Racing north to Hong Kong....
Hello again to you! It's been a while hasn't it?
We had a lot of problems with the internet over Christmas and so it just wasn't possible to write this next episode before now. Unfortunately that means I've got a month's worth of travelling to tell you about this time instead of the usual 2 weeks!
We've covered alot of ground in this last month as we headed north from Phnom Penh in Cambodia to Hong Kong where we are now. Ultimately we're on our way to Beijing where, in 3 weeks time, we should hopefully be boarding the train to Moscow for the last big trip before going home.
As I've got so much to write about this time I shall attempt to do what many of you will undoubtedly think is impossible by now and that is to not go into quite so much detail. If I write in my usual style then we'll both be here forever!
Oh, a quick message before I begin: GOOD LUCK with your trip, Noel. I hope and believe you'll have a wonderful, wonderful experience!!!
So, the last month....
The night before we left Phnom Penh in Cambodia to go to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam Lynn lost her passport -
"It's not here, Rich. I've been through my entire bag now 3 times and I'm telling you I must have left it in Sihanoukville. Or maybe Kampot. Or else it's been stolen."
Lynn finds the telephone numbers for the 2 hotels we stayed at since she last remembers definately having her passport and disappears downstairs to phone them. Not only is it her passport that's gone but also her driving licence and all her cards. She's worked herself up into quite a state -
"We can't go to Vietnam tomorrow. I've got to go to the embassy to report my lost passport. We'll have to wait for a new visa too. I've got to cancel all my cards. We'll be late meeting you Uncle in Vietnam. Ohhhh, I can't believe this is happening! I feel sick."
Whilst Lynn has been frantically throwing the contents of her bag here, there and everywhere I've been keeping out of the way, trying to remember if I've seen it anywhere. I check through my bags just to be seen as if I'm being useful even though I know for a fact that I haven't got it. How can it not be where she always keeps it?
When Lynn's gone downstairs I decide to look through her bag myself. She always keeps her valuables in the same little compartment of her bag. I unlock it, turn the bag upside-down and give it a vigorous shake. Amongst the 20 handbags and 30 pairs of shoes out falls her wallet containing, lo and behold, her passport, driving licence and credit cards. What a palaver! Still atleast we can have an easy night's sleep again now.
It took 5 hours to get to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC from now on) and fortunately for us the coach drops us only a 2 minute walk from the hotel we've decided to stay at. On the way we go to the ATM and withdraw 1,000,000 dong. That'll keep us going for a couple of days - it's nearly 30 quid!
Our choice of hotel proved to be a bad one. It was noisy, smelly, and none of the essential bathroom necessities worked ie. toilet flush, taps and shower so we change hotels and move upmarket, it is Christmas after all!
Two days later on Saturday 23rd December we are joined by my Uncle Chris and his son, Ross. They have come out to Vietnam for a 2 week holiday and will be travelling north with us to Hanoi before flying home on 5th January. There was alot of fog back in the UK during these few days and we didn't know whether Chris and Ross would arrive until they actually did. Luckily they flew out of Manchester airport which, I think, is the only one in England that remained unaffected by the weather. We are really excited at the prospect of their joining us - and not just because of the new Faithless album and luxury toilet roll that they're bringing with them either!
The day after Chris and Ross join us we take a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels (64km north-west of HCMC) a 200km network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong to ferry soldiers and supplies right into the heart of this vital U.S. occupied area. It's incredibly interesting to see how it all worked - How air-vents were dug into termite mounds to hide them; How smoke from cooking underground was filtered out through tiny holes far away from the tunnels; How booby traps were made and laid in the tunnels and surrounding woodland. We see B-52 bomb craters - giant holes that could hold a double-decker bus. It must have been so scary to live in these tunnels far underground whilst explosions and chemicals are raining down on the surface, shaking to the core the very earth that's surrounding you, wondering if it'll cave in at any moment.
We get to crawl through some of the tunnels (specially widened ones for chubby foreigners!) and get a small glimpse of what it was like in here experiencing this hot, dark and silent world.
On Christmas day we opened our presents. Chris and Ross had brought a few for us too from the family. I bought Lynn a handbag (another one for the collection!) and a wine-bottle holder. Lynn bought me a small painting and some sweets! Later in the day we visited the War Remnants Museum and a massage parlour which made a change from watching Indiana Jones or Rocky on a Christmas Day afternoon!
I managed to pick up my annual Christmas cold too. Regular as clockwork I get a cold every Christmas Eve and it lasts for 3 days and this year was no exception either. Thanks for the hankies, Nan - immediately useful as usual!
We found somewhere to have a traditional Christmas turkey lunch which was nice. It was in an Irish bar that our friend Alan, owner of the 'Green Vespa' bar in Phnom Penh, told us about. Luckily it was only round the corner from the hotel too. I left the others straight after dinner to go to bed for an early night and Lynn, Chris and Ross stayed for a few drinks.
On 26th December we left HCMC on a bus north to Nha Trang. It was a really unpleasant trip taking 12 hours and 3 coaches. When we stopped for lunch they took all our bags off and filled up the seats with new passengers. We then had a real fight to get our seats back and get our bags back on the coach. God knows what that was all about but there were now too many people and not enough seats. Ten minutes later, we're all told to get off again anyway and get on a another, larger coach.
Nha Trang is a beach resort sort of town so we all went to the beach for our 1 and only day here. The sea was really rough but Lynn, Ross and I went in anyway though it was more a case of trying to stay above water long enough to breathe than actually doing any swimming. Chris didn't bring any swim shorts with him. We couldn't coax him into buying any (or even borrowing Lynn's spare bikini!) so he stayed on the beach attracting the attentions of the numerous souvenir and trinket sellers. I think I preferred fighting the waves than the vendors, atleast we had a 5 second gap between the waves!
From Nha Trang we took an overnight coach journey north to Hoi An. It took 10 hours and we were cramped and uncomfortable but it was better than the previous journey so that was something.
