Wine time in Hoi An

An uneventful flight on a really old Vietnam Airlines plane took me from Hanoi to Danang and my prearranged car took me to my booked guesthouse in Hoi An. On this trip I'm starting to shed my compulsion to do things the hard way. Sure its not 5 star and private drivers, I don't want to insulate myself too much, but its good for the equalibrium! My homestay, a guesthouse that Mrs Nhung and her extended family run and live in on An Hoi islet was lovely. And the location was perfect, 5 minutes on foot to the Old Town and around the corner from the late night backpacker bars that have multiplied since my last visit. Old Town is still like being in a movie set though all the shops selling the same same tourist tat is a bit depressing. But lovely restaurants, cafes and the occasional unique shop are still there too thankfully. My favourite is Reaching Out which employes people with disabilities who make the most exquisite jewelry and homewares. They also run a gorgeous tea shop staffed by deaf women.

 

My four days passed with many coffees, book in hand. And a run of shopping on my last day. But the highlight was a street food tour I did. Phuoc, who also runs cooking classes (which are run by every second restaurant in Hoi An it seems) to diversify runs Coconut Tours. For 3 1/2 hours Phuoc lead me through the backstreets of Hoi An tasting the most amazing dishes, introducing me to the vendors and their specialities. There were honestly too many to list without boring you dear reader but suffice to say I ticked many of my 'want to try' boxes while some dishes were completely new to me. Highlights were duck congee with blood pudding and then river snails, which I failed dismally to suck from their shells much to the amusement of the school kids around me. Apparently its a popular after school snack. Certainly more exotic than the cereal and 2 minute noodles of my childhood! Phuoc tried to talk me into trying duck embryo but I demurred. I had to laugh when he admitted he doesn't like them either! Honestly, if you find yourself in Hoi An, do this tour.

Duck congee

The snails are on the left covered in chili and spring onion. The red things in the foreground are dried beef wrapped in rice paper then grilled.

 

The heat of the first week of the trip dissipated into rain about which I'm not sad - it really cools things down. So all activites took place between showers. I did get on a bike and headed to the beach but the weather is such the waves are fierce and the beach damp and closed to swimming. But the view is interesting, the sea and the sky are the same colour and they blend so it's hard to make out the horizon. (Not necessarily in this picture but on the bus ride from Hoi An to Hue I experienced it :-)

 

Other than that, the discovery of a wine bar selling dry French Rose was the height of excitement for me in Hoi An! And it was nice to escape the insanity of Hanoi. Next stop Hue.

 

 

Hanging in Hanoi

I arrived in Hanoi after an uneventful series of flights from home on Air Asia, purveyor of cheap flights to my favourite places. Its the first time I'd flown them and to be honest they're just like Jetstar, although slightly not as good. But cheap is cheap and if that means a few more coffees with condensed milk so be it. Another new experience, an overnight stay at an airport. As Douglas Adams once wrote "it can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has produced the expression 'as pretty as an airport'". But what, I hear you cry, about Changi, Singapore, Dubai? Its true, klia2 is shiny, and full of shops and places to sit. But at the end of the day like any other airport, it's full of exhausted people in limbo between where they've been and where they're going, unattracted by the jumbo bags of Hersheys chocolates and shiny rows of perfume. Even duty free is a tease as invariably the bar its shut being 2 in the morning or there isn't one this side of immigration anyway. And as for my no frills Tune Hotel? Let's put it this way - how hard is it to provide a toothbrush (which even my hotel in Hanoi for which I'm paying much less can manage) and walls that aren't paper thin? Mike drop - airport rant over.

Home sweet home - for a night

So to Hanoi. And the most complained about part - getting from the airport. Its is no exaggeration that everyone is trying to rip you off and there is no set or even roughly agreed on price. So I did the only sensible thing i could - attached myself to a couple from Queensland who'd booked their transfer and rode into the Old Quarter with them! The kindness of strangers. And me taking advantage. In the end I had booked a hotel if only to give the tour i was going on the next day somewhere to pick me up. I'm in a nice room 3 floors above the street noise with AC and cable TV for $27 a night. I stayed in this area, near the cathedral last time i was here and not much as changed. Though the dodgy hotel i stayed in last time has gone, replaced by a boutique one. It is much quieter than in the northern part of the old town above the lake. As I promised there has been a fair amount of time spent sitting, reading and drinking coffee with condensed milk. On my second day I did a street food tour I read about on Travelfish. Its was fantastic. Tu the lovely guide had us try many delicious things, none of which I'd had before either. There was crab noodle soup, a dry version of pho called pho tiu, fried sweet potato and prawn cakes, young green glutenous rice sweets and egg coffee. But the highlight for me was getting to try chicken cooked with medical herbs in a beer can. I'd read about it before and Luke Nguyen covered it in his show. And here it is:

Tastes like chicken

Its does taste ok - the chicken is moist. It's stuffed with bitter greens and then dipped in chilli, lime and salt. Its really needs to be. But honestly its not something i'd be compelled to eat again! Tu has also emailed with more suggestions for eating in Hanoi as well as the other cities I'll be going to.

