This is The End...

Our trip to Hue introduced Ilona and I to a couple of new things. First were the sleeper buses operating in Vietnam. Generally, if you take an overnight bus anywhere in Vietnam, you will go on a sleeper bus, which instead of two rows of two seats, has three rows and two levels of fully reclineable seat backs on a platform, all squeezed into the space of a normal sized bus. If you’re 5’6” or taller, this means you will have your knees into your chest the whole way unless you’re lucky enough to have a seat with nobody in front of you. Thankfully, this was only a 4 hour trip, so the discomfort was only short lived.

The second thing we were introduced to was the awkward situation of someone going to the toilet in full view of the entire bus. A woman had been constantly going up to the driver, getting increasingly agitated, when she finally decided that since the driver wouldn’t stop, she would do her business in a plastic bag on the bus. This was both incredibly shocking and hilarious at the same time and will definitely be one of the more memorable moments of our trip.

Once in Hue and its stifling heat and humidity, we checked out the Imperial Citadel that it’s famous for. Hue was once the capital of Empirical Vietnam and its old city is laid out like Beijing’s Forbidden City. We expected grandiose archways, large concrete courtyards and tranquil ponds with threes, but in reality much of the old city is still in ruins from bombing raids in the Vietnam War. There are large expanses of grass and weed ridden ruins, bullet holes in a lot of the walls and patches here and there of restored or semi-restored structures.

One of the Great Gateways in Hue's Imperial Citadel

 Day 2 in Hue consisted of long taxi rides out to some of the Emperors’ extravagant tombs that are situated on the perfume river. The temperature reached 38C that day, with over 80% humidity and Ilona, Jenny and I suffered. We cherished each moment we spent in an air conditioned taxi going from place to place. The tombs themselves were pretty amazing, with stone sculpted warriors, dragons and flamboyant mausoleums adorning each site.

The Entrance to one of the Emperor's tombs.

That night the five of us boarded a train to Hanoi in what were sold to us as ‘soft sleeper beds’ but were actually some of the hardest beds I had ever lay down on. We were all split across 3 cabins, and in Jenny’s cabin, one of the other westerners was facing a problem, as the bed he had a ticket for was occupied by a Vietnamese woman and her 3 children, claiming that the bed was theirs. She had a ticket for the bed, but for a train 4 days away. When she refused to move, a guard was called in and she casually slipped him a 500,000 Dong note, bribing her way out. The guard would have nothing of any complaint directed at him and just laughed at anyone who would make a fuss about it. None of the other guards were of any help either, but eventually persistence won out, and the family were turfed out, eventually settling on sleeping on the ground in the hallway.

We made it to Hanoi early, and immediately sought out a taxi to take us to our hotel where the five of us were staying together, which I knew to be 1.7km away. With all our bags on us, we opted for a taxi. The thing about every transport hub in Vietnam; be it bus, boat or train station is that there are no shortage of taxi drivers climbing over each other to nab a fare. As soon as we stepped out of the station we were practically jumped on, so we started asking how much it would cost for them to take us to our hotel. Most were quoting us 300,000 Dong on an un-metered fare, which I knew to be a complete scam. Unfortunately, many of the other westerners around us just accepted it. We ended up walking 10 metres down the road and hailed a taxi off the street who would take us on a metered charge, which ended up only being 30,000 Dong; 10% of our original quoted price.

Our first job in Hanoi was to organise a suitable tour company to take us on a Ha Long Bay tour. We don’t usually do packaged tours, but unfortunately if we wanted to do Ha Long Bay, it would have to be a necessary evil as guides are needed to navigate the literally thousands of islands that populate the bay. We had heard many dos and don’ts about getting a tour, as many of the cheap ones often cut corners, may not have life jackets, have poor environmental responsibilities and so on. We settled on one that seemed to have a good reputation and were also recommended to us by a friend of Jenny’s.

We went to visit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum the next day, bright and early as it closes to the public before midday. We got a little lost finding it, but once we did, we saw it as one of the more bizarre things of our trip. Ho Chi Minh was noted as being a man of simple needs and means. His original wish for when he died was to be cremated and scattered across all of Vietnam, so that he could always be amongst his people. By contrast, his final resting place is a staunchly communist looking stone building that looks more like a courthouse than a tomb. Sharply dressed guards parade around it and visitors are lined up and shuffled in to the tomb in the most orderly fashion Ilona and I had seen in all of Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum.