Hoi An is famous for its tailors. You can have a made-to-measure suit knocked up in a day for little more than the price of a shirt back home. At 11:00am Ross got measured up for a suit and he collected it at 18:00! He also got a big, woolly coat - his Jose Mourinho coat I called it! - and Lynn got a lovely pair of trousers for just US$20.
We spent 2 days in Hoi An. On the first day we wander the town, a beautiful world heritage site, and home to many crumbling, French colonial buildings. The second day we visit the nearby ruins of My Son. My Son is a little like some of the temples at Angkor Wat, only far less well preserved. We are told it is worth going for sunrise when it is very picturesque and before the crowds arrive. It rained the night before however and when we go it is grey and gloomy and not very good for photos.
On Saturday 30th December we take a taxi to nearby Danang and from there take the train up the coast to Hue. This stretch of railway line is widely acclaimed to be one of the most beautiful train journey's in the world but on this grey and overcast day, with the rain lashing the windows and with bags piled up on my lap and above my head because I've got nowhere else to put them I didn't appreciate it one bit.
We arrived in Hue at 17:00 and that evening sat at a make-shift bar on the kerbside, under a blue plastic-sheet roof in the torrential rain feeling cold and wet, and watching Charlton beat Villa on the TV through an injury time goal from an ex-Birmingham City player. The only other foreigner besides us in this refugee-camp-style bar is a Birmingham city fan from Bromsgrove. Could I feel more sorry for myself?
The next day we have organised a dragon-boat cruise down the river stopping off at the numerous temples, tombs and ruins that make Hue the attraction it is. It is bitterly cold (although Chris and Ross say it's quite balmy compared to England) and thoroughly miserable weather. The rain doesn't cease all day and with every stop we make my enthusiasm diminishes further. I was sulking at the weather before we even left the hotel, by the time we return late in the afternoon I am well and truly Mr. Grumpy from Grumpsville, Grumpland. These places would be so amazing with the sunny weather we've had for most of our trip and I just can't hide the fact that I'm so disappointed that instead of 200 photos from today's tour I have barely 10 to remember the day by. It doesn't even come into my selfish head how Chris and Ross must feel having their entire holiday in this shitty weather rather than just the 0.1% like me. I can only apologise for my bad company that day.
In the evening we head out to a bar as it's New Year's Eve. I can't say there's much in the way of nightlife in Hue but atleast this time we find a 'proper' bar. We spend the evening listening to Abba on almost continuous play on the bar's stereo system as they had little else it seems, and playing the odd game of pool. At midnight they put Abba's "Happy New Year" on at full-volume despite the fact that we only heard it 2 songs ago then it's back to the beginning of the album again for another run-through of Dancing Queen, Super Trouper et al!
None of us drank too much last night and the next morning, barely 5 hours after we went to bed, we're probably rather glad as we're leaving Hue and heading up to Hanoi now. Our intention was to take yet another 15 hour, overnight coach trip this evening and indeed we'd already bought the tickets but Chris and Ross were down to just 4 days left here and we really wanted to do a 3 day/2 night trip to Halong Bay and were disappointed to realise they wouldn't have the time. The only possible way we could fit it in would be to fly to Hanoi instead early on New Year's Day and so we made enquiries. There was a flight from Hue to Hanoi at 08:30 but there are only Business Class tickets available. We tentatively ask how much they are and find out to our surprise that they are only US$80 each for the hour-long flight. So, by 09:00 in the morning of January 1st, 2007 we are sitting in Business Class seats aboard a plane, sipping orange juice and eating prawn sandwiches! By 10:00 we've checked into the Viet Anh Hotel in Hanoi.
The morning of Tuesday 2nd January sees us heading off to Halong Bay in a cramped mini-bus. We reach the bay at 11:30 and transfer to a traditional wooden boat where we will spend the rest of the day and tonight. Aswell as us 4, there are also 6 others - 4 Aussies and 2 Vietnamese.
Halong Bay is one of the natural wonders of the world - A beautiful bay full of hundreds of vertical, limestone islands that spring up from the turquoise waters. Caves line their feet and palm trees dot their summit. It really is one of the most picturesque places on earth.... Atleast, in nice weather, that would be how I would describe it to you. We didn't have any rain but it was still so grey and foggy that we struggled to see much. In truth, we must have some of the least impressive Halong Bay photographs ever taken!
We stop off at one of the islands where we climb a steep path to the summit for a panoramic view of endless grey fog in all directions. Mid-afternoon we stop off at one of the bay's larger cave systems. It's amazing how large it is. Giant underground amphitheatres stretching high above us are connected by beautiful caverns and naturally-carved tunnels filled with stalactites and stalagmites and weird and wonderful formations. The whole complex is lit by hundreds of multi-coloured spotlights giving the feeling we've entered a giant fairytale kingdom. I take far too many cavey photos but it feels nice to be photographing things again so I forgive myself for getting carried away.
The next day we supposedly have a morning of mountain biking and trekking ahead of us. It takes until nearly 11:00 to reach the appropriate island and finally pedal off into the hills. Barely 30 minutes later and we reach a village consisting of half a dozen tiny houses. We walk about for 10 minutes and then cycle back. THAT, apparently, was the morning of cycling and trekking I'd been looking forward to!
We eat lunch on a rare sandy beach on one of the islands and Lynn and I take the opportunity to go for a dip in the sea. Well, we probably won't have another chance before we get home! Chris and Ross wuss out citing the fact that it's far too cold. Chris even bought some snazzy, new, bright-blue surf shorts but we can't get him to go for a swim no matter how much we try to convince him he needs to try them out to make sure they're ok!
In the afternoon we jump into 2-man kayaks and paddle around a small, secluded bay. It's good fun despite there not being much to see. We get a few action-shots with Lynn's little Canon camera with the underwater-housing on to protect it from the sea. We spend the 2nd night of our trip in a hotel on Cat Ba Island, one of the larger islands in the bay.
