James takes on the world!

We arrived amidst the craziness that is Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam just as a torrential downpour began. We were immediately shocked by the number of mopeds filling the street and pavements. Every time we crossed the road we felt as though we were taking our lives into our own hands. We spent two days amongst the hustle and bustle visiting the Hao Lo Prison, Ho Chi Minh Museum and the Ngoc Son Temple.

After these manic couple of days we were glad to move on to the stunningly tranquil setting of Halong Bay which consists of thousands of Jurassic looking  limestone islands in the middle of a turquoise bay. Due to it being Gisella’s Birthday when we were on the boat we decided to do one of the more fancy cruises for 3 days and 2 night. We definitely did not regret our decision.

The Bhaya Classic was an oriental Junk boat which consisted of four floors housing a Spa, Restaurant, Bar and Sundeck. Our cabin had a beautiful en suite as well as our own private balcony which gave us great views of the islands as we sailed through the bay. We arrived on the boat to a shower of rose petals and a cocktail. The food during the cruise consisted of 5 course fillet steak dinners, buffet lunches of crab, prawns, salads, curries and numerous other dishes and breakfast of whatever you might fancy.

During the trip we went kayaking, visited caves, beaches and a floating fishing village, went fishing, took a cooking course and jumped from each of the four decks for a swim in the warm water. Gisella had a facial on her birthday and after dinner, at my request, the staff brought out a beautiful cake, a big bunch of flowers and a cocktail for each of us while the other guests sang Happy Birthday. We had such a nice relaxing time on board and we could have quite happily stayed for another couple of days.

We returned to Hanoi before taking a 16 hour sleeper train to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Huế in central Vietnam. We spent a day exploring the various nearby temples as well as the Citadel which occupies a large, walled area which contained a forbidden city and was home to Nguyễn emperors.

After leaving Huế we headed further south to the beautiful historic town of Hội An which once possessed the largest harbour in Southeast Asia during the first century. The ancient architecture in the town consists of Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese influences. At night the town becomes a traffic free zone and the ancient buildings are lit up with bright red Chinese lanterns. As well as many beautiful old restaurants and hotels the town is home to over 400 tailors and shoe makers who will custom make any item of clothing or shoes that you could imagine. Gisella had a very fashionable Playsuit made and I decided that I would like to have a suit made. After searching on the Ted Baker website I got one of the tailors to make me a fitted replica of a suit I found, at a fraction of the price. When I picked up the suit it was identical to the image I had given them and it fitted perfectly (this was especially amazing due to the fact it only took them 6 hours). During one afternoon Gisella and I did a cooking class where we were taught how to make Spring Rolls with hand made Rice Paper, Vietnamese Pancakes, Eggplant in a Claypot and various fancy plate decorations made from Cucumber and Tomatoes.

It was very hard to leave Hội An behind but we moved south again to another town called Nha Trang. One of the biggest surprises for us about Vietnam was just how many beautiful beaches there are. Neither of us knew or even considered that there would be even one nice beach. We spent one full day relaxing on the beach and enjoying the nightlife before moving on to another beach side town called Mui Ne. During our two day stay we took a Jeep to some incredible sand dunes and a “Fairy Stream”. Trekking across the beautiful white sand hills made us feel as though we had been picked up and dropped off in the Sahara Desert. Whilst we were there we hired some toboggans and went racing down the sandy slopes, however, the trek in the 40°c heat back to the top made me realise that this was not a sport that would be catching on anytime soon.

From Nha Trang we took a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) which was to be our final destination in the South of Vietnam. The thousands of mopeds quickly reminded us of Hanoi except that there were even more. I can understand why everybody in the city seems to have a motorbike due to the fact that as a pedestrian you are in a constant battle to prevent yourself from being run over, either on the pavement, road or on a ‘pedestrian’ crossing.

We took a tour 30KM out of the city to the Củ Chi Tunnels which are a part of a network of 120km of underground tunnels used by the Viet Cong as base of operations in resisting American operations during the Vietnam war. The underground network housed accommodation, meeting rooms, kitchens and hospitals, all linked with tiny burrow like tunnels. We were taken on a tour of the area and I took the opportunity to enter one of the tunnels. I had to crawl on my hands and knees underground in the pitch black for 40 meters through tunnels which were around 60cm in width and 70cm in height whilst bats flew past my head (not something for those who suffer from claustrophobia). We were also shown some of the handmade traps and bombs that they used to combat the Americans who had completely underestimated the size of this underground network of guerrillas.

Once we returned to Ho Chi Minh City we visited the War Remnants Museum which contained some very graphic imagery and made us realise just how horrible the war really was. Images of children affected by the use of Agent Orange was especially shocking.

Today we took a bus across the Cambodia border to the capital city of Phnom Penh. We are planning on being in Cambodia for around 5 days where we will be visiting the ancient wonder of Angkor Wat.

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