A Blast of Wind in your Ear

Arrival in Nha Trang was probably the best thing ever to happen to us..10 hours or so in a cramped space was horrible and being stuck so close to the lads made me feel claustrophobic…personal space is definitely one thing I have learned to appreciate since arriving in Asia..the Russian and Chinese don’t think twice about standing so close to you that you are physically touching them… Anyways we had decided to hit Nha Trang due to the New Year festival of Tét (pronounced tit so you can imagine that we had fun with that one), which meant that everywhere was closed and as its considered a time for families to be together, it can be nigh on impossible to get a bus or a train ticket anywhere.. we were decidedly suspicious on arrival as some aussie lads we had met that were there before hated the place. One of them got mugged and the weather was overcast and they just were unable to feel the love for the place..thankfully our experience was completely different.

As I mentioned due to the new year celebrations there was not a lot to do but go to the beach and socialize..we found a little restaurant from which we based ourselves…the group now had by grown pretty large… Team Ireland (John, Jonny and I), Team North America (Jaime, Jamie and Jess), Team South West UK (Dan), Team Italia ( Gea and Marta), Team Norway (Inga and Pia) and Team Central Europe (Bai Da and Seline) not forgetting team Oz (Turtle)..so as you can imagine we were safe as houses from any dodgy elements….John did have a close call but being a big tall angry Irishman can be quite scary to even the most hardened Vietnamese wannabe mugger. We spent most of the first day relaxing and taking it easy…I can’t stress enough how tiring the bus journey was..especially when one of the Chinese girls beside us thought that hacking up her lungs every 20 minutes and then spitting into a bag was enough to wake you from any depths of slumber…we also discovered the best drunk food ever…an lady that goes by the name Mama Tae sets up a stall with little plastic tables on the side of the street from midnight to 6am. She then serves up on a sizzling platter pieces of steak and a fried egg and if you ask her nicely she will put the whole lot into a baguette for you all for the princely sum of 35,000 dong (£1.30)..she then sits down telling stories..of what..well..the alcohol put paid to those memories…I do remember one of them was about her taking in a wee boy that was 8 years old…he slept on a rug on the ground behind her stall.

The next day whilst sitting around, a group decision was reached that we had to do something productive..so an excursion to the local mud baths and hot springs was deemed the best way to get over hangovers and relax…John declined on the ground that it was for faeries..it was great craic..for 4 pounds you got into mud baths..cold but weird.. the mud actually did feel quite good, it was greasy and gritty and they only filled it up just above bellybutton level when sitting down so you had to pour over yourself..sat there feeling strangely good for 15 minutes then off for a shower to clean up..then the fun part..walking through a corridor of jets getting pummeled by hot water and then into a hot tub…the water was roasting…they recommended staying in for 45 minutes but after about 15 everyone was pink and from my perspective if you stuck a fork in me I reckon it would have shown that I was cooked. Then under the waterfall for a wee while , finishing off in the swimming pool that had a jet at one end that was extremely powerful..it was like a massage the way it would pound your back…back then to the beach for a tan top-up..I know, I know…it’s a hard life..but I am sure you’ll be glad to know that I am making the best of it and struggling through it 

That night was new years eve. It has to have been the more impressive celebration I have ever seen from a people perspective. In Vietnam Tét is seen as a family celebration..on walking down to the beach just before midnight we were greeted with a crazy scene…the streets were wall to wall with motorbikes…thousands of them…most parked up..until we got to the main street..there on a street about 2KM long was a 100 metre clear area into which we walked..the rest of the street was a sea of motorbike helmets… motorbikes with 4,5,6 people upon, entire families.. the fireworks starts and then continued for what felt like an hour…then at the end it finished and the motorbikes started up..it was crazy…there is no louder sound than a couple of thousand motorbikes starting in unison and all the families dispersing to go and have a celebratory dinner together…as they flew by us they all wanted to high five the foreigner whilst shouting Chuk Mung Nam Moi (happy new year) at you..

