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.

Making the most of it

Bangkok’s Thonburi station is certainly no Paddington, in fact it’s barely a Dorchester South. A sheltered platform runs around 50m alongside the tracks, with some benches dotted about the place which were definitely not made for our Western sized bottoms. There’s a yellow line and signs warning you not to go past it but the rather cavalier attitude to health and safety is both refreshing and unnerving. There seems to be an ongoing mentality across Thailand that if you’re stupid enough to do something that puts your life at risk, then you probably deserve to have something bad happen to you. The Darwin award would do exceptionally well here. In fact, the train before ours was situated on the next set of tracks over, with the only way to access it being to cross said yellow line and walking over the tracks themselves – brilliant. The trains themselves are wonderfully old fashioned, with the engine carriage being added separately just before departure. They’re a step up from steam trains, but if Poirot had suddenly sauntered across the platform, he certainly wouldn’t have been too out of place. Our destination on this wonderful anachronism was Kanchanaburi, a town around 90 miles West of Bangkok and home to THE Bridge over the river Kwai. We took our seats on two blue padded benches (again definitely not designed for Western bottoms, nor Western height) under the cooling breeze of several fans. There is only one class for the Kanchanaburi train and rather than air conditioning, it has huge open windows which can be pulled closed in the event of rain. Our train set off around 2pm and before we knew it we were rushing through luscious green fields, banana farms and small towns. At times it was rather reminiscent of home with the flat green landscapes in the rain, though the train ran on time and we both got a seat so perhaps upon further consideration it wasn’t like trains at home at all. Around 2 hours into our journey, the heavens opened and along with our fellow passengers, we hurried to close the windows. In our carriage were two other Western couples but the majority were Thai, wholly uninterested in the landscape and often bemused by two huge Westerners pointing out things that must be everyday features for them. I like trains. Arriving in a grey haze to Kanchanaburi around 5:30pm, we trudged through the drizzle to our new temporary home: The Nine Guesthouse, a medium sized hotel with various rooms surrounding a garden area in the centre, also home to a lovely white Cockatoo and several very skinny and very skittish cats. We were pleasantly surprised to find an enormous bed with a comfortable mattress, sufficient pillows AND a TV with Fox Sports, meaning we were all set to watch the Formula 1 over the course of the weekend, without having to attend one of the English/Aussie bars around town. Not that there isn’t a time and a place for getting rekt and watching TV surrounded by other Farangs, but we’re not here to eat a Sunday Roast or “get drunk for 10 Baht” (about 25p), as one bar proudly advertised; at least not yet anyway.

Our first stop the following morning was the Kanchanaburi Death Railway Museum and Research Centre to learn a bit more about the history of the place, and to set us up for a trip down to The Bridge a bit later on. The Museum, set over two floors, sits alongside the POW Cemetery and offers visitors a comprehensive, and sometimes rather harrowing, explanation of the Death Railway and the POWs held there during World War Two. Founded by an Aussie chap named Rod Beattie, who curated the majority of the museum’s pieces, exploring much of the abandoned railway himself as well as contacting the families of the POWs. It’s really incredible how much effort has been put into this place, with many original uniforms and medals on display, as well as various items recovered from the POW camps themselves. The majority of the POWs who died during the construction of the Death Railway were British, and throughout the museum people have placed poppies and crosses, commemorating the sacrifice of family members. It’s incredibly moving. As we reached the end of the exhibits, the heavens opened once more and so we sat on the second floor and enjoyed our complementary cup of tea and let everything sink in.

