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I'm back!

The flight home was uneventful and and I did lots of duty free shopping as you do. I can't sleep on planes so it was 24 hours of awake time before I crashed. I took a couple of days to reacclimatise but I'm thrilled I can now drink water from the tap and no long have to put toilet paper in the bin next to the toilet. And I can have a cup of tea whenever I want!

Statistics:

Flights - 9

Visas - 4

Overnight trains - 3

Sleeper buses - 1

Border crossings - 4

Times I got sick - 1

Currencies I still have floating around my bag - 5

Haircuts - 3

Photos taken - 1507

The number of photos worth looking at - 183

I hope you've enjoyed the blog - it was lots of fun to write.

A slide show with live commentary is available on request.

H.

Books read

The Children's Book - A S Byatt

A sprawling family saga with a bit too much historical detail (it felt like a history lesson at times as opposed to a novel) but enjoyable none the less.

PopCo - Scarlett Thomas

All I wrote in my journal about this one was "a good, easy read". Not sure if that's damning it with faint praise...

Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

The new one (and a new series) from one of my favourite authors. Doesn't quite reach the heights of his Thursday Next series but contains the usual Fforde wit and pop cultural references. I do look forward to the next in the series.

Smile When You're Lying - Confessions of a Rogue Travel Write - Chuck Thompson

A book about what the official guide books leave out. Thompson pours witty vitriol on the travel writing industry. Lots of fun and highly recommended.

Revolutionary Road - Richard Ford

A book group book. It felt a bit more like a play than a novel in tone. The characters felt a bit one dimensional and the dialogue like a script.

The Three Musketeers - Alexander Dumas

I was inspired to read this after reading The Dumas Club. Surprisingly engaging - a real page turner. The writing was a bit simplistic but that may have been the translation.

The Northern Clemency - Phillip Hensher

A doorstop of a book at 730 pages but it was so damn good I finished it in five days! The story of two families from Sheffield that follows them over 20 years - sounds simple but the writing is so carefully considered it was a joy to read.

The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry

An interesting novel about memory with two unreliable narrators. Not sure about the ending though.

So there you go - 15 books in 3 months - not bad going! My current read is Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel that I picked up at KL airport.

Hanoi Part 2

I arrived back in Hanoi in the late afternoon after a mini bus - boat - minibus - coach (and the nicest one I've been on in all of SEA) combination. Quite tedious. I shared a cab into the Old Quarter with some fellow travellers after escaping the mad rabble of drivers that descend on any bus arrival. I treated myself to a boutique hotel (Impressive Hotel - and it was - big TV, computer in the room etc.) and settled in for my last few days, not just in Hanoi but for the trip. To be honest it passed in a blur of shopping and sightseeing. I won't bore you with the shopping other than to say that it was exhausting. The weather was hot and humid making my already short fuse even shorter. On my one shopping free day I made and early start and walked to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. After 45 minutes of queuing and security checking I had my 30 second walk past the coffin. The preserved body of Ho Chi Minh is dramatically (I may even go so far as to say eerily) lit and is guarded by four soldiers in immaculate white uniforms. While grand in scale the interior feels like the foyer of an office building - but I suppose the veneration of a national icon is a business of sorts. From there I caught a cab to the Museum of Ethnology that the guidebook says is one of the best museums in the country. While the objects are interesting the whole thing could do with a lick of paint - its certainly showing its age. One of the more interesting parts is the "open air museum" where you can wander around examples of houses and tombs of some of the ethnic groups of Vietnam. The Ede long house was my favourite - the epitome of open plan living. From there I returned to the Old Quarter intending to buy tickets for the water puppet show that evening. After a half hour wait I discovered all the shows were sold out and I was lucky even to get one for the following day. The show once I saw it was very sweet and it is quite an amazing sight especially the Dance of the Fairies where 10 puppets are on the move at one time. Other than that I hung out at the backpacker bar at night and chatted to people. Several asked if I was sad to be going home. I wasn't - in fact I was quite looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong I've had an amazing trip as this blog will attest but to use a cliche - all good things must come to an end...