We headed down to the Sail Club where we were the night previous..the owner met us on the door and recognizing us from the night before took us in a side door..free entry…it was a great start to the new year..its also the best night club I have been to, due to the fact that its right on the beach…a dancefloor inside with steps down onto the beach..the most intense waves you are ever likely to see…they would break literally 4-5 metres from shore and churn up the sand as they hit..it was surreal but every club should have one…the night ended with our new tradition of a feed from Mama Tae..

On a more serious note, Vietnam has a serious problem with child labour. Most of the kids from 5 upwards are put out on the streets selling postcards and books. We were warned that under no circumstances should we buy anything from them as it would just perpetuate the problem. They wanted people to stop buying and then maybe the parents would send the kids to school rather than out onto the streets as if a kid was good at selling then school would be neglected..one in particular seemed to have a grasp of everyones heart strings and was quite literally swinging from them…Dú was her name, she went away at one stage and brought back her little brother, Gú, who was about 2-3 years old…her English was excellent for a kid of about 8 years old…it was soul destroying..her day consisted of getting up, going to school from 12 to 4, home by 5. Homework done and food eaten by 6.30 and then out onto the streets from 7 – 10 selling postcards…just to make a small change, we handed her the food menu and got the waitress to explain to her that she was to pick something to eat..whatever she wanted…she wanted it for takeaway but we made her sit and eat..she said she would share half with her brother and then bring the rest home to her mother…but when she got started eating..nothing was going to stop her savaging the lot…Gú sat on my lap and was fed chip after chip..he would look at it..take it from me and then stuff it into his mouth whole…we may not have been able to make a long term difference in their lives but one thing for sure is that those kids went to bed that night and were not hungry…after that everyone at the table was in a great mood especially myself…I was as high as a kite for hours afterwards…saving the world one child at a time might not work but it feels good..another one of them…a real cheeky monkey she was with a strut like a catwalk model..stopped by and called out to one of the girls..hey lady lovely jubbly..we had some craic with her and she decided to christen me Buddha…it made me the brunt of many jokes for the rest of the night!!!

As we were freewheeling through Vietnam without any onward plans per se.. along with the Canudians a plan was formed…hit Saigon and burn a path through Cambodia..this would allow us to reclaim 5 days which we could use to go to Laos. ..new years day was relaxing on the beach and ended with a sleeper bus to Saigon…the scary part of Vietnam was awaiting us with War Museums and the Tunnels to be seen..I think we all know that the mood is definitely going to slide over the next couple of days…

Happy New Year
Hughie
www.hughie.eu

I’m now way behind so over the next day or so updates are going to have to come out quicker…sorry about that..

Leaving Hanoi was difficult..our hostel made it into a 24 hour party and after being starved of people to go out and play with, we probably over extended ourselves..still its been magic..we are meeting people from everywhere..but I have to say the Canudians are by far and away the most chilled out and fun..it’s actually refreshing to hear people that actually like where they are from (despite of the fact that its -25 or so there now)…due to the downturn in Ireland and the UK there isn’t really that much you can say to people to encourage them that it’s a place worth going to..sad but at unfortunately at this time true…next would be the australians…they just want to party the whole time…and their don’t give a damn about anything attitude is appealing…

Anyways Hanoi to Hoi’an was the first flight we have taken since leaving home..it was cheaper than taking the train to fly so off we went..we flew into Da Nang and grabbed a taxi from there to Hoi’an. Luckily people we met in Hanoi were there before us and sorted out rooms for us to crash in…this has been one of the best things so far in the trip…the people that we have met in Hanoi that are ahead of us book us into rooms in the next place and we do the same for those following..i guess it’s a kind of pay-it-forward system that so far has worked well..also it means that wherever we go, the crew gets reunited for a short period before moving on again. We’ve travelling in convoy down through Vietnam having so much fun…it has now meant that it has most definitely surpassed Mongolia as the place I most want to go back to..

