Shotgun Backpacking the story so far. HANOI TO CAMBODIA

I will now attempt to describe the events that occurred post Hanoi. I will have grave difficulty in doing so. The reason being largely due to our over stay in Hanoi, we had planned in the original itinerary to stay for 3 days, however as we all know that these plans are subject to change we stayed 10 days. Plan of action therefore was to shoot down to Saigon in a matter of days. We caught the train down to the historical capital of Hue. It would be a smash and grab touristic visit, see the old city and palace and get the hell out of there. Hue is an interesting town, more so in the old part. Similarly to the rest of Vietnam very rich in history which again mainly involves the Chinese. I didn’t see much evidence of the American war if any. In all honesty that is how I know Vietnam.
Hue as warned by the Lonely Planet was very quiet and chilled out during the night. We visited a bar called DMZ at night. Oh yes almost forgot we met some fellow backpackers in the old town. Jess and Rachael from Newcastle University, Weli and I realised that they were similar to us as they were not typical backpackers living it rough and surviving on a 50p daily budget. We had a few drinks that night and exchanged stories and future travel plans, it turned out they were going south as well and that we may cross paths again in Auz. The thing you must understand about Vietnam is that it is so narrow that you see similar faces from Hanoi in Hue, Hoian and Nah Trang. There is no avoiding it everyone is making their way south to Saigon.
In Hue we did the DMZ tour. The DMZ stands for Demilitarized Zone which was the area that divided the North and the South. It is ironic because the name certainly doesn’t reflect its past. During the American Imperialistic Attack on the People ....... ohhhhh my lord has the commy propaganda taken a hold of me already. Well during the Vietnam war this was the most heavily fortified regions. We say various old museums, a completely shot down Catholic Church and some hills where the Americans had their artillery. The following day we caught a bus down towards Hoian with Jess etc. I had heard a lot about Hoian from the one they call Massi Crea. This place is absolutely beautiful a colonial marvel. I will try to do it justice by describing how I saw it, ok here goes. It is like wrapping up all the best features of southern French architecture i.e. old French manor houses and placing it in Vietnam. The area is full of villaesque building very few having more than 2 stories all around a river/canal. It even looks better at night with great little features such as the Parisian street lamps. This is certainly a place i will come back to later on in life. I fully recommend it. There is something for everyone here beaches, food, architecture, museums (not that I saw any) and nightlife. We spent a total of 3 days in Hoian . Hoian is full to the brim with tailors so we decided to get ourselves suited and booted not with suits though but with smoking jackets for Hong Kong. Be on the lookout and let us know which jacket you prefer from the pics.
Even further south we went, the penultimate stop before Saigon the all acclaimed Nah Trang. This area is a beach resort party capital of Vietnam. Where the crème de la crème take holidays would I be bold enough to say “the Vietnamese St. Tropez”. Upon arrival after a 12 hour coach journey with a gang of stupid fat Irish girls I realised that the South was truly beautiful in a developed and less raw way as Hanoi and Sapa. Oh sorry the reason I use gang and not group is due to their sense of fashion (all wearing the same trainers with the tongues pocking out) and their constant loud and disturbing convos. The beaches were beautiful, white sand with palm trees separating the beach road. There are really nice bar stroke chill out zones along this particular stretch of coast, with nice food available at most places and good music. We checked into a hotel/apartment the type you would find on a shoe string budget in St Anton Ibiza. It had the basics, more importantly aircon, a contraption that I have become fond of especially now as I write this from the very humid Singapore. The nightlife of Nah Trang does not offer a wide variety of choice, what is does offer is one place known as the Sailing Club. This club is great, open air with good music along the beach. Everyone starts off relaxing by the beach on tables having colourful cocktails or the jam jar which is just as lethal as the infamous buckets from Koh Pagnan. As soberness turns to tipsiness the crowd shifts on to the dance floor to strut their stuff. Everyone makes a real effort to dress up and I must admit it makes the place look sexy and classy. To emphasise just how good this place is, of the three nights we spent in Nah Trang, we went there each and every night. It is just the thing to do, the alternatives that attempt to do something different will find themselves on their lonesome in a vacant bar. After Sailing Club everyone stumbles down to the bar I think called Now and Then, which doesn’t close. Here jam jars are sold at a fierce rate, they are absolutely horrible and I would recommend drinking them as late on as possible. The first night we met a group of Norwegian travellers who are travelling around the world in 2 months. Their names were Sarah, Line, Pendta, Elizabeth and Camilla (wow I got it right). We all got on really well and enjoyed three very drunken nights in Nah Trang. They had the missing energy we were desperately needed making sure we appreciated every night as if it were our last. So Nah Trang was pretty much a blurry image of beaches and nightclubs. From the people we have met we are picking up some great terminology I would like to make an addition to the british phrases. In Norway apparently when people meet up and have drinks before going out (mainly for economical purposes) they refer to this as FOREPLAY. All I can say to that phrase is ME LIKEYYY.
