The fearless Swiss girl, Halong Bay & the best Pho ever!

Hi hi all,

As i mentioned before, we wanted out of Mui Ne quick sticks. Some friends of ours, Kristian & Erica, that we met earlier in Northern Thailand, were wanting to do a Halong Bay tour with us. This sounded like a good idea to us too. To those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Vietnam, Halong bay is in the very north, right next to China. Mui Ne is right down south, about 1500kms distant.

We woke up at 6:45 am to get the bus back to Saigon...yes, again... and then we planned to take a flight to make this two and a half day journey by bus take less than one day.

The bus was slow. Damn slow. It seemed to us to be driven by a blind old lady. Apologies to all the blind old ladies reading this. It wasn't though. What was his bloody excuse? The journey took less than 4 hours the first time we took this bus from Saigon, but on the return leg we were stuck on the bus for almost 6. Livia was a little stressed that we mightn't have time for emails and lunch in Saigon before we had to get to the airport. I started to speak really loudly about how slow and hopeless the driver was ( in much more colourful language of course), in the hope that he might hear, get the fear of the crazy tourist, and then start driving at the usual suicidal asian bus speed. This did not work at all. Livia's theory was that he was partly blind, or going blind, as every time a motorbike jumped somewhere in the front of the bus from the right hand side he slowed down. Doesn't he know the natural order of the road? Buses are at the top (especially a tourist bus) and that means that if a pesky motorbike with 6 people on it moves too slowly in front of him he is allowed ... no, obliged to run them over and keep moving without putting any pressure on the breaks. Apparently it was his first day and he wasn't aware of this rule. Or maybe his last and he wanted to enjoy every meter of it.

So we arrived in Saigon two hours later than expected, and went straight to the airport. "Sorry sir, but your flight is delayed 6 hours."

???

"We can give you a free meal voucher."

"But what are we expected to do until then?" Says Livia, who's anger is building again at this special local flavour of incompetence.

"I think maybe you could go get a coffee." Says the MANAGER of Jetstar in Saigon.

What does one say to this? F*%&%$g c*%ts at Jetstar, is what i wanted to say. We fly Jetstar to Sydney in two weeks, so if we are late Mum, you know who to blame.

So, we arrived in Hanoi at 2am and the town was dead. Deader than dead. A friend of mine told me that he prefered the relaxed and easy atmosphere of Hanoi to the frenetic speed of Saigon. Arriving at 2am with nothing open, no one on the streets and having to bash on the super-high-security doors of our hotel to get in was a little unexpected. I thought, 'Have we arrived in the Canberra of Vietnam?' (Sorry Em) It can't be! I trusted my friend who told us this place was cool. Fortunately, it just goes to sleep early. Not as early as I do, but earlier than Saigon.

Halong Bay was beautiful. For me (Tim, in case you can't tell by my writing) I thought it was the best place we had been so far on this trip, possibly on all trips i have made. Really, it was stunning. I wont describe it as i am not so good at that, so just type it into google and select images and you will understand. We spent one night on a junk floating on the water in the middle of a group of beautiful mountains. The four of us; Livia, Me, Kristian & Erica, had our own tour-guide and he was the most lovely guy.
-"And now for the after dinner schedule i will take you to a local Karaoke bar. Very good beer and Karaoke. Does this sound like something you would like?"
Definately not, for all of us, but 10 points for trying. Plus it was already 8:55pm and that meant we only had 35 minutes until Tim's bedtime. It would have been cutting it a little close.

We both felt a little sad to leave, but Hanoi has been a cool city for us to come back to.

I have never travelled with a proper girlfriend before, at least not one that i liked. What i have found on this trip is that i get more concerned for Livia than i would have liked. I try to make sure she is out of traffic and that people don't get too close to her. You know, all the usual crap from home, but with the added bonus of being in a country that is a little more dangerous than the safest country in the world. When you cross the street here (as i am sure Livia mentioned before) you can't wait for people to let you through, you just have to walk. I am familiar with this principle and have used it myself many times in the past. The difference here is that even though i know that no one will give us space, i look for it anyway. I stand on the side longer than i usually do looking. I need more space for Livia to be safe. When i find a space though, i look for Livia and usually find her on the other side of the road already, looking at me with either impatience or incomprehension.

Livia walks, and traffic gets the hell out of her way.

I love the Vietnamese dish Pho (pronouned Far). I loved it in Sydney, and it was a big influence on our decision to visit Vietnam. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it is a big hot broth soup (Livia: bouillon) with onions, green stuff, rice noodles and half cooked beef. The heat of the soup is supposed to cook the beef properly. Simple enough, yet delicious.

I tried to get Livia to eat this earlier on our travels, but we didn't find much that was any good. Each country in SE Asia has a beef noodle soup, but no one does this as well as Vietnam. Our first night in Vietnam we had a fabbo Pho. We walked past a local restaurant, unsure of whether to enter or not, and the old man owner bolted after us with a menu in hand and wearing only underwear, screaming "English menu, english menu!" Who could resist the temptation? We stayed and were justly rewarded.

Our friends Erica and Kristian took us to the best retaurant for Pho here in Hanoi. I am sure everyone has their own favourite restaurant, but this is one of ours. It was called 'Pho' and that was the only thing on the menu....except beer. We loved it so much we decided to go back the next day for lunch. The problem was that the streets here look so different in the day time. One hour of searching was enough for us to give up. Fortunately we found it again tonight, and both of us are happy and satisfied customers. I am writing this blog on a full stomach from there, so if you laughed or enjoyed it at all, we can all thank Pho for the Pho.