Blogs from the Wilderness

Hurrah for Ninh Binh, at last, the real Vietnam; after all, that’s why everyone goes there.

So after I had spent most of the morning in Hanoi, finding a new camera (good cameras are expensive in Vietnam). There is no English on the menu but it’s almost the same as my old one so I know how to use it anyway. I took the train to Ninh Binh, which was a pleasant and relaxing experience, once there I chatted with some people in the nearest bar I could find and got a lift on the back of a Cedric’s motorbike to my hotel, Cedric was to be my companion for most of my time in Ninh Binh.

Ninh Binh is a quiet little place by Vietnamese city standards, so expect it to be dirty, noisy but not have much to do other than head down to the river for Bia Hoi in the evening. On the other hand if you hire a motorbike and head out into the countryside, you ride through rice paddies and rock formations to rival Halong Bay.

On my first full day Cedric and I rented motorbikes and rode off into the backstreets where we discovered that the Vietnamese are building the largest Buddhist temple in the world before we headed up to the National park. The next day I rented a motorbike again and went with an Auzzie called Peter for a river cruise and toured the back roads some more.

The next morning I took the bus back to Hanoi, to my surprise the bus actually came to the hotel to pick me up. It dropped me at a bus station just outside Hanoi and after some confused running around I got a taxi to the airport for my flight to Siem Reap.

Rosko recommends: Go to Ninh Binh, but do it before everyone else finds it.

Food of the stay: Back to standard fare for Vietnam.

After a short stop in Hanoi where I went to a water puppets show it was straight on to Halong Bay, I took a tour as it is supposed to cost about the same as heading that way independently. We were taken out to Halong City by minibus where we were transferred to these big wooden boats that looked like the contained a menagerie of animals.

The flotilla of boats drift through the bay to the first anchor point where you are taking onto one of the islands where we were taken into a cave that even the Americans on our boat considered a bit too Disney (fake waterfalls and colourful lighting abound). The main reason for spending the night on a boat is so that you can see the bay at dawn, sadly the clouds did a pretty good job of obscuring it. The next day we went to Cat Ba island which was memorable only for me managing to break my camera.

Once back from Halong Bay I headed straight up to Sapa for some trekking up Fansipan (the highest peak in Indochina, much climbing waterfalls and wading through streams brought us to the top in deep cloud. On the way down it cleared enough to see the valley.

The next day I hired a moped and went into the valley where the local indigenous people work the rice paddies.

Rosko recommends: For the fit, a trek up fansipan is a rewarding experience and Sapa generally is an experience, even if the town itself is a bit touristy.

Food of the stay: The street food in Sapa was excellent; probably the best I’d had since leaving Hoi An – the restaurants aren’t up to much though.

I mean, really; is that the best they could come up with? The original 3 Lions was a good song (as far is football songs go) but this is the 3rd incarnation, are the people in charge so devoid of imagination that they felt the need to bring it back again?

Surely there must be some new young artists who can come up with something, the Streets maybe? Or the latest UK Idol winner whoever that is but please no more 3 lions.

If for some reason you haven’t heard it and want to torture yourself, the link is here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd74Vx2u1R0

Rant over.

Hué is the opposite of Hoi An, put simply it’s a dump, but the main reason to go there is for the places around there. There is the ancient citadel of Kinh Thanh and a whole host of temples and tombs and you can take tours out to the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) to see the patch of land that served as a buffer between North and South Vietnam before Saigon fell.

While I was there I ran into a Bayern Munchen fan keen to take in the Champions league final, so we spend a couple of hours wandering around Hué trying to find somewhere showing it that night. Most places in Vietnam are closed by 1 o’clock in the morning and the final didn’t start until 2. We eventually settled on the DMZ bar, a hugely popular place according to the Lonely Planet, as they had assured us that they would be showing the whole match. So it was no surprise at all when they turned off the TV at half time and said they were closing.

The staff did tell us that there was a place about a kilometre further down the road that was showing it so we walked down the road and eventually came across a bunch of tiny plastic stools occupied by Vietnamese with no English watching the final in the middle of the street. They found it hilarious that a couple of Europeans joined them for the second half.

It didn’t strike me that there was much to see in the DMZ so once I had my fill of the tombs and the citadel I moved on.

Rosko recommends: The citadel is well worth a visit, it is vast and contains Vietnams answer to China’s forbidden city, they are also doing a lot of work to restore it.