Soon after the rain stopped, we stepped back out into the heat. We both commented on how awful it must have been to have been forced to do heavy labour in this weather. We can barely walk down the street without breaking into a sweat. Having seen on the map that it was about 3k to The Bridge, we decided to make use of the hotel’s offering of free bikes and cycle instead of walk. We soon discovered why the bikes were free however, as mine had a decidedly flat tyre and neither of them had any gears, making what was supposed to be a breezy trundle down to The Bridge, a rather more arduous affair – nevermind. We arrived to a throng of tourists taking pictures and a small amount of street vendors and market stalls, set up to cater for the aforementioned tourists. Often when you read the reviews of historically significant places, people seem to be outraged at the fact that the locals are attempting to capitalise on the presence of large numbers of tourists, and perhaps unsurprisingly, these also tend to be the types of people that complain when there isn’t a coffee shop at The Killing Fields – you can’t please everyone I suppose. So off we went, to cross The Bridge over The River Kwai. Interestingly enough, it’s not actually the River Kwai, its proper name is the Khwae Yai but in true Western fashion, we’ve managed to bastardise the pronunciation. Maybe if we said it louder and slower… As you set out further onto the bridge, the tourists thin out and we were joined by a lovely dog, who happily trotted alongside us for a while. Reaching the other end of the bridge, the train tracks descend into thick jungle and there is a sign informing you that the bridge is the River Kwai bridge – thanks sign! There is also now a bar where the old POW camp used to be, down by the river. We were trying to decide whether it was offensive or incredibly fitting that you can sit and have a beer where so many young men lost their lives. We decided in the end that it was probably a suitable tribute as we could imagine nothing better on a hot sweaty day than a nice cold beer, especially as so many Aussies were there as well. All in all they’ve done a good job of making the place as accessible to tourists as possible, without selling out the soul and significance of The Bridge and Kanchanaburi as a town. The bridge itself is the original, apart from a small middle section which was replaced after it was bombed during the war, you can even see some of the original bomb damage on the concrete pillars. As we headed back towards town, there was a small amount of commotion behind us. We turned to see a train heading over the bridge – eek! Luckily along the bridge are small metal outcrops, designed precisely for this purpose, and once we realised we weren’t about to be flattened, it was really quite exciting to see a train going over THE Bridge over the River Kwai. Trains are one of those things which, alongside dinosaurs, are cool all the time, forever, no matter how old you are or where you are in the world.

Upon returning to the hotel, we decided that the following day we needed to do something a bit lighter and decided upon a visit to Erawan National Park, about 65km up the road from Kanchanburi. As well as the opportunity to spot some more wildlife, Erawan park is home to 7 tiers of waterfalls, offering visitors a chance to swim in its crystal-clear waters, and also enjoy a free foot nibbling from the resident fish. Rather than restrict ourselves to the sweltering confines of public transport, there is of course only one way to see Thailand as it is meant to be seen, and that is of course, by scooter. Our hotel offered 24h rental for 200 Baht (£5) so it was a no brainer really, especially as entry into the park for both of us was going to cost 600 Baht (£15). So the following morning we got up bright and early, and headed off for Erawan National Park, eager to beat the crowds. Whilst I can certainly see the appeal of mopeds/scooters/motorbikes/whatever you want to call them, I wasn’t quite prepared for the fact that after around 15km, you start to get an enormously numb bottom. It’s difficult to shift your weight without upsetting the balance of the bike so you are forced to sit quite still, leading to a somewhat unpleasant journey for both myself and Dave. We stopped about halfway for a brief respite but quickly got underway again when we realised how hot it was once you haven’t got a lovely cool breeze washing over you. Arriving at the park at around 10:30, we decided to stop for a bite to eat before tackling the climb up to the falls. I pause here to mention that Dave has, rather usefully, been teaching himself a bit of Thai in an effort to gain favour from the locals. As I spoke more Spanish when we were in South America, he has taken it upon himself to be our voice for Asia, which is absolutely fine by me. Thai is a tonal language, meaning that you can say exactly the same words but with two different tones and they can mean entirely different things. Having said that, the only thing Dave has managed to do so far is make middle aged Thai women completely besotted with him, once they discover that he can speak more than the rudimentary “please”, “thank you” and “hello”. As we stopped for lunch just outside the park, he once again proceeded to chat up the woman serving us lunch and all was going very well until he produced a 1000 Baht note to pay for our ~150 Baht lunch. It wasn’t our fault, the machines rarely give out anything below 1000 when you’re taking out large quantities, but her face was a picture when he produced it. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and Dave’s innate charm (*eye roll*), she eventually decided it was ok and ran off to find change from somewhere.

