I’m currently sat on the terrace of The Flicks Community Movie Theatre in Phnom Penh where we have been volunteering for the last week and where we will be for another two and a half weeks or so. Katy has sadly picked up another cold and a huge storm has rolled in and scuppered my plans for going and getting nice things from the local bakery, so in the meantime I thought i’d write a quick blog entry to keep you all up to date with where we are and what we’ve been up to since our time in Saigon.

We set off at the relatively civilised time of 8:45, bidding farewell to Hillary Saigon Hostel and it’s lovely owners, and made our way across town to the the tour office where we had bought our tickets from. We had chosen Giant Ibis Buses as the tour company to take us across the border to Cambodia; not because they are good, but because by reputation they are the least terrible of the poor selection of options available for getting through a border checkpoint renowned (even amongst border checkpoints) for it’s bribery, corruption, bureaucracy and generally sketchy conduct.

We did consider flying but, alas, it was more than 4 times the cost of the bus so despite the convenience we just couldn’t justify it (that, and our Vietnam Visas said we would be leaving via the land border, no doubt if we’d tried to leave via a different port of exit some unscrupulous customs officer would have spotted an opportunity to extract a bribe from us), So the bus it was! We piled on and shortly after 9:30 we were on our way, heading out of Saigon towards the border to leave Vietnam (sad face).

About an hour before we got to the border the attendant on the bus came round to collect everyone’s passports, the money for the visas (or in our case, copies of the e-visas we already had) and money for the “service fee”, $2 each or $5 for anyone paying for their visa on arrival. Having researched getting across the border at this crossing quite extensively, we knew to expect this but still, handing over our passports to an anonymous employee to add to a pile of 30 other passports out of sight at the front of the bus went against -not only the advice of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office- but every instinct we had. Once we arrived at the border the first job was to get stamped out of Vietnam. For this, all of our passports, as well as a proportion of our ‘service fee’ was handed to a fine young member of the revolutionary communist border control who openly pocketed the money (from each according to their ability…) then stamped each passport before handing it back to our attendant from the bus who the read aloud the names for us to go and collect. From there we went through to the no mans land between the two border checkpoints, but no before we passed another, older member of the revolutionary communist border control who sat at an old school desk and whos job it was to look at our passports and check that they had been given an exit stamp, even though he was sat in full view of the booth where we had just been handed our stamped passports… Whatever.

Whilst waiting to get our passports back we got chatting to a dutch family who jokingly observed that we had all of this to look forward to on a regular basis after Brexit. Pah! As if the French would come up with a bureaucracy as efficient and straight forward as this!

Next we got back on the bus and drove a short distance to a restaurant attached to an absolutely gargantuan duty free shop, but not before our attendant came round to collect all of our passports again along with our completed entry cards for Cambodia. Whilst we enjoyed some lunch in no mans land, our bus was swapped with another bus that had come from Phnom Penh for some reason and we then boarded that new bus for the ride from the restaurant all the way to the Cambodian border checkpoint, about 30 meters away. Here our attendant brought us all in to the large, pagoda shaped building and handed over the remainder of our “service fee”  before handing us back our passports in turn so that we could proceed through Cambodian customs.

An hour and umpteen unnecessary steps later, we had entered Cambodia. Now we only had the long drive up to Phnom Penh left to go. The trip was scheduled to take 6 and a half hours door to door, but it was already 2pm and having only just entered Cambodia that was starting to look very optimistic. Indeed it was optimistic, we finally arrived in Phnom Penh just as the sun was setting and arranged a tuk-tuk to take us to our hotel just south of the city centre.

For a couple of days then we did little other than lounge around the hotel killing time until we could move in to The Flicks, where we are now. The Flicks is a ‘community movie theatre’, an independent cinema which operates within the grey areas created by vagaries in Cambodian copyright law. The ‘cinema’ is run by Ramon, a highly extroverted and slightly manic dutch expat who has owned The Flicks for the best part of 10 years now. Each day The Flicks shows between 3 and 6 films, some classic films, some new releases, the copyright law which allows these ‘community movie houses’ to exist permits any films to be shown so long as the rights haven’t been purchased by the big cinema chains operating in Cambodia. The law also forbids the selling of tickets to see the films, instead a ‘cover charge’ of $4 is levied per customer and they are free to remain all day and watch as many films as they like.

Our work at The Flicks essentially means running the cinema on a day to day basis; selling ‘covers’ serving drinks, queuing up and starting films and making popcorn using the very exciting popcorn machine on the bar! Ramon comes and goes, regaling us with amusing stories of previous volunteers and mad customers he has, as well as occasionally asking us for ideas on how to improve The Flicks then telling us how he’s tried the ideas we come up with before and that they didn’t work. The work is easy and enjoyable and involves a lot of sitting around between the films as well as eating the excess popcorn from the machine.

In exchange for our labour, arduous as it is, we have a room in the flat beneath the cinema, and are allowed to watch as many films as we like for free as well as enjoy “a reasonable”  number of free drinks from the bar. As well as ourselves, there are currently two other volunteers, Yassin from Germany who was here when we arrived and Kat from London who arrived a couple of days after ourselves. We divide the shifts up amongst us meaning that we all get a few days off each week, not that there’s a huge amount to do in Phnom Penh, but we had always intended these few weeks to be a relaxed time where we would allow our surplus to grow.

So yes, that about brings us all up to date. We’ll be moving on from Phnom Penh towards the end of August so we’ll probably make a blog post then to cover our time here, but other than that, expect us to be a little quieter for a while.

Ciao for Now.

We’d ummed and ahhed about how to get from Da Lat down to Ho Chi Minh City. Given our roller coaster ride up from sea level we weren’t especially keen to get into anything with 4 wheels, especially given the Vietnamese penchant for overtaking on blind corners and driving head-first into oncoming traffic. Like Dave said in the previous post, the driving over here has done wonders for my fear of flying and given that it wasn’t too pricey and was only going to take 30 minutes, we opted for our old friends at Vietnam Airlines to take us down to Saigon. Sadly, as our flight was at 8am, we were too early for the airport shuttle bus and had to settle for a taxi driver with a death wish to take us to the airport. You know it’s bad when two Brits get out of your car and don’t say thank you. The flight itself was about as pleasant as it could be. As it was such a short flight, we didn’t get much above 3000 metres and it was odd to think that we’d been higher than that while on land in South America.

Saigon, or officially Ho Chi Minh City since 1976, is the most populous city in Vietnam and has a bit of a Marmite reputation; Simon from Tree House Hostel said it was lacking in character. I’m not sure whether it was the lack of a 6 hour terror infused journey from hell, or just the fact that getting from the airport to downtown is remarkably easy and cheap, but our first impressions of this supposedly soulless city were largely positive. Sure, the traffic was bad, and there’s a lot of construction going on, but that could describe any city in Vietnam. Hopping off the airport shuttle, we headed towards our guesthouse, the lovely Hillary Saigon Hotel run by two sisters, Huyen and Trang. The guesthouse was situated down a small street stall lined alleyway, bustling with motorcycles, locals eating street food, and market stalls selling everything from live crabs to flip flops; I don’t think half these people had ever seen a white person before, let alone two as wide and tall as us! After being warmly greeted at our guesthouse, we headed off to find some lunch while we waited for our room to be ready. We walked up to the main backpacker street and were immediately glad that we decided to stay a little further out, the sheer number of bars and clubs was way too much for two grumpy gits like us. Nevertheless, we found a perfectly pleasant place to have lunch called Bookworm Café, run by an English chap from Crawley who was the sort of person who likes to make jokes about being married and how awful it is (ball and chain, trouble and strife, that sort of thing). Still, we gave him the benefit of the doubt and the food really was very good, with a wide selection of local grub as well as old UK favourites. We reminisced about our second week in Thailand when we saw places offering fish and chips, roast dinners or English breakfasts and how we thought “who could possibly want that when there’s so much lovely food here?”, and there is a lot of lovely food here but after almost 3 months, sometimes it’s nice to have comfort food as an option.

