Hoi'an Mafia and My-Son

It was real exciting to be heading back to a beach. The last time we were at a beach was in Konark/Puri on the East Indian coast all the way back in October! Now we were heading for the coast of Vietnam to swim in the China Sea. Makes you start to realise how far the trip has already taken us around the world.

In Hoi'an we were scheduled to meet up with the forces we left behind in Hoi'an (minus Lauren) so the upcoming days were bound to be a little crazy. And after experiencing them, they definitely were. But before we get into that, we spent a day looking around the local markets, which is famous for its tailoring. You can get a full suit made to fit here for a minimum of US$40, no cheap material either, proper Italian silk and high quality cotton. We both planned to get a suit made but in the end decided against it. My reason was that I went to get one made, twice, and on both occasions I had forgotten to wear any underwear, haha. I was enjoying rolling around commando style. There was a huge food market down the bottom of the town near a river and they sold all sorts. The thing was everything was mixed together and the smells that were kicking out were vile and lovely at the time, from fruit to fish to spices to sewage to sweat to perfumes. My nose has never worked so hard.




That night we went out to party for Abbie's birthday. We ended up a beach party and everything was going great until some Vietnamese guy threw a glass at one of the girls in our group. A whole load of shit kicked off (only arguing) and the owner was telling us that we should leave because the guy was part of the Mafia. He was obviously being a little bitch about the situation because this supposed Mafia member had a Loius Vuitton manbag and looked like a little puff (A. Ferrari, 2010). I tried to calm the situation down (thats right, me) and get the group to move on, but everyone had been drinking and wouldnt listen. Nothing more became of the situation so it was cool. Until the following night, (I was so content that I was not going to go out this night, but as usual I hate to be a let down) Scott and Tommy had managed to get into a fight with some Australians guys, and in the process Tommy smashed one of them over the head with a chair (I dont know what it is with this kid and chairs) So there was this Australian guy with a busted head, I talked to his friend and managed to cool the situation for about the most of 10 seconds, when Bruce (Tommy's Scottish sidekick) had heard the news of the fight and rushed out all hectic, and instigated round 2, in which he was pummeled by the friend of the guy who got beat over the head with a chair. As much as I like the guy, that served you right ya dumb fuck. Things soon settled once more, and we got a minibus back to our hotel. Or so we thought. The minibus dropped us off in a random location in Hoi'an (which ended up being close to hotel after all) but everyone was arguing over which way to go (the problem with big groups) so it all got a bit frustrating. There were some Vietnamese on motorbikes who kept driving by shouting stuff, and a little later Gee got hit in the head by a motorcycle helmet, drive by style. They then started throwing rocks and bricks at people in the group. That was enough for me, I tried rounding up the group but they were a bunch of uncontrollable twats, I headed off my own way and found my bed. The rest of the group eventually got home but it was a ridiculous night. I missed the boys from back home a lot that night, they listen, and they're not fuckin retarded.

We spent the day at the beach again reminiscing the previous night, and I had my chance to tell certain people how pathetic they acted. Its in the past. Elliot showed me and Bruce a really fun game where you have to throw a ball to each other but it must go behind your back each time, sounds easy, but its mad hard. We got pretty good at it. We also played football on the beach with some Vietnamese kids and got our asses kicked once again. If only wreckless was here to help me out.




Since everyone was hung over on the last day only me and Abbie made the effort to go to MySon which is another world heritage sight. It was about an hours drive by motorbike to MySon and it was a nice day. We saw lots of the ancient ruins which were split into 8 sights from sight A, to H. It wasn't much of a tourist destination and it hadn't been renovated for that purpose, you could just walk around the well beaten footpaths finding small structures dotted around everywhere. It was really cool to explore.

Our next bus ride took us to Nha Trang, where I witnessed my most shocking moment on the trip so far. We were on a sleeper bus and it was about midnight when the bus began to slow to crawling speed. I looked out of the window and saw a motorbike laid out on the floor with lots of traffic at a standstill. I kept looking out to see what was going on, when we passed a man laid out on the floor with a pool of blood leaving his body. His head was hanging off at the side and that wasn't the worst of it. His clothes around his torso had been torn off and so had his chest area, it was clear as anything to see his internal organs. I turned away and and told the others (in a 'Oh my fucking God' kinda way), the bus had drove a little further on then stopped, and everyone could only see the man laid out, but not the extent of his damage. He was definitely dead. That wasnt even the most upsetting part of the situation. People were continuing to drive around his body and others were taking pictures of the corpse with their mobile phones. It was sickening. Just shows the difference in attitude towards death between us and these people. This was the second dead person we had seen on our travels. Lets hope its the last.