Heading to Halong the hard way

Most sensible people head to Halong Bay either on a tour or at least on a bus-boat-bus ticket from Hanoi. No, I had to be the gung ho independant traveller and head to Haiphong which even Lonely Planet for all its usual enthusiasm says lacks charm. And most people do it after a good nights sleep in a real bed rather than on sleeper train. But not me. I got into Hanoi station at 6am and killed a few hours before heading to the tiny station above the Old Quarter from which the 9.30 local hard seats only train to Haiphong leave. There was something quite nice about seeing early morning Hanoi and I found a cafe to park myself in for breakfast and general time wastage. At least I had a good book and coffee to keep me company. The train trip itself was fine and got into Haiphong just after midday. At first I thought it was a public holiday or something as the town was really quiet with many of the shops shut. And not many hotel options. But I think thats just Haiphong out of season. I could have caught the 12.30 ferry to Cat Ba - my ulitmate destination for exploring Halong - but I just needed a shower and food. A short-ish wander put me off wanting to explore more of the town so I settled in for a mindless night of telly. I did sort my travel for the next day and it was just as well. The 9am hydrofoil was not running so after phrase book and pen and paper negitioations I booked a boat for 8.15am. Once I looked more closely at the ticket and the map it all made sense but at the time it was this mysterious combination of a half hour ride out to a boat in the middle of an industrial zone, 20 minutes on a fast boat where the only available seats were little plastic stools on the deck and another half hour bus ride from another arse end of nowhere dock to Cat Ba Town. The town itself is very Surfers Paradise in the highrise hotels everywhere sense but the view of the karst formations in the distance it is as far from Surfers as its possible to be. I got touted straight off the bus and uncharacteristicly for me stayed at that hotel and booked a day tour through them. But the room was $10 a night with a million dollar view and I was too tired by this point of the trip to spend hours wandering around looking for another place. And as for the tour, they were all selling the same thing which became quite apparent the next day. I spent the afternoon exploring and watched the fishing boats stocking up with ice from the ice factory on the dock where the blocks appeared though a hatch in the wall and slid down a ramp to the boat. Cat Ba is a very small place so I met lots of fellow travellers that night in the various bars many of whom were on the same tour the next day. I say the same tour but we were all promised different things - caves, kyaking, Monkey Island - I think even snorkelling but if you've seen how dirty and murky the waters of Halong are you know how mad an offer that is. In the end it was a very plesant day. The islands and rock formations are stunning and quite atmospheric in the overcast conditions. The caves were cool, the monkeys aggressive and the kyaking - well, I opted out of that one. The company was great and we all caught up later for beer and Jenga (yes, the tower of bricks game) at the pub. I've got to say playing Jenga with seven people is lots of fun! The next day I headed back to Hanoi on the more sensible bus-boat-bus ticket which contained the nicest bus I've been on in 3 months of travelling. Go figure. So now its Hanoi - sights and shopping - and then home.

Touching the clouds in Sapa

The easiest well, only way to get to Sapa is on the night train. I tried to find alternatives but thats pretty much it if you don't want to be on the slow bus or the hard seat of the train for 9 - 12 hours. I paid a bit more and got a berth on one of the privately owned posh carriges that attached to the 9.15pm service. I do recommend it - it was quite comfortable and I slept the whole way. The worst bit is the rude awakening at 5am when the train pulls in to Lao Cai, the closest stop to Sapa. An hour up a twisty, turny mountain road and I arrived. It was so cloudy that you couldn't see any of the surrounding mountains - it felt like being on an island of land in the middle of the clouds. Beautiful and a bit eerie. I stayed in the most lovely room above the Bauguette and Chocolate restaurant. My room was called Croissant and the placed smelled of freshly baked pastries. Heaven. The town itself pretty much exists to feed tourism - treks to local villages is the main reason people visit and women in traditional costume follow you up and down the main street urging you to buy the local handicrafts. It can be a bit daunting even after experiencing the overzealous sales techniques on display in the rest of Vietnam. (You, you, you - come into my shop!) But they are quite sweet and leave you alone after a few polite refusals. The next day the weather had cleared a bit an I got to see some of the views that Sapa is famous for with the terraced rice paddies and generally lovely mountiains. I must admit the charms of Sapa wore off pretty quickly and I cut my visit short. I think that is mostly due to how little time I have left rather than the town itself. So I headed back to Hanoi with the intention of heading straight to Halong Bay.

