Not Approved by LP

Did a great hike today to Lau Chai and some of the other hilltribe villages and waterfalls.  Over 20kms so a fair walk but the weather was kind.  The scenery very great with the rice paddies at their finest and mountains in the background.  And nestled amongst it the hill tribe villages and hamlets with the colourfuly dressed locals in native costumes.

The Hmong lady I met yesterday came with me and we stayed at her house for lunch with the family.  An excellent guide and a good source of knowledge of the area.  But given the poverty of her house obviously the local Hmong people (and others of the numerous ethnic groups) are not all getting their fair share of the tourist dollars and in her opinion it is the Vietnamese who are making most of the money even if some groups are doing better than others. 

 So if anyone planning to go to the area,  give the tours a miss and use the locals, they know the place better than the Viets ever will and deserve more of the cash and are great hosts plus speak excellent English.

 Tomorrow an early start for another long hike in the other direction so hope all goes well.

From CatBa went to Hanoi where the sun shone for once and not many tourists around so pleasant and relatively peaceful.

Then it was an overnight train to LaoCai on the Chinese border.  Used the hard sleeper, wasn’t like the picture and the train seen better days but 11 hours overnight so ok.  Had also arranged for transport to take me from the train station to Sapa to avoid the hassle after an overnight train journey.  This being Vietnam there was no one waiting and whilst the other tour groups gave me the run around trying to get me on their tours all the regular transport left.  So had to hang around an hour for the next train to bring more people – at least Vietnam is predictable !!.

As it was met up with some Vietnamese from CatBa and had a great meal with them,  I guess they should know about food as their restaurant highly rated.

Sapa is an old French hill station surrounded by mountains and lovely secenery and colourful hill tribes.   At 1650m much cooler and a welcome relief from the heat of the lowland but plenty of rain and mist to hide the surrounding mountains.  Its been on the tourist map for a long time but found much nicer than expected.  Not many tourists around, the people friendly and plenty of hill tribe people in colourful clothes selling their usual embroided products etc.

In the afternoon took a stroll into the surrounding hills to the local Hmong villages, accompanied by one of the Hmong women who spoke excellent English and was a great guide to the local culture and with the lovely scenery all very enjoyable.

Hopefully she is going to accompany me on a 20km trek to Lau Chai village where she comes from and some of the other villages tomorrow so should be good but expect the brollie to be well used.

Spent the last couple of weeks on the beautiful island of CatBa waiting for a visa extension and china visa, which hasn’t happened.  Weather has been very hot and humid so swimming and doing nothing has been the order of the day. But started to cool a bit and yesterday did a 22km wander across the island to enjoy the great scenery and drink tea with locals.  Now the Vietnamese holiday seasdon coming to an end and the European season yet to start so all quiet and relaxing.

Tomorrow will head back to Hanoi and with a visa extension head for the mountains of the north and then probably come back and try again for a China visa once para olympics over. 

Just completed a long 33 hour bus journey from Phan Thiet to here, Hanoi. Never the best time to arrive, 9pm on a Saturday night but at least not as hot as expecting and raining – it always seems to rain in Hanoi !.  Seems fairly quiet and not as many backpackers around as usual.

After HoiAn returned to MuiNe for a night. Ate my words and used a tourist bus as more convenient for MuiNe only to have my dislike of them reinforced with their usual late arrival, unfriendly attitude and hassle to get you into their own hotels. 

Would have liked to spent longer as like the place but with my visa running out wanted to get to Hanoi to get an extension and hopefully a Chinese visa. So next morning took a local bus to the next city and then planned to get a bus north. However put on a magical mystery tour by  a taxi driver and eventually had to tell him to stop and walk the few kms I has just come.  I wanted to be annoyed but with all the kids shouting out hello and waving it was hard to be angry and the charm of Phan Thiet won me over and I stayed a night there. Not much in the way of sites but the fishing harbour photographic and people lovely.

Next day was able to get a bus for Hanoi.  A long journey but this time went with Hoang Long, a decent bus company who put on a good spread of food for free at each stopping point.  The route ok but long.  On one side the sea, the other the highlands with just a narrow flat plain to follow.  Besides settlements the rest mainly paddyfields and cemetaries and war memorials.  However despite the Vietanamese tunnel building skills and ability to get things down the HCM trail, for some reason they seem to be very slow at constructing a decent highway along the country.  Narrow, potholed, busy and an average speed of 50km per hour says it all.  At least made it without mishap.

Hopefully tomorrow leave the internet world and have a week in CatBa.

If I had been writing this post at any stage bar now within the last few days, I would be saying how incredibly hot it is with temperatures over 38 degrees and 85% humidity.  In fact some of the worst heat I have know in SE Asia and quite soul destroyng.  However the way things going at the moment should be able to swim back to the hotel !!.

