Subject - leaving hanoi for haiphong
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
32
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Hoi An,
Vietnam
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
ok so, after arguing with the taxi man to stop the car because we suspected he was taking us the wrong way so as to clock up the money on the meter, we paid the man, to which we, again, were given the wrong change, after he asked that the final 5,000 dong change go to him - not that he was worth it, but i couldn't be bothered to argue the matter or over the 20p that dong represented - and we headed off round the corner to discover that actually he had taken us to the right station. once in, sean left me to protect our stuff, while he went in search of tickets to haiphong. well, he must have only been gone five minutes, and yet this was still time enough for some lady to come up and suggest i move seats in the waiting room - later, sean would suggest that maybe she was just a nice one, and was simply asking if i'd like to move out of the sun - and every man, woman and child become absolutely fascinated in me. and when i say fascinated, i don't mean how kids huddle around celebs out on tour in africa, for children in need, but rather just simple staring as though they'd never seen a tourist before, or believed i ought not be there, despite hanoi being overrun by us lot! anyway, on returning to the waiting room, sean and i sat and waited for the train, which apart from being signalled that it had arrived via the vietnamese language that we couldn't understand, was made obvious by the swarms of people suddenly standing up and scurrying towards the main door out onto the platform. whilst being sucked up into the herd, sean prepared me for the fact that we might be sat in one of the hard seat carriages, where you literally sit on a wooden deckchair 'titanic' style. i can't say what the official term for this type of deckchair is, but just think leonardo dicaprio and kate winslet sat talking about his sketches out on the posh upper deck of titanic! anyway, we found our carriage, and luckily, despite paying for the cheapest transport imaginable - one pound for a four hour trip - it still hadn't bought us the cheapest seats, and instead we found ourselves on a softer seated option. however, despite being sat on nicer seats, this didn't have to mean that the fans had to work! stepping onto the train, we found our seats were already full, and not knowing how to argue in vietnamese, 'look at our seat numbers on our tickets' and 'these are our seats', we decided to get settled in the bay next to our one, despite knowing that in minutes someone else might well come along and have to argue that exact point with us! well, minutes later, that did happen, but after showing the man, wife and kids our tickets and trying to explain that we had stumbled on the same situation as he was now, he turned into the next bay and, in vietnamese, explained to our seat stealers what had happened, to which a couple of them moved seats! hurray! well, we moved seats, were stared at as we got settled down, mopped our faces - i'm always doing this, so much so that i probably look like a dirty old man! - and prepared ourselves for the journey, unaware of what might be instore for us! we'd seen the metal bars fitted to the windows, and had read that they were there to stop stones, that the kids threw at the train from the tracks, coming through and knocking us out! well, a couple of hours into the journey, everything was good. the fans still weren't working, but that didn't matter as the breeze from the windows made up for them. as for the rest, we'd had the same trolleys trundle through the train several times, selling everything from foreign friendly cake and crisps to a funny soup concoction and odd translucent jelly / pate combo on offer - looked like something we'd put in 'that' alley guys! private joke. - as well as vietnamese puzzle books and newspapers. by this time, we'd also stopped at several stations, where upon food sellers would push their baskets of baguettes and bananas and cakes up to the window bars for passengers to look at and buy. all else that i can remember from the trip, apart from the fact that the scenery was so diverse - from paddie fields and wooden huts to runway style roads, towering skinny buildings, painted in every ugly shade of pastel imaginable, and neon-lit hotels - was that there was this cute little kid on the train, who was making absolutely everyone on the train gush! i'm telling you, of all the kids i've wanted to take home - i've told you already how i think these southeast asian kids are the cutest in the world - she was the absolute cutest and reminded me of the porcelain doll i was once given that now resides in a shoe box, in the bottom of my wardrobe! anyway, on arrival at haiphong, it turned out that we literally had minutes to collect our bags and get off the train before every light was switched off and the carriages were left in darkness! no wonder everyone had been so keen to get up and go! after stepping down from the train, not onto a platform, but rather level with the tracks, we walked to the main gates to show our tickets and into the station carpark, where we were immediately jumped upon by touts, one of which was so persistent she even followed us down the road on her moped! finally, we reached the street where we thought the ONLY cheap hotel was, only to find that it was actually still about $15, hanoi prices; that it had oddly enough changed it's name from the 'hotel de commerce', as was in the lonely planet, to something so unrecognisable i couldn't tell you even if it was written down for me, despite few hotel scams probably taking place in haiphong and despite still stocking 'smellies' and