On Day 3 we leave the hotel early and return, via boat, to where we originally got off the minibus 48 hours ago. By 16:30 we arrive back in Hanoi. This is Chris and Ross's last night in Vietnam, although they're not leaving until 21:00 tomorrow night. In the intervening 24 hours we find the time to visit the B-52 museum, which isn't so much a museum as a large garden filled with lots of bits of scrap metal. We then walk back through the district housing the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, the Ho Chi Minh Museum and his former house and a couple of other buildings of public interest. Unfortunately they're all closed on Friday's so Chris and Ross don't get the chance to see any of these but Lynn and I go by ourselves a few days later. There's just time for some last minute souvenir shopping and then we all head back to the hotel.
Chris and Ross leave the hotel at 21:00 in a taxi to the airport. Earlier in the day, Chris realised he'd lost his departure card but he's assured by someone at the Vietnam Airlines Office that it won't be a problem. I anticipate he may have to pay a fine at the airport but luckily it was all ok. Over all it was a hectic 2 weeks and, what with my sour mood at the sudden change in the weather, not the best 2 weeks I've had but it was brilliant to have Chris and Ross with us, I just wish they'd had the sunny weather and clear skies that they deserved after coming all this way to see us.
Lynn and I visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum 2 days later. It is a giant, heavy-set, Soviet-style structure containing the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh. The place is full of armed guards who hassle the continual line of visitors - Remove your hat; take your hands out your pockets; stop smiling, look sombre; no talking; no standing still; don't walk too fast; don't walk too slow... they made far more noise and disturbance themselves than any of the visitors I saw in there! The body of Ho Chi Minh itself is very small and skinny, almost child-like in size and lit by the most unappealing yellow lights making him look to me like Grandpa Simpson out of The Simpsons!
The next day our passports come back from the Chinese Embassy, complete with Chinese visa so we buy a couple of train tickets and the day after that we pack our bags, check out of the hotel and get on the 18:30 international express train. We're off to China!
There are only about 12 of us on this 2-carriage train and it is a relaxed and pleasant journey. It takes 4 hours from Hanoi to Dong Dang, a town on the Vietnamese/Chinese border, where we stop for the necessary formalities. Once we are through Vietnamese customs which takes about an hour we are led to a different platform where we board another, much grander, Chinese train. Our double-bunk, 4-berth compartment is carpeted and the bed linen is crisp and clean. It's about half-past midnight when a Chinese official comes round to take our passports off us to get them stamped. When we finally get them back and every Chinese official in the station has been to see us (at 5 minute intervals to each other) and checked he's happy with the visa then finally at about 02:00 in the morning we pull out of the station and head off north into the Chinese countryside. The last official who came to see us gave us a small card with a statement written in numerous languages. We found the English statement and read:
"At 07:00 you are required to leave train for 3 hours and go to waiting room to have nice rest. Please make sure you are ready to leave train."
What is that all about? We've paid for a nice bed on the train and in 5 hours time we have to clamber out of it and trudge into some cold waiting room for "a nice rest". None of the officials speaks English so we are at a loss as to why we can't just stay on the train asleep and have "a nice rest".
Four and a half hours later and we're sitting on our beds, bleary-eyed and waiting for our nice rest. We pull into Nanning station and it's absolutely freezing cold - and yes I do mean sub-zero for once - and since the waiting room is open to the elements on one side it is, sadly, no warmer inside than out. For 3 hours we sit on a cold seat, shivering and turning blue and wishing we could be back on the train, back in our warm beds. At 10:00 we are led back on to the train to our cabins and I crawl into bed, fully-clothed, still wearing my coat, scarf and woolly hat and finally get the nice rest I've been waiting for. Ahhh, Zzzzzzz!
We found out later that the reason for our having to leave the train for 3 hours was that the train has a 55 hour journey to Beijing ahead of it and so it stops at Nanning for it's maintenance check. We aren't allowed to stay on the train during this time because all toilet facilities are turned off and doors are locked. Why couldn't they just have told us that in the first place instead of giving us some crap about a nice rest?
At 15:00 we arrive at the city of Guilin. We find a hotel and point at it's name in the guidebook to the taxi driver as it's easier than trying to pronouce it. Our chosen hotel for the next 2 nights is called "Jinfeng Binguan" and it's rather shabby and rundown and stinks of cigarettes like, we have subsequently found out, most buildings in China. That evening we book a river tour to nearby Yangshuo. At the agency we are told there are 2 tours, one in English and one in Chinese. The English language tour is 50% more expensive and doesn't visit half the sights of the Chinese one so we decide to go on the Chinese tour. Who cares if we can't understand a word the guide says, it's getting the photos that matter anyway!
That evening we go to a recommended Chinese restaurant to try out real Chinese food. According to our guidebook Guilin is renowned for it's snake soup, roasted cat and skewered bamboo rat and the tipple of choice is snake-bile wine. We are disappointed to find none of these delights on the menu so we settle for sweet 'n' sour pork and crispy beef with vegetables washed down with a can of 7-Up instead!
The river tour to Yangshuo was quite good. The only downside to being on the Chinese tour was the continual cloud of cigarette smoke that followed us around everywhere. I can't believe just how many people smoke in China. And they smoke continually too, one cigarette after the other. We were both gasping for fresh air within minutes of being on that boat! The second annoying aspect was the continual sight and sound of everyone hawking up and gobbing out huge great lung-fulls of phlegm. It really is a quite revolting Chinese habit although the authorities are now fining people for doing it in the major cities. The sooner they do it for the entire country the better!
Anyway, those annoyances aside, the boat trip itself was pretty good. The huge, vertical limestone hills that surround Guilin are stunning and reminded Lynn and I of the ones in Halong Bay. Infact, if it wasn't for the fact that the grey fog here was a cigarette haze rather than low-lying cloud we might have been convinced it WAS Halong Bay!
Just before we reach Yangshuo we have lunch on the boat - soggy strips of cabbage, some very suspicious-looking meat and a boiled egg. It's quite foul but I manage to eat it. Lynn leaves all of hers which I think is most unfair. If I manage to do my bit and force it down, she should have to eat hers too as far as I'm concerned!
