Archives for "May, 2008"
Hanoi, Koto restaurant, Ho Chi Minh Museum, Hanoi Hilton
At 6am the night train rolls into cool and cloudy Hanoi. The past four days have been boiling and it feels great stepping out to fresh air instead. We leave the luggage in hotel and head to Koto restaurant for breakfast. It is a not-for-profit restaurant and vocational training program that is changing the lives [...]
Scooter tour, Thien Mu Pagoda, Emperor’s tomb, Boat trip on Perfume river, night train to Hanoi
I wake up feeling rubbish from last night’s King’s dinner and am tempted to pass today’s optional programme, a scooter trip through the countryside. But once again, everyone else is chirpy and ready to go, so I gather my strength and hop on a scooter. It is another hot and sunny morning in Vietnam. I [...]
Marble Mountains, Hai Van Pass, Hue, The Imperial Palace, King’s dinner
The Internet is still not working and I am getting used to it. I am dehydrated from the overwhelming heat of Hoi An; There is no breeze and as beautiful as the old city is, it is completely unaccessible to me with its burning 35 degrees Celsius. The rest of the tour group has picked [...]
Cua Dai Beach, Hoi An, Cooking course
It is too late to get a tailored costume made, because I missed my chance yesterday whilst sitting in the bathtub. Instead I head to a nearby Cua Dai Beach with my American friends and I get much more attention from the hawkers than I do if I go somewhere alone. We get ripped off [...]
Hoi An, Money tips for Vietnam
Early morning again. The bus is outside waiting and I get to leave the dungeon room. Someone has managed to repair the internet overnight: for the first time the wifi is working. And I am leaving. We head to Ho Chi Minh airport and take an internal flight to Danang. From there we take another [...]
Chu Chi tunnels, Cyclo tour, War Remnants Museum
The second part of the Cambodia-Vietnam tour begins from Ben Duoc tunnels, part of the Cu Chi tunnel complex. We leave 7am to avoid the rush hour I hear, but where these millions of scooters already on the roads come from, I have no idea. We are already stuck in the traffic. Ben Duoc Tunnel [...]
Ho Chi Minh tour, Buddhist wisdom, New tour group
I have become good friends with a Californian couple from Berkeley, Oakland, also participating the whole tour from Bangkok to Hanoi. They are very smart and intelligent, well traveled and know many interesting things. The wife is a painter and the husband has recently sold his own restaurant, and now enjoys DIY and retirement. When [...]
Ho Chi Minh City
In the morning we begin an eight-hour long bus journey to Ho Chi Minh City, previously known as Saigon and still known as Saigon for the majority of the people in and out of the city. The road from Chau Doc to Saigon is pleasant after the Cambodia’s rocky roads, but travelling is slow because [...]
Mighty Mekong, Hello Vietnam!
In the morning I try to get inside the royal palace, because I have heard that king Norodom Sihamoni holds a morning ceremony every day at 8am. He is single so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to go to in the front row. When I asked people why he is in his mid 50’s and [...]
Tuol Sleng, killing fields, cyclo tour & eating spiders
The morning tour takes us to a genocide museum in Tuol Sleng (=poisonous hill). The area was once Angkar area’s premier and feared security institution designed for interrogation and extermination, and later opened to a public in 1980. During the Pol Pot Regime this former high school was turned to a Documentation Centre of Cambodia [...]
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