Thickly slathered with gert lush green rice paddies. A plethora of oriental treats like roasted pork and pickle-filled crunchy baguettes, and aromatic noodle soups. And probably the cheapest beer in the world, a mere 30p a glass. Good day to you Vietnam.
All the ingredients were in the mixer. Lob the headline acts of Tom and Lucy in there for 3 of the 5 weeks we had here, and we had a show on our hands.
After landing in Hanoi, oop Narth, we had a week prior to Luarfys' arrival to settle in and do some exploring on our jays. We wandered around fascinating Hanoi for a couple of days, sipping in the change of smells versus India; snorting smokey sweet BBQ'd pork, lemongrass frogs legs and all sorts of unfamiliarities.
Not in this case, but these women are often painfully having to bounce their way around to try and build momentum to move their unhealthily heavy loads. We tried one on in the Women's museum and they are seriously heavy, and uncomfortable.
We managed to catch Sam Lane and her bf Fraser on our third night, who've now been living in Hanoi for near-on 3 years. It was actually a Sunday night we met so they had work the next day. But, that did not hold them back, as we shifted from free beer, through happy hour at the hostel, then on for a fair few more at a swankier do up the road. Cracking chin-wag, lovely to meet Fraser, and of course nice to see another familiar face on our adventure. I only wish we'd snopped a snap to commemorate! Sorry.
After an initial total of 3 days in Hanoi, we booked up a trip further North towards the Chinese border, into more rural pastures. We were keen to see the infamous rice paddies and to experience the countryside in as authentic a way possible.
We were in a group of about 8 people on our 3 day tour. Excellent crack and a real lovely bunch to enjoy the totally touristless surroundings with.
Day one, after a long and ever life threatening bus journey 4 hours out of Hanoi, we settled in to our decent enough looking homestay, and went out for a tour of the local village Mai Chau and its surroundings, on bikes.
Day two we switched seats for some little 50cc scooters - something we'd been apprehensive of doing here. But having spoken to so many other backpackers, we'd been assured there is no better way of seeing parts of this country, and understood there was particularly minimal traffic in these here parts.
With our sensible hats on, we figured if we take it easy, it'd be a worthy farm. Whoop-ahh. Shows what's on the mind. *a worthy punt.
And we covered a fair lick of ground that day, 35km on our little 40kmh hair dryers. Looking back on this all from Cambodia now, these were some of the most beautiful scenes we've set eye on. There are a lot of snaps from here but here's a few summary shots. If you are thinking of making a trip to Vietnam, Vietnam Backpacker Hostels tour to Mai Chau should be top of your list of things to do.
We visited a beautiful lake, with no development on or around, and barely another human, let alone settlement, in sight.
One very sketchy jump from a 9m tower in the middle of a lake. Why is jumping from stuff into water from a height so terrifyingly great?
And you thought I'd never get there, it's the arrival of these punks!
Reunited with our year long flat companions, and what a sight they were.
After a couple of nights for them to settle in in Hanoi, we hopped quickly on the case of a 3 day party island/boat tour of Ha Long Bay - having been well researched by Lucy back in London beforehand.
This, would be our home for 2 nights - Castaway Island. A private beach nestled among one of the many rock formations in this wide-spanning area of clear blue sea (though a fair bit of litter - such is the way in the region now sadly).
Lots went down on Castaways and by-Jeremy did we have our fair share of characters. We shacked up with 3 Aussie heroes who had pretty much come away on an unofficial staff holiday, leaving their day jobs of working in, essentially, a trampoline factory that's open to the public in Adelaide.
We spent day one Kayaking, exploring the area, and night one on the sauce, picking up a number of new drinking games that certainly served their purpose. To name a few, we played Rage Cage (an extreme version of beer pong), Slaps (quickly becoming a classic), and inevitably, variations of 21.
Day two was the boat party, 5 hours of pottering around the bays, sinking cans, and jumping in the water. The highlight for me was swimming over to a beach with a load of tinnies and all doing synchronised hand grenades - basically, sticking a knife in the bottom of a beer can and trying to skull it as quickly as possible.
It was fun to be 20 again. But, that fateful lathargicness hits you like a tidal wave of Valium solution, and it's suddenly flung you into your sand-filled bunk bed at 9pm, and you're momentarily in general anaesthetic-level sleep in your trunks. Good times.
Onwards! After a night back in Hanoi (Christ we felt like we lived there by the time we left!), we felt refreshed enough to set off on our journey South towards Hoi An. Next stop, Phong Nha.
