Navigation and meditation

Moved to a cheaper guest house today and managed to get some tiny percentage of the amazing scuba pics up on the blog so you can see what I was banging on about . (can't take credit for them, we paid for an underwater photographer). Then spent a considerable amount of time trying to plan out what i am going to do with this Thai leg of the trip.

I was going to do this planning bit in Hanoi so that i could arrive with a plan but was so desperate to leave that i ran without said plan.

But now i have one. I shall see the grand palace tomorrow, and a couple of temples, and then the next day i shall book my overnight train ticket to Chiang Mai for next Friday. I will then get a train to Kanchanburi which is where there are floating villages and markets and where the famous Bridge over the River Kwai was built.

There is also a Tiger temple, where orphaned Tigers are cared for by Monks, and you can go and get up close and personal with them (the tigers, not the monks)

You can also take an elephant trek to the Erwin waterfall and swim with the Elephants, which sounds worth splashing out on as it were !

I shall then get the train back in time to transfer to a different station to catch the train up north.

So, once my plan was set, which had involved a sweaty walk to the main station, which also helped orientate me around this big city, I got the fabulously clean and blessedly airconditioned underground train along to peaceful Lumphini Park,

which I enjoyed a contemplative walk around. I sat on the banks of the lake next to some old men playing a frenetic game of chequers, (or mah jong ... couldn't quite work it out!) and watched the little birds playing in the grass and the skyscrapers beyond.

I then took the sky-train back to see what that was like as just the name Sky Train sounds really cool... but there wasn't as much to see as I'd hoped.

I then headed down to explore the fabled Koah San road and surrounding area a little further, grabbing some dinner and I am now sitting in a very cool little veggie cafe called Ethos, drinking a banana Lassi and enjoying their free wifi to catch up with things.

They also have free guided meditation experiences, so I decided to give this a go...

I thought this might be a group thing, with lots of white people with dreadlocks and baggy Thai trousers sitting in a half lotus, and ohhhhmming as he talked us through it, but basically you lie in a low lit room on your own and listen to a meditation thing on this guys Ipod;(more like mediatation)... actually perfect for me, as I tend to get the giggles in groups where you are supposed to be taking things of this type very seriously )

He said to concentrate on the story, relax, but not to fall asleep and I would be taken on a journey to a place with no time.....

When he came back an hour later I was snoring loudly. (it was very dark and comfy) - he asked me if i had reached the door in the story. Nope. Apparently I'd got less than 15 mins in.

Still, I feel very positive and refreshed, so something must have worked!

I think it might be time to get back across town.

Night all!

First night in Bangkok

WELL! spy first day back in the "western" world for 2 months!

The bBangkok skytrain is right by my hotel, as is this massive mall...

had a superb thai massage, a proper one this time where they virtually beat you up, there was a

Boots, and every shop sold mobile phones.

Hurrah!

so weired to be back in this kind of environment again.. adn so many white people. there seemed loads in vietnam compared to Cambodia, but here I keep being shocked at how many tall white people there are.... especially as I had my first experience of the Koah San Road.

It was great fun actually . Nick and I had dinner, wathcing the madness of the whole thing, he got totally trounced ina game of rock papaer scissors witha child and had to buy me a rose.

And then some suspicious looking cocktails at a very transient looking bar at the side of the road; they all had names you recognised, but came looking nothing like what you'd expect. however.. when we got up ff our little plastic stools to leave we realised how ridiculously strong they were as we only had 3, and we could both hardly walk or speak when tryng to get a taxi.... or type.. as it seems now!

Poor Nick now has a a midnight flight and non stop journey back to England via bahrain.... :( at least he will sleep well.

just caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realised i am typing with only one eye open, and all the wrong keys keep getting in the way of my fingers.

TOP night though ...happy travels Nick!

must just go and lie down...

Bangkok... but i have't seen it yet!

Left hotel in Hanoi at 6, dissapointingly halfway through "the Mummy, tomb of the dragon emperor" which I was enjoying, only to find the flight was delayed by 2 hours.... which then became 3 hours, as our plane had not actually left Bangkok by the time we were supposed to be boarding it in hanoi.... due to technical difficulties. Hmmm. I always feel a bit scared about boarding planes with technical difficulties, but as had been up since I was woken at 5 by my roommate leaving i was, by this time, too tired to care, and the pilot flew extra fast and made the trip in 1.5 rather than 2 hours, and we arrived safely at 2am.. and i got to the hotel at 3ish. Met a nice chap called Nick who shared my taxi, and we are meeting tonight for drinks before he heads off back to Blighty

Woke annoyingly early, (at 8am)but am going to use this time to find somewhere cheaper to stay!

General Twitter and some nice pictures of Rural Vietnam to remind myself that it can be terribly charming everywhere other than Hanoi

As it's a mild but muggy 31 degrees here, i'm heading out for some lunch before finishing my packing.

