The End of 'Nam

I'll remember the journey from Nha Trang to Mui Ne for as long as I live. Before that night, I'd never seen a dead body. Seen plenty in films, plenty in games, but never in real life. As a kid, I used to imagine what it would be like to walk into an abandoned building and find a corpse. Think about what I would feel, what it would look like, and how it would affect me. It occured to me after this event, that thoughts like this may not have simply been an early fascination with mortality, but a way of preparing the mind for later in life.

About an hour outside Mui Ne, our bus slowed to an impossible crawl upon reaching the scene of an accident. Vehicles and people littered the sides of the road. Lights shone all around and clear signs of a collision were visible on the road. Memory tells me that the bus slowed even further as we passed this scene, but that may be a trick of the mind - time has a way of moving slowest when you least want it to. In the centre of all the distress was a partially covered body lying no more than 6 feet from my seat on the bus. I thank the fact I had removed my contact lenses an hour previously, or the vision would have been even more clearly defined. Questions
about the deceased raced back and forth in my mind but upon hearing no answers, I turned my attention towards searching for something more positive from the experience. This reminder of the frailty of life is testament as to why I am seeing the world now and what I still need to accomplish before paying the fiddler and dancing with the reaper.


The bus arrived at Mui Ne around 2:30 am. A pardon from the skies provided the first glimpse of the stars above Vietnam, and I went to sleep with a sunshine ray of hope for the next day's weather. It turned out that pardon was overruled and the rain reined supreme for the initial hours of play. Thankfully, this damnation of precipitation was only served for as long as breakfast and hiring motorbikes would once again be the best option for exploring the avenues.

Mui Ne is basically a town which has provided the meat to an otherwise skinny and indistinct coastal road. We headed north east out from the accomodation, following the road separating land from sea and imagined extending a leg out far enough to drag through the ocean. Our first stop was to the massive sand dunes in a hopeful attempt to satisfy some cravings for riding the white powder that would ellude our grasp in SE Asia.

Before our bikes were even stopped, we were hounded by local kids trying to hire us their 'boards'. I use the word 'board' loosely here as they were thin sheets of plastic with a hand grip at one end. Owing to this, and a pressing predilection for runs of over 5 metres, and boards you actually stand up on, we declined tenaciously generous offers and chose lunch instead.

Further round the headland are various beach resorts and a harbour. The area of coastline here gets strong winds and excellent waves - perfect for windsurfing & surfing. Unfortunately, these were not options afforded to us as "Charlie don't surf."

With no chance of a tan, Mui Ne offered few benefits, and the draw of Ho Chu Minh City (Saigon) became undeniable.

Ho Chi Minh City is home to over 10 million people and over 3 million scooters - a bottom of the range scooter costs about $220 here. Entrepreneurs looking to cash in on this obvious discrepancy from Western prices will have to first devise ways of buying and exporting said merchandise. Westerners aren't allowed to buy them and no company will export them for you. Still, I doubt your average street dweller would say "no" to $200 for his 2nd hand scooter but then you have the issue of driving it back to the UK.

"Organised chaos" is the term proudly used to describe their road traffic, but 'mayhem' is a more succinct and precise definition. Strangely the system seems to work; people go when they want, only worry about what's in front and when in doubt, floor it. In this way, it's much like watching an evacuation on scooters. Sure, every now and again, someone get's trampled but everyone gets out in the end.

No licence is necessary out here - road safety is simply down to the common sense of the person driving. For this reason, I challenge any Westerner to walk across the road, looking straight ahead, and not changing pace once leaving the confines of the pavement. This is the encouraged and often the only successful technique for crossing a road out here. However, it is only ever demonstrated with ease of indifference by locals and depressives - the rest of us look like we're participating in a line dance.

Our hotel room cost a new low of $4 a night. I'm not saying the place was bad but a family of stray dogs were abandoning the room as we moved in. Still, when you have stayed in mud huts in Nepal, you lose a lot of qualms about where you lay your head. As long as the beds are bug free, the sheets are clean, and there are no univited rodents, what else do you need?

Saigon is a vibrant city with a constantly adapting attitude, positive outlook, and good choice of nightlife. Our first dinner was at a small restaurant located away from the suggestions of Lonely Planet. The tables were long benches and the chairs were plastic garden furniture. The meal itself was probably the best in Vietnam so far. We had honey beef which you cooked on a grill at your table and dipped in the sauce when you were statisfied of it's non-rarity. The meat and honey sauce were both first class and the culinary skills of the chef were second to none.

