I am now 26!
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
31
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Hoi An,
Vietnam
Monday, November 3, 2008
monday 20 october
this morning i wake up happy, having watched far too much american tv the night before going to bed, and upon opening my eyes, after discovering the tv had been on all night! sorry world : ( . and having watched all this glamorous tv, i left the hotel adament that no nasty vietnamese hotel, shop, restaurant owner was gonna piss on my fire! not on my watch sister! anyway, we ended up back at finnegans, where surprisingly the chip butty brought out for me was a-ok! later, after returning to the sanctuary of our hotel room, away from all the traffic and screeching people and caged birds, cats and dogs, desperate to escape, we got ourselves ready for perhaps a less busy day than before, with what turned out to consist of CD burning, a fruitshake, walk around the chinese inspired temple on the lake - which includes what is supposed to be the remains of one giant turtle from the lake, though it looked like a wax work! - and a trip to the water puppet theatre ticket booth, where a jumped up ticket seller really did piss on our fires, when she tried for all she was worth to fleece us into buying the last remaining tickets for the next show in five minutes! i'm sorry, but no-one forces us into anything and so she wasn't going to get anywhere with us, and neither were we getting any good tickets from her for that evening! later, we had dinner in bar 69, a converted traditional long house, similar to those still existent in the old quarter of the city; and more bia hois, before i decided to open up my mouth before thinking and so booking us a scam taxi, who charged us far more than the small trip back was worth! i mean, in relative terms, we still didn't pay much, but the journey should have cost maybe 15,000 dong where as it ended up costing 50,000. lets just say, we would have got less screwed had we decided to walk home alone, been caught down a dark alley, and gang raped by a bunch of angry vietnam vets, unable to distinguish between their american enemy and an english couple, who hadn't even been alive to see that war! back home, a little cheesed off by the taxi man, sean left me to stay up and watch yet another tv mistake, in the form of a horror movie set underground! lovely!
contd. writing at 9.42pm
tuesday 21 october
ok so after a much better breakfast at a place handily around the corner from our hotel, called geckos, we got up and dressed and headed back into town for some more cd burning, because we are taking that many photos, and back to the water puppet theatre ticket booth, in the hope we might be able to buy some tickets today. well, la bitch from the night before must have been struck down by some just godly force from above, because a different lady was there and able to sell us some great tickets down the front. well, good start to the day, but that's where, for the morning at least, it would end. after, we flagged down a taxi man, who first pretended he didn't know how to work his meter, and asked him to take us to hanoi's main train station, where we hoped we'd be able to buy a ticket for the following day, to haiphong - a city, we had read, was similar to hanoi ten years previous! anyway, on arrival at the station, we tried to look for the main ticket booths, and instead discovered a waiting room full of rows of seated people watching a man stood before them, behind an alter, singing. well, we had either stumbled into some kind of train station celebration / award ceremony / anniversary or a community party! anyway, after leaving their extremely hyper gathering, we found the ticket booths, and upon taking another ARGOS style ticket, we sat to wait our turn. if only everyone understood the point of the system! you can see where this is heading! after sitting there for a short time, watching other people push in, i decided to stand my ground and go up and wait by the booth window, with all the others, in the hope that the lady behind the glass would next find some honesty and ask me if i needed any help. well, she didn't straight away, but soon after, after sean came to the window too, to explain what ticket we needed, she turned and simply said we couldn't get that ticket there and that we'd have to travel halfway across town to another station, where we could buy both the ticket we required and pick up that train. wow, all that, after being told by the lonely planet, and the ladies at our hotel, that we could get everything we needed, simply by heading off to THE MAIN STATION! well, similar to the wobbly i threw back in luang prabang at the bank, i just had to have another. what a waste of time, what the hell were we going to do now, no i didn't want to go to the other place, why wasn't anything clear etc etc etc! as you can imagine, sean was not impressed by my little paddy, neither that half of hanoi's male population seemed to be watching us - yeah, they probably didn't like seeing a woman stepping out of line! hehe! anyway, not wanting to do anything anymore, we picked up another taxi and tried to rescue the day by heading off to lenin park, where we were first charged to enter and then given, get this, CHEWING GUM (!!!) as change because the