We made a conscious decision one night in Nah Trang that the following week of travel for both parties involved was identical and that we should not go it alone but unite and travel as one large Anglo-Norwegian posy. We made our way from Nah Trang to Saigon, our bus was little early so we had a whole day and night before the girls in Saigon to scope out the joint. We found some hotel near the busiest part of town aka back packer central and checked in. After all the partying in Nah Trang I was in no fit state to go out but Weli insisted I do a bit of Wing Man as he so eloquently put it. The next day the girls arrived Mark and I went site seeing with them as Mr Elmi lazed in bed until 4pm. We walked around for hours, going into every museum we passed, trying local dishes (one restaurant had a photo of Bill Clinton eating there) and shopping malls (girls of course haha). We stayed in Saigon, it is a nice enough place with some beautiful French style promenades and old hotels that must have been just as classy pre Hoh Chin Mihn. Like Bangkok it is the sort of place you pass through before delving deeper into the country and finding the real treats.
The shotgun backpacking commenced in Saigon and carried right on through Cambodia and Singapore. In one week our passports were stamped at over 6 authorities i.e. 4 countries. We caught a bus from Saigon to the capital of Cambodia Phnom Pehn the land of Happy Herbal Pizzas. We stayed in Phom Pehn around 50 hours, enough time to see the killing fields caused by the terrible Poll Potts thats Poll Potts not Paul Potts the Britain’s got talent winner who can sing operah. We then headed further north to Siem Reap to the land of Angkor Watt. I literally had only one reason to go to Cambodia and that was Angkor Watt. Cambodia is not terrible in fact it is rather a beautiful country full of untouched landscape but then again so is Vietnam and Thailand. Siem Reap is a backpacker colony, when the French were forced out there must have been a fully equipped army of backpackers ready to invade which they did in numbers. Everything in Siem Reap is about extracting money from the tourist. So much so that Atms in Cambodia issue dollars, thats right folks the crispest US notes money can buy. It ruined my dream of withdrawing US dollars in time square (f*ck). Cambodia is expensive, I was under the impression it was a forgotten country with some impressive temples at that everything could be bought for a six pence. Like all backpacker stories of how poor these countries are and how cheap everything I will only respond with the following BULLSHIT.
We had to say goodbye to the Norwegian girls who were great and I think I am speaking for Mark and Weli in that we would very much like to stay in touch. We had a flight to Singapore whereas they were going further afield to Sydney for 10 days. Off to Singapore.
Finally I am up to date, you guys who enjoy the above reads should show me some love in the form of pints when I get back in April, this is hard work. Ball please do the word count. Love to you all and peace on earth and harmony and .......................... will write about Singapore in due time next stop Hong Kong.

Happening HANOI by Filipe Martins

After saying goodbye to Thailand which we all loved and an airasia 1 hour or so flight we arrived in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi in the north. The airport is reasonably small for a capital and a country of this size. The officials in Vietnam are dressed in a very typical communist way like an old soviet commissar. Except instead of having a brut 6ft4 Russian body builder it was a 5ft5 Vietnamese man. We left the airport and took the taxi to the old quarter where we had booked a hotel. I really cant put my finger on it exactly but I really like Hanoi, its got a great buzz and atmosphere. It has a greater Chinese influence than Thailand but at the same time it is heavily fused with French colonialism. I shall give you an example; the first morning in Hanoi we scoured the streets for a cafe, somewhere to have the amazing Vietnamese coffee that I heard so much about. We found a great cafe near the lake not too far from our hotel; it was on the 5th floor with an esplanade with a great view of the central lake. The menu was scattered with French delights, the last time I had a Croque Madame was when I was in Paris years ago. It was delicious, what really made my week was the expresso, how I miss a good expresso. I have to admit I really miss normal breakfasts i.e. non rice or noodle based.
That day we decided to walk around the city but four hours in we bought a lonely planet, sorry. Well it was a fake and we bartered down to 2£ a steal really. I have got so used to bartering that I think when I go back to London I will probably go into PC World and do the same. Every street in Hanoi is a high street, full of little shops and cafes. If I was to make a comparison it reminds me of old London high streets. I am sure if you think back far enough you will know exactly what I mean, the local high street with the local butchers, cafe, newsagents, sewing shop etc for those to young they are where you find Sainsburys local and Tesco expresses. The Vietnamese are both very skilful and very good with their hands. Completely different from other cities, everyone seems to have a trade i.e. metal polisher, mechanic, key cutter, polish shoes and other traditional trades. This was last Saturday and of course we had to find a place to watch Chelsea vs Aston Villa to satisfy Mr Elmi. This was of course an episode in itself, Weli was sure there was a great place to watch it, however when we got inside the Taxi these are the very words that came out of his month. “take us to Puntang Bar on Puntang Road”. Thats right folks he didn’t have a clue where we were going, not even the road. I suggested that we play it safe and go to a place called “le pub”, although anglais I knew it would show the footy. All this wasn’t helped with the fact that the taxi driver really didn’t know the difference between his arse and his elbow, he was useless. Well after various discussions, of course Weli fought to the death but was proved wrong we ended up in “le pub”, it had a projector , yeahhhhhh.
