And so the travellers return from the deepest, darkest jungle...
Well, it certainly felt like it at times. We flew to Hue, which was once the capital, in centuries of old when emperors still lived in palaces and had harems and eunuchs and the like. It is a lovely town - certainly the peace and quiet was a welcome break from the chaos that is Saigon. We found a reasonable hotel - 7$ a night, about £4 something, I have no idea how many Euros that is - and spent five days and nights exploring. The Imperial Palace was in ruins, but just intact enough to be redolent of its former glory. Some stunning photos.
One day we hired two bicycles (total cost for the day: 75p) and cycled the 13km to the coast and the spectacular beaches of the South China Sea. I say beaches - it's actually one beach, about 1000km long. We found ourselves surrounded by desert-white squeaky-fine sand, after passing through numerous tiny villages and being dogged by excited children's cries of 'hello' and 'one dollar?'. The seas were equally spectacular - all hues of blue and green accounted for. The one snag with being a tad adventurous and straying off the tourist routes is that one finds oneself amongst locals who have never seen Westerners before, at least up close. Having installed ourselves on the beach, quite literally not a soul in sight for hundreds of metres in either direction, as far as the eye could see in fact, we were visited by a steady stream of local Vietnamese fishermen and their families. They would wonder up to us, nod and smile, and then sit down on the sand with us, prodding our white skins and pointing at bodily hair in a mixture of amusement and bemusement. We tolerated this zoo for long enough for me to burn, before giving it up as a lost cause, waving goodbye to our admirers and making the return trip, returning the many 'hellos' with noticeably less enthusiasm second time around.
Hue is certainly a town I would recommend for a visit of a few days. It's on the tourist route from HCM to Hanoi, and so has it's share of bars and cafes, but in nothing like as intruding a fashion as we've encountered in other places. I had read once in a long-forgotten novel that the train trip from Hue to Danang was one of the most beautiful in the world. Thus inspired, we spurned the many tourist cafe offers of buses and headed resolutely for the train station. Scary. But we persevered and found ourselves trainbound for Denang - a trip of 108km. This translates as a little over three hours in Vietnam, since there is only one track and trains heading in opposite directions, logically enough, have to stop and wait at designated places to pass each other. The track at places seems to defy gravity as it hangs over the coast and does offer incredible views. As we passed by, the early morning mist was just burning off. The 30km from Denang to Hoi An, we covered by Xe Om (on the back of a motorbike). It was less scary than the train, and strange after HCM to be on the road in so little traffic.
Hoi An is, how can I put it, outrageously old world colonial. It was once the major port, being situated at the mouth of the Perfume River, which runs from Hue. You can still feel the Frenchness of the place. It was designated as World Heritage in 1999 by UNESCO: a fact now thoroughly milked by it's growing tourist businesses. However, it is still unspoilt and thus far one of my favourite places in Vietnam. It has a plethora of tailor's shops, all competing madly for the tourist dollar. Having had no intention of buying clothes, I had a suit made (for $30!) and a few shirts. Who wouldn't? Needless to say, we overspent. However, this is entirely without regrets.
Our economies meant bussing back to Siagon. Without recounting all the sordid details, we made the 12 hour journey to Nha Trang, stayed overnight and then made the 12 hr journey on the Saigon. (Frustrating as it was advertised as an 8 hr journey. In retrospect, we were clearly in no state to fully appreciate Nha trang's finer points. We left with decidedly negative feelings about the place. On revisiting, I have found it to be a haven of peace, a far cry from the Lonely Planet's stories of mafia crime and tourist fleecing. Maybe if you are wondering around alone and drunk at two in the morning, it's another story...It's a 'city' on the up, and one of the places I'd put on a list of top five things to visit in Vietnam.)
In each case the trip was made a little more bearable by the exuberance of Australian fellow travellers. But NEVER again. Never. The last few days were Tet, the Chinese/Vietnamese New year. Just like a Bank Holiday in the UK for travelling. We passed six dead bodies on the roads, accompanied by varying amounts of gore. It is sobering, to say the least, to see just how cheap life is. The driving is atrocious at it's very best. At times it is positively suicidal. This summer we want to go to Hanoi for our Honeymoon and we will be flying both ways, and bugger the cost.
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