Relative Winter is Coming

We said our sad goodbyes to Hoi An and climbed in to the Taxi back north to Da Nang to catch our flight to Nha Trang. We were scheduled to depart at 6:10pm and I for one was rather excited at the prospect of flying along the Vietnamese coast at sunset, especially once we had checked in and I had been allocated a window seat. Sadly, it wasn’t to be though as a late arrival meant we were delayed for about an hour. Ah well. We arrived in to Nha Trang and set off for our hotel, a large and spacious if slightly dated 2^nd story room with a huge balcony overlooking a busy street corner. It was now about 10pm so after a quick fashion shoot with our newly tailored wardrobe we called it a night.

There isn’t really much to do in Nha Trang; the city has a pretty decent beach and a massively overpriced theme park… and that’s about it. It’ only real feature of note is that it’s crawling with Russian holiday makers and expats, so much so in fact that Russian, rather than English, is the second language here. The popularity of Nha Trang with the Russians is a hangover from a period between 1975 and 2002 when the nearby natural harbour of Cam Ranh was leased to the USSR and later to Russia as a Naval base.

We didn’t really take to Nha Trang, it’s little more than a watered down version of Da Nang, albeit watered down with Vodka. Given the number of high-rise hotels and apartment complexes being constructed though, it will likely soon be giving Da Nang a run for its money. If you’re a fan of days on the beach and nights in the club all whilst ‘vanity-‘graming’ every 5minutes and doing everything you can to avoid interacting with the local culture, then Nha Trang is the city for you! That’s not really us though, so for much of the next two days we enjoyed the balcony and the cool sea breeze that swept across it whilst we gave our surplus a chance to heal itself.

Onwards then to Da Lat, a town which we already knew was going to being launching a full frontal assault on our finances. We set off from Nha Trang for the 4 hour drive to Da Lat in the back of a minivan whose suspension had been removed and replaced with cinder blocks and whose driver had clearly learned been trained by the Peruvians (that or his brain had also been removed and replaced with a cinder block). How we’ve managed to survive all of this insane driving so far this year is beyond me, but it has had the unintended side effect of helping Katy get over her fear of flying. She’s positively zen now when strapped into an aircraft seat rather than in a bus and holding on to the back of the seat in front whilst being thrown through another blind overtake.

Although shaken by our drive through the mountains we arrived at Da Lat and were instantly bowled over by the refreshingly cool air temperature. Da Lat lies at an altitude of just over 1500m, deep inside the mountains of the central highlands and at this time of year typically has temperatures in the high teens to mid-twenties. After 2 months of not stop 30+ degree heat, this was absolute heaven! Being cold has never felt so novel. A short taxi ride brought us to Tree House hostel, run by an English guy named Simon and his Vietnamese wife Hannah, which would be our home for the next 4 nights. That evening we enjoyed a ‘family dinner ‘which the hostel puts on on alternative nights for a small extra fee. The word ‘family’ is used slightly loosely here in so far as Hannah stays in the kitchen wither sister and cooks dish after dish of stunning Vietnamese cuisine, whilst Simon sits at the dining table with the guests getting steadily more drunk. It’s good to see that he has acclimatised so well to gender norms in his adopted country.

Over dinner we got chatting to fellow guests Esther and Richard from London who, like us, were a little older than the run-of-the-mill backpacker here and so shared our curmudgeonly disdain for loud, vacuous party-loving youths. People after our own heart. Before we knew it three hours had passed as food kept coming and beer and rice wine kept flowing until eventually Esther, Richard and ourselves felt the pull of our beds. The family dinner was such a nice change of pace from the usual hostel experience; travelling in the internet age means that striking up a conversation with other hotel or hostel guests is a rare thing and so it can sometimes be a quite insular experience. We’d almost forgotten how nice it can be to actually talk to other people.

We set off early the next morning to explore Da Lat following a self-guided walking tour that Katy had found online. The city was built by the French as a mountain retreat in the late 19^thcentury and grew quickly over the following half century as the French began producing wine and coffee on the slopes of the surrounding mountains. The city survived the war largely unscathed and today is the most popular domestic tourist destination for the Vietnamese. The city’s French origins are still readily visible; the wide boulevards are lined with trees; the hotels have that classic Parisian feel with neo-classical recessed columns and balconies and everywhere there are small parks and gardens, churches and bistro cafes. The city is centred around a large artificial lake which is circumnavigated by a wide, pine tree lined road. With the mountains in the background and the cool greens of the foliage, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in a small French or Swiss town somewhere in the Prealps.

