Eat Pray Love......?

Hey blog fans!

I've just finished reading Eat Pray Love.  For those of you that have read the book, or seen the film  (I haven't seen the film so I'm not sure how it compares), you'll understand that I can closely relate to Liz Gilbert's story.  Having said that, I think it is unlikely that my travels through South East Asia will lead to 'Pray' and 'Love' like Liz, but boy can I compare myself to the 'Eat' section of this story.  Since significantly loosing my appetite in the first week, it is back with avengance now.  For the last week I seem to be constantly eating, just sitting around on busses all day the pounds are piling on.  The clothes are getting tighter instead of looser, so all those people that said 'you will loose weight when you are travelling' are wrong so far!  I must commence a diet...tomorrow!  It probably doesn't help that I have the opposite problem to everyone else in my group.  While my fellow travellers are taking their daily dose of immodium before getting on the bus, I am munching into my bran flakes.  I must be the only person to travel South East Asia dragging a box of bran flakes around with me all the way!!!  I don't think it is a common problem here!  Ha ha ha.

Anyway, back to more interesting things and some of the highlights of my time in Vietnam.  My advice to anyone thinking about travelling to South East Asia, is don't come during Chinese New Year!  Everything closes down so we have missed out on some things, and you have to pay an extra 20% for everything to cover additional 'staff costs and market prices'.  It has been good to see the celebrations locally, but it is also very frustrating that things close for about 2 weeks.  I guess that'll teach me for not doing enough research before I left!

On arrival in Nha Trang, we all went for a mud spa.....just to add to our general grubiness of travelling!  This involved all 16 of us sitting in a mud pool for 20 minutes, and then getting into a bath of water at 40 degrees.  Whilst this was a good experience, it isn't really my idea of fun to scold myself in baking hot water....I don't like baths at the best of times!  Mum, I reckon this would have been about right for you given how hot your bath normally is!  :o)  Nha Trang is a coastal town so we also spent some time relaxing on the beach and even had a quick paddle, although the water was a bit chilly.

Departure from Nha Trang was another sleeper train, this was not as nice as the first one!  When we got on the train there were locals lying in our beds trying thier luck to get a cabin so we had to throw them out and try and make some kind of clean-ish area to sleep on - Aunt Ange, the 'dreamie' was my saviour in this situation, thank you!  On this 16 hour journey we had to share our cabin with cockraoches, lots of smoke from the other carriages and had to experience blocked toilets for several hours.  All part of the expereince I guess. 

The good news is this train takes us to the town of Hoi An, which is a pretty quaint town with french influence.  In this town we counted down to see in 2011 for the second time this year!  Chinese New Year is very different to new year celebrations in England.  There was a firework display in the town, but this must be the queitest it has been since I have been in Vietnam.  At 12, there is no cheering or drinking, everyone stands sliently in the street, motor bikes switched off, just looking up at the sky watching the fireworks.  On the way home residents have tables of food outside to offer to the spirts and burn incense sticks (although I don't normally like the smell of these, it makes a nice change to the smell of fish guts you normally get as you walk through these towns!).  All the local people were wishing us happy new year, I did my best to reply is Vietnamese, but judging by their reaction I don't think it was very accurate!

In the town of Hoi An, I also have my first bartering expereinces.  Unless you are buying food from a supermarket or resturant, you have to barter for everything.  You start at about 50-60% of what they are asking.  My first purchase led to a saving of 10,000 dong (this is about 50 cent!), but my latest purchase I bartered down by about 50,000 dong ($2.50) so I am getting better at this!  You just have to be prepared to walk away, and the seller will soon chase after you.

On leaving Hoi An, we continue north to Hue, the scenery in northern Vietnam is beatutiful, and exactly how I pictured it to be.  The weather hasn't been great here (jeans and jumper most days!), so mist/fog does sometimes spoil the views but it is beautiful none the less.

At Hue, a few us decide to get a taxi to visit a toomb.  We order the taxi at reception, and it all seems quite simple as we pull up to a building and the non english speaking taxi drivers signals for us to get out.  A couple of us comment that this wasn't quite what we were expecting, but we diligently get out anyway.  We wonder looking a bit lost and some children run out and beckon us in, we tentatively follow, and some other members of the group play with the children.  I'm nervously hanging back thinking, this doesn't look like the pictures in the rough guide'....then a couple of nuns appear, and the taxi starts to pull off.  As a group we have a sudden realisation that we might be victims of some kind of scam here, and I leg to get the taxi driver to come back.  In very broken english we discover he has brought as to an orphanage on route, and they would like a donation!  Pleading he doesn't speak english we manage to persude the taxi driver to take us where we supposed to go.

Next stop is Ha Long Bay.  Thankfully the train for this 20 hour journey was back to the standard of the previous one!  Ha Long Bay has been the highlight of Vietnam for me, it is absolutely beautiful, just like you see in the pictures.  Whilst it is not quite as serene as the Top Gear episode suggests, with hundreds of other tourists there, you cannot help but be amazed by this natural beauty.  Whilst the floating houses of the people that live there are a state of poverty, they probobaly wake up to the best views in the world every day. 

That pretty much brings you up to date.  I'm now in Hanoi, and tomorrow we depart for Loas, which I am really looking forward to.  Whilst I have enjoyed Vietnam, I have been surprised by how developed and commercial it is and I'm looking forward to getting back to some less spoilt areas of South East Asia.

So far I have been travelling with a group of about 15 people.  Tomrrow, about half the group leave and just 8 of us go in Loas.  We get on well as a group, but majorotiy of people here are in their early 20's if not younger, so I have gone from feeling like quite a 'young' 29 year old at home to ancient here.  I think they think I am a bit old and boring, but they don't really realise that I have 10 years on them and have done the drinking games, the painful hangovers, the lobster red sun burn, all many times before, and don't need to spend every night here discovering that again!  So I'm looking forward to getting to Oz and NZ where hopfully I'll be able to be around other 'oldies'  :o)

I hope everything is well with everyone.  Love you all.

Keep me up to date on the gossip!


Katrina

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