Travel Accounts; SEA 6

07-10

Waking up in Dalat isn’t at all hard, the view is staggering and there is all the promise of getting to see those sights up close. We got up fresh and excited, had a shower, looked outside again, and saw impending doom.

Before we even got out into town we had some motorcycle snafu. It wouldn’t start, again. The nice people of Pensee Guesthouse used Google Translate and explained the problem as best they could. The spark plug had to be replaced they said, a mechanic came and set us back about 100.000 VND, this is about 4 EUR.

When he turned it over, finally it started. With a slight delay we were finally on our way. We got into town and felt rather cold with the temperatures rocking around 20 degrees, tried to find a place where we could sit inside, but the one that had an inside option left the doors open. Feeling cold was a rather odd sensation I should say, especially since we’ve been hot and sweaty for about 2 months straight now.

We walked around Dalat for a bit, took in the sights and decided against doing a ‘canyoning run’ as it was really expensive and Puck had already done it, some years ago. I’m not into that sort of stuff anyway, so I was happy to just see the town, take in the sights etc. Before we had much to say on the matter the sky turned a dark grey color. We, being wimps, wanted to be back before the rains hit, we got on the bike and raced back to the hotel, made it barely in time.

The night before when we were looking for a place to eat we found a ‘vegetarian restaurant’, lets give that a shot, why not.

The menu alone is really fun to read; among many dishes are ‘Vegetarian Beef Noodles’ ‘Vegetarian Seafood Fried Rice’ and ‘Vegetarian Chicken soup’. This totally threw me off because one seems to exclude the other, what they did was all tofu work. They made the tofu taste like beef, chicken, seafood, whatever meat you could think of, and did a good job at it. Vegetarians might roll their eyes but for those who love meat and are into exotic foods, this is really interesting.

07-11

We wanted to be back in Nha Trang around the afternoon so we decided to go and hit the road bright and early. At 8:15 we were on the bike, trying to start it, the bike stalled, we cried inside, the mechanic came back.

The sweet people made a breakfast run and invited us inside to eat, drink coffee, and stay warm. About two hours later than scheduled we were on our way. We stopped for gas, filled up the tank, drove for about 5k’s before it stalled, died, and left us frustrated and alone on the side of the road. No one stopped, we were forced to call both the hostel in Nha Trang to complain about the bike, and the good people of Pensee, racking up phone charges amounting to 99,56 EUR.

Finally managed to pull a guy over, hand him my phone, let him explain where we were, the dear sweet man from Pensee Guesthouse came to our rescue! He brought with him the mechanic, who then worked on the bike for a bit. We had talked with the Nha Trang hotel manager, Mr. T. about the whole situation and we all agreed that this bike was cursed. It would be ill advised to take it across the mountain and we’d be better off taking the bus. So we took Pensee Guesthouse man’s bike back to the hostel, they’d take the broken bike back somehow and Mr. T. would pick his up the next day.

The bus was another 20,- but at least we were on our way, finally arriving in Nha Trang at 17:00, all in all 5 hours later than anticipated. As we’ve had such hardships and we missed out on our ‘Splurge Sunday’, we treated ourselves to another Sailing Club dinner. This time we shared an ‘Asian Platter’ and the same dish puck had the day before, it was really nice. Ended up spending about $30, drinks included. The night at the hotel was fine, enjoyed some drinks and a movie.

07-12

Tonight we’d go to Hoi An, another 12 hour bus trip awaited us, so we tried to get some exercise in, as well as the well needed chillins’. Walked the beach a bit, had lunch and a quick bite just before we left. The bus trip itself wasn’t all bad, we managed to sleep a fair bit, being awake for about 10 minutes every hour, on the hour, to suffer extreme anxiety because I’d monitor the guy in charge of all of our lives’ driving skills. Then I’d sleep again for about 45 minutes, rinse, repeat.

