New clothes
Hoi An is chock full of souvenir shops, restaurants and tailors, crowding against each other in attractivly delapidated colonial buildings.
The competition between tailors is fierce and it has become a well known destination for having tailored clothing made at bargain prices. Katie had a suit, a dress and some blouses made. I got some striped linen trousers, a pair of swim-shorts and three shirts made for $39. Some of this is for the trip and the rest we shipped home.
I also found out that I couldn't mail a CD anywhere in Vietnam except Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi (each 800km away) because those are the only post offices in the country where customs is equipped to check CDs and DVDs (I suppose to ensure you are not sending pirated DVDs), which was a bit frustrating.
In general, being as touristy as it is, the restaurant options are relatively good, but Katie had a string of unlucky restaurant experiences (including one place where there were cockroaches and a rat scurrying around our feet). Many restaurants boast menus full of western dishes that they clearly have never tasted, and their approximations can be disappointing. However, one does not have to accept any imitations for CocaCola, which is present in full force in Vietnam, sporting a pretty design for Chinese New Year.
Another thing we noticed here is that, because so much of the traffic is on motorbike and space is tight, there are very few gas stations in Vietnam. Instead, vendors sell it to motorbikes from little stands by the side of the road that look like they might be selling some kind of juice. They pump it by hand, a few litres at a time.
Knowing how tight our time in southern Thailand and Malaysia will be, we began to think about moving on to Cambodia a little earlier than expected.
After a 10 hour bus ride along the coast (Katie took advantage of the empty back seats to stretch out), we stopped in Nha Trang, which has a beautiful stretch of beach - in fact almost the entire coastline of southern Vietnam is one beautiful beach after another. The landscape reminded me a bit of Brazil. It was humid and the mid-day sun was scorching.
We spent a day on an island tour doing a little snorkeling (visibility was poor and I was disappointed with the coral) and swimming with a merry crew that not only ran the boat and prepared our lunch, but afterwards whipped together a rudimentary rock and roll band and sang us some songs (see Katie's blog for the photos). By the end of the tour, most of the crew were pretty tipsy.
We spent one relaxing day at the beach under a thatch umbrella and then it was on to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
In Nha Trang there was at least a sea-breeze, but in Saigon it's just hot. At 1pm it was 35'C (100'F) in the shade and very humid. We found a place to stay down a series of tiny alleyways and then went in search of a place to exchange some books.
Vietnam has a thriving business in pirated books - usually just photocopies bound together. The same 100 or so titles appear in each town on the backpacker trail. At night vendors walk around the tourist restaurants and cafes with a box or a tall stack of books selling them for about the price of a used book. In South America, one could keep oneself in books by exchanging them at hostels, but this not-for-profit concept is not embraced here in Asia.
Lonely Planet books command a premium, and the good quality reproductions are barely distinguishable from the originals. Since our South East Asia guide is from 2003 and a bit thin on detail in parts, we have picked up cheap copies of the latest editions for Vietnam and Cambodia which are worth it for the town maps alone.
We visited the War Remnants Museum where we got to see the Vietnamese perspective on the Vietnam War. They had some interesting pieces of American artillery and aircraft parked outside, but the photo exhibit inside showing the effects of the napalm and cluster bombings on civilians was tough to get through.
There was also a memorial section for photo journalists (mostly American) that died during the war, showing some of their work (many famous Time covers). It was all a grim reminder that there are no victors in war, but it turned out to just be the warm up for Cambodia.
The competition between tailors is fierce and it has become a well known destination for having tailored clothing made at bargain prices. Katie had a suit, a dress and some blouses made. I got some striped linen trousers, a pair of swim-shorts and three shirts made for $39. Some of this is for the trip and the rest we shipped home.
I also found out that I couldn't mail a CD anywhere in Vietnam except Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi (each 800km away) because those are the only post offices in the country where customs is equipped to check CDs and DVDs (I suppose to ensure you are not sending pirated DVDs), which was a bit frustrating.
In general, being as touristy as it is, the restaurant options are relatively good, but Katie had a string of unlucky restaurant experiences (including one place where there were cockroaches and a rat scurrying around our feet). Many restaurants boast menus full of western dishes that they clearly have never tasted, and their approximations can be disappointing. However, one does not have to accept any imitations for CocaCola, which is present in full force in Vietnam, sporting a pretty design for Chinese New Year.
Another thing we noticed here is that, because so much of the traffic is on motorbike and space is tight, there are very few gas stations in Vietnam. Instead, vendors sell it to motorbikes from little stands by the side of the road that look like they might be selling some kind of juice. They pump it by hand, a few litres at a time.
Knowing how tight our time in southern Thailand and Malaysia will be, we began to think about moving on to Cambodia a little earlier than expected.
After a 10 hour bus ride along the coast (Katie took advantage of the empty back seats to stretch out), we stopped in Nha Trang, which has a beautiful stretch of beach - in fact almost the entire coastline of southern Vietnam is one beautiful beach after another. The landscape reminded me a bit of Brazil. It was humid and the mid-day sun was scorching.
We spent a day on an island tour doing a little snorkeling (visibility was poor and I was disappointed with the coral) and swimming with a merry crew that not only ran the boat and prepared our lunch, but afterwards whipped together a rudimentary rock and roll band and sang us some songs (see Katie's blog for the photos). By the end of the tour, most of the crew were pretty tipsy.
We spent one relaxing day at the beach under a thatch umbrella and then it was on to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
In Nha Trang there was at least a sea-breeze, but in Saigon it's just hot. At 1pm it was 35'C (100'F) in the shade and very humid. We found a place to stay down a series of tiny alleyways and then went in search of a place to exchange some books.
Vietnam has a thriving business in pirated books - usually just photocopies bound together. The same 100 or so titles appear in each town on the backpacker trail. At night vendors walk around the tourist restaurants and cafes with a box or a tall stack of books selling them for about the price of a used book. In South America, one could keep oneself in books by exchanging them at hostels, but this not-for-profit concept is not embraced here in Asia.
Lonely Planet books command a premium, and the good quality reproductions are barely distinguishable from the originals. Since our South East Asia guide is from 2003 and a bit thin on detail in parts, we have picked up cheap copies of the latest editions for Vietnam and Cambodia which are worth it for the town maps alone.
We visited the War Remnants Museum where we got to see the Vietnamese perspective on the Vietnam War. They had some interesting pieces of American artillery and aircraft parked outside, but the photo exhibit inside showing the effects of the napalm and cluster bombings on civilians was tough to get through.
There was also a memorial section for photo journalists (mostly American) that died during the war, showing some of their work (many famous Time covers). It was all a grim reminder that there are no victors in war, but it turned out to just be the warm up for Cambodia.
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