For those that don’t know about it, Hoi’an is regarded as having some of the best tailors in all of South East Asia and the number of tailor shops in the place lay testament to that. Almost everyone we met was getting suits, shoes, dresses & throws for the beach, you name it made..if you could describe it or show a picture representing it then they could make it..its a crazy process..you walk in…flip through GQ magazine or something like that, pick out a style you like (everyone picking the James Bond suit out of Quantum of Solace), then you select the material..probably the most painful part…you get 6 lads getting suits and each wondering if this colour suits me??? should I get a wide or narrow pin-stripe or just go for a solid colour? what colour shirts and suit lining to get? Should I get the trousers lined and what kind of cuffs to get??…I was expecting one of them to ask me if their ass looked big in the trousers they got made…next was the fittings…some were perfect…others went back what felt like a hundred times in an effort to get each little detail perfect..sitting outside a bar near the tailors with someone coming along every hour to bring a lad back for another fitting became a common occurrence over the next two days..

Hoi’an is only a small place (pop 80K or so) and was not as crazy as anywhere else.. you could walk most places but as Scooters were only 4 dollars a day..with none of us ever being on a motorbike or any kind before it was an educating experience..whilst I am in the Jeremy Clarkson school of thought when it comes to motorbikes (burn them, burn them and burn them again!!!!) Vietnam couldn’t function without them, but I tell you what…it’s the best fun you can have with your clothes on..when in traffic your heart is pounding at an extraordinary rate..cruising along a quiet road by the beach is the most relaxing..they use the horn here to notify the person in from that you are coming up on their left side and they are to keep going straight..when you look at it from the pavement the constant sounding of horns is extremely annoying…when on a bike in the middle of a tiny street with hundreds of bikes around you it’s a godsend…the only rule of the road observed here is that you have to wear a helmet (100 dollars fine if you are caught without)..unfortunately for me, with the Vietnamese being tiny, my helmet was like a thimble on top of my head..completely useless..photos will be uploaded when I get somewhere with a decent internet connection…we spun to the beach a couple of times and on our last day went on a big burn to Da Nang (35 KM) away….everyone loved the bikes…we were lucky and had no serious accidents…I broke the gear lever off…and it only cost me 4 dollars to have it replaced…one person who shall not be named (Canadian girl Jaime) rented a bike outside the hotel, started it and went straight across the street and smashed into a freshly painted set of picnic tables..just missing a telegraph pole..thankfully the only damage done was a few scratches to her and the bike and 2 destroyed tables…and paint on her clothes which distressed her the most. I would love to say that her confidence was dented but no she wanted back on straight away…her husband though had different ideas and thankfully for once a man won an argument with a woman and she rode pillion on the back of his bike..

While on the bikes we went spinning out into the country for a test run…some people think that Ireland is green…but the green of the paddy fields is intense..its hard to describe but its such a strong bright consistent shade of green…it looks weird…the rest of the country is as you can imagine rocky, covered in trees, brown and burned by the hot, hot sun..

After we gave back the bikes we did see something horrifying..two locals crashed head-on…one was knocked cold and had blood streaming down the side of his face..the other was quite obviously concussed and when trying to stand collapsed in a crumpled heap…this happened in the middle of a busy intersection and the locals jumped in to clear it away…after a few seconds it was obvious t what the guy that was knocked cold was in an extremely bad way…the panic in the locals was clearly evident when they saw that he was completely limp and unresponsive..they grabbed him in the roughest way I have ever seen an injured person treated and he was put over the shoulder of another guy who jumped on the back of a scooter and raced away to the hospital…from the noise of the accident, (the most horrible and gut-wrenching screech of tires following by huge crashing noise) and the state the guy was in after, I can’t imagine he made it.. all ideas of renting bikes further along in the trip were immediately scrapped. We had 2 great days on them and other than paint on clothes and a few bruises everyone was fine…

