Monsoon island

So, Cambodge. We headed straight to Sihanoukville, a coastal town which is a bit like Vang Vieng-on-sea: it’s set up exactly like any Thai island resort but the beach is less nice and the town is more scruffy. In the evenings the thin strip of Serendipity Beach is taken over by barbecues serving up mounds of delicious fish and cheap draft beer under twinkling lights, with squidgy chairs to curl up in and listen to the waves lapping.

During the day, dark clouds loomed overhead and the beach was crawling with children and young Khmer people selling bracelets, fireworks and offering pedicures. On top of them are gangs of oh-so-cool young Brits on their gap years handing out flyers, pouting and imploring you to go to their bar tonight for free shots. It’s sad really - all the bars advertise for western staff while the locals are stuck on the beach hawking wares that no one really wants.

So we escaped to Koh Rong, a couple of storm-swept hours away on an old fishing boat; a peaceful little tropical island with a bare strip of village, a dive shop and only a couple of guesthouses. Here, of all places, we bumped into my school friend Doug, who happened to be staying in the bungalow next door. I knew he was travelling with his girlfriend Hannah, but we didn’t think our paths would cross, so didn’t try. So it was right lovely to catch up with them.


It rained cats and dogs on Koh Rong. Literally – we found a kitten curled up in by backpack one night. There was nothing much to do except lie around reading and watching dragonflies swirling around while the storms gathered over the sea. And, occasionally, run down the beach for a rainy swim. Proper relaxing.

Eight things I like about Vietnam

My last post might have been a bit too negative. I did like a lot of things about Vietnam, such as...

1. Eating prawns. Sweet and tasty
2. Zooming around on the back of scooters instead of in taxis or tuktuks
3. The super cute bike helmets they all wear
4. Bia hoi. Cheap, light, refreshing beer which costs about 15p
5. Drinking coffee. Strong and mixed with condensed milk for a zingy wake-up call
6. Cone hats, everywhere
7. Comfortable, well-behaved overnight train journeys
8. Watching all three Twilight films in one week.

Good night Vietnam

I really wanted to like Vietnam, and I did start off liking it.

We blitzed southwards down the east coast armed with open bus tickets as we didn’t have much time to get off the very beaten track before our visas ran out. In Hue we walked around the ruined Citadel, took a boat down the river and visited crumbling tombs and pagodas. In Hoi An we wandered the sweaty but picturesque streets, ate the delicious local dish, Cau Lau, and got tailor-made dresses, sandals, shirts and shorts. Beautiful China beach was only 15 minutes up the road so we lay under wizard-shaped umbrellas and swam in the sparkly sea. Nha Trang was more of the same with a drunken beach party thrown in.

It was all lovely but it was all starting to blur into one. Everywhere there are hordes of tourists, identical tall, thin hotels and little ladies in cone hats and face masks begging you to buy something, anything from them. Everywhere felt a bit tense.

Up in the highlands, Dalat stood out a bit – farmy and cool with an immense market that swamps the town centre. We joined forces with Dan, a New Yorker we’d met in Nha Trang and Brooke, a New Zealander whose wonderful swallow tattoos caught my eye, for a day with the Easy Riders. The Easy Riders are friendly, crinkly-eyed old locals with motorbikes who will whizz you around the surrounding highlands. Our day was clear blue and glorious. We drove around with the wind in our faces, taking in the lush scenery and stopping off at little workshops, flower-gardens and dramatic waterfalls. The best bit was a silk factory where we watched the whole process, from worm to cocoon to fluff to shiny patterned fabric.

After that brief respite we spent a couple of unremarkable days in Saigon before heading into the Mekong Delta. This wasn’t as nice as I imagined it would be. In Can Tho city we sat down for some fresh local fish by the river, got driven into the makeshift kitchen by the rain and sat for over an hour watching all kinds of fragrant dishes being cooked – none of them the ones we’d ordered – before leaving, hungry and cross.

We got up at dawn for a boat ride round the famous floating markets, which was all very nice until we veered off into the smaller canals, expecting tranquil backwaters and finding murky channels strewn with litter and floating dead pigs. We headed to the bus station that afternoon to discover the only bus with spare seats in the direction we wanted to go was a rickety rust-bag with a weasely little conductor determined to charge us double the price printed on the ticket. We arrived in Mytho, the border town, cramped and hungry at 9pm, only to discover the only places serving food were the kinds of stalls with barbecued rat out front.