At Yangshuo we transfer to a coach and visit a Buddhist temple, 'The Dragon Cave', the 'Big Banyan Tree' and 'Moon Hill'. Dragon Cave is like a less-impressive version of the one we went into in Halong Bay. The Big Banyan tree is just that - a BIG Banyan tree. It is 1,500 years old and horizontal branches off the main trunk grow vertical branches that drop to the floor and turn into new, supporting trunks. It means you end up with a small forest that is actually all one tree, inter-connected in the mid-level branches. Quite amazing but difficult to capture it properly on camera.
Moon Hill is a giant hill with a crescent-shaped hole going right through the middle of it. Again, absolutely amazing but we didn't stop and we were on the wrong side of the coach so I couldn't take any photos. Pity.
We get back to Guilin at 19:00 and the next morning at 09:00 catch the bus south-east to Guangzhou. It's an 8 hour journey that eventually takes 10 and by the time we arrive we're very tired and achy. The further we got from Guilin, the more the condition of the road deteriorated. We saw 3 trucks on their sides during those 10 hours, bamboo poles (2) and crates of bottles (1) spread out across the road behind them.
At Guangzhou we picked a hotel just round the corner from the bus station as we intended to head straight off again in the morning to Hong Kong. The hotel we pick is literally a 1 minute taxi drive away so we give the driver our guidebook and point out the hotel name and address which is thankfully written in both English script AND Chinese characters. I even drew a ring round the chosen hotel to avoid any mistakes! We head off and within a couple of minutes I realise that the driver must have gone too far. I try telling him he's gone too far. I point at the map and say "hotel" and show my finger and thumb close together. I then point to him and do an impression of him driving and show my finger and thumb spaced far apart. He nods and smiles and hasn't got a clue what I'm on about. I point out the rear window, back behind us and say "Hotel" but I only get more nods and smiles. Eventually after about 20 minutes of my increasingly frustrated and obviously pointless charades we stop at some big 5 star hotel on the far side of Guangzhou. "Hotel" he announces with a gesture out of the window. Yes, it's a hotel, but it's not THE hotel, is it. It's not THE HOTEL we asked you to take us to and to which you even read out back to me at the bus station and I stuck my thumb up to.
We refuse to get out despite his insistence that he's delivered us to our chosen destination. Instead we call the porter over from the luxury hotel who speaks a smattering of English and get him to explain to our stupid driver that we want to go to a hotel barely 400 metres from the bus station he picked us up from and he's going to have to take us there because we're not getting out. Eventually, we set off again and 40 minutes after leaving the station for our 1 minute drive to the hotel, we pull up at it's entrance. The meter says 34 yuan. The journey should have cost 7. I say to Lynn that there's no way we're giving him 34 yuan for that round trip to the hotel but to stop him kicking up a fuss we'll give him 15, twice as much as it should have cost. Well, it seemed that was the final insult.
"No, no, no, no, NO, NO. NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!" he retorts, spit flying from his lips in anger.
Neither of us can understand a word the other is saying. He's probably telling me that he's driven us all over the city because we can't even tell him the correct name for the hotel we want to stay at and now after all his trouble we don't even want to pay him.
Meanwhile, I'm telling him that there is no way in a million years that I am going to pay him 34 yuan to take us to a hotel we should have been at ages ago when he knew exactly where we were going because he even said the name back to me when he read it from the guidebook. And he found it on the map. And I showed him the friggin' address.
The hotel security guard obviously understands though and comes over to save his potential customer from the taxi driver who's now grabbed hold of my bag and decided he's not going to let go until I pay him the outstanding 19 yuan. We prize his fingers from the bag and then the guard drags him off and back to his car. I dust myself off and we wander off inside to check-in.
The next morning we take the 4 hour bus journey across the border and into Hong Kong. We find a hotel in the budget section of our guidebook and head there. It's the Baden Powell International Hotel, owned by the Hong Kong Scout Association and so Lynn is keen to stay there. At HK$1,150 a night though (about 80 quid) it's far too much for our budget! How can this be classed as a cheap hotel in our guidebook? After a couple of phone-calls and enquiries we eventually end up at our current hotel in a building called 'Chungking Mansions'. It's a far more acceptable HK$200 a night and is about as cheap as you get in central Hong Kong.
We have a private bathroom, air-conditioning, TV and fridge in our room but don't let that fool you into thinking it's posh... Imagine a run-down council tenement block in the middle of a rough neighbourhood of inner-city London and you have an idea of what this place looks like. Dripping pipes, mildewed walls, graffiti everywhere, shady looking characters lurking in stairwells. The building itself seems to be on it's last legs and I think it's only the new buildings on either side that are actually holding this place up still!
So, that was Saturday 13th January when we arrived here in HK. It's now Wednesday 17th and we're due to leave on Saturday 20th and head north on the train to Shanghai. Earlier today we got our passports back from the Russian Embassy complete with our Russian visas so now the only visa we need to secure is our Mongolian one which we can get from Beijing.
We haven't done too much of interest since we got to Hong Kong though. The city is a real shopper's paradise so we've been already been and bought a load of warm clothes for the month ahead and yesterday we sent home a parcel containing shorts and mosquito nets and other things we won't be needing any longer.
We have taken the obligatory trip up to Victoria Peak to see the city by night and the view is just as incredible as the postcards would have you believe. Yesterday we went up to the Felix Bar (designed by Phillipe Starck for anyone who cares about such things!) on the top floor of Hong Kong's famous Peninsula Hotel for one of the most expensive drinks at one of the greatest bar-room views in the world. The best thing about this place though is not the view from the bar but the view from the bathroom. Of course, I can't comment on the 'Ladies' but in the 'Gents' the urinals are placed directly infront of the floor to ceiling window so when you go for a wee you are weeing over the city below. I can't believe there is a greater 'Urinal View' anywhere in the world!!! - [Thanks Andy and Claire who Lynn and I met in the Galapagos Islands for telling us about this bar and it's amazing toilets!]
Well, I think that's about it for now. It's a long email, I don't think there was ever any doubt that it wouldn't be, but I also think I can be justifiably proud that this 4-week episode is no longer than my typical 2-week one. I hope you enjoyed reading it!
Take care and see you soon - just a month to go now until we arrive home - gulp!
