The rest of my journey to Vietnam was fairly uneventful (if incredibly long and dull) apart from somehow managing to misplace my phone. I spent most of the time stuck in airport departure halls trying to get a bit of sleep (and mostly failing) but eventually I managed to complete the epic trip and arrived in Hanoi on Thursday morning. Once I had acquired my visa (which turned out to be a remarkably simple procedure), I discovered my lack of phone, and so once I had finished clearing immigration and had retrieved my bag I went off in search of the Tiger Airways office. Except being a budget airline and sod's law contrived to make me discover after (a very sweaty) hour of looking that they don't actually have an office in Hanoi. So I gave up with this futile endeavour and grabbed a minibus into the city followed by a motorbike taxi to where I was planning on staying (Hanoi Backpackers Hostel).
I didn't have very long in Hanoi and definitely wasn't feeling in a hugely great mode when I reached the hostel, but after checking in and sorting my life out (including emails to Changi airport and Tiger Airways) I headed up to the rooftop bar, where my mood definitely improved after 2 happy hours of 2 for 1 beer and a burger. The atmosphere was great and I met some cool people, but since I hadn't had much sleep I ended up crashing out reasonably early.
I ended up spending most of the next morning sleeping and lounging around, but around midday I headed out to try and see some of the city. This didn't begin so well after I headed out with a group of girls to try and find a police station to get a stamp for their crime reports (stolen bags the night before) since it turns out the Vietnam police are not the most helpful and for whatever reason were less than keen to provide said stamp. After a half-hour of hanging around I decided to leave them to it and headed out by myself to explore some of the Old Quarter of the city. It ended up being quite a good afternoon and I managed to visit the lake, the Womens' Museum and the Prison Museum which were all pretty good. Then it was back to the hostel to pack and head out to the train station to catch a night train south to Hue to meet up with Soph and Smithy.
The train itself was reasonably comfortable and I managed to get some sleep, but it did end up taking all of 16 hours to reach our destination, by which time I was well and truly bored. I had managed to read an entire book and had very little else to do by the time we got there, but it was a nice way to see some of the Vietnamese countryside. When I eventually arrived in Hue I grabbed a taxi and headed over to Hue Backpackers Hostel (part of the same chain as the one in Hanoi). It was quite surreal when I arrived to see Sophie sitting there reading her book and Smithy at a computer. After a month or so of travelling on my own it was really peculiar to see someone so familiar in such an unfamiliar place.
Solo travelling is great and all but sometimes I did find myself wishing I had a friend to share it with. There are moments like when you want to crack an inappropriate joke or have a day of doing absolutely nothing but you don't feel you can with people you've only just met. Instead you're always a little bit cautious about what you do and what you say and can't quite relax in the same way you might do with good friends.
Since Soph and Smithy had already been in Hue for a couple of days, we weren't there for long. After I had checked in we went and grabbed some food at a local cafe/eatery place. I then decided to head off on my own over the river to the old citadel which the others had already visited and recommended. After a nice relaxing couple of hours wandering around the old city and purchasing a phone and SIM card to tide me over I headed back to the hostel for some free beer provided by the hostel. That evening Soph, Smithy and I headed round the corner to a nice restaurant/bar place for some grub. After having eaten we went downstairs and met some people who Sophie and Smithy had met at Halong Bay, Lisa and Dave from Derbyshire. We ended up making a night of it, and what a night it was. I think it was close to the best night I've had since starting travelling. We had some tasty cocktails, played pool and met some interesting Vietnamese people. The music was good, the company was great and all in all it was a pretty epic night, with Sophie showing off her dance moves with an Argentinian man and Smithy trying in vain to have a proper conversation with a Vietnamese man who clearly didn't have the foggiest about what he was saying. It was all rounded off by Sophie and I driving a pair of cyclos (bikes with big seats on the front) back down the road to the hostel.
Being the sensible Cambridge graduates we are, we of course had booked early morning (8am...) bus tickets before going out and ending up reasonably sozzled, so we were slightly tender in the morning as we boarded the bus down to Hoi An. Although, having said that, I have become a bit of a morning person while travelling, often waking up around 6am of my own accord! Scary.