We only had 3 full days in Saigon until our visas expired, so the following morning we were up bright and early to visit the War Remnants Museum. Focusing largely on the American war, the museum is set over 3 floors, including an outdoor display of various tanks, helicopters and planes. As we made our way up the stairs to the top floor, who should we bump into but Adele, our travel companion from the fantastic Waterfall Tour in Da Lat. We exchanged pleasantries and made the usual “stop stalking us” jokes and she urged us to brace ourselves for the intensity of the museum. Pah! We’ve been to Auschwitz, we’ve experienced the worst of what humanity is capable of, we’re just here for the education. British stiff upper lip and all that. The top floor of the museum sets the scene for the American invasion, discussing the liberation of Vietnam from the French and the events leading up to the war through the use of photo-journalism. A lot of it was things we’d heard before from various trips and tours we’d taken during our time in Vietnam, but the photos added an extra level of reality and solemnity to the whole experience. Descending down to the second floor, we entered a section regarding Chinese and American war crimes, as well as an exhibit commemorating the journalists who had been killed during their time photographing the war. All jokes aside, this part of the museum was harrowing. Seeing the atrocities photographed was horrifying. I’m not going to go into too much detail but suffice it to say that I had to leave before the end of this section. Dave carried on through the part about Agent Orange but the whole experience left me thoroughly shaken. You know that war isn’t pleasant, and you play stupid games where you shoot zombies and make light of killing but seeing that level of inhumanity and cruelty towards anyone, let alone children and civilians…there are no words. You could see the fear in their eyes. 2 million civilians died during the American war in Vietnam. That’s roughly the same as the entire population of West Yorkshire, and almost twice as much as Bristol. We left the museum, taking a brief detour into the exhibition set up outside, demonstrating the brutalities of the prison system during the war, we’d seen a lot of this before in Hanoi but in one of the buildings, a colony*of bats had set up home. We stood for a while and watched them swoop around. There was something truly poetic about the fact that life had blossomed in a place that was built around so much death and destruction.

*KB: What’s the collective noun for bats? DF: I bet it’s something cool. KB: oh, it’s colony. DF: Rubbish.

After a well warranted beer and an ice cream, our next stop was the Independence Palace, a short walk around the corner. As we walked and reflected on our experience at the War Remnants Museum, we passed a junction box which was covered in the stickers that you get as you enter the museum. There was something so wonderfully childish about seeing these thousands of stickers stuck up all around the side of this huge metal box, especially as you could see that people were just trying to stick theirs higher than anyone else’s. We didn’t manage to stick ours the highest, which is impressive as we’re about twice the height of anyone else here, but it definitely lifted our spirits.

We were greeted at the palace by a delightfully flamboyant young man who spoke fantastic English and helped us sort out our tickets and audio guides. In hindsight, the audio guide for the palace itself is rubbish and gives no more information than the signs dotted around the various rooms. As we wandered round the palace, we were greeted to insightful audio clips such as “this was the President’s office, he did his paperwork here” and “this was the President’s cinema, he liked to watch films here”. *eye roll*. Still, it was interesting to see where it was bombed and rebuilt during the American war and we also got to visit the bunker underneath the palace. But not before, once again, bumping into Adele for the second time that day. Luckily as she was a sensible person, she did not see this as an invitation from the cosmos to hang around, forcing us into British polite conversation setting number 3, but simply exchanged pleasantries with us before heading off again, wonderful. We were starting to like her a lot. The palace itself is an odd building. I wouldn’t exactly call it a “palace” as the architect had clearly taken lessons from possibly Margaret Thatcher or the same person who built the University of Bath. Put it this way, there’s a reason it’s not on many postcards. But it was not always like this. The building was originally named Norodom Palace, completed in 1873 by the French, named after the Cambodian royal family, and built in such a way as to mimic the Palace of Versailles. It stood until 1962 when 2 South Vietnamese rebel pilots decided to bomb it, so you can blame them for the concrete “palace” that currently stands there. Still, the American war effectively ended there at 10am on the 30^th April 1975 when a North Vietnamese tank drove through the main gate, so its historical significance is undeniable. Our plan was then to head up to the Saigon Central Post Office to send some postcards, but we were so wiped from all the walking that we decided to head back to the hotel for a well-deserved kip.

Up bright and early again the next morning, we had booked ourselves onto a trip to see the Cu Chi tunnels, about 1.5 hours North of Saigon. A group of around 20 of us were led by our tour guide “Bunny” around a small section of the immense network of underground tunnels used by both the Viet Cong and local people during the war. We were treated to mock-ups of some the particularly nasty booby traps they used against the Americans, and some of our group got to hide out in one of the camouflaged holes. Sadly, although we have both lost weight since being in South East Asia, our bottoms were not yet svelte enough to slide comfortably into a hole designed for tiny malnourished Viet Cong soldiers. Even some of those tiny enough to squeeze in had to ask for a hand getting out again. The authenticity of the experience was made all the greater by the live shooting range situated on the grounds, providing tourists an opportunity to fire guns for a princely sum of £2 a bullet. There was only one gun going off as we wandered around the complex and the volume was astounding. We were awestruck by the idea of how loud it must have been for these people, surrounded by waves of gunfire. Once again, the reality of the horrors of war began to strike a little too close to home for our liking. After a quick trip through the gift shop, it was time to go into the tunnels themselves. The tunnels available to tourists have been made around 30% larger than the original ones, so as to accommodate the aforementioned ample bottoms, as well as our increased height. There were exits every 20 metres and the stretch of tunnel we were about to enter was around 100m in length. Dave decided he was going to sit this one out, and as I descended into the depths below, I began to wonder if he hadn’t made exactly the right choice. Lowering myself through the small square opening into the tunnels, I bent over in half and followed close behind the woman in front of me. The tunnels are lit with a soft orange glow and as long as you don’t think too much about the fact that you’re 4 metres underground, bent into an uncomfortable position, with no direct means of escape, it’s not too bad. I chickened out at 20m. None of our group went further than 60. After 60m, Bunny told us, the tunnel becomes demonstrably smaller, both in height and width, and not many people make it further than that, not just because they’re terrified, but also because they simply wouldn’t fit. This was another advantage to using the tunnels. The Viet Cong were tiny compared to their big burly American counterparts. Indeed, in some of the tunnels they purposefully included tiny sections to prevent any American “tunnel rats” from being able to proceed further. We were given a second opportunity to try a tunnel, with Bunny promising that this one was 20% larger than the last one. Dave decided he’d be ok to give it a go this time. When we got down there and I demonstrated how small the previous tunnel had been, he was absolutely reassured at having made the correct decision. But we both did it, the authentic Viet Cong experience, do not try this at home kids.

Now seems a good a time as any to mention that the traffic in Saigon is TERRIBLE. Think Central London in rush hour terrible. We were starting to understand why bikes were the preferred method of transport out here; weaving and diving through the empty spaces between the cars. As it was, we were in a big tour bus, and by the time we got back to the city it was getting on for teatime. We swung via the bus operator to buy tickets for Sunday to Phnom Penh, stopped by our favourite casual misogynist, and enjoyed a late lunch of a cheese and pickle toastie and a chilli chicken burger. A not so authentic Viet Cong experience, but tasty nonetheless.