Toodle-pip for now!
Rich
We had a lot of problems with the internet over Christmas and so it just wasn't possible to write this next episode before now. Unfortunately that means I've got a month's worth of travelling to tell you about this time instead of the usual 2 weeks!
We've covered alot of ground in this last month as we headed north from Phnom Penh in Cambodia to Hong Kong where we are now. Ultimately we're on our way to Beijing where, in 3 weeks time, we should hopefully be boarding the train to Moscow for the last big trip before going home.
As I've got so much to write about this time I shall attempt to do what many of you will undoubtedly think is impossible by now and that is to not go into quite so much detail. If I write in my usual style then we'll both be here forever!
Oh, a quick message before I begin: GOOD LUCK with your trip, Noel. I hope and believe you'll have a wonderful, wonderful experience!!!
So, the last month....
The night before we left Phnom Penh in Cambodia to go to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam Lynn lost her passport -
"It's not here, Rich. I've been through my entire bag now 3 times and I'm telling you I must have left it in Sihanoukville. Or maybe Kampot. Or else it's been stolen."
Lynn finds the telephone numbers for the 2 hotels we stayed at since she last remembers definately having her passport and disappears downstairs to phone them. Not only is it her passport that's gone but also her driving licence and all her cards. She's worked herself up into quite a state -
"We can't go to Vietnam tomorrow. I've got to go to the embassy to report my lost passport. We'll have to wait for a new visa too. I've got to cancel all my cards. We'll be late meeting you Uncle in Vietnam. Ohhhh, I can't believe this is happening! I feel sick."
Whilst Lynn has been frantically throwing the contents of her bag here, there and everywhere I've been keeping out of the way, trying to remember if I've seen it anywhere. I check through my bags just to be seen as if I'm being useful even though I know for a fact that I haven't got it. How can it not be where she always keeps it?
When Lynn's gone downstairs I decide to look through her bag myself. She always keeps her valuables in the same little compartment of her bag. I unlock it, turn the bag upside-down and give it a vigorous shake. Amongst the 20 handbags and 30 pairs of shoes out falls her wallet containing, lo and behold, her passport, driving licence and credit cards. What a palaver! Still atleast we can have an easy night's sleep again now.
It took 5 hours to get to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC from now on) and fortunately for us the coach drops us only a 2 minute walk from the hotel we've decided to stay at. On the way we go to the ATM and withdraw 1,000,000 dong. That'll keep us going for a couple of days - it's nearly 30 quid!
Our choice of hotel proved to be a bad one. It was noisy, smelly, and none of the essential bathroom necessities worked ie. toilet flush, taps and shower so we change hotels and move upmarket, it is Christmas after all!
Two days later on Saturday 23rd December we are joined by my Uncle Chris and his son, Ross. They have come out to Vietnam for a 2 week holiday and will be travelling north with us to Hanoi before flying home on 5th January. There was alot of fog back in the UK during these few days and we didn't know whether Chris and Ross would arrive until they actually did. Luckily they flew out of Manchester airport which, I think, is the only one in England that remained unaffected by the weather. We are really excited at the prospect of their joining us - and not just because of the new Faithless album and luxury toilet roll that they're bringing with them either!
The day after Chris and Ross join us we take a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels (64km north-west of HCMC) a 200km network of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong to ferry soldiers and supplies right into the heart of this vital U.S. occupied area. It's incredibly interesting to see how it all worked - How air-vents were dug into termite mounds to hide them; How smoke from cooking underground was filtered out through tiny holes far away from the tunnels; How booby traps were made and laid in the tunnels and surrounding woodland. We see B-52 bomb craters - giant holes that could hold a double-decker bus. It must have been so scary to live in these tunnels far underground whilst explosions and chemicals are raining down on the surface, shaking to the core the very earth that's surrounding you, wondering if it'll cave in at any moment.
We get to crawl through some of the tunnels (specially widened ones for chubby foreigners!) and get a small glimpse of what it was like in here experiencing this hot, dark and silent world.
On Christmas day we opened our presents. Chris and Ross had brought a few for us too from the family. I bought Lynn a handbag (another one for the collection!) and a wine-bottle holder. Lynn bought me a small painting and some sweets! Later in the day we visited the War Remnants Museum and a massage parlour which made a change from watching Indiana Jones or Rocky on a Christmas Day afternoon!
I managed to pick up my annual Christmas cold too. Regular as clockwork I get a cold every Christmas Eve and it lasts for 3 days and this year was no exception either. Thanks for the hankies, Nan - immediately useful as usual!
We found somewhere to have a traditional Christmas turkey lunch which was nice. It was in an Irish bar that our friend Alan, owner of the 'Green Vespa' bar in Phnom Penh, told us about. Luckily it was only round the corner from the hotel too. I left the others straight after dinner to go to bed for an early night and Lynn, Chris and Ross stayed for a few drinks.
On 26th December we left HCMC on a bus north to Nha Trang. It was a really unpleasant trip taking 12 hours and 3 coaches. When we stopped for lunch they took all our bags off and filled up the seats with new passengers. We then had a real fight to get our seats back and get our bags back on the coach. God knows what that was all about but there were now too many people and not enough seats. Ten minutes later, we're all told to get off again anyway and get on a another, larger coach.
Nha Trang is a beach resort sort of town so we all went to the beach for our 1 and only day here. The sea was really rough but Lynn, Ross and I went in anyway though it was more a case of trying to stay above water long enough to breathe than actually doing any swimming. Chris didn't bring any swim shorts with him. We couldn't coax him into buying any (or even borrowing Lynn's spare bikini!) so he stayed on the beach attracting the attentions of the numerous souvenir and trinket sellers. I think I preferred fighting the waves than the vendors, atleast we had a 5 second gap between the waves!
From Nha Trang we took an overnight coach journey north to Hoi An. It took 10 hours and we were cramped and uncomfortable but it was better than the previous journey so that was something.
Hoi An is famous for its tailors. You can have a made-to-measure suit knocked up in a day for little more than the price of a shirt back home. At 11:00am Ross got measured up for a suit and he collected it at 18:00! He also got a big, woolly coat - his Jose Mourinho coat I called it! - and Lynn got a lovely pair of trousers for just US$20.