07-13 through 07-17

The whole Hoi-An experience was really nice, I think we were lucky to have been there during the week as it tends to get really crowded over the weekends. When we got to Hoi An at 6:30 I didn’t hesitate one second, there were about 30 of us and just 3 taxi’s. for the first time no one hassled us or crowded us trying to actively sell us their services, so I took it upon myself to snag a taxi, actually having to wake him up, and pointed at the map where we needed to go. During the drive towards our hotel we noticed the scenery change from urban to residential, to rural. Where the hell are we?

A bit miffed by the distance from the centre we were contemplating looking up a different hotel right away, moving the next day. We unpacked, puck had a little nap (about 3 hours, or as I experienced it; the length of that new Warcraft movie), and afterward we took some complementary bikes to try and cycle into town.

The location, though being far from anything fun related, was really nice. The scenery was beautiful as well as very green. The bike ride itself wasn’t even that bad, for our Dutch legs it posed very little challenge, before we knew it we were at the tailoring place. We got a quote; for about 550 dollars they’d make us three suits, two for me and one for puck, and three dress shirts made of the highest-grade quality.
I don’t really know if it was the highest grade, but they said it was, I believed them.
We said we’d think about it, looked around Hoi An for some other stores, didn’t find a place that looked as trust-worthy as well as being cheaper, so we went back to BeBe’s. The whole measurements taking was an odd and uncomfortable experience, I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it just yet. Let’s just say it reminded me of that one Friend’s episode when Joey sends Chandler over to his long-time tailor.

Exploring Hoi An was fun, it’s like walking through an old French neighborhood mixed with Asian influences. They had some good coffee as well as a real cultural atmosphere, whatever that means.

Because the stay in Hoi An was fairly uneventful apart from the great food, the suits, and meeting up with the Kiwi’s we met at Koh Rong, I will write the full 5 day stay as a single entry.

The second day was organized around the first fitting of the suits, after deciding I needed more room in the back as well as around the chest, they did some re-tailoring, we paid a $200 deposit, and we were sent out into the city. Found a cute little place making tailored shoes, I remembered that my adorable cat had ferociously mauled the pair of dress shoes I have at home, better check this shop out. They quoted us $85 for two pair, Sebastiaan also wanted a pair, and so the price was right.

After the second fitting we agreed the suit was really good, it fit perfectly and required no adjusting at all anymore. We paid them the rest of what was owed, they’d send the suits over to our hostel the next day. The shoes would also be ready tomorrow so we would be able to do a real stupid ‘look at us’ type photo shoot.

In the morning we went to the beach, it was hot beyond belief, even too hot to be at the beach. The beach had been fortified with sand bags, there wasn’t much sand left at all and whatever sand was there was hot enough to cook a steak on. Disappointed and disillusioned we left the beach. When we got back to the hotel we showered, changed, and cycled into town. Time for some good ol’ coffee. After coffee we walked around the markets, there were some really cool things there, the ladies were in for some ‘bulk deals’ and even applied ‘Happy-Hour’ discounts. When we thought it was about time we stopped by the shoe shop, picking up the dress shoes.

Back at the hotel we felt like children around Christmas time. The suits were here! All fancy, packed neatly into their fancy suit-bags and their finish was perfect so far as we could tell. We put them on, went outside onto the balcony and posed like dorks for the photos we’d later send home to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

It being really hot, I was happy enough to be able to take the suits off, grab a quick cold shower and change back into my T-shirt, short combo. Tonight we’d have dinner at café 43, amazing place; best stuffed-squid in the whole of Vietnam. Also the only stuffed squid I had in the whole of Vietnam, but that’s beside the point.

