It's been too long since my last post...lot's happening in my life, some of which is not really suitable to publish!! I will update the travel blog and finish off Cambodia and do Laos!

Come back soon - more to follow in about a week!

If you have been reading up on my trip through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, please call back in a week or so. Sebastian has been staying with me and those of you who know me will know that I am devoting my time to him while he is with me! Thanks!

The Bus Ride to Kep

It was time to leave Phnom Penh for a few days. We had been pleasantly surprised by Phnom Penh especially after some of things we had read and heard from other people.It is amazing that a city that suffered so much under terrible conditions for so long could be so vibrant.

We had, as most people do, booked the bus for our next destination at one of the many local tourist travel agencies. We were off to Kep on the coast for a few days. There was only one bus company running on that route and the picture of a shiny new looking bus of the Phnom Penh Sorya Transport Co. on the agency wall was re-assuring. Given that our last experience on a bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh was more than reasonable, we were quietly confident that all would be well on bus ride number 2...hahahaha. The $11 (I think it was that - I lost the ropey bits of paper) round trip cost of the ticket for the nearly 300km journey was more than reasonable and even included pick up from the hotel in a minibus! 

All started well but then doubts emerged as we looked at the ropey pieces of paper that were our tickets. We were dropped off (more like 'dumped') at the chaotic bus station and someone vaguely pointed to the equally chaotic ticket office. We had been told to exchange our ropey looking tickets at the ticket office and to confirm our ride back to PP from Kep. 

Not much talking was done but the ropey bits of paper were exchanged for equally looking ropey bits of paper which were carefully stashed in my money belt. We then pushed our way through the throng of people towards bus 72. It was nowhere near as shiny as the bus in the picture at the travel agency! The sight of someone we found out later was the driver, scrambling around in a compartment loaded with batteries and muttering, was not reassuring. We found out a few minutes later he was in the nerve centre of the less than sophisticated air-conditioning system for the bus. It was a very hot and humid afternoon, the thought of no A/C for the 5 hour journey started to get very unpleasant indeed. I put the bags in an very dusty and well used luggage compartment and hoped that the bags would not fall out through the floor or get soaking wet if we went through a lot of puddles!

We clambered on the bus and sat in our allocated seats which were right above the front wheels which only added to the sense of cramped space for me with my long legs! The bus had obviously seen a bit of action and the signage in Korean around the bus was a pretty obvious clue as to where the bus started off it's illustrious career. It is hard to imagine that it would be economical to ship clapped out buses from Korea to Cambodia for a second life!

We set off about 15 minutes after the scheduled time only to drive for 10 seconds to park across the road! The driver and some of the passengers got off - it was all a bit confusing. We stayed in our seats and began to wonder if we should have forked out $50 for a private car to take us to Kep instead. A few minutes later the bus driver and most of the passengers who got off re-appeared. The driver struggled to get the bus into reverse gear (he had parked to close to a car in front of us) but he finally managed and just as we were finally getting ready to go fro a real, there was a knocking on the door. A tall and very hot back-packer guy (read: very sweaty - he was only "reasonable" looking) wanted to get back on. The driver had told him the wrong time to get back on the bus. We were to later nick-name the young tall back-packer "head-boy" because we imagined he had been one at school, he had that way about him!

We weaved our way out of Phnom Penh amongst the myriad of motorcycles and tuk-tuks. Our driver was a "Knight of the Road" and proceeded to blast his very loud and completely serviceable horn at every opportunity, especially after he had sneaked up on some unsuspecting motorcyclist! The road condition deteriorated badly and quickly even before we had left Phonom Penh and this set the scene for the next 5 hours. Never will I complain about roadworks on British motorways. The Cambodians were trying to upgrade the road while drivers in vehicles of all shapes and sizes ploughed their way right through the roadworks. At times, it looked like the road had disappeared but our driver who obviously drove this route every day, knew every pothole and bump in the nearly non-existent road! 

We tried to watch the world go by, but it was hot, bumpy and almost impossible to read a book. The A/C was just blowing the hot air about, but I guess it was better than nothing. After the first hour, we were more than beginning to see the funny side. The bus we were on was doing it's job, getting us ever closer to Kep and had not yet broken down. The driver seemed to be at one with his bus and he coaxed it along very successfully. The views out of the surprisingly clean windows was an absolute delight. Hundreds of cyclists were scared senseless by our horn hooting driver and some of them ended up in the ditch by the side of the road. Size really does matter in Cambodia and the bus driver knew it only too well! There were though occasions when even he yielded to even bigger and even dodgier looking lorries. There was a momentary lack of concentration by the driver and we narrowly escaped running into the back of pick-up truck that was parked in the middle of the road - the smell of burning rubber and overheated brakes stayed with us for quite a few miles. The driver of course had seen it all before and laughed off this minor incident!

After about 2 hours we stopped for a break in a dusty town. The place was much cleaner than the one we had experienced a few days earlier on the Vietnam/Cambodian border but I was not tempted by any of the food on offer, having a can of Sprite instead!

After about 20 minutes we got back on the bus and the driver and his assistant drove on without seemingly checking to see if everyone was on board! We headed off down an ever improving road towards some gloomy looking storm clouds - would our bags be safe in the compartment beneath us!? The rain started and it cannot have pleased the driver as the windscreen wipers on the bus had not been replaced in ages - using them actually made his visibility worse. He continued, undeterred by this only slightly irritating inconvenience. At least the rain helped cool things down inside the bus!

About 30km from Kep, there was much passenger/bus driver interaction as passengers negotiated their preferred dropping off points. One man agreed his drop off point and then got distracted at the rear of the bus by some young ladies. He missed his stop by about 10 minutes before he realised that he had. The bus stopped next to acres and acres of rice paddies. What looked like pretty relaxed discussions between the driver, the passenger and other 'helpful' passengers ensued. In the time that they took to decide how to resolve this situation, the driver could have turned the bus around, dropped of the guy and continued on our way. But no, the negotiations (it looked negotiating) continued to the point that "Head-boy" could not stand and this tall 24'ish guy started being all head-boyish about the situation. He was of course ignored and went back to his seat with a shrug or two of his broad shoulders. By this point in the journey, we were not upset at all and we wished the man well when a tuk-tuk the drivers assistant had managed to track down appeared. We all waved at him when we finally set off again for Kep. 