We spent 2 days in Hoi An. On the first day we wander the town, a beautiful world heritage site, and home to many crumbling, French colonial buildings. The second day we visit the nearby ruins of My Son. My Son is a little like some of the temples at Angkor Wat, only far less well preserved. We are told it is worth going for sunrise when it is very picturesque and before the crowds arrive. It rained the night before however and when we go it is grey and gloomy and not very good for photos.
On Saturday 30th December we take a taxi to nearby Danang and from there take the train up the coast to Hue. This stretch of railway line is widely acclaimed to be one of the most beautiful train journey's in the world but on this grey and overcast day, with the rain lashing the windows and with bags piled up on my lap and above my head because I've got nowhere else to put them I didn't appreciate it one bit.
We arrived in Hue at 17:00 and that evening sat at a make-shift bar on the kerbside, under a blue plastic-sheet roof in the torrential rain feeling cold and wet, and watching Charlton beat Villa on the TV through an injury time goal from an ex-Birmingham City player. The only other foreigner besides us in this refugee-camp-style bar is a Birmingham city fan from Bromsgrove. Could I feel more sorry for myself?
The next day we have organised a dragon-boat cruise down the river stopping off at the numerous temples, tombs and ruins that make Hue the attraction it is. It is bitterly cold (although Chris and Ross say it's quite balmy compared to England) and thoroughly miserable weather. The rain doesn't cease all day and with every stop we make my enthusiasm diminishes further. I was sulking at the weather before we even left the hotel, by the time we return late in the afternoon I am well and truly Mr. Grumpy from Grumpsville, Grumpland. These places would be so amazing with the sunny weather we've had for most of our trip and I just can't hide the fact that I'm so disappointed that instead of 200 photos from today's tour I have barely 10 to remember the day by. It doesn't even come into my selfish head how Chris and Ross must feel having their entire holiday in this shitty weather rather than just the 0.1% like me. I can only apologise for my bad company that day.
In the evening we head out to a bar as it's New Year's Eve. I can't say there's much in the way of nightlife in Hue but atleast this time we find a 'proper' bar. We spend the evening listening to Abba on almost continuous play on the bar's stereo system as they had little else it seems, and playing the odd game of pool. At midnight they put Abba's "Happy New Year" on at full-volume despite the fact that we only heard it 2 songs ago then it's back to the beginning of the album again for another run-through of Dancing Queen, Super Trouper et al!
None of us drank too much last night and the next morning, barely 5 hours after we went to bed, we're probably rather glad as we're leaving Hue and heading up to Hanoi now. Our intention was to take yet another 15 hour, overnight coach trip this evening and indeed we'd already bought the tickets but Chris and Ross were down to just 4 days left here and we really wanted to do a 3 day/2 night trip to Halong Bay and were disappointed to realise they wouldn't have the time. The only possible way we could fit it in would be to fly to Hanoi instead early on New Year's Day and so we made enquiries. There was a flight from Hue to Hanoi at 08:30 but there are only Business Class tickets available. We tentatively ask how much they are and find out to our surprise that they are only US$80 each for the hour-long flight. So, by 09:00 in the morning of January 1st, 2007 we are sitting in Business Class seats aboard a plane, sipping orange juice and eating prawn sandwiches! By 10:00 we've checked into the Viet Anh Hotel in Hanoi.
The morning of Tuesday 2nd January sees us heading off to Halong Bay in a cramped mini-bus. We reach the bay at 11:30 and transfer to a traditional wooden boat where we will spend the rest of the day and tonight. Aswell as us 4, there are also 6 others - 4 Aussies and 2 Vietnamese.
Halong Bay is one of the natural wonders of the world - A beautiful bay full of hundreds of vertical, limestone islands that spring up from the turquoise waters. Caves line their feet and palm trees dot their summit. It really is one of the most picturesque places on earth.... Atleast, in nice weather, that would be how I would describe it to you. We didn't have any rain but it was still so grey and foggy that we struggled to see much. In truth, we must have some of the least impressive Halong Bay photographs ever taken!
We stop off at one of the islands where we climb a steep path to the summit for a panoramic view of endless grey fog in all directions. Mid-afternoon we stop off at one of the bay's larger cave systems. It's amazing how large it is. Giant underground amphitheatres stretching high above us are connected by beautiful caverns and naturally-carved tunnels filled with stalactites and stalagmites and weird and wonderful formations. The whole complex is lit by hundreds of multi-coloured spotlights giving the feeling we've entered a giant fairytale kingdom. I take far too many cavey photos but it feels nice to be photographing things again so I forgive myself for getting carried away.
The next day we supposedly have a morning of mountain biking and trekking ahead of us. It takes until nearly 11:00 to reach the appropriate island and finally pedal off into the hills. Barely 30 minutes later and we reach a village consisting of half a dozen tiny houses. We walk about for 10 minutes and then cycle back. THAT, apparently, was the morning of cycling and trekking I'd been looking forward to!
We eat lunch on a rare sandy beach on one of the islands and Lynn and I take the opportunity to go for a dip in the sea. Well, we probably won't have another chance before we get home! Chris and Ross wuss out citing the fact that it's far too cold. Chris even bought some snazzy, new, bright-blue surf shorts but we can't get him to go for a swim no matter how much we try to convince him he needs to try them out to make sure they're ok!
In the afternoon we jump into 2-man kayaks and paddle around a small, secluded bay. It's good fun despite there not being much to see. We get a few action-shots with Lynn's little Canon camera with the underwater-housing on to protect it from the sea. We spend the 2nd night of our trip in a hotel on Cat Ba Island, one of the larger islands in the bay.
