Overnight bus antics and Hué – seemingly the city of rain ! 🚍🚣☔️

So I’ll continue from where I left off, just about to board our first overnight bus from Hanoi to Hué . The journey is supposedly meant to take a whooping 14 hours for a journey only 573km long! In reality is took about this long however we had a few delays which turned to be a pattern with the company.
Again we failed to do proper research before leaving so went with Hanh Cafe tour company which we booked through The Hanoi Backpackers we were staying at. We found a cheaper open bus ticket with another travel agency in Hanoi but decided to go with Hanh Cafe as the backpackers recommended them and we figured it would be easier to communicate with them should anything go wrong. I can’t find a website for the company, *shudder* but I can find some pretty terrible reviews, here and here. If I were to do it again I would probably use Sinh Cafe or stick with Hanh Cafe as personally I didn’t have too bad of an experience. Perhaps I should write them a review to give them some credibility, although they certainly had enough customers; on our Hoi An to Nha Trang leg there were a good five people sleeping on the floor!

Anyway so we were both very apprehensive about this overnight bus trip and in general all of the bus trips which we had now committed to by buying this open ticket.. Oh I think we paid around 1,200,000VND for the five stop ticket to include a stop in Dalat after on of the staff gave as an amazing recommendation to go there ! I guess that’s the beauty of being somewhat disorganised, you can chop and change your plans once you start hearing people’s suggestions ! So we readied ourselves by purchasing too many snacks which we didn’t even eat and fasting all liquids from lunchtime. This was a good move!
We were told to be ready to go at 6pm at the hostel, well 6pm came and went and then 6:30pm and you could tell the other people waiting for the bus wee obviously quite concerned too. I have to laugh because the fact that we were stressing at half an hour late just shows how new to Vietnam we were ! Finally before seven someone came and ushered us down a dark alley to the waiting bus ! Ahhhh finally we could get this show on the road! Alas, we got on the bus and drove all of 200m before the driver pulled over and said we had to wait until 8pm for another bus to arrive back with people for us to collect. Everyone was pretty pissed off, they’d been late to start wi and now we had to wait another hour ! Most of us got off the bus and had a wander around and grabbed some street food and exchanged stories we had heard from others about overnight buses. Lucky’s sister had an absolutely terrifying experience on an overnight bus from Halong City to Hanoj which ended with them dropped on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at 3am with bags which had been robbed following a trip which was meant to take 16hours but took more like 23hours! One girl said a girl she met at the hostel had done this bus ride and had been robbed on the bus, people came on the bus and demanded everyone’s money and phones ! So needless to say we were quite concerned as we had also just withdrawn a large amount of cash which we were carrying on us !
As we were waiting for the bus we noticed our bus driver was smoking something in a bong. It didn’t smell like tobacco and it didn’t smell like weed… Someone thought it could be meth to help him stay away. I had to close my ears at this point so that I could force myself to get back onto the bus.
Anyway so we finally got back on the bus and picked up some more people and headed out of town! I managed to score a window seat but upstairs which actually turned out to be fine for this journey as it wasn’t too bumpy however I would recommend going for the floor level beds next to the windows. You have to take off your shoes when you board the bus, they are very strict about this so didn’t even think of putting them back on a metre early when you’re getting off! You will be slain in Vietnamese! The beds aren’t super long, stretched out my toes hit the end and I’m only 172cm so for taller people it gets a bit harder. The feet cubby hole also doubles as your bag cubby hole so unless you want your bag to take up half of your bed I suggest bringing minimal onto the bus! Again rookie mistake 😞
And guess what…. The buses have Wifi! At fist I thought it was a hoax but then I realised it actually worked! The speed was average and it was hard to connect but still free wifi is everywhere, even buses now apparently!

A few snaps of the bus. Apologies they’re pretty shocking quality but I didn’t want to be THAT guy taking pictures of a bus. But you can kind of get an idea of the set up

You get a blanket which at first I made a mental note to not use as goodness knows how many people have slept under it but then the air conditioning got the better of me through the night and I ??????
It wasn’t too hard to get to sleep, the road wasn’t too windy or bumpy and the bus was super quiet so you were sort of rocked to sleep like you wee in a cradle. I slept really well overnight, I woke up a few times to readjust myself and check that all my belongings were still there but fell back asleep pretty quickly .

We detoured to Bach Ma to drop some people off, I think we were there at like 5am which would’ve sucked trying to find a place to stay at that hour! Originally Lucky and I were going to head to Bach Ma for a night but since we had spent an extra in Cat Ba we decided to forgo it and also it was meant to be raining and we didn’t have any wet weather gear or proper tramping boots.
We arrived in Hué at like 9am local time ( same Timezone throughout Vietnam) and were dropped off at the Hué chain of the Hanoi Backpackers. When we arrived it was raining quite hard and it didn’t really stop while we were there. We quickly grabbed some very stylish purple ponchos from a lady in the street for 20,000VND each. We enquired about a room at the backpackers but thought for $15USD for a double room with shared bathroom facilities that it was abut steep. When you get off the bus there are a mob of locals trying to get you to come with them to a hotel which they receive commission from if they take you there. We needed up going with one guy down the road to his ‘friends’ hotel Hong Thien 2 Hotel. We checked out the room and decided for $10USD a night that it was fine. The rock. Wasn’t ready for another wee while so we sat downstairs and went on the Internet and the lady even made us some Vietnamese coffee. Ahhh Vietnamese coffee is amazing , it’s super strong if you drink it black but nice and sweet if you get it white as they use condensed milk rather then cows milk!
We kind of mucked around for most of the morning as we were both quite tired but ventured out for lunch down by the river. The very dirty, muddy, flooded river so not at all picturesque .
We organised a bust tour of the Perfume arrived for the afternoon, I think we paid $8USD but it could’ve been a bit more. We came back at 1pm for our boat tour and were taken down to river to climb on board one of the boats. The boats are all identical on the outside I guess some are just in better condition on the inside then others. Ours wasn’t in too bad condition it just felt like it would sink very easily in the river..

We asked the wife of the captain if they had life jackets so she pulled some new ones out of plastic for us to wear. I at least felt confident that I could swim to the edge of the river should we go down

The river itself was not that amazing as everything was wet and the river was dirty and flooded. I really don’t know where the name ‘Perfume River’ came from, we certainly didn’t get that vibe? They took us around the river for about 40minutes and then dropped us off at a market. At first we thought they were kicking us off but then the wife got off and started to show us around. It was a real local market, we were the only white faces there and I even spotted a couple of rats scurrying along underneath the produce. Nice. But it was really cool to see a local market and not the gimmicky tourist ones you usually go to. We brought some custard apples after having a million types of fruit shoved in our faces which were actually really good. Fairly certain we got ripped off big time as when we asked for the price and tried to haggle the local ladies all laughed at us . Being laughed at seems to have become a pattern on this trip…..
We got on board the boat and went along the riverfront another wee while before they dropped us off at the start. We were pleased to be back on land and vowed that after our last two boat experiences we would not repeat them again. It wasn’t really that bad but just a very boring silent boat ride on a very unappealing looking river …

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It wasn’t a cruise liner but it did get us there and back!

We wandered around the streets for a wee while before retreating to our room as our sneakers were soaking and we just weren’t feeling the ponchos. We decided to had to the My An Hot Springs for a soak to end the day. There is another set of hot pools about 30km away but we didn’t fancy paying for a taxi to take us this far so settled on My An even though they didn’t appear as elaborate .
We grabbed a taxi and settled on I think 50,000VND and headed off to the pools which are only about 3km from the city centre. The pools cost 120,000VND to enter which isn’t really that cheap and I guess does mean that it targets tourists as the locals probably wouldn’t want to pay that much. When we wee thee they were emptying and cleaning one of the pools so there was just the main pool which had a warm and hot side. When you get there a lady rushes over and leads you to a changing room where there are swimsuits and slippers lined up for you to wear if you dare. We passed on the swimsuits as we had our own but accepted the risk of foot fungi and put the slippers on. There are free lockers there to put your belongings in and the staff seemed friendly and unluckily to break into your bags.
The pools or pool, wasn’t too bad, working at a swimming pool I am very aware of how dirty they really are but I was pleasantly surprised! It was nice and clean as far as I could see and even better was that there were on,y a few other people there. We ended up talking to a local lady who was there with her friends and children. She had learnt English at university but hadn’t used it in a while so was really keen to practise her English with us. We were happy to talk with her and it was really interesting to hear what it was like for women in Vietnam . I don’t believe it is necessarily the norm for women to go to university though as it is very expensive . She did marry and have children quite young and now stayed at home looking after the children and the house which seemed to be norm. She even offered to take us around Hué the next day and show us the local sights but unfortunately we were going to head to Hoi An the next day so we couldn’t. I really wish we had taken up her offer though as it would’ve been cool to have a local guide not as part of an organised group.