Have been in HoiAn the last few days.  Easy place to enjoy but  less heat would have been better.  A pleasant riverside atmosphere, nice colonial style buildings, and lots of tourist artisan shops selling the silk for which it is famous, beautiful dresses, and the chance to get made to measure clothes, shoes etc.

Yesterday took a boat trip to Cham island for some swimminig in the sea and snorkelling.  Good to be in the water and outside of an airconditioned room the only place to be.

Today went to My Son, a world heritage site for its Champa ruins but ruins probably the operative word.

After here will make the long trek north. 

A first chance to catch up with the world in a few days.  Now in a very hot, sunny HoiAn.  Is a world heritage site so plenty of visitors and is a nice little town on the river with lots of quaint old buildings – actually on my previous visit thought the place vastly over rated but with more money going into the place has become an easy place to hang aroung for a few days and see the local sites and in a minute take a boat cruise along the river.  Last night was full moon and they use the occassion to make a party atmosphere so that was nice – I would use the word photographic but the new spare replacement battery for my camera has turned out to be dud, cheers Amazon (not their fault I add).

After leaving NhaTrang took the bus to Buon Ma Thuot, an easy 4 hour trip into the central highlands.  On arrival got the usual Vietnamese hassle from the motorbike taxi drivers.  Luckily a Vietnamese girl came with me from MuiNe so I could safely leave it to her to sort out transport to the Yok Dom National Park.  It turned out no buses ran there so we had to take what I thought a very expensive taxi for 350000 dong.  (The surprising thing was loads of buses ran next day back from the park to the bus station !.) Anyway arrived at the national park by which time the taxi price had become 420000 dong.  I felt like having a discussion on how Vietnamese inflation is getting like Zimbabwe but it was just too hot. At the park only offered simple native style accommodation so a chance to sleep in a wooded hut on stilts for $12 but they did give us a matress and in central London probably costs more to sleep in a shed.

Not really a great deal to see, has plenty of endangered species but there is a good reason why animals are endangered !.  Also did elephant rides but after a very bad previous experience in Cambodia  kept well away from them. But it was enjoyable by the river and nice in the evening.  Evening meal was a bit dodgy but we probably deserved it by getting the cook out of bed.  The girl I was with didn’t know the name of the meat but insisted it wasn’t monkey, dog or human.  A fair guess would probably be a rat they had caught in the kitchen, smashed with a blunt stone and then put in a frying pan with a chilli sauce.  It actually tasted ok but I just literally couldn’t face it so stuck to rice with soya sauce.

Next day returned to Buon Ma Thot and then took a minivan to Kom Tum.  Scenery nothing special, fairly well populated and farming on the hills. Kom Tum a nice little town however, very friendly and easy going with some scenic old christian churches.  Around the edge of town various ethnic people in friendly little outlying areas, photographic buildings  and a chance to relax by the river and drink excellent ice coffee.  The only downside was that evening I found my Northface hiking shoes were gone, not easily replaceable.  Not having much luck, a dog at my hotel in Cambodia chewed my sandals to pieces.

Next day took a minivan to DaNang.  A scenic ride thru forested hills and hill tribe areas and a chance to play that old travel game, sardines.  But the views were good and enjoyed the ride. 

DaNang a big city and not a great place to arrive in heavy rain in rush hour.  Finding a hotel at the beach even harder.  But a nice meal that evening and next day hot and sunny.  Swimming in the sea good with clear calm water, a long sandy beach  and quite a nice beach front gradually being developed.  Then off to here, HoiAn for a few days.

Had a few enjoyable days in MuiNe as the weather improved and the resort a good place on the beach in a nice surroundings to relax.  However the sea only suitable for watersports enthusiasts which Muine becoming famous for.

Yesterday took the bus to here, NhaTrang.  Decided to opt for the tourist bus, what they call Open Buses, as they pass along the beach and pick you up from the hotel.  They have become very popular in Vietnam as take away a lot of the hassles and language not a problem and cheap so a good reason for tourists to take them.  The downside is that nothing comes for free and they rely on as commission  system to get their profits.  So a 3 hour trip took 7 hours with unnecessary stops and not helped by more than a few breakdown stops.  Which for them conveniently leaves you arriving late at a hotel out of the way from the center, but hoping you are too tired to care and check in.  As it was I took a taxi to the center, but being late on a Saturday night hard to find a room and prices severely inflated.  So in future I will leave these buses for the backpackers and stick to the hassles and rip offs of the local buses and at least enjoy mixing with the locals.

Was here a few years ago but like elsewhere has exploded.  The road along the beach you could stroll across with eyes drifting to the beautiful girls cycling along and all wearing their traditional white dresses.  The white dresses long gone and now crossing the road, certainly on a Saturday night the usual life threating feat with a mass of motorbikes.  It wasn’t many minutes before saw the first accident.  However the place now much more buzzing with no shortage of bars and restaurants and the usual tourist stuff.