P.s -Sorry for the lack of pictures here. Too much partying to be had.

Hoi'an Photo Link:


http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4292313011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Hue

We got a night bus to Hue in a seater bus instead of a sleeper because them things are not designed for westerners, as we never fit in them. I managed to get a couple of hours sleep, which never happens when I'm on a bus but with the girls offering me drugs (motion sickness with the side effect of drowsiness), it seemed to help the cause.

Hue had a huge citadel, which was like a huge fort if you were in India. This is where the royal family used to live back in the day and with the Lonely Planet book comparing it to the forbidden city, we thought we were in for a right treat. When we did go round to seeing this citadel, we were let down straight away because the majority of the buildings were in ruins, so it was hard to work out what was there. However they were starting to build new buildings in place of the old ones so maybe in a few years, this place will look like a citadel, although a very new one.




After our busy sightseeing day with nothing to see, we bought a football and as there were 4 lads in total, which is enough for a kick about, we went in search for somewhere to play football. We found a school yard where some skinny Vietnamese were playing football and after a couple of minutes in the yard, they offered us to play against them. They were a lot better then we expected with them absolutely ragging us but once we found our feet, we were back in there before they called full time because it was getting too dark. Any Excuse!

Hue photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4292067011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Ninh Binh by bike n boat

The group of twelve diminished to 6 after Hanoi, with Abbie, Nadine and Gee joining our crew. Not forgetting Elliot of course. So anyway, after acquiring our open bus pass we took a stop at Ninh Binh to see Tam Quoc. Tam Quoc is a rural area with a river running underneath the mountains. The gap that the boats go through is really slim and was defiantely low enough for us to have banged our heads at times. The journey cost us 60,000 Dong, which is just under 2 quid. Bargain. The rowers of the boats were professionals to say the least. They could even row with their feet which was very impressive to watch. I dont think I could have rowed the journey once without being worn out, these people (women aswell) were completing this 3km return journey 3 or 4 times a day. Hats off to the boaters of Tam Quoc for sure. The trip was lovely, you pass through simialr scenery to that of the Yunnan province in China. Only downer is, that Vietnam has far far more tourists than China. There were whiteys everywhere!




To get to Tam Quoc we hired motorbikes, me and Maj using manuals (they were cheaper) with a lady each and Elliot and Gee using automatics. We thought it would be good to teach the girls how to ride the manual bikes, and they did great. Until that is, Nadine thought she was a pro before her time and revved the bike before Maj was ready, causing him to hang on to the rear of the bike for his life, screaming like a little girl and trying desperately to reach for the handlebars. Any noobie to motorbikes (myself included) will realise that taking your hand off the revs is the best way to stop, instead of just breaking. Nadine cut her foot in the process but Maj was O.k (thats all that matters).




We did see two funny scenes in Ninh Binh, both involving animals being transported by motorbike. The first was about 50 geese all tied in a bundle to the back of one, with their little heads peeking out in all directions and they were quacking away. And the second was three huge pigs laid upside down on their backs on this cart being pulled by a bike, they were squeling away like crazy too. How funny would it be to see either of them pass you on Carlisle Street.




We also climbed up to a temple near Tam Quoc which went through caves and was pretty difficult to climb because of the sharpness of the rocks. You could also continue the climb to the top of the craggy hill for great views of the area. I'm sure I don't even need to tell you that we went up there. But yeah, we did. Me and Elliot had a good jump and climb about to release some energy. All in all it was another great day.

Ninh Binh Photo Link:


http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4070259011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Hanoi and Halong Bay

We arrived in Hanoi at 6am and we were shocked by how busy it was so early in the morning, but then again we are in the capital. We found a place to stay near the lake, which is the main tourist area with all the nice bars and restaurants (mainly western food-YES!). We spent the first day there shopping for some shoes, which was one road and every shop sold shoes, which made it a lot easier. I was looking for some flip flops but they don't cater for big people with big feet (size 11), so i just had to do the old window shopping as i didn't have no choice.

