Tim is super popular in Vietnam!

I will just start this blog (which will be very long covering about 5 days worth of exciting adventures) by saying that Tim is the new poster boy in Vietnam! Women love him and men want to be him. Everywhere we go we get stopped so that people can have photos with Tim- seriously at Ho chi Minh's house on stilts there was a longer line of people wanting to have photos with Tim than to see the house! Its the beard. Its quite Ho Chi Minh reminiscent and they can't get enough of it- the men give him thumbs up and rub their beardless faces in self pity and the women blush and giggle when they stand near him. Its hilarious! If we had charged per photo we could have financed at least another month of travel!

Ok so we got roped into this tour to Halong Bay. Having arrived in Hanoi and been completely shocked by the chaos we couldn't get our bearings to figure out how to get there on our own and because it was a good price we thought it would be nice and relaxed and easy. Wrong. We have learnt a seriously big lesson- NEVER even think about, consider briefly, contemplate, day dream about or actually take an organised tour! EVER! The tour itself was fairly bland but was not the worst aspect at all. Tim and I have enjoyed the independent nature of our trip, making our way to places as we want to and just exploring them at our own pace in our own way, wandering, biking etc. Obviously on this tour everything is structured- they pick you up, tell you when to eat, when to relieve yourself, when to sleep. Our tour guide (one of about 6 as we were constantly shuffled between different groups for some reason) on the boat was very nice. He spoke enough English to communicate and had a good sense of humour. But seemed insistent upon organising people to eat with their own kind- Aussies with Aussies etc. But Tim and I got rejected by this Australian group of two middle aged couples claiming "We don't want to sit with other australians" like we were the scum of the earth or something. But thank god because as it turned out- they were the scum of the earth. Maybe I exaggerate slightly for dramatic affect- but they were pretty bad. We had to travel 4 hours by mini bus to Halong City which is where we boarded an old junk to cruise to and around Halong Bay and also to sleep on that night. It was pretty fun getting to just soak up the sun and let the giant limestone rocks and floating fishing villages pass us by. But during this 3-4 hours the Australian females got loaded up on a cheap bottle of scotch and then the embarrassment began. I had quite nastily labeled them as bogans even before this and was quite impressed with my own instincts when their actions continued to prove correct to my estimations. During the meal times one of the women very loudly and rudely made comments about how disgusting the food was and about how she didn't like rice and then continued to make rude comments about how the Vietnamese people couldn't speak English. I wasn't game enough to ask her how fluently she spoke Vietnamese. Anyway it proved to be quite entertaining to watch her husband trying to keep her in line and also the next morning to see her thrown out of her cabin with a hangover! Justice comes to all that wait.

We went into a massive cave called "The surprising cave" and we were surprised to see that there was no running water in it... very odd! Also it was decked out in garish disco light decor. Not that great. Bit touristy.

Anyway onto more exciting and less nasty blogging. We were fortunate enough to meet a lovely Father daughter traveling duo from Singapore. We also met a family from Singapore earlier that were incredibly friendly. Good people so far! The daughter had spent time in Melbourne at university and they had both traveled around Australia a bit and were keen for a chat and sharing information about life in Singapore which was great. But we were only traveling with them for one night (as I mentioned before we were shuffled around a lot- which probably made the tour less fun- couldn't bond with anyone for long and make new friends).

Anyway our little cabin was rather romantic- slightly dodgy but that made it all the more exciting. For example the sink wasn't attached to the wall and the water ran straight down the sink and onto the floor. but I digress again....

After a night on the boat we woke up to the singing of the cabin crew preparing breakfast in the kitchen next door. Then we went kayaking. This was the part we were both looking forward to and have been told would be lengthy and involve exploring caverns in the bay etc. So we were disappointed when our guide told us we had 25 minutes and should just lap the boat 5 times. Lap the boat? Bullshit! We decided to take our time exploring and ended up rowing around the rocks and little fishing villages for more like 40 minutes (still too short) before being called back in. we were able to see goats waking up the steep rock faces which was pretty cool- from a distance we thought they were monkeys! Idiots!

After this we continued on the junk to Cat Ba island. We were again sent to another group to do a 2,.5 hour trek up the tallest peak on the island. It would have been great if there weren't 40 other people walking in a line. It was very steep and involved clambering over a lot fo big rocks- I felt extremely adventurous! Tim less so as he is more of a trekker than I. The top of the mountain had a big metal ladder thingy on it you couldn't continue up- Tim made it to the top but I stopped 2 thirds of the way up- little bit of vertigo! Views were pretty cool. On the way back down we got chatting to another Australian couple who relieved us of the cultural shame we were suffering from the boat bogans. Really nice people- shame we again got split up before going to the hotel. The girl was an english teacher and Tim thinks teachers just seek each other out- maybe true.

anyway that afternoon we were given free time (or so we think!). Tim and I were dropped at one hotel on our own with limited explanation. Also the people at the hotel spoke no english and we weren';t sure whether we were supposed to get picked up again or not. We decided to just go for a wander ourselves and made our way to the beach for a swim and relax. It was kind of cold but fun. No waves but very deep.