On Day 3 we leave the hotel early and return, via boat, to where we originally got off the minibus 48 hours ago. By 16:30 we arrive back in Hanoi. This is Chris and Ross's last night in Vietnam, although they're not leaving until 21:00 tomorrow night. In the intervening 24 hours we find the time to visit the B-52 museum, which isn't so much a museum as a large garden filled with lots of bits of scrap metal. We then walk back through the district housing the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, the Ho Chi Minh Museum and his former house and a couple of other buildings of public interest. Unfortunately they're all closed on Friday's so Chris and Ross don't get the chance to see any of these but Lynn and I go by ourselves a few days later. There's just time for some last minute souvenir shopping and then we all head back to the hotel.
Chris and Ross leave the hotel at 21:00 in a taxi to the airport. Earlier in the day, Chris realised he'd lost his departure card but he's assured by someone at the Vietnam Airlines Office that it won't be a problem. I anticipate he may have to pay a fine at the airport but luckily it was all ok. Over all it was a hectic 2 weeks and, what with my sour mood at the sudden change in the weather, not the best 2 weeks I've had but it was brilliant to have Chris and Ross with us, I just wish they'd had the sunny weather and clear skies that they deserved after coming all this way to see us.
Lynn and I visited the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum 2 days later. It is a giant, heavy-set, Soviet-style structure containing the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh. The place is full of armed guards who hassle the continual line of visitors - Remove your hat; take your hands out your pockets; stop smiling, look sombre; no talking; no standing still; don't walk too fast; don't walk too slow... they made far more noise and disturbance themselves than any of the visitors I saw in there! The body of Ho Chi Minh itself is very small and skinny, almost child-like in size and lit by the most unappealing yellow lights making him look to me like Grandpa Simpson out of The Simpsons!
The next day our passports come back from the Chinese Embassy, complete with Chinese visa so we buy a couple of train tickets and the day after that we pack our bags, check out of the hotel and get on the 18:30 international express train. We're off to China!
There are only about 12 of us on this 2-carriage train and it is a relaxed and pleasant journey. It takes 4 hours from Hanoi to Dong Dang, a town on the Vietnamese/Chinese border, where we stop for the necessary formalities. Once we are through Vietnamese customs which takes about an hour we are led to a different platform where we board another, much grander, Chinese train. Our double-bunk, 4-berth compartment is carpeted and the bed linen is crisp and clean. It's about half-past midnight when a Chinese official comes round to take our passports off us to get them stamped. When we finally get them back and every Chinese official in the station has been to see us (at 5 minute intervals to each other) and checked he's happy with the visa then finally at about 02:00 in the morning we pull out of the station and head off north into the Chinese countryside. The last official who came to see us gave us a small card with a statement written in numerous languages. We found the English statement and read:
"At 07:00 you are required to leave train for 3 hours and go to waiting room to have nice rest. Please make sure you are ready to leave train."
What is that all about? We've paid for a nice bed on the train and in 5 hours time we have to clamber out of it and trudge into some cold waiting room for "a nice rest". None of the officials speaks English so we are at a loss as to why we can't just stay on the train asleep and have "a nice rest".
Four and a half hours later and we're sitting on our beds, bleary-eyed and waiting for our nice rest. We pull into Nanning station and it's absolutely freezing cold - and yes I do mean sub-zero for once - and since the waiting room is open to the elements on one side it is, sadly, no warmer inside than out. For 3 hours we sit on a cold seat, shivering and turning blue and wishing we could be back on the train, back in our warm beds. At 10:00 we are led back on to the train to our cabins and I crawl into bed, fully-clothed, still wearing my coat, scarf and woolly hat and finally get the nice rest I've been waiting for. Ahhh, Zzzzzzz!
We found out later that the reason for our having to leave the train for 3 hours was that the train has a 55 hour journey to Beijing ahead of it and so it stops at Nanning for it's maintenance check. We aren't allowed to stay on the train during this time because all toilet facilities are turned off and doors are locked. Why couldn't they just have told us that in the first place instead of giving us some crap about a nice rest?
At 15:00 we arrive at the city of Guilin. We find a hotel and point at it's name in the guidebook to the taxi driver as it's easier than trying to pronouce it. Our chosen hotel for the next 2 nights is called "Jinfeng Binguan" and it's rather shabby and rundown and stinks of cigarettes like, we have subsequently found out, most buildings in China. That evening we book a river tour to nearby Yangshuo. At the agency we are told there are 2 tours, one in English and one in Chinese. The English language tour is 50% more expensive and doesn't visit half the sights of the Chinese one so we decide to go on the Chinese tour. Who cares if we can't understand a word the guide says, it's getting the photos that matter anyway!
That evening we go to a recommended Chinese restaurant to try out real Chinese food. According to our guidebook Guilin is renowned for it's snake soup, roasted cat and skewered bamboo rat and the tipple of choice is snake-bile wine. We are disappointed to find none of these delights on the menu so we settle for sweet 'n' sour pork and crispy beef with vegetables washed down with a can of 7-Up instead!
The river tour to Yangshuo was quite good. The only downside to being on the Chinese tour was the continual cloud of cigarette smoke that followed us around everywhere. I can't believe just how many people smoke in China. And they smoke continually too, one cigarette after the other. We were both gasping for fresh air within minutes of being on that boat! The second annoying aspect was the continual sight and sound of everyone hawking up and gobbing out huge great lung-fulls of phlegm. It really is a quite revolting Chinese habit although the authorities are now fining people for doing it in the major cities. The sooner they do it for the entire country the better!
Anyway, those annoyances aside, the boat trip itself was pretty good. The huge, vertical limestone hills that surround Guilin are stunning and reminded Lynn and I of the ones in Halong Bay. Infact, if it wasn't for the fact that the grey fog here was a cigarette haze rather than low-lying cloud we might have been convinced it WAS Halong Bay!
Just before we reach Yangshuo we have lunch on the boat - soggy strips of cabbage, some very suspicious-looking meat and a boiled egg. It's quite foul but I manage to eat it. Lynn leaves all of hers which I think is most unfair. If I manage to do my bit and force it down, she should have to eat hers too as far as I'm concerned!
