knowledge of the rocks and experience of the bay to navigate. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a big believer of experience and learning from the scars of life, but it doesn’t count for shit when you’re floating about in 30m visabilty on the South China Sea!!
I’d offered the captain use of the GPS on my phone, but got a bemused look in return. I guess knowing where you are now isn’t much use when you don’t know where you’re heading.
The engines have just re-started, I can spy a rock on the horizon!
We’d left the Pinter Cruiser mid-morning on a smaller boat that was our landing craft for Cat Ba Island, the largest island in Cat Ba National Park. The trip only took about an hour or so through the formations of Halong Bay.
We reached the secluded bay where our 2 hour trek started from. There wasn’t much room to manouvre as the bay was small and the tide low. A plank was hastily arranged and we were all told to be quick. We either weren’t quick enough or the captain hadn’t apprecieted just how low the tide was; either way, we were beached!
We pressed on with our guide, Duke, and “Team Malaysia” as Duke referred to the Malaysian contingent, leaving the crew trying to lever the boat free from the shore.
The trek was very cool and one of the reasons we picked the tour. It was on a trail created by the company owner who grew up on the island. It weaved up and down, through thick undergrowth and heavy forest. We came across a tranquil lake and then a small holding where an old couple had retired to. It felt like we were in the middle of a lost world.
We eventually punched out onto a single track concrete road and headed down to our rendevous point at the nearest harbour (a rather grand word for what was a concete jetty). The boat wasn’t there though. Duke made a quick call and the boat was still beached and would need to stay there until midnight for the high tide!
Another boat was scrambled and after about a 45 min wait we were being taken for lunch on a secluded beach on one of the formations on Halong Bay, or so we thought.
Our new captain was a little more cautious than our former and so an executive decision was taken to have lunch on our emergancy craft – a honeymoon boat.
After lunch, another enslaught of food, we headed to to the maim harbour at Cat Ba Town. We were staying in the lovely Sun Rise Resort , along with a grand total of 2 other guests! There must have been 10 staff to one guest.
After a relaxing afternoon on the beach we had a stroll around to the next bay before heading to dinner back at the hotel.
During dinner I was feeling quite content with life (check out the picture here and you may be able to understand why) when my phone buzzed with a SMS from Slinn (fellow Director at Rockshore). It was a txt to tell me one of our major projects, and one that I had led for almost 2 years, had closed out. I was a very happy man at that moment, in that place. I celebrated with another Tiger and made sure I gave myself a few minutes on our balcony to saviour the moment. Well done boys.
The next morning we were picked up by our rescued transfer boat to be ferried back to the Pinter Cruiser for the final leg back to the mainland, or so we thought!
We very quicky found ourselves in a serene mist and were Lost At Sea!
We didn’t make it back to the Pinter Cruiser as when the mist cleared we headed straight back to the mainland.
For some unknown reason we moored at a seemingly random point on the mainland and then walked for 3km to our minibus in the heat of the early afternoon Sun; not a great end to a fantastic few days, but after a complaint back on the mainland we suprisingly got a 20% refund. Laura was most pleased with my negotiation skills!
Yesterday we went to Bac Ha Market, which is about 4 hours drive from Sapa. What a cool place.
We spent the day with Nancy, an American med student we’d met on the bus up to Sapa.
All of the village tribes come down from the mountains to exchange goods – anything from shoes to pigs.
We’ve got some awesome photos. One man has a wooden cage on the back of his scooter with about 8 pigs inside. One that we didn’t get was a scooter with a full grown pig strapped to the back! His front wheel was pulling up as he set off up the hill!
After the market we went to visit a mountain village, but it was a little bit Disneyland stylee as there were bus loads of tourists trapsing through. Plus we’d had our fill of tribal villages on the Sapa trek.
On the way back to the train station we stopped at the Chinese border, which was kinda cool. The others on the tour were fairly excited and an Aussie girl pushed her luck a little and got told to step back … we’ll be doing the real thing in about 4 months or so!
We ended the day drinking beer and playing cards at a street cafe with Nancy, whilst waiting for our sleeper train back to Hanoi.