The first stop on our little jaunt was Hang Nga Guesthouse, known informally as ‘the crazy house’. The guesthouse is an ever-expanding and highly unconventional freeform building designed by Vietnamese architect Dang Viet Nga. She started the construction in 1990 and has been expanding it ever since despite the efforts of the local authorities to shut her down (that was, until they realised that it was a draw for tourists and there was money to be made). Even today whole new sections are being added. Although started as a guesthouse, the site attracts so much attention that during the day the grounds are open for the public to explore for a small fee. The guesthouse features four main buildings; one themed on an anthill, one a greatly exaggerated mediaeval town-house, one as a coral reef and one that defies all explanation. All four buildings are intertwined by concrete pathways and ladders, each decorated to look like vines or rock formations or other more abstract organic forms. The site is a real warren and its location on a hill on the outskirts of the city means that from the top (if you could fine your way there) you can get some great vistas over Da Lat. We spent a good hour and a half climbing around through caverns and seashells, over rooves and across pathways having a great time getting completely disorientated. The attention to detail here is impressive and it would be a brilliant place to dump kids for a few hours and let them annoy someone else for a change.

Once we had had our fill we stopped in the small café attached to the crazy house and enjoyed the fact that, for the first time in months, we were out and about in Asia and not sweating our own bodyweight in water every 20 minutes. We slurped down a banana smoothie each and carried on our adventure, passing a church which famously has a chicken on the roof (ok) before heading down to a large, elevated park overlooking the lake which is home to a pair of imposing glass and metal structures; one shaped like an artichoke and another representing the head of a sunflower. Along with Wine and Coffee, Da Lat is also renowned for its flower production and the sunflower head is a celebration of that. The countryside around the city is dominated by polythene greenhouses which produce all manner of cut flowers, many of which are used liberally to decorate the public parks and gardens in the city. Because of its flower trade, Da Lat is a popular palace for young couples to come to take their wedding photos which, in local custom, are taken before the wedding. Evidently the Vietnamese have no equivalent concept to ‘jinxing’.

We carried on past the lake and up a steady hill to the train station. Da Lat is no longer on the main railway line, the tracks that used to connect it to Phan Rang were taken up after the war and used to construct the reunification line further north. The only remaining tracks are a short section leading from the station to a pagoda about 5km southeast of the city and to which a small tourist train runs twice daily. We had been told by fellow travellers at Tree House Hostel that it was a bit of a waste of time though, as the train is overcrowded with throngs of Chinese tour groups madly trying to take photos of themselves in front of every window, and that the pagoda is a bit of a tourist trap. We opted instead just to enjoy the grounds of the station; a 1930’s French Art Deco style building which has been lovingly maintained by local volunteers.

On our way back into town we stopped off for a light lunch in a café that makes home-made ice cream where Katy found she had a taste for durian, and I questioned why I agreed to marry her. After that we walked around the rest of the lake swearing at the local drivers who have a penchant for fitting customised horns to their vehicles that sound like shotguns being fired through church organs. We walked to Da Lat’s famous flower garden. And then past Da Lats famous flower garden. Because it’s a flower garden, and headed back home. Having walked about 12 miles in all around the city we felt we had burned enough calories to have a burger for dinner, so that’s what we did.

The following morning, we had booked ourselves on to a day-long guided sightseeing tour recommended by Simon & Hannah. About 9am our guide arrived, and we piled in to the 4×4 joining a pair of Dutch guys and a young Canadian called Adelle who had already been picked up from another hostel. We set off and quickly got chatting amongst ourselves as we made our way out of the city towards our first stop up by a small dam just to the south of city. Here our tour guide Cong told us about Ho Tuyen lake, the reservoir held back by dam which provides flood protection to Da Lat, as well as talking us through the itinerary for the day. Cong was informative, friendly and witty with an extremely dry and sarcastic sense of humour. He spoke great English and quickly built a rapport with us by mocking our accents and swearing at other Vietnamese drivers using rather choice words that Grandma would most certainly not approve of. Cong was also very open to talking about Vietnams society and politics, spilling all sorts of dark secrets about corruption and exploitation and the shortcomings of essential services. This was my favourite part of the tour and I really appreciated Congs willingness to tackle difficult subjects and answer probing questions. There are days, when travelling, when you say to yourself that no matter what problems your home country faces, things could be a lot worse. This was one of those days.

