Hanoi and Halong

Tuesday, we had an early rise (about 5:30) so we could finish packing
have showers and breakfast and then check out in time for our ride to
Halong Bay. Actually, 5:30 here is 8:30 in Brisbane, so it wasn't really
early for us.

We needn't have rushed. We were expecting our car to arrive at 7:30, it
was just after 8:30 by the time we left the hotel. He turned up while I
was out the front photographing the traffic.

Getting out of Hanoi was probably the first time we'd really experienced
the traffic properly, with scooters coming close enough to the car that
I could have leaned out the window and easily touched the riders. It
thinned out a bit once we got out of the city, but there was still a lot
of traffic all the way to Halong which took about three and a half
hours. After a while you get used to the sight of a car on the wrong
side of the road, coming straight at you with its headlights flashing as
it tries to overtake some slower traffic.

The boat we had booked for the cruise is the Emeraude. It's a replica of
one of the old French paddles steamers that used to sail around the area
back in the twenties. It's probably the most expensive cruise on the
bay, but well worth it.

We were met on the boat with cocktails,something orange and red that
tasted of pineapple. After that, and a quick safety briefing, we were
given our cabin key. Most of the people on the cruise had all their
luggage with them. As we were going back to the same hotel in Hanoi,
we'd only taken the essentials and left the rest back at the hotel. That
meant we didn't have to wait for our bags as we were carrying them.

We had lunch pretty much straight away, a huge buffet with really nice
food, accompanied by an Australian chardonnay. The service from the
staff was fantastic and very friendly.

First stop was at the cave of Hang Dau Go. For someone like myself who
is studying geology, this was fascinating. There is an interesting
stalagmite in there that resembles a part of the male anatomy. Now, I
don't mean if you squint a bit and turn your head the right way you can
imagine it looking like that. As soon as you see it you think, my god,
that's a huge dick.

After the cave visit we headed to our anchorage for the night, where
some brave souls actually went for a swim, keep in mind that it's winter
here.

Just before dinner there was a quick cooking demonstration on how to
make Vietnamese spring rolls. I can honestly say, I didn't do too bad a
job of it when I had a go.

Dinner was another huge and delicious buffet, this time with a nice
French pinot noir which we finished up on deck, followed by tea, coffee
and a glass each of Benedictine

I'll probably repeat this over and over, but if you ever get to Halong
Bay, take the Emeraude cruise, you won't regret it. I'll add a link to
their website in my sidebar once I get back home and can access the
server properly. It seems that any website related to that big search
engine is blocked from here.

Hanoi, Day two

I'm actually typing this on day... um...it's Wednesday morning... day
four. We're in the back of a car on the way back from Halong Bay to
Hanoi. So if there are any spelling mistakes, it's because of that huge
truck coming towards us, headlights flashing, in our lane.

Anyway, back to our second day in Hanoi.

We really wanted to see the Hoan Kiem lake, the centre of the old part
of Hanoi, so after a really nice western style breakfast in the hotel,
we headed off in what we thought was the direction of the lake. We've
actually seen a lot more of Hanoi than we would have if I'd brought a
compass with us.

Once we found it, and along with it, the ANZ bank we were looking for
the other day, we wandered around to the northern end where there's a
small island with a temple (the Temple of the Jade mount, or Den Ngoc
Son) on it, reached by a very photogenic bridge called the Sunbeam
bridge. There's an entry fee to get across the bridge. It's 3000 dong,
which works out to about 25 cents Australian (probably 10p). It would
have been worth it for ten times that, partly because the touts trying
to sell you postcards and books couldn't get in. The souvenir shop on
the island was the first time I saw the little working model cyclos they
sell here. When I say working, I mean the pedals turn, it has a chain
that drives the back wheel, everything works. Just the thing for Stuart
Little.

After the lake, and having a better idea of which direction we were
heading, we found our next must-see location, the Hoa Lo prison, what we
in the west know as the Hanoi Hilton.