We headed home after a nice soak and had to go down the road to book our bus for the next day to Hoi An. We did consider staying another night in Hué but the weather wasn’t meant to be any better and we figured we could tick off the Imperial Enclosure the next morning. When we were walking down the street a local guy in a motorbike pulled up next to us and asked “wanna smoke marijuana tonight?” which we quickly and firmly declined. I really don’t think there’s any point taking the risk when there’s so much in the line and everything is corrupt anyway so you are pretty much guaranteed to get caught.
So we headed home, sans any joints, and fell asleep pretty quickly.
We woke up relatively early and had some coffee downstairs before heading out in our ponchos to the Imperial Enclosure. We grabbed a taxi thee which was only like 30,000VND and then had to pay the entrance fee which was ????? . It was pretty quiet inside, all tourists with ponchos or umbrellas if you were lucky.
There are some interesting poster displays in one of the first buildings which detail the history of the IE. They are definitely worth a read as they shed some light on the use and operations of the IE. To be completely honest I can’t remember a lot of it so I won’t explain the history as I am bound to get things wrong.

All I could think when we were walking around in these ponchos was: A) How ridiculous I must look and B) PONCHO JUMP ON IT! (Like the song from Fresh Prince..)

The architecture was absolutely amazing and the IE was a lot bigger then I imagined so it might be worth hiring a guide to talk you through it all. Mostly we just wandered and looked at all of the buildings and pagodas. We caught the tail end of a performance in the performance hall which looked pretty cool . I think it usually costs to watch but they just let us in since there was only a few minutes to go.

We spent maybe three hours walking around which was enough to see most of the main buildings and areas although some were closed . It was worth the visit but I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it more had it been dry and sunny! By time we were done we only had an hour, supposedly, until our bus came so we quickly found a place for lunch. The food in Hué was much better then Cat Ba , still relatively limited choices on the menus but more Vietnamese food on offer at the touristy restaurants.

Cat Ba – an authentic VIETNAM experience ! 🚲

Cat Ba is pretty quiet at this time of year; it’s off season ( December is winter in Vietnam) plus most people don’t make it as far as Cat Ba. I really wanted to come to Cat Ba after reading lots about it online and hearing from a few people that it was worth a visit. They weren’t wrong!
We initially only intended to stay one night but we stretched it to two nights so that we would have enough time to actually explore the island before having to make our way back to Hanoi to get the night bus to Hué.

We caught a ride with another tour group but hen broke away from them so we could do our own thing. Plus we figured we could get a cheaper hotel- they were asking an extra $25 US each which seemed steep!
We stopped off at another port to explore a different side of the island before heading to Cat Ba Town. We wandered inland for a while and came across a dead snake ! Yikes! Thank goodness we haven’t seen any others since!

As soon as we started to walk down the Main Street which runs along the waterfront we had lots of people offering hotels for $10 US a night. We ended up picking Cat Ba Sea view Hotel as they offered us a room out the front with a view of the sea and the rooms were nice and spacious. It turned out to be a good pick, the bathroom was clean and the shower worked well and we even had a spare bed ! The staff spoke English well and helped us to organise our transfers (Bus-boat-bus) back to Hanoi.

We didn’t arrive until the afternoon so just had a quick nap and then wandered down the main street to take a look around. Cat Ba is a very small island so as soon as we had told one person we were from NZ it seemed like the whole place knew us and would shout out “Hi Kiwiiiiiiiiiis!” It was really quite cute! We even meet a man who claimed to be the president of the island, I very much doubt this was true but he did help us find two single bicycles when all we could find were tandems.
We tried to bike towards Hospital Cave which is around 15km away but it proved a little harder then we expected and the sun started to set so we turned around before we made it there. We realised the next day that we turned around about 2km from the cave in the end! It was fun biking around the island past all the local people and their houses. You can tell Cat Ba isn’t hugely touristy as all the kids we biked past would yell out “HELLO!”

Biking in the countryside of Cat Ba ! My chain fell off in the middle of nowhere but luckily my father’s cycling habits meant that I knew exactly how to fix it ! Thanks Dad!!
We were going to bike to the Cat Co beaches but we came across a wee boy crying on the side of the road. He didn’t speak English but through gestures we gathered that he lived on a boat in the bay and had missed his boat after school and now it was dark and he couldn’t get home. We didn’t really know what to do so asked him what he wanted us to do and he very clearly replied “ten thousand dong.” He certainly wasn’t stupid and knew he could take advantage of us, we begrudgingly obliged and handed it over. His mum must’ve heard him crying and came rowing into shore screaming at him so he ran off with his money to get yelled at some more! At least he hadn’t gone home late and empty handed…
We went back into town and organised with the “president” to take a tour in the morning to Hospital Cave and then in the afternoon to Monkey Island. The boat to MI was going to cost $25US so we just approached some other tourists in the street and asked if they were keen to come and split the cost. We found a group of three who were keen so agreed to meet the next day after lunch to head out on the boat.
We grabbed dinner at a local restaurant run by Mr Tom , he’s quite a character, check out his reviews on TripAdvisor! We couldn’t find anything hugely appealing anywhere so just ended up having some mixed fried rice and noodle dishes which I couldn’t fault. There was only one other table with tourists and the rest were locals who were very interested in watching us eat. One man came and just sat down next to us at our table and then got some vodka brought over . He started to pour us shots and gestured for us to take them with him but we were a tad weary of him and thought that perhaps they were going to charge us for the bottle if we drank some so we politely declined. He was very persistent, but in a friendly way and so we instead managed to agree through gestures that we would pose for photos holding the shots . Suddenly twenty youngish local men appeared and all wanted to have their photos taken with us holding shots . So we are probably in several Vietnamese men’s Facebook DPs! The other tourists helped us to escape after we gave them the ‘save us’ look and we ended up having a beer with them at the local tourist bar. Across the road we saw the funniest thing- a two or three year old local Vietnamese girl was dancing on the bar! She wasn’t just doing a typical toddler attempt at dancing thou she really had
rhythm! I wish I recorded it though , totally would’ve made it onto Ellen! We were both pretty tired, I hadn’t slept well in Hanoi, so headed to bed relatively early.

If you show any interest in a locals child they’ll just give it to you to play with! Also apparently you shouldn’t say children are pretty or gorgeous because then they will lose the fairies that protect them and make them pretty as they don’t need them anymore! Superstitious much !

We had a bit of a sleep in and then headed out to Hospital Cave on our private tour. I think we paid like 80,0000VND each plus an entry fee to the caves which was maybe 20,000VND. You could easily hire a motorbike and go yourself but it was nice having a guide who explained the history to us. The cave was used as a hideaway and a place to treat Vietnamese soldiers during the war. It’s tucked away in the rockface within some mountains in the countryside so the American pilots didn’t know exactly where to bomb. I was really surprised at how big the cave was but some of the soldiers did stay in there for two years or more ! It is spread over three stories; the first story is the treatment rooms, operating room and sleeping rooms plus some places to wash the equipment. The next story is a large communal area where they played movies at night ( with a projector onto the cave walls) and the top story was an area for management to discuss military operations. It was again really interesting to learn more about Vietnamese history and get to see first hand where these soldiers were hidden away for years.

