twelve countries twelve months

It was time to face our first Vietnamese night bus and we were intrigued to see if it would live up to the standard we had grown used to in Argentina.  The short answer is NO!  Although Rach might disagree.  There were no allocated seats but in the rush she somehow managed to nab the best seat on the bus - a fully flat bed long enough for Peter Crouch, while I ended up on the “bench” seat at the back, snuggling up a little too closely with four strangers!  Twelve hours later and we arrived in Hue where we were greeted by a bunch of hotel touts.  We wondered what effects the long bus ride (or maybe just the toll of eleven months of travel) had done to our appearance, as when we mentioned to the touts the hotel we intended to go to (which cost nine pounds a night) they all said  “no, you can’t afford to go there, that hotel is too expensive for you!”  

Hue was a great place for us to swot up on our Vietnamese history.  The central Citadel, contained within 2m thick stone walls, was the ancient capital city of Southern Vietnam under the Nguyen Dynasty, and while here we also visited the demilitarised zone (DMZ) along the Ben Hai river.  This was the dividing line between North and South during the Vietnam war, and featured some of the bloodiest battles of the war.  The American bases are now long gone and have been replaced with rubber tree plantations, so we had to use our imagination, but it was strange to think such a peaceful and serene spot could have been the scene of such heavy fighting as little as 40 years ago.

Traditional conical hats, Hue

Inside the Citadel, Hue

Inside the Citadel, Hue

Chartering a boat, Hue

Tomb of Tu Duc, Hue

Thien Mu Pagoda, Hue

With only three weeks of our trip left, and especially after the Hue incident, we decided it was about time to smarten up so we hit the famous tailors of Hoi An.  The initial plan was to each get a suit tailored for our imminent job interviews.  However, having bought no clothes for a year we went slightly crazy.  After several days of fittings across four different tailors we emerged with a job lot of suits, coats, jackets, trousers and even some custom made shoes!  There was a tense moment at Rach’s first fitting for some trousers when she couldn’t even get them on (too many spring rolls I suspect!)  but we are really pleased with all the end results, and are now trying to work out how to get it all home.

Hoi An

Hoi An

Chinese Lanterns, Hoi An

Squeezed in between our fittings we went to cookery school and learnt to cook some of the local dishes.  We went to the market and a herb garden to pick up the ingredients then proceeded to cook up a tasty four course Vietnamese meal.  We’ve kept all the recipes, so who wants to come round for dinner ?

Cooking class

Making rice noodles

Concentration!

Pho Bo (vietnamese beef noodle soup)

Shrimp steamed in banana leaf with chilli and lemon grass

Banana leaf salad with vietnamese rice cracker

Fish cooked in clay pot

Posted in travel
Tags: cooking, vietnam

Three hundred and nine days into our trip and we finally arrive in Asia.  So far we are enjoying it so much we can’t work out why we didn’t get here sooner!

First stop was Hanoi, Vietnam.  Walking around Hanoi proved to be pretty hard work; you couldn’t walk along without tripping over the sizzling pan or bubbling cauldron of a street food vendor or bumping into a long row of parked motorbikes!  If walking along the road was difficult then crossing it was near impossible!  The road was full of erratic speeding  motorbikes and on first sight Rach suggested that we not cross any roads at all!  That would have restricted our sightseeing somewhat however, so we had to go for it, and it went something like this:

• Wait patiently for a break in the traffic
• Realise there is never going to be a break in the traffic
• Say a quick prayer
• Take a deep breath and step out into the road right in front of hundreds of oncoming motorbikes
• Walk slowly and steadily across the road hoping that, as you have been told they will, the swarm of bikes will all avoid you
• Breathe a sigh of relief as you reach the other side

So far so good, until the next time anyway!

One Pillar Pagoda, Hanoi

Old Quarter Street, Hanoi

Snake wine

Hanoi was great fun but it tired us out after a couple of days, so we splashed out on a luxury cruise around Halong Bay on a Chinese Junk.  As we relaxed on the sun deck with a beer and cruised around the 3000 or so limestone islands we felt like we were in the Bond film “The Man With The Golden Gun” but as I’m sure all you know that was actually filmed in Phang Nga Bay in Phuket.  Although the word on the street here is that Halong Bay is much more spectacular.  We certainly thought that it was very magical and mysterious, especially around sunset.

Junk

Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Halong Bay

Halong Bay by moonlight

Feeling refreshed we took a sleeper train north into the mountains near the Chinese border.  We visited the rural hill village of Bac Ha for its colourful Sunday market, then, resisting the urge to buy a cheap Water Buffalo or a couple of pigs, we headed deeper into the mountains to the rice growing region of Sapa.

Bac Ha Market

Bac Ha Market

Water Buffalo for sale

Flower H

Sheltering from the rain, Bac Ha Market

We hired a local guide who took us on an amazing trek through the lush green rice fields.  It was planting season so we got to see the people from the local hill tribes strengthening the terraces and planting the rice.  This in itself looked like hard work, then add that the women all wore their full traditional dress, and often had a baby strapped to their back.  It was very impressive.

We stayed the night with a local family in one of the remote hill villages.  It was really interesting to see how a rice farming family lived, to eat dinner with them, and then share a few glasses of rice wine!

Rice terraces, Sapa

Rice terraces, Sapa

Mountain village

Rice planting, Sapa

Endless task

Posted in travel
Tags: market, trekking, vietnam, wine