For our third and final day in Ho Chi Minh City, I’d booked us both onto a Mekong Delta tour. Ideally, we’d have done a 2 or 3 days tour, but we’d just plain run out of time. It’s a good job our Ha Long Bay cruise was cancelled, or we really would have been rushing. We were picked up by Sang from the guesthouse and once again joined a group of around 20 on a particularly uncomfortable 2 hour bus journey down to the Mekong river, where we were to take a short boat ride across to one of the islands. You know how when you’re in London and you stand on one side of the Thames, looking across at the other side and you think “wow, the Thames is really big”, well, the Mekong is REALLY big. Think more Dover to Calais than Southbank to Parliament. We sat down on the boat and tried in vain to listen to Sang speak over the drone of the engine, as we chuffed along towards one of the islands in the centre of the river. Our first stop was a small bee farm, where we got to sample some honey roasted bananas, honey ginger and a sort of honey peanut brittle – yum. We also enjoyed a sample of honey tea, mixed with lime juice. We bought a few bags of goodies to take with us on our journey, not quite having decided whether we were going to devour them then or try and make them last (so far it’s 4 days later and they’re still with us!). The tour companies here seem to just be figuring out that Western tourists and Asian tourists are two very different breeds. For example, a group of Chinese tourists are more keen to shop, to spend hundreds of dollars on things to take back home, whereas Westerners actually want to SEE things on their tours, sure we might buy a few things along the way but our we want to TOUR things on our tours.  We’d been reading about Chinese tour companies a bit, since you see a lot of them here, and our attitude has changed from annoyance to pity after reading some of the accounts of people who’ve been on them. The older Chinese people who tend to go on these trips do so not only because they are government approved, but also because they do not speak the language of the country they’re visiting, and do not feel confident enough to plan on their own. As such they’re reduced to these huge whistle-stop tours where they’re barely given time to breathe before moving on to the next activity. No wonder they all look so miserable all the time. Anyway, I digress. We hopped back onto the boat and wound our way up a small estuary that, much like that corridor in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and smaller the further we went along. We soon spotted our next ride, a much smaller 4 seater operation, paddled by one person at the back and one at the front -phew! The ride was short, but we enjoyed the trip, donning the conical hats provided and taking many a selfie. Eager not to repeat our experience in Vang Vieng, we managed to exit the boat if not gracefully then at least dry! We walked through the jungle for a while, with Sang pointing out banana trees, cacao beans, passion fruit, coffee and coconuts, warning us to be careful as people are sometimes killed by coconuts falling from the tree and hitting them on the head. Having picked one up, I can safely attest that one falling on your head would not be a pleasant experience. They are heavier than they look! We arrived at an area with a small gift shop as well as a wicker shelter with tables and chairs set up. We’d been to places before like this in Peru and Bolivia, and it slowly dawned on us that we might just be in for an example of traditional dance. Nooooooooooooooo. Traditional dances fall narrowly below weaving displays in the list of “Things We Never Want To See Again While Travelling”. Luckily, we were just to be serenaded by some local musicians and a singer that could moonlight as an electric guitar if she so chose, and we got to eat some delicious fruit as well as try banana wine and snake wine. Snake wine is exactly what it sounds like, rice wine that’s left to ferment with snakes in the bottle. Not sure HMRC would take too kindly to us having that in our luggage. It just tasted like rice wine with, as the alcohol connoisseur might say, “earthy tones”. We’ll be sticking to the regular stuff in future. Our group hopped into a few tuk-tuks and were whisked away to our lunch stop. Before lunch, we were taken through a coconut sweet factory. I say factory, it was 20% factory, 80% stalls trying to flog the sweets they were making. We tried various flavours and decided that the peanut coconut was our favourite. It was sort of like a very soft nougat. There are still some left at the very bottom of my rucksack I think, though for how long those will last, I’m not sure… We sat down at a huge table for lunch and two servers brought out 3 huge deep fried elephant ear fish, presumably caught that very morning. Some of our group *cough*Americans*cough* were horrified that this whole fish (head, tail, eyeballs etc) was to be our lunch. Imagine having to eat something that didn’t come with “Mc” at the front of it! Ok I’m being slightly harsh, but for god’s sake why bother visiting different countries if you’re not going to try things! The fish was broken down by the servers into some fantastic spring rolls, and we also had braised fish in a clay pot, as well as various broths, rice and egg dishes. It was absolutely stunning. And because of the fussy Americans, we got to eat twice as much! After lunch, we were given a bit of free time to either go for a cycle around the island or sit by the river. We chose to sit by the river and have a good moan about the Americans. Hmm, this is becoming a bit of a habit. I suppose when you’re second from bottom on a long list of undesirables, your position as ‘not quite the worst’ is one to be held onto fiercely.

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dav

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We finished off the day with a quick trip to a temple, spending most of our time there chatting to the tour guide and making jokes about lottery tickets and Dave resembling the Happy Buddha statue. Piling back on to the bus we made the long and uncomfortable journey back to Saigon where we fully intended to go for a lovely authentic Vietnamese dinner for our last night in Vietnam. As it was, all the rain we’d missed for the past month decided to pick that night to descend. Rain here isn’t like rain back home – a bit of drizzle, pop on a mac and take your brolly and you’re fine – it’s more like having someone constantly tipping a bathtub full of water over your head every 5 seconds. As such, we settled for an authentic pot noodle instead. A rather anticlimactic end to what had been one of the best months of our lives. Vietnam is such an interesting country. The old divisions from the war are still clearly there, from the cuisine to the attitudes of the various regions. It feels like a country striving to unify itself under a common identity, but also unwilling to move on from the mistakes of the past. I suppose time will help to heal the wounds, hopefully without too much interference from the Chinese. 1 month really isn’t enough time to explore everything it has to offer, and as we boarded our bus for the Cambodian border, we vowed that it was not good-bye, but simply, au revoir.

Authentic Final Meal

Happy Buddha Dave

Da Nang is one of the cities that’s always listed on the “1 month in Vietnam” itineraries you can find all over the internet, largely due to its proximity to Hoi An, a quaint ancient port town with heaps of character. We’d decided to stop in Da Nang so that we could spend a few days lounging around on the beach, reading, and giving our poor wallets a break after our train splurge. Arriving at Go Home Hotel we were greeted by the owner and shown to our room…except it wasn’t ready and it appeared someone else was staying in it. Never mind, we were moved to the “Coconut Room”, with profuse apologies from the manager and promises that we’d be moved to the best room in the hotel the following day. Honestly, we weren’t too fussed, it had a bed, air conditioning and a private bathroom which is all you need really.

We’d done a bit of research and found that there were actually quite a few things to do in Da Nang, and none of them overly expensive. So, we set about planning our itinerary for the next few days, aiming to visit the Marble Mountains, Monkey Mountain, and maybe even get some snorkelling done as well – fab. Our first full day we decided to head down to the beach and soon settled in under one of the few palm trees nestled along the sand, providing free shade for those like myself who are too tight to pay for a bed and a parasol. Suitably sun-creamed and with ample shade from the palm tree, it wasn’t long before we decided to take a dip in the water. The sand was like walking on fire and as Dave still hadn’t replaced his dead flipflops, he had to majestically hop, skip and jump to the sea, it was really quite amusing to watch as I sauntered down in my lovely lovely sandals. The sea was warmer than any we had ever been in. There was none of the usual shuddering or lengthy adjustment periods that seem to be a staple of any trip to a British seaside, and we glided into the warm waves, the soft sand nestling around our toes. One of the things of note is that the sea is much saltier here than back home. Dave, who infamously and hilariously struggles to float in water, was happily bobbing around, or at least he was until one of the bigger waves washed over him and he discovered the water was much better floated on than drunk. We mucked about in the water for a bit, jumping over the bigger waves and watched as people parasailed past and fell off banana boats, before retreating back across the hell sand to the shade, to apply more sun cream and to down a litre of water. As we sat under the palm tree and looked out over the bay, we could totally see why people would come here to get away from the madness of Hanoi, but we definitely weren’t going to be turning into people who spend their whole holiday on a beach anytime soon. Because the sand here is so white, the sea seems to sparkle as particles are picked up by the tide and the blue clear water gently laps the shore. Re-creamed and rehydrated, we headed back in for a final dip, before drying off and heading for a beer at Crazy Cat’s Bar, about a 5-minute walk from the seafront and therefore about 5 x cheaper than any bar along the beach. The place is run by a cheerful Aussie chap and obviously caters for a much larger audience than was currently in attendance. The décor is typical beach bar fair with bamboo everything and LED lights nestled in lanterns hanging from the ceiling. We settled in for a beer with our kindles, feeling that sort of fuzzy tiredness you get after spending a day at the beach; that coupled with the alcohol soon flowing through my system, made it all the more difficult to wrap my head around A Brief History of Time. I am still persevering though!