The rain had stopped as we approached Kep although the clouds still looked dark and menacing but as it was early evening, that was hardly surprising I suppose! We were met at the bus stop by a number of tuk tuk drivers. We failed to use our now preferred method of picking the best looking driver and ended up with a fairly pushy (and not that good-looking) guy. We had spent 5 hours on the bus and all we wanted was to get to the hotel. We negotiated the fare and set off in a clapped out tukt tuk. Other passengers who got into their tuk tuks after us went flying past us and waved at us happy in knowing we had picked the lemon. Even when the bus passed us on it's way to Kampot the driver blasted his horn and most of the passengers waved and laughed as we crawled up the hill in out 150cc tuk tuk! We left the main road and headed along a dirt road. The rain of early had turned the road into a slippery mess of mud and it was not surprising when the driver indicated he could not take us and our bags to the top of the hill to our hotel. So we got out and watched as our bags were driven up the hill - the driver never came back to collect us and we clambered the last 200 yards up the hill to the hotel. At last we had made it although the driver did not offer us any discount for having to walk the last bit of the ride! He then had the balls to ask if we wanted him to drive us around the next day! We spent the next 3 days trying to avoid him but not always successfully - Kep was not a big place!

Killing Fields Memorial - Phnom Penh

Out of a list of the top 10 things to do in Phnom Penh (as listed in the local city guide), we did 9. The one thing we did not do was to visit the Killing Fields memorial site outside of Phnom Penh. This the site that every single tuk tuk driver asks if you want to visit - all the time, every minute of daylight hours. Their constant touting of this was actually the most disappointing aspect of what was a nice place to visit. This constant asking worried me. Worried me in the sense that such a sacred place would be pushed so hard as a tourist destination. Imagine my horror when I learned that several years ago the site was 'sold' to a Japanese company who now run the place as a tourist attraction and presumably at a profit. Can you imagine the outrage if Auschwitz was run as a commercially operated tourist attraction??! I can understand that the Cambodian government might not be able to maintain the place properly but running the site on a commercial basis is quite upsetting apparently for many Cambodian people. I am glad I did not visit the Killing Fields site and feel that my quite contemplation at S-21 in Phnom Penh was a more appropriate response to an evil period in Cambodia's long and mostly proud history.

Lost for Words

The second day in Phnom Penh started off trying to find a tuk tuk driver for the day. After some interesting bargaining we agreed a route with the driver but refused his offer to go to the Killing Fields site outside of Phnom Penh (more on that later).
The first stop on the tour was a visit to a local market. Cambodia is a poor country but the market seemed well stocked with fresh meat, fish and vegetables. What I don't know though is how many people could afford to shop there despite the bargain prices. Some of the products were brought to market on the back of small motorcycles and mirrored what we had seen in Vietnam!
The latter part of the morning was spent touring the notorious and gruesome S-21 camp - also known as Tuol Sleng. This was a former high school that was adapted by the Pol Pot regime in the 1970's into a detention/torture centre. It was the most sombre place I would visit on the whole tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Over 17,000 men, women and children passed through Tuol Sleng and it is believed less than 10 actually survived. The Pol Pot regime forced confessions out of the poor souls who entered the camp via methods too gruesome to describe here. The site is now a museum and a reminder to all of the horrors of an oppressive and ideologically corrupt system. The torture rooms and tiny cells with shackles were horrific, however, the display of pictures of the occupants (yes, oppressive regimes like to keep records and pictures of their inhuman acts) were the most haunting. Seeing the eyes of some children as young as 5 years old filled with fear and uncertainty was a chilling experience. To imagine that adults would torture and ultimately murder these young souls all because they were the children of some of the camp inmates just defies all comprehension. Tuol Sleng certainly shook me up but I felt compelled to see for myself just how horrific the Pol Pot regime was as it affected all Cambodians in some way and continues to have a profound impact. 1.7 million Cambodians were killed under their own government's regime in the less than 5 years that the Khmer Rouge held total power.
Lunch was a quiet affair and it seemed unreal to be enjoying the surroundings a beautiful cafe garden just 30 yards from buildings that housed unspeakable horrors.
The mood was lightened in the afternoon with a visit to the Central Market (Psar Thmei), housed in one of the grandest market buildings I have ever seen. Again, the market was very well stocked and as busy as the first one. The lady cooking up spiders and scorpions in an oil filled wok refused to let me take a picture of her culinary delights!
The final stop of the day was a visit to the temple that gives Phnom Penh it's name - Wat Phnom. It is an important site for Cambodians and occupies just about the only hill (more of large mound actually) in the city. It is a park with a temple on the top of the hill and it was a relaxing place to be. The short climb to the top (and the ubiquitous foreigners pay ten times more than the locals to get in) was to a rather ramshackle but working temple. The gaudy altars were stacked with fresh flowers and recently lit incense sticks. As with all the temples in Cambodia, there were plenty of people on hand to try and sell you something. The sellers are very persistent and at first their sales efforts to get you to buy things you really don't want need or want get a bit irritating but you soon learn to block them out.
On the way up to the temple I spotted some monkeys wandering around the park. After the look around the temple we went looking for the monkeys and were greeted with an amazing, but a bit sad, sight - an enormously fat monkey. I mean enormous - with a fat, fat belly. It was eating what it could find and even sought out discarded drink cans to drain them of their last drops of sugary liquid. I had never seen such an obese monkey. Given the general poverty if many, it was unlikely that the monkey's welfare would get much attention. Most of the other monkeys in the park appeared to be in much better shape.
Dinner that night was at the 'Foreign Correspondents Club' which was housed in a nice building but not quite as authentic as it would have you believe. It is part of a chain of bars and cafes in a colonial style and charging prices way beyond the reach of most of the local population. I tried a pizza - my first Western food in nearly three weeks. It was OK but I think I would preferred a local curry and the local prices too.
The end of another busy day in Phnom Penh was spent having a final drink in the friendly bar near the hotel. The staff were sad to hear it was our last night in Phnom Penh but we promised to come and have a final final drink there on our one night in Phnom Penh after our trip to Kep on the south coast.

Day Touring Phnom Penh

The hotel was almost in the back garden of the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh so it was an obvious first thing to go and see! The sun was shining and the blue sky was peppered with fluffy white clouds.
The first view of the main part of the palace was amazing. Yellow is the colour of royalty in Cambodia and it was a striking sight to see in a large building. The palace was actually built by the French in the 19th century and was modelled on the much bigger Royal Palace complex in Bangkok. The materials used in the construction included marble from Italy so the French would seemed to have favoured the Cambodians more than the Vietnamese!
There was a rather bizarre sight amongst the the striking yellow buildings - a European looking structure that looked like it had been plonked right in the middle of the complex. It was in fact a summer house that Napoleon III had built for his wife on the recently opened Suez Canal. She liked it so much that she had it dismantled, shipped half way around the world and rebuilt in Phnom Penh as 'gift' to the King of Cambodia - what a bizarre gift!
It was a lovely palace to see and I was able to take some pretty pictures in the very favorable weather conditions.
It was hot, very hot and the walk along the Tonle Sap river bank after the Royal Palace tour was probably a mistake! Refreshment was required and gladly taken! After booking some bus tickets and a lunch of noodle soup, the next stop was the National Museum which was a neighbour of the Royal Palace. The building and surrounding gardens were beautiful. The artifacts inside looked quite interesting but there was limited information available and the best thing to do was just enjoy them. The building had a central courtyard and the water garden inside was a beautiful oasis in this dusty hot city.
After the days exertions in the heat a welcome swim in the hotel pool was great.