Food of the stay: I can honestly say that the food in Hué was the most forgettable I had anywhere in Vietnam.

This was the complete opposite of my experience of Vietnam up to that point, I ended up at a Hotel just on the edge of the town centre where the staff spoke excellent English and were very helpful. The town is beautiful and although it is a huge tourist destination I wasn’t hassled too much. There are (of course) tailors everywhere and their ability to copy patterns from pictures; I was given a catalogue and asked to pick what I wanted made; is amazing.

The food in Hoi An was the best I tried anywhere in Vietnam, I stayed there four days and managed to do pretty much nothing for the entire time, but enjoyed every minute of it. For one day I did manage to get myself on a tour to the ruins at My Son which were spectacular impressive we reached the ruins around 11 o’clock though and it was already baking hot so we spent most of the time there hunkering in the shade, on the way back we took the boat to a craft village where they produce the ‘antiques’ that are sold in Hoi An.

Rosko recommends: There is so much to do in and around Hoi An, it is difficult to recommend one thing but the two things Hoi An is particularly famous for are the tailors and the food and it is well worth visiting just for them.

Food of the stay: Almost all the hotels, and most of the town, are on one side of the river, but the best food is found on the other side where you can find a line of little food stalls that were inexplicably missed by my Lonely Planet. The fish I had there was sublime.

My first three stops weren’t up to much, Saigon is much like other Asian cities, dirty, crowded and a bit smelly. I went on a tour to visit the Cu Chi tunnels but that felt more like a theme park than a truly educational experience. We started out by watching a VC propaganda video glorifying a 13 year old girl for killing lots of Americans, then we were rushed round the tunnel area with a quick demonstration of each type of bolt hole and given a photo opportunity. There was the opportunity to fire some guns but I passed it up.

My next stop was Dalat, which seemed like a good place to visit, but unfortunately the entire time I was there I was in bed with the flu. So once I had managed to get myself out of the hotel to buy some sort of flu remedy I had decided to leave the cooler highlands and head to the beach. The day before I left I did manage to find a motorbike driver and got a tour of the area.

While most travelers head to Na Trang, Quy Nhon was the beach I chose because it was reasonably quick to get there, it was a nice beach and there were some great views but I got bored pretty quickly and carried on up the coast.

Rosko recommends: If you go to Dalat hire a guide, they hang around the backpacker places so it should be easy to find one.

Warning: The Lonely Planet recommends the easy riders but failed to mention that they wear blue jackets, I ended up with someone who wasn’t an easy rider and didn’t find out until I found a real one, the guide I hired was really good though so it didn’t matter too much.

Food of the stay: I can’t honestly think of anything I ate during that first week that impressed me, and I was sick to death of Pho by the third day.

Mindil markets are about the only thing going for Darwin; no surf and dangerous seas make beach life pretty uninspiring; they open just before sunset and the sunsets in Darwin are usually spectacular. I’m told there are other markets there that are equally good and probably less touristy but I was feeling pretty lazy when I got there.

Apart from that, the nightlife is OK and the food pretty average, there are plenty of drunk Aboriginals wandering around but they don’t really bother anyone. I visited the underground oil containers built for the navy during WWII only to find out that they weren’t completed until after the war so most of them never housed anything.

Rosko recommends: Go to Darwin but make sure you don’t spend too long.

Food of the stay: Mindil markets are primarily a food market and cater for every taste, there is even a roadkill cafe stall.

Honestly, the kids today are really dull. When I got to Darwin I spent a couple of days looking for people to share a car to drive around Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks, I finally found a couple of German girls and a French guy who were making the trip, when I met up with them the night before I asked them what they wanted to see the most, their answer was “I’ll tell you tomorrow when I’ve read my Lonely Planet”.

All three of the people I traveled with, went to bed as soon as the sun went down and two of them didn’t get out of bed before 9. So most evenings I spent talking to anyone I could find, one night it was a tour guide who let me play his didgeridoo (badly).

Before I reached Darwin most people I met told me that Litchfield is much better than Kakadu. This is of course complete rubbish. Kakadu is massive and, sadly still mostly closed when we went, but there was still Aboriginal rock art, billabongs the wetlands and forests, Litchfield can be completed easily in one day and mostly comprises of nice waterfalls and swimming holes.

My companions aside I had a good time, the early morning wetlands cruise was great fun and the 12km walk gave us some amazing views and showed us fascinating rock art.