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We got dropped off at Cat Co beach 2 which had a few resorts including one with a waterpark which were absolutely deserted ! I wonder if they rally get that much business in summertime because there seems to be a lot of accommodation available on Cat Ba ! There was a nice walkway around to Cat Co 1 which goes along the peninsula and again was completely empty. Cat Co 1 didn’t have as nice a view but was completely empty so we had the beach to ourselves ! We didn’t have our togs on though and it wasn’t terribly warm so we didn’t venture into the water. We managed to find our way back through the resorts and to the road back into town. The walk back gives a nice view of the bay of Cat Ba which is filled with a lot of fishing boats and houseboats as well as a few floating restaurants.

Honestly I feel like I’m on holiday with a model. This girl does not take a bad picture ! 😪

We meet up with the three Americans we meet the day before to take our boat trip to Lan Ha Bay and Monkey Island. Well this turned out to be a flop.
We boarded an old ‘motorboat’ with a captain who spoke no English whatsoever and headed out to sea. We managed to communicate with him that we wanted to go to Lan Ha Bay first and then Monkey Island on the way back. After being in this rickety boat for nearly an hour and a half an passing numerous white sand beaches we pull up to a floating fishing platform. We all looked at each other in disbelief when the captain motioned for us to get off and come back in an hour. An hour. What on earth were we supposed to do for an hour on this floating platform made of wood held together by rusty wire. We looked at the fishing nets for approximately seven minutes and then decided that even the scenery wasn’t worth looking at for another 53minutes . It’s such a shame that a beautiful area has just become ruined with garbage floating everywhere. So we hoped back on board our boat and started to head away from the platform when the boat stopped. The captain tried a few things but nothing seemed to work. We weren’t far from the platform , only 300m or so, but we doubted that it would be much help. The captain who was an old Vietnamese chain smoking man, then shifted us all out of the ‘cabin’ and pulled up the floorboards and grabbed a hose and siphoned the fuel out with his mouth. After ten or so mouthfuls of diesel he managed to empty the engine which I assume was flooded and we were on our merry way. We arrived at Monkey Island but it was already starting to get dark, I think it was around 4pm and sunset was at 5:30pm, so we didn’t end up staying too long which was fine as it was a bit of a flop aswell. Maybe it would’ve been nice if we had gone swimming but we were all a bit over the trip by that point. We wandered along the beach and saw a few monkeys running along the roof but that was pretty much all the island had on offer! There was a wee walk up to a lookout over Lan Ha Bay which the boys did and I wish I did but I stubbed my toe pretty badly and was trying to clean it and work out how to avoid getting it infected . This proved to be impossible in SE Asia.

We climbed back aboard the boat even though no one was too keen to get back on incase we broke down again ! Luckily the trip back was uneventful and we arrived safely back just before the sunset properly.

On our way back to Cat Ba we caught a beautiful sunset over the water! 🌞🌝🌚
We booked our trip back to Hanoi with Mr Tom , I think it cost around 200,000VND each which seemed to be the going rate everywhere in town. Everywhere in Cat Ba seemed to offer tours of the island or trips back to Hanoi so you certainly aren’t hard pressed to find people to take your money! There are also quite a few times to pick from each day, nearly every hour in the morning and then every other hour in the afternoon.
The bus picked us up the next day outside the hotel and took us about 30km to the other port we had read about. I was absolutely busting to use the bathroom at this point and had to settle to use the dirty squat hover toilet out the back of the port. Unfortunately this meant we missed getting a seat inside the cabin of the boat so we had to sit on the back deck of the motorboat with all the vehicles . We literally sit on plastic stools with the other late comers in the freezing cold wind. It wasn’t too bumpy but it was absolutely freezing as we both had shorts on which made it a pretty horrible journey. Luckily the boat only took about 30minutes though. We then got on board a boat with other people heading to Hanoi and Ninh Binh and were driven for about half an hour before those of us going to Hanoi were ushered off the bus in the middle of a random street. Another bus came by within ten minutes which the organiser man gestured that we had to get in. The bus barely stopped for us to get our bags on board and get on before moving on but we learnt that this was the way that buses worked! The bus we went on was a mix of locals and then the people from Cat Ba with us. It seems to be carrying a lot of freight for people as we would slow down, not stop, the boy at the front would get off and grab the package and chuck it it the storage down below and then run along and jump back on the bus.
We made it back to Hanoi in like four hours and got dropped off at a bus station not too far from the Old Quarter so we grabbed a taxi with another girl back to the hostel to grab my bag and organise our bus .

Our bus wasn’t until 6pm so we had another walk around the Old Quarter and Hoàn Kiém Lake to grab some food and get some more cash out. We saw this really interesting looking game which was a cross between badminton and hacky: the shuttlecock was weighted so that it fell faster and you would have one touch to control it and then you kicked it over the net which was about shoulder height.

This looked a lot harder then anything I’ve seen before ! They wore really big clown size shoes which I guess made it easier to hit the shuttlecock.

Halong Bay- my first Natural Wonder of the World!

We booked our trip through with AST Travel through Hanoi Guesthouse. I just did a quick search for the website and found quite the stash of negative reviews, here, here and here by then a couple of good reviews like this one here. Perhaps we would’ve been wise to read these before booking! Never mind we were more than happy with our experience but Halong Bay does seem to be very hit and miss with getting good tours! We paid $90USD for a deluxe twin room which then became a twin which was discounted slightly since we were not returning to Hanoi with the group. It was interesting that people on exactly the same tour as us paid between $80 and $100 USD, I guess it depends on your haggling skills! We were on the Christina Cruise in a deluxe room.
We were picked up just after 8:30am and put onto a minibus with about 16 other people . Our tour guide , Peter, was very lovely and spoke very good English especially considering he had only starting speaking English five months ago. He gave us a brief summary of Hanoi history; it was actually built to be an island surrounded by a moat made by joining he three surrounding rivers .
We stopped of at a classic tourist shop selling rice paper artwork, bags, statues and silk clothes, all things you could get on the streets of Vietnam but for half the price! We had an obligatory mango/watermelon shake for breakfast. It seems to be our standard drink order, mango for me and watermelon for Lucky. The best ones we had were in Bangkok at a street stall a block away from Khao San.

We finally got to Halong City after nearly four hours and then had to wait for a while for our small boat to come and pick us up and take us back to our larger cruise boat.
They had lunch waiting for us when we got there which was basically a dialled down version of traditional Vietnamese food – fried rice paper rolls, fresh pan fried fish, steamed seaweed, white rice, and a few meat/vegetable dishes. The food was pretty good and they catered to vegetarians aswell. The only thing the cruise didn’t include was any drinks, you had to pay for any drinks, tea, coffee, beer etc which were all quite expensive compared to the prices on land.
There was some kind of mix up with our room, they didn’t have any twins left so Lucky and I had to share a double which was set up very romantically ! Strangely one of the couples who had a room downstairs had booked for a double and got a twin so offered to the guide to swap with us but he didn’t seem to keen?

A very romantic room complete with a towel swan! The room was relatively pokey but you can’t expect a lot of space on a boat! The bed was clean and very soft and comfortable and the bathroom was fine.

We had half an hour or so to settle into our rooms and then we were going to head onto one of the islands to do a walk around the Sung Sot caves. There are said to be 1969 islands in Halong Bay but this number was just picked because it was the year President Ho Chi Minh was born and in reality there are well over two thousand islands ! Entry to the caves was included in the cruise ticket so you shouldn’t need to pay for this one ! The caves themselves are a bit of a walk up a few hundred stairs so be prepared to climb a bit! The walking in the caves isn’t hard at all and the paths were dry so jandals were fine for walking around in!

I’m not sure if it was just our guide who had a very abstract imagination or whether all of the guides had been taught to describe the limestone structures as a variety of animals ? So we were lead around and stopped at different points for Peter to point out stone collections which barely resembled the animals which he claimed to see .

Can you see the toad, dragon or lady?
The lookout at the end of the caves gave a really gorgeous view overlooking some of the surrounding islands and the bay. The weather was quite grey and cloudy but not too cold despite everyone else wearing pants and jackets!