If all we’d done was drive around the Vietnamese countryside talking about corrupt institutions, the legacy of the War, social divisions and people’s attitude to propaganda, then this day would have been good value for money. It wasn’t though, and Cong had loads of stops for us to enjoy including a couple of waterfalls, a coffee plantation where we got to sample coffee farmed by weasels (if you’re now thinking about that story you vaguely remember about coffee made from weasel poop, yes, that’s the one), a mushroom farm, a massive statue of a female buddha (paid for with misappropriated funds according to Cong), a secluded golf resort for the Vietnamese elite, a cricket farm where we got to try freshly made rice wine and deep fried crickets (yum) and finally a flower plantation.

It was a packed and absolutely fascinating day and to cap it all off there was another family dinner back at the hostel that evening. We had intended to get a fairly early night as we had plans for the following morning but after 4 beers and too much rice wine, we found ourselves mixing it with the best of them over a game of cards against humanity. Best laid plans and all…

Considerably later than planned the following morning we set off to Da Lat cable car station for the short ride through the pine trees to Tuc Lam Phung Hoang Zen Monastery. We weren’t here for enlightenment just yet though; we had another agenda! About a 15 minute walk from the cable car station is Datanla Waterfalls which can either be accessed by a steep mountain path, or via an alpine bobsled roller coaster. No prizes for guessing which option we took!

An alpine coaster is a little different to a traditional roller coaster. Instead of a large train which seats 20-30 people each car is small and seats 1 or 2 people and is fitted with a manual brake for speed control. The geography also means that you start at the top rather than at the bottom, only going up the chain lift on the return trip to the station. Katy and I engaged in our greatest national pursuit and dutifully joined the queue whilst scowling at anyone who even looked like they were thinking of jumping the line. A short wait later it was our turn to board and Katy lead the way as we took separate cars. The trains quickly pick up speed coming out of the station and soon we were whizzing through the trees and flying through banked corners as fast as we dared. The ride was surprisingly smooth and really good fun and was the perfect cure for our hangovers. Sadly, it was all over too quickly and after being winched up a short hill we were made to depart at the second station and were presented an opportunity to buy some on ride photos. ‘Well it’s not like we’re ever going to be here again’ is a phrase we see to be saying with worrying frequency as we open our wallets at the moment.

At the bottom is a vantage point for Datanla waterfalls, which are perfectly pleasant, though not as impressive as the waterfalls we had seen the previous day and was absolutely swarming with those in pursuit of nirvana through the medium of the perfect selfie. We got back on the roller coaster for the shorter second section which mainly consisted of chain lifts taking us to the top of the hill. We walked back and I took a brief look around the Zen Monastery whilst Katy tried to shake off the lingering effects of her hangover and then we headed back on to the cable car and returned to the city. Our next stop was the market which we had hoped would yield some interesting wares but proved to be a bit repetitive and something of an anti-climax to our time in Da Lat, a city which had proven to be a real favourite of our time in Asia.

Luckily that evening there was no family dinner taking place, which was good, because the following morning we had to get up at 5am to catch a flight to Sai Gon and if there had been a family dinner, we certainly wouldn’t have packed and probably would have overslept.

But more on that next time.

“What is a surplus for if not for spending on stupid trains?”

Our train was scheduled for 10:30 in the evening, so we spent a rather leisurely final day in Tam Coc lounging around the guesthouse and strolling into town for lunch and dinner. Our host had very kindly let us stay in the room with its precious, precious air conditioning until about 6pm as her next guests weren’t arriving until late. All of which meant that by the time we arrived at Ninh Binh station we were feeling very relaxed and ready for our next adventure, an 11-hour night train to Hue, the historic capital of Vietnam.