Hanoi - Part 1

I took the easy option and flew from Luang Prabang to Hanoi in order to avoid the 24 hour bus ride from hell. There's a limit to how long I can sit on a bus and its much less than 24 hours let me tell you. Hanoi airport is 35kms from the city necessating a long and expensive cab ride - just like Tullamarine really. Except the taxi from Tulla doesn't drop you in the middle of one of the maddest cities I've ever been in. You have to be on your guard at all times to avoid being mown down by a moto or crushed by a cyclo. I stayed in an OK hotel near the cathedral and drank at the Hanoi Backpackers meeting all sorts of fellow travellers. One lot tried to talk me into their package tour to Sapa but I've for the most part avoided packages and I figured why start now? For the two days I had in Hanoi before going to Sapa I pretty much walked around the whole time. On my circumnaviation of Hoan Kiem lake I saw that a crowd had gathered at one end. A dead body? (Yep, I went straight for the car crash option) But no - one of the legendary tortoises of the lake had surfaced which brings good luck to anyone who sees it. So yay - a lucky tortoise and not something more sinister. More wandering took me to the Temple of Literature which is lovely and the Fine Arts Museum which is empty of visitors but has some interesting things to look at like the 18th century life size representations of religious figures (I think - the lables weren't very forthcoming in detail). I think the most surprising thing I saw was the Cinematique - a members only cinema that was showing a Pedro Almodovar retrospective.

Luang Prabang - perfection

The VIP bus (which was pushing it as a description of the quality and comfort of the ride) rolled into Luang Prabang an hour earlier than I expected. Positive. But we were droped 4kms out of town. Negative. Found my prebooked guesthouse and settled in. Result.
It was love at first sight. A beautiful place on the river with wats, bars, cafes, bookshops and lots of lovely things to buy. What more could a girl ask for? My visit started off nicely with dinner and a few bottles of French red wine with a lovely Frenchman I met at my guesthouse. He was a chef and I waxed lyrical about the cooking courses I'd done. The next day I caught up with an American woman I'd met a Jungle Beach. She'd been in LP for 10 days and showed me around. We went to UXO Laos which had an informative and well designed display about the unexploded bombs from the American War that are still killing and maiming today. Scarey statistics - they estimate that at the current rate it will take 100 years to find and defuse them all. We ate amazing street food and chilled at a bar on the bank of the river and made plans to meet at 6.30am the next morning to watch the monks talking alms followed by a trip to the Kuang Si waterfalls. LP is famous for the sight of large groups of monks taking offerings of food as is the daily ritual in Laos. I'd seen it on a small scale elsewhere in Laos but with the concentration of monestries and the number of monks in LP its an amazing sight. As well as being a bit of a tourist circus. Without the elephants. I sampled the local version of pho in the morning market. They add a sort of spicy pork bolognaise which makes it extra delicious. The Kuang Si falls are a must do even in the dry season. You ascend past small falls and pools with water the most beautiful shade of blue. But it gets better - the major fall towers above leaving you open mouthed in wonder. We slogged our way up and over ruining my already pretty wrecked shoes in the process. We drank Beer Lao and ate enormous sandwiches we'd bought in the market that morning. Then it was back to town for beer and lao lao and fond farewells to her and another friend I'd made in Vang Vieng as both of them were leaving the next day. Which for me was cooking class number three and the best yet. It was just me and a guy from Colorado and it started with a visit to the market a couple of kilometers outside town. There was the usual assortment of produce including the local version of fish sauce. If you think the Thai stuff is pungent you should smell this stuff, its unrefined and still has the fish in it. Like many things in SEA it tastes better than it smells. It was a very hands on course as we replicated dishes once they had been demonstrated by the instructors. Its the food I'm most inspired to go home and cook - so much so that I'm currently lugging around a clay and wood motar and pestle set that only cost me a few dollars. You've got to try the local version of mayonaise which is more like an egg paste. Brilliant on salad. Exhausted and stuffed to the gills I had an extremely early night digesting mentally and physically. The next day was shopping day as I've hit the accumulation phase of the trip. Don't ask how many scarves I've bought. Sadly it was time to leave. I could have easily stayed for many more days but Hanoi and northern Vietnam (and home) beckons.