I found it pretty funny that at the top of this wee lookout on an island in the middle of a huge ocean bay was a stall set up selling souvenirs and drinks, and then again halfway down the stairs and then again at the bottom of the stairs. People in Vietnam are very keen to sell you cans of coke and cans of Pringles where ever you are !

We got back onto the small boat and went to a more secluded spot with a fishing station to go kayaking. The kayaks and life jackets were pretty basic and the kayaking instructions were limited, as in there were none except be back in an hour and don’t go too far into the bay or you will get run over . I was quite shocked at how much rubbish there was everywhere , there were plastic bags and coke cans floating in the water and rags and nets washed up on the rocks. It’s a shame that such a beautiful place considered a Natural Wonder of the World is being destroyed by garbage and mess left behind by tourists and ships visiting the area for its beauty. I’m surprised the local government doesn’t prevent garbage dumping or make any attempt to clean up the area considering it is such a huge tourist attraction and must bring in thousands of dollars a day!

After we were done kayaking we were taken to another island nearby for swimming. We only had about 40minutes here, we experienced the rushing on this tour like in Bangkok, so Lucky and I hurried up the walk to the lookout and look a few quick pictures before heading back down to enjoy the water. The beach was dotted with bamboo thatch umbrellas and loungers but we were warned that we would be charged by the locals if we wanted to sit on these .
This beach was free of rubbish and the water looked fairly clean and wasn’t too cold. The sun was starting to set over the bay which made for a
nice scene !

After our quick swim, the others on the boat didn’t seem too keen to get in, we were all taken back to the boat and given the chance to freshen up before dinner and our cooking demonstration. The cooking demonstration turned out to just be our tour guide showing us how to make fresh Vietnamese spring rolls while the rest of our dinner was cooked. The proper dinner cooked for us was alright, it wasn’t anything terrible special and the fish served looked awfully similar to the fish served at lunch which no one had touched. The staff on he boat were very keen for you to order drinks, I guess they must make a lot of money of these because of the huge mark up !
After dinner Peter showed us how to fish for squid – this was unsuccessful, I feel like it might be to do with the fact that we had no bait or sinker and a 50cm line. Although I’m no experienced fisher woman…..
The entertainment for the night was to be provided by ourselves … Karaoke. At that point no one seemed very keen and no one had had enough beer to grab the microphone. We were anchored in the harbour with at least twenty other boats which was quite a pretty sight seeing all the boats light up.
We spent most of the night talking to the other people on the cruise, most were couples but there was a father-daughter pair ( Maybe one day Dad?) and two cousins from France. It was pretty hilarious listening to people’s stories from travelling; be aware that if you are getting a massage in Cambodia you could be sharing the room with a man getting a good massage. A very very good massage. One which makes him moan and groan through the curtain. Enough said.
Just as we were all ready to head to bed one of the girls finally built up the courage to bust out the karaoke ! After an hour of ABBA and Queen we headed to bed and snored our way off to sleep!

Fresh Vietnamese Spring rolls to start. We certainly weren’t alone in the bay at night!
We had an early start the next day, breakfast was at 7:30am which didn’t consist of much more then very cold sweet white bread toast and some lukewarm fried eggs. At least the coffee was good! Vietnamese coffee is generally served with condensed milk which makes it nice and sweet so there’s no need to add sugar!
As we ate breakfast we travelled to the pearl farm in Halong Bay, one of two pearl farms in Vietnam. Our guide explained the process they use to make a pearl which is very long and showed us around he farm where the pearls were being grown. The pearls are grown in a couple of different oysters, each one gives a slightly different pearl, we saw white, cream, pink and black. After the oyster has grown for about 18months it is removed from the water and undergoes a ‘surgery’ which involves implanting a small ball made from the shell of oysters to stimulate materials to be laid down on top of it to form the pearl. After the bead is implanted it takes another 18months for the pearl to form. Only 60% of the oysters survive to be old enough to undergo ‘surgery’ and then only a portion of those implanted actually form a viable pearl. I believe the success rate was around 30% of the original oysters form a pearl and some of these are slightly defected so cannot be used.

Of course there is a large shop where you can buy pearls, rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces. Apparently they were very affordable (I think a silver necklace with a single white pearl was ~$60USD) – one of the girls on our tour used to work at a pearl farm in Australia, but we didn’t see anyone buying anything!
We then headed back to the cruise boat and packed up our rooms, checked out and paid our drinks bills. Instead of taking the boat back to Halong City and then organising a ferry from there to Cat Ba we went with our guide who was taking another tour to Cat Ba. We paid an extra $10USD each which was for the boat to Cat Ba and lunch onboard the boat. I’m sure we could’ve easily gotten a cheaper ferry fm Halong City to Cat Ba but these ferries land at a port about 40km from Cat Ba Town so you have no option but to take a taxi into town which costs around $50USD. The boat we caught with the other tour group landed at a smaller port only about 1km away from Cat Ba Town .

I will continue the Cat Ba adventure in another post!

“GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!” – Hanoi adventures

I am writing this from the very wet city of Huè so I will try my best to remember everything as best I can !
We had a 7am flight from Bangkok – Don Muang, to Hanoi- Noi Bai so we had to be at the airport pretty early to pass through customs etc. This meant a 3am wake up to catch the 4am shuttle to the airport- I believe we paid 150baht which was a bit steep but the alternative was getting a taxi and having to pay the airport tolls which would work out to be about 150baht on their own plus the taxi charge.

We flew with AirAsia and I was surprised how long the lines were already at 5am! I also found it odd that you had to get any checked baggage X-Rayed before you could check it in? I’d never come across this before !
The flight was pretty uneventful, I think it was only about 1hr40mins so not very long in the air at all!
We had applied for the Vietnam Visa on Arrival through this website; there are quite a few websites around all with similar names but we used this one because we knew people who had successfully used it in the past. I think we paid around $24NZD for the two of us when we applied online and the approval letters came through within a day . You have to print the approval letter off which basically just lists your name and passport number along with everyone else who applied on the same day as you. You bring this letter and the filled in entry application form plus a passport size photo (we didn’t have this so they just took a photo of each of us for $1USD) to the Visa On Arrival desk which was just tucked away off to the side before Immigration. We queued for about ten minutes and then had to wait at the front for some time while a group from Korea managed to somehow push in in front of us. They then took about 15minutes to process the paperwork and then we handed over $45USD as a ‘stamping fee’ and received our visa.
-I was slightly nervous about using the online pre approval / visa on arrival service as one of the last travel agents I went to in NZ had never heard of it. She seemed very skeptical when I explained it to her and said she thought the only way in NZ to get a visa for Vietnam was to send your passport off to the Vietnam Embassy in Wellington. We had no issues with the process so I guess she must be a bit behind in the way that it works now. However I do know that the visa on arrival is only available when you arrive by air at Hanoi or HCMC, so if you are crossing a land border you would have to send your passport away.

We grabbed a couple of maps and some cash out at the airport ( Vietnam has quite a few ANZ ATMs in Hanoi and HCMC so it is worth getting an ANZ account to avoid the transaction fees you get using international ATMs with other banks) and then grabbed a taxi into the Old Quarter. We settled on 250,000VND off meter which worked out a bit cheaper then paying by meter. We were pretty shocked by the weather; we left Bangkok at 4am where it was probably only 20° but the humidity made it more like 25° and we landed in Hanoi which was very grey and only 21°. Our attire meant we looked quite out of place; we were rocking short shorts and runners while the locals had coats and jeans on.
We have found it quite hard to decide where exactly to go in each city; the cities themselves are pretty huge and there are hotels and hostels everywhere but it is hard to work out in advance where the best area will be to go. We decided on the Old Quarter as it is pretty central ( 5minutes from Hoàn Kiém Lake) and we had heard that there were lots of cheap hotels and hostels around the area of Ma May Ph.
We pretty much settled on the first place we saw, Hanoi Backpackers Downtown as it seemed pretty inviting and vibrant. We also thought that a hostel would be a good chance to meet some more people that we might see along the way heading down south in Vietnam. They didn’t have any double/twin rooms left so we had to take a double bed in a dorm room. From memory I believe it was 160,000 (=8USD ) which wasn’t terribly cheap nor overpriced . They were a really well organised place with activities each night but since we were so tired we didn’t really end up socialising too much and just went to bed relatively early.

