A Year In Motion

Our time in Japan had unfortunately come to an end. Vowing to come back we boarded a Cebu Pacific plane in Osaka with destination Manila, Philippines. Cebu Pacific is a budget airline, but budget goes a long way in Asia, providing much better service than main airlines in Europe and especially USA. We booked all our flights in Philippines with Cebu Pacific and had a great experience. I even won a prize in a flight as they play games onboard. We arrived late in Manila, found a cheap hotel and got a few hours sleep before taking a flight early the next morning to Palawan.

Palawan is one of the most southwestern islands in the Philippines, bringing us back quite close to Borneo in fact. The Philippines are made up of over 7,000 islands and we flew over a few of them on our flight, ranging from tiny drops in the ocean to little groups of islands connected by longs sand bars through turquoise waters, to large volcanic mountains rising out of the sea. We landed in Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan. Just before we arrived the cabin crew requested the passengers to NOT stop on the runway after exiting to take photos. This seemed to have the opposite effect as people immediately assembled in small groups on the tarmac after arrival, nonchalantly chatting, taking photos and just having a look around.

We had intended to spend as little time as possible in Puerto Princesa before heading to El Nido. But not long after we arrived, Tony saw some posters for an upcoming Manny Pacquiao fight. It was Friday, and Tony found out that there was a big fight on Sunday at midday. As there is only electricity in El Nido from 2pm to 6am, this posed a problem. Manny Pacquiao is the most famous sportsman in the Philippines, a source of enormous national pride, and Tony felt it would be foolish to waste an opportunity to be a spectator in a sporting event of such national importance. I was less enthusiastic but we came up with a plan to rearrange our Philippines itinerary. We spent the rest of the day in Puerto Princesa, taking a tricycle (motorbike taxi) to the waterfront, and then staying out of the heat. Puerto Princesa is very environmentally conscious, and for a town in a developing country, it is also admirably free from litter. That night we went to the Ka Lui restaurant for some seafood, and I found another reason to like the Philippines – kinilaw! Kinilaw is very similar to ceviche, but the lemon juice is replaced by vinegar. It was the beginning of a love affair which did not end until I left the country.

The Philippines, being the only Spanish colony in Asia, reminded me a lot of Honduras. Tagalog, their language, has a lot of Spanish influence – saying hello is “kumusta”, like “como estas”. They were even playing some of the same Christmas songs in the shops that I hear in Honduras. On many occasions, people would start talking to me and I wouldn’t understand anything until I realised they thought I was Filipina and were talking to me in Tagalog!

Other than El Nido, Palawan’s greatest attraction is an underground river which has been classed as a UNESCO site. The river is actually about two hours drive from Puerto Princesa on Palawan’s terrible roads, but it shares the name of Palawan’s capital city. The number of visitors is limited and you must obtain a permit to visit the river. As was our experience with gorilla permits in Uganda, permits are hard to come by if you’re an independent tourist, as the permit office favours local travel agents who then sell the permits at a profit. We could have got a permit as it turned out, but ended up talking to a friendly local travel agent, Joseph Hidalgo (wildrock_tours@yahoo.com), who had two spaces left on his tour leaving in 20 minutes and agreed to take us at a discounted last-minute rate. And so off we went with two nice couples, one from the Philippines, one from India, and a group of lighthearted politicians from the Philippines.

We stopped along the way at a few scenic lookouts to take photos before our driver suggested we take a detour by a cave complex nearby as we were running early for our permit time. Once there, we had an option to take a cave tour of 45 minutes. The politicians jumped at the opportunity, and since they were going, we also decided to go instead of waiting around for 45 minutes doing nothing. We felt a little sorry for the two couples who had paid full price and were now waiting around bored for a non-itinerary detour. The cave tour through a karst mountain was interesting, quite challenging (I regretted wearing flip-flops!), and very humid, and short enough to be fun and not too much like hard work.

After our detour, we stopped for a tasty lunch (included in the tour) on the beach. We found a lady on the beach selling a local Palawan delicacy for dessert. Tamilok is a type of worm found in the mangroves of Palawan, and is served cold in a bowl with some chili sauce. I think the worms were still alive as we ate them. Imagine an oyster shaped like a worm, and you’ll be close to picturing a tamilok. They were debatably palatable, and given Tony’s track record of tasting “delicacies” on our trip, he’s beginning to think the word has lost its meaning.