A few beers later we realised we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was now around 5pm, so we headed off to find a local recommended Mexican fusion place (yes, another one!). After being directed to the completely wrong location by Google Maps, we eventually found Tacos Da Nang, and thoroughly enjoyed a huge plate of nachos and a mango fish burrito, all to the back drop of two young Vietnamese children playing hide and seek and generally winding each other up. In our slightly tipsy state, this proved to be excellent entertainment, and we had to try very hard not to laugh when they misbehaved. Our evening drew to a close as we hopped into a Grab and headed back to the hotel, heads fuzzy from the beer and the heat. As we were settling in for bed, I became aware that in the mirror staring back at me was no longer the slightly bronzed figure that had been there this morning, but more an impersonation of a Swizzels Drumstick lolly. Oops. Turns out the Doxycycline we’ve been taking as an anti-malarial makes you particularly susceptible to sunburn and our measly factor 30 was no match for the blazing midday Vietnamese heat.

The following day I awoke sore, miserable, and more resembling a lobster than a human. The small bottle of aloe vera gel we’d purchased in Vang Vieng was no match for my perfectly pink stomach and chest and was soon depleted. It became apparent very quickly that our itinerary for Da Nang was going to have to be modified somewhat to include lots of sitting inside in the shade with the air-conditioning on full blast, trying to find a comfortable position to lie in. So, for the next 2 days that’s exactly what we did. Other than a quick trip out to see the dragon bridge breathe fire (underwhelming) on our last evening there, our trip to Da Nang had turned out to be a little less action-packed than we had hoped. Da Nang sits on a river delta, and all along the river front are huge neon and LED lights, beckoning you to have a massage, or visit a rooftop bar, or buy sunglasses, or anything really. It was what I imagine Las Vegas is like, but with a hint of Blackpool thrown in for good measure. Most of the people in the bars seemed to be older Aussie men with younger Vietnamese women, but the less said about that the better, I think. It was all a little overwhelming for a country mouse like me. In hindsight we should have stayed nearer the beach as that was where all the more affordable restaurants and bars seemed to be. The hotel wasn’t brilliant either, it was centred around a courtyard in the middle, so the sound travelled up and made it quite noisy and the bed was ridiculously hard. Hard beds are very much de rigueur in South East Asia as they sleep on their backs, but we might as well have been sleeping on the floor. Bummer. It wasn’t all bad though, we did order pizza to the room and binge watch Stranger Things, so now at least we’re not completely behind.

The following morning, we were very ready to be heading on to Hoi An and had arranged a car via our next hotel to come and collect us. As we made the 45 minute drive down the coast, there was building work going on everywhere, with promises of new resorts and a water park in the making, all backed by Chinese and Australian investors. Da Nang is definitely going to be growing in popularity over the next few years so if you’re looking for a nice quiet authentic Vietnamese experience I would steer clear…We arrived at Duck House and were greeted by Kim, the enthusiastic owner, who showed us to our room and chatted for a while about things to do in Hoi An, as well as recommending a tailor. We’d heard that Hoi An is one of the best places in the world to have clothes made, with a full cashmere suit setting you back about £110, so we decided we were going to splash out a bit and have some clothes tailor made while we were there. So much for trying to build up the surplus again, but what are we here for if not to spend money?! We wandered off from our hotel into the old town for some lunch, and as we ambled through the yellow walled car free centre, we felt much more relaxed than we had throughout our whole time in Da Nang. We stopped off at Bup Café for some spring rolls and fried calamari before wandering down deeper into the old town. The streets are lined with lanterns and shops selling everything from army crawling spiderman toys to banana shirts to wooden handicrafts to that rolled up ice cream you see videos of everywhere on social media. The whole centre of the old town is reserved solely for bicycles and pedestrians which gives the whole place a very old world feel. It is however exceptionally busy, particularly at night. We were soon tempted into one of the many bars along the river and enjoyed a beer. Vietnam has a particularly wide selection of beers, from Bia Hanoi to Bia Saigon to Huda to LaRue, all made within the country. So far Larue has been my favourite and we’ve been casually browsing online to see if we can find a stockist in the UK for some of the best ones we’ve had out here. If anyone knows a good one let me know!

We sat and people watched for a while. Pedal taxis sailed in serpentine along the river, pushing those too lazy or perhaps too hot to walk any further. Chickens and cockerels wandered around, pecking at leftover Bahn Mi. Large groups of Chinese tourists got in the way and stood around looking underwhelmed by everything. To be fair to the Chinese tourists, we’d be miserable too if we were being ferried around places on a strict schedule, not allowed to deviate in any way from the pre-approved plan. By this point it was getting dark and we watched the sunset over the river and old women began to appear, carrying trays of lanterns that tourists can buy and float down the river. We were keen at first but questioned whether they were bio-degradable and given just how much litter there is everywhere here, we decided against it, which turned out to be the correct decision when the following morning the tide went out and there were hundreds of the things lying damp and forgotten along the banks. Still, overall, it’s a very pretty place, particularly at night, and I imagine 5/10 years ago it would have been even nicer with fewer tourists. Still, that’s how many of these places manage to keep going, and we were after all contributing to their numbers!

The following morning, we popped just up the road to visit the tailor that Kim had recommended to us: 79 Tony. When we arrived, it became no clearer as to why the place was called 79 Tony. In fact, when we arrived there didn’t appear to be anyone there at all! But we milled about for a bit and soon enough a woman appeared, speaking perfect English and clearly very happy to have some customers. We sat down and she turned on some fans and gave us a bottle of water each and we chatted for a bit about what we were looking for. Dave ended up agreeing to 3 shirts and a pair of shorts, and for myself, a pair of shorts and a dress. All in all, coming to the sum of around £140, which considering that they were going to be tailor made, is exceptionally reasonable. We could have quite happily spent hundreds of pounds in there, but we restrained ourselves, besides, she had our measurements on file now and as she was keen to point out, offered shipping to the UK. Fabrics chosen and measurements taken, we skipped off happily back to the room to chill out for a few hours as we had booked ourselves onto a street food walking tour that afternoon. Their website had advised that we “come hungry” and as 3pm rolled around and we were presented with the list of foods we were going to try, we were glad we did. Our tour guide was a young woman called Kim who looked about 17 but was probably 45. The rest of our group was made up of two young boisterous Australian teachers, and a family of 5, 2 of whom were teenage boys and looked thoroughly unhappy to be out enjoying new experiences at the expense of their parents. It’s a hard life. We started off with something called White Rose that was entirely like Momos, sort of a steamed dumpling filled with vegetables, absolutely delicious. The place was run by one family and Kim told us that only the women make the dumplings and work from 7am to 7pm 7 days a week to make between 2500 – 3500 of these tiny things, which are used both in that restaurant and also shipped to other restaurants in Hoi An. Kim also noted that the men were too easily distracted to be the ones making the dumplings, which resulted in a ripple of laughter from our group. Us women get all the best jobs. We also tried a “Hoi An Pizza” which was a sort of fried wonton covered in sweet and sour sauce. YUM. Kim then led us off the beaten path to visit places where Vietnamese people eat. Most of these are just people’s homes which are converted into eateries during the day and then back into living rooms when they close. More often than not they are run by elderly women. In Vietnamese culture, the son stays at home with his new wife when they are married and traditionally, the daughter-in-law would then take over the family restaurant. Increasingly, as Vietnam is modernising and young women find themselves better educated and with greater prospects in life, these small eateries are dying out with the women who run them. It is sad, but it’s great that women here now have more choices than just working in their in-laws restaurant. The food was phenomenal, but we were expecting nothing less to be perfectly honest! At our final stop, we were given the opportunity to make our own spring rolls. According to local custom, if a woman is able to make a good spring roll then she can guarantee acquiring a rich and handsome husband. Dave is still waiting for his to turn up. This place was run by yet another elderly woman and Kim told us that her husband had recently passed away. She told us that her children and grandchildren all live quite far away so the best part of her day is when this big hoard of westerners descends on her tiny living room as it means she can cook for them and that makes her happy. We ate and talked and at the end we all left feeling very lucky to be in the positions we’re in, visiting all these places, and having the choice to do anything we like. Suitably stuffed, we waddled back to the hotel, feeling that perhaps we should have had our measurements taken after the food tour rather than before it.