We wandered around and found some street food which was alright, I’ve found the food in Vietnam to be somewhat bland so far, nothing has really appealed a huge amount to me . As we were sitting on upturned buckets on the side of he road eating lunch Lucky bumped into a friend from Dunedin ! Pretty crazy to think that in a city so big we could still bump into people from little old NZ!
We walked around the Hoàn Kiém Lake for a bit and then went into the temple (Ngoc Son Temple – entry was 20,000VND) which is on an island in the middle of the lake connected by a bridge. The temple itself was beautiful, quite small, but lovely architecture and artwork inside with a lot of really strong incense burning. Not the most amazing or elaborate temple I’m sure but quite a beautiful location! The bridge seemed to be the place to get the generic tourist photo, you couldn’t take a step without walking into someone’s photo! Naturally we had to get a photo as well just to prove that we were actually there !

Hoàn Kiém Lake . Our western faces seemed to attract a lot of stares . And photo requests.

There seemed to be lots of weddings going on within the Old Quarter, at first we thought they were really cute cupcake shops or something but then we realised that they were just decorated tents people put up on the street front outside a shop to have their wedding reception.

We visited the Hoa Lo Prison Museum which is a couple of blocks west of the lake (entry was about 20,000VND for an adult- Vietnam seems to have student prices so remember your student id for a wee discount )
The Hao Lo Prison was used to hold over one hundred Vietnamese political prisoners, some of which were on death row, during the French invasion. Lucky and I both had very limited knowledge on Vietnamese history but we learnt a lot here. The prison also had displays on the Vietnamese/ American War as the prison was used to hold captured American pilots for a number of years. The conditions the pilots were kept in were a lot better then a majority of what most Vietnamese people were living in at that time and possibly even now. We found it interesting that the Vietnamese treated the Americans they captured so well, with the U.S. POW nick naming the prison the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ despite the fact that the Americans were destroying so much of their country and causing a huge numbers of deaths. If you have any vague interest or curiosity into Vietnamese history I could not recommend this museum enough!

Hoa Lo Prison Museum- an amazing place to learn about Vietnamese history !

In the afternoon we wandered around looking for a place to book a tour to Halong Bay the following day. Our hostel offered a Castaway tour for $80USD but you didn’t actually get to cruise around the bay unless you paid another $40 and it seemed to be more focused on keg stands then enjoying the scenery. I’m sure we would’ve had a great time but we really wanted to see the caves and actually appreciate the scenery while we were there. We figured the scenery must be amazing if it was one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World! We finally settled on booking with AST Travel through Hanoi Guesthouse on Ma May Ph because the ladies there were so helpful and it seemed like a fairly reputable place;we didn’t think they could get away with sending us on a sinking ship if they had a business to protect! The ladies there were more then happy for us to use their computers to look at flights from HCMC to Phuket even though we weren’t paying customers there!
There were travel agents everywhere in the Old Quarter so you certainly don’t have to look hard to find a place to book through but you do have to look carefully at exactly what they are offering. We paid $90USD for a one night, two day cruise of Halong Bay onboard a ‘deluxe’ boat. We had read quite a few reviews which said that it was best to pay a bit more for a better boat and you would have a much better experience. We checked out the companies listed in the Lonely Planet guide but found that they seemed to be at the more expensive end of the scale while we were looking at the idle of the price range. We could’ve supposedly paid $75USD for a deluxe cruise through another company but the man and the place offering this seemed a tad dodgy and it sounded a bit too good to be true. As the lady at the guesthouse said, these travel agents can quickly disappear as they have no real obligation to provide you with a good service but being an established business they had to be there for a long time for their customers who were booked in.
My Halong Bay experience will be in the next post if you want to read it ! Don’t worry it was amazing!

We grabbed some street food for dinner; a beef BBQ which was like a stone grill meal back home in that you cook all the meat and vegetables yourself. We crossed our fingers and hoped that the first time we got food poisoning in here would not be our own fault! There was a local night market on in the streets so we wandered around that for a but and enjoyed some of the local entertainment on offer including a street fight between a gang of three year olds. You would be surprised how entertaining it is to watch tricycle wars!

Vietnam seems to be the place to buy knock off runners, bags or NorthFace jackets! In the Old Quarter nearly every other shop is selling hundreds of varieties of Nikes or NorthFace jackets. We didn’t buy any runners here, I’m hoping they’ll still be selling them down south in HCMC so I don’t have to carry them the whole way! Also the people seem a lot more willing to haggle here compared to Thailand where they were all quite reluctant and you never felt like you had gotten a really good deal from you. In saying that we did get ripped off buying some donuts on the street. We were both pretty hangry and were looking for lunch and we didn’t hesitate when a lady offered four small donuts for 50,000VND. It’s so hard to think logically when you’re that hungry! Every time we see those donut ladies now we just laugh and politely decline .

Even one day into Vietnam I had already decided that I much preferred it to Thailand. I’m not sure if this is simply because we had only experienced Bangkok which is very busy and slightly uncomfortable in terms of heat. Vietnam seems much more authentic to me ; we sat on buckets in the street with locals eating soups with unidentifiable meats and simply walked out into insanely busy roads and everyone on motorbikes just swerves around you. Supposedly the number of motorbikes in Hanoi equates to the population of Hanoi, it certainly felt this way! The traffic is insanely busy and ridiculously loud, people are constantly honking whether it be a warning toot or simply a toot for no apparent reason!

p.s. We are heading to Hoi An very soon, does anyone have any recommendations for tailors ? T.I.A.

“GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!” – Hanoi

I am writing this from the very wet city of Huè so I will try my best to remember everything as best I can !
We had a 7am flight from Bangkok – Don Muang, to Hanoi- Noi Bai so we had to be at the airport pretty early to pass through customs etc. This meant a 3am wake up to catch the 4am shuttle to the airport- I believe we paid 150baht which was a bit steep but the alternative was getting a taxi and having to pay the airport tolls which would work out to be about 150baht on their own plus the taxi charge.

We flew with AirAsia and I was surprised how long the lines were already at 5am! I also found it odd that you had to get any checked baggage X-Rayed before you could check it in? I’d never come across this before !
The flight was pretty uneventful, I think it was only about 1hr40mins so not very long in the air at all!
We had applied for the Vietnam Visa on Arrival through this website; there are quite a few websites around all with similar names but we used this one because we knew people who had successfully used it in the past. I think we paid around $24NZD for the two of us when we applied online and the approval letters came through within a day . You have to print the approval letter off which basically just lists your name and passport number along with everyone else who applied on the same day as you. You bring this letter and the filled in entry application form plus a passport size photo (we didn’t have this so they just took a photo of each of us for $1USD) to the Visa On Arrival desk which was just tucked away off to the side before Immigration. We queued for about ten minutes and then had to wait at the front for some time while a group from Korea managed to somehow push in in front of us. They then took about 15minutes to process the paperwork and then we handed over $45USD as a ‘stamping fee’ and received our visa.
-I was slightly nervous about using the online pre approval / visa on arrival service as one of the last travel agents I went to in NZ had never heard of it. She seemed very skeptical when I explained it to her and said she thought the only way in NZ to get a visa for Vietnam was to send your passport off to the Vietnam Embassy in Wellington. We had no issues with the process so I guess she must be a bit behind in the way that it works now. However I do know that the visa on arrival is only available when you arrive by air at Hanoi or HCMC, so if you are crossing a land border you would have to send your passport away.

