Good Morning, Vietnam

The next part of our journey took us to Vietnam, where we flew from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) on one of the budget flights we had booked way back in India.  It might sound strange to some people, but when we booked our flights we honestly didn't have any plan of what we wanted to see or do, so arranged flights in and out from various random destinations and we would join the dots up when we were actually in that country.  This meant our itinerary was very flexible and could be changed depending on how we felt at that time. We have found that travelling this way suits us down to the ground and up until now things have gone very smoothly (fingers crossed they stay this way).

We hadn't really done much research into Vietnam therefore our expectations were very low, another thing which we have found makes for the best time.
I must say that our first impressions as we drove through
HCMC was how clean it was for such a big city, how many people there were and the number of bikes buzzing around. Honestly it was total madness, we have never seen so many in our life.  We were told that HCMC has a population of 8 million people and 4 million of those own a bike!


In 1976 Saigon was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City, however the name Saigon is still used by the majority of Vietnamese people, so from now on I shall do the same.  We arrived at the Thien Thao Hotel (one of the best value hotels on our trip so far) which was in District 3 of Saigon, just out of the main tourist drag of District 1 .  This is where we got our first introduction to Pho, Vietnamese noodle soup, you can have it for breakfast, lunch or dinner - it is lush. We had planned to spend 5 days in Saigon as we have found this is the perfect amount of time to get to know a place; anything less, we dont get a true feel of the place and anything more we start to get bored.  Unfortunately, somehow I had managed to catch a nasty 24 hour bug so had to spend a couple of days in bed recovering however by the 3rd day I was ready to meet Saigon.

                

We arranged a City tour through our hotel where we spent a full day enjoying what the city had to offer.  This involved visiting the War Museum, two Buddhist temples, a Handicraft centre (with goods that were created by disabled people, which I must say were brilliantly made), a Cathedral, a market and the Reunification Palace (it makes me tired just writing this - we were knackered by the end of the day).  We had such a good day and our tour guide, Son, was great.  He gave us the talk in the van (as we were driving) and then left us to our own devices at the actual place - our perfect tour guide.  Me and Andrew hate having to stand there and listen to someone waffling on at you, pretending to look interested (something we are both not very good at!).


One thing that we both really enjoyed, which I must add surprised me, was how interesting the War Museum was.  I am sorry to say that normally just hearing the word Museum makes me switch off as I immediately think BORING but it was very informative.  I was just thanking god that we weren't American as I think that I would have felt really embarrassed; there was some pretty incriminating evidence on show. What they did was just awful and the effects of Agent Orange are still around today which you got to see pictures of, it was very sad.  However, I realise that this was one sided story and I am sure that the Amercians have some equally horrifying stories to tell.


Here are a few shots of what we got up to on the city tour...

This is Andrew joining in at the Handicraft centre- here they are using crushed egg shells to decorate a tray, it was really time consuming and they must have lots of patience.  All the work is carried out by Handicapped people for a non profit organisation.

This is the Notre Dam Cathedral.

We went to a temple in Saigon where they had the largest incense we have seen, it was very pretty.  The smell was lovely but by the time we got out we were sneezing like mad as it really got up your nose.

The final part of the tour was to stop at the Reunification Palace - this was a bit disappointing to be honest as I had visions of grandeur from when the tour guide mentioned the word Palace. 

It was a rather ugly building (see picture) and we werent really sure what the purpose of the building was (we werent the only ones, we saw lots of people enter and walk out after 5 mins).  Me and Andrew did get lost in the basement of the Palace which was a bit scary as no one else was in there and we werent sure if we were allowed in.  Andrew sat in the President's Chair in the war room and answered the phone but other than that, not much to report.

For the next part of our trip were took a flight up to North Vietnam to Hanoi, the capital.  Surprisingly the flight took nearly 3 hours, you wouldnt think it would be so long as the country looks quite small on paper (I know that might sound stupid but I am sure you get my drift LOL). 

We arranged to stay in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Like Saigon, the streets were filled with cycles but this time a mix of the motorised and the peddling kind. The influence of the French in Vietnam is visable everywhere you go and even more so in Hanoi. The French have left a great legacy as apart from the buildings, the Vietnamese have an amazing range of fresh bread, coffee and pastries. You feel like you are wandering the back streets in Europe sometimes with all the cafes and bakeries.