Weed in Phnom Penh

The hotel was great and it was also in a great location for some of Phnom Penh's sites of interest and restaurants & bars. A short stroll past the National Museum took us into a street full of restaurants, bars and ubiquitous tuk tuk drivers. As soon as tuk tuk driver sees a tourist anywhere he will ask them if they want a tuk tuk - every time, all the time. It was really quite irritating at first but we soon learned the best way to deal with it was to avoid any eye contact and just ignore them. Bless them, some of them would try so hard, come up claiming to be your brother, being curious ('where are you from') and even trying a little dance to impress.

As we looked for somewhere to eat on the first night a number of tuk tuk drivers touted for business and we politely declined and then one in a hushed voice said, "Do you want to buy some cannabis?" and showed us a little plastic bag full of green leaves! We left him as soon as we could!!

Dinner was a 'get to know our surroundings' type meal. We had left it until 8pm or so to eat and for many places in Cambodia this is late. some of the items we tried to order were not available and this was to prove the case in quite a few places we ate at in Cambodia. The food we had was tasty and well presented and looked far better than what we had seen at the bus stop place on the border earlier in the day.

As you might expect in a poor country, the street lighting and the lighting in the restaurants was generally low wattage so the streets were quite dark when we walked back towards the hotel. But despite this, we felt relatively safe walking the streets.

Very near the hotel we passed a friendly looking bar and were soon ushered in by a charming young man. We met some interesting people including a crazy Scot called Joe who had spent the last 11 months running a tourist boat service in the south of the country. He was a real hoot!

The bar was putting on a cabaret show but it did not start until 11pm and I was very tired so by 10:30 we said our good-byes and went back to the hotel

Despite the bed being made of concrete (with a real mattress on top of course!), I had a great night's sleep.

Oasis in a Bustling City

The tuk tuk approached the hotel up a little and dubious looking alley. Outside a rather big and solid looking sliding gate a young man with a big smile approached us and took our heavy bags with ease. We passed the gate and into what looked to be the beginnings of nice stay at a lovely hotel.

The hotel was very tastefully if a little bizarrely furnished. the furniture in the room was mostly made of concrete - a concrete bed frame, concrete desk, concrete sofa and even a concrete ledge on the wall with a reinforcing iron bar underneath on which to hang clothes! It was great - very simple but effective.

Right outside the room and for the first time on the trip, there was a pool! It looked great and it was not long until I was swimming in the clear (but slightly warm) water.

The hotel staff were a little shy of a tall white man but there smiles were beaming. this was going to be a nice place to stay (despite an odd smell in the bathroom every now and again!)

The Fields of Cambodia

A few miles out of the frontier crossing town, things started to look up. A rural environment replaced the dusty and dirty scene that first greeted me. It immediately struck me that Cambodia is so much poorer than Vietnam, but I could see from the smiles of the people that they were happier than most of the Vietnamese seemed to have been. The scene of rice fields, water buffalo and tall palm trees across the landscape was very tranquil looking and it was hard to imagine what it must have been like during the deep dark days of the Pol Pot regime just 30 years ago.

For most of the journey towards Phnom Penh, the road was in good condition and not too busy. The bus driver though had to keep his wits about him as the cows that were roaming freely often decided to cross the road right in front of our bus. We got to use to sudden and unexpected braking!

After about 2 hours on the Cambodian roads, the bus pulled up in another 'Wild West' looking town - time to cross the mighty Mekong river! The bus gingerly went down a rather steep and muddy slope onto a waiting ferry that was already laden with overloaded trucks and shiny 4WDs. The journey across took just under 10 minutes and it was nice to see the river we would see a lot more of later in the trip. There were some very poor kids on the bus who started singing in front of my bus window in attempt to get me to give them something. What they didn't realise is that windows on the bus did not open. Hopefully someone else was able to five them something for their supper!

As we approached Phnom Penh, the traffic levels increased dramatically and the quality of the road deteriorated. It was a busy scene on the streets with all sorts of small industries on the go and simple market stalls set out with fruit. There is though a very obvious wealth gap in Cambodia. There was a start contrast between the bright shiny 4WD vehicles with blacked out windows and small trucks carrying 40+ people in a rudimentary truck taxi arrangement. I did sit a little uneasy in my comfy luxury bus seat when I saw the cramped conditions of other travellers.

We arrived in Phnom Penh and it was a busy city with motorcycles and tuk tuks vying for space. The old French way of 'priority coming onto a roundabout' caused the expected chaos of such a bizarre rule and the roundabout was a clogged mess of a wide variety of vehicles.

the bus was met my a throng of tuk tuk drivers and after our less than happy experiences of attempts to 'over-charge' us in Vietnam we expected the worse. Happily the tuk tuk driver that approached us offered us such a reasonable fare to the hotel that we accepted it! Off we went through the mad traffic to the Blue Lime Hotel.

Frontier Town

It was with renewed anticipation that we headed out of Saigon on our 6 hour bus journey to Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

The bus company provided assistants on board who managed all the immigration paperwork and this proved to be a blessing as the whole process seemed a bit chaotic. After clearing Vietnamese immigration we entered a 200 metre stretch of a no-man's land up to the Cambodian border control point which beckoned. All the passports were taken from us and we were shuttled off to a restaurant while all the formalities were seen to by our helpful on-board assistants. The drive to the restaurant was a bit of a shocker... we had heard stories that parts of Cambodia were a bit like the Wild West and the border town seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Dusty streets, ramshackle buildings and some scruffy looking kids. there were even 'saloons' - well, Casinos actually and lots of them. These casinos are operated by Thais and attract Vietnamese gamblers. They all looked a bit dodgy to me and were probably money laundering for all types of unsavoury characters across SE Asia.