The next day we were picked up again and cruised the Bay again. We eventually got back to Halong city and were dropped off and shoved into yet another group for lunch. We sat with a couple of French Canadians and a Vietnamese tourist. We had only been there about 20 minutes- not even finished our lunch when we were ushered onto another bus to go. another reason tours are no fun. we had been having a good time eating and chatting only to be moved on because some other tourists were in a bad mood and wanted to go. We got into the bus where an extremely rude and abusive American woman and an even ruder French couple were abusing the Vietnamese tour guys - they were so over the top I got instantly angry and made some rude comments about them myself - then I went over the top and TIm had to calm me down. But the French guy got right into the Vietnamese guys face and spoke so patronisingly to him about wanting to leave that I just felt sympathy for him and couldn't help but be bitchy to the asshole. We had to spend 4 hours with these dickwads who kept whinging about it being slow because they ahd planes to catch that night. The tour said we weren't due back in Hanoi until 5 so I don't know why they felt the right to complain. Anyway we made it back by 5 and Tim and I went to our hotel again.

The next day (i think 12th?) we were due to go on the overnight bus to Hue- so we had the whole day in Hanoi again. Which turned out to be great. We caught a cyclo to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. unfortunately his body in in Russia at the moment where it goes every year for maintenance. I suppose they get all the dead Socialist Revolutionary's together for a bit of a repair and funfare! It was a shame because as far as dead revolutionary's go Ho Chi Minh is at the top of my list. I have a growing crush. He has a very cheeky smile and after going to the museum and learning more about him he was a very amazing leader.

We went to his stilt house where he lived while he was president. It was minimalist and represented the fact that he didn't want to be above the people. Comparing this residence to the nearby Presidential Palace of the turn of the 19th century really exemplified this fact. we also saw the house where he lived during the resistance to the French in the 1950s. it was only slightly more luxurious. Nearby was the bunker he and others hid in during bombing raids by the Americans.

Next to all of this was a man made lake thing full of massive koi. Here we saw one of the weirdest things. A woman threw food into the lake and suddenly out of nowhere hundreds of koi were literally jumping out of the water to get the food- they were so frantic they were moving on top of each other above the surface of the water. So weird I can't properly explain it- but we have good video!

Anyway we moved onto the Ho Chi Minh museum- which was incredible. Amongst detailing the Socialist movement in Vietnam and aspacts of the american aggression, memorabilia, letters etc of Ho Chi Minh were these aamazing symbolic art works. They were put together to show a variety of things, including the rise of Facism around the world and how it impacted on the Socialist movement etc.

Most inspiring to me were the words of Ho Chi Minh- which were all about creating a socially responsible country where all people are educated, respected and about progressing the nation towards increased wealth and participation in the world. I can't explain his work really- but he was very focused on education and would bring the top students to the Presidential palace every year to encourage them and the nation to learn and work. He also visited remote farming villages and particiapted in every aspect of the nation. i think he really was a man of the people and you can tell by all the photos that he was genuine unlike many other world leaders and revolutionary's.

By this stage of the day we had to make our way back to our hotel and go to the bus.

Wow the overnight bus was an experience. Each person is given a bed to lie on- it is half raised and half flat- and about 5 feet long. Really weird! The journey was supposed to take 12 hours- al night. Huy is only about 500 km's from Hanoi but the roads and traffic are so bad that it takes this long. we were driving over half build roads and in the middle of the night the tire blew. My bed was directly over the tire area and I awoke thinking we were having an accident. SO ultimately our trip took more like 15 hours! We arrived in Hue at about 9am.

We booked into a hotel and set about hiring some bikes and taking a look around the city. The city has a population of about 260 000- so a bit smaller and more accessible for exploration. We rode up to the Forbidden Purple City- which is an ancient walled section of Hue that the Emporer used to live in. Much of this was destroyed by bombs in the war but what does remain is quite magnificent. We wandered (tiredly) around this for a few hours- there was a lot of explore. Then we rode around the city some more - in the area known as the Citadel- basically the city centre. We managed to ride off the beaten track into a residential area- which was really interesting- as we were able to see some of the houses (even perving inside as a lot were open) and see how they live.

Tomorrow we hope to cruise the Perfume River and see the tombs of the Emperors.