I have professed a love for Hanoi many times but i've got to say it does wear you down. And the main reason is the traffic. Its beyond the madness I remember from last time, careering into insanity. I have spent a lot of time finding rooftops and cafes trying to escape. I'm still good at crossing the road but I've been surprised on the so called footpath once or twice. Sometimes Hanoi feels like a giant motor scooter park with a hint of road and footpath! But to what I've been doing. I spent an interesting morning doing a self guided tour of 1930's architecture in the French Quarter I found online. It took me to a part of town into which I don't think many tourists venture into judging by the curious looks i got.

I visited the Women's Museum which was facinating. I don't know of many museums of its kind and it was a really well put together insight into the life of women in Vietnam. The most interesting sections were on women's contributions to the French and American wars and a small display and film about street vendors. These are the women you see selling baskets of goods on bikes and poles. Most of them are from the country trying to make enough money for their families. One woman's husband only earns $60 a year so she works in Hanoi to keep them from starving. And here I was having spent $60 on a ring the day before. Tourists drop more money on a single meal than these women earn in a week.

One of my other favourite places has been the Citadel. When I was last here it was still a functioning military area but recently it has been awarded World Heritage status due to its archaeology that dates back to before the founding of Hanoi. It was mostly razed to the ground by the French but a few gates survive as well as some French era buildings which now house objects from the digs. And in the early morning it's a quiet, cool place to wander. One whole section is still an active dig covered by massive roofs. But I think my favourite part was the 1960's period military command bunker.

No fighting in the war room!

I tried and failed to find B52 lake, the remenants of a downed bomber in the alleys near the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. It wasn't a total loss, it was facinating wandering the alleys seeing people go about their lives. And I stocked up on books having finished my first two in a matter of days. I've wandered and looked in wonder, eaten lots of yummy things and am trying to limit myself to two coffees a day! I'm off to Hoi An next to do more wandering, reading, eating and drinking. Until next time.

 

 

Hippies, temples and dodgy DVDs

So, Pai. So many fellow travellers told me 'you have to go to Pai, it amaaaazing!'. This is all one needs to know about Pai:

 

Yes, the hippies have taken over with their dreds and baggy pants and macrame lessons. Though you can get a breakfast that rivals anything in Fitzroy for $5 and there is a night market with lots of street food. It didn't help that my first night was spent at a guesthouse that comes highly recommended both word of mouth and on the interwebs but in reality its an overpriced dump. Literally - there were piles of leftover building materials and junk all over the place. It was also a little bit out of the main centre so the next day I moved to something nicer. But I didn't feel to much happier so I moved on back to Chiang Mai to get a connecting bus to Sukhothai. This I was able to do in one day and included a bus trip that came complete with on board snacks and a stop for a proper meal in the price of the ticket. I really enjoyed my time in Sukhothai. Its a relatively small place with a few decent guest houses and of course the famous ruins. My visit to them started well. Catch to local bus to the old town, hire a bike and pay the entry fee. The central section was smaller than I expected and very pleasant though the ruins were't oh my god (or should that be Buddha?) amazing.

 

The day took a slighly bad turn when I tried to ride to some of the outlying temples and found myself on a major road which was bad enough being as I was on a single speed (pink!) bike with no helmet. And after getting stung on the nose by a bee (or possibly wasp - hard to tell as I didn't see it coming) and running over a dead snake while riding I wasn't in the best of moods. But after getting back to civilisation and having something to eat I felt better. Speaking of eating, the other highlight of Sukhothai was the week long night market celebrating food that was taking place a short walk from my guesthouse. I tried all sort of things including durian and fried crickets which were on my 'food challenge' list. I'd also knowingly eaten soup with congealed blood, century egg and offal soup earlier in the trip. On the 'just plain delicious' list were a parcel of steamed rice noodle and greens in soup with pork, things on sticks and ... coconut icecream served in the shell with shavings of coconut flesh and peanuts.