The roadside restaurant we stopped at made my heart sink. If the rest of Cambodia was like this, I was going to want to go back to Vietnam! Our fellow Vietnamese and Cambodian travellers jumped at the chance to have lunch while the rest of passengers (hungry) milled around wondering whether to risk the food that was piled up at the kitchen and that was piled up with flies. A rudimentary fly catcher in the kitchen helped me make up my mind to stay hungry for a while - it was a wooden board painted with some sticky substance and it was covered in hundreds of little fly corpses. I made do with a can of Coke and got back on the bus and wanted to get away as soon as possible.

Not exactly a great first impression of Cambodia but thankfully this was to prove to be superseded by many very positive impressions and experiences in the next 2 weeks!

Miss Saigon?

All through the two week trip in Vietnam the anticipation of something has mostly proved to be better than the actual experience. Highlights included the Cuc Phuong National Park in the north, the oldest tomb of the Emperor in Hue and the Memento Country Resort. The downsides have included the 'get as much money out of tourists as you can' approach encountered in many parts of the country. Most of the people are generally pleasant but there are more than a few that are out to tout.

Saigon proved to be much like the rest of the country. I was anticipating somewhere that was cosmopolitan and full of energy. It certainly was more cosmopolitan than Hanoi and there was a bit more energy but it felt more subdued than I was expecting. Perhaps the fact it was Re-unification Day holiday when I was there that led to the subdued atmosphere (the receptionist at the hotel was a little bemused when I asked if there were any parades for the holiday or the May Day holiday the next day). Perhaps the fact it rained quite a bit in the 2 days I was there put a dampener on things. Perhaps it was the fact I got my first tummy bug there that made me have a subdued feeling towards Saigon. Everything about the place was just OK - not great, not bad - just OK.

In hindsight, a week in Vietnam would have been long enough. I appreciate the country has a very turbulent recent history and it is probably little wonder that the people might have seemed a bit remote at times. I wish them well but it will probably be some long time before I go and visit again.

What's that Smell??

Train travel was second nature to us now and we were pretty sure of what to expect on this third and short 9 hour journey from Nha Trang to Saigon. We had not accounted for the fact that there was a 2 day public holiday (backed up to weekend) starting the next day and the train was quite busy. We thought we could not get any worse travelling conditions than the previous 2 trains...Wrong! This was the oldest carriage we had travelled in and it was in a really sorry state after the 20 hours from Hanoi. My request for clean sheets on the bunks was met with a blank look and a shrug by the cabin attendant. Our travelling companion on this leg of the trip was a young man with a number of small bags, including a rather large tied up yellow plastic bag that he put under his berth... we thought we could smell a funny smell then but didn't think too much about it. The young man was not prepared for his trip though as he seemed to have no food with him. Being the seasoned train travellers we had become, we came well stocked with food and he accepted everything we offered him with a smile and a nod of his head. He became curious when he saw me working on a crossword in a puzzle magazine I had brought along. Curious probably because the longest words we saw anywhere in Vietnam seemed to be only five letters long! The crossword puzzle makers would be hard pushed to make a challenging cross word puzzle shape in Vietnamese. I wonder if anyone ever gets a 7 letter word in the local version of Scrabble? Vietnamese, for those curious readers out there, is a tonal language and although the length of words is relatively short, there appears to be a multitude of dots, curly lines, little hats etc...over the vowels that make the About 5 hours into the 9 hour journey, the slight smell we noticed at the beginning of the journey was getting more pervasive and it was obviously coming from the young man's yellow carrier bag under his berth. We then realised he must be taking some of Nha Trang's local speciality', fermented fish(!!), to someone in Saigon - rather them than me I say! Needless to say some deep breaths were inhaled when we got off the train and we waved a thankful goodbye to the young man with the smelly yellow bag

Hey Jimmy!

The owner of the Memento Resort was not present on site during our stay but he obviously had heard about the dinner 'incident' 2 evenings before from one of the staff. We had not complained and assured him we were more than happy with everything. He was pretty adamant that he wanted to make it up to us and he insisted that we take a complimentary ride on the Memento horse and cart through some of the local villages. Thinking this would be too touristy we tried to politely decline but he would have none of it. So the horse was brought in from the neighbouring field and given a good scrub down while we ate breakfast. It was then hooked up to the cart and we climbed aboard and trooted off. Our driver spoke little English but did tell us the horse was called Jimmy! Jimmy proved to be less than willing to get above any speed than a sedate trot. The driver was having none of it a Jimmy was soon 'encouraged' to give it all he could! The cart bounced around and I nearly fell out of the back while Jimmy galloped off down the road. Thankfully Jimmy had other ideas and soon slowed down to a more sedate (and more comfortable) trot. We waved at the locals and their smiles back seemed genuine and the trip seemed less touristy than we thought. Jimmy stopped a couple of times to undertake his morning consitutionals although there was a distinct lack of roses for the fresh steaming piles of Jimmy poo to go on any where. A local free wandering bull provided the next exciting installment of the journey and Jimmy needed little encouragement to gallop off away from him. The journey through the countryside was really fun in the end and the resort owner was more than right to insist that we take the ride. Our stay at Memento was at an end and we reluctantly left in the taxi to take our third and final train ride down to Ho Chi Minh City (better known as Saigon)

A Nice Quiet Day

After the excitement of the mud bath the previous day and the fact that Nha Trang quite frankly was not as an appealing beach town as some would have you think (it is supposedly the most popular beach town in Vietnam), we decided to explore our immediate surroundings. It was hot, very hot, and the longish walk into the village area was undertaken slowly. We were slightly off the usual tourist track so the sight of a tall sweaty Englishman walking through the village certainly raised the curiosity of many, especially the school children riding past on their over sized bicycles. The local eating establishments did not look like they were open for lunch so we bought a couple of baguettes and few triangles of "Laughing Cow' processed cheese to have back at our room. It was the least adventurous meal we had had since starting the trip. After bread and cheese, we finished off our grand meal with the fallen mango we had retrieved from the resort's garden the day before - it was a bit stringy and probably would have been best left for the local fauna to enjoy. During lunch the sky turned black and the heavens opened and it rained for most of the rest of the daylight hours.We had 'warned' the staff that we would be eating dinner that night and we set a time of 7pm. At 6:55pm there was a knock at the door to say our table was ready. We sat down a little after 7pm and ordered within 5 minutes... then waited...and waited...waited a bit longer. Nearly 50 minutes later the food all arrived at once. It was worth waiting for and was easily the best meal we had eaten on the trip yet. A very nice and most relaxing day.