the time to leave Hoi’an arrived and we were getting a sleeper bus to Nha Trang where we were going to celebrate the Lunar new year (it’s a beach town)…this was possibly the most intimate journey I have ever had in my life (and not in a good way)…because we were not assigned seats, when we bought the tickets, John, Jonny and I were assigned the back row..5 beds across the back of the bus…I was at the window, John beside me and Jonny next to him with two Chinese girls in the other two places…shoulders touching shoulders, knees touching knees..with no space to move..the beds were also built for the Vietnamese..only 5 and a half foot or so long..needless to say sleep did not come easy and most definitely did not linger…we arrived in Nha Trang wrecked…but that story is for the next update..

hope all is well…god bless

talk soon
hughie
www.hughie.eu

We landed in Hanoi not really expecting a whole lot…but it is possibly the craziest place on earth. For those that saw the recent Top Gear Xmas Special that was based in Vietnam, it didn’t completely capture the quantity of motorbikes buzzing around. Our arrival to our hostel was hectic..the roads were packed..and I mean packed with motorbike after motorbike. Cars are few and far between. During our journey to the hostel, a reasonably short trip our taxi got rammed by a moped, the driver jumped out to check the damage and decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and drove on again.. There appears to be no rules of the road other than the fact that a helmet must be worn when on a bike, otherwise a $100 fine is imposed. It’s a weird thing to see up to 5 people on a scooter, entire families with the youngest in the arms of the mother and one of the kids standing between the father and the handlebars..these people have no fear on motorbikes at all..the complete disregard for the rules of the road are also mindboggling..the easiest way to describe it is as organized kaos

We got to our hostel (the Hanoi backpackers hostel) that was recommended to us by a pair of Canadian girls we had met in China and we immediately signed up to go on a 3 day Ha Long Bay trip..a quiet night was had and onto the trip. This was the start of an all out assault on our livers as the trip turned into a complete party. We landed in Ha Long City and got aboard a old Chinese style junk which took us across the bay. Then we docked and spent 3 hours kayaking around the bay. The weather was fantastic and quite a few ppl managed to get scorched. Back to the boat, what are you to do on a boat in the middle of the bay with a load of people who just want to party…well..you party..it was great fun and we made many many new friends. The second day whilst extremely broken we went to Cat Ba Island and trekked for a couple of hours up to the top of a mountain where they had a lookout tower at the top where you could get a phenomenal view. It was a scary climb up the tower which was made of rusted scaffolding and floored at the top with warped timber that wasn’t even nailed down..

From there we left and travelled to another part of Cat Ba Island where we went rock climbing.. thinking that we were big strong men (us, one english and 3 aussie lads) we went immediately for the toughest part. What a mistake..we ended up looking like a group of losers!!! Only Jock made it to the top and only 2 made it past the first shelf. Needless to say neither myself or John got that far. For me I just wasn’t feeling the love for rock climbing and with shredded hands and feet and extremely bruised egos we were glad to get back to the main town of Cat Ba for a hoolie. More liver abuse and overnighting in a nice hotel did little to relieve sore limbs and heads. Back to the boat in the morning and we cruised back to Ha Long City and got the bus back to Hanoi.

As if our livers hadn’t suffered enough, a group of us decided that a visit to the snake village the next day was a good idea. What started out with a group of 6 ended up with 28 heading out. As I have a morbid fear of snakes I had thought it may be a good way to conquer that fear..I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO WRONG IN MY ENTIRE LIFE…it scared the crap outta me, I was hiding behind chairs most of the time. In the snake village they kill the snakes in front of you, bleed them out into glasses, and then remove the heart. The heart is placed in a shot glass, while still beating with some blood and is then swallowed by people who are off their heads..John being one of them. The remaining blood and bile is then combined with Vodka to create a snake wine. The snake blood wine was actually alright but the bile wine was foul. The shots of snake blood were ok but again the bile was disgusting. Apparently its meant to make you more virile..the jury is still out on that but one interesting side effect was the fact that everyone that swallowed the snake heart was visibly shaking for up to 15-20 minutes afterwards. The remainder of the snake is then cooked in many different ways and then served up as a feast..it actually tasted really nice surprising. If I had to equate it to something common at home I would suggest it was like pork. From the snake village back to the hostel for a BBQ and another late night hoolie..