 

 

But Sukhothai only needs a couple of days so I headed to Ayuthaya to have a bit of a chill out before diving back into the craziness of Bangkok. I was fortunate to find a lovely guest house (Baan Lotus) run by a lovely old lady who was so nice and accommodating to all her guests that many people including me stayed for longer than intended. I was feeling pretty low and suffering from so many mosqito bites it was ridiculous but I turned it around and got out and saw the temples for which Ayuthaya is rightly famous. More complete than those at Sukhothai and more of them too. I had a lovely time riding about (on a red one speed bike this time) and taking a tour orgainsed by the guest house that involved 8 farang crushed into a tuk tuk for three hours but it was quite fun!

 

But I was ready to come home. I still had a few days in Bangkok so the right hotel was crucial to my equilibrium. I went back to Silom, the area I'd stayed the first time a got a palatial (to me anyway) room in a hostel. So I got the best of both worlds, somewhere to retreat yet still be social. And best of all was the TV and DVD player in my room so there was at least an option if one had perhaps bought some dodgy DVDs from MKB... But mostly Bangkok was a series of malls and markets including a large amount of time spent in Kinokuniya, my favourite bookseller in the world (sorry Readings!) browsing and buying. But I did enjoy my trip, I loved returning to Laos and going to places I'd not seen on the previous visit and exploring Thailand about which I am undecided which is all part of the fun of travel.

And for the record - books read:

Night and Day - Virginia Woolf

The Windup Girl - Paolo Bacigalupi

The Tiger's Wife - Tea Obrect

Pattern Recognition - William Gibson

The Lotus Eaters - Tatjana Soli

Dune - Frank Herbert

Divided Kingdom - Rupert Thompson

And for the plane home? Shada - the novelisation of the partially filmed but never shown Doctor Who script by Douglas Adams. This shall be lent interested Whovians once I've finished it :-)

Until the next odyssey.

H

 

Thai time

The crossing from Huay Xai to Nong Kiaw was odd to say the least. After wandering down the side street to Laos immigration I got stamped out and caught a small boat across the Mekong to the Thai side. On the Thai side immigration wasn't immediately apparent but once I got past a couple of food stalls I found it and checked through. Got a tuk tuk to the bus station but all I could see was a market. And one beat up old bus. Of course that was my ride! So a couple of hours later I arrived in Chiang Rai and treated myself to a $20 a night hotel. I was mainly there to see the White Temple so early the next morning. Its incredible and even weirder than the pictures would suggest.

 

What I didn't realise is that its actually a working temple. Just a very monochromatic one. Most interesting is the mural in the main hall opposite the image of the Buddha. Its a hell scene (I think) but dotted with images from Western pop culture - Neo, Freddy Kreuger, Doremon and an image of the Twin Towers on September 11. A comment on Western decadence? The artist who is building it is certainly prolific and the whole complex is a work in progress expected to be completed in 2019. And don't take any notice of the tuk tuk drivers that want to charge you 300B return, catch an outgoing local bus for 20B each way! And you get to sit next to an old hill tribe woman whose mobile phone kept ringing. I visited the Hilltribe Museum and learnt that opium was big in Vang Vieng in the early 90's (no surprise there) and the famed 'Long Neck Tribe' - the women with bracelets on their necks - are not indigenous but an import from Burma who exist purely as a tourist attraction. Which makes seeing all the tours that have 'See the Long Neck Women' that much more depressing. The human zoo indeed. An now a random image - I call it 'What the World Has Been Missing - a Death Star Flower Planter'.

 

So now it was time for Chiang Mai and my long awaited cooking class. I wasn't having a great time initally until I changed guesthouses two days in and had a huge night out with a bunch of people I'd just met (as you do when you're travelling). First was some fabulous food and then a reggae bar. The first band up was a bunch of local guys who rocked! So talented. And the lead singer had a fantastic moustache, think Salvador Dali. But better yet was the next bunch of local guys, a ska band complete with horn section blasting out covers of The Specials and who also did an cover of Hotel California unlike any I've heard before - the chorus was instrumental ans played at triple speed. SO MUCH FUN! And then my cooking class. Absolutely worth staying the extra couple of days. Pon, our teacher though a bit touchy feely was ultimately a good teacher. After a market visit to buy ingredients (where I tried a tiny bit of a century egg, the ones that have been preserved in salt until they go black - it tasted like a boiled egg with extra sulfur) we headed to the school. We each got our own cooking station and after a demonstration of each dish cooked it for ourselves. Noodles in sweet sauce, yellow chicken curry, chicken and cashew, fish in banana leaves, prawn salad and banana in coconut milk. Hungry yet? :-) So delicious and so filling. I was in a food coma for the rest of the day. Now I know I'm notorius for not cooking anything I've learnt but I really will cook at least the noodles and the curry as we were taught in single servings which will be really easy to replicate at home, though it might take a bit longer on electric! So full and happy I'm off to my next destination Pai.