We grabbed a couple of maps and some cash out at the airport ( Vietnam has quite a few ANZ ATMs in Hanoi and HCMC so it is worth getting an ANZ account to avoid the transaction fees you get using international ATMs with other banks) and then grabbed a taxi into the Old Quarter. We settled on 250,000VND off meter which worked out a bit cheaper then paying by meter. We were pretty shocked by the weather; we left Bangkok at 4am where it was probably only 20° but the humidity made it more like 25° and we landed in Hanoi which was very grey and only 21°. Our attire meant we looked quite out of place; we were rocking short shorts and runners while the locals had coats and jeans on.
We have found it quite hard to decide where exactly to go in each city; the cities themselves are pretty huge and there are hotels and hostels everywhere but it is hard to work out in advance where the best area will be to go. We decided on the Old Quarter as it is pretty central ( 5minutes from Hoàn Kiém Lake) and we had heard that there were lots of cheap hotels and hostels around the area of Ma May Ph.
We pretty much settled on the first place we saw, Hanoi Backpackers Downtown as it seemed pretty inviting and vibrant. We also thought that a hostel would be a good chance to meet some more people that we might see along the way heading down south in Vietnam. They didn’t have any double/twin rooms left so we had to take a double bed in a dorm room. From memory I believe it was 160,000 (=8USD ) which wasn’t terribly cheap nor overpriced . They were a really well organised place with activities each night but since we were so tired we didn’t really end up socialising too much and just went to bed relatively early.

We wandered around and found some street food which was alright, I’ve found the food in Vietnam to be somewhat bland so far, nothing has really appealed a huge amount to me . As we were sitting on upturned buckets on the side of he road eating lunch Lucky bumped into a friend from Dunedin ! Pretty crazy to think that in a city so big we could still bump into people from little old NZ!
We walked around the Hoàn Kiém Lake for a bit and then went into the temple (Ngoc Son Temple – entry was 20,000VND) which is on an island in the middle of the lake connected by a bridge. The temple itself was beautiful, quite small, but lovely architecture and artwork inside with a lot of really strong incense burning. Not the most amazing or elaborate temple I’m sure but quite a beautiful location! The bridge seemed to be the place to get the generic tourist photo, you couldn’t take a step without walking into someone’s photo! Naturally we had to get a photo as well just to prove that we were actually there !

Hoàn Kiém Lake . Our western faces seemed to attract a lot of stares . And photo requests.

There seemed to be lots of weddings going on within the Old Quarter, at first we thought they were really cute cupcake shops or something but then we realised that they were just decorated tents people put up on the street front outside a shop to have their wedding reception.

We visited the Hoa Lo Prison Museum which is a couple of blocks west of the lake (entry was about 20,000VND for an adult- Vietnam seems to have student prices so remember your student id for a wee discount )
The Hao Lo Prison was used to hold over one hundred Vietnamese political prisoners, some of which were on death row, during the French invasion. Lucky and I both had very limited knowledge on Vietnamese history but we learnt a lot here. The prison also had displays on the Vietnamese/ American War as the prison was used to hold captured American pilots for a number of years. The conditions the pilots were kept in were a lot better then a majority of what most Vietnamese people were living in at that time and possibly even now. We found it interesting that the Vietnamese treated the Americans they captured so well, with the U.S. POW nick naming the prison the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ despite the fact that the Americans were destroying so much of their country and causing a huge numbers of deaths. If you have any vague interest or curiosity into Vietnamese history I could not recommend this museum enough!

Hoa Lo Prison Museum- an amazing place to learn about Vietnamese history !

In the afternoon we wandered around looking for a place to book a tour to Halong Bay the following day. Our hostel offered a Castaway tour for $80USD but you didn’t actually get to cruise around the bay unless you paid another $40 and it seemed to be more focused on keg stands then enjoying the scenery. I’m sure we would’ve had a great time but we really wanted to see the caves and actually appreciate the scenery while we were there. We figured the scenery must be amazing if it was one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World! We finally settled on booking with AST Travel through Hanoi Guesthouse on Ma May Ph because the ladies there were so helpful and it seemed like a fairly reputable place;we didn’t think they could get away with sending us on a sinking ship if they had a business to protect! The ladies there were more then happy for us to use their computers to look at flights from HCMC to Phuket even though we weren’t paying customers there!
There were travel agents everywhere in the Old Quarter so you certainly don’t have to look hard to find a place to book through but you do have to look carefully at exactly what they are offering. We paid $90USD for a one night, two day cruise of Halong Bay onboard a ‘deluxe’ boat. We had read quite a few reviews which said that it was best to pay a bit more for a better boat and you would have a much better experience. We checked out the companies listed in the Lonely Planet guide but found that they seemed to be at the more expensive end of the scale while we were looking at the idle of the price range. We could’ve supposedly paid $75USD for a deluxe cruise through another company but the man and the place offering this seemed a tad dodgy and it sounded a bit too good to be true. As the lady at the guesthouse said, these travel agents can quickly disappear as they have no real obligation to provide you with a good service but being an established business they had to be there for a long time for their customers who were booked in.
My Halong Bay experience will be in the next post if you want to read it ! Don’t worry it was amazing!

We grabbed some street food for dinner; a beef BBQ which was like a stone grill meal back home in that you cook all the meat and vegetables yourself. We crossed our fingers and hoped that the first time we got food poisoning in here would not be our own fault! There was a local night market on in the streets so we wandered around that for a but and enjoyed some of the local entertainment on offer including a street fight between a gang of three year olds. You would be surprised how entertaining it is to watch tricycle wars!

Vietnam seems to be the place to buy knock off runners, bags or NorthFace jackets! In the Old Quarter nearly every other shop is selling hundreds of varieties of Nikes or NorthFace jackets. We didn’t buy any runners here, I’m hoping they’ll still be selling them down south in HCMC so I don’t have to carry them the whole way! Also the people seem a lot more willing to haggle here compared to Thailand where they were all quite reluctant and you never felt like you had gotten a really good deal from you. In saying that we did get ripped off buying some donuts on the street. We were both pretty hangry and were looking for lunch and we didn’t hesitate when a lady offered four small donuts for 50,000VND. It’s so hard to think logically when you’re that hungry! Every time we see those donut ladies now we just laugh and politely decline .

Even one day into Vietnam I had already decided that I much preferred it to Thailand. I’m not sure if this is simply because we had only experienced Bangkok which is very busy and slightly uncomfortable in terms of heat. Vietnam seems much more authentic to me ; we sat on buckets in the street with locals eating soups with unidentifiable meats and simply walked out into insanely busy roads and everyone on motorbikes just swerves around you. Supposedly the number of motorbikes in Hanoi equates to the population of Hanoi, it certainly felt this way! The traffic is insanely busy and ridiculously loud, people are constantly honking whether it be a warning toot or simply a toot for no apparent reason!

p.s. We are heading to Hoi An very soon, does anyone have any recommendations for tailors ? T.I.A.

Tiger Temple, Elephant trekking and getting stuck on a bridge ! 🐯🐘🚇

We booked a full day tour through one of the companies a few blocks away from Khao San Rd. We paid 2000baht (=80NZD) which included transport, a “buffet lunch” – see below and “all entry fees”.
We were picked up just after 7am from our hotel and taken about 100m down the road and dropped off to stand with a bunch of random people for like 40minutes while the tour guides worked out how to organise everyone into the mini vans. We finally got on a van with about 12 other people, it was a tight fit but we all had a seat, and headed out of town for nearly two hours.
They explained to us that we all had the same programme for the morning but then we would split off around lunch time and do our own activities in smaller groups as some people were going to the floating markets, elephant trekking, waterfalls etc.
We stopped off first at Kanchanaburi War Cemetery which was where Australian, Dutch and English soldiers were commemorated following their deaths which were related to building the Burma railway. To be honest I don’t know if I fully appreciated the history and significance of the site because I had virtually no knowledge on the history of these events. But none the less it was very interesting and worthwhile.

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

We then headed a few minutes down the road to the the River Kwai. The bridge was built by the Japanese during WWII to cross the river from Burma to Thailand. When I say built by the Japanese I really mean that it was built by prisoners of war held by the Japanese. The original bridge was destroyed during the war and then subsequently rebuilt.
We had a wander around the museum which had some of the original pieces of the bridge and other items from the war. Naturally you had to pay to enter this museum, around 40baht- We came to learn “all entry fees paid” is never quite true in Thailand! There is always some hidden cost! The museum was relatively interesting but being on a busy tour we only had 40minutes to spend in the museum and visiting the bridge so we didn’t stay long and went to wander across the bridge.
They sold some amazing flower soap carvings here too for about 150baht which are a cool souvenir to take home! More authentic Thailand then the selfie stick I got!