At Yangshuo we transfer to a coach and visit a Buddhist temple, 'The Dragon Cave', the 'Big Banyan Tree' and 'Moon Hill'. Dragon Cave is like a less-impressive version of the one we went into in Halong Bay. The Big Banyan tree is just that - a BIG Banyan tree. It is 1,500 years old and horizontal branches off the main trunk grow vertical branches that drop to the floor and turn into new, supporting trunks. It means you end up with a small forest that is actually all one tree, inter-connected in the mid-level branches. Quite amazing but difficult to capture it properly on camera.
Moon Hill is a giant hill with a crescent-shaped hole going right through the middle of it. Again, absolutely amazing but we didn't stop and we were on the wrong side of the coach so I couldn't take any photos. Pity.
We get back to Guilin at 19:00 and the next morning at 09:00 catch the bus south-east to Guangzhou. It's an 8 hour journey that eventually takes 10 and by the time we arrive we're very tired and achy. The further we got from Guilin, the more the condition of the road deteriorated. We saw 3 trucks on their sides during those 10 hours, bamboo poles (2) and crates of bottles (1) spread out across the road behind them.
At Guangzhou we picked a hotel just round the corner from the bus station as we intended to head straight off again in the morning to Hong Kong. The hotel we pick is literally a 1 minute taxi drive away so we give the driver our guidebook and point out the hotel name and address which is thankfully written in both English script AND Chinese characters. I even drew a ring round the chosen hotel to avoid any mistakes! We head off and within a couple of minutes I realise that the driver must have gone too far. I try telling him he's gone too far. I point at the map and say "hotel" and show my finger and thumb close together. I then point to him and do an impression of him driving and show my finger and thumb spaced far apart. He nods and smiles and hasn't got a clue what I'm on about. I point out the rear window, back behind us and say "Hotel" but I only get more nods and smiles. Eventually after about 20 minutes of my increasingly frustrated and obviously pointless charades we stop at some big 5 star hotel on the far side of Guangzhou. "Hotel" he announces with a gesture out of the window. Yes, it's a hotel, but it's not THE hotel, is it. It's not THE HOTEL we asked you to take us to and to which you even read out back to me at the bus station and I stuck my thumb up to.
We refuse to get out despite his insistence that he's delivered us to our chosen destination. Instead we call the porter over from the luxury hotel who speaks a smattering of English and get him to explain to our stupid driver that we want to go to a hotel barely 400 metres from the bus station he picked us up from and he's going to have to take us there because we're not getting out. Eventually, we set off again and 40 minutes after leaving the station for our 1 minute drive to the hotel, we pull up at it's entrance. The meter says 34 yuan. The journey should have cost 7. I say to Lynn that there's no way we're giving him 34 yuan for that round trip to the hotel but to stop him kicking up a fuss we'll give him 15, twice as much as it should have cost. Well, it seemed that was the final insult.
"No, no, no, no, NO, NO. NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!" he retorts, spit flying from his lips in anger.
Neither of us can understand a word the other is saying. He's probably telling me that he's driven us all over the city because we can't even tell him the correct name for the hotel we want to stay at and now after all his trouble we don't even want to pay him.
Meanwhile, I'm telling him that there is no way in a million years that I am going to pay him 34 yuan to take us to a hotel we should have been at ages ago when he knew exactly where we were going because he even said the name back to me when he read it from the guidebook. And he found it on the map. And I showed him the friggin' address.
The hotel security guard obviously understands though and comes over to save his potential customer from the taxi driver who's now grabbed hold of my bag and decided he's not going to let go until I pay him the outstanding 19 yuan. We prize his fingers from the bag and then the guard drags him off and back to his car. I dust myself off and we wander off inside to check-in.
The next morning we take the 4 hour bus journey across the border and into Hong Kong. We find a hotel in the budget section of our guidebook and head there. It's the Baden Powell International Hotel, owned by the Hong Kong Scout Association and so Lynn is keen to stay there. At HK$1,150 a night though (about 80 quid) it's far too much for our budget! How can this be classed as a cheap hotel in our guidebook? After a couple of phone-calls and enquiries we eventually end up at our current hotel in a building called 'Chungking Mansions'. It's a far more acceptable HK$200 a night and is about as cheap as you get in central Hong Kong.
We have a private bathroom, air-conditioning, TV and fridge in our room but don't let that fool you into thinking it's posh... Imagine a run-down council tenement block in the middle of a rough neighbourhood of inner-city London and you have an idea of what this place looks like. Dripping pipes, mildewed walls, graffiti everywhere, shady looking characters lurking in stairwells. The building itself seems to be on it's last legs and I think it's only the new buildings on either side that are actually holding this place up still!
So, that was Saturday 13th January when we arrived here in HK. It's now Wednesday 17th and we're due to leave on Saturday 20th and head north on the train to Shanghai. Earlier today we got our passports back from the Russian Embassy complete with our Russian visas so now the only visa we need to secure is our Mongolian one which we can get from Beijing.
We haven't done too much of interest since we got to Hong Kong though. The city is a real shopper's paradise so we've been already been and bought a load of warm clothes for the month ahead and yesterday we sent home a parcel containing shorts and mosquito nets and other things we won't be needing any longer.
We have taken the obligatory trip up to Victoria Peak to see the city by night and the view is just as incredible as the postcards would have you believe. Yesterday we went up to the Felix Bar (designed by Phillipe Starck for anyone who cares about such things!) on the top floor of Hong Kong's famous Peninsula Hotel for one of the most expensive drinks at one of the greatest bar-room views in the world. The best thing about this place though is not the view from the bar but the view from the bathroom. Of course, I can't comment on the 'Ladies' but in the 'Gents' the urinals are placed directly infront of the floor to ceiling window so when you go for a wee you are weeing over the city below. I can't believe there is a greater 'Urinal View' anywhere in the world!!! - [Thanks Andy and Claire who Lynn and I met in the Galapagos Islands for telling us about this bar and it's amazing toilets!]
Well, I think that's about it for now. It's a long email, I don't think there was ever any doubt that it wouldn't be, but I also think I can be justifiably proud that this 4-week episode is no longer than my typical 2-week one. I hope you enjoyed reading it!
Take care and see you soon - just a month to go now until we arrive home - gulp!
Toodle-pip for now!
Rich
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