On Saturday we met up with the girls who we met in Hong Kong and they had a whole crew of people with them because they have just come from Laos. It was Lauren's birthday so we went for a meal and had a big catch up with what has been happening. We had a group of 12 people so someone had to step up to the task and become the delegator and don't worry people, I didn't let the team down. I became one of the best delegators of all time by haaving a scheduled to do list, which included the famous recess, where most of the girls were crying for some reason. I learnt from my mistake and recess was banned from now on! We booked our boat trip for the next 2 days in the evening after some haggling, which cost us $25 including food, beds, caves and kayaking-Good deal!




Halong Bay is in the Chinese sea and has thousands of small island kasts peaking out of the sea. It's a bit like Yangshuo but in the water. On the first day, the boat sailed to the main cave, which was pretty boring so we decided to look for rocks that looked like people or animals-that was a lot more interesting. After the caves, we all went out to do some Kayaking and I was forced to team up with Lauren. We called our team, Team Maj and his bitch, which everyone approved of. Charlotte and Chloe, who were in our group managed to find themselves under a big boat, with the boat ramming their Kayak, knocking them out and being forced to swim under the boat. Luckily they both were ok, with a few war wounds to tell their kids the story. When we finished kayaking, the owner tried charging the girls $520 for the Kayak, even though it was the captains fault from the big boat. They had to go and get him from his boat and he was denying any responsibility saying that the kayaking paddled into the big boat. They decided in the end, that they would meet up the next day and go to the police to sort this out but the captain never turned up, so god knows what happened then but at least the girls didn't have to pay. We spent the night on the boat, which was cool because they were about 100 other boats, all lit up int he night. We just chilled out to start of with but then it turned out to be a party in the end, with the boat crew yelling at us every 5 minutes. It didn't help with Danny and Elliot jumping in from the top of the boat at night but what was funny was that Elliot couldn't get back up. he was hanging off that rope like Smeagol and had to stand on Danny's shoulders to get back on the boat-fool! In the morning, we got collared because one of the chairs were missing and we eventually found out that Tommy (the Scottish throwing champion) threw the chair whilst he was slightly merry the night before.



With Hanoi being a capital city, its surprising that there wasn't much to see. We went to see Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam's hero) whose body is preserved in his mausoleum. We had to be dressed right and weren't allowed to speak. The tomb is only open for 3hrs per day and has loads of security. It was weird seeing this guy who looked like he was asleep but has been dead for 40 years. After the mausoleum, we went to the prison museum, which was ruled by the french and they imprisoned the Vietnamese political groups, who were a threat to them. They also imprisoned the Americans including John McCain. At first, it was boring but once i realised how many people died and how they got treated, it made it more meaningful and sad at the same time.

Hanoi-Halong Bay photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4069988011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Good Morning Vietnam! Good Afternoon Sapa.

Country number 4 arrives at last and after being in Vietnam less than 10 minutes we managed to get a local tuk-tuk driver to have a go on Elliots skateboard and break his arse on the ground, I caught a great midair-fall shot here.

The border crossing was actually in Lao Cai, from here we were transported to the Sapa hill station, which is predominantly known for all of the different hill tribes that reside there. Our little friend we me t here was called Ha. Just Ha. She was quite the little character. She was our Vietnamese teacher for the day, learning all the need to know basics like hello, thankyou, how much? and you are very beautifull :)

Before we left Sapa, Ha made us a bracelet each to take with us for good luck. I lost mine immediately so it wasn't that bloody lucky.

The great thing about arriving in Vietnam was the change in food. No longer was the only option of beef noodles, now we could eat baguettes! A nice solid bit of bread, especially for us English lads, tasted so good. The western food options were plentiful though, we were loving it.