Vietnam is a communist country where people are continually told how to act and what to think (do you know you can't access Facebook in Vietnam as it is banned) and Government instructions are given out over loud speakers in the street.  BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING ( I was waiting for Davina to pop out somewhere LOL) .  Invidiually, the Vietnamese are lovely people but surprisingly for a communist state, we noticed that in a group they have no idea how to take instruction from authority. For such a polite and reserved nation, they cause carnage in any queueing situation (one of my pet hates as you might know). We also found that it is pure chaos when trying to take a flight in Vietnam; I was particularly scared when the person behind me was talking on his phone as the plane was heading down the run way, despite the warnings from staff.

As we had enjoyed the city tour in Saigon so much, we thought that we would do one in Hanoi too.  The day involved spending time seeing Ho Chi Min's body (former President of Vietnam) and Palace, oldest temple in Hanoi, Ethicology Mueseum and a wander round the market.  We are sorry to stay that we gave the tour up by lunch time as the Hanoi heat had got to about 38 degrees and it was far too hot to be trapsing round.  Added to this was the fact that our guide had poor English which we couldnt understand but she wanted to talk us through everything, so we were very bored and wanted to escape back to our hotel for the A/C, I must say that when we got back the electricity was off for the next 3 hours so we had to spend the afternoon in hot, dark hotel room - not fun!

Despite cutting our tour short, we did manage to get a few shots around Hanoi....

This is just part of the queue to get in to see Ho Chi Min's body - we just didnt get what all the fuss was and couldn't be bothered queueing for a hour so we had a look around the grounds instead. It was the only time we saw a proper queue in Vietnam (purely due to the fact that the place was swarming with guards controlling the flow of visitors).  Our view of the place as we had a look round was that it was like going to Alton Towers on a very hot bank holiday but without the fun.

These are the workers at Ho Chi Min's Mausoleum keeping the grounds in tip top shape, I LOVE these hats!

One of mine and Andrews favourite past times (when we can get cable) is to watch Travel and Living Channel. We love to watch Bobby Chinn - a Vietnamese/Egyptian chef who lives in America.  Bobby goes round various countries learning about what food they eat, how they eat it and how to cook it. 

So we were very excited to find out that Bobby has his own restaurant in Hanoi and we decided to go along.  We had a great time and the food was lovely, especially the passion fruit mojoitos (our drinks bill was more than our food bill).  I was very sad to see that Bobby wasnt actually at the restaurant so I didnt get to see him but I managed to grab a photo of Andrew against Bobby's Wall of Fame which included various guest clients like Hilary Clinton!

While we were on the trail of famous chef's, a few days later we decided to seek out a place which Rick Stein visited on his tour of Vietnam and which featured on his programme.  Cha Ca Va Long, which was only a few minutes away from our hotel in the Old Quarter.  As you can see from the picture it only serves one dish so we figured thats what we would have - saves making any complex decisions at least!.

The fish was brought out to your table in a saucepan and cooked on hot coals with all the fresh herbs and butter which the Vietnamese love and heavily features in their cooking.

After eating it, we asked what type of fish it was as it was so nice.  We were advised that it was catfish (glad I didnt ask before hand as would have visions of seeing all the manky dead ones on the beaches back at home and not sure I could have ate it).... haha Andrew has just told me that I have got confused, I am thinking of dog fish... but going to leave it in anyway as I have written too much to just get rid.

Here are a few snap shots of our time in Saigon and Hanoi

One sight which has been prevalant across Asia is how relaxed the people are and how happy there are to sit around on the streets for hours - relaxing, eating and talking.  This was no different in Vietnam, apart from they wear the cool hats here.

Lady on a bike in Saigon - it is very scary to cross the road in Vietnam due to the volume of bikes on the road, you just have to play chicken and cross - they normally stop for you.  You see people of all ages on bikes from young kids about 12 to 80 years olds (I am not sure which one scares me more??)

This was the incense hanging from the ceiling of the temple in Saigon

Andrew in the Ethinology Muesum, this was the last thing we did before giving up on our tour of Hanoi.  It was so very very hot and humid.

Another form of Vietnamese transport and a good way to see a place, we didnt get round to taking one of these but I am sure we will before we leave.