We embarked on a city tour the first full day, with the comfort in knowing someone else was orgnising where to go, when to do it, and how much to pay.

The National War Museum has various american aircraft and weaponry displayed in the courtyard and a massive collection of Vietnam photography in the buildings. The presentation emphasised more of the tragedy of war, than assigning blame, and was therefore a more unbiased opportunity to study the events. The pictures were remarkable and each one offered a story of well over 1000 words. The one below is not one of these - it's just a cool gun.

Other sites of the day included: The Reunification palace (formely the Presidential palace); a lacquerware factory (more for tourists not concerned about carrying their purchases around other countries), the oldest Pagoda of Giac Loc (Turtle Temple), Ben Thanh Market (in China Town), and a drive by viewing of Notre Dame Cathedral and the Old Saigon Post office (so exciting they weren't worth stopping for).

In the evening, we got together with a mate (we'd previously met on the first bus from Bangkok airport to Th Kao San Road), and a couple of his friends to venture even further away from backpacker central. They had stumbled onto a gem of a restaurant previously and promised to take us there if we revealed it's location to no other travellers. No map was drawn and enough alcohol was consumed to protect it's location for future generations. But cheap beer was not the only luxury of this fabled free house. Oh no; they also sold grilled snake and had a tank(glass, not battle) full of them in the back of the place. Snake has a fish like texture to it with most of it's flavour in the skin. Once you got past the idea that the snake had simply been grilled and cut into segments so easy defineable that a 3 year old could reassemble it, the meat was actually quite enjoyable.

The next day we headed out to the "Cu Chi" tunnels to the north of Saigon. The area consists of over 220km of claustrophobic tunnels, on 3 subterranean depths, and a multitude of trap-door maimers to please even the most sadistic minds on Earth.

Our tour began with the customary short propaganda film about the US forces being evil devils but this time went into such detail to state that they bombed schools, hospitals, pots and pans, & vegetables. Questions as to the possibility of ‘good’ devils existing and the effectiveness of using kitchen equipment as an tear jerking example for senseless loss were not posed to our hosts.

Next up was a closer look at some of the wonderfully creative inventions the VC devised for maiming the US ground forces. They usually centred around the concept of a trap door concealing a hole filled with either poison tipped bamboo spears or nail filled rollers. Our guide proudly advised us that traps such as these were responsible for killing 8000 US soldiers and injuring nearly 4 times that amount. I find it strange that these traps have not had the air-time duly owed in the Hollywood Vietnam films. The idea of walking through a foreign land, fighting an enemy that hid under your feet, and being in constant danger of losing a limb if you trod in the wrong spot, gives a hint at how scared the US troops must have been.

The tour ended with a quick scurry around the tunnels for a couple of hundred feet and a glimpse at life for the VC during the war. The tunnels were so small that you had to hobble along in a crouch and so narrow there was barely room to turn around. They were also extremely humid, pitch black, and inhospitable to anyone but the insane, needy or rattus among us.

Vietnam clearly has different aspects to offer your senses than it's neighbours. The cities seemed of a different species to those in Thailand and Laos. The products of different parents with different importances stressed on them from an early age. Saigon had an refreshing independence to it's growth; less tarnished by the West than Bangkok and with more of a irrefutable desire to adapt to new ideas as it develops. Hanoi seemed almost resentful of our presence and in no way as effortlessly easy going as a town in Laos.

The people initially seemed intrusive because of the relentless persistency of their tuk-tuk / and moto taxi drivers. But, after stopping for a few of them, I realised that they genuinely did just want to chat and learn about English culture, as well as making a bit of money. Most will have a chat to you long after you have said you don't want a taxi and many will offer help with directions without hesitation. I realised that I felt they were delaying me in some way and for that reason became annoyed. If you look at speed of how things are done out here, you realise that there is no hurry. Food in a restaurant is never brought out for the people in your group at the same time, and more often than not, you don't even get the rice and meat of your own meal in unison. The urgency I felt was especially unwarranted considering my time-table on most days. Western living had simply infused the need to get everywhere quickly and work to set times. The search for efficiency had caused the loss in memory of basic human privileges such as talking and helping one another

Vietnam has shown many reasons for a return visit with the most important one being that we simply didn't have enough time to do it justice on this one. There were so many things we didn't have time to visit and others which we couldn't see in their full glory because of rain. At times, we'd even knelt down and prayed for sunny salvation, but our calls were never answered by anything but rain. My tour was up and we were leaving Nam. The eternal conflict between temples and bars and subsequent possession of my soul was never concluded.