Went to the disco, full of the young and beautiful.  All those young girls who were previously hassling me for chewing gum on my last visit now grown up into swans – actually these girls probably the rich daughters of cadres who told their daughters to follow Uncle Ho and be a good communist student and that there would never be a place in Vietnam for MTV watching, beautiful girls going to discos in very short skirts.  How wrong they were.

Today hot and sunny and excellent swimming with clear, calm water.

Tomorrow hopefully head inland.

Plan to head inland went astray due to the bus becoming a “tomorrow”.  So instead continued up the coast to here, MuiNe.  The last time I was here this was an out of the way stretch of beach consisting of a long sandy beach, lots of coconut trees, fishermen and a couple of guest houses and that was it.  In Asia nothing stands still and that certainly applies to here.  Endless beach resorts, restaurants, and all the usual tourist infrastructure now spreads for miles along the beach.  Overall a nice enough place but very quiet, I gather at weekends the Vietnamese come from Saigon but the main season  not until the western hemisphere winter.  Also surprised by the amount of Russians, about the only people brave enough to enter a very rough sea.

Not sure where next.

Left PhuQuoc island Friday as the good weather came to an end and torrential rain had taken over.  The boat crossing  back to the mainland no problem and then decided to take the overnight bus to here, VungTau.  Unfortunately an awful 11 hour journey.  Very hot, sticky, over crowded and uncomfortable and for the first 5 hours an appalling road.  Didn’t get off to a very promising start when within minutes of leaving, a motorcyclist drove straight in front of the bus causing the driver to do an emergency stop and send the passengers in the front into the windscreen.  For some reason the motorcyclist then stopped which enabled the passengers to all get off the bus, surround the motorcyclist and read him the Vietnamese version of the highway code.  Eventually after being suitably chastised he was allowed to go and we carried on.

So arrived VungTau next morning tired and hot.  Took a motorcycle taxi only for the driver to forget to give me a crash helmet which is now compulsory, except for children as they have plenty of those so aren’t important enough to care and and Sundays when other people just don’t seem to care.  So immediately had the police chasing after us  and took a lot of kowtowing by the driver to avoid a fine. – they do some quite smart designer crash helmets, add a few feathers and could be worn at Ascot ladies day.

Being a major tourist resort at least finding a room would be no problem. Wrong.  It was Saturday and everyone from Saigon would be arriving so all the hotels wanted silly money.  One even told me they were only asking the Vietnamese price.  Must be the first time I’ve ever been offered the Vietnamese price for anything but on this occassion I did object on the basis that they fit a bus load of people in a room and I am on my own.  Eventually did find a place with a reasonable price.  The only downside was after having a shower and a sleep the owner wanted to know what time I was leaving.  Staying 4 days had somehow become 4 hours so more hassle.

Other than that VungTau has been ok.  Friendly and relaxed and some good coffee shops to enjoy an iced coffee and watch the world go by.  Despite being a major beach resort the place will never get a blue flag or win any awards, surprisingly dirty and unkept but the Vietnamese seem to enjoy it.

Next will head into the central highlands assuming the road on the map is viable but didn’t plan on taking that route so have no idea whats there.

As expected Hun Sen won the Cambodian elections.  I even found someone in Kep who supported him – and who pointed out they now have electricity so have to give him credit for that ( probably paid for by another countrys’ aid budget ).  Personally I will go along with my motorcycle driver who took me to the border – “why vote, we know who will win and the rich will just get richer and the poor poorer”.  Wise words.

Left Kep for a wet windy journey on the back of a motorbike for the Vietnamese border.  Despite the conditions good to be back on the road again with some nice rural Cambodian scenery, rice paddies and water buffaloes.  The border post a bit out the way, it doesn’t even get mentioned in my LP guidebook and the immigration official seemed happy to see someone.

From the border went to HaTien and then to RichSia, a bustling, modern Vietnamese town with the usual motorcycle madness and everyone seemingly on steroids or at least the super strong, mind blowing Vietnamese coffee.  But friendly place, good hotels and some pleasant sidewalk cafes to watch the world go by and Vietnamese girls always easy on the eye.

Next day took a fastboat for the two and a half hour rough sea crossing to here, Phu Quoc island. Its actually just off the coast of Kep as the Cambodians quickly point out and belongs to them but best avoid that subject- and anyway, if it belonged to them the forests would now be gone and the island sold off in some dodgy backroom deal to outsiders as per their other isalnds.  Don’t they say dogs take after their owners, is that why Cambodian and Tibetans have such aggresive dogs, they have such highly strung owners with very big grudges to bear.

Heavy rain on arrival, no electricity and after a rough crossing not that impressed.  But then the sun came out and have got to like the place.  A fair size island, covered in forests and some lovely beaches.  Less developed than I expected but I am sure that will change.  As it is now low season all very quiet and easy to pass time away doing not a lot.