Next morning we’d get a taxi into town, check into the next hotel, the Sunflower Hotel. We arrived at the hotel at about 10:00 but the room wouldn’t be ready for another two hours. Luckily we knew there’d be a pool so we had on our swimming gear. We chilled by the pool for a bit, read our books, swam a little and by 12:00 we could get the keys for the room. Unfortunately this weird hotel didn’t have enough towels, they had rented out too many to the dorm rooms and were waiting for the others to be cleaned. There was no way for us to get off the dank pool water but we got dressed anyway. We’d meet the kiwi’s at 12:30 and show them around Hoi An. Visited the places we found to be excellent, so we had lunch at Café 43, grabbed a coffee at my favorite coffee place, and showed them the shop where I had shoes made up.

At night we stopped at Jim’s Burgers, the best fast-food shop in Hoi An. They had all kinds of Belgian beers for a reasonable price, as well as Dutch Friet Speciaal, and amazing hamburgers.

The morning came, we had breakfast at the hotel, it was included in the price and Puck had been talking about it for the last 2 months. It was good, they had an egg station, some pancakes, coffee, fruit etc. We ate about as much as we could before checking out and rocked up to the motorbike rental place where we’d booked our bike to travel from Hoi An to Hue, crossing the Hai Van pass.

The Hai Van pass itself wasn’t all too impressive, sure the sights were amazing and you felt like stopping every 2 km’s to take some pictures, but it lasted all of 20 minutes. We stopped right before we hit the peak, ate some noodles with fresh morning glory, thinking we’d still have about an hour of mountain ahead of us. About 20 minutes later we had reached the valley on the other side. Meh.

We knew to cover up properly to shield us from the sun, I can still see where I got burned from our trip to Pai in Thailand, so we didn’t get burned this time. Arriving into Hue was hard, you’re smack in the middle of the city before you know it and we had no clue what street we were on, and how that connected to where we needed to be. Looking completely lost and clueless we inspired sympathy in a passer-by. She explained as best she could how we needed to proceed, but I lost her after the 4th right/left turn. I puppy-eyed up and ask her to take us there. She agreed, I silently squealed out of sheer ecstasy, and followed her lead.

We got to the hotel, the bikes were supposed to be picked up at 19:00 and the idiots we were, we were ready and waiting in the hotel lobby at 18:55. They finally arrived at 20:30. We were hungry and annoyed but everything around us seemed to be closed for the night. We put on our adventure pants and had some chicken pho for about a dollar each, tasted really good, didn’t upset our stomachs, win.

07-18

Right, we have one day in Hue, make it count. We walked over to the old capitol, got a half decent map and tried to navigate towards worthwhile sights from there. Starting with coffee of course.
Basically the ruins of what once was the centre of Vietnam are the only real attraction that you absolutely HAVE to see in Hue. As we only had the one day we decided to go and see that, but to do it properly. We bought the tickets, at about $10 each they were on the pricy side of things but it should be worth it in the end. After getting the tickets we ran into Lynne, she had been on the Koh Rong boat trip too! We spent the day with her, was nice catching up. So far we’d seen over half of the people on that boat trip at some point later on in our journey. I guess it makes sense, seeing as we’re all moving in the same direction. The ruins themselves don’t show all that much of their once beautiful appearance. It takes a digital recreation to properly visualize the vast beauty of this historic site. Or at least how it once was. With entire area’s formerly being off limits to anyone, the forbidden centre of the old capitol was now flattened and reduced to ruble. It’s hard to imagine that two hundred years ago people had walked here with grace, amongst buildings that kept secrets as well as treasures. Now you could see from one end to the other, nothing obstructing your view. No buildings, no beauty.

After what seemed like hours of hot sun and wandering around broken down relics we were tired, hungry, and ready for some food. We departed from the east gate and walked into the next street over for some of the best Pho we had in our entire trip. It had several different types of meat in there, the broth required almost no tweaking, made it a bit more spicy, but that’s it! So nice! Was really cheap too, feel like writing an entire essay on how good this Pho was, but let’s move on.