towels and stationary and a mini-bar menu, all displaying the hotel de commerce name and logo; and that it was the drabbest place ever and certainly not worth the money we were about to hand over to the chinese girl behind the reception desk. however, having looked around the cheap hotel across the street and, from outside at least, the five star deluxe edition next door, our only plausible option was this place. so, we checked in, picked up our belongings to take up to the room, and watched as a dirty rat ran passed us as we climbed the stairs! what an arrival! the room was huge, with nice furniture, a tv and mini bar, BUT there was a hole in the ceiling of the bathroom, which could easily allow THAT rat access to our room; the tv wasn't tuned into anything foreigner-friendly meaning we had to first navigate the vietnamese menu to find the english translation and then start tuning away; and finally the mini bar was completely empty meaning we had to go back down to reception to explain the situation so not to get charged through the nose on checking out! apart from all that though, the pastel green painted walls were sublime! deciding we would be better off going out than being stuck in, we walked to a local restaurant, where again we were stared at a lot, by men who really didn't look like they were amused by our being in their town! however, despite this fact, we still hoped to find ourselves a friendly bia hoi bar so that we could stay out as long as possible. unfortunately dicky tummies meant we had to make a swifty return, meaning we were then stuck back at the hotel! and this time, watching bad, BAD movies and having to listen to endless house music until 2am. aarrgghh! tell me again why we bothered to come here? oh and all this negativity is before we'd even seen the place in the harsh light of day! good start!
thursday 23 october
wake up, hate this place and want out, go out to breakfast at maxim's restaurant, return, ask about boats to cat ba island, in the hope we can check out and be on our way by 12, only to discover that the only boat is at 8.45 'in the morning' and that we've missed it! SHIIIIIIIT! we're going to have to stay here another night, we begin to realise, as unbelievably the house music starts up again, and the time is only 11AM! with a massive headache, i ask that sean go down and get us moved to another room, away from the banging all-day house party! and on his return, he tells me that actually the reception has now corrected the travel agent next door, telling him that there was a local boat across to cat ba, that left at 12.30pm, and that we've now missed that too! doubly SHIIIIIIIT SHIIIIIIIT! anyway, what can we do about it now, but check out where this boat terminal even is, and find out prices. so we head down to the port, and get hassled by someone offering a longer bus, boat, bus trip, for more money, for 4pm. we could take it, we think, if we were absolutely desperate to escape haiphong, but we'd still wind up getting screwed into paying for our room for another night, so we decline the crazy offer. at the boat terminal, a random guy appears out of nowhere, quoting us times and prices, and tells us we can get a ticket from him now, so not to have to quece or miss out on one tomorrow, BUT not trusting who he is, where he suddenly came from, or whether he has anything to do with the boat trips whatsoever, we say no and that we'll be back tomorrow morning to buy a ticket, first thing.
contd. writing 4.07pm, following a mooch around the central market, hoi an!
after a wander along the river, where we saw the tiniest of boats, which still appeared to be people's houses, we walked into town to try and find somewhere to eat. unfortunately, nearly every place was truly vietnamese, and although we were aware that haiphong was firmly off the tourist trail, we hoped there might still be a few places to eat about town. but perhaps not?! if only tout lady no. 2, who suddenly leaped off the back of her friend's bike, could help us with food, we might have said yes to buying her postcards! anyway, while on this dramatic hunt for food, we happened to stumble upon what looked like a televised ceremony praising one collossal statue of an obviously famous historical female character - can't give you more than that i'm afraid - but what with the existence of several tv cameras and reporters, and line-up of extremely attractive vietnamese women, queueing up ready to present their flowers and incense sticks to the statue, the whole event resembled a 'miss teen vietnam 2008' contest?! afterwards, after giving up on ever finding food, after even a place called the mtv cafe couldn't help us, we walked back to our hotel and came across a place that we would soon discover to serve THE best meat platters ever, massive pizzas, and all the food i love the most! sure enough, half hour later, after one superb raspberry fruit smoothie, a plate of succulent rack of ribs, and the most delicious chicken wings, i came to the conclusion that this place was by far the best, and only good thing, about haiphong! HIGHLY recommended! that night, we went out to a second local restaurant, where we were quickly shown to a table and brought out a concoction of meats - we took two plates from a selection from an entire tray full, which was then left out in the open, on the next table - and vegetables to boil and barbeque ourselves. it turned out to be a similar meal to the one we had in luang namtha, but the service wasn't as friendly as it had been back in laos, even with the girl waitress helping us cook the meat! afterwards, we went back to maxims for drinks and to watch the 'entertainment' - a jazzy singer, wearing THE spangliest dress i ever did see; a jazz singer; and several instrumental types. lets just say, cruise ship!
