Month: July 2016

The last couple of weekends I’ve been back to places rather than go to new ones. We went to Cat Ba, our favourite place in Vietnam (so far). The journey there was a lot choppier than previous journeys, and frankly it was scary! I thought I was going to throw up, but thankfully that feeling passed after a bit of time on solid ground. 

We did a similar thing to before where we rode a motorbike through the island. This time we also stumbled upon a place called “Cat Ba Green”. It was very pretty, but the animals there were kept in cages far too small, especially the monkeys. After dinner, we rested and then went on a late-night ride again. We sang as we whizzed through the island, and this made it feel even better! 

The next day we went to the beach and spent the whole day being swallowed by waves, and being burnt in the sea. I had bought a book recently from a store in Vincom (Haiphong) and spent some time under the big shades, but the sky was so clear that even factor 50 was not enough to protect us.

The book, by the way, is ‘Kafka on the Shore’. I’ve only read ‘Norwegian Wood’ by Murakami, but I loved it and I’m really enjoying this one. I bought it the same day as I discovered the BBQ places, which are great! I’ve also recently eaten at a Korean restaurant, which I had been wanting to do. I get a bit bored with the Vietnamese food in Haiphong, but it’s good finding new places to eat.

We also just came back from Hanoi, which is a great place to find a wider variety of food. Of course, it meant we also got some western food in the form of spaghetti bolognese, and beef burgers. It was great being back in Hanoi, and part of me wants to go again whilst I still have the chance, but I also kind of want a more chilled out weekend. 

The first day in Hanoi we wandered around the streets, and visited lots of little art galleries, including L’institut Francais de Hanoi. We bought some clothes, and my boyfriend got a really cool top from a place called Ginkgo, which I ended up writing about for the Norwich Radical because it seems like a really amazing clothing company! 

We stumbled upon the National History Museum, which just enough time to visit one building that detailed what happened during the war with the US. It was really shocking, especially considering how recent it was, finding out the way Vietnamese people were chained up, killed with guillotines, and dead bodies dragged along by cars. The tail-end of a bomb was displayed, and made the reality of it all the more terrifying.

The next day we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. After seeing the embalmed body in a casket, surrounded by guards, I felt a strange sense of regret. The whole process leading up to the experience was stressful, as I stupidly hadn’t worn appropriate clothes and was forced to put another set of clothes over the top of my dress, and the bag deposit system was a mess. It meant we worried about getting our bag back and didn’t see anything else. The fact that we had then only see Ho Chi Minh’s body like that felt disingenuous. I felt like it should be somewhere that people go to pay their respects, rather than what it was – a tourist attraction, of which I was regrettably a part. If I did go again, I would like to see the rest of the complex, visiting the museum, as well as going to another museum a bit out of the way.

Instead, we spent the rest of the day walking through streets, parks and lakes. We met a Vietnamese couple whilst stopping in Lenin Park for an ice-cream. They were so excited to speak to us, and again I felt the familiar sense of undeserving, aware of my many privileges. They were both university students, yet they had never been to the beach, and one couldn’t swim. These were things that we had the luxury of doing every weekend we chose. 

At times Vietnam feels very much the same as home, and at others it feels so far removed.

This weekend was a relaxing one. It started off a bit tricky in terms of getting to the correct bus stop, but despite the traffic, it took an hour and a half by bus as predicted by Google. We are at the first place we saw – it was an overpriced but edible beef fried rice.

We took at taxi to Lựng Xanh waterfall. We walked beside the gushing waters, following its pathway upwards. We got to a place where locals were playing in the waterfall, and we joined them, sitting amongst big boulders, redirecting the water’s path over our legs. 

We continued the walk, incredible mountains surrounding us like we have experienced much of the time in Vietnam. We can back round to the start, where we had seen two pools of water filtered from the waterfall, which continue further down. We hired a hoop and decided to skip the temple and spend the rest of the day swimming. 

We were invited to share pomelo and spicy salt with a group of family and friends, who then took selfies with us, as did a big group of visitors earlier. We tried to call a taxi, but needed help and the park attendant helped us. We managed to get dropped back to a bus stop and ended up on a bus that cost us 100k each instead of the 27k we paid on the way there. But it was either that or maybe not get back!

The next day we swam more at the hotel pool we go to sometimes. We ate somewhere nearby, which was nice. I’ve been working hard the last few days, but even at a local eatery we were able to try frog and it was actually delicious. The legs were the best part and it does actually taste pretty similar to chicken!

We’re now planning on going back to Cat Ba and Hanoi over the next couple of weeks. Then we’ll have four days to go away and we don’t know whether to go to Sapa and have two days there (due to having to go on an overnight bus) or to go to somewhere in the south by plane in order to make the most of the time. Any tips would be great as we’ll be going elsewhere afterwards.

For the five year anniversary of being with my partner, we decided to go to Halong Bay. We had a relatively early start and got a taxi to Lac Long bus station, and the journey took about an hour an a half from there. We took a taxi to our hotel and managed to check in around midday. The weather was forecast to be thunderstorms, but we were relatively lucky with some light rain and overcast. Being Vietnam in July, it was still hot. 

We headed for the beach, and it was packed with Vietnamese people, who we heard were at the start of their holiday period. We walked down the beach to find somewhere less crowded and swam in the water. It wasn’t a clear blue, but it felt so good. The temperature was ideal, cooling us from the humidity and heat, and it felt so smooth to swim in. It was so relaxing to float on the surface as the waves gently moved you, the mountainous landscape surrounding you. The sand was also so easy to walk on that we questioned whether it was real or not.

We went back to the hotel to shower an change, and ended up at a seafood place. The next day we went on a boat tour. We set off at 7am and boarded the boat an hour or so later and it felt like an age until we finally got moving. The first place we visited was the most incredible cave I’ve seen. We walked through twists and turns, water dripping into pools of water, lit up by multi-coloured lights. It was really impressed. Things don’t ever seem smooth sailing with us. Our boat slowed down so much that it stopped. Another boat came beside ours and we were asked to board it. Just us two. Another couple took our place and it turned out that we were on the boat for the six-hour tour and we were meant to be on the four-hour tour as we had booked too late.

The final stop was to kayak. I had been a bit nervous, as I always worried about being in control of a boat and thought they could tip into the water easily. However, it was easier than I expected and I ended up really enjoying it. It felt like I had conquered a fear somewhat, and all whilst going through different caves into lagoon-type areas. It felt so good, even as my arms got tired, to rest and float there, before picking up the oars again. 

The last stop was passing by the “fighting cocks” rocks. On one hand, I was ready to go back, but on the other, it would have been great to stop on an island to swim and eat. We got a taxi after another great seafood dish, then took a bus back to Haiphong city, arriving tired and a little sunburnt from not wearing protection under the clouds. We ended the night on a takeaway from Indian Kitchen.

After work tonight, myself and some other teachers, and one of the TAs, went to the local street food spot and had some beer and a bbq. I don’t like pork much, but it tasted good, and though I didn’t like the beef, I loved the squid, and we had some noodles with it too. Just one month left in Vietnam now and so I’m starting to plan the next lot of travels!