What do I say about Vang Vieng?

Hedonists paradise? Lovely countryside? Well, its both. I stayed in my cheapest accommodation yet which cost the equivelant of $5. It was a little monastic, lets put it that way. I parked myself at the Aussie Bar (highbrow as I am accused of being I could not resist the lure of really cold beer) and as 6pm rolled around watched the walking wounded returning from tubing. Half naked and covered in their identifying marks (to identify you if you drown or drink so much lao lao you can't remember your name) they poured into the bars showing episodes of Friends and Family Guy in an endless loop. I can't say I didn't indulge in the TV fest - when in Rome right? So the day after the night before I decided to check out the caves and karst mountains that Vang Vieng is otherwise known for. Armed with a map I headed out for a walk on the other side of the river. Unfortunatly its burning season in northern Laos at the moment where the farmers are preparing their fields. The smoke reduces visability to nearly nothing. Regardless I spent a couple of hours walking the fields and seeing the caves with a single serving friend I met along the way. Without them I couldn't have been nearly so intrepid or seen half of what I did. I feel like I should have spent more time doing the place some sort of justice but with the smoke and the hangover I just needed to move on.

Back on Laos time

Like a flight I'd taken in India, my flight to Vientiene had the flavour of a local bus as we stopped in Phnom Penh before continuing on to Vientene. It was odd transiting in Cambodia seeing all the shops and souvenirs I had left behind the previous month. But another short flight and DIY mystery meat rolls as the inflight meal, we landed. I shared a stupidly expensive taxi from the airport with a random fellow passenger. Checking into a somewhat malodorous room I hit the streets. Its very different from the south with lots more bars and westernish restaurants. Vientiene is famous for its sunset bars next to the Mekong which they are currently mining for sand apparently. What a mess - if I want sand in my beer I'll go to the beach. I easily knocked over the sights in my 2 days there. I saw a couple of wat/museums. At one of them I bought an informative booklet describing what the different positions of the budda statues mean - really I want to know these things! I saw and climbed their equivelant of the Arch de Triomphe which according to the sign is less impressive close up. I can't disagree, it is an ugly conctrete monolith. I then hiked to the big gold stupa which is right next to the 1960's concrete National Assembly building (do you see a theme emerging here?). I must admit I did spend on afternoon in my hotel (I found and moved to a much nicer one on day 2) reading a book in the AC. So finished with Vientiene it was on the bus and off to Vang Vieng to see if the rumours are true.

A break in the weather in Dalat

Travelling solo once more with time ticking away I decided to skip the Mekong Delta and head to the hills. I wish I'd had time for both but alas this was not to be. Jumping on the early bus it was just me and the locals for the 6 1/2 hour drive. The bus pulled in at a local station and I spent a bit of time hiking up hills with my pack to search out a place. After finding a few full I found one that was completely empty as a tour group had left that day. I thought Dalat was going to be more chilled after the madness of HCMC but how wrong was I? The never ending drone of motos - hundreds of motos. Traffic aside Dalat is a pretty quiet place tourist wise - well us westerners, its huge with the locals. But the best thing about Dalat is the weather - deliciously cool compared to stifling heat of HCMC. I could walk all day and not be bathed in sweat. And walk I did. 7 kms around the currently drained lake taking detours to interesting looking buildings. I checked out the small train station that these days only does a tourist train to a small town down the line. But what a journey. Dalat grows much of Vietnam's fruit and veg and the train rattled past hundreds of greenhouses. Artichokes are a big crop and the tea they make from it is ... interesting. At the end of the line is a crazy temple completely covered in mosiac. There was also a 3 story high deity covered in marigold flowers obviously left over from Tet. My other favourite place in Dalat was Crazy House, the pet project of a woman who studied architecture in Russia and is the daughter of a high up party official. As the name suggests its crazy - like the bastard child of Antonio Gaudi and Salvador Dali writ in concrete. Its also a hotel and a couple I met had stayed there and said it was the freakiest experience. The mirrors above the beds were slighty disconcerting! But before too long (and a night on the not entirely undrinkable Dalat red wine) it was time to head back to the big smoke for my flight to Laos.

