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Showing posts from June, 2013

Southward Bound!

We are starting to find our feet in Vietnam. There haven't been anymore scams (that we know of) and we have been treated so nicely by the local people. We have finally stopped accidentally handing over notes worth 100,000 Vietnamese Dong when they actually only asked for 10,000VND. Sometimes, there are just way too many zeros to deal with. We left busy Hanoi after 3 full days of exploring, eating and trying to avoid being run over. Unfortunately our Ha Long bay tour was cancelled due to the typhoon up North. We will just have to come back and do that another time (oh, what a shame).  We overnight train-ed it to Hue, sleeping in a room of four bunk beds. The train took 14 hours to transport us around 400 km (almost as bad as the Myrtleford train from Melbourne). It rocked us to sleep and was really fun, similar to a sleepover but with complete strangers. The man next to me snored like an airplane coming in to land. Subsequently, the ear plugs have been moved to the hand lug...

First day, first scam!

We are now sitting in our REAL hotel, as opposed the scam hotel we spent 2 hours in when we arrived. The lesson has been learnt, we are safe and nothing is lost (except for a small amount of confidence). Apparently we're not as well travelled as we thought. Besides, the scam hotel had lovely air conditioning... The weather is hot, the food is delicious and everything is so cheap! Those 25 cent beers are going down quite nicely. We visited Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum yesterday, along with thousands of Vietnamese. The lines were massive and we waited around in the 38 degree heat and 86% humidity for a good hour to get in. Well worth the wait though, it was amazing to see. Today, we will enjoy a Vietnamese cooking class and then watch the mighty cats game! We are booked on our Ha-Long bay tour, just waiting for the typhoon to pass through the north. Then we're planning to head south to Hoi Anh. Vietnam, here we come! Streets of Hanoi Crickets and rice win...