Vietnam - heading South for winter

We travelled through the night again to save time & money, arrived ready for breakfast in Hue. Our only real interest was the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), so we were gutted to learn that the tours for that day had already left. Never to be beaten by other people's time-tables, we established what limited options were available and hired a couple of motorbikes. They didn't have a clutch so were relatively easy to drive, but torrential rain caused the thought of further riding to be untenable after realising we had only travelled half the way and were soaked. So, 50km outside Hue, we reluctantly admitted defeat, returned the motorbikes, and made our way to a bar to see out the rest of the monsoon.

Our bus for Hoi An was due to leave the next morning at 8:00am. We woke at 7:55am (only thanks to a well timed text message ;) - thanks Lucie) and just about managed to pack everything in time to jump on the bus before the hand brake was removed.

The draw of Hoi An, was a couple of recommended beaches nearby, and the prospect of buying tailor-made suits at bargain basement prices. This proved to be an understatement. It seemed the only type of business in town was suit / dress makers and the costs were so low it was hard to stop a domino effect of buying more once the taste took control. The choices were immense - catalogues and modern magazines to select your style, and then a massive selection of fabrics and colours on offer. Knowing that there are people with far better ideas on this stuff than me, I thought it best to use the design skills of Gucci and Mr. Paul Smith. Now, what would go with a couple of new suits? Surely it would be rude not to buy a few new shirts as well - 2 cotton, 1 linen, 1 silk. I know, I know, it's far too much spending when travelling. I mean 80 quid is an extortionate amount for all of those items.

It would be worth having a holiday in Vietnam every few years, just to get a dozen new suits and shirts made. You could realistically have a 2 week vacation, see the length of the country, get 10 suits, 10 shirts made, and have a week on the beach for about 800 pounds. Cash back! Alternatively, the lady in this store said she would keep my measurements and airmail new suits direct to England whenever I want. So, anytime I felt like a new suit, I could have one delivered from Vietnam for around 50 quid! This may explain why Jonathan Ross seemingly wastes so much money on his suits and vomit provoking styles. Alternatively, he may just be a bit of a tit with his sense of humour clearly worn on his sleeve. Tailor your own conclusions.

Thankfully, mother nature had the decency to ease off the rain in the afternoon and allow us the opportunity to see parts of the town further a field than those which were protected by shop roofs. Hoi An has a real charm to it; there is a clear difference from the hectic ness further north and a warmer attitude to it's people. It had a village feel to it that was reminiscent of Laos and managed to boast two of the best 'local' specialities I have tried - the 'Cau Lau' & 'White Rose' are well worth checking out.

Another night bus later and we arrived at Nha Trang, still under the relentless fury of the rain. There isn't much to do a beach resort when it's pissing it down so we took it easy the first day, played some pool, had a few drinks and booked an island hopping trip for the next day (there's that optimism again). The first stop was to 'Hon Mun' or more dramatically labeled 'Ebony Island' due to the colour of it's dominant geology. The draw of this island was the opportunity to snorkel around the coral reef which encircles it's coast line. Although visibility was down to a dismal 1.5m, the rain provided motivation to stay underwater and see the potential of the area. A shame that the potential was the only thing you could see clearly. It was still a great taster of what reef diving is like and has heightened my desire to find clear water and complete a Scuba diving course.

While on route to the next island, a massive buffet lunch consisting of king prawns, fried beef, squid, spring rolls, rice, noodle and mixed veg. was laid out for us. Our characteristic hosts then provided a few bottles of red wine (probably the worst that's ever passed my lips, but also the strongest - 16%), brought out some musical instruments, and played their intepretations of some classics. The instruments looked like they're been salvaged from a ship wreck and the guitarist was introduced as Vietnam's favourite lady boy. This poor gender confused guitar wielder was also either severely paranoid or one buffet short of a side dish, as he wore a motorbike helmet the entire day.