The train arrived and we made our way to our cabin, a private room which was, for all intent and purpose, the first-class experience. Our cabin welcomed us with a waft of AC, complimentary water, coffee, tea, bananas and 2 soft beds either side of a Formica-like table fixed beneath a large window. We settled into our beds and the train set off, gently rocking side to side as we trundled along through the dead of night. The next morning, we awoke early to the sun piercing through the curtains of our cabin and with still about 3 hours to go until we reached Hue and having slept about as well as it’s possible to sleep on public transport. Katy and I both felt refreshed and pulled back the curtain to take in the scenery as the train chugged merrily along through paddy fields, over rivers and past lush green mountains. Vietnam really is a stunning country.

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About an hour later than scheduled we arrived in Hue and checked in to our hotel where we were enthusiastically greeted by Tinh, the hotel manager, who gave us complimentary drinks and talked us through all of the top sights Hue has to offer. The city is home to about half a million people and lies at the narrowest part of Vietnam, with only 50 miles or so separating the coast and the Laos border and more or less equidistant between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The city is just to the north of a spur of the Annamese mountain range that juts across to the sea that is generally considered the dividing line between North and South Vietnam. Indeed, the DMZ established during the ill-fated attempt to peacefully reunify the country after the first Indochina war was only a few kilometres north of Hue. The modern city is split in to 2 halves by the charmingly named Perfume River, with the citadel and the old quarter on the northern bank and the urban sprawl of the modern city on the southern.

The only thing missing from our first-class train experience was breakfast and it was now gone midday, so we headed out for some much-needed lunch at the highly recommended Nina’s Café about 5 minutes’ walk from the hotel.

It was closed.

Moving on then we went instead to the neighbouring, and cleverly named ‘Café on Thu Wheels’ (the owners name is Thu, pronounced ‘two’). Shortly after taking a seat, a super-smiley older lady came over to take our order and ask us where we were from. This is a common question in Vietnam, and you have to be a little careful answering it; sometimes people are just making conversation, and that’s lovely so you don’t want to be rude and not respond, but sometimes it is a prelude to attempting to sell you knockoff sunglasses, or fruit, or wind-up Spiderman action figures, or drugs. In this case we were pretty confident that the super-smiley older was just making conversation, so we happily responded that we were from England, to which she responded ‘Ooh, Lovely Jubely, Diamond Geezer, Booyakasha’.

I love this country.

It turned out though that this was a prelude to a sales pitch as once we’d finished our meals Thu came over to strike up a conversation with us.

‘So you guys are from England?’

‘Yes, that’s right’

‘ooh, Lovely Jubely, Diamond Geezer… So, is this your first time to Hue?’

‘Yes, this is our first time in Vietnam’

‘What are you planning to do while you’re here?’

‘Well, we thought we’d go and see the old city tomorrow, then maybe go and see the DMZ or the tombs the following day’

‘Ok great, well let me show you some of the tours we offer’.

At this point, seemingly from nowhere, Thu whipped out a massive ledger and proceeded to show us all the tours offered through her and her family and friends whilst bad-mouthing every other tour provider including out hotel (we hadn’t told her where we were staying, but she knew it was terrible anyway). Still, credit where it’s due, that was a well laid sales pitch we walked in to. We made our excuses, paid for our lunch and headed back to the hotel where we made much cheaper plans for the coming days.

The following day we set off to cross the Perfume River, a small river by local standards, but probably about twice as wide as the Thames is by Parliament. Immediately across the river sits the massive, fortified citadel of Hue, the capital of the Dan Trong Empire in the 18^th century and then seat of the Nguyen empire under French occupation from the early 19^th century until 1945. The city was also the scene of one of the most ferocious and bloody fighting of the Vietnam war, still bearing the scars of bomb damage and bullet holes to this day.

Hue citadel is vast and very imposing, a much more impressive sight than we were anticipating. The outer walls are a good 30 feet thick and 50 feet high with pentagonal battlements jutting out every few hundred meters of so along a wide, lotus filled moat. Once inside we crossed over a large parade ground dominated by a wide, 3 tier flag tower with a massive Vietnamese flag slowly swaying in the steady breeze. Across the parade ground sits a Chinese style, 2 tier pagoda atop a section of the inner wall with a 15-foot-high gate which serves as the entrance to the heart of the citadel.