After a relatively painless, but eye opening overnight bus journey, involving mild to mid-level Asian Porn on the coach screens (see below...), we arrived in the beautiful rural town of Phong Nha.
Beset among a region that boasts the largest cave in the world, a glorious national park, and sprinkled with a sad helping of recent history. Whilst the region was hard-hit by American bombs during the war, on the flip side, it was a real success story in how the guerilla Vietnamese used the cave systems to store weapons, and sneak along the rivers to transport their armies and arsenal up and down the country at night time. More on the war later.
For now, we set off on bikes to explore the local area, and to head for lunch at the world famous - Pub with Cold Beer, though now more famous for its lunch 'experience'...
I won't go into too much detail here, for the sake of any veggie readers, but essentially you can 'kill it, cook it, eat it' here, for a BBQ Chicken lunch with the best peanut sauce you've ever tasted. This, for me, was quite an important process to go through. To understand what is required to get a chicken on your table is something that whilst not easy at all, is something that I now understand and respect, and contributes to our ever-progressing wariness of how much meat we eat.
And then the before and after shots from the evening! Before...
After!
After christening Hoi An's bar strips on night one, we spent the following few days doing a variety of bits that this incredible town has to offer. Hoi An has absolutely cruised on in to our top 3 cities so far, with its pedestrianised and lantern lined streets, fantastic food and drink options, and a lovely beach.
And that, of course regrettably, is where we part ways with Luarfy. A belter of a 3 week spell, but with just 2 months left on our trip now, it won't be long before we are reunited again.
From Hoi An we moved on to Dalat, a mountain town at about 1,500m altitude. The main activity to do here was Canyoning (climbing up and down waterfalls), but being quite an expensive tour, compunded by the recent 3 British deaths doing the same tour, we decided against it. But, we were keen to get out into the hills and so opted for a fairer priced mountain bike trip.
We were the only ones on the trip that day, so we had the luxury of a private tour for the public price. It was a pretty technical trail, but we coped well and it was glorious to sip in the mountain air and get some well-wanted fitness in.
The predictable Banh-mi lunch, though we opted for vegetarian - baguettes filled with mushroom and spinach tofu, salad, laughing cow cheese (!) and fierce chilli sauce. These two rakes just had the two, so by the day's end, and with my Grandmas 'leave nothing' mindset, I'd snaked 5 down. Bloaty McBloatface.
Our penultimate stop in Vietnam was Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). The place doesn't get rave reviews, but the war museum is supposed to be particularly insightful and we'd caught wind of a craft brewery we were keen to dabble in nearby too.
A quick paragraph on the Vietnam war, fuelled with info from the museum. As briefly alluded to earlier, the Vietnam war was pretty brutal, mostly so because of a chemical used by the Americans unpopularly known as Agent Orange. The active ingredient is so potent that just 85g of the stuff could wipe out a city of 8 million. Planes would ultimately drop millions of litres of the stuff, wiping out any crop in sight, but worst of all, it would have lasting effects that are still deforming children as recently born as 2008. In summary, it was beyond inhumane. The number of war crimes that the yanks [government] committed is unfathomable, and predictably, it seems there've been minimally actioned sanctions by the fuckers since.
Having not paid much attention in History at school, this was all sad to learn, and heightened our sympathy for a country that is, thankfully, now riding a big old wave of tourism, and provided yet more resentment for the powers that be on our planet that continue to exploit that power to muscle in on other countries business, and wipe out hoards of civilians in the process.
To lift the spirits for the finale, we headed down to a place called Can Tho (thank Jeff there's not a Hoi in the name) to visit the floating markets of the Mekong Delta. On a quick, but relevant sidestep, Sue Perkins did a great little series on the box about the Mekong River, a good watch and no doubt still available.
We set off at 5am on our boat to try and catch the peak bustle of the market.
All sorts are sold, from pineapples and watermelons, to crabs and baguettes.
It was amazing to see and hear how active this market still is. In the extremely globalised world we now live in, it is simply beautiful to see that such traditional, localised trading still exists in such an enchanting form. I doff my conical hat to you Vietnam.
And if you've made it 'til now, thanks for sticking with us. It's been a bumper post. We'll have totalled 5 weeks in Vietnam by the time we've finished, and it is currently still a great place to travel. Concentrated with culture, beautiful landscapes, and accommodating of a low backpacker budget. Go. And soon.
Next up, Cambodia. We're midway through our time here now, with a brief spell back in Vietnam just after. We've just said farewell to Dan and Chrissy after a roller coaster of a time with them. Watch this space in the coming couple of weeks for the full detail.
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