The best way to get around in South-east asia is defo by motorbike. We hired bikes for the day and went on a big cruise through the mountains of Sapa. We visited the tribal villages (reminded me of Pitsmoor) and witnessed their ways of life in the mountains. They were mainly female for some reason, maybe a similar way of life to the Naxi women of China. But they were so little. The mountains here were quite cold and drizzly with rain, but it didnt affect the beauty of the place. If anything the misty atmosphere gave it a bit more character. We were joined by a Dutch kid called Ties for our stay in Sapa. At one point in the day Ties and myself drove back to the hotel to change to shorts so that we could play football with some locals. As we were just setting off from the hotel to go meet the other two guys (Maj and Elliot if your not following) Ties somehow managed to slip on his bike and scratch the shit out of it. Worse thing was, is that the rental place for the motorbike was directly next to the hotel, and yes, he was spotted. Later in the day when we returned the bikes the owner and Ties had a big old argument about the damages done to the bike. I just told him to offer what he thought was fair and if he declined then just walk away, the guy declined, but soon took the offer when he realized he wasn't going to get a cent more. Good skills for a dutch.

Sapa Photo Link:
http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4069718011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

China Summary

Days travelled- 67 days (9 weeks 5 days)

Distance travelled- Approx. 10, 197km (6,373 miles)

Hours on transport- 190 hours (7.9 days)

Destinations- 26

Top 5

5 - Hong Kong. Although it was expensive and busy, spending the Chinese New Year in one of the worlds leading cities made it special and also, the fact that we could get around easily with the majority of people speaking English made the travel a lot more comfortable.

4 - Xian. This was a nice city especially when we found an awesome hostel to stay in but this is where we met our great friend, Hassan -the Turkish delight, which just made the stay a lot more interesting. The Terrocotta warriors blew us away with how much excavation is left, so this may be a place to visit in 10 years.

3 - Beijing and the Great Wall. Many people don't enjoy visiting the capitals of countries but this was different. We met some great people at our hostel, did a 10km trek on the amazing great wall, where we the only people on there and visited the Olympic stadium at night when it was all lit up.

2 - Mt Emei Shan. The first and the hardest mountain we climbed in China. It didn't look too promising with it being misty and icy for the majority of the climb but once we were above the clouds, the view was amazing. The sunrise the following day is one of the things that we will never forget for the rest of our lives-truly magical!

1 - Yangshuo. Usually when people hype a place up, it never lives up to it's expectations. Yangshuo surpassed them. The bamboo raft down the Li river with the surrounding kasts and Bob Marley playing in the background is another thing we will never forget. The climb up one of the kast is one thing I (Maj) will painfully never forget, although I will try.

Final advice

China is the biggest country and has the biggest population in the world but you only truly realise this when you're in the actual country. The first thing that smacked us in the face when we arrived in China, possibly because we just come from Indian and Nepal ,was that women are treated equally, with a woman approaching us asking if we needed a taxi. The second thing that smacked us in the face and nearly knocked us out was how no-one speaks English here. The only people who speak English are the staff at the hostels and that's broken English at best. The Lonely Planet was needed everywhere we went with the Chinese written under the English word, so whenever we booked tickets, we would always point to the Chinese script but when they replied in Chinese and that's when we were stuck. Another important thing we recommend is to purchase a mandarin phrase book, which Kate kindly gave us, and that turned out to be priceless.

The travel in China is spot on with comfortable trains and buses running everywhere in the country. However the travel is expensive compared to the other countries we have travelled, which was expected, but the extra cost is definately worth the smooth journeys. China holds the fastest train in the world with several other journeys with trains traveling 200km/hr + , so don't miss out on the opportunity even though it may cost a bit more. One of the sad things about China, which was out of our hands was the cost of admission into sightseeing attractions. They were very expensive but held the same price for locals, unlike India, however, with many people not speaking English, we posed to be students, using our driving license as our student cards, which generally gave us half price entry (Sheffield Shuffle).

The food in China is something worth exploring with different provinces offering local specialties. The only problem is that all the menu's are written in mandarin (apart from the ones in hostels), which is where you need to abuse the phrasebook and try and order what you want. With me hating egg and eating halal food, this proved to be difficult but as the trip went on, I got better at ordering at what I wanted. There are many Muslim restaurants in China, which are worth a visit, especially for the dapanji (big plate of chicken and potatoes-usually serves 4 people or Me and Danny). Suprisingly, Chinese people tend to have no manners (generally the older generation) when they are eating, using restaurants as their own backyard. They openly spit, snot and throw bones on the floor in a restaurant, which puts you off your dinner at times but it's something you have to get used to-you have been warned!