That is about it for our time in Saigon and Hanoi and like always, we hope you enjoyed our blog.  We are really enjoying Vietnam, it  such a good country to travel - lots to see and do.  One thing that has surprised us that we have not seen 1 single beggar which is a first on our trip but guess thats the perks of a communist country. 

The next part of the journey will take us to Halong Bay and Hoi An, both of which we had heard really good things so we are very excited.  Andrew will be writing up our next part of the journey you will be pleased to know (I am sure you would have enough of my ramblings, I know I have).  Take care everyone.  Lots of love, Sarah & Andrew xxx

Have a look at our new world food blog website The Food Atlas.com for world food recipes and stories.
Are you interested in food recipes from around the world? Have a look at www.thefoodatlas.com
Computer speed problems? www.systemoptimizer.org

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Hello.  We hope everyone is keeping well back in UK land and I am sure that you are all looking forward to the World Cup as much as we are.  We are still continuing to have an amazing time on our trip and SE Asia has been brilliant, we are not really sure how we are ever going to get back to normal life!  The next stop on our tour was Bali, in a place called Ubud. Andrew has been to South Bali several times on his year long stint as a teacher in Indonesia but I however haven't, therefore it falls to me to give you my take on things.

Immigration at Bali's airport was a complete nightmare and although our plane was on time it took about 3 hours to get our visa and past immigration, the queues were madness. This was our 3rd flight in as many days so it wasn't really what we wanted but hey ho, thats how it goes sometimes, but we finally got out of Denpasar and made our way to Ubud.

 

Ubud is a town on the Indonesian island of Bali in Ubud district, located amongst rice paddies and steep ravines in the central foothills of Gianyur and is one of Bali's major arts and culture centres.


We had chosen to stay at Teba Guesthouse which had been recommended by our friends in Langkawi. We arrived in darkness so we had to wait until the next morning to get our first real glimpse of the place. We spent the next few days wandering around to get a feel of the place and to get our bearings.

One of things which instantly struck me with was just how beautiful the Balinese buildings are.  Even the guesthouses have elaborate entrances and it is hard to tell the difference between guesthouses and temples.  The backdrop to Ubud is lush green paddy rice fields so it really has a nice, chilled vibe going on and we immediately fell in love with the place.

 
The main religion in Bali is Hinduism and every morning we saw the local people making offerings to the gods.  These take the form of burning incense with prayers and flower parcels which are scattered absolutely everywhere; on pavements, outside shops, cars, in windows, in gardens, in the road - everywhere you could think.  It was really hard not to tread on them, which Andrew did frequently so he is now worried that he has been officially cursed.

I was in desperate need of some pampering as my regular two weekly beauty regime in India had gone out of the window due to the dramatic increase in costs in other SE Asia countries (no way my bank manager Andrew would continue to approve my beauty practices).  So I booked myself in for a well deserved hair cut and pedicure whilst Andrew went to have a look at the Monkey Forest which is a nature reserve and a temple complex which houses about 340 crab eating Macaque.


We had arranged to hire a driver to take us to various places of interests.  We had planned to spend  the whole day watching a local dance and visiting temples and rice paddies however the driver we arranged sent someone else who wanted to charge us more and make us pay entrance fees on top etc so we ended up getting him to take us back to our hotel after 1 hr.

Instead we decided to hire a jeep and drive ourselves around Bali.  The first day we went to see a volcano and a lake however we got swarmed by touts wanting to sell us their (rubbish) goods, it was worse than India so we managed to take one picture and quickly scarpered and carried on exploring Bali.

Many of the roads we traveled (and got lost on were decorated for a celebration and some were even adorned with various world flags getting ready for the World Cup.  On the first day of driving we had no problems but then on the second day I said that I wanted to see a Bali beach and so we made our way to South Bali which meant going through the city of Denpasar... BIG MISTAKE, just as we were near our destination we got pulled by the Police (for stopping when the traffic was on red!!!) and was the victim of good old Indonesian Police corruption - having a white face is very expensive in Asian countries it means you get charged double for everything, taxis, souveniours and of course you are a easy target for a made up fine!  I was threatened with court etc unless of course I paid the fine, so eventually I did very reluctantly (this of course is the edited version of events for the blog, I promised myself no more swearing).  This sort of spoilt the day as I was freaking out about driving back so we had a quick look at Sannur Beach (and if I must add, rather rubbish beach) and made our way back to the safety of Ubud, I have had enough of driving now in Asia and I have only done it twice, Ill stick to the sensible roads of the UK and Australia.