friday 24 october
this morning, we wake up with the knowledge that today was the day we could finally escape haiphong! we got up early, rushed down to maxim's - or maxi's perhaps, could have been making the same mistake for days now - had breakfast, and rushed back again to pack up and check out. we settled our mini drinks bill and hurried out to get a taxi, the driver of which just did not understand boat terminal, and even after i made water movements with my hand - you all know what i mean by moving your hand horizontally along the air to make the shape of a wave - this guy still thought we wanted to go to the airport. what? i wasn't making vertical rocket movements! i was clearly signifying water! anyway, in the end, we frustratedly pointed our way to the boat terminal, where he again tried to fleece us out of paying too much and taking a tip, but knowing we had but minutes to catch the boat, we gave in and let him have that 20p or so! at the terminal, we were met by hundreds - well not really, just quite a few - of people, all from package tours, all having their ticket for the boat already bought for them, months and months earlier. so, it turned out, there just wasn't room for us on this boat. and the man from the day before could only say, 'why didn't you get one from me yesterday?' well, i suppose we'd got so used to people trying to screw us over that everyone was simply tarred with the same brush! we were told to go down to the end of the road to organise another mode of transport, but were only offered the bus, boat, bus option, which was not due for another hour and would take forever. luckily for us, after sitting back at the boat terminal, complaining about having to wait for the midday local boat, the guys at the terminal finally took pity on us and said that we could get on with everyone else, if we were happy to pay the same but settle for little plastic stools in the centre of the gangway! now, yes, i can see how this isn't exactly fair and isn't the most comfortable option, but you'd do the same if you were desperate enough to escape! we collected up our stuff and walked along the gang plank to get to the entrance to the boat, where we were sold tickets, and a cheeky tout lady literally said 'i saved your asses, buy some postcard!' i have to say, as much as i hate their persistence, you have to give it to them that they've got some balls to keep on going after all the rejection they get every single day from us tourists! after about an hour, and not the most uncomfortable seating arrangement - bearing in mind all the crazy trips we'd taken in laos - we arrived at cat ba island's pier, where we hadn't even got off the boat, but could already see dozens of moped drivers and hotel owners stood at the top of the steps up to the pier from the boat, waiting to hustle us into taking a bike ride to our hotel, which would probably be just at the other end of the pier, or taking a room with them. in the end, we managed to get through the crowds to the end of the pier, where sure enough all the hotels were, and hoped to find a quiet spot to look for one of the lonely planet's recommendations. unfortunately, about two or three extremely persistent touts followed us and literally surrounded us as they tried to get their own way and get us to go with one of them. it took sheer rudeness to get them to GO AWAY! i think it's the most angry i've seen sean act around a gang of touts, since we got out here. unlike me, who can't bear to be polite for one second in their company! we ended up finding the one we wanted and started walking towards it, only be hassled again by yet another 'tout', who actually, genuinely, turned out to be the right person to take us to his hotel - the tien thang, i think, or the paradise view hotel, as they now called it. trust me, there was a second when we wondered whether the hotel scam of copycatting popular hotels happened all the way out of hanoi, on cat ba island, but we were soon assured that we had indeed been taken to the right place. we checked in, again, dropped our stuff, woke ourselves up, and went out to get something to eat before asking the hotel for information on boat trips around halong bay, and a moped for that day. we took a trip along the west coast of the island, before stopping off at what we thought was the cat ba national park. a lady appeared from out of nowhere and quoted us a tiny price to take our bike into the park. she gave us directions, and minutes later, after making our unsteady way up through overgrown paths and limestone 'hangovers' - i've made that description up! what i mean is that we were on the bike on a dusty track with top-heavy limestone formations leaning over from either side of us - we found ourselves at an abandoned circle of semi-tarmacced land, where we thought we might have to park up our bike and head out into the wilderness. well, i'm guessing if we'd done that, we might have ended up on the news, so after taking some photos, we turned our bike around and were off again.