guard doesn't have the right money! now, i've seen it all! what a crock of shi-ite!!! well, we mooched around for a while, took a peak into what i hoped would be a fantastic orchid farm, but which actually turned out to be where all flowers go to die! no-one was looking after the place clearly. afterwards, we took a walk beside the lake, and saw to our horror that it was absolutely filled with litter and dead fish, bobbing up and down on the water. not the nicest sight! what was our 20p charge going towards anyway? not the cleaning of the park that's for sure! walking on, we took in the sight of some older folk doing tai chi, some playing badminton, some running and power walking after work, and others fishing, all before deciding to take a boat - one of those that two people can cycle - out onto the lake. well, we paid our money and went out to choose our boat, and there we were faced with some cheeky 'one' trying to get us to take out one of the more decrepid boats rather than a swan, which was obviously the main reason anyone even went to the ticket booth in the first place to get a boat. everyone out on the lake had a swan, so why was this geezer trying to pull a fast one by getting us to take out a heap of crap?! well, i'd had enough and just put on my spoilt, 'i'm gonna get what i want' face, and in the end, despite him pulling faces and uttering words like he didn't understand what i meant, we got that swan! oh yes! and so, there we were, out on the lake, the two of us cycling for all we were worth, to get this swan around this big pond in lenin park! it was bliss, and felt like we were in the only place in hanoi where we couldn't be pestered by said cyclo driver / food seller / hotel owner / anyone (!) asking if you want a ride / banana / room / marijuana, or restaurantier / silk shop owner asking you to 'come in please'! after heading back into land, we walked the rest of the park in the rain, before my dicky tummy kicked in AGAIN, meaning finding a taxi quickly, to get us back just in time! on the way back in the taxi, the rain hammering it down, we watched as people on mopeds whizzed by in massive ponchos, covering both themselves and their set of wheels, with a plastic window cut into the front panel to enable other road users to see the front light poking out! back at home, we got ready fast in time to pick up my photo cds, get some kfc and head off to see these water puppets. once in the theatre, the audience sat infront of a deep swimming pool - in which the puppets would tell their story - with a temple shaped building behind - where the puppeteers would do their job of giving life to the puppets. well, during the performance, we were told the story of daily life in vietnam, including taking the animals out to graze, learning how to fish, taking part in boat festivals, and celebrating the return of a child from university. it was really good, made better by the fact that the puppeteers finally emerged from behind the curtain draping around the 'temple' set, for a round of applause. i definitely want a puppet theatre of mine when i get back home! after the performance, we had dinner in the new day restaurant, and more bia hoi, before getting money from a cashpoint surrounded by teens, who looked as bored as the ones back home, and returned to the guesthouse to pack.
wednesday 22 october
today, more breakfast at the geckos cafe, before packing up and going shopping before catching a train to haiphong. sean still wanted to find this one pair of shorts so we head into town in search of them, only to find that every tourist shop were only able to sell us tailor-made outfits from the finest silks, art work, 'kids and stones' at one place (?), decorated plates, ornaments, or bottles of snake wine; while at the majority of the more local shops, everyone was either selling knocked off designer jeans or wool jumpers! in the middle of october, i hear you cry? oh yes! trousers, jackets, knee high socks, they've got 'em! in the end, after many maybes in the only shop suitable for bigger bottomed men - every one who isn't southeast asian - we decided to give up, but not before there was time for sean to get shooed out of one particular shop, the owners of which must still be holding a grudge over the war. they were just not letting us in, and both the male and female owner just shook their heads at us and waved their hands, as if to say 'GET OUT you stinking foreigners'! time to drown our sorrows, we thought, with a tasty fruitshake, at the top of a cafe hidden away through an art shop, looking over the entire skyline of central, central hanoi! yes, when things turn bad out here, we haven't been turning to tea in our hour of need, but rather a fruitshake! not that the vietnamese are able to make a decent one like they do back in thailand and laos! no, here you don't get a cool glass of crushed ice, mixed with fruit and juice, only chunks of ice bobbing around in a squash mix! ah well, what you gonna do?! afterwards, we picked up our bags from the hotel and flagged down, what turned out to be, yet another dodgy scamming taxi man! yes, it was good to be leaving hanoi!
ok, so, back to reality, it's nearly 11pm here and i gotta go pack, as we leave hoi an tomorrow for nha trang, so speak soon, and hope you're enjoying my blog. loves xxx.