When in Rome...

I take my cooking very seriously. Or I'm just making sure I don't cut my finger off with that huge cleaver!

 

I cooked all of this!

 

 

 

 

A few slow days but mostly travelling

After Ponsavan I returned to Luang Prabang for two reasons. Firstly for provisions - money mainly as there were to be no ATMs in Muang Ngoi Neua and it was rumoured only a few hours of electricity a day so charging the tech was also a must. Secondly the trip from Ponsavan to Nong Khiaw (where the boat to Muang Ngoi Neua leaves from) going east then west was a bit of an unknown in terms of bus connections. Besides any extra time spent chilling at Utopia is a bonus! So with that sorted it was off on another overpacked mini bus. Disaster almost struck when my travel companion left her phone back at the hotel but she was able to retrieve it before the bus left. We arrived in Nong

Khiew and headed for the boat landing. After a short wait the assortment of travellers heading up river were crammed onto a skinny long boat for the hour long trip. Slightly concerned at the guy at the back of the boat bailing out water and the hard time we had fighting against the current we arrived a bit damp but without incident. From the water the first view of Muang Ngoi Neua is a row of riverside bungalows with hammocks lining the shore. I must admit the choice of bungalow came down to which had the most comfortable hammocks as I planned to spend a bit of time in one.

 

The town itself centres on a short road with views of towering cast mountains which surround the town in all directions. A walk the following day would reveal a landscape as beautiful as Vang Vieng.

 

Bedtime was pretty much by 10.30 as the townspeople are farmers and fishermen and its only fair to respect this. But the town very recently acquired 24 hour power. I got talking to a couple of French guys who are doing a documentary about how these changes and the increasing influx of tourists is affecting the town. In one of those serindipitious occurances the next day was market day where people from surrounding villages come to buy and sell. Clothes, shoes, farming and fishing implements, nails and happily for me lovely noodle soup were on offer. Most facinating was sitting overlooking the boat landing watching a family butchering and selling a cow.

 

I'd planned to spend longer (and get through more of my book - Pattern Recognition by William Gibson if you were wondering) but to be honest I was being savaged by mosquitos (the bane of my existance on this trip) so I moved on quicker than I'd planned. Which lead to one of my more epic days of travelling. My plan was to at least get to Udomxai on my way to the Thai border at Huay Xai. Luckily there were a few more people heading in that direction as I would not otherwise have got out of Nong Khiew that day. Onwards travel was at the mercy of local mini bus operator who would not leave without a minimum of passengers (fair enough, petrol and mini buses aren't cheap). So paying double the advertised price we left for Udomxai picking up passengers along the way. Once in Udomxai (it was 3pm at this point) the rest of the group were continuing to Luang Namtha. So I figured, safety in numbers and headed with them on the local maxi bus. Rolled into Lunag Namtha around 7 and found a guest house to overnight in. One more hop the next day (on another packed local bus) brought me to Huay Xai and the border. Huay Xai is like any other border town, well mostly. On my 'post guest house acquired' wander I headed down a side street to the river only to realise it was actually the border checkpoint - not that the guys in uniform seemed fussed or challenged me. At least I knew the drill for the next day. After being stamped out of Laos (Goodbye Laos, I'll miss you) I was the lone occupant on a narrow boat for the short river crossing to the Thai side and the last two weeks of this particular SEA adventure.

 

Luang Prabang and a side trip

The road from Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang winds around hairpin bends for almost all of its 5 hour journey. Now, I'm fine with minibuses for shorter trips but for anythings over 3 hours I prefer a big bus. But sometimes the best laid plans... find you in a maxi bus (bigger than a mini bus, smaller than a coach) rattling your way up and down mountains feeling every bump and pothole. All because "the big bus is broken" but hey, same same, this is South East Asia after all! So arrive at the bus station, touts, tuk tuk. Find a guesthouse. Go to Utopia and have a beer by the river.

 

I love Luang Prabang as much as last time I was here. Its so chilled, so easy. With great food. My morning soup from the lovely lady in the morning market. A new food discovery - "yellow pancake" an omlette stuffed with greens and pork with a peanut sauce from a tiny roadside stall - its only offering. And my beloved Lao coffee with condensed milk almost everywhere.