Pretty intricate ceiling in the River Kwai museum!

As we were wandering across the bridge I heard one of the tour guides explaining that the inner narrower tracks were for the old trains but the outer wider tracks were for the trains nowadays. I didn’t realise they used the bridge but figured they must only open it for tourists when there are no scheduled trains…. But again I was wrong.

The bridge across the River Kwai

Just as we were taking some nice scenic shots of the bridge and each other we heard the distinct clacking of a train and then the horn! We looked down the bridge and a huge train was coming towards us, albeit quite slowly but a very large train which looked like it would take up most of the bridge! No one else really seemed to panicked ( perhaps they had been warned of this) and they kept walking towards the train even crossing over in front of it . We quickly shimmied across to the side of the bridge and waited for the train to pass. All was going well until it stopped in the middle of the bridge.. we then realised that we had about four minutes to get back to our tour group and it did not look like is train was going anywhere anytime soon!

There was only enough room to sidestep along past the train! Pretty freaky stuff!

So we had to sidestep along the bridge pushed between the train , now stationary thank goodness, and the bridge railings. It was a very tight squeeze in some places especially with our backpacks on! Just as we were nearly at the end of the bridge the gap narrowed even more and then the train started to move! A train attendant quickly pulled us both off the bridge in a very dramatic fashion! It was pretty insane, slightly terrifying but not too unsafe! We made it to our tour group only two minutes late!

We were then whisked off to another minivan with two other ladies and told we were now going to go to the elephant park. I realise this is very controversial as many people, understandably, feel quite strongly against places like this where animals are taken from the wild and used for a tourist attraction. I completely appreciate these peoples views but somehow I managed to justify going to these places to myself.
It was all quite rushed, Lucky and I were put on an elephant together with a ‘driver’ who took us for some walks through the fields and then took some photos for us while we sat on the elephants head!

The trek itself was only about ten or fifteen minutes and then of course the was the opportunity to buy souvenirs which we declined, it would’ve been cool but they were pretty expensive and it would probably just be something I would throw out in a few months. They asked us if we wanted to feed the elephants, naturally for a fee (~50baht) so we did that which was fun. We just fed them very green bananas , still with the skin on!

Feeding elephants! 🐘

Then we were driven about ten minutes to the river to go rafting. It was not quite what I would consider rafting, we were put into a bamboo raft with life jackets and towed by a long boat for about 300m and then let go and we drifted back down the river to the hut in the river. This was where we had our “buffet lunch” which I did not eat too much of since it was tepid warm and looked like it had been cooed three days ago. At least they had rice to fill up on !

Cruising down the river 🚣

Then we were finally off to Tiger Temple which was about 40minutes drive away still. By the time we got there it was about 3:30pm and we only had an hour to wander around. The 700baht ticket was included in the tour ( we doubled checked this when we booked) we allowed us to go down to the tiger canyon and get individual photos with some of the tigers.
We were given a brief safety explanation and then taken in by a local person who led us by the hand and then someone else came with us to take the photos . It was all very efficient, I think we each posed with about five tigers and the photo takers certainly knew how to get the money shot!

The Tigers were IndoChinese Tigers which were ‘rescued’ and cared for by the park

Tiger Temple is an actual temple so you have to cover your shoulders and knees like at normal temples. They don’t tell you this when booking but we know someone who had been caught out last time they went so luckily we knew in advance. You also can’t wear red, orange or pink because it can ‘excite’ the Buffaloes and they could charge you!

We decided to make the most of being there so paid to do the ‘Tiger Exercise’. I think it was an extra 500baht from memory so not cheap but we figured that it was something we would probably only ever do once. Basically it happened once the rest of the park had closed and everyone else had left; they build a cage for you to stand in made from metal gates and then the tigers are unchained and encouraged to play and fight in the water just in front of you. It was pretty cool watching them all play fighting and chase objects the trainers put in front of them but it did get a little boring after half an hour.

Tigers really are just big cats ! 🐱🐯

We then headed back to Bangkok from TT which took over three hours so we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back! We had a quick swim and shower and packed up our stuff ready for our 7am flight the next day to Hanoi.

Bangkok- “For the King!”

We woke up pretty early on the 4th from the jet lag and decided to go explore the area we were staying in. Our hotel was in the middle of a rural area next to some swamps and patty fields. We got a lot of stares walking through the dirt streets, everyone was heading to work or school on their scooters! We found some convenience shops nearby and grabbed some food and things that we had forgotten.
We headed back to the hotel and passed what I thought was an amazing temple but I guess it was just a local neighbourhood temple and probably nothing terribly special to the local people.

Local backstreet temple ?!

We headed into Bangkok City; we decided to head for Khao San- completely unoriginal but we thought it was worth experiencing and would be pretty handy to find tours and bargains! We decided to find our own way into Bangkok- our hotel offered a taxi into Khao San but for 750baht which we thought was pretty steep! So we dragged our bags down the backstreets and over a couple of bridges to go to the main road area we found earlier. A lovely local Thai lady on a pink Hello Kitty scooter pulled over and in very broken English offered to help us get a taxi. We were a bit skeptical but it turns out she was just being friendly and said “Welcome to Thailand!” . The taxi driver told us 500 baht but we agreed on 400baht which we thought was a good price… However when we got to Khao San the meter only read 230baht but of course we had to pay the full 400baht. Even though we had read everywhere to never go off meter we still though it was a good idea *sigh* . Never mind lesson learnt ! Always use the meter!

We found a place a couple of blocks away from Khao San – Amarin Inn, which in hindsight wasn’t actually that bad but after one night felt like what one would call a …shithole. We paid 600baht for one night for a twin room – it was clean enough but the bathroom was pretty tiny ( I had to sit sideways on the toilet or my knees wouldn’t fit against the wall) and it was super noisy !

We didn’t do too much that day, just wandered around and grabbed a couple of token knockoffs- some Birkenstocks and Raybans. We decided to head back for a quick nap before dinner but ended up going to sleep at 4pm and not waking up until like 8am the next day..
We were both pretty tired and I had slept pretty badly so we decided to find somewhere a bit nicer for the next few nights before we headed to Vietnam.
We settled on D&D Inn on Khao San Rd. We paid 1200baht for a deluxe double room; there were no standards left and we decided to splurge a little just for the next two nights! It was very clean and tidy, pretty quiet considering where it is in the centre of Khao San and had an amazing rooftop pool!

Trying to cool down in the hot, humid weather!

We also booked a tour that day to go to Tiger Temple and the elephant park. We booked away from Khao San and managed to get a slightly better price for a full day trip – 2000baht. All of the tour operators offered the same programmes but some wee more willing to haggle with you. I think the tour itself must cost so much and then the rest is commission they earn so basically when you haggle for a lower price they are losing out on their commission.

Catching a Tuk-tuk around town! We fell for the 5baht Tuk-tuk scam ; it actually worked in our favour since we got a cheaper price for our tour when we went further away from Khao San! The tuk-tuk driver earns fuel coupons each time he brings people to each of the offices.

Being the 5th of December it was also the King’s Birthday! The monarchy is a huge thing in Thailand- there are huge images outside all government buildings and it very disrespectful to stand on the Thai notes since they have the King on them! We tried to find some yellow tops to buy but no one really seemed keen to haggle! So we just stuck to our singlets and shorts and watched some of the celebrations and speeches nearby. The locals were very helpful, giving us candles to light and helping us make holders for them!

We meet some other boys travelling and had a few Chang beers with them that night. English, Irish, Swiss, Spanish, Australian and Kiwis!

We tried scorpion and maggots that night as well! Lucky wasn’t so keen on hers and pawned it off to some baby who’s mum was more than happy for us to fed it!

To Bangkok ✈️

So I’m writing this from our hotel in Bangkok. We arrived around 9pm last night local time .