We bought our tickets from the ‘selling boot’ and headed on in. The inside of the citadel is roughly square in shape, the central 3^rd of which is dominated by a massive open courtyard flanked by covered walkways and pagodas. At the end of this central walkway was the royal palace, heavily damaged during the war and subsequently completely destroyed to make way for a full reconstruction currently in the works. To either side of the main thoroughfare are complexes of temples, gardens and houses, each belonging to either members of the imperial family or serving as housing for senior courtiers.

We worked our way clockwise around the citadel, exploring the maze of temples, courtyards, gardens, ponds and houses which seemed to never end. Hue citadel quickly became one of our favourite places that we’ve been so far in South East Asia, it was such a pleasant surprise how big the site is and how much there is to see and at the time of our visit it wasn’t at all busy so we had large sections of it all to ourselves. Too soon though the heat, which had long since exhausted the 3 litres of water we had brought with us, had got the better of us and we had to retreat to take a break from it and get some lunch, with a good 40% of the site still unexplored.

After lunch we headed up to the museum of antiques which featured many of the more valuable treasures from the citadel, particularly from the Nguyen dynasty, which fortuitously had been placed in Hanoi for safe keeping for the duration of both the first and second Indochina wars. The museum wasn’t huge, and unfortunately doesn’t allow photographs to be taken, but as it was included in the price of the entry to the citadel it was worth seeing, if for no other reason than to enjoy the air-conditioned room full of ancient Cham statues which were very interesting and we were sure to study in great detail. By late afternoon and after a lot of walking we’d had our fill and steadily made our way back across the river, taking a moment to enjoy the fantastic view westwards towards the mountains.

The following morning we hired a bike from the hotel and set off to visit a couple of Tombs of former emperors, the entrance fees to which were included in the ticket we’d bought for the citadel the previous day. Our route out of Hue involved navigating an enormous, chaotic and uncontrolled roundabout that intersected 6 different roads. With no lanes, no priority system and traffic coming from every direction, it was probably the single most intense driving experience of my life. Somehow, we survived, and soon enough we were following a nice deserted country road winding through the low hills up to the tomb of Emperor Khai Din of the Nguyen Dynasty. Khai Din was the 12^th and penultimate emperor of Vietnam, reigning between 1916 and 1925. Due to his willingness to collaborate with the French colonial administration, he was a deeply unpopular emperor amongst the Vietnamese people. It was Khai Dinh who decreed the end of the usage of the Chinese writing system in Vietnam, instead adopting a Latin script system developed by the French in 1919. He also approved a tax hike on Peasants ordered by the French in 1923, partially because it allowed for him the funds needed to build the opulent tomb which we were now visiting.

So, all round, not a great guy for Vietnam, but at least he had the foresight to contribute a small attraction to Vietnam’s booming tourism industry. The tomb is built on to the side of a steep hill about 10 miles south West of Hue and about half a mile inland from the banks of the Perfume river. From the base the tomb is obscured by a steep set of steps (goody) leading up to a small hexagonal pagoda flanked by statues of mandarins and elephants and a pair of sizeable obelisks (insert overcompensating joke here). Past this level is a set of 3 smaller tiers with engraved balustrades and trees in large stone planters, with the final large tier at the top being devoted solely to the mausoleum. With the exception of mausoleum itself, the whole complex is built in grey and black stone, much of which appears to have a volcanic quality. There is a huge attention to detail here, nearly every surface has engravings of traditional scenes, religious iconography and symbolism and, rather ironically, Chinese lettering.

The mausoleum however is made of white marble and is in a style a little more like a western stately home, grand and orderly, with large windows and neo-classical-like columns recessed into the walls, but with Chinese inscriptions engraved into them as well as carvings of dragons above the awnings. Inside the decor is most impressive, every surface is painstakingly tiled with ceramics depicting dragons, scenes of traditional Vietnamese life and brightly coloured floral patterns. The ceiling is painted like a cloud filled sky with dragons dancing between them and at the centre of the room is the tomb itself, atop of which sits a golden statue of Khai Din upon his throne.

Say what you want about kowtowing to colonial powers and selling out your own people, it’ll get you a pretty damn sweet grave.

