Vietnam

[chipsncheese]

im going there in jan for my honeymoon.has anyone been there b4 and whats it like basically.whats the story with vaccinations for the place?is it cheap?what sites are there to see???
going to some of the islands off thailand aswell.would like to get a full moon party in while im there cos ive heard they are brill.

any info please?????

[Fnif]

I'm in Vietnam at the moment.

Hanoi was our first stop. It is incredible exhilirating disgusting aromatic and noisy and after five days we were both mad. To get out of there. Was great. The hub of pleasure for us in Hanoi was the eating of the food. Everybody eats everywhere all the time.

The food like the city is disgustingly excitingly delicously aromatic but unlike the city it is good for you. We sweated our way around the city's old quarter which is apparently one of the most densley populated regions of any city in the World. Including Sneem. Kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, all spill onto the side of the street in a mad edible chaos as families sell some of their sunday lunch to you as you pass by, sweating. God, my palms were sweaty. So was my forehead. And also my ankles and my elbows and the bottom of my knees and between my nails and my fingers and inside my ears. Id swear my eyeballs were sweating. But it was just the heat. Nothing to worry about.

So then we left Hanoi in a little tourbus with terrible gap year students with magnificent complextion and friendship bangles and awful enthusiasm. We took a trip with these lovely awful people to Halong Bay which could for the sake of explanation and because we are mostly Irish here be decribed Vietnams answer to the Cliffs of Moher. The place was enourmously beutiful, but the three day trip was for a large part tainted by a sense of being sheperded and looked after in a strangely numbing way. The strange thing was that the place had not much more reality than the pictures of the place that we saw in the guidebook, and I attribute this (and the old doll agrees, mind) to the school tourishness of the experience. It was lovely really, and if I put enough effort into it I could probably convey some sense of the surreal exceptional beauty of the place, but I lack the enthusiasm.

So back to Hanoi then and more decisions to be made. God we're so busy with this travelling that we hardly have any time. We are thinking of taking a little break, maybe two weeks in Cork. We really would like to get away you know.

So we took a night train to Sapa which was sopping for the three days we were there. These experiences sound alot less appealing when theyre summarized like this, I think, but they are in fact all delightful, even the rain and the buses. Sapa is a place where there are lots of the indiginous hill tribes of the area still living and breathing and working, even. They're sound out, and there's millions of them. They are not wax figures or museum exhibits. They are incredible strong looking and beautiful, and the people amoung them who have cottened on to the tourism thing have a real seductive charm and very good english. The town of Sapa is about 1500m up in the mountains, and even on the cloudy days its stunningly picturesque as the clouds roll in over the rice paddied fields. Rice, paddy?

Were getting close to the present. About two days ago we returned to Hanoi on a day train. A Whole Day train. We had slatted seats and slatted bums by the end. Trains are very cheap and very slow and land you right inside the lives of the Vietnamese in a way which is difficult otherwise because of the challenging language barrier. The kids in particular stand out for their absolute beauty and friendliness, and we had some lessons on how to eat small fruits on a train in return for being white. It is strange to be strange. I’m so used to other people being strange and not western. Sounds obvious, but the experience of it is so much more effecting than the thought.

So from Hanoi then to the place we are now, Ninh Binh. You don’t pronounce the h's. This place feels like a real find. The luxury of having a long time to spend in this place is that we can afford to have three days under tarpaulin and then still know we'll find the likes of ninh binh (silent h). We have spent the past two days exploring the surround countryside which is like the kind of dream landscape that I never thought Id pass through. This is one of the poorest areas in Vietnam apparently, but its is choc a bloc with happy looking people farming tiny holdings with bamboo tools and rusty bikes and plastic flip flops and no real interest in tour busses. We have been exploring the tiny roads and stopping for iced coffees in little family run family houses with coffee to sell. Today a storm threatened our sunny discovery but I think that we will stay here and see it through if it comes.

[Superdave]

im going there in jan for my honeymoon.has anyone been there b4 and whats it like basically.whats the story with vaccinations for the place?is it cheap?what sites are there to see???
going to some of the islands off thailand aswell.would like to get a full moon party in while im there cos ive heard they are brill.

any info please?????