By this time I was kicking to get out of Vietnam. We juddered across the border to Cambodia.

The sea and cake

We based ourselves in Hanoi – close to the clinic where Joe could get his numerous rabies injections – for a couple of weeks, dipping out to see what northern Vietnam had to offer.

You can’t visit Vietnam without a trip to Ha Long Bay, so we duly set off on a three-day tour. “Descending Dragon” Bay, as it translates, is stunning, a smattering of limestone karsts jutting casually out of the ocean. It’s like an underwater Laos. We boarded one of many junk boats and set off, munching fresh seafood and peeping out of the shaded cabin to enjoy the view, which got more impressive as the crowds of boats thinned to nothing and the sun sank into the sea. After a sweltering night in a sealed cabin bedroom – we should have slept on the roof, really – we landed on Cat Ba island.

We felt like part of a nasty ant-trail of tourists on Cat Ba. The downside of being on an organized tour is, well, being part of a tour. We were prodded in this and that direction, told who to follow, when to eat, when to sleep. We were granted “free time” in the afternoon so headed to a small beach which was almost empty till abut 4pm when the sun slid behind the rocks and the Vietnamese tourists descended in droves. Instead of baking in the sun like bonkers western tourists would they had the time of their lives, shrieking into the waves and posing for pictures. It was a pretty funny show from the cliff above.

Back in Hanoi, we decided we had sweated enough, so boarded a night train to Sapa during an almighty thunderstorm which soaked our backpacks inside and out. The train was great – padded beds, duvets, darkness, and the Vietnamese are so well behaved, sleeping rather than gaggling around the hallways like on smelly Indian trains.

Sapa, a gleaming green hill-world of paddy fields and chattering Hmong tribeswomen, was foggy and sopping wet nearly the whole time. None of our stuff dried and it was too rainy to venture out for any proper trekking. We were soggy, but enjoyed the fresh air and jumper-temperatures and we ate a lot of cake. Finally the mist cleared and we could appreciate the views – just in time for our return train.

Bites and bumps

Vietnam has been eventful – many of the events involving pain and panic. Less than 24 hours after crossing the border, a spiteful yellow dog sank its teeth into Joe’s ankle for no obvious reason. It was early, it was hot, no one in Than Hoa spoke English – as we scrambled around looking for a doctor, I watched Joe closely for signs of madness or foaming at the mouth. Luckily we found someone willing to give him the first of many rabies injections, and made our way to Hanoi.

Hanoi! Hanoi is great. It’s a giant beehive buzzing with scooters, as flighty young Vietnamese people zoom around in cute, shiny helmets looking for fun. The French definitely left their mark here, with stately buildings framing lakes, wide boulevards and cake shops. The old quarter, as always, is the best bit, the crumbly East End of Hanoi, a maze of streets crammed with food stalls, shoe shops, hawkers and alluring little boutiques and restaurants.

Once settled we met up with Ian, a Hanoi-residing friend we met in Thailand. Ian and his friends introduced us to the pleasures of Bia Hoi – perching on miniscule plastic stools on a busy corner in the heart of the old quarter drinking cold, weak lager for about 15p a glass, talking to randoms and avoiding chancers with a superglue stick and a radar for your broken sandals.

Have I complained about the heat in Asia much yet? Hanoi is ridiculous. With humidity hovering around 60% a ten minute walk feels like doing aerobics in a sauna. It feels like someone wrapped the world in a sleeping bag and left it in the desert. Not pleasant. That’s why, after trudging through Ho Chi Min’s mausoleum to eyeball his waxy corpse in the swelter – we decided to spend the afternoon at Hanoi Water Park. It was a bad idea from the start: hard house blaring, children running around screaming. But we decided to chill in the swimming pool after one go on the slide.

For some reason I decided to do this head-first, gripping the solid handles of my mat. At the end, I plunged face-first into the pool and the handle smacked me in the face, almost breaking my nose and making blood gush out of my face. I’ve just about recovered, but won’t be trying that again.