Lost in Translation

After the day's pampering in the mud bath, I had worked up quite an appetite. We arrived back at Memento a little bit late by local standards, just before 8pm. There was little sign of activity in the place and most of the lights were out. We managed to find two members of the staff and we told them that we would like some dinner. There was a confused look on their faces and so I resorted to doing a Basil Fawlty type impressions of someone eating. Suddenly a look of understanding came across their faces and they set off purposely in the opposite direction of the restaurant area and into the dark night. A few minutes later they triumphantly re-appeared out of the gloom with beaming smiles and handed me a couple of toothbrushes!!! They seemed a little displeased when we burst out laughing. Following a further, but more detailed Basil Fawltyesque impression they understood what we wanted. They did not seem to eager to feed us. Nearly everything we wanted was not available - probably thinking we were eating out that night, the staff probably whooped it up and ate everything for themselves. A little later a reasonable dinner of fish with rice and vegetables was served up but curiously there was no beer available....maybe the staff had drunk all that too?

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud

The Memento country resort outside of Nha Trang was so tranquil and although it was not quite surrounded by verdant paddy fields as their website suggested, it was nonetheless a lovely place. The staff were so helpful but between them they only spoke as many English words as I can speak Vietnamese ones...not very many! Pointing and actions were the order of the day. After some amusing attempts, we managed to get a taxi into town. We were off to another "Hot Springs' type resort - one with hot mud baths!

On the way we had the taxi driver stop at a 'bank' to change money. It seems that the higher denomination the note, the better exchange rate you get. I gave the guy two US$50 bills and he seemed happy until he saw that the president on the note had been 'vandalised' with comedy glasses and a rather fetching goatee in blue biro! Suddenly the favourable rate was reduced and when I produced two twenties and a ten to make up for the 'defaced' note, they reverted back to their original ex-rate. It seems that President Grant with comedy moustache would hold his value after all!

The hot springs were right in the middle of a residential neighbourhood but there were lots of people paying to get in so we thought it would be OK. As with previous buying tickets experiences in Vietnam, this was complicated! We ended up opting for 20 minute hot mud bath followed by the use of the hot springs swimming pools and jacuzzi baths.

Changing into swim gear was straightforward and with our green VIP towels (they distinguish who is entitled to what by the colour of their towels), we were led to a large wooden bath that was filled with hot muddy water in no time. The hype once again did not live up to experience. the hot mud apparently is drawn up from a hot spring 100 meters deep and should have been just under 40 degrees Centigrade. It was a bit cooler than that and there were suddenly doubts that the mud with it's cure all skin diseases properties was sat in by other people earlier in the day.... recycled mud?!? Doubts were cast aside and in we got. The wooden bath was quite slippy and I nearly dunked my head under the yellowish muddy water. It was not as hot as I was expecting nor was it as sticky as I was probably hoping. The idea was to dunk yourself in the mud for about 20 minutes,then to lie in the sun for 15-20 minutes to set the mud and then to rinse thoroughly under clean hot mineral water. As the mud did not stick, most of it had slid off me by the time I had reached the sun lounger. What little mud that did stick to me did not have a chance to dry on me as I was sweating so much because the sun was so hot! The most mud I had to wash off was stuck inside my swim suit! It was quite amusing to wash it out in a public shower with as much decorum as I could muster!

After the mud it was time for a hot mineral water hydro massage! This involved walking barefoot in between two stone walls...I mention barefoot because the floor was lined with 'massage' cobbles which really hurt! The hydro massage was intense blasts of hot mineral water coming from many holes, most of them at the wrong height and angle for certain delicate body parts! My hands got a good hydro massage as I used them to shield more my more delicate areas! Next was a 15 minute soak in some very warm mineral water, this was actually much better than the mud and felt great.

After all that excitement the posters surrounding the place were re-assuring me that I would no longer have leprosy or a host of debilitating skin conditions.. I was slightly skeptical and thinking that if the mud bath mud had been re-cycled, I could end up with a host of debilitating skin conditions!

Following a fairly good lunch and an even better large bottle of ice-cold Huda Beer, it was time for a nap in the VIP sun loungers - only green towels allowed. This rule was of course ignored by everyone and as soon as I lay down I had neighbours either side of me curious at the beginnings of my 'backpacker tan' lines. After the nap (well I lay there with eyes closed trying to ignore the stares from my neighbours), I went for a swim in the 'bath water' hot pool - no endurance swimming possible there, it was soooo hot! It took an age to cool off especially as I decided to forgo a second cooling beer to help bring my internal temperature down.

The combination of mud, hot sulphur mineral water bathing and hydro-therapy meant it was time for a refreshing shower and get changed. The less than delightful and unhelpful towel monitors insisted there were no showers, but there were, in the ladies changing area. That was no deterrent and a cool refreshing shower and good lathering of my hair soon had me squeaky clean and smelling heaps better! The ladies changing behind the thin curtains didn't seem to mind me being there.

The whole spa experience cost about six pounds...not too much but I don't think I will be returning any time soon.

Momento of Memento?

Arriving at a country hotel in the middle of the night is always as interesting experience. Greeted by two yapping Chihuahua dogs was not the welcome that was expected and their jumping up and scratching my legs was not particularly welcome - I don't like Chihuahua dogs! A couple of men carried the bags off into the dark and we followed. It seemed there was no lighting of any note! We arrived at the room - no need to register or show our passports - and left to go to bed. It was about 11pm and that is well past the bedtime of most country-folk in Vietnam! the room was in a thatched cottage and had mud walls. There was mosquito netting over the bed...hmmm...better use it if it is there I suppose. There was an air-conditioner though, thank goodness for some modern conveniences. No television, no phone and apart from a desk with a small chair, not a lot else in the room. Off to bed...wondering what the view would be like in the morning.

After a good night's sleep, the sound of birdsong woke me up. Bright sunlight was shining under the door and I went to take a peak outside. We were in a lovely garden with fruit trees and a water wheel right outside the room. It looked wonderful and seemed to confirm a good decision to pick this place rather than a beach hotel in nearby Nha Trang which we had heard less than glowing reports about.

Attentive staff suddenly appeared ushering us towards a breakfast table under a thatched awning and overlooking the gardens. This was a nice place and had such a relaxing feel to it.

After a delightful breakfast, with a cup of the best Vietnamese coffee yet on the trip, we explored the gardens and discovered all sorts of different fruits growing. A mango fell off a tree right beside us and we spirited it off to our room to eat later!

Another train ride

All the sights in and around Hue seen, time to move on further south. This means another train ride but thankfully during the daytime and no need to climb under dubious blankets and sleep on even more dubious sheets! The trip from Hue to Nha Trang was about 9 hours.