After a brief stop in a rather swish-looking service station we arrived in Hoi An. It is a lovely place to be, not too busy, a fair amount of culture and good food and drink. On stepping off the bus our first challenge was to find somewhere to stay, so we headed off down the road with our backpacks looking like proper travellers while motorcycle taxi drivers tried in vain to convince us that the hotel we were aiming for was too far away. However, after about 5-10 mins of walking in the not insignificant heat we decided we were rather hungry and happened upon an Indian restaurant which looked perfect. It was definitely one of the best Indian meals I've ever had and so we of course had far too much to eat, which made the 20mins or so of walking to the hotel slightly less than comfortable, but once we got there we decided it had been worth it. It was quite a refreshing change to stay in a hotel rather than a hostel, especially one with a pool (where we have spent a fair amount of time lounging).
Now I was always expecting Hoi An to be a slightly more expensive stay than most but I wasn't really prepared for the amount I would end up spending. It all began that first afternoon when Soph and I (Smithy was having a snooze) decided to go for a bit of an explore. Hoi An is famous for the number of tailors there are and we were all considering maybe getting something made since it would be considerably cheaper than doing the same back home so Sophie and I planned to just go round and have a bit of a recon mission to see if we could find somewhere we might want to get clothes made. However, we ended up getting a bit carried away and both got measured up for shoes. We weren't planning on anything else but the owner of one of the shoe shops has a sister who runs a clothes shop as well so we went to have a look, and of course once there we ended up getting measured up and I ordered a suit and Sophie got a couple of dresses. This turned out to be somewhat of a theme for our stay here. Over the 4 days we've been here I've ended up getting 2 pairs of shoes, 3 shirts and a 3-piece suit, most of which were posted back to the UK (apart from a pair of shoes and a shirt) this morning. Smithy and Sophie ended up with similar amounts (Soph managed 5 pairs of shoes) but I somehow managed to spend the most. It was worth it though, all the clothes were made to measure and cost a fraction of the price I would have to pay back home. In fact all 3 of us managed to get some amazing clothes, and bar a few alterations here and there we had no issues, everything we bought fitted almost perfectly and looks incredible, all for a fraction of the cost we would normally have to pay! Even the job of posting most of it back was painless, it just took a couple of men with boxes and a few forms and the whole job was done in under half an hour.
We haven't spent our entire time shopping and being fitted though (although it has sometimes felt like it), the morning after our first night we went on a cookery course where we started by going to the market to get some fresh ingredients. The market itself is a fun experience with an incredible range of foods and smells and it's also very entertaining to watch taller people (i.e. Smithy) struggling to duck under all the awnings. Once we had the ingredients we went on a nice boat trip down the river to an island where they have an open-air kitchen. We first had to go and collect a few other ingredients from on the island itself and have a go at threshing the rice to make the rice batter for later. The cooking itself was amazing and the food we made was absolutely delicious. We made everything from spring rolls, to Pho, to pork and shrimp pancakes, all accompanied by free-flowing passionfruit juice. We also got copies of the recipies, so I will definitely be trying them out at home. The trip was completed with a visit to the 'Magic Spinning Table' which was another experience, with people putting their hands on this old-looking wooden table, saying which direction we wanted the table to spin and sort of chanting before the table started spinning, apparently of it's own accord. I have a feeling it's one of those psychological things that everyone is kind of expecting the table to turn in one direction so ends up pushing it that way round. Very odd.
Other than that we haven't done a lot else other than lounging around and walking through the old town. It's a really nice place to be although it does get a bit trying when there are ALWAYS people trying to sell you things, even when your sitting in a cafe trying to have a meal. The food and drink here is phenomenal though! And cheap! You can have a glass of beer for as cheap as 3000VND which is somewhere in the region of 8p! And it tastes good! The local food is awesome and there are plenty of places to eat cheaply (and this has of course led to me eating far too much) and I really love it here, it just seems to have a really nice vibe.
Last night was awesome as well, we decided that we fancied going back to the same Indian we went to when we first arrived, and as we were walking up from the river towards it, we met none other than Lisa and Dave who had also come here from Hue! They came with us to the Indian, where we had a proper feast of delicious curry and stellar conversation. Afterwards we headed back down in the direction of the river where we came across a very popular-looking bar that seemed really nice. We ended up making a proper night of it like last time (although due to some inconsiderate people the pool was nowhere the level of our previous night together) with cocktails, beer and tequilas galore. It was a pretty cool bar and a really fun night, although it was a touch disconcerting getting back to the hotel in the dark to find it completely locked up. Fortunately there was a little man in a tent in the lobby who let me in.
We've decided that rather than follow the standard route down the coast to Nha Trang we are instead going to head inland to the highlands and a place called Kon Tum on the night bus this evening. Hoi An is a lovely place and it is really hard to leave (but then I've said that about almost everywhere I've been) but I think that if I was to spend much longer here I would end up spending all my money.
Pictures to come soon.
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