OK, so this is obscure. i am currently sat in an internet cafe in dalat, in the central highlands of vietnam, listening to love music and the sound of computerised swords swishing back and forth as loads of kids continue to spend hours and hours playing these 'three kingdoms' platform games! oh and didn't i say it's cold too! in vietnam! well chilly at the moment, but it will get colder this evening. anyway, i'm wearing a fleece, though sean says i should know better because it really isn't as cold as england's november. saying that, while in rome! and everyone else here is wearing hats, scarves, jackets, trousers etc. it's just so odd having turned up in a place that has a cold chill in the air, when all around, we've been used to blistering heat and tropical rains. here it feels more like being up in northern europe. anyway, the date is tuesday, november 11, and i don't have my notebook with me because i was meant to only come out to check some photo cds - but apparently none of the computers in dalat allow you to check cds - so i'm gonna have to try and remember what the hell happened the rest of the day, friday 24 october!
ok, so after turning the bike around, we rode back to the crossroads we'd found ourselves at before, and took a different route, which landed us at a spot where a very definite 'educational trail' sign stood. well, having no idea where we were meant to be going and deciding that seeing as we'd have to get back to our hotel soon anyway, as it was getting late in the day, we thought we'd take this so called educational trail, which looked similar to something you'd find in longdown dairy farm in hampshire, and see what we could see. anyway, a few feet in we looked up to see what looked like several squirrels, though i'd like to think the tails on these creatures were actually far too bushy to be squirrel and hope they belonged to one rare langur, which the catba folk seem to be trying to save from extinction. under foot, we came across too many jumpy insects and butterflies everywhere, though apart from that, we really didn't get to see much else. though saying that, i believe we might not have even been on the right track in the national park, to see so many creatures, as we'd discover in the next ten minutes or so! back at the bike, we took the b*stard malaria tablets, which are now becoming a right chore, and got back on the path, passed a 'see you again' sign, and onto the main road home. it was now, just a few minutes later, that we came across one giant entrance sign, saying welcome to catba national park. BLAST! we'd pbviously taken one left too soon, and ended up at the back end of the park, rather than at the start! so, had the lady who'd taken our money conned us, or was she really part of the park's staff? we'll never know. anyway, not knowing what had happened there, and realising we hadn't actually spend that much to get into the back end anyway, and seeing that it was too late to see for ourselves what we could have been missing, we drove on and stumbled across hang trung trang cave - i think - where a man, who looked like he wanted to lock up, came out to greet us and take us into the cave. at the entrance, he unlocked the gates and handed us torches to shine through the cave, which ended up going on forever, was inhabited by many a bat, which upset sean, and which in the end resembled yet another underground hell, you'd see in any hollywood horror film. oh yes, i need to stop my imagination running away with me! anyway, on and on, we walked. sean was loving the fact that i'd turned into one big wimp! ok, so i admit it, i'm still scared of the dark and claustophobic and really don't want to end up bound and gagged at the hands of some psycho hillbilly nut! finally, after what seemed like an eternity in there, we came to the end of the cave and saw natural light and thought we'd come to the end, only to discover that this gate before us was actually well and truly locked up with a padlock and that however much I shouted to the entrance guy, he wasn't going to come and unlock it for us, so we had to walk all the way back through this damned cave! afterward, after saying thanks to the guy and paying and heading off back home, i was very much relieved to be out in the open once again. back 'home', we gave the bike back to the very-happy-to-see-us-back-safe hotel man, and got ready for dinner. i can't tell you what we had because i haven't got my notebook, but i can say that while waiting for our choices to appear, i looked through sean's photos of the cave, and i swear to god i could see many a skull shaped stalactite in there and the definite faces of the dead swimming about in a bath of water that was in that cave! so much so that i think when i saw the face of some dead dude, i jumped out of my skin and shouted 'oh god' much to sean's amusement! never again! no more caves for me!
right, seeing as i'm not even supposed to be blogging right now, i'd better go and get 'hats, shoes and gloves' - song by my dad! - ready to go out on yet another bike to see another waterfall. i'll conclude this october blog later. see you later. x.
contd. friday 14 november
right, just read in the old notebook that that evening of friday 24 october, we booked our boat trip for the following day; ate at the bamboo cafe, which didn't have any snail left - much to sean's disappointment - and where the chef was more into drinking with his new foreign buddies than getting our order right; and drank in the nobel hotel / restaurant.