Can't remember off hand what i got vaccination wise man, but be careful with your malaria tablets. Firstly, they aren't necessary in my opinion. We spent 4 months in SEA and never came across it once. I stopped taking mine after India - it was a once a week tablet, can't remember the name. maybe larium? - because it was messing with my head. Making me (and my mate) extremely irritable, having seriously messed up dreams. Have since heard that it has a very bad reputation for permanently altering peoples attitudes. bad news so it is.

Advice - Hanoi is brilliant. Overnight buses are a winning option if you can sleep anywhere. if you cant then don't as you'll arrive knackered and unable to do anything anyway hence rendering the whole idea of saving a days travel useless. Sapa is very pretty and Ha long bay was one of the highlights of SEA for me. Hoi An is a nice spot - best place in SEA for cheap clothes. ie. suits. Nha Trang is only ok for me, if you want beach resorts, stay in thailand. Ho Chi Minh (saigon) is another good bussling typically asian city. I found the people to be the least friendly in SEA, possibly because they've the most developed tourist industry and hence have had more exposure to obnoxious tourists!

Full moon is in ko (means island) Pang nang. Ko Tao and Ko Samui are either side of it. Tao was my fav spot in the whole of SEA. less developed, still reasonable untouched, great spots are night but not as busy. loads of swedish chicks! Samui is seedy. probably not the best place for a honeymoon.

Enjoy it. Fantastic part of the world.

[k974]

how much did 4 months cost you if you dont mind me asking???

[Superdave]

we were in asia for 6 months (2 months in china, tibet, nepal and india) and budgetted a grand a month. and we went nuts. Didn't really hold back on anything, flew some of the longer journeys but on the whole took the bus. Accomodation was basic but more often than not we had our own room. Food is cheap. booze - drink the buckets.

You could do it far cheaper if you were willing to truly back pack it, you could do it far more expensively if you really wanted to live it up in style. We were somewhere in between.

[k974]

ya i'd wanna do it the same as ye in between, i've been to singapore, thailand, indonesia and malayasia and hong kong but they've always only been for 3 or 4 days on the way to/from here, i've yet to go all over for a couple months something really looking forward to, at this stage working here is more or less the same as working anywhere mudane and boring.

so you reckon 1k euro a month to do it right

[Superdave]

yeah, a grand will do ya no bother. we got pissed most nights, did most sights and activities. Like i say, probably about half way on the comfort scales in terms on travel and accomodation. go above this level of spending anyway and i think you don't meet as many people. And as good as a place is, it's still the people you're with that make it.

Laos is a gem of a country.

You still over there in Brisbane? I'm starting to get very worn out from working here too - no matter where you are, once you're in a routine it's all the same. At least summer beckons.

[storysham]

Mahon to Vietnam, ffs, mockery.

[Superdave]

Mahon to Vietnam, ffs, mockery.

as you drive along the dual carraigeway into Hanoi there's a sign saying "Hanoi, founded 1431. Twinned with Vladivostock, Sao Paolo, Addis Ababa and Mahon"

Fact.

[k974]

ya still here bit sick of it, now its grand and all but as you said routine is routine o matter where you are, its a great spot, but just need to get away for a couple months to break the routine, sure rarely take advantage of where i am by going up the coast or anything. resdency and that is sorted now so not really tied to staying like i was while sponsored and waitng for it so might go somewhere else for a bit for the change. nearly took a job in saudi for the change came to my senses tho!!!!

jesus that fiddler pub in auckland is some spot late at night was in there the weekend of the ireland all blacks game all weekend lunatic asylum!!!! great craic tho!

[Superdave]

jesus that fiddler pub in auckland is some spot late at night was in there the weekend of the ireland all blacks game all weekend lunatic asylum!!!! great craic tho!

tell me about it. took a while to break the spell of the place when i first got here. Kip of a place but the best of the very late night choices. can be good fun but will wreck your head eventually.

Have heard good things about saudi man. a 6 month stint would've been an experience. whats the plan for xmas?

[k974]

been in there couple different weekends was over in july march and june this year and lions last year to friends in auckland and twas always the same crowd in that pub! good for us for the change but i could see how you could get sick of it!

ya i asked around about saudi nothing like dubai and places, no beer women living in a secure compound working 65 hours a week and nothing to do there, didnt really appeal not really suitable for someone single in their mid 20's! maybe some other time

dont know yet, was going to head home, the day i paid the deposit on the flights i changed my mind that afternoon typical!! a few friends are working in queenstown so thinking of there maybe for new years, was in sydeny last couple years good for christmas and new years but you'd have to get out of it after that tis ireland on tour!

i dunno really know to be honest prob brisbane christmas day and maybe syd few days after that and queenstown or fiji or somewhere then for a week. have to get outta brisbane on the 26th anyway its dead everyone heads away.

whats your own plan???