Had a look round the markets this morning and almost got into a violent

confrontation with a man who mends shoes, who actually tried to break mine, so I would pay him to mend it! He poked at it with a sharp thing whilst I was looking at something else, and when I moved away, kept trying to grab my leg and shoe!! I had to shove him off away from me as it was getting a bit scary and annoying, and he got angry. I got substantially angrier. He stood up, to begin a full on shouty confrontation, realised I was a foot taller and about twice his weight, and much more pissed off, as i was already hot, hungry and lost...

He backed down.

This city really is a total armpit of a place.

So here are some nice photos of the better bits of Vietnam for you instead.

Birthdays and Goodbyes

Today was the last day of the tour; some of us were sad that we would probably never see each other again, others totally indifferent. Others just very hungover from last nights clubbing. (Here we are in the Tunnel club)

After the deep disappointment of the HCM mausoleum, many of us had sent most of the rest of the drizzly day holed up in a nice comfy cafe that had air con, WIFI and great coffee and pizza, before they all went to see the

famous water puppets. As I have always been a bit creeped out by puppets, and was in a stinkingly bad mood about the house and how shit hanoi is in general, I didn't go; I refuse to give these totally rubbish tourist attractions any more of my money.

It was also Laura's birthday so when we went out for our goodbye dinner she got a surprise cake so here she is

blowing out her candles... and just about to get stuck in!

And here we all are on our last night dinner, (I wore my new dress!! Hurrah!)

So!! on to Bangkok tomorrow.

Amusingly named shops *part 2*

ok, i know this is really immature

Hanoi *Pics to follow

Hmmm. What can I say about Hanoi?

erm... oh yes.

NEVER COME HERE.

The rest of Vietnam is the most beautiful place in the world: this is the total antithesis. Here's me before I realised the disapointment yet to come.

What an utterly horrible place. The traffic is terrifying, it smells, it's full of pickpockets and everyone is trying to rip you off every second of the way. and pretty much all of the people are rude and unpleasant. Here's just an average road junction:

The heat yesterday was almost unbearable. About 40 degrees, and really really humid, but very sunny. Walked round the lake in the centre which admittedly is quite pretty, and visited the temple in the middle of the lake, which was just about worth the 30p entrance fee, but only because there is the embalmed corpse of a giant turtle of a species which is supposed to inhabit the lake, in a big glass case.

And its one bloody big turtle, I can tell you. It's all to do with a legend surrounding the city which has to do with a 15th century Emperor Ly Thai To, who got a sword given to him from heaven, a sword with which he beat the Chinese out of Vietnam. A day later, a giant golden Turtle grabbed the sword off him whilst he was out boating on the lake, and took it back to it's right ful owners in heaven. So it's known as Ho Hoan Kiem which means Lake of the restored sword.
Anyway. It was considerably more realistic than the "Corpse" of Ho Chi Minh which we went to see this morning for about 5 seconds. Apparently it goes to Russia for 3 months every year for restoration work, however, if that's still him, I'll change my name to Madam Tussaud. Here's the mausoleum from the outside.

They make you walk round it at a pace that olympic speed-walking atheletes would feel smug about, and you are shoved from behind by men in overly dramatic military dress uniforms if you pause for a nanosecond. You are made to leave your cameras at a booth about a mile from the actual mausoleum and you have to do a lot of walking around open ground on specific walkways for no apparent reason. It's also raining today. Well sort of mizzling.. and a bearable temperature, but it just means that instead of being soaked with sweat, you're wet with rain.

Anyway, after that didn't much feel like seeing his house, or anything else here; so far, if being kind, I would say that the phrase that sums this place up so far is "is that it?"...i won't go any further than that in case my blog's being monitored by the authorities, as seems likely here as your whereabouts is constantly monitored also.

Found out that the house sale has just fallen through, so rather than going back down the Vietnam and back through Cambodia, I have just booked my Flight to Bangkok and as I don't want to stay in this city for any longer than I possibly have to I leave tomorrow night.

Bunch of total Arse.

Halong Bay...Wow!!

So,we boarded our Junk boat in Halong bay, with this little chap leaping aboard like a monkey to try and sell us fruit despite us going at a fair pace...
First stop was some pretty cool caves, ..lots of lit up stalactities and such, but was very hot and sweaty, so jsut walked through. not as good as the caves of draque, or even wookey hole inmy opinion, but still cool...

The rest was a tour round the bay. we went kayaking, for a bit of a workout before a superb seafood lunch... then swimming on a lovely beach where we played frisbee, and all got stung by little jelly fish (but it was only a very minor irritation) before more cruising.




It's hard to show in pictures the majesty of this place... it just gs on and on... took some terrible video too....




just gorgeous!

A night out in wierd "sexy" halong town (lots of sex trade) before bed and a bus journey back to hanoi the next day.

Amusingly named shops *part 1*

fnar!