The next day we spent the morning lazing around before renting some bikes from Kim (hotel Kim not tour guide Kim) and heading up to Jack’s Cat Café, a hot 15 minute cycle ride north of the old town. The place had been set up a few years ago to help abandoned cats escape the huge cat meat trade that they have in Vietnam. It’s more of a cat sanctuary that also happens to be a café as the whole place is set in a relaxed shady garden where the cats are free to wander around at their leisure. The high walls are topped with curved plastic to prevent both the kitties from escaping, and also any potential thieves from getting in. In total, there are around 90 cats and kittens, and most are exceptionally friendly, either having been hand-reared at the centre or joining as kittens. We enjoyed a wrap and a burger and a few drinks and spent a good few hours playing and generally chilling out with the cats. It definitely made us miss our fosters from back home. After our feline excursion, we headed back to our favourite tailor to see if any alterations needed to be made. Sadly, one of the patterns Dave had picked wasn’t available so he had to choose something different and the shorts I’d had made were too small. But no bother! We still had a full day and a half left so more than enough time to have the changes made. For dinner that evening we headed back into the old town to MIX restaurant, a Greek place that had been recommended to us by an English couple we’d met in Da Nang. It definitely didn’t disappoint, and we stuffed our faces with pita and dips and souvlaki. It might not have been traditional Vietnamese fair but the food here has been absolutely exceptional, regardless of its origin. As the sun set over our final evening in Hoi An, we decided that despite the madness, it was definitely near the top of our list of places we’d been so far, and we wandered back through the lantern lit old town to our hotel.

Picking up our clothes the next morning, we headed into the old town to kill a few hours before our car to the airport at 4pm. We stopped for some spring rolls before heading down to the river for a beer. There’s a pattern developing here. As we sat and watched the world go by, we got chatting to a chap who was originally from England but moved to New Zealand 25 years ago. We talked about where we were from and what our plans were and of course Brexit. It’s really interesting to hear an outsider’s perspective on these things, in particular, his Brazilian partner said that she was at a loss as to understand what had made Britain go from a great powerhouse to a bickering bitter country. We told her that her guess was as good as ours. The more time we spend here, the more we are considering moving here to teach for a while. At least until this Brexit nonsense has blown over. But we’ll see. It’s going to take more than a really good AC unit to tear me away from prawn cocktail crisps and Costa Coffee…

Our new snazzy clothes

Handmade dahling!

We awoke bright and early, packed and ready to embark on our 3-day Ha Long Bay cruise. We were due to be picked up any time between 7:45 and 8:30 so we quickly wolfed down our breakfast and dutifully rallied, albeit slightly groggily, at hotel foyer to await pickup. We sat and twiddled our thumbs, excited at the prospect of spending the next few days on an old style Vietnamese junk boat, eating lots of fish and sea food, and spending our time kayaking, swimming, and lounging around on deck doing not much of anything, all while being ferried around yet another UNESCO world heritage site – delightful. Ha Long Bay had been on the list of things we’d wanted to see in South East Asia before we’d even got here so the fact that we were finally on our way to doing it was very exciting. I’m sure that if we’d ever managed to get there, it would have been a jolly wonderful time. Yes, dear reader, all that waking up early and rushing around proved to be for naught as a tropical storm had descended over the coast during the night and the port authority had closed the bay, preventing any boats from going out for the foreseeable future. Bother. So, we were faced with the decision to either hang around in Hanoi for another few days to see if the storm eased off and we could go out or cancel the tour and head on to our next destination. Tired, and with the hotel manager asking us what we’d decided to do every five seconds, we were more than a little fed up. Anyone who knows me will know that I don’t really “DO” early mornings, unless cake is involved, or a particularly tempting excursion, such as the one we were supposed to have been going on! We’d pretty much exhausted everything that Hanoi had to offer and even if we did hang around, there was no guarantee that we’d be able to go on the cruise within the next few days as the weather is famously changeable over here, particularly at this time of year. Disappointed, we decided that Ha Long Bay would have to wait for another trip, and that we were going to head to our next stop down the country: Ninh Binh.

Vietnam, and in fact South East Asia more generally, is quite well suited to making things up as you go along. There are plenty of trains and hotels and restaurants so when you decide that you’re going to change your plans right at the last minute, it doesn’t usually matter too much. That is until you find out that one of the two trains a day from Hanoi to Ninh Binh was going to be leaving in around 30 minutes, with the next one not until 10pm. Double bother. Frantically checking out and saying our goodbyes to the staff at Buddy Hotel, we hopped into a Grab and prayed that our driver would employ his best Hanoi driving skills to get us to the station on time to buy a ticket and head down the country. Arriving at the station with minutes to spare, we followed the clear signs and the instructions we’d found online about to how to buy a ticket, and quickly and calmly headed onto the platform. Or at least that’s what would have happened in an ideal world. There was no “tourist ticket booth” as the lovely online instructions had promised, and not one sign in English to be seen. It’s at times like this that I am very grateful to be travelling with Dave, who is happy to chat to anyone, and in the 6 ½ years we’ve been together, has become very adept at picking up on the “I’ve really had enough and I’m getting quite grumpy now” vibes that I give off. I sat down and looked after the bags, and Dave did the talking. It’s becoming a bit of a recurring theme, but the system works! Before we knew it, we were sitting in our air-conditioned carriage, being blasted with fuzzy terrible Vietnamese pop music, but we didn’t care, we had a plan and we were off to lovely Ninh Binh. Stupid Ha Long Bay.

During our time in Hanoi we’d decided to purchase a Vietnamese sim-card, and this was the first of many times that this decision had really proved to be a wise one. As we whizzed through the countryside, I was busy trying to find us somewhere to stay before our 2 ½ hour train ride came to an end. Another prime example of just how exhausting this travelling lark can be! We settled on Tam Coc Mountain View Homestay, situated as the name might suggest, in the town of Tam Coc, around 5k from Ninh Binh. Tam Coc is sometimes described as the Ha Long Bay of land as there are similar rock formations, just less water, and there are plenty of rivers in the area to go boating on. Arriving at our hotel, we were greeted by a cheerful young woman (although she was probably about 40) and her dog Momo, as well as a stunning view over a lotus flower covered pond and a backdrop of huge limestone cliffs. This was a bit more like it. As we’d been up since stupid o’clock and it had been a rather flustered sort of day, once we’d been shown a map of the local area and settled in, I did what Katy Boyces do best and snuggled down for a nice long kip, while Dave sat outside and quickly befriended the local cat who we named Pong. Some things never change. That night we decided to reward ourselves with a trip to the local Indian restaurant. I have to say that when we first came to South East Asia I was not expecting there to be such a glut of Indian food available here. I suppose that’s what happens when any moderate flow of Brits visit somewhere, the fact that India is just over the road might also have something to do with it as well. It’s good Indian food as well, definitely rivalling the stuff back home, especially Aroma in Tam Coc because the naan breads were the size of a small child. Two massive curries, rice, two naan breads and two beers each came to the princely sum of around £11, and that’s expensive for here! I don’t think we’ll ever come home…

Having been suitably briefed regarding the local attractions by our attentive host, we set off early (ish) to Trang An for a boat trip around the local scenery. You are given the choice of 3 routes, all with 3 temples (hooray) but each with slightly differing amenities. Routes 1 and 2 offer you the opportunity to see where the blockbuster Kong: Skull Island was filmed, so we picked route 3, which had more caves. We hopped into our rowboat with an English chap named Matt sitting up front, our portly bottoms plonked firmly in the middle, and our rower perched at the back. This inhumanly strong woman then spent the next 3 hours rowing us through tight caves, past temples and huge imposing cliff faces covered in trees. Her arms were covered to protect from the sun, but I suspect that the guns she had under there could have given Arnie a run for his money. Gliding gently through the imposing scenery, we got to know Matt a little better. Once we’d realised that he definitely wasn’t here to just get rekt and dance to phat beats, we had a good old moan about everything from stupid loud American tourists (LOVE YOU GUYS), to people taking 999999 selfies everywhere, to how his trip to Ha Long Bay was slightly let down by obnoxious tourists. Needless to say, we quickly became firm friends, even more so when he said that this boat trip was probably better than Ha Long bay because it was less touristy, and you got to get up close to the cliffs. Take that tropical storm. We stopped at various points along the way to see some more temples before precariously clambering back into boat, trying our best not to fall in, it really was completely magical. After almost 3 hours our trip was drawing to a close and we could see just how many of these boats were waiting to take people out on a trip. I imagine that during the high season the ~200 boats or so will go out a few times a day but given how dead it was when we were there, our lovely driver would be lucky to go out again that day. Needless to say, we left her a generous tip.