With China boasting about being one of the advancing countries in the world, it is shocking to learn the state of their toilets. They piss and shit on squat toilets with the door open, usually watching foreigners taking a piss. In more rural areas, they squat next to each other with no cubicles and shit on top of shit that has been there for days. Along with manners and the toilet business, this is what mainly lets China down as a nation but we have noticed that the younger generation are starting to learn English and are being educated, so this will probably change it the future. Come on China- sort it out!

Overall, the country is magnificent. There are many natural sights that can not be seen anywhere in the world and dozens of man made structures that have taken human engineering to a new level throughout the ages. Their attention to detail and beauty of their temples are out of this world. The sacred mountains that are dotted around the country are great for the outdoors kind, they all hold something truly special and unique, and took up some of our most challenging yet exciting days in China.

The Yunnan province

We had three places to visit in this province before we could make our way to Vietnam. We got to Kunming after a gruesome journey from Yangshuo but we were only planning to be here for the day, as we were returning here to go to Vietnam. We stayed here one day to hand our passports into the Vietnamese embassy. There really wasn't much to see here, we visited the lake park, where there were loads of people dancing and singing in the park because it was the end of the 14-day spring festival. We stayed at Cloudland Youth hostel, which was an awesome hostel to stay at because it had a pool table, table tennis and a good selection of movies so that kept us occupied all night.

We spent the best part of the next day traveling to Lijiang (8hrs) and it was a mission to find Mama Naxi's Guesthouse in the old town. When we did get there, Mama Naxi (yes she's an actual person) cooked us some food, even though it was like 11 pm. The food was nice but very salty and we felt it in the middle of the night with dry mouth and limited water in the room. We all had dry lips because of it!!



We spent the next day walking around Lijiang old town, which didn't take long. The old town is very picturesque but full of tourist shops. We just chilled out on a rock in a park, whilst listening to music and watching three Chinese dudes flaring (bottle tricks behind a bar). Zack, our new sidekick who we met in Hong Kong and then outside my showers in kunming, was feeling uncomfortable listening to hip hop but decided that he wanted to turn gangster, so we had to help him achieve this status.




The next morning, we got a minibus to the start of the Tiger Leaping gorge and we ended up having a big group coming with us. We made our own way up there because with a group they always hold you back. The trek wasn't too hard apart from the 28 bends, which we were told about before, but the trek had some amazing view from the top with a clear blue river running through the gorge. Personally this actually felt like a trek because it was all dirt paths and not steps or paved paths, which the other treks have had. We stayed at halfway hostel, which wasn't actually halfway but was in a great location with huge mountains in view when you're taking a shit. The rest of the group met us at the same hostel and the boys had a poker night. I'm not very good at this game so I sat out and watched but our boy Elliot shared the winnings with an American. In the morning, it took us an hour to get to the bottom to get the minibus back to Mama Naxi's. Three people, including gangster Zak, got food poisoning from the last hostel so the journey was hard work for them. we didn't stay Mama Naxi's that night as we had black Chris (Eddie Guordo) waiting for us in Dali. Mama Naxi gave us all a kiss on the cheek, a necklace filled with perfumed herbs for good luck and dressed up in here Naxi gear to pose for a pic with us-What a legend!



Dali was our last destination before we went back to Kunming but the problem was that our crew got extended with me, Danny, skater boy Elliot (Jeff Burns), Gangster Zak (Screech) and black Chris (Eddie Guordo) and with us boys together, we couldn't be bothered to do anything and we ended up chilling in Dali, playing pool, table tennis, watching movies and laughing at Screech. We stayed there for 3 days and didn't do anything productive, so me and Danny had a bit of a guilty conscience and decided to hire an electric bike out on the last day to go and sight see. it didn't take us long to go down to the huge lake, the pagoda's and some statue but luckily we got it all in before the rain came down. This is where Screech and Eddie Gordo left to carry on traveling around China and me, Dan and Jeff made our way to Kunming to collect our passports and then head towards Vietnam-YEE HA!

Lijiang photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3957222011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Dali photo link:

http://www3.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=4069792011/a=2264773011_2264773011/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/