Despite it being a popular tourist destination (we hadn't seen so many western people since leaving the UK), Bali still heavily features people getting on with their daily working lives. We saw on our drive many of their jobs looked particularly back braking, as you can see from this man which is a man ploughing the fields.

Like in most (every) Asia counties we have visited, it always seems to be woman that do all the hard work!  These women are getting the rice crop sorted.















One of things we were told to try in Indonesia was Baba Guyling which is spit roasted baby pig, we stumbled across a place which was packed to the brim of people.  You had to find a space and sit down so you get to share a table with people you have never met before, so it was very much a social thing too.  One Amercian bloke had been there about 20 times on his various trips to Ubud.  It was really relly good - you can see from the picture below what the piggy looked like...(apologies to all vegans and vegetarians for this picture, I suggest you turn away NOW)...

Lots of the cafes and restaurants had views overlooking the paddy fields so it was lovely just to relax and watch the world go by.  This field was covered with hundreds of dragon flies hovering over the top of the rice.

Felt sightly guilty though as there was people working in the fields and there was us relaxing and drinking our beer, oops!

We met a lovely Italian couple Andrea and Daniela who were on their honeymoon.  We went out for a meal with them on our last night, they were really great people and we enjoyed a few beers.









Well I think that is about enough of our tales in Ubud, hope you enjoyed our blog entry.  We had a wonderful time, saw some beautiful scenary and buildings, met some lovely people and generally just enjoyed ourselves. Next stop, Vietnam and Cambodia.  Love Sarah & Andrew xxx

Here are some more photos of our time in Ubud....
 

Man cooking satay on the street

We had a look round the local market - Souveniour anyone.. Ubud had some very lovely things to buy but it also had some crap!  Why would anyone want to buy a plastic guitar or surfboard?

This is a woman trying to sell us some weird looking fruit at the market which we politely declined

This is a lotus flower which was on our guesthouse, the garden was filled with beautiful flowers
















There was huge bees everywhere, thank god didnt get stung by this bad boy!
















We went for a walk and we come across a field full of very cute duckies in the paddie fields but on closer inspection they had their wings clipped so they couldnt fly away...

This a local woman in prayer after making her offerings

This is one of the Monkeys from the Monkey Forest

Masks used in ritual dances

This is me outside the medicine man's place from Eat, Pray, Love

See Ya.





Have a look at our new world food blog website The Food Atlas.com for world food recipes and stories.
Are you interested in food recipes from around the world? Have a look at www.thefoodatlas.com
Computer speed problems? www.systemoptimizer.org

de a guesthouse

Swimming With Sharks - The Philippines part 2

Greetings from the Philippines!  This country has continued to surprise us after initial fears (from Sar) that we would be kidnapped as soon as we stepped off the plane. The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) website tells us it's not safe to fly, take a bus or a ferry, so how are you supposed to get around in a country of hundreds of islands? For those of you who are discouraged by the FCO's advice on countries, it is interesting to note that New York was considered safe to travel to after recent events. Enough of messed up politics anyhow, suffice to say we felt safe throughout our stay.

After a chilled out week with our own private beach and postcard views, we left the northern island of Malapascua to take a bumpy, dusty four hour bus ride to Cebu city and a three hour cab south to Pangasama beach near the town of Moalboal for another week long dose of snorkelling and... you guessed it, more chilling. This time the beach was a 15 minute ride in a mototrike (these are for the vertically challenged only and as you can see in the picture I was doing my fair share of window licking due to the cramped conditions). The beach was nice enough, but we were happy staying by our hotel as even though it lacked the white sand, the steps from the garden led into crystal clear waters and a drop off with great coral heads and colourful fish only 30 metres from the shore. Even after 2 weeks of being in and out of the water, I still can't quite get past the feeling that a shark is right behind me and so have a mild freak out every five to ten minutes if I'm in deep water on my own. Sarah is fine until she sees a jellyfish and then it's game over for her for the day.