The first part of the journey was a spectacular climb up mountains by the sea on the way to Danang -- this 50km section took over 2 hours but the snail-paced speed of the train was more than offset by the magnificent views.

Our fellow passenger was a local business man who seemed to be making the trip all the way from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh but we were not sure because we were unable to communicate verbally. He was a pleasant enough chap but did not seem to understand what the non-smoking signs in the compartment meant!

We ate train food on this leg and it was OK'ish I suppose. I was a little worried about food hygiene but it seemed OK. The ubiquitous cans of beer to wash it down were on hand. So far my use of beer as a prophylactic against a dodgy tummy seemed to be working well.

After Danang we went through mile after mile of very fertile farm land. There was some rice harvesting going on - all of it by hand! We also seemed to pass tens of cemeteries with hundreds if not thousands of graves/tombs - all brightly coloured. There were also tombs in groups of 5-10 in many paddy fields too.

The train arrived in Nha Trang just about on time - another impressive performance by Vietnam Railways. We were met by a pre-arranged taxi and headed off for our hotel in the opposite direction of most of our fellow travellers. They were heading off to the beach hotels while we were heading inland for what we hoped would be a lovely rural retreat...

Incensed in Hue

Ever wondered how incense/joss sticks are made? No? Me neither. I have though now seen them made by hand in Hue. First, get some bamboo sticks and dip them in some bright ink of your choosing and then dry them in the sun. Second get some ground sandalwood, cinnamon and a few other ingredients and mix them up until you get a brown gooey blob. Then, after several years of experience roll out this goo into a very long thin sausage and roll a bamboo stick into it, dry in the sun and there you go, an incense stick! Pack 20 together and then sell 5 packs at time for US$1! How do they make a living doing that?

Hue - an ex-Imperial City

Hue was the seat of the Vietnamese Emperors from the early 19th Century. Although The Vietnamese were 'subjugated' to Chinese rule for a 1,000 years they were allowed the odd Emperor or two. There was a Forbidden Palace, very much like the more famous one in Beijing, China, however, as American Forces in the Vietnam War decided to flatten nearly 90% of it, there is not so much to see now. Curiously for a Communist government, there is now a programme of restoration works going on. frankly, the money would probably be better spent on infrastructure projects! The Emperors seemed obsessed with the size and grandeur of their tombs. Some of them spent ages on the designs and trying to ensure that their graves were not robbed. Emperors in Vietnam were buried with jewels in their mouths amongst other things!

A day was spent was touring the former imperial sites including some of the grand tombs. The last Emperor to have a grand tomb was buried in the mid 1940's and by that time, the craftsmen were using concrete to create them. Subsequently most these tombs now need the most renovation!

It was a hot, hot day but I visited all the sites and endured the 'funny' comments from the guide what apparently spoke "Standard English" - he must have learned it in a non-standard place. He would go on and on about some particular topic and then after 10 minutes would say, "Forget it, move along". Needless to say, there were some giggles during the day.

The first Emperor to have a specially constructed tomb, created the best with really beautiful gardens. i can't imagine the man in the street back in the 1840's would have been so happy that so much was lavished on one dead man's burial!

I will not describe in detail all the tombs and if you are interested in learning more there are plenty of websites that can provide all the background.

Hot Springs - Pouring Rain

Some parts of Vietnam are blessed with hot springs and one such place was not far from Hue. Some negotiations with various hotel staff on the best rate for a driver were concluded satisfactorily and the driver headed off towards Thahn Tan Hot Springs, a 90 minute drive. Thahn Tan Hot Springs advertises itself as a place to cure all manner of ailments and sounded like a grand European Spa to compare with the great spas of Germany and France. Hmmm...one thing you learn while travelling in Vietnam is that anticipation is quite often better than the actual event. The weather looked increasingly bad and the rapidly deteriorating condition of the road (or should I say track?) started to cause a little bit of concern. Then, some 500 metres from the Spa, the road improved dramatically and the sense of anticipation increased accordingly!

The ticket buying process was a bit complicated - it seems, despite the rather ghoulish advertising pictures showing European types enjoying the spa, that not many foreigners frequented the place. Taking the top price ticket (about $6) we were led to the 'VIP' area of the Spa Resort. There was no one around other than staff, we had the place to ourselves it seemed. The pools and equipment looked a little, shall we say, quaint and a bit antiquated but it looked clean and tidy. A gate heralded the 'VIP' section and someone to escort us to the lockers. We decided to look around first before partaking of the health giving waters. In the event, the surrounding countryside was rather beautiful other than severely threatening dark gray clouds looming on the mountain tops. The walk had some surprises and another encounter with the 'as big as your hand spiders' just feet from the footpath. The more pleasant surprises included some deer and wild pigs (secure behind a big fence!)

The hot water that supplies the spa comes from deep underground and emerges at a constant 68 deg C - slightly hotter than domestic hot water in most of our homes. The spa owners had built a series of streams with little dams every 15 metres or so. As the water travels slowly down the man made stream, it cools. The coolest part of the stream was a pleasant 34 deg C and then as you gradually work your past 5 dams you end up in water at about 45 deg C which was plenty hot enough for me. There were other pools where you could swim in 40 deg C water and also have a hot jacuzzi type bath. After several hours of getting in and out of the 'healing waters' my skin did feel softer but I did not feel much else. Just after lunch, the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down and the sky flashed lightning - it was actually quite a refreshing way to cool off after having been poached in the 45 deg C water!

Hue - City of Emperors

After the overnight trip on the train the hotel in Hue was most welcome - especially a long hot shower! The hotel room was nice with a big window, but no view to speak of. The actual view was just 6" from the window.... a brick wall. It seems rooms with view in Vietnam are not so common(?)

It was hotter in Hue than Hanoi and it was quieter too. There were still scooters everywhere but the pace here seemed less frantic. After not very much sleep on the train, it was a quiet day just exploring immediate surroundings around the hotel. There were more people offering 'tourist' help here than Hanoi although there was still some communication difficulties which led to more sign language and pointing when it came to ordering food. The people seemed friendlier than in Hanoi, but there is still a sense of something lacking in the people. They go about their business efficiently and seem happy enough but maybe they too sense the 'Big Brother is watching" feeling too.

Dinner was rather amusing. The hotel helped give instructions for the restaurant and off we went and pleased that the meter was running too. All was going well until we got into the old city and then every turn was further and further from where we should have been going. Frantic hand gestures and concerned voices expressing we should be going right not left went unheeded by the driver. After 5 minutes, we were dropped off at the restaurant that we wanted to go to the next night! Seems the tourists giving instructions were wrong and had indeed asked to be taken to the tomorrow restaurant a day early! Oh no, I was feeling a tad under-dressed in my shorts and t-shirt when I saw the other diners in much more appropriate attire for the grand surroundings. No-one seemed to mind and we went ahead with the 9-course set menu.