After saying our goodbyes to Matt, we stopped into the on-site restaurant for a bite to eat. One of the things that South East Asia is often celebrated for is the food, and up until this point I can’t say that we’d had a bad meal. Sure, some had been nicer than others, but none had fallen below the “above average” category…until now. If someone ever tells me they’re going to Vietnam I am going to go out of my way to tell them to avoid this restaurant. The staff were friendly enough, but we might as well have gone and found some cardboard to chew on. Bland, bland, bland. Which was a shame because up until that point we’d been having a brilliant time! Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Dave left them a snarky google review and we felt better after that. Hopping back on the motorbike we headed back to the hotel where we spent the rest of the afternoon taking in the scenery and playing with Pong.

Another recommendation from our host was that we check out the Hang Mua viewpoint, and there were some caves to explore as well, so off we went again on the bike, just round the mountain to spend another few hours being hot and sweaty climbing up a hill. Luckily for us this one had steps that were well maintained, though incredibly steep as always, and we were joined by other tourists mad enough to brave the midday heat. There was hardly any shade as we ascended the winding staircase, which made it particularly uncomfortable, but after around 30 minutes we arrived at the top, and what a view! It made the punishing heat and our burning muscles absolutely worth it, especially as there was a little pagoda at the top offering much needed shade and a chance to cool down. On one side the horizon stretched out as far as the eye could see, past the Ninh Binh city skyline, until the sky and the land blended into a haze. The other side reminded us of the cloud forests surrounding Machu Picchu; big pointy rocks covered in greenery shot up around us, while the river and the tourist boats wound around far down below and into a cave on the right. We sat and watched as people ignored the “don’t sit on the wall” sign to take pictures for the ‘gram and even took a sweaty selfie or two ourselves. People are often keen to ask us if we’d like them to take a picture of us together, our reply up until this point has been “no that’s fine, we know what we look like thanks” but I think from now on I’m just going to tell people I don’t like Dave enough to have a picture taken with him. I understand they’re just trying to be kind, but we are travelling for all of 9 months in total and if all the pictures we take are just of us then that’s a bit boring. It was bad enough for both sets of parents having to sit through the pictures of South America without every other picture being of our sweaty mugs. I digress. We descended the steep steps with encouraging words for those still making the climb and reached the bottom far more quickly than we had reached the top, no surprise there! A small cave at the bottom of the steps named Tiger Cave provided a brief cool respite from the heat before we headed off to find the larger cave that the Hang Mua site is known for.

The cave acts as a large wind tunnel as it runs from one side of the mountain to the other, so we stood and enjoyed that for a little while before heading into a smaller tunnel labelled “Pearl Spring”. As we headed further in, the cave became narrower and narrower, with the walkway quickly turning into a stone path surrounded by water on all sides. At one point some enterprising chap had thought to run lights down there but they had long since stopped working so we turned to the torches on our phones to help guide the way. As we resorted to crawling on all fours, we commented that in order to go down here in the UK you’d probably need about 15 different permits and risk assessments. Sadly, as we turned another corner the path was covered in knee deep water with a few meters either side to the cave floor, and having tested lady luck already by just coming down here, we decided not to push things further, and turned around, but not before snapping a few pics.

Arriving back at the hotel, we decided we should probably make a plan for our next destination of Hue. As we’d arrived into Ninh Binh rather prematurely, we hadn’t had a chance to make a proper onward travel plan. To cut a long story short, we were faced with a very long train journey or a very long bus journey. Buses over here are about as pleasant as they are in South America so that ruled that out; that left us the train. Now Vietnamese trains are very pleasant, and for a short hop of a few hours or so are perfectly fine and normally affordable. Hue was around a 10-hour train journey away and the prospect of sitting in a recliner for that long was not a welcome one.  Given the lateness of the hour and the fact that overnight trains tend to get booked up weeks in advance, we were left with no option but to book the exceptionally pricey 2 birth cabin on the train…but I’ll let Dave tell you all about that!

Our final stop in Laos was to be the former capital, Luang Prabang. Nestled between the Mekong and the Nam Khan rivers, the whole town is a UNESCO world heritage site and we can absolutely see why. We arrived in the early afternoon following a harrowing drive through the mountains. Our driver must have gone to the Peruvian driving school and only further served to prove our theory that countries that drive on the left are much more competent. Despite narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a lorry and overtaking on blind corners, we arrived in one piece, though a little shaken, and keen to head to our hotel, the fabulous Villay Vanh Guesthouse. A short sweltering walk later and we were greeted warmly and with a cold glass of lemon juice before being shown to our room; a slightly pokey affair with dark wood panels, and a questionable choice of painting on the wall but nevertheless with air conditioning and a comfy bed so we were more than content, especially given we were paying around £11 a night for the privilege.

The following day we awoke to discover that the temperature for was forecast to be 41°, rather scuppering any plans to do anything remotely productive. We headed down to breakfast to decide what to do and were greeted by a young boy who we later found out was the nephew of the woman running the place. After discovering that I had no games on my phone (I know, I’m so boring) he quickly turned his attention to Dave and spent the next 30 minutes or so flitting between being told off by his Aunty for bothering us and playing games or watching shark videos on YouTube when she went out the back to fetch something. He soon revealed that his name was also David and we couldn’t quite work out if he thought we were taking the mick when Dave said that was his name too. Regardless, we had certainly made a firm friend and for the rest of our time in Luang Prabang we were greeted with a loud “HELLO!!!” every time he saw us as well as a “GOOD NIGHT!!! SEE YOU TOMORROW!!!” most evenings. Needless to say, we found it a little embarrassing that this 8-year-old boy spoke better English than we did Laotian but, in our defence, tonal languages are really hard, and we did learn “hello” and “thank you”.

By the time evening rolled around it was a little cooler and upon the recommendation of our host we decided to climb Phousi Hill in the centre of town, promising a cracking view and a lush sunset if we were lucky. While it was certainly no Machu Picchu mountain, even a slight incline in the heat results in ludicrous sweatiness and as we ascended the winding steps past Buddhist temples and dormitories for monks, we stopped under the pretence of taking photos but really it was to catch our breath and wipe the sweat from our brows. Arriving at the top, we were greeted by similarly minded people who had arrived before us and claimed the best seats, which was a good job really because they spent most of the time up there looking at their phones. Once the people who had climbed all that way to look at their phones moved, we were rewarded with a delightful view over the Mekong river and a slightly mediocre sunset. After a while, we were approached by a group of teenage girls who eagerly asked if they could practice English with us, which of course we were absolutely more than happy to do! They asked us where we came from and where we were going and all the sorts of questions you ask when you’re learning a language. It’s often difficult because when they ask you something like “what is your passion?” the textbook response would be “I like tennis” or “I like to read”, for example, but given our slightly frazzled post-hike state we at first took this as an invitation to a philosophical discussion. Given the puzzled looks on the young women’s faces that quickly followed, we realised our error and told them we liked F1 and animals. This seemed to suffice. List of questions exhausted and with rumbling tummies we bid farewell to our new pals and headed off to find dinner, before settling into the local Aussie bar to watch the qualifying. We got chatting to an older Aussie couple who were visiting South East Asia for just 10 days on their annual holiday and would shortly be heading back to their farm a few hours north of Brisbane. We chatted about F1 and made small talk and tried our best to enjoy an altogether predictable qualifying sessions before turning in for the night.