Leaving Melbourne was pretty exciting, we were both looking forward to getting to Thailand after a couple of months of anticipation ! Our taxi driver claimed to not know the area very well so took us on a round about way of getting to be airport. Once we voiced our concern that he was infact going in the wrong direction he suddenly became a much more efficient driver .
Check in was easy, the line for the counter was pretty long even though the airport seemed to be practically empty. We grabbed some food and then had a quick look through the duty free shops and were going to leisurely wander down to our gate when they called for final boarding of our flight. So we did the embarrassing run through the airport to our gate and the realised we weren’t even close to being the last people on the plane

We flew with Royal Brunei Airways, simply because we managed to get ultra cheap flights- my flights return from Christchurch via Melbourne and then Brunei to Bangkok were about $1050NZD.

The flights were pretty easy; first one was about seven hours to Brunei and then a very quick change over for another flight about three hours to Bangkok. The first flight was very comfortable, plenty of leg room except for when the selfish girl in front of me decided to fully recline her seat for the entire trip ! The food was pretty good ; chicken and egg fried rice with vegetables, a chickpea salad and a bread roll with some ice cream for dessert. The air hostesses were all very polite and quite amazingly dressed in traditional silk Brunei attire. Watched some average movies and Tv shows to pass time. But the main highlight was definitely winning 1million dollars on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” – shoutout to Alex, our first friend and teammate in helping up win the million! Hope you enjoyed your hours spent in Brunei airport- the airport looked pretty basic , couldn’t even manage to get the wifi to work ! Gasp.
The flight from Brunei to Bangkok was basically filled with local people travelling within Asia whereas our first flight to Brunei seemed to have a lot more Western travellers but I think most were heading to Dubai and England.

We took off just as the sun was setting in Brunei which made for a nice shot! It’s quite interesting seeing cities from in the air – Brunei seems to have a lot of subdivision areas with clone houses. There were also lots of bright lights coming from the water; we couldn’t work out if they were boats, drilling stations or wee over the water resorts .Can anyone enlighten me ?!

We landed at about 8pm local time in Bangkok – the airport was pretty huge with much bigger planes then we ever really see back home. I found it a bit confusing where we had to go to go through immigration and get our bags but we finally worked it out and immigration was nothing more then handing over your passport to get stamped . It was pretty anti-climatic as I was a bit worried that we might have issues because the NZ visa on arrival is only meant to be for 30days and I think we are in SE Asia for 39 . We were just going to show them that we had flights to leave Thailand but of course those were in my bag which we would collect after immigration. But they didn’t even ask us whether we had return flights and when we were leaving so we just went through picked up my bag and walked out. No customs or anything- we did ask which prompted the ‘Customs Officers’ to laugh at us .

We had booked a hotel nearby for just the first night which offered airport transfers so we had to try scout them out. Walking through the airport which was pretty chaotic , people yelling at you and people waving signs with hotel names on them . We managed to find our ‘hotel representative’ and then got picked up within ten minutes.

We stayed at the Airy Resort which we booked through Agoda . It was about $22NZD for one night with airport transfers.

The staff were all very friendly; some young boys carried our bags for us and then got us a juice when we arrived and the lady at the desk was more then happy to get us a twin room even though we had booked for a double. The room itself was nice enough and the bathroom was average once I worked out how to work the shower with the hot water isolator thing .

We met some lovely girls from South Africa on the shuttle to the hotel; so easy to met people when you’re travelling !

Melbourne stopover..

I finally left on Saturday for Melbourne which was pretty uneventful ; standard four hour flight from Christchurch on Virgin. Lucky had already been in Melbourne for around a week visiting family friends and having her own explore.

#nofilter

From in the air New Zealand and Australia look pretty similar except New Zealand is greener and the cities smaller.

I have no idea where exactly this is but somewhere in South Australia?

The only mildly entertaining part of the flight was when we were coming in to land and the small boy behind me starting to yell out “DOWN! We’re going down ! ” and his mum tried to reassure him that we were just coming in to land but he just kept repeating “DOWN!” and then he started to whisper “Die. Die. Die” I did wonder if this kid was having a premonition…

Sunday
We headed into town and wandered around the Victoria Markets in the scorching heat ( supposedly pushing 40°! ) The stalls were all mostly the same as what was on offer last year ; just a range of clothes, leather jackets, soaps and overpriced iPhone cases.

Lucky attempted her first haggle which ended with the man pretending to not understand what she was asking even though it was obvious there was no language barrier. Maybe next time she’ll get Lucky …

We headed over to South Wharf to look at the DFO and grab some lunch. We had some pretty amazing gelato for lunch, the salted caramel was to die for !

The mall was pretty busy, I guess everyone prefers to be inside cool air conditioned buildings then being outside with your face melting off. We didn’t really end up getting much at all apart from a couple of singlets and some togs; the sales didn’t really seem that great plus I am trying to save my baggage space for the copious amounts of counterfeit goods I will purchase . Plus mothers bamboo bowl or I shall not be allowed to return home .
So we caught the train home sans makeup which seemed to have slid off in the heat… I guess this will be the last few days of skin dewy from makeup and not beads of perspiration !

Monday
Headed into the city a bit later in the day and wandered through China Town and had lunch at Shanghai Dumpling House. We just grabbed some savoury pancakes and pork dumplings which were pretty good. Worth a visit if you’re in the area and looking for somewhere for lunch

ChinaTown Melbourne
We had a browse through all the shops in the city; there’s nothing worse then looking in these amazing shops and having to restrain yourself because you just can’t fit it in your bag ! I think a Melbourne shopping trip will be in order at some stage next year to fill my wardrobe with Zara and Topshop!
I spied some Louboutins in David Jones which will go perfectly with the Philip Lim bag I plan to buy with my first pay check when I graduate…. In 2017 😪
The Parliament Gardens were nice for a wee stroll as the sun was coming down but it started to cool down quite quickly so we went into the Emporium next to Melbourne Central to grab some Japanese for dinner.

Tuesday
My body is still getting used to the time difference even thought it’s only two hours and I am usually a relatively early riser so I woke up at 7am and went for a wee walk and ended up getting lost 300m from where we were staying. I thought I had good sense of direction so foreign busy Asian cities should be interesting …
We walked towards town to Footscray and grabbed some lunch at a Vietnamese bakery. The selection was so overwhelming that Lucky couldn’t even decide what to get so just got a sandwich ! We wandered around the streets of Footscray which interestingly is really close to the city ( around about 10mins on the bus) but has quite a strong migrant population, particularly Indian and African. It seemed a little counterintuitive that in Melbourne the higher class suburbs are located the further east from the city?
So we picked up some things at K-Mart, just socks and really cheap light hoodies that we can throw away if they become a pain , and then headed home .

So Melbourne was pretty good, just an extended stopover to enjoy the city and have a look around. This is the second time I’ve been in just over a year so I had a pretty good sense of the city , not too dissimilar to NZ cities just on a much bigger scale . For comparison the entire NZ population is around 4.5million and Melbourne which isn’t even the biggest city in Australia has a population of about 4million. The weather is similar in that it changes quite easily but when it warms up it is a lot warmer in Australia!
Melbourne is somewhere I can definitely see myself living, taking a wee trolley down to the Vic Markets to grab produce for a dinner party and coming home with bags of clothes and shoes from David Jones! So I’m sure this won’t be the last I’ll see of Melbourne !

A wee blackbird made a nest outside the window where we were staying. Totally irrelevant but baby animals are the cutest!

Things that Australia has that NZ doesn’t:
*Zara, Topshop, H&M and in general most UK chain shops
*$1 chocolate waffle cones and Kit Kat McFlurries at McDonalds
*A gelato obsession
*And most importantly Slurpies available at every corner. ( Just for the record there are two and only two shops in Christchurch which sell slushies. I know this for a fact.)

Heeeeello blogging world

Hello blogging world!

This is my very first blog post/ test post!

I’ve pretty much set up this blog as a way to let people see what I’m up to while I’m away over summer! Also so I don’t bombard everyone’s newsfeed with a million token tourist photos to make them jealous #hatersgonnahate

This was taken on my last day in Dunedin !