The prison was originally built by the French to house (and torture and
kill) political prisoners. The French named it Maison Centrale and
that's what's on the sign over the door even today. These days most of
the prison is gone, replaced by a high rise office building and hotel.
What remains has been restored and serves as a museum. It mainly shows
the part of its history when the French were using it, mentioning little
of its use during the sixties.

After the prison we ended up back at the hotel, via a market where we
saw dog meat for sale for the first time. We'll be heading back there
sometime, not for the dogmeat, but probably to buy some silk.

We had a late lunch in the hotel, some of the best fillet mignon I've
ever had and, surprisingly for hotel food, remarkably cheap. We had the
whole restaurant to ourselves as a wedding reception had just finished.

The rest of the day was spent uploading photos from my memory cards to
the laptop and packing our bags for the Halong Bay cruise.

Oh, and I discovered while doing a blog entry that day that Google blogs
can't be accessed from Vietnam and e-mails to Blogger bounce. All my
blog entries from here are going via my brother Laurie. Thanks for that
Laurie.

Hanoi, day one, we're millionaires

Actually it's our second day since we arrived yesterday, but this is my
first post since we got here.

I'd read about the traffic in Hanoi and even seen videos of it, but it's
actually not that bad. Okay, there's lots of it, and it's noisy, but
they do stop for red lights here (most of them), contrary to what I'd
read. I'd definately rather be on foot though than trying to drive
myself or ride in it. The guy that picked us up said, "Vietnamese are
all experts at riding slowly", and I think that's the trick, slow and
steady.

We had a bit of a wander around yesterday afternoon, mainly to find an
ANZ bank ATM as we didn't have any local currency on us. Once we found
one, we became instant millionaires. One million dong is about eighty
dollars Australian. I have a wallet full of hundred thousand and fifty
thousand dong notes.

The only negative so far is the touts following you around trying to
sell you things you don't want. We had a young bloke follow us around
yesterday trying to sell us books, some of which I'd already read. He
didn't want to take no for an answer, and it wasn't until I turned to
face him and said, "look mate, I'm not going to buy anything off of
you!" that he got the message and left us alone.

The cyclo drivers will quite often call to you and ask if you want a
ride, but unlike in Beijing they generally leave you alone if you say
no. Also they don't offer to change our money for you all the time like
they do in Beijing.

Anyway, it's Monday morning now. We've just had a nice western style
breakfast downstairs in the hotel retaurant and it's time to go sight
seeing.

Your roving reporter in Asia

We're currently in Changi Airport, Singapore, taking advantage of the free internet access.

Both of us are really sore from the first leg. It is physically impossible to sleep in economy class seats. I think I got about 15 minutes sleep by lifting up the arm rest, putting a pillow on the end and resting my head on that.

If you fly Singapore Airlines and confirm your flight online, don't bother with printing the boarding passes. They don't work in the machines at the gate (at least not in Brisbane). They gave us proper boarding passes before they started loading us on.

We've got about another 3 hour wait here before flying on to Hanoi. Boy a bed is going to feel really good by then.

Full up inside

We had a full load on the bus home yesterday.

Normally the bus has just enough passengers that everyone has a seat to themselves, or rather two seats, as in there's no-one sitting next to them. Yesterday we got to the William Street stop, which is the last stop before we leave the city, and a lot of people got on that usually don't catch our bus. It turns out that the 267, the bus that's usually in front of us, had blown it's front suspension. They'd gone round the corner at the end of William Street, there was an almighty bang, and the bus kneeled down. The air suspension had popped so to speak.

We pulled up in front of the disabled bus and heaps of passengers, some of whom I'd seen get on at my stop, all got on our bus, and a lot of them ended up standing all the way to Capalaba. And if you're wondering how Capalaba is pronounced, the emphasis is on the second "a".