All Aboard the Non-sleeper Sleeper

Anticipation can sometimes be way above the reality and I did not dare get my hopes up about the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue (600+km to the south) even though a First Class soft sleeper ticket was in my hand. I was right not to get my hopes up.
Arriving at the station in the first taxi ride of the trip, I was though pleasantly surprised at how organised everything was prior to getting on the train. The government certainly know how to keep people employed in Vietnam as there were at least 3 people checking/punching my ticket before I even got aboard the train. I loaded up with bottles of water for the 11 hour trip not really knowing what to expect on board. The steps up into the carriage were perilously steep and someone I thought was a member of the multitude of staff kindly helped me on with my bag and even checked my ticket for the right berth number. He took all of about 20 seconds to do this and then put out his hand and said, "$5" - not even a please. Some choice words sprang to mind and I sent him packing, well nearly, he held a grudgingly given $1 bill in his 'helpful' fist - probably muttering obscenities under his breath just as I was doing under mine! This little incident did though make me fail to really look at my surroundings...Oh dear...if this was First Class I was only delighted in knowing that it had to be better than the other classes on the train. My fellow travellers in the 4 berth compartment had faces just as long as mine. We stowed bags, sat on the bottom berths and looked at each other - all of us knowing it would be a long night. The air-conditioning could not be controlled in the compartment and it was like a fresh day in the Arctic tundra. We gestured to our 'cabin girl' who was patrolling outside, you guessed it, checking tickets, with the international gesture of trembling and clutching hands to sides of arms, generally shaking and going , "brrrrrr" a lot. Minutes later the cold air blast stopped and then the rest of the night it was unbearably hot in the compartment!
It was not all negative, there were sheets, pillows and blankets..something to be happy about until one of my cabin mates said, "do you think these are clean?" The rest of night was spent dealing with phantom itches and wondering if the crawling feeling on my skin was little critters or the fact that it was so hot in the compartment. If there is something they can do well in Vietnam though, it is running trains on time. at precisely 11:00pm the train slowly pulled out of Hanoi station on it's 2 day journey to Ho Chi Minh City. After about 30minutes of some small talk, my cabin mates started crawling into their bunks. Lights out. Try as I might, I could not get to sleep in my First Class Soft Sleeper bed, the train was really rocking and rolling along the narrow gauge track and the driver just loved using his brakes whenever he had the chance. Finally I drifted off into a fitful sleep and then....... the door of the compartment opened, the lights came on and I felt someone tickling my right foot! It was the 'cabin girl' waking me up to tell me my stop was approaching. I mumbled something not very appropriate, knowing my stop was at least 7 hours away when she realised she had made a mistake, she needed to wake up a guy in the next set of bunks!!! The four of us grumbled and groaned and tried, but failed, to get back to sleep. Oh well, at least we got to watch the sun rise over the spectacular countryside. There were people working in the emerald green paddy fields from before 6:00am. The train trundled it's way towards Hue with the beautiful countryside passing by making up for the disappointing lack of sleep. I later found out that the average speed of the train from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh is 48km/hour (about 30mph!)
We approached Hue station on time - not bad Vietnam Railways!

No room at the Hilton

The site of the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" is now mostly covered by a large Vietnam/Singapore joint venture hotel. Quite how the residents of the hotel can sleep soundly at night after countless horrors on the site over a hundred years of history is beyond me.

Originally the site of a small village, the French soon moved out all the villagers and built the infamous "Maison Locale" there. It was built to house the local population who objected to French colonial rule and used extensively until the French left in the 1950's. The Vietnamese regime that took over wasted little time in using the prison for their own purposes and even used the 2 guillotines in the prison for many years after the French left! The prison gained international notoriety (and the nick-name the "Hanoi Hilton") during the "American War" (as the the Vietnam War is called in Vietnam) when shot down American pilots were held there as POWs.

I don't think the room service was up to the standards of an international Hilton Hotel today!

There is a small corner of the original prison set up as a museum and it was quite interesting to read the history from a Vietnam perspective. Little reference was made about the torture and killing of the Vietnamese by their own people but lots was made (and none of it in a good way) about the French colonists and the American "terrorists" as they were described.

It was very sobering to see a real guillotine that actually beheaded a significant number of people over the years in "Maison Locale". It is obvious that the Vietnamese curators of museums are not squeamish about showing gruesome photographs of detached heads from a execution session in the 1930s! Thankfully the guillotine has not been used in Vietnam since 1960. Readers might be surprised to learn that the guillotine was last used in France in 1977!

Pick and Choose

Normally it is the customer who picks and chooses but in Hanoi there are some places where you can be point-blank refused any service. One particularly surly lady selling fruit in Hanoi made me laugh when she adamantly refused to sell me a couple of apples and a mango – not even an outrageous opening offer. She simply refused to do any business with me. Even the next day her mood was just the same and she refused to even make eye contact. A little way down the street from her little stall was a man (who was probably her brother) that tried to charge US$15 for a mango!! He was not prepared to enter into any negotiation. A few restaurants would not take my pleas for food seriously either and I was brushed off with a wave of the hand at several establishments – perhaps some bad experiences with fussy foreigners. Oh well, there were plenty of other places to buy fruit and eating establishments who were happy to feed me!

A Day in the Park with the Butterflies

No Halong Bay trip – just looked way too touristy despite what some were saying to the contrary. So off the slightly beaten track it was then to Cuc Phuong National Park about 120km South West of Hanoi. Took nearly 3 hours to get there and once off the main Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City road, the countryside became more and more impressive. Along the way were some pretty enormous concrete factories which were eating up entire limestone karst formations as their primary raw material sources – thank goodness there are thousands of such formations in Vietnam (including Halong Bay!).
The guidebook had promised a glut of butterflies in April and May and it was true to it’s word. The butterflies were everywhere in the final run up to the entrance of the park. There were long lines of white and pale yellow butterflies weaving their way about in a courting ritual. I lost count of the number that must have ended up in the front grille of the car!
First stop at the park was the primate rescue centre which was a worthwhile venture to preserve the at risk primate population of Vietnam. Read more about it and the National Park on their websites.
The park was pristine and very well managed. Also, it was thankfully pretty empty of tourists. The park is mostly visited by Vietnamese visitors on holidays and weekends. The hike through the jungle was great if a little frustrating…heard lots of birds calling but did not spot a single one. The fruits of the butterfy courtships were evident everywhere with caterpillars dangling from the trees at the end of long silky threads. The hike was pretty strenuous with hundreds of steps in places most of which seemed to be going up. A can of Red Bull from lunch helped with the steps!
The long ride back to Hanoi was spent dozing in the vain hope it would stop me worrying about the crazy overtaking habits of the local drivers! I was very much taken aback when the driver stopped to get some diesel – taken aback because 48 litres of diesel cost just 48,000 Dong – about 2 pounds!!!! Just how much tax are we paying in the UK and what profits are the oil companies actually making on a litre of fuel??