Lynne had to grab a taxi back to her hotel, as she’d be off to her next destination soon, so we said our goodbyes and parted ways. We got back to the hotel, checked our messages and found out puck had a reply from her inquiry regarding an internship. She needs to get that to be able to start her Master’s degree this September. They had previously invited her to come for a face-to-face in Holland but as we’re not even close she offered to do it via Skype instead. The email contained the time and date for this Skype interview. Panic sets in. she hadn’t counted on them actually accepting and they wanted to do it 3 hours from now.

Alright, focus mode, she grabbed the laptop, did as much prep and research as she could fit into 2 hours, had 1 hour left of relaxing and eating, then sat around waiting for the call.

I sat opposite her, after the interview she felt it didn’t go so well, I was inclined to agree, and we just called it a ‘good experience’ regardless of the outcome.

07-19

As we’d only seen the ancient ruins of the old capitol we thought we’d go walk around the newer bit. There’s not really that much to see but the walk felt good anyway. We stopped for some coffee and lo and behold; Puck had an email from the internship. They would very much love for her to do her internship at their organization! I think Puck read and reread the email about 10 times before it actually sunk in, but as soon as it did we were both cheering.

We waited out a short but fierce shower of rain, picked up our bags from the hotel and sat down at the bus pick-up spot. The real trick is to be in the front of the queue when the bus arrives. Have one person stand bye to put the big bags into the locker underneath the bus, and the other to sneak into the bus and pick the best spots. The best spots on the bus are way in the back, at the bottom. There’s more room there, the bus doesn’t bounce and wiggle as much, and the outside lights don’t get in as much. So it offers the most chance of sleeping. The bus left at 17:00 and was scheduled to arrive in Ninh Binh at about 5am.

07-20

For some reason we arrived in Ninh Binh at 3.30am. there was nothing even close to where we were dropped off. People crowded us, offering hotels, taxi service and general information for money. I think this bus ride was probably one of the worse ones, we didn’t sleep all too much, but there was still some time left in the night. We took the offer of one of the taxi people, probably overpaid but we couldn’t care at that point.

He called the hotel owner for us and they opened up the doors, without much talking he simply confirmed we were the people that had the reservation and showed us to our rooms. He didn’t want to hassle us at that time, so we kind of skipped checking in, giving up our passports and information. Suited us fine, we were so tired we didn’t even care about the beds being harder than most prison cots.

We snoozed until the sun was good and out, asked about their motorbike rental and saw some sights in the south of Ninh Binh.

I don’t really know why Ninh Binh isn’t more popular. There’s SO much beauty in nature here. It’s comparable to Halong Bay, there’s just not that much tourist infrastructure there. We had some really good food at Chookie’s and saw the most incredible landscapes. It’s literally Halong Bay, limestone mountains litter the surroundings, instead of water there’s rice fields and grass meadows. So stunning. We got tired out quite quick after walking up a mountain, and felt like taking like 6 naps back to back. We decided to call it a day and just do a Ninh Binh crash course in the morning before we left.

07-21

Got up really early, hopped on the bike, worked out the route to see the rest of Ninh Binh. First stop was a view-point, we got lost and turned around about 3 times before we actually found it, the map is a bit difficult to figure out but I think we’ve got it now. The view point cost about $10, we walked up the 500 steps, took some pictures, and almost died from heat exhaustion. It was definitely worth it though. Such an incredible view, you could almost imagine seeing all the way to Holland from there. Just stunning. When we got back down we looked for this cave that was advertised to be here as well, all we found was a very unimpressive hole in the ground. Let’s just get outta here.
Finally having found our bearings map wise finding the rest of the points shouldn’t be too hard.
Okay this map just doesn’t show about half of the roads we came across so navigating was near impossible. Explains the difficulty we were having finding the first spot. I knew it couldn’t have been me.
We ran out of time to see the last pagoda, but as it’s a temple, lets just say it was gorgeous and leave it at that. When we came back to the hotel we talked with the manager about a bus to Hanoi, he made a call and waved down a local’s bus to Hanoi, this bus was really cheap, but not very comfortable. We literally couldn’t sit with our legs facing forward because the space between the chairs was so narrow. We watched ‘Zootopia’ on the road, pausing it once when we rove slowly past a pretty nasty bus accident. The bus was actually flipped on its side, a flattened motorbike underneath it and the window had been smashed in to save whoever was inside.