That day we were all wearing shorts and were denied entry, which was very frustrating as it had taken us a while to walk there and find the official entrance. We went and got coffee instead and rearranged our day’s plans.

The next day was Monday and we were picked up early for our tour to Ha Long Bay. We drove east out of Hanoi for four hours until we reached Ha Long City and the harbour where all of the tour boats disembark from. It was very busy there, with tour operators ushering their respective groups along to where they needed to be, ship crews rushing about with supplies, buses honking their horns and aggressively driving in and out of the loading bay. Our tour seemed to be one of the more organised ones and we were quickly shown onto a small boat that took us to our larger boat we would be sailing the bay on.

Our cabins were quite plush and spacious, with nice soft beds for once! We had lunch as we sailed to a cove and then explored a cave that had tunnelled into the side of a cliff. Both were very majestic and despite the bad weather, left us in awe. We also had the opportunity to kayak around the cove for a while, taking in the scenery from another angle. This was quite treacherous, as many more ships had started to arrive and we had to quickly paddle out of the way if we saw one.

Shennanigans on board.

The cove eventually got very full, with ships pouring rather ugly plumes of black smoke into the air and the general tranquillity of the place was ruined. We then headed to another secluded island where we could get out and have a swim on the beach. The weather was quite cold, but the water was rather warm, which made our swim very pleasant.

We anchored just outside of the cove for the night, where we ate, drank and sang a little karaoke. A lot of the people on our tour were very tired, so it was an early night for some, but for Scott, Ashley and I, we stayed up for a while and eventually had some whisky with the ship’s captain!

The next morning we headed off to Cat Ba Island, which is the largest island in Ha Long Bay. After docking, we jumped on a bus for half an hour and ended up at the entrance to Cat Ba National Park, where our tour guide Lucky told us we would be going on a ‘short trek’. This trek ended up being up a very steep mountain, on which halfway up, the path disappeared and we had to clamber up wet rocks to get to the top. Once at the top, after climbing up a rusted ladder and rock face, there was a viewing platform perched on top of a tall, rusted tower. Of course, I just had to climb it, so I did and was rewarded with a very nice view of the mountain range that spanned the island. There was no way that this tower would be open to the public if it was in Britain or New Zealand, as there was so much rust and so many holes in the floor, it was any wonder that it was still standing.

30 metres up with no solid floor...

Later in the afternoon, after lunch, we were taken by boat through a floating village to Monkey Island, where we actually saw some monkeys! We were all very skeptical about whether or not there would be any to see, but as it turned out, as soon as we landed on the beach, the monkeys started coming out of the trees to investigate us humans. We were told not to get too close as they could get quite aggressive, but of course, one woman thought it would be a good idea to taunt them and throw things, so she ended up getting bitten on the leg. She didn’t seem all too fussed about it, despite the loud shriek she made when it bit her.

Our accommodation for the night was in Cat Ba town and in a very ugly hotel. The town itself was completely deserted and had nothing at all going for it, which made us deeply regret not spending a little more money and opting to stay on either the boat for a second night or in the bungalows on another island.

Morning came and we were woken far too early for our liking, the tour so far hadn’t been very tranquil and relaxing as we had imagined it would be, considering the surroundings. We had our breakfast and were soon after on a bus heading towards the harbour to catch our boat again. Once on the boat it was just a slow trundle back to Ha Long City, while we played bananagrams to pass the time. There was no sightseeing to be done that day, just lunch at about 11am while we were berthed in the busy harbour and then ushered off and into a busy roadside cafe where we waited an hour or so for our bus to arrive and take us back to Hanoi.

It was a rather disappointing end to our tour, we got into Hanoi at about 5pm, just long enough to check back into our hotel and find some dinner before crashing our, tired from a day spent travelling from place to place.