The following day we were up bright and early to avoid the worst of the heat and headed off to the Lao UXO centre. Like the COPE centre in Vientiane, the UXO centre works to remove remaining unexploded ordnance from Laos as well as educating tourists via their visitors centre. It was a lot smaller than the COPE centre but better put together, with stacks of bombs and shells and guns piled up in the corners of the room. They were all clearly labelled as deactivated, but it was still rather odd that you could just reach out and touch the items if you were so inclined. Next to the centre is a park and rather large statue of President Souphanouvong, leader of the Pathet Lao movement and the first president of communist-governed Laos. Given that the average male height in Laos is 5 ft 7, this statue may have been compensating for something. We headed back to the hotel to enjoy another action-packed afternoon of reading and sitting on the terrace watching the world go by. Luang Prabang really is a beautiful place, the streets are lined with old dark wood buildings with hints of French influence. They’ve managed to meld the old culture with modernity in a way that other places in this part of the world have failed to do and it would have been very easy to get stuck there, spending our days sitting by the river, eating delicious local food and drinking beers. But we had a few days left and there were still things to explore!

A trip to the local night market provided us with some wonderful handmade purses with delightful “Engrish” phrases on them such as “a sad rooster walks far-away” and “Dinosaur was gone”. We took advantage of their small size and portability and purchased some as souvenirs to bring home. If you’re lucky enough, you might just get one! The chap we bought them from was asking us how he could improve his English, it was hard to explain that the poor English is just what makes them so wonderful in the first place and actually if the language was better they would lose their charm, so we just said they were all fine , wished him well, and moved on. The markets here are really something else. Sure, you get the same mass-produced stuff across the countries but each one offers something a little bit different. We’ve joked a few times about ditching all of our clothes when we get back to Bangkok at the end of our trip and packing our bags full of all that great things we’ve found here. At least it’s a joke for the time being…

When we had climbed the hill a few days prior, we picked up a leaflet for a local storytelling theatre that looked interesting, so the following evening we headed up into the old quarter before arriving at what looked like an old wooden garage. Inside was a small black padded room with around 30 seats facing towards a small stage with two chairs. We sat and waited for the performance to start, not really sure what to expect, when a young man and an older chap came through the door; the older chap playing music on what we later discovered was called a khene (pronounced ke-en). The sound is unlike anything I’ve heard before and it really was fascinating that a series of wooden pipes can make such a haunting noise; it was a little like an organ mixed with pan pipes. We were then treated to around an hour of folk tales and stories from the younger of the two gentlemen, with the older man chiming in now and then with more music. He spoke excellent English and the time flew by. We discovered how two water serpents had carved out the rivers nestled either side of Luang Prabang, as well as how the khene was made to sound like a legendary bird, and that the hill we had climbed a few days before was actually the top of a mountain that the monkey king had brought to the queen, as well as many other completely true and accurate stories. Storytelling really is an art form and we could easily have sat and listened to the stories for hours (we might have needed slightly comfier chairs though).

With our time drawing to close and Vietnam looming, we decided to make the most of our final day and set off for an action-packed trip to Kuang Si waterfall, the Free The Bears sanctuary and the buffalo dairy farm. Heading off from our hotel, we were quickly approached by a Tuk Tuk driver and we hired his services for the day for 200,000 Kip (about £18). Into the back we climbed and off we bounced to Kuang Si waterfall. We’d read that the road up to the falls is full of potholes and badly maintained, so it was a pleasant surprise to find that they’d recently re-paved it. So recently in fact that we ran into a digger and lorry about 20 minutes from our destination and had to wait for it to move out of the way. This meant carefully navigating over the bits of broken rubble to avoid the oncoming vehicles and it was clear our driver had done this before as he made it about as comfortable as it could have been. Still, the incident reaffirmed our decision to take a Tuk Tuk rather than drive a motorbike up there ourselves – phew! The waterfalls are around 30km south of Luang Prabang and the site is also home to a sanctuary set up by the excellent Aussie charity “Free The Bears”. They rescue sun and moon bears from neighbouring China where they are poached for bile used in traditional medicine. They live their whole lives in tiny cages and it’s terribly sad. Given that animal welfare standards aren’t the highest in this part of the world, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the enclosures were roomy with lots of things to keep the bears entertained. Whilst obviously in an ideal world you’d want them to be out in the wild, it’s certainly a lot better than living in a tiny cage for 10 years, and the bears seemed happy enough. Sun and Moon bears are around the same size, if not smaller, than the Spectacled bears we’d seen in Peru, and just as cuddly looking. They were being fed when we arrived and it was fascinating (and a little terrifying) to watch the power in their claws and jaws, maybe the cuddling isn’t such a good idea after all.

We continued on up to the top of the waterfall and watched the water cascading down from around 60ft, into the clear blue limestone pools below. The water flows down into various different pools, some of which are sacred, and others are available to swim in. It wasn’t as hot as it had been the previous few days, but a dip was certainly welcomed. The fish were less aggressive than the ones at Erawan falls and aside from a few larger ones who got a bit too friendly, we enjoyed the cool clear water and the free fish spa. The water was also really quite cold which I imagine is delightful on some of the hotter days. We were a bit rubbish and it took us a bit of faffing before we both took the plunge. As is always the case, it was much nicer when you got in! We spent an hour or so enjoying the cool water surrounded by the lush jungle, before heading back down to meet our Tuk Tuk, going via the bear sanctuary to purchase a souvenir t-shirt and the smoothie shop get a drink.

Our next stop was the Laos Buffalo Dairy. Set up in 2014, the dairy is a social enterprise whereby they rent female buffalo from local farmers for their milk which they turn into some fantastic cheeses, yoghurt and ice cream. The farmers receive an income for the rental and often the female buffalos are returned pregnant as well as being vaccinated and having a full health check-up. We were shown around by a young volunteer from Istanbul and even got to have a go at milking (we were rubbish). They had pigs and rabbits and piglets and chickens and pigs and pigs and piglets and pigs. Needless to say, I had a great time and could have spent all day chilling with the oinkers, feeding them and petting them. Did I mention there were pigs? The centre also works to improve the gene pool for buffalos by cross breeding different varieties. We got to meet Ferdinand who was an absolute tank and also the father of one of the first crossbreed buffalo bred at the centre. The centre also provides employment opportunities for local women, which was great to see. After our fabulous tour, we sat down by the pond and enjoyed a cheese plate which included mozzarella, ricotta, feta and blue cheese all made on site. The blue cheese was one of the best we’d ever tasted, with hints of nuts and chocolate flavour – flipping delish! Hot, tired and full, we climbed into our Tuk Tuk for the final time and headed back to Luang Prabang.

Our flight to Hanoi was scheduled for 19:10 so we had most of the day to finish up the few things we’d missed, including the old palace. Now the national museum, it houses the old throne rooms as well as the King and Queen’s bedrooms. I’m not really sure calling it the national museum does it any favours as it’s largely a collection of old royal artefacts, without much of a narrative and at 30,000 kip each it’s quite a steep entrance fee. We did get to see bits of the moon though, which were a gift from the US to Laos, so that was pretty cool at least. There was also a small collection of old Ford and Citroen vehicles around the back of the museum, and a rather pretty temple. I’m not sure it was entirely worth the entrance cost, especially as you weren’t allowed to take pictures, but it certainly helped to kill time while we waited for our Tuk Tuk to the airport. 5pm quickly rolled around and we bid farewell to our excellent host (and the super cute doggo who I named Gavin) as we made our first steps towards Vietnam.

Hanoi here we come!