When we got to Hanoi, as usual, we were dropped at the most unrecognizable spot in the city. I finally got Google Maps to work and found out we were about 7km from where we needed to be. One expensive taxi later we go to the restaurant where we’d meet the Americans, ‘Foodstop 47’ very nice Indian food, very nice company.
It turned out to be a great night of drinks, we met one of John’s friends, Mark, he later offered for us to stay at his place. He had an entire floor in his house that he wasn’t using so we spent the night. In the middle of the night I couldn’t bear the heat any longer, the Aircon wasn’t working and the ceiling fan wasn’t centered above the bed. The room temperature must have been breaking 40 degrees. We were sweating like crazy and at one point moved to the floor, just to be under the fan.
I couldn’t take it anymore, I walked over to the table and tried to reach the aircon unit, to try and turn it on manually like I had before in Ninh Binh. I could just about reach the unit when I heard, and felt, a loud crack coming from below me. I broke his table. The thick glass top had cracked, broken completely and left some real nasty looking potential murder weapons. Luckily enough, a silk cloth covered the top, it stopped any glass from entering my foot. In hindsight, had the cloth not been there I’d have noticed it was glass and not broken the table to begin with. Man does this feel bad. Worst. Guest. Ever. With a cold sweat and a gut feeling you get when you accidentally destroy something dear to another I walked back to bed. In a way the act had the desired effect, I felt cold enough to sleep. Finally.

07-22

In the morning I had a quick shower, and really I just wanted to get down to Mark as soon as I could, needed to fess up and get this weight off my conscience. Thank god Mark was cool about it, his wife would just get a quote on the replacement tabletop and I’d pay for that. He got out a small fan to add to the ceiling fan’s efforts. I think next night we’ll get through without any indoor parkour antics.

When puck was ready to go we hopped into a taxi and made our way over to ‘Puku Café’, a coffee joint that serves a really good Flat White, no instructions needed. Needless to say, I’m a big fan. We had sent the location ahead to Evan, the Canadian we met in Koh Rong, and later on in Saigon as well. He was waiting for us to arrive when we walked in, so were the Americans we met in Nha Trang. It was a happy little reunion.

After breakfast John took us for a walk around town, to the botanical gardens, his house and some other sights all tourists should see. Without saying anything, by now, you should imagine a literal busload of Chinese people hopping around, taking pictures of everything.

After the ‘oldest’ pagoda in Hanoi, Evan, Puck and me walked back to old quarter. We took a shot at finding the cheapest ‘3 day, 2 night tour of Halong Bay’, I think we talked to about 5 different tour agencies and spent about an hour comparing prices, itineraries and Trip Advisor reviews. In the end we found one that would take us on ‘Papaya Tours’, usually $130 for $115. He was a bit of a dick about it though, we decided to go back to the previous office, this woman was nice, and if she would drop her offer down to $115 as well, we’d go with her. She laughed at the offer, in a kind of shy way, and accepted.

After all the haggling and walking around I for one was tired, and ready for a cold one. We reached out to John, got his whereabouts and met up with them at Puku’s upstairs sportsbar. Gotta love this place, especially when the beers & cocktails are ‘buy one, get one’.

After Puku’s we were up for a bit more of each other’s company but kind of bored with the current environment, John offered to go to his place, order some chicken and hang out. We gladly accepted, ate more chicken than is good for any one man. Especially Puck and Evan, having had 10 pcs between them.

Great night. Terrible hangover.

07-23

Today was a rough one for me. All the beer, wine, lack of food, flood of chicken, and heavy conversation had left a mark. I was feeling dreadful all day long. At some stage I felt a bit better but it was rapidly followed by the entity ever looking for company; misery.