[Pez123]

Fuckie sukie Ten dolla....

[Reef]

Ok so I'm going to go out on a limb here and find fault with Vietnam. I was there for nearly three weeks in August and I wish I had used my time to visit another country. Sure, it's a beautiful country, probably the most physically pretty country in SE Asia. Culturally and historically it's also fascinating.

My problem was with the people and how they treat tourists. The school-tour syndrome mentioned earlier is chronic throughout the whole country. It is near impossible to travel on a non-tourist "VIP" bus, and when you arrive to a new town they drop you outside the city and try to force you to stay in a particular hotel. As soon as we checked into any room the manager would be in the room on top of us trying to sell us tours, bus tickets, you name it. If we bought tickets elsewhere they'd freak at us. Tying to buy things was often a nightmare, they often point blank refused to bargain after quoting a ridiculously high price. To top it off they're compulsive liers, you can't trust a word they say to you.

But I can understand they're businessmen and respect that on some level. The biggest problem is that I genuinely got the impression that a lot of them hate westerners. I know they have good reason with the war but in fairness it's a whole generation later and I'm Irish, not a yank. I had someone scream "Fuck you!" in my face twice when I complained about lying and scamming, and once was chased out of a travel agency when a guy threatened to kill me if I went to the police over shenanigans they had put us through. I met another person that same night who had been chased out of a different travel agency by a guy with a glass bottle. Crazy.

Nearly every traveller I have met who has visited Vietnam in the past year has had the exact same experience and would also not go there if they had their time over. That said, anyone I've met who was there 3-5 years ago has a completely different story, they loved it, and said the people were lovely back then. I wonder what could have gone wrong.

I've just spent three weeks in India and was terrified going there because of all the horror stories you hear about the place. I loved it, and found it far easier to travel in than Vietnam. The people in India are mad to make a buck, but at the end of the day they won't lie to you, and they aren't assholes.

Rant over.

[Superdave]

I'll agree with you to a certain degree, they are pretty deceitful people. I personally think this is down to the fact that their tourist market is the most developed of the 4 SEA countries and therefore their patience has been tried a little longer. The beginnings of these behaviours is visible in Thailand too although not at all in Laos.

I never had any of the problems you encountered though. Sure they can be a little aggressive with trying to sell things but a firm no usually did the trick. I'd like to know what level of luxury you were travelling at? Personally we were probably a touch flasher than backpacking, organised all things ourselves, and as much as possible took local buses etc. Also rented scooters and did our own thing. Getting away from other tourists is key to escaping this behaviour. Having said that Vietnam was my least favourite of the 4 but was still probably one of my favourite destinations.

India I found to be quite hard going at times. Did you make it Varanassi? Now that's intimidating.

[Reef]

We were staying in the cheapest rooms we could find in general, usually around the $6-10 mark. Admittedly we had limited time so only went to the "main" spots, Mekong Delta, HCMC, Dalat, Hue, Hoi An, Hanoi and Halong Bay.

I definitely see where you're coming from with your point about the tourism being so developed but in fairness Thailand is far more developed and I found the people to be a lot more friendly there. I would never judge a country on a scammer, and we were fucked over a few times in Thailand too but my overall impression of the Thais is still a good one. I guess you could approach a random Thai person and expect them to tell you the truth. I really found it hard to trust a random Vietnamese person.

India was definitely tough going at times too (I didn't get up to Varanessi though), but particular bad experiences didn't spoil it for me. I had heard the bad stuff about Vietnam before going and was determined not to let a few bad things spoil it on me - I wanted to have a good impression of the place. But as time went on, and the further we went north, I found we had bad experiences several times a day, enough to make us sick of it.

I'l always remember people started clapping on our flight as it left Hanoi airport, and hearing people say "it's so nice to see people smiling again" when we arrived in Bangkok.

Again though, as you say, on the tourist trail you're bound to get more shit. I've friends who were in the far north (Sapa, Dien Bien Phu etc) and they loved it there. Hoi An was still great though.