We’ve also met a pair of dutch guys that, never before having been on motorbikes, bought a pair of old Russian minsks (like the one Hammond had in the top gear xmas special) and were planning to ride all the way to Saigon…hardcore or what..when they returned from their first spin around the city, and in the Hanoi traffic, the two of them were saturated in sweat. They reckoned it was more the fear that caused it than anything else..

Next is a spin down to Hoi’an, the famous city where apparently the best tailors in South East Asia exist..

Last email we were just on our way to Hainan Island for Xmas and New Years…we had our fill of cold weather and just wanted to be somewhere that the sun would be shining…we travelled by train to Haikou, the capital city on the island..the train itself even went on the ferry which was kinda mad. It took 3 hours for the train to be separated into 4 sections and parked up on the train.. we arrived and it was not exactly warm..we were starving as well with the train taking 6 hours longer than scheduled to make the trip…but it was all good…sunshine was in front of us..

We staying in Haikou for a night and then left for SanYa in the south. How we got there was weird..we went to the bus station where this guy met us outside and asked if we wanted to go to SanYa..we did so we followed him…he led us to a bus, charged us half the price of a normal ticket..and we hopped on the bus…it left a couple of minutes later…the bus was packed with people sitting on stools down the middle of the bus..the 3.5 hour journey took almost 6 hours…I guess that’s what we get for going on the local rather than the proper bus..

SanYa rained for the first 8 days we were there…it was not the best but then the sun came out and it was magic..it was nice to be able to lie on the beach for a while during the day and go for a run in the mornings..unfortunately there were not as many other backpackers around..SanYa was more a holiday destination for Russian and because of that the area had a vaguely Russian feel to it.. It was actually really weird there as well…upon entering into a pub or a club the manager would be over in a few seconds to welcome you and would assign a member of staff to look after you and make sure that you are having a good night…one particular place had a rota of staff looking after us who spent the night giving us free beer, popcorn and fruit..we ended up having a monster game of rock, paper, scissors for about an hour and a half..we later found out that in Hainan Island it is seen as a mark of prestige depending on how many foreigners are in the place..therefore they do their best to look after you when you come it..

In terms of doing things we haven’t really done a lot in SanYa…after 3 and a half months on the road, the idea of stopping in one place for a short while appealed to allow batteries to recharge. We must have walked a 1000 miles around the city…it was strange in some places where the people chew betel nuts…they then spit out on the street which is blood red…disgusting…another place had a guy with 3 monkeys…the funniest part was when he got the monkey to smoke a cigarette, then a second monkey would go over, cuff the smoking monkey over the head, pull the cigarette out of the others mouth and threw it away.. One other thing we have learned in China is that they pride themselves on 100% employment..so this means that rather than using machines for jobs they use people. For example, the don’t use trucks to transport rubbish to the tip, they have people that cycle bikes with trailers with bins on it…they ring a bell as they cycle and people bring out whatever rubbish they have…they have people that go around washing away the betel nut stains..supermarkets are weird as anything…they have 5-6 people in each aisle, their job to help you find what you need and try and get you to buy other stuff.

We travelled from Hainan Island to Hanoi, probably the worst journey for John so far, we went by sleeper bus which was built for smurfs…with a howling cold breeze going through the bus..we left Haikou around 4 in the day, a 10 hour journey that took 12 hours so we arrived in Nanning around 4am, had to then get a taxi to the other station across the other side of the city, got bus tickets then from there to Hanoi..

Anyways we are now in Vietnam…its nuts, crazy, mental and has to be seen to be believed but more on that next week…

happy new year to all of ye as well…hope santy was good..