 Our cottages in Moalboal looked out onto the Tanon Straits. The Strait lies between the islands of Negros and Cebu connecting the Visayan Sea to the Bohol Sea and it is known for it's population of dolphin, whales and turtles.The Mountains of the neighboring island of Negros in the background framed great sunsets every evening.

One of the highlights for me was the price of beer in the Philippines. No wonder the people can look a little tapped, when you can but a litre bottle of San Miguel or extra strong Red Horse beer for 60 pesos (£0.90p).Needless to say, I drank my fill and annoyed the hell out of Sarah every night with my antics.

Apart from beer and boxing (Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao aka Manny Pacquiao is a demi god in these parts) the main pastime of the Filipino male is the Sunday cockfight. Everywhere we traveled, we saw and heard cocks at every turn. We were invited to one in the local town by our friendly  mototrike driver, Dicky. Sarah nearly choked when I asked him if he had a big cock. We didn't make the fight due to a Red Horse hangover that kept me in bed all day. `Our time was up and we travelled back to Cebu city for a flight up to Donsol and the chance to swim with Whale Sharks.


We flew into Legazpi in a prop plane, we were sat at the front facing all the other passengers which combined with the feeling of flying backwards felt very strange. Not wanting to be stung by yet another long cab ride we roped a couple of Norwegian travel agents called Ingrid and Marie to share the fare. They turned out to be great company so we arranged to share the whale shark expedition boat with them and another couple we met later that day.

Ok, swimming with whale sharks. something I'd been looking forward to doing since we'd first planned this trip. We booked in at the whale shark centre for a 7am start the next day. That night I imagined floating serenely with these gentle giants of the deep. The next morning, after a hasty 6am breakfast I realised that things are rarely as you imagine them to be.

We spent around three hours skirting the coast with our captain and three local spotters searching in vain for the elusive 15 metre long fish. 15 metres sounds big, but in an ocean of choppy blue water it becomes very small indeed. As such, I was surprised when I heard the head spotter shout and tell us to get ready to go in. A sudden rush as we squeezed into flippers and masks and then...well, nothing. 'gone down deep' said the spotter, though I had the feeling this was a well practiced routine blag if things were going badly.

After another hour, we were well past our intended schedule and we hadn't even got our feet wet. Gutted and exausted I tried to catch up on some shut eye.


I was woken by another shout almost immediately and it was go time again. This time another boat's passengers were already in the water. We had to jump off the moving boat and whilst avoiding getting chopped up by the open-prop or knocked out by the hull, swim like hell to get to the whale shark before it got spooked by the circling boats. Sarah and I missed the cue and ended up a good fifty metres behind the group. I swallowed around a gallon of plankton rich water and brought it straight back up. By the time we got there. the bastard shark had already buggered off. This was not going the way I had pictured it.






Luckily we had one more roll of the dice. On our final leg, the former whale shark fishermen turned protectors and professional spotters saw another shark . This time I was off the boat and in the water first, no messing. I swam for around thirty seconds in the direction they had pointed and looked around. Nothing...Again.  I was just about to give up and return to the boat when I looked down. Directly underneath me, about twenty metres below, was a huge, silent figure. I can't have spent more than half a minute in the presence of the shark, before it shifted only ever so slightly and glided down out of view into the depths, but even this was enough. All the hassle of the trip faded in that short time and that one drifting image made it all worth it.

We did very little for the next few days in Donsol, as apart from eating, drinking and whale spotting, there isn't much else to offer. Fully recharged, we returned to the state capital to catch a plane to Manila. This was one of the best flights we've taken as the pilot decided to fly over the Mt Mayon volcano that looms over the city. We were around 150 metres away from the smoking cone, not sure how safe this was as I later found out it is the most active volcano in the Philippines, but it was one hell of a view all the same.

Oh! Think Twice! Just another day for me and Sar in Paradise.

Sar and Me enjoying a break from the daily grind of life on the road. Up at 12, bit of snorkeling then a spot of lunch with a beer or two.

Our spot in the sun with the path going down to the sea.

Is it still breakfast if you eat it after midday?

Snorkeling at sunset in Pangasama.








Have a look at our new world food blog website The Food Atlas.com for world food recipes and stories.
Are you interested in food recipes from around the world? Have a look at www.thefoodatlas.com
Computer speed problems? www.systemoptimizer.org