The tambourine man also appeared to be a bit 'special', and defiantly denounced his lady boy label, by proudly declaring he was just a 'homosensual'. The combination of the band of misfits and cheap strong wine made for a hysterical performance, climaxing with the tambourine man dancing with an Australian lady and not knowing who should be leading.

Our next stop was Hon Tre island where we had an hour to go 'swimming on the beach' (still not sure how this is achieved), play some volleyball, or finish off the cheap wine from the comfort of a shaded deck chair. I probably would have been up for the volleyball but as the heavens were not closing anytime soon, the shaded deck chair was an easy choice.

Two bottles of wine and an hour later, we left Hon Tre and moved onto the final island for the day. The boat moored at the floating harbour and people could pay to have a ride in the local's circular boats. As thrilling as this seemed, I managed to resist temptation and stayed on the main boat.

Rain forced an early finish to the day and consequently provided a few hours to sleep off the wine before heading out to the main club in Nha Trang, 'The Sailing Club'. Contrary to the 'homosenseul' undertones of a club named as such, it was a surprisingly good club the best drinking den in town. You'd think that hardly any westerners were in the town by the numbers
in some bars but this place draws everyone out of the sand. That may be because it's one of the only serving bars between 12 & 4am but there was no better place to be during these hours.

When that bar closes, and it seems like the only option is to hit the sack, another bar gets it's 2nd wind, and everyone continues drinking until breakfast. I called it a night when a pool cue became a walking stick, and decided to face the gaunlet of nighthawks on the way home. Luke had been persistently pursued by a scooter riding chick-boy the previous night so I left the bar ready for battle. I was approached only once and a swift F'-off was all it took to dissuade further advances.

A cloudy head and a late start dominated the following day with solace being sought in buying CDs and improving the MP3 player - my ipod falls ever closer to the tree.

Vietnam - "a country, not just a war"

The bus journey from Vientiane to Hanoi takes 24 hours. When confronted with a future as bleak as this, I couldn't help but think about the wise words of The Ramones - "20, 20, 24 hours to go. I wanna be sedated." So, with the help of the soothing tones of Valerie and Liam, the journey passed by as easy as passing out - sleep is a wonderful past-time.

We managed to find a hostel with ease thanks to a tout waiting with a taxi at the bus depot. Thankfully, this was not a scam; the hostel was just what we were looking for and located ideally in the Old Quarter. It was simply called 'Sinh Youth Hostel' and I'd definitely recommend it as the staff were friendly and helpful with arranging everything from a Visa to a 2 day excursion. We'd met a couple of Australians and an English girl on the bus, so as soon as everyone was showered, we ventured out to get some food and booze. On various street corners of the city, you can find locals selling cheap beer from large kegs, and people gathered around them on plastic kid's chairs. This 'Hoi beer' cost about 7 pence a glass! OK, it tasted like cat piss, but for 7p a glass, you could afford to down a few, until the alcohol kicked in and they started tasting better. That's got to be the cheapest beer so far.



We spent the first day, exploring the streets of the Old Quarter (which seem to change their names at virtually every junction), walking around the lake, and taking in a few of the sights. The first was the Ngoc Son Temple, situated on an island in the northern section of the lake. The temple houses the preserved body of a giant turtle, a type of which is known to occupy the lake. Legend has it that the gods once gave Emperor 'Ly Thai To' a magical sword to vanquish his invading enemies from China. After winning the war, the emperor was out boating on the lake one day, when a turtle surfaced and stole the sword. The legend states that this turtle was sent from the gods to return to the sword to the heaven, but I hasten to suggest it was the creative dramatisation of a careless emperor who was mugged by a turtle. The people of Vietnam were less cynical and renamed the lake, Ho Hoan Kiem (Lake of the Restored Sword).



After a short walk around the lake, we arrived at the Temple of Literature. It was dedicated to Confuscious in 1070 by Emperor Ly Thang Tong, and later established as a university. It houses 82 stelae honouring the men who receieved doctorates in the triennial examinations dating back to 1442. Now, that may not be of interest to most of you so I'll just say, it was well kept, nice looking and would be a good place to just hang around, if the weather was good and you had some time to slaughter.

