Saigon, Vietnam – Day 28

Hi,

So we headed out for a few beers last night in the Go2 bar, good place! Cool music and a small amount of hookers! Don’t think the hotel guy was too impressed with us banging on the door at 2 in the morning…

He was even less impressed having to ring us to tell us the bus was outside this morning too! GROGGY! So we got dragged into this “Handicapped Handicrafts” place on the way, loads of arty farty stuff was being made by people who were handicapped as a result of the war. They didn’t look too handicapped to me, and it was a bit sweatshop-esque. Any way we got to the Cu Chi tunnels and did the tour. Our guide sounded like the evil chinese general in Team America. Got to see some cool stuff like how they lived and how they dressed and how everything was made and how they hid. Got to get into a tiny secret entrance to the tunnels, the girls wouldn’t do it… then we got to crawl through an actual tunnel. Aoife lasted a whole 25 meters. God knows how they spent long times down there, I would have gone insane!

I got to shoot an AK47, not easy to aim as it looks, think I hit the target twice. Its not exactly cheap either, 13 dollars for 10 bullets? Rip off, hopefully it’s gonna be cheaper in Cambodia.

In other news, Paul is still on Koh Tao, he’s started his PADI course, so at least we’ll all be qualified divers…he also got a Thai sim card for the phone, his number is +66857824282 so give him a shout. I rang him just there and he’s sunburnt to hell – HA HAHA

We’re getting a bus at 8 in the AM to Phnom Penh, can’t wait to get scammed crossing the border – apparently its a regular thing! Also we were told Cambodia is hugely corrupt so it should be a good laugh! Can’t wait to move on to another country, getting sick of the Vietnamese Dong.

Right see you’s in Cambodia

Ronan

p.s. Aoife has bites all over the place even on her face, me and Cats still haven’t been bitten…

AND WE’RE BACK!!! Saigon, Vietnam – Day 27

Hello,

Dont know what happened but it didnt work for the past 12 days…

Quick rundown of what happened…

Left Hue fairly lively and got to Hoi An, nice place, much better weather, met English Dave and Rich there – hung roundd with them. Did some cycling, the girls got clothes made, I broke my finger.  Then left for Nha Trang. Got there after a cool overnight bus, got a grand hotel, got hammered the 1st night, we booked into our diving course. Paul  left with Dave to Saigon then Cambodia then went to meet Ciaran in Bangkok, he’s on Koh Tao now.Me Cats and Aoife did our course, took 3 days, did it in the cold and pouring rain but we’re now qualified open water divers! Left there fairly lively after that for Mui Ne. We loved Mui Ne. 3 days of blistering sinshine, got our tans up to speed. My camera seized up. We liked that place a lot. Just got the bus from there to Saigon a few hours ago. Saigon is cool. I got me a new camera for a fraction of the price it would cost at home.

We’re booked in to the Cu Chi tunnels tomorrow morning which is gonna be cool, might even get to shoot a few AK47s!! Anyway hopefully this will keep working and I can go back to regular updates!!!

Ronan

ps We have over 6000 hits on this site -NOT TOO BAD!!

Hue, Vietnam – Day 15

So we arrived in Hue (pronounced Hway) at 7 in the AM from the overnight bus. The bus was cool, got a bed and some cheesy movies on board. Gets a bit uncomfortable after a while. We stopped after the first hour in a concentration camp-esque food place. No english so Paul had to point at someone elses dinner to get some food. They also had a 10 foot cobra in a massive jar of whiskey, yours for te reasonable price of 16 million Dong!

Anyway back to Hue, got there and it was freezing and raining and we were all pretty cranky (Aoife), so we found a hotel, our bed was damp which was nice. Lay there for an hour trying to stop shivering, eventually got to sleep. We woke up at 12 and got a shower and decided to get the hell out of that town. It was pure misery. So we asked the hotel woman for the next bus (which was an hour after asking), she couldnt believe we were gonna pay 5 dollars for a bus to Hoi An (coz the normal price is 4) AND pay for the room for a night even though we only stayed there for 4 hours and a shower?! We were determined for a shower. So we got the bus! Which meant we had half of Vietnam done in 48 hours….yep, Over 700 km not including the flights in 2 days….not bad!

We took one photo of Hue just to prove we were actually there…

Hanoi, Vietnam – Day 14

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Right we arrived in Hanoi yesterday evening to the cold weather…we found this “dead friendly” taxi driver who said he’s take us to Hanoi for 15 dollars and played happy hardcore in his taxi, he asked where we wanted to go and he was all chat all the way there. Eventually he told us we had to pay on Dong (Vietnamese currency), so Paul hopped out at an ATM with him. He told Paul that 2 million Dong was only 12 Dollars whereas its nearer to 120… we were none the wiser. He actually dropped us to a different Hotel but told us it was the right one and conned Paul into pretty much giving him 180 dollars while the rest of us were being distracted and hounded by the hotel people. We felt a bad vibe so just walked away and they HOUNDED us the whole way down 2 streets. Eventually we got away from them, and tried to find the original hotel we were going to but streets look all the same, maps are pretty useless and its not exactly inviting when you’re just off 2 flights. We found a place that looked OK and they had 2 pretty cool rooms for us….so we hid in our rooms for a few hours then ventured out for a look around, but it was too cold so we just got food and then headed back and got more munchies and watched the HBO channel for the night…

This morning we were feeling a bit better so we decided what to do, we knocked Halong Bay on the head coz the weather is a bit crap in all fairness and decided to head down the coast. So the staff in the hotel helped us out and all overnight trains were booked out so they got us a sleeper bus for the 14 hour journey. The bus has beds! So we’re catching that in 2 hours…

So we had 6 hours to burn so we visited some museums.

Went to the Ho Chi Min museum. He’s pretty much the saviour of Vietnam and from what me and Paul could work out in the museum – he invented the gun, crystals, the tuk tuk, paper and pens, the ribbon, fruit and to top it off – Rap. Pretty much a legend so…

Then went to a war history museum where me and Paul legged it around playing with planes and tanks and guns and stuff while the girls tutted and shook there heads (appentely we act like children as all lads would when put in that situation. Big Baz you would have loved it!

What we learnt about Vietnam so far:

- Its cold

-WAAAAAAAAAY too many motorbikes

-Kids love to diarrhea all over the path

-Taxi men are real sound

-2 million dong is NOT 12 euro

-Shoes are handy

Hopefully this bus journey will be alright and we won’t get conned or scammed in anyway. I’m locking my bag to me and me to the bed…

Til next time…

Ronan