Ilona and I attempted the Mausoleum trip again on Thursday morning, this time coming more prepared and knowing the best route to take there. It was oddly regimented in the way you had to declare all your belongings, go through two security scanners and x-rays and then check in your camera as we were not allowed to take photos while in the tomb. We were lined up in an orderly fashion by the immaculately dressed guards and then filed in through the entrance of a massive stone cube, around multiple hallways, up stairs and then into a dimly lit chamber with four more guards standing around a big glass case that held a waxy looking Ho Chi Minh, lying there very serene and dressed in a crisp green uniform. Everybody shuffled around the casket at a steady pace, then all of a sudden we were out of the chamber saying to ourselves, “oh, so that’s it huh?”. It was a very grand affair for what was essentially 20 seconds worth of walking past a dead guy in a glass case.

One of the Colonial style buildings in the Ho Chi Minh memorial grounds.

 The rest of that day we ran round town a bit more, picking up a few snacks for our plane journey the next day that nearly everyone didn’t know we were taking. We had originally told everyone that we would be arriving home on the 5^th of December; two days after my Mum’s 50^th birthday, but in reality we would be arriving back in Auckland on the evening of the 1^st, surprising first Ilona’s Mum and Dad, then my Mum and Dad on my mum’s birthday on the 3^rd.

Our last evening in Vietnam was spent with our travelling buddies going out to a good Indian restaurant and laying into some seriously good food, spending the last of our millions in true Mike and Ilona fashion. I was a really nice way to finish it all off, by then we were a little sick of Vietnamese food, so something we all enjoyed a lot was definitely the way to go.

Our flights the next morning began at 12:50 Vietnam time, so we woke up and had a slow start, picked up one or two more snacks and then headed to the airport, where we checked in and began our long slog back home. It consisted of a 1 and a half hour flight to Guangzhou in south China, a 6 hour layover there where we found a free plug and watched videos on our laptop for most of the time. Our flight got delayed for half an hour, so at 10pm, we boarded our plane and sat on the tarmac for an hour, finally taking off at 11. The middle leg to Brisbane was nearly 9 hours and an overnight flight, so we both got a little bit of sleep and before we knew it, it was 9am and we were in Brisbane airport, relishing the fact that we were beginning to enter more familiar surroundings.

Ilona had a shower in the airport and I wandered around duty free, doing my best not to buy anything. We were on our flight by 11 and the excitement began to kick in. It was only fitting that for our flight into Auckland, we were with Air New Zealand, but unfortunately we were in the middle aisle with no view out the window to watch Auckland come into view. We had a celebratory glass of bubbles just before we landed, which was ok because it was after 4pm New Zealand time!

Ilona’s friend Dee was the only person in New Zealand who knew that we would be arriving home early, and so she met us at the airport after we managed to breeze through customs in around 20 minutes; about a third of the time we had anticipated due to New Zealand’s extremely tight customs screenings. We were dropped off to an empty house at Ilona’s Dad’s, where we would be staying for the foreseeable future, wrote him a quick note and walked around the corner to surprise Ilona’s Mum.

She got a huge shock and gave us big hugs when we arrived, before we moved off to the Grey Lynn RSA to see more people, as there was a small Christmas party going on that coincided with a family friend’s 60^th.

We were incredibly tired after nearly 23 hours of travel, so got home for an early night. The next day, neither of us could venture far as we were still yet to surprise my Mum, so we did a little unpacking, sorted a couple of our boxes of stuff we had left behind and went to the shops for a few things we needed.

My Mum’s birthday came and we drove over, letting ourselves into the empty house and waited for them to 

come home. We had a cake and candles waiting so as soon as we heard the door open, we started singing happy birthday, only to see Dad’s shocked face spewing expletives. Mum was still at the car, so Dad had to act natural while we reset the scene for my Mum, who entered and started blubbering as soon as she saw us.

One by one, my sisters both came home and lots of hugs were shared. Mum had a work Christmas function that night, but we came around the next day to see my Nana and Granddad and stayed for dinner.

 

This drew our overseas adventures to an end, we’ve caught up with most of our family members and friends over the summer holidays and are slowly getting used to the New Zealand way of life again. We’ve had one hell of an amazing time over the past two years. There have been so many highs and some lows, but we have been extremely grateful for the experience and all the people we have met, bonded with, befriended and shared with. We feel like we have returned as two different people and are really looking forward to our next year in New Zealand, future traveling both nationally and internationally and whatever else just happens to pop up. Who knows when or where our next blog will come from!