We had breakfast at Puku’s, I think I was only half there. The half that was present had a good coffee, a smoothie, and some of Puku’s eggs benedict.

We swiftly retreated back to bed after this. I couldn’t sleep, decided to do something useful with my time and cleaned up the stack of murderglass that used to make up a beautiful table. I ran up and down the stairs, sweating more than I did on my first ever date.

At 1400 we arrived at John’s, he had left for Danang with his brother, Rich, and their friend Kate, but Phelan was still there. He handed us the keys to the castle and left for work. This allowed us to just create our own agenda for the day, not having to worry about when Phelan was going to be back, to get into the house. We’d stay at Johns that night because it was closer to the old quarter, and we would have to be there at 8.00 for the Halong bay trip.

I was still feeling pretty crappy, walking around like everyone around me sucked energy from me, and I was resenting them for it too. Like it was their fault I drank too much and the sun is burning my eyes like an interrogation lamp. I can be unreasonable like that. What else am I gonna do? Be mat at myself? That just doesn’t make sense to me. I love me.

The plan was to check out the night markets later on, almost as if on queue the sky darkened to a deep charcoal grey. As soon as we wanted to leave the rains started. Thunder, doom and gloom filled the streets. No merchants, no customers. The sight of black behind tall buildings, rain and flashes of light seemed elegantly suitable to my own physical state of being at the moment. I was ready to go home, turn on John’s massive TV, Netflix, and chill.

07-24/26 – Halong Bay

The bus trip to Halong Bay might not be the most comfortable but they stop half way and you're there before you realise it. They make you wait without explanation half a dozen times but from the moment you're on the boat everything is completely organised. On the boat we ran into a couple of problems concerning our room. The tour guide worked real hard in the attempts to fix them though. The window wouldn't lock, he fixed that in a jiffy by replacing the lock, the aircon was leaking, he did his best at trying to fix that too, ended up make-shift problem solving. He extended himself to a point where we almost felt bad for even saying anything, props to him!

The stop at the cave is really nice, the fact that our guide spoke pretty good english made the whole experience quite educational.

The food on board was alright, mainly seafood that's not my personal preference but those of you who love clams, oysters (cooked), prawns, fish etc. you'll love it.

Every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, a big spread is put on the table, many different dishes with vegetarian options should you wish it.

Beer on board was quite pricy, at $2 per bottle of Hoi An beer getting drunk would be a costly affair.

The second day we spent on Cat Ba island, the tour guide introduced us to our next guide, put us on the next boat and all was taken care of again.

The bike ride on the beach is pretty rough, it's about 5k's there, 5k's back, takes you about 20-30 minutes on bikes that should've been scrapped long ago, when the sun is out be sure to slip slap sop! We didn’t.

Monkey island is alright, the 'hike' is impossible to do without proper shoes as the rocks are jagged, HOT, and steep. I did it barefoot. So. Much. Regret. There were literally spots where I kind of had to hop skip and run because I couldn’t put my feet down on the rocks. You can almost hear the sizzle as though I was cooking a steak (of course I’d be much more delicious than steak).

We arrived at the hotel at 17:00, not much time for exploring the island, dinner was good, breakfast was so-so, and at 8:00am we got picked up. We did not see much of Cat ba.

We got back from Halong bay around 17:00, got off the bus early because it was closer to Mark’s than the drop off spot would’ve been. When we got back to mark’s, we quickly showered, changed, and sped off to the beer corner. At the beer corner we met Phelan, unfortunately they were out of fresh beer quite fast so we grabbed some regular old drinks at Beer2ku. I actually met the first bartender willing to go that extra mile and make the Gin & Tonic my way, lemongrass and ginger. I think tonight we stayed out for the longest out of all nights of drinking while on this trip. We were home at 1:00am. Total badasses. I gotta say though, being hung over in a hot country is like 1000 times worse, don’t do it.