Rosko recommends: If you can get hold of one take a 4×4 to Kakadu (and don’t do a tour they are far too expensive), sadly we couldn’t but as most of it was still closed it wouldn’t have made much difference. The wetlands cruise is well worth it as well.

Food of the stay: Take the early morning wetland cruise and you get a buffet breakfast afterward at the nearby hotel, it made a welcome change to the bread and beans that I had been eating.

Cairns is just a long line of backpackers and motels interspersed with Irish pubs and tourist information centres. Needless to say I stayed just long enough to take a boat out to the reef and take a dive and a bit of snorkel and then ran away to Kuranda, which I hoped would be relaxing place with plenty of wildlife.

Sadly it wasn’t, however, I did meet Hans and Maf. Hans is a crazy Austrian who emigrated to Australia sometime in the 60s after hitching around Europe and Asia, working on boats and generally just getting into adventures. Maf is a crazy dude from Botswana, and after I had spent a few days bumming around Kuranda; the aviary was pretty good but bat reach was closed the whole time; we got into an adventure.

The scenic railway from Cairns to Kuranda was closed due to a landslide so it was possible to walk along the tracks to the next station where there is a waterfall and a short jungle walk, Hans had told us that there is also a track down to the bottom of the waterfall from when they built the dam, the track is fenced off but anyone who knows where it is can jump the fence and follow it down. We went down to the bottom with no real problems and spent half an hour scrambling over the rocks before heading back up.

Once we were at the top we continued down the tracks to the next waterfall, there isn’t a station here so most people don’t know about it. One of the locals had told us that there was a track down the side of this waterfall to the canyon at the bottom, but we couldn’t find this one and instead walked down through the bush. We slip down the side of the railway tracks and under the bridge before coming to a pool where we relaxed before heading on. The next bit was also tricky and this was compounded by the nest of green ants that we travelled through, green ants bite. Green ants are also an excellent source of vitamin C. As Maf cursed the biting ants I helpfully pointed out to him that “you can lick their bums, apparently.” Then Maf returned the comment as I realised they were crawling all over my arms and trying to take chunks out of it.

As the terrain got steeper we climbed under the waterfall and then down through the waterfall before crossing back over. It was at this point that we realised that getting back up again would be impossible and it was getting late. We crossed back across the waterfall and tried to head into the bush where we thought it might be easier going, it wasn’t and we finally realised that we were stuck for the night. We spent an uncomfortable night on a ledge pushed up against the rocks hoping that it wouldn’t rain (the wet season hadn’t quite finished yet).

The morning dawned clear and, fortunately, dry. So after much discussion and listening to a large rock crash down through the undergrowth we agreed to try going up again. We kept away from the waterfall where the ground was less steep but covered in loose rock and made our way up, finally pushing through some brambles and back onto the train tracks, where we were lucky enough to catch a lift with the railway maintenance vehicle (a modified Ute) which was preparing for reopening part of the track. I was able to get back to the hostel in time to shower, pack and catch my flight to Darwin.

Rosko recommends: take a rope.

Food of the stay: I guess I’ll always have fond memories of crackers for breakfast.

From Airlie beach it is only a few hours up to Townsville, which is a pretty small and uninspiring place. On the plus side it does have magnetic island just a 20 minute ferry ride away. I had intended to leave Magnetic island after 2 days and head up to Cairns on Wednesday, 21st April, but I enjoyed myself so much here that I stayed till Friday instead.

Part of the reason I stayed the extra couple of days was to try and get a boat trip out to the reef, unfortunately we seas were too rough with winds of up to 30 knots meant that all trips were cancelled. So I spent a lazy few days feeding the lorakeets, possums, and rock wallabies (no Kangaroos), and failing to find any of the many wild Koalas who are supposed to live on the island.
Camping out at Bungalow bay it was my privilege to meat Dave (a bonafide Aussie), Kirsty (an emigrated Scot) and a couple of German volunteers at the backpackers resort who were unceremoniously kicked out just over a week after starting work (Nina and Nils). Evenings were spent drinking Dave’s wine and mornings drinking his coffee.

Pointless piece of history trivia: Magnetic island was considered the best place to start the defense of Australia from the Japanese fleet, so a spotting station and a single gun were constructed which may or may not have ever been used in anger. All that is left are a few slabs of concrete which the locals have labelled as though they heralded a great turning point in the war.

Rosko recommends: take in the sunset from the view station from the top of the forts walk (see above)

Food of the stay: I mostly just cooked for myself but if you ever meet him, Dave cooks decent pasta.