Climbing to the 7^th tier of the waterfalls takes around an hour, but it’s all uphill, through the jungle, in the heat, so we decided upon reaching the 5^th tier that that was good enough for us. The waterfalls are truly impressive and though we’d seen pictures, the clear blue waters were even more inviting as we reached them sweaty and tired from the climb. As soon as we entered the water, swarms of fish nibbled at our toes and legs. It’s a really bizarre sensation as some of them are quite big and they will not get the hint when you try and brush them off. They seem to enjoy toes the most which, if you are ticklish like I am, is intolerable after more than a few seconds. Still though, we sat and enjoyed the serene surroundings and the cool clear water for a good few hours. A well-deserved break from the heat and the chaos of Bangkok. Originally our plan was then to head to Hellfire Pass but funnily enough, the beautiful cool jungle paradise won over the 1.5 hour numb bum drive further up the road. As the pools became busier and the afternoon ticked by, we decided it was about time to head back to the hotel and were slightly perplexed by the “please don’t feed the monkeys” signs dotted about the place. We hadn’t seen any monkeys so either it’s all a bit of a joke, or the signs have done their job and the monkeys don’t bother coming anymore because no one feeds them. As much as it would have been great to see them in the wild, hopefully they no longer rely on humans for food and are off doing monkey things somewhere else. Following a necessary ice cream stop, we begrudgingly climbed back onto the scooter and numb-bumingly headed back to Kanchanaburi, rather sad to be leaving the cool waters and beautiful surroundings behind.

Suitably relaxed and refreshed by our trip to the Nature Park, we decided that the following day we’d head off back out on the scooter to Wat Ban Tham, a local temple atop a hill that involves climbing through a large dragon. This was only 12km away so not quite enough time for the scooter’s lack of comfort to set in. We arrived around 10am and set about climbing the 701 steps to the top. Once the initial entertainment of climbing up through a dragon’s mouth, followed by a short spiral staircase up through a cave structure, passed, it became hotter and harder to proceed. We had climbed Machu Picchu mountain some 3 months prior so were quite surprised at how difficult the steps proved to be. It just goes to show how much more difficult it is to do anything in this heat and we quickly depleted the 2 litres of water we had brought with us. Luckily about 2/3 of the way up there’s a lovely open-air temple where you can sit and cool down, enjoying the cool breeze as well as the endless view over the lush green fields. The river widens and winds its way into the distance, punctuated sporadically with hills that burst out of the ground like huge anthills, such is their juxtaposition with the paper flat landscape. We reached the top shortly after but as there was no shelter, we quickly descended again, welcoming the ease at which we descended, counting the steps as we went and offering encouragement to those on the ascent. Reaching the bottom, we couldn’t help feeling a sense of accomplishment at having not only climbed one of Thailand’s hills, but having done so dripping with sweat and almost giving up more than once. We stopped briefly at the POW cemetery on our way back and were once again moved by the sacrifice of these poor lads, the vast majority of whom were younger than both Dave and me. Arriving back at the hotel, we found ourselves to be absolutely exhausted and after a brief foray out for lunch, both collapsed onto the bed and did not much of anything for the rest of the afternoon before enjoying a junk food dinner and a beer with the Monaco GP.

Our time in Kanchanaburi had been a real mixed bag, with harrowing WW2 history, beautiful waterfalls and a big dragon temple on a hill, all of which has been thoroughly enjoyable. As I sit and write this on the terrace of our hotel room, a thunderstorm has rolled in and flashes of lightning flicker across the cloudy grey sky every few minutes, oddly enough, all without any rain. The next stop on our trip is Ayutthaya, the old capital of Siam, but I’ll leave Dave to tell you all about that.