We jumped back on the bike and headed over the river to Minh Mang Tomb (yes, that is fun to say aloud, try it). Minh Mang was the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, reigning from 1820 until 1841 and contrary to Khai Din was renowned for his opposition to French colonialism, as well as his devout Confucianism.

Like Khai Dins Tomb, there is a long approach filled with statues, gardens and pagodas, however instead of being on the side of a hill, Minh Mang Tomb is constructed on the flat dissecting a large artificial lake. Smaller shrines and temples built on mounds line the lake, hidden amongst the trees around the outskirts. The construction style of the approach, with the faded yellow walls, the terracotta roofs and the pastel colours of the detailing on the décor, is much akin to the construction style in Hue Citadel. Between several of the pagodas and pathways leading from the entrance gate to the tomb are small ponds filled with coy carp who follow you along the pathways hopping to be fed. At the end of the approach a thin bridge across the join between the two halves of the artificial lake leads up to the tomb. Atop a flight of steps sits an understated lead-grey wall behind which is the tomb itself; buried in an overgrown artificial hill which somewhat resembles a Saxon burial mound. The simplicity of the tomb is in striking contrast to the ornate beauty of the rest of the complex and in particular the opulence of Khai Dinh’s.

Our adventures for the day concluded we set off back to Hue, this time taking a slightly longer and much more pleasant route following the river and avoiding Dante’s Roundabout. That evening, having reached the point where we were getting a little bored of rice and noodle’s for every meal, we walked down to the trendy downtown area of Hue to a Mexican Vietnamese fusion restaurant (yes, it does work, very well in fact) before going for a stroll along the river to cap off what had been a very enjoyable couple of days.

The following morning we had a fairly early start as we had booked a place on the tourist bus to Da Nang via the Hai Van pass. The Hai Van pass, (sometimes referred to in local marketing as the ‘Top Gear Road’ as it was featured in the Top Gear Vietnam Special about 10 years ago) is the old road over the mountain heading southwards and was at one time the main route between north and south. In the early 2000’s a new tunnel was built connecting Hue to Da Nang meaning that today the road sees little traffic other than tourists who come to enjoy the fantastic views of the coast from the top. After half an hour of waiting around in the lobby for the bus o turn up word reached us that the bus had broken down, so instead the hotel had organised a private car to take us over the pass.

I suppose that is an adequate alternative.

Soon enough we were on our way in the back of a spacious, air conditioned chaufer driven saloon and cruising along towards the mountains. We stopped about 45 minutes later just north of the pass by Lap An Lagoon, a large, crystal blue tidal lagoon used extensively for oyster farming. At least, that’s what we inferred from the presence of numerous stilted huts out on the water and the pearl slinging vendors who swamped us as soon as we got out of the car asking us where we were from (this was definitely not the time to be polite). We took a few minutes to walk up to the waters edge for a little wade and to take some pictures. We expected the water to be warm but it was almost like a hot spring, it must have been at least 30C, and the sand was brimming with thousands of tiny hermit crabs. All along the small road next to the lagoon are large construction works. I suspect if we came back in 5 years this whole area will be Vietnam’s next big tourist resort, and it’s easy to see why.

On the way back to the car Katy’s flip flop, which had been hanging on by a thread for a little while now, finally gave up the ghost, which served as a slight blessing as it helped us to break the ice a little with our Driver who we were worried was not going to take too well to us dragging soggy sand in to his nice clean car. Fortunately, Katy had here sandals with her, so it proved only a mild inconvenience rather than a major problem and we were soon under way again. From the Lagoon we quickly started climbing the mountain up along the pass, stopping at a few choice locations to admire the view and take some pictures before arriving at the highest point where there are the remains of an American outpost, one of the most northerly positions held by the South Vietnamese and the Americans during the war. Today, the ruins offer a great vantage point north back towards Hue and Lap An Lagoon as well as south towards Da Nang bay.

On our decent from the bunker it was my turn to break a flip flop (maybe it felt a sense of comradery with Katy’s) and so I was forced to hobble back across the baking hot road surface to the car, much to the amusement for our driver. We set again for Da Nang arriving early afternoon at the amusingly named ‘Go Home hostel’. But we can tell you more about Da Nang in the next blog.