It seems like the opportune moment to talk about Vietnamese taxies. They are truly a joke, sitting in your chair at work, home or maybe you have decided to take the laptop and sit on the loo. They take the biscuit, not ordinary biscuits but the chocolate coated one dipped in diamonds. They have a button behind the steering wheel which speeds the distance meter at least 40 times the normal rate. An example would be travelling 10m but the taxi meter records 2km. Prices are so variable when it comes to Vietnamese taxis. They have no shame, when we confronted a taxi driver about this he wasn’t even embarrassed he accepted half and drove off with a big smile on his face. One taxi driver had a piece of fruit glued right in front of the distance meter. You can only laugh, I told Weli who was sitting on the front seat, he then tried to remove the apple and the taxi driver refused to do so, we walked out in the middle of the road. Now a days we tell Taxis and they seem not to rip us off (as much). The real hidden secret in Hanoi is the Bier Hoi, its fresh beer made daily. It’s really weak maybe 2-4 % but it’s lovely and refreshing. You can drink this in the old quarter on little plastic chairs and watch the world go by. The best is yet to come they cost 3000 VND thats about 4p guys. Me and Mark have gone there several times and have stumbled home in a happy state, I don’t think we have ever left more than 1£ sterling there.
The Old quarter has a very Parisian feel, the French definitely left some great buildings here. I didn’t see dog carcases like ducks in China town this is because of its a lunar year and they don’t eat dog for a while, ahhh what a shame (NOT). There is a lot of site seeing to do in Hanoi, such as the mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh has been embalmed, his museum and the grand palace, which was the previous palace for the governor of IndoChina when the French were here. We also visited the Hanoi Hilton, again a French building (prison) which was later used to house American POWs like the failed Presidential candidate John McCain. Oh yeah how could I forget the B52 lake, during the war in the 70s Vietnamese soldiers with the help of flying turtles brought down a B52. There is a wreck in a lake smack bang in the middle of a residential area. Well I don’t know about the flying turtles hypothesis hmmmmmm.
I guess that’s why I love Hanoi, it is so rich in culture and modern history. Its not the kind of history that is ancient (which they have to i.e. with the Chinese) but modern history which has had a direct impact on our lives today especially the way Americans go about doing things. They are very proud of their victory and rightly so. Propaganda is amazing in Vietnam they refer to America as the Imperialistic armies etc. The Vietnamese are super resilient, from the French and their various uprising under colossal suppression to the Yanks. I would think twice before confronting the Vietnamese.
Did I mention that their coffee is aromatic, tasty and just out right good. Everyday Mark and I have our daily coffee. So we have stayed in Hanoi for 5 days, mainly site seeing as well as having a taste of the Hanoi night social scene. We have heard from many backpackers that the south is even better, I really can’t wait.
So we decided to go to Sapa, a small town well concealed in the Vietnamese mountains in the north. It would be an overnight train, two days trekking and an overnight train back. Sapa is so beautiful that I will not even attempt to describe it........ ok here goes the town reminds me of an alpine ski resort situated in the middle of a valley. They mountain slopes are covered in terraces which the locals use for agricultural purposes mainly rice. The trek was a welcome break, it was so refreshing to walk amongst nature and to sample and see the life of the local tribes. The mountain range is overwhelming more so the terraces. It’s a geological dream and nightmare, landslides have occurred everywhere, I am really glad that we didn’t visit during the winter because heavy rainfall would make slopes run like a slurpy chocolate milkshake. We booked an organised tour guide, it was something we haven’t really done, it is something we will do more of. You get to see great places and more importantly meet people who 9 times out of 10 are in the same walk of life. We met a really nice guy from Watford called Ross, his travels were coming to a conclusion, he had travelled Australia and New Zealand and gave us a lot of vital information and tips.
I am currently typing this on the night train back to Hanoi. I am so glad we done the tour of Sapa somewhere I would love to return to in the future, it would be an ideal place to relax. The plan is to spend a few days in Hanoi and book a tour to Ha Long Bay where we will stay on a junk boat and sip gins and tonic from the deck as the sun goes down. Ahhh its a hard life out here people I am so jealous I am not stuck in an office staring at a computer screen, only kidding. We have been travelling now for 2 months, it has been great we are doing fine as a group just in case you are wondering. It works a tiny bit like this, Weli and I argue over everything, absolutely everything and Mark doesn’t say anything. In fact where is Mark I haven’t seen him since Bangkok ................ only kidding he is sleeping on the top bunk. Ross mad me really excited about Aus and NZ.
Well people hope all is well and that you are having successful careers.