Citadel by Cyclo *PICS TO FOLLOW

Got up nice and early to go and investigate the Citadel and the forbidden city within. (It was once forbidden to anyone but the Emperor, his Harem and Eunuchs which were not considered a threat to the Harem; now it's delights are yours for 55,000 dong.

Took a painfully slow cyclo round the citadel to places of no interest whatsoever, my driver seemed literally to be taking me on a tour of some vague acquaintances until I was forced to take control and designate his destinations from my lonely planet book. There was still less to see than I had expected. Got him to drop me at the forbidden city and had a wander round.
It was Built in 1805 and has been renovated about 3 times since... in fact seems to be under constant renovation. It's an interesting mishmash of stunningly, seemingly brand new well restored areas, run down but still fantastic old builldings, ruined areas where you can only glimpse tiny remnants of former glory ... and the strangely incongrouus modern touches like a brand new tennis court right in the middle.

Canals section off areas of the citadel so you are constantly going over funny/dangerous-looking bridges, or lotus laden, ballustraded manicured moats.


Wish i had had more time here as I think a cruise down the Perfume River would have really been the only thing worth doing today however we would not have arrived back in time. If i can, I will return here and do just that. We are off to get a very very long train jounrney to Hanoi this afternoon, leaving at 2pm and arriving at 5am from where we go immediately to Halong Bay to join our junk boat, enjoy the scenery, swim, eat seafood, and stay over night in Halong before 2 days exploring Hanoi before the trip ends.


At least we got to see loads of stunning views yesterday on the moto trip - that really was excellent!
*

motorbiking

This afternoon was a real treat. A 3 hour motorbike ride though the streets and surrounding area of Hué. We saw some fantastic rural areas that our local guide was able to show us. Here's me and my drive "Ni"

Here we all are posing on our bikes with and in action going through local areas.

Then past many of the local sites... the Royal Palace that once was, back when Hué was the capitol of the country way, way back before the north south divide.

We saw how incense is made; this frankly rather disgusting looking stuff is a mixture of sawdust, cinnamon or sandalwood, sawdust and glue. The colours and possibly extra perfumes are added later to make them more attractive to tourists. This is then hand rolled on to the sticks.... on average a person can make over 5,000 sticks per day! (the coils are made by machine)

We went to a lovely little village which had a charming little covered bridge. This is apparently where local teenage lovers go whilst still keeping their love secret, (having a girlfriend/boyfriend is not as acceptable out here in more rural areas).

Apparently as this is a quiet and private place, and therefore it has been known that ‘love accidents’ (as our guide rather sweetly put it), sometimes happen here.

Here is a stone that shows how this place floods in the rainy season... the top mark was the worst flood year ever – 1999... way above most of our heads.

(We went to a rice museum and learnt how it all works but that is a separate story that must be told later as you will never feel the same abut it again.

We visited what is considered to be the most beautiful temple in Hué..

but you couldn’t go inside. There was however, a super view down the river.

*More pics to follow on this one as soon as I get to some WIFI

The Way to Hué

This morning began with a

4 hour bus journey from Hoi An to Hué.

It was a beautiful drive along the coast and up over the mountains.....just amazing. Here's just a selection of the stunning views i got to watch from the window of our little bus.....

This was where we stopped for lunch....

More on Hoi An - A most beautiful town

This town is a genuine treasure. It’s protected, and long may it stay that way.

The streets have a lovely French colonial feel; shops full of exciting bespoke shopping opportunities, sumptuous silks and jewelled temptations; Handbags, coats, copies of the latest whatever’s from Vogue, it’s all yours for the asking. Little coffee bars and wonderful restaurants nestle between them.

This chap plied an interesting trade, just walking around with a set of bathroom scales offering to weigh you. I wonder if he ever gets any takers!

I saw the pictures of Guys 40th on facebook which made me feel dreadfully sad, as I remembered that I had made him a present for this occasion, almost 2 years early as I thought we'd be celebrating together. It looked like a great party though.

I shouldn’t have looked at them all really - but like picking a scab, you just have to do it even when each little bit hurts and you know you will regret it afterwwards. Wish this pointless pain would just stop though, surely its gone on enough now!

Still . When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping and get their hair done.

I decided to have a dress made to cheer myself up.

And also to get my hair cut as it's been about 4 months and frankly I look rather revolting. I decided that don’t like being a brunette as much, but in the end decided to just get highlights, as less high maintenance.

It was not very busy and so all 5 hairdressers seemed keen to pitch in....

Got perfect manicure and pedicure also.. the whole lot came to £16. You have to pay for luxury!!

Unfortunately got absolutely soaked to the skin in a massively heavy downpour on the way back to the hotel, which kind of made the nice blow dry pointless, but the rain is so warm, and our hotel room actually has a hairdryer which is a bit of a novelty on my trip so far, so it wasn’t so bad... met up with the others for a few drinks later.