With the Air Force museum being closed, and the Maosuleum restricting access to trouser wearing folk, our choices were fairly limited as to where to go next. So, what better place to check out than the old Hanoi Hilton - the prison. Generally an interesting place, but more so for their interpretation of history, the idealism of communism, and how they reckon they treated the American POWs. "Fiction can be fun, but I find the reference section much more enlightening." Still, I suppose everyone has to tell their own side of a story.

In the evening we went by the recommendation of the Lonely Planet and dined at restaurant Cha Ca 66 in order to try one of Hanoi's most famous specialities, "Cha Ca". It was a sort of DIY meal where the ingredients are supplied and you choose the amount of cooking induced and how the food is presented.

We couldn't leave the north of Vietnam without a visit to the Word Heritage site, Halong Bay. On a good day, you can see 3000 islands rise from the turqoise water of the Gulf of Tonkin. On the day we visited, the fog restricted the count to around half a dozen and gave us an important reason for revisiting this area.

Our first stop was to view one of the many caves inside the islands. Bathed in mood lighting and the expectation of chill out music, the caves were impressive and well worth checking out. Our next and final stop for the day was Cat Ba Island. Unfortunately, we hadn't the time or inclination to explore the island and instead opted for dinner, pool, and some sleep.

By the time we arrived back in Hanoi, it was practically time to jump on our bus to Hue. Fond farewells to the city were short and insincere. We had greater things in mind like reaching white beaches and blistering sunshine. Our journey south had much to live up to and offered no more promise than a more equatorial latitude. Optimism has always been a dominant virtue of mine.

Laos - The Beginning Ending

In order to check out the waterfall at Kuang Si and travel down to Vang Vieng in one day we decided to see the waterdall during the day and catch an evening bus. This would also provide the benefit of a few hours relative relaxation before moving on again.

The Kuang Si waterfall is located approximately 30 km south of Luang Prabang. Carved out of a limestone backdrop, it has multiple levels, and inviting pools scattered around it's base. With it being too cold to swim, we climbed the adjoining slope, explored the views, then enjoyed some lunch and chucked a frisbee around the car park.

The journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng travels along the infamous 'Route 13'. There haven't been any major incidents of bombings, hijacking, or mass murder along the route since 2003, but as a precaution, one passenger on the bus was armed with an AK47 - "when you absolutely, positively have to kill every mofo in the room, accept no substitute". I'd like to think that the reason he wore no uniform, was that he was some sort of special forces agent, but I'm guessing he was just another badass bus driver. Thankfully, he never needed to scratch his itchy trigger finger and our journey passed without incident. We arrived in Vang Vieng around 3am and booked into the nearest accomodation we could find. Given it's advantageous proximity to new arrivals the guest house didn't bother with cleanliness, & consequently we didn't bother staying longer than necessary - turned out to be after about 6 hours sleep.

Vang Vieng is a small town that has developed around an old US air strip. It is quickly gathering a name as Th Ko San road of Laos due to the availability of activities and party prescriptions. The government is apparently cracking down on the drugs issue, but as there was opium tea & mushroom shakes freely advertised on restaurant menus, I kind of doubt their presumed level of intolerance.

Our first activity whilst in Vang Vieng was an afternoon tubing. In Laos, they really know how to make you feel laid back. They give you an inner tube from a tractor tire, drive you a few km up river and then drop you off near the shore. After that, you sit in your tube, let the river take you back towards town, and stop off at whichever bars take your fancy. A few bars bars also had 'death slides' and swings throwing you out into the river which cost a few thousand kip to use, or were free if you bought a beer - you gotta love their stringent health and safety codes! Anyone for a bungee jump out here? I think I'll wait for a country that understands the concept of liability. With the sun quickly setting we continued floating on a psychedelic haze until mild pneumonia awoke our senses to a random taxi depot at the side of the river. As fun as the tubing was, everyone agreed to cut the day short in favour of warmer pastures.

The next day, we started our journey to the capital, Vientiane, but this time, broke up the ride by kayaking some of the way. This was apparently through some sections of grade 3 rapids but there was nothing too taxing for a couple of beginners. We stopped for a BBQ lunch at the side of the river and our guide took us to a couple of good jumping spots. The first was off a rock about 12 ft high. The 2nd was off a cliff, reached by a narrow ledge, at a height of about 30 ft. I always get an urge to throw myself off anything high so jumped as soon as the way was clear. The weirdest thing was that you'd be falling, expect to hit the water and then realise that you were only halfway down. Unfortunately, telling everyone else this proved less than motivational - I can't guess why.