Travellers tips 2

Things I've found invaluable:

• Sarong. You see this on most "what to pack" lists but they are truely useful especially when you don't trust the sheets in your $6 a night room.

• Travel pillow. I picked this up in Cambodia. Its a real, not inflatable number thats about 30 x 20 cm. Brilliant for long, back breaking bus trips, on the beach and in the hammock.

• Compression sack. One of those things you use to make sleeping bags smaller - I use it for my clothes reducing their volume by a third leaving more room in the pack for books!

• Fold away backpack. This packs down really small and very useful in avoiding all the plastic bags you routinely get offered in SEA.

• Zip lock bags and stuff sacks. Invaluable for the obsessive packer.

Island Life

We spent a few days in a not yet back to pre Tet insanity HCMC. We saw a few of the sights my favourite of which was the Reunification Palace - a time capsule of 1960's architecture and interior design. Seriously one of my favourite sights of the trip! I also had hair cut number 2 which cost me $2 which was going OK until the styling where I ended up with a head full of gel - yes, you read that right, blue, stinky, flashbacks to the 80's gel. Oh the humanity! But then it was time to get tropical and head to Phu Quoc. I found it to be an odd place. Yes bits of it are picture postcard perfect with amazing vistas of sand, sea and sky (and beautiful sunsets). On the other hand to get to any restaurants its either a hard slog up the beach or up the main road which is currently being regraded leaving it a dusty, rocky pain in the arse. I did fit in a large amount of beach and reading time. I was most please to read the new Jasper Fforde which my friend had bought over for me bless his cotton socks. We also did a boat tour with snorkling around the southern islands which was very nice. It was all going well there was an accident in the engine room and the captain was extremely badly burnt. Luckily the accident happen within sight of the harbour and he was evacuated quickly. I hope he survived but we'll never know. Sorry to end the blog on a downer but reality can sometimes hit in a shocking way - being a traveller doesn't make you immune to it.

A second new year

I arrived in Hoi An the day before my friend. I'd taken an overnight sleeper bus - something I didn't expect to do but the trains were all booked out for Tet. I'd heard horror stories about the sleeper buses but it wasn't too bad. I slept most of the way mainly because being short I could stretch out flat. Yay for shortness! Hoi An is an interesting place. The old centre is UNESCO listed and feels a bit like a movie set albeit one full of tailor and souvenir shops. The market is fabulous and the perfect place to buy limes to go with the bottle of gin my friend bought with him! The next 5 days were packed full of eating, drinking and cooking classes. Hoi An has some fabulous restaurants. We had an amazing 3 course meal at a relatively swanky place and it only cost $20! Culinary highlights included squid stuffed with pork, dumplings filled with banana and cinnamon and served with coconut ice cream, pomelo salad and beef in betel leaves. Thats on top of a day long cooking course where we learnt to make pho from scratch. There were lots of processes including making rice noodles. It was very rewarding to eat a version of the national dish that you've cooked yourself! We did a day trip to the Cham ruins at My Son. They were badly bombed in the war so all that remains are a third of the structures that originally existed. It was also the first time I'd taken a package type tour which are fine until (surprise!) you end up at some souvenir grotto. New Years Eve mark II was fun -there were fireworks and the whole town was lit up with coloured lanterns. The streets were teeming with people and motos but lacking the public drunkeness of our new years. We decided to skip out of Hoi An a day early and head to Hue to see the citadel. The imperial palace is very cool but we only had time to see a small part of the town within the citadel walls. Having another day woulds have been great to hire a bike and have a look around but we needed to keep moving onto HCMC and Phu Quoc. We travelled from Hue to Danang by train then a plane - we did many types of transport that day! This particular train trip was on my list of things I wanted to do and even the stinky, post Tet train couldn't over shadow the beauty of the coastline and the Hai Van Pass - the train actually climbs the mountain and has the most amazing views.