Summary of Vietnam

Things in Vietnam:

-          Many people wearing their pyjama’s in the morning when they are working in a restaurant for example.

-          The clothes some of the women wear here, are like pyjama’s.

-          They transport everything on their bikes. From bamboo sticks 4 meter long, to porcelain pots 2 meters high.

-          Many houses are only 5 meters wide and are very high. Standing in the middle of nowhere.

-          Many Vietnamese tourist agents  lie about everything. Especially about the travel time.

-          It’s hard to get local busses as they don’t give you proper information, but always put you on a tour.

-          Booking everything ourselves saved us much money.

-          In every bus, boat etc is a tv. And they love to have it on full volume.

-          Not a day goes by without a minimum of 10 ‘hello’s’ or ‘want to buy something’.

-          They salute you with: ‘hello motorbike’.

-          There are thousands and thousands  of motorbikes in  the streets in Ho Chi Minh.

-          Everyone in Vietnam runs a tourist information/booking office, and has  motorbike and a bicycle hire.

-          Many people wear mouth covers, gloves and socks and socks with flip flops.

-          Train stations are very small and the platform is at the same height as the rails.

-          There is al lot sex tourism here in Vietnam.

Sapa 30th of October till the 4th of November
We had a bad night on the sleeping bus. We took an 1,5 hour, hot walk to the border, had breakfast and
left China and entered Vietnam. There they started to try to rip us off straight away.
Sapa is beautiful: rice fields, mountains. Bookshops and fancy restaurants. Preparing the food takes much
longer. Breakfast is still our own bread (with ‘La vache qui rit)’. Jolanda dyed her hair very blond.

Hanoi 3th of November
Jolanda didn’t feel well these days. We walked along the streets. We have seen ‘the toy-street’, the
tin-street’, the blacksmith street, the lantern street etc.

Cat Ba Island 4th till the 7th of November
A lot of scam tours to get to the Island. All people payed different amounts of money and were promised
different things. We met many tourists here (Team America) had dinner with them, rented a bike, went to
the national park, rented a boat, went kayaking and had a great lunch. With Denise and Thomas we
hopped on the worst bus journey ever to Hue. Loud music and bad roads.

Hue 9th till the 11th of November
Jolanda is feeling better, Myles isn’t feeling so well. Again we met Ronan and had a bear with him and a
Spanish guy and got home after 12. The other day when Myles was in bed, Jolanda went to Khai Dinh
Thomb and Thien Mu Pagoda and the park where again there was someone wanting to improve his English.

Hoi An & Danang 11th till the 14th of November
We had a great train journey through the green area and along the beaches and bays. When we couldn’t
find a nice hotel and a nice atmosphere in Danang, we jumped at the back of an Easyrider, to see the
beach, climb marble mountain and eventually end up in Hoi An where we met Thomas and Denise in the
tailor shop. We went to the beach twice and got rain... But we also enjoyed watching the fishermen in their
boats treading the waves. The next day, when we went to Danang beach and we found out we had to get
the train to Hoi An today.

Nha Trang 15th of November
The train was a real hard sleeper. Again, the journey was not as smooth as in the previous countries. We didn’t like it here because of the rain (up to our knees)and all the Russians. The beach also wasn’t as beautiful as they said it would be. Here we met Ronan for the 3th time.

Mui Ne 16th till the 19th of November
The bus to Mui Ne had bad suspension, but no loud music! We spoiled ourselves every morning with muesli, yoghurt and mango. It was very hot every day. We rented a bike to go to the white and red sand dunes and to a beautiful isolated beach where our lonely planet, money and camera’s got stolen. There are a lot of mozzies here. We had dinner at the Pin Cafe every day. The prawn springrolls were only 30.000 and delicious! After getting the police report, we could make our way to Ho Chi Minh on the bus

Ho Chi Minh/Saigon 20th of November
Got there late, stayed in a guesthouse on the third floor with a balcony, hot water and two fans. We went out for dinner, booked a tour to the Mekong Delta and bought a new camera. There are many prostitutes here. But not as many as there are motorbikes.

Mekong Delta 21th till the 22nd of November
Pick up was to early and bus journey took twice as long as promised.
In My Tho we got on a boat on the Mekong to a coconut farm in Ben Tre, had lunch and had a nice chat to some of the tourists. We didn’t cross the ‘spectacular’ monkey bridge, but we did the ‘fantastic’ bike ride. We got on a small wooden boat tasted snake wine, peanut cookies, honey tea, dryed bananas and some fruit. At the end of the tour, we decided to go to Ving Longh, stopped a packed minibus to Can Tho. We met the French guy again and Jolanda had a beer with a Vietnamese guy.

Phu Quoc 23th till the 25th of November
After a 3,5 hour bus trip and 2,5 hour ferry trip, we got to Phu Quoc where is was very hot and sweaty and where there were many mosquitoes or other insects biting me. We rented a motorbike to drive to the beautiful and dirty desolated beaches and some fishing villages. The roads here in a very bad condition. Every evening we were enjoying the rain in our hammocks. We also went for a couple of runs, went to the beach and had great seafood lunch

Ho Chi Minh 26th till the 27th of November
After a 2,5 hour boat trip and a 7 hours bus journey we got back to Ho Chi Minh where we met up with Denise and Thomas.