First Full Day in Hanoi

Hanoi was even busier today as it was a working day. Thousands of motorbikes – I wonder if the drivers have to pass a driving test?? First challenge of the day was learning to cross the road. Green man signs at traffic lights meant very little to the drivers and the zebra type crossings remain a mystery as to why they even paint the white lines on the road?! The trick to crossing the road is to keep moving across unless a car or a truck is approaching you(!) as the motor-cyclists just drive around you and will give you space to move forward. It took a bit of getting used to but there were only a couple of near misses!
It was a visa day – one for Laos this time as I could not get one in London as the Loatians don’t have an embassy there. Visa issuing was done very efficiently and the young Laos man who processed it for me had a nice smile on his face when I handed over the US$40 express fee (that buys a lot of beers in Hanoi!)
Lunch was great! Barbequed meats (done right on the street) dropped into a thin soup and then served with a plateful of noodles and another plate piled high with salad type leaves. The idea is to pile the noodles into the soup, add some leaves and then slurp up with chopsticks – absolutely delicious! It was easy to order as it was the only dish that the place served.
Highlight of the day was the visit to the Water Puppet theatre. Having experienced some tourist type shows in S.E. Asia before, I feared the worst but was pleasantly surprised. It was very well done indeed although I did not have a clue what the story was about!! The puppets were beautifully made and the and the performance was well drilled.
Trip back to the hotel from the Water Puppets was on a ‘cyclo’ which is a type of rickshaw pedalled by human power (not mine!). Some pretty tough negotiations are required on the price and a ruthless streak helps. The opening offer for the trip was 100,000 Dong (about US$6.50) and the final price was less than a US$1 for a 10 minute ride!

The World on Two Wheels

They say first impressions count and my first impression of Hanoi was of two wheeled transportation. Honda mopeds everywhere carrying an assortment of riders and cargoes. Crates and crates of drinks, cages with puppies (yes, for the pot I am afraid!), parents with 2 kids, piles of wood, televisions, and a multitude of Ken Dodd tickle sticks (feather dusters for those of you unfamiliar with the King of Knotty Ash!) just a few examples.
Second impression was of the multitude of roadside eateries and the ‘very close to the ground’ stools that the patrons were sitting on and that I was soon going to experience! As the driver got closer to the hotel the crowds of bikers and pedestrians increased significantly. The hotel was tucked into a quiet corner of the ‘Old Quarter’ and was on a very narrow and quietish street – but even that did not stop a constant stream of tooting mopeds weaving their way down the alley like street.
Third impression was a good one, the hotel staff were simply great. They made a real effort to make me feel welcome. Many smiles too which was nice but as I was soon to find out, not everyone had a smile for me!
The hotel had only been open 5 months so it still felt shiny and new. The room was very narrow (like nearly all the buildings in the old quarter) and there was only about 20 cm from the end of the bed to the wall but there was a shoulder room issue as there was a flat screen TV bolted to the wall – in three days I only stubbed my toes against the wall once! As I am beginning to learn, having an exterior window in a hotel room (even one only 5 months old) is not a certainty in Vietnam. There was the tiniest amount of a view but at least they had put some nice bamboo plants (plastic ones) on the wall outside the window! What was a surprise was the computer in the room with free internet access (UK hotels could learn from this!). The huge bowl of fresh fruit (replenished daily) was a nice touch too.
Dinner that night was a case of looking to see what the locals were eating and then much pointing and animal impressions with the waiter to get an order placed. It seemed to work pretty well except the chicken drumsticks came from very small chickens that had run many marathons (a tad tough to chew!). The local beer helped wash down the chicken and noodles and the US$2 bill was a pleasant surprise. I have got to work out this beer on ice thing though!
Got to sleep OK that night and no sleeping tablet this time!

Manchester - Hong Kong - Hanoi

After the rush of trying to get the house sorted and my bags packed right up until Phil (the driver) appeared, the trip from then on ran pretty much to schedule and with no fuss. The high-light of the journey had to be my first time in Heathrow's Terminal 5 - I was impressed! After all the fuss over the opening and the lost bags, I was actually impressed by the quality and facilities in the place. It is as good as any super airport in the Far East and way better than any US or major European Airport...maybe there is hope yet that London can have great facilities for a super Olympics in 2012!
My BA flight arrived in Hong Kong 20 minutes early and all this arriving early advantage was lost in the line to get through immigration! Oh well, my bags were happily carouselling around the super efficient carousels and I was soon on an Express train into Hong Kong. I stayed at the YWCA (yes, men are allowed to stay there) in a nice clean room but with a very, very hard mattress on the bed! I hope the beds during the long trip are not as hard! As a result my first night's sleep was much interrupted and even after I took a sleeping tablet the following night, sleep was hard to experience.
On Sunday morning, the bags were packed and I was super-efficiently checked on my flight at the Hong Kong Station check-in facility - it's so good to drop off the bags this way, why did they have to close the Paddington check-in facilities? Bloody terrorists I suppose. I have no idea how the bags get to Hong Kong Airport as they don't appear to be loaded onto the passenger trains and you never seem to pass a 'bag' train on the line to the airport!!
Tried out my new Priority Pass card to get into an executive lounge at the airport and was quite happily checking http://www.bbc.co.uk/ for news thinking I had plenty of time before my flight to Hanoi...WRONG! A quick check of my boarding pass and...RUN! The last passenger for flight VN791 to Hanoi naughtily blamed a fictitious queue at security for his late boarding!
Plane was a reasonably new Airbus A321 and reasonably full too! Next to me was a reasonably chatty (to the point of too chatty) Kiwi girl about to start a new job in Hanoi. Tried my best to bury my nose in the in-flight magazine with limited success.
Flight landed smoothly at a rather hazy Hanoi Airport which looked spookily like the airport in Auckland, New Zealand - my Kiwi neighbour did not know what to make of that as she had remarked, what a cute little airport when she saw it. Needless to say, we did not chat too much after that!
Immigration and Customs check were a doddle and I got through very quickly and was met by the driver from the hotel I would be staying at.