Savannakhet
Trip Start
May 15, 2007
1
7
19
Trip End
Jun 15, 2007
Savannakhet,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Friday, May 25, 2007
We have a nice breakfast at the hotel in Cat Ba, during which all kinds of wild stories about last night are served up with the bread + eggs, making me quite glad I didn't go after all. Drunk backpackers, brrr.
In the group of Vietnamese people that were on the tour with us there was a guy who had a big Sprite bottle with homemade rice whiskey (or something equally vile) that he kept offering everyone shots of, while laughing madly. That's the only contact we had with these people as they didn't speak a word of English. :D Selmer tried some of the stuff and he said it was very alcoholic.
The day is spent travelling back to Hanoi - first by bus to Cat Ba port, then back on the boat, then lunch at a restaurant and then by minibus back to Hanoi.
Back in Hanoi we shortly go back to our hotel to pick up our bags and have a quick shower, and then we're off to the train station. We're quite early so we wander around for a bit and then settle into our cabin, that we share with a French couple. Unfortunately it's already dark when we leave at 7 pm, so there's not much to see outside the window, especially once we leave Hanoi behind. So we just read our books and go to sleep early.
Day 11: Hue - Vietnam
We arrive in Hue at 8.30 am and get mobbed by taxi drivers and hotel guys as soon as we leave the station. We strike a deal with a hotel guy and are taken to the Binh Duong hotel, which turns out to be quite lovely with very friendly people.
Before the cockroach attack
We end up getting the "expensive" room (i.e. $18 a night), that has a big bed, a bathtub, a tv and a balcony - it's quite posh. It's only on the 2nd floor too, funny thing about Vietnam: the higher up you are, the less you pay for a room, probably because there are usually no elevators. :DI take a quick nap and around noon we set off to have breakfast (well, lunch I should probably call it) and I finally manage to get me some pho (it has been strangely absent from menus so far - odd, as it's supposed to be one of Hanoi's most famous dishes), which is indeed very yummy. Selmer manages to fulfill a culinary dream as well, he has some real Vietnamese spring rolls. Vietnamese spring rolls are available all over Dutch marketplaces, so he wanted to get some in Vietnam.
After that we rent bikes and cycle to the citadel, which is quite nice and definitely better than walking in this heat. The bike's a bit small for me though so not very comfy to ride, unfortunately. We cycle around the citadel for a while and visit the Imperial Palace, which is very impressive. We stroll around for a while and after we leave the Palace we go for another spin around the citadel and then cycle back to the hotel.
After we get back we watch some tv and have a shower and then go out for dinner. After walking around for a bit we settle for a place where the waitress turns out not to speak any English and they don't have a menu either. The only English she knows is 'beer', so we order that and then just point to what the guys next to us are having.
Me on the bus to Laos
No idea what it is but it looks yummy, and it turns out to be pretty good, so that was fun. :D Day 12: Hue - Vietnam
We get up early to go on the day tour we had booked the day before: a trip down the Perfume River that runs through Hue. We get picked up by motorbikes - which I'm not particularly pleased about as they're pretty much accidents waiting to happen. They drive like crazy and you don't get a helmet. We have little choice though, so I just get on and proceed to burn my leg on the exhaust (I knew the motorbikes were a bad idea!). It's only a small burn though and it gives me a good excuse to use the really cool Disney Princess bandaids I had bought for this holiday. :D We arrive at the riverside safe and sound (though a little shaken) and get on our boat with a whole bunch of other people - one of which is one of the Irish girls who we met in Ha Long Bay; funny thing how you always run into people you already know on trips like this. The trip down the river is really quite nice, most of the time we're just drifting down the river and stopping here and there to visit temples, tombs and pagoda's.
At one of the temples we have to go on a motorbike again as it's a bit further out from where the boat docks and on returning back to the boat they ask you to buy your driver a drink. It amuses me as it's a nice little twist on the normal routine of wanting to sell you a drink and it seems like a nice little scheme. I think very few people will refuse to buy a drink for their driver, so they probably sell a lot more this way. I do get a bit tired of people trying to sell you stuff all the time and people scheming all the time to make you buy stuff at their place. It's funny on one side, as some are quite clever and it's all in good humour, but it also makes you distrust everyone you meet, which is pretty sad, I think. You can't tell the difference between people wanting to sell you stuff and people just being friendly.
On the way back from the tour it gets pretty cloudy which makes it cool down a lot, so Selmer and I choose to walk back to our hotel from the riverside. It's not that far and I rather not get on one of those motorbikes again. :D
Back at the hotel Selmer has got his face buried in the Rough Guide - he has been reading it religiously for the past two days. It's nice to see he has finally started preparing for our trip, considering we're almost two weeks into it. :D