 

I really haven't seen many sights. I've just been content to wander. Until a chance meeting found me with a travel companion and a plan to see Ponsavan and the Plain of Jars and Muang Ngoi Neua. So I've just come back from a 3 day round trip to Ponsavan. It pretty much takes a whole day to get there on the afore mentioned windy roads and a day of touring the sites. Ponsavan is known mainly for two things. The Plain of Jars and being the most bombed area of Laos during the Secret War 1964 - 73. The Plain of Jars are a series of megolithic sites scattered across the Ponsavan area.

 

No one is 100% sure what they were for. The locals believed they were where the gods made their rice wiskey. Archaeologists think they they are probably graves or grave markers (though the bodies were cremated). Either way they are one of those curiousities that are quite a sight. These things are up to 2 meters tall and carved out of granite in quarries at least a kilometer from their final resting place. And up on hills no less (apparently the dead like a view). But many were destroyed during America's secret bombing campaign that saw a bomb dropped every 8 minutes for 5 years due to its proximity to the Ho Chi Minh trail and the situation that had been created by the CIA of arming the Lao army against the communist Pathet Lao even though officially Laos was a neutral country during the Vietnam War. Thousands of innocent people died and plunged the region into poverty, a situation that still exists. Not to mention the scores of people a year who die or are maimed by unexploded ordinance. Things are improving on this front as more areas are being cleared but it is slow, painstaking and dangerous work.

Next stop Muang Ngoi Neua.

 

Laos - changing places and changing my mind

Leaving Nong Khai I hitched a ride to the border with a group of Australians I'd met at Mut Mee Guesthouse who were also heading to Vientiene. Thanks to their their kindness my border crossing was painless. It was interesting coming into the town - I don't often revisit places so the thrill of recognition was new. Vientiene hasn't changed too much though there is now a 7 story Chinese hotel on the riverfront, the Fox and Hounds English pub is now a tapas place and the riverfront itself is a paved walkway and road - not the sandpit it was last time. But Vientiene still feels a bit seedy, I think it being Thai visa run town contributes to this as well as the (admittedly low key) girlie bars. That said I still love Patuxai, the vertical runway.

 

I really didn't want to spend 3 days there, especially paying $30 a night for a hotel room, but I was doing my usual boots and braces approach to travel and applied for a longer Thai tourist visa as you only get 15 days when using a land border crossing. Two half days at the Thai embassy waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn and what's the bet I don't end up using it? So, happy to be leaving I got the 9am mini bus out of town and on to Vang Vieng.

 

Re-reading my entry from 2010 my reaction was one of dislike and dissappointment. Crazy party town, hangover, couldn't see the landscape through the smoke haze etc. What a difference a few years makes! For those of you who don't know, from the late 90's Vang Vieng was famous for the ease with which backpackers could get themselves drunk, drugged, laid and spend their days floating down a river in an old innertube. But then lots of people started dying. So late last year the government put its foot down and stopped the tubing, pulling down all the bars (21 of them), slides and ziplines that covered the banks of the river. Tourism dropped by 50%. And today the town is a shadow of its former self. The party island is overgrown with weeds, the Aussie Bar and Kangaroo Sunset are no longer where they were and have amagalmated into one bar a few doors down from the Irish pub. Even the Organic Farm Cafe that I stayed above last time is empty and up for rent.

 

There are still 3 Nazims (most Indian restaurants in Laos are called Nazims) and its still 4000 kip to cross the bridge to the other side of the river. Which is where I stayed, this time in a little place called Maylyn run by Joe, a lovely Irish curmudgeon with a dry sense of humour (I think you can be a curmudgeon and lovely at the same time!). It was practically empty the day I arrived so I had the pick of the place which is bungalow 15, one of the older bungalows and very minimalist but with a breathtaking view.

 

I say breathtaking but really there aren't enough superlatives to describe it. Nor will photos do it justice. This is the real reason to come to Vang Vieng - the incredible karst mountains, the emerald green rice fields and the caves and swimming holes that dot the landscape. I just couldn't leave that view so I stayed 4 nights in the end. I also extended as a couple of days in I was sitting at breakfast and heard my name called - it was an ex MV colleague who now lives part time in Thailand! So we spent a couple of days hanging out and chatting which was lovely. And as though it knew I was leaving Vang Vieng had one more surprise for me on the morning of my departure - a low flying hot air balloon drifting past my bungalow! So now converted to the charms of Vang Vieng (though the town centre is still not pretty) it was time to move on to my favourite place in South East Asia - Luang Prabang.