Plumbing problems temporarily overcome and with little desire to sit around doing nothing, the following day we set out to visit the COPE Visitor’s Centre, a short sweltering walk from our hotel. Having only opened to tourists in the 1990s, Laos remains a country that is still finding its feet in terms of global tourism and for this reason we entered knowing very little about its history or what we could see here. Whilst Laos’ proximity to Vietnam was certainly no secret, we were surprised to discover just how much this little country was affected by the war there. More than two million bombs were dropped on Laos during the second Indochina war, making it the most heavily bombed country per capita EVER. About 30% of these did not detonate and so the Laos countryside remains heavily peppered with unexploded ordnance. Tragically the victims are often simply going about their daily lives, cooking or farming, and will hit one of them, causing serious injuries. Children have also been known to play with them with catastrophic results. Since its founding in 1996 COPE (Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise) has provided prosthetics and orthotic services to survivors of UXO related injuries, as well as other mobility related disabilities such as club foot. They do all this for free, in partnership with the Laos government as well as various international NGOs. Their visitors centre offers tourists the opportunity to learn about their excellent work, as well as getting up close to some of their older prosthetic models and giving examples of how bomb fragments and casings are repurposed into various household objects such as fences, pots and frog catchers. They also have a rather macabre gift shop featuring t-shirts with Hello Kitty and cluster bombs. We decided to opt for their homemade ice cream instead and, feeling thoroughly educated, sat outside the museum and, as is tradition, played with some of the local kittens.

Naturally, given the 30+ degree heat, we felt that walking back rather than getting a Tuk Tuk would be the best course of action. I think the locals must think we’re mad, walking around in the midday sun to save a few £. It’s the principle of the thing! It also means we have more money for beer which, when a Tuk Tuk across town is £5 and beer is ~£1 a pint, adds up to a lot of beer! The French influence in Vientiane is most clear when walking along the huge sweeping tree-lined boulevards. Coupled with the lunatic drivers, one could be forgiven for thinking you were in a Paris suburb. Passing the Presidential Palace and feeling thoroughly hot and bothered, we decided the best thing to do would be to spend the rest of the afternoon really not doing much other than sitting by the pool and reading, so that’s what we did. At least until the storm of the century rolled in. Having enjoyed a rather delicious Indian for dinner, we headed back to the hotel just as the first drops of rain began to fall. Normally rain is very welcome given the heat and we’d seen our fair share of impressive storms during our time in Cusco, however this storm was set to knock any previous delusions of impressiveness out of the park. It was relentless. We took up seats under the roof by the pool with another couple and sat and watched as lightning flashed every 2/3 seconds and thunder shook the building and the ground beneath our feet. Every time we thought it might be easing off, the rain just got heavier and heavier and the thunder and lightning grew in intensity. At one point, Dave spotted a plane flying straight over the thunder clouds which then led me to a frantic Google search regarding how safe it was for planes to be struck by lightning (it’s fine). The storm was still raging when we finally decided to turn in around an hour later. Fantastic.

We awoke the next morning to cloud cover and a noticeably cooler temperature and decided to take full advantage, heading off to Pha That Luang, oh yes folks, it’s another temple visit. After arguing with a Tuk Tuk driver (they’re a complete rip off in Vientiane) we paid £5 for the privilege of being ferried 5k up the road to the 44m golden stupa, the most important Buddhist monument in Laos. Allegedly it holds the breastbone of the Buddha, but we never got to see that. Now that I think of it, most of the sacred temples we’ve visited claim to hold some sort of Buddha bone fragment, it’s a wonder he can enjoy enlightenment when he’s missing so many bits. We paid our 10,000 Kip each (about 90p) and wandered around, contemplating whether it was indeed covered in gold leaf or just gold paint. Again, we turned to our good friend Google to find that the very top is gold leaf but the bits you can access and touch (funnily enough) are just gold paint. Still, it was definitely impressive, and I think we got our 90p worth of enjoyment out of it. A quick trot past the Laos Buddhist headquarters led us to the War Dead/Revolution Monument, a soviet style monument commemorating those who lost their lives in the Laos Civil War from 1962-1975. It was fenced off when we went with big NO ENTRY signs and not fancying spending a night in a Laos prison, we appreciated it from afar before heading to our next destination, The People’s Security Museum.

Now if someone asked you what your favourite museum was you might be inclined to answer the Natural History Museum, or perhaps the Kennedy Space Centre, or even the Tate Modern perhaps, all being impressive, well-funded, informative learning centres, with clear narratives and often opportunities for interaction and some good wholesome fun. You might think these aforementioned features are in fact CRUCIAL in delivering a good museum and I used to think that too, but I can honestly say I have never seen anything quite like the Vientiane People’s Security Museum. Arriving at the museum you are greeted with various tanks/bikes/cars outside the front which provided us with a tantalising glimpse of the things to come. We ascended the steps of the Orwellian building and were greeted by a smartly dressed Laotian chap who informed us that the museum was donation only before steering us towards the donation box where we dutifully put in what we thought was probably enough to not get us framed for drug smuggling when we eventually left the country. We then placed our bags, including our phones and the camera, into a locker and were left to our own devices to explore the 3 floors of sheer delightfulness that make up the People’s Security Museum. Given the reviews of this place on both Google and Trip Advisor, you could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps people don’t enjoy this museum, but as we progressed around and saw the quite possibly hundreds of photos of various party meetings and police meetings and community meetings and party/police meetings and police/community meetings and sometimes even party/police/community meetings, we knew they must have been joking. How could you not enjoy a museum that is 90% photos with no clear narrative or translations explaining exactly what’s going on? How could you not enjoy random basket weavings placed in the centre of a room surrounded by examples of items confiscated from various drug and smuggling rings? How could you not appreciate the pictures of baddies with signs saying “I am a baddie”, looking very apologetic and solemn that not only have they been apprehended by the glorious Vientiane Security forces but also that they now have their photo plastered onto the walls of the museum for the world to see? Sometimes we were presented with cases filled with various sizes of gun accompanied by yet more pictures of meetings and, for a real treat, cases filled with quite possibly legitimately confiscated parcels of marijuana, on display for the world to see, surrounded of course with pictures of meetings. We particularly enjoyed the case where they had makeshift “water pipes” on show, and we stopped to admire the ingenuity and resourcefulness of humankind, with of course, some more pictures of meetings. The top floor even had the air conditioning turned on. What more could you want? As we descended the marble steps lined with saluting statues, we reflected on the jolly fine job that the Laos Security Forces are doing and wished that we lived in a country that had such a fine museum as the one we had just visited. Sadly, given the highly sensitive nature of the items inside the museum, we ere unable to take any pictures but the memories will live on inside of us forever.

It was still fairly cloudy when we left, and so rather than be ripped off by the Tuk Tuks again, we decided to walk back to the hotel via Patuxai Monument, passing a structure made entirely of crockery along the way. We’re not sure what the relevance of the crockery monument was as all the signs were in Chinese or Laos, I suspect we were not the target audience. As we approached the Monument the clouds began to break so we paid our 3000 Kip each (about 30p) and climbed our way to the top to enjoy the views over the city as well as a cooling breeze. Reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the monument commemorates Laotian independence and resilience, as well as those who lost their lives during the war. The outside is a little dull and could do with a visit from a power washer, but the inside arch is magnificent, carved with intricate colourful Buddhist and Hindu designs which have been repurposed (unintentionally) as homes for the various birds flying around the place. It also provided a cool place to stop and have a rest in the shade after our descent.

We had intended to visit the MAG UXO centre as well during our time in Vientiane but sadly I picked up a bout of our good friend stomach trouble and so the rest of our time in the Laotian capital passed rather without note, apart from Dave getting bored and wandering off to a few temples on our penultimate day. Dave has also just reminded me that I have forgotten to mention the Night Market, which does deserve a small mention, if only for the animatronic dinosaurs and the odd dinosaur punk bouncy castle. Vientiane is definitely an interesting place.

Our next stop was to be Vang Vieng, an old party town about 4 hours away deep in the Laotian mountains…