HITTING THE JACKPOT: On arriving in Vietnam, we withdrew the maximum amount of Vietnamese Dong from a nearby ATM. To our surprise, we discovered that we were instant millionaires - 20 times over in fact! Unfortunately, 12,800 Dong only equates to NZ$1 so the smallest purchases seem expensive.
CULINARY TREATS: If there is a positive consequence of the French colonial occupation of Vietnam, it has to be the food (never mind the French architecture Becs). With the past 2 months being dominated by Asian orientated food, we were happy to gauge ourselves on baguettes and pastries full of sugary goodness. We also happily got stuck into Vietnamese favourites of rice-paper spring rolls, pho (rice noodle soup with chicken or beef), anything with seafood and of course the occasional Bia Hoi (local beer).
MOTO MANIA: After crossing the road in India and China, we thought we had crossing the road in Asia sorted. But crossing the road in Nam is simply perilous thanks to literally millions of scooters and motorcycles all referred to as motos by the locals. Once we got to a quieter location, we decided "when in Rome" and hired a moto for ourselves.
CHEAP CUTS: After 10 weeks since a haircut and with an afro barely controlled by a hat, Vietnam signaled the time for Rodney's first non-NZ haircut. Despite no staff speaking English, the result was surprisingly good and the two hair washes and accompanying head massages were nice bonuses. Best of all, it only cost NZ$8.
"WHAT RUDDER?": We experienced the islands rising from Halong Bay's famous emerald waters less passively than most. After a night on our boat ("junk"), we boarded a double sea kayak and paddled around the Bay. Growing up in NZ meant that we had regular exposure to many outdoor pursuits, including kayaking. It would seem that this isn't so in other countries, as we discovered following a very brief "safety" lesson. Our guide helpfully instructed us that the person sitting in the rear of the kayak would be able to steer, but declined to explain how to release the kayak skirt in the event of an emergency, or that before you can actually steer the kayak with the pedals, you firstly need to unhinge the rudder. We were a long way into the distance with the guide before we turned around and saw the 2 American couples on our trip practically going around in circles. When we paddled back to them to see if we could help, we were met with "what rudder?" followed by "oh, that thing". Needless to say, the Vietnamese don't seem to place too much emphasis on safety messages.
MAN/WOMAN vs WILD: Our main mission for visiting Sapa was to climb Vietnam's highest peak, Mt Fansipan. Little did we know, that the climb would only be one aspect of the challenge. The trekking information on Fansipan should be amended as follows:
It is a 25km return walk to the summit, which the fit can trek in 2 days but you will be told that this is impossible because they want you to pay for an extra day. You only have a 2% chance of seeing more than 2 metres in front of you when you get to the top. Guides are compulsory by government order but they may want regular rest, may struggle to keep up and may not actually make it to the summit. "Tents will be provided" actually means tarpaulin (with holes) thrown together with bamboo and / or tin in a campsite which best resembles the Happy Valley rubbish dump. You will see many examples of local wildlife, including monster rats running around below your bamboo bed. The food will be of varying standards; the chicken will be ok as it will be carried up the mountain and killed shortly before dinner but the bread will be so stale that your guide won't even eat it.
Upon learning the above factors once it was too late (i.e. we were already up the mountain) we told our guide we were doing it in 2 days not 3. In particular, we wanted to avoid another sleepless night of being too scared to go to the bathroom (rats being nocturnal). However, this did provide Rodney with a Man vs Wild moment when he set up his headlight to shine over us during the night in the hope that it would scare the rats away. Subsequent Google research has confirmed this as correct.
24 HOURS FROM NAM: To assure you all that not every day is another day in paradise, here is an outline of our worst day since we left NZ. Our departure from Sapa to HCMC on the night train to Hanoi began innocently enough, but culminated in a series of misfortunes. On arrival at Hanoi airport after minimal sleep we discovered that JetStar had no record of us despite us paying for our ticket. After much frustration, we were forced to buy new much more expensive tickets. On arriving at HCMC airport we followed all advice on how to get a reputable taxi but ended up with a nutter who tried to drive us round in circles to get a higher fare. We eventually told the driver he was ripping us off, that we weren't paying the whole fare and to stop and let us out. Once on the street he became very abusive and aggressive, trying to grab both of us while being held back by friendly locals. Given our flight and taxi woes, we were late arriving to our hostel and they had on sold our room. To finish things off Kirsty then started suffering from gastro issues. What a day in Nam.
TINY TUNNELS: With Kirsty being a bit of a history nerd, Rodney has accompanied her to many Vietnam War (or as commonly referred to here, "The American War") sites with the Cu Chi tunnels being the highlight. We were among a mere handful that managed to fit in the secret Viet Cong entrances - it would seem that the average soldier was smaller than the average westerner (American soldier). Following our adventure through the tunnels, we were shown a video made by the Vietnamese shortly after the war. Given the number of Americans on our trip, we were surprised by some of the content of the video, specially the emphasis on the heroic Viet Cong who were awarded "the American Hero Killer award".
You will note from the blog post below that Kirsty lost her grandmother on 4 April. Our first bit of down time since leaving NZ was therefore well timed at Mui Ne Beach. We are leaving for Cambodia tomorrow so have updated Flickr with our Nam photos for those of you who are interested. Hope you and your families are all safe and well, take care.
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