Vientiane didn't really hold much interest for us as it was more of a stop gap before heading over to Vietnam. Still, we checked out the National History museum and went Ten Pin bowling before catching our night bus to Hanoi. Nothing too stressful as we had a bit of a journey ahead of us.

Note: We have now been informed that the speed boat trip we so thoroughly enjoyed on the way into Laos, currently has a record of one fatality a week. Funny, considering the only thing we were worried about at the time, was the fact we couldn't feel our legs. Oh lord.

Laos - The Beginning

We had just entered the most heavily bombed country on earth - between 1964 & 1973, the US flew nearly 600K missions, dropping over 2 million tons of bombs on this beautfiul country. 30% of them failed to detonate. Apart from that, Laos is still the pristine environment of unmanaged beauty that is was a 100 years ago when the French mozied in and misnamed the place Laos, instead of Lao. It is also known as 'Lan Xand' - (the land of a) Million Elephants, but this is rarely used by anyone except romantic tour guides and readers of the Lonely Planet.

The Chiang Khong / Huay Xie crossing between Thailand and Laos is a simple ferry ride across the Mekong river. From there, your choices to get to Luang Prabang are: 2 days on a standard boat, 10 hours on a bus, or 6 hours in a speed boat. I once heard that the worst thing about travelling is arriving. I agree in principle with this philosophy, but when you have three choices of how to get somewhere and they range in duration from 6 hours to 2 days, I think it's pretty obvious which one is worth going for. As it turned out, 6 hours in a speed boat was about 5.5 hours too long. There was nothing wrong with the ride itself, but the floor space appointed to each person was about 4ft squared. I say floor space as there was no seats. Sitting with your kness pressed under your chin for 6 hours tends to make you a little uncomfortable. The saving factors were the speed at which we travelled, the fact our driver wasn't drunk (as we'd heard is often the case), and the beautiful sceneray which provided just enough distraction from the discomfort to make the journey bearable.

SE Asia seems to have a laid back attitude in general but with Laos, you're so laid back, you're lying down. I'm blaming this infectious state of mind for our complete failure to research the country and find out that there are no ATMs. Believeing that we would draw out local currency as soon as we arrived at the first town, we were now in a situation where we had just arrived in a new country, with no currency, either local or the all-accepted US dollars. Thankfully, two blokes from England felt enough satisfaction in meeting two people who were less organised than themslves and lent us some money - thanks Andy & Dave! They heading north to go fishing to a sleep little village in the middle of nowhere, so we trusted fate and joined them.

The journey started with a 3 hour bus ride to Nong Kiaw and then a 1.5 hr boat trip to our destination, Muang Ngoi Neua. It is a beautiful little village which is only accessible by boat, has it's power supplied by a generators, and has an untouched earthly feel to it which is enhanced by a dusty sprinkling of mud to every building. We stayed in small huts, built on stilts and located a stone's throw away from the river. Stretching out from the huts was a small communal balcony area with hammocks supplied to soak up the atmosphere in an appropriate fashion.

Our search for a guide for the fishing was completed the moment we walked into the first restaurant. The owner, Kan, said he could take us on a day trip upstream and teach us some local fishing techniqies - lunch would be provided by us. The next day, we split into two 15ft boats and paddled our way up stream. The first stop was a small island which he suggested would be a good base to conduct some net fishing. First we used a circular net with chains spanning the circumference. This was thrown out into from the water's edge in hope that it trap any fish swimming past that spot when the chains sank. You'd then pull on a blue cord at the centre of the net which effectively pulls the chains running the border together and traps anything in the middle. That's the theory, anyway.

Further upstream, we used traditional rods from the shoreline, and worms which were collected from the river mud, as bait. This resulted in an absolute feast....for the fish, and a complete lack of lunch supplied by the rods. However, the grasp of technological innovation was on our side, and we proved our superiority with the application of a net big enough to trap everything swimming down river within a 20 yard area - our catch was served with spicy spinach, sticky rice and pumpkin jelly. We then washed down this veritable concoction of palatable delite with a shot of Lao Lao, and made our way back to the village.