The funny thing was watching them all get off at Capalaba interchange, where another bus was waiting. If you've ever seen Monty Python's Life of Brian, the scene where the People's Front of Judea's meeting gets raided by the centurions, it was just like that. I was tempted to look around to see if people were getting on at the back and then getting off at the front, then getting on again at the back. The procession seemed to go for ages.

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Still on the topic of buses. I was on the way to work this morning, half asleep from staying up last night. As we got into the city, we went through an intersection and there were three pedestrians waiting to cross the road. The one in the middle was John Howard, our prime minister, out for his morning walk. I really wish I could have opened the window, I could have said something really deep and meaningful to him like, "PFFFT!!!", or "Oi, Bonsai!"

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Anyway, I'm on holidays now. My next post will hopefully either be from Singapore airport or the Hoa Binh hotel in Hanoi.

Booking seats

It's quarter to eleven at the moment, in the PM (and I don't mean prime minister).

I'm waiting until quarter to twelve so I can check in for our flight on Saturday night. Donna doesn't think I can make it, especially considering I have to get up at five-thirty in the morning to get ready for work.

It's just that I've done plenty of long flights before and I've accepted what ever seats they've assigned me. Now that I know I've got a choice, I'm going to try and make sure we get the best seats we can. I'm going for the exit seats at the front of the economy section. Heaps of leg room, and you get to chat to the crew when you take off and land. Failing that, I at least want seats where you have a half decent view, not obscured by a wing.

I guess I'm a bit spoiled as far as flying is concerned. I've had views from aircraft that people would pay a fortune for, and I got it for free. I've flown an Antonov AN2 from both sides of the flight deck. I've been up in an Agcat doing banner tows, a Tiger Moth, a Yak 52 doing aerobatics. When you get stuck in an aisle seat up the back for an fourteen hour flight between Singapore and Heathrow it's very depressing. Especially when you have difficulty sleeping sitting up like I do.

Incidentally, all those aircraft in the pics are the actual aircraft I've been up in, although the Yak has been repainted and then crashed since I last went up in it. When I did a Google search for VH-UVB the Tiger Moth, I actually came up with my own photos. Try it yourself.

Anyway, it's now quarter past eleven, so I'm going to sit here for the next half an hour and wait.

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An update at midnight.

We didn't get window seats for the Brisbane to Singapore leg, but then it's an overnight flight, so that's not too bad. For the Singapore to Hanoi leg we've got window seats in the second row of economy, which means we should have a view over the wing.

The link to the picture of the Yak-52 isn't actually the one I went up in, although it has the same registration. The one I went up in was re-registered and when Barry Hempel, the owner of the one I went up in, bought another one, he registered it as VH-ULT. As I said earlier, if you google VH-UVB you'll find some of my own pics taken ages ago.

Night all.

Duty free

I've been trying to find out what the duty free limits are for Vietnam.

Now you'd think that would be a simple task, and it probably would be if we were only taking booze with us. But Donna rolls her own cigarettes and every site I look at has a different amount that's allowed. Some say 100 grams, some say 250 grams which is the amount you can bring into Australia. One site even says 500 grams, that's 10 pouches of tobacco. The official Vietnam Customs website says the amount is only 50 grams, but I can't help thinking that's a typo as 50 grams is only one pouch. I think you can only buy duty free tobacco in 250 gram packs anyway.

I might have to tell Donna it's time to give up the cigarettes. She can smoke my cigars if she likes.

Speaking of the trip to Vietnam, my brother Laurie and his family are in Taiwan at the moment. Actually they'll probably be reading this entry from Singapore. Laurie told me by e-mail yesterday that frequent flyer members can check-in via the internet up to 48 hours before the flight. Laurie didn't know this before they flew to Taiwan and the Singapore Airlines changed their flight at the last minute so they ended up with the worst seats and had to sit seperately.

Going on Laurie's advice, I'm staying up until 11:45 on Thursday night to make sure we get the best seats we can on the Brisbane to Singapore leg. When I get to work the next morning (if I'm not still asleep) I'll be checking in for the Singapore to Hanoi leg.