On we went to the Underground River. Even though we had a permit and a set time, we had to wait around for half an hour – no worries, it’s a Philippine thing. But it gave us a chance to see huge monitor lizards walking right through the waiting area around the people. When we finally got going, we were dispatched into a small boat with an oarsman who was also our tour guide. We sailed into the river wearing our safety helmets and sporting large floodlights to see where we were going. The cave smells quite bad, and the helmets were to prevent the numerous bats from defecating on us as they swarmed overhead. The caves inside were huge, and we arrived at one area called the cathedral which must have been over five stories high. We paddled upriver for about 2km during which our oarsman managed to rhyme off numerous jokes such as “you know why it stinks here? It’s the bat(h)-room.” etc which went down really well with the Filipinos on the tour. It was quite interesting and completed a fun and worthwhile day excursion, although I think we’ve had our fill of caves for our whole trip now.

The next morning was the fight and we made our way to the Coliseum, the local stadium, to watch the fight with the locals. Tony was expecting a lot of raw emotion like at football matches, but the Philippines are a laid back type of people and rarely got too excited, except for some moments in the 5th round when Manny was on the verge of getting a knockout against his unfortunate Mexican opponent, Antonio Margarito. In the end, Manny made history by winning by a unanimous points decision and won his 8th boxing title at a different weight and cemented his reputation as the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, ever!

We could not lose any more time so immediately after the fight we headed to El Nido. Transport in Palawan is infrequent with the only buses leaving early in the morning. We had originally been quoted about €180 for a private afternoon transfer to El Nido but managed to agree a deal with Joseph for €100 (the shared minibus would have been €14). But we were longing for beautiful forgotten beaches and did not want to wait another day. As we left Joseph bid us farewell with a newborn baby in his arms. Tony asked if it was his, but he explained that he was on his way to the funeral of the baby’s mother who had died in childbirth, and that his secretary would now look after the child. It was a sober reminder of what life can be like for people here in the Philippines, and proof of the strong bonds of community that exist here.

We bid our farewells and headed off on our journey. Most of the road was in good state, except for the last section north of Roxas that was completely unpaved and very bumpy. A journey that would have taken 8 hours on the public minibus took only 4 in the luxury AC van (only option) we hired, so in the end we didn’t feel too bad about the extra expense. We arrived after dark and found a hotel on the other side of the bay about 3km from El Nido in Corong Corong and had some rest before setting out to explore the next day.

When we planned our trip, I had circled the Cook Islands as my dream destination, but because of time we were not able to make it to the South Pacific, so I was really hoping that Palawan would make up for it. First impressions of El Nido therefore were a little disappointing. The town itself is not very pretty – lots of concrete – and half of the beachfront is a line of ugly hotels cramped together squeezing out every inch of space, while the other half is quite tastefully developed. On the other hand, if you get on the beach in front of the hotels, the view is spectacular! There is only electricity from around 2pm to 6am so it’s rustic for sure, just not very native. Having said that, spend a few days, and the friendly people, natural scenery and laid back vibe will start to grow on you. In front of our hotel in Corong Corong, the narrow, waveless beach was disappointing also, although the view of the bay was amazing and better even than El Nido. We decided to go exploring further away from town walking along the shore. As we walked, things started to look up, as we approached a deserted, wide, sheltered beach with white sand beaches, nobody around, and a backdrop of tall coconut trees. We hung around for a while before heading into town to plan the rest of our time ahead. We were quickly informed that paradise didn’t lie on mainland Palawan, but in the many islands dotted around Bacuit Bay. There are plenty of tours for island hopping around the bay, but our idea of paradise doesn’t involve sharing it with a tour group, so we planned our next two days with the first on a scuba-diving day-trip, and the second on a private boat tour.

To picture Bacuit Bay, its perhaps easier to first think of its well-known lookalike, Halong Bay. Bacuit Bay does not have near as many of the karst islands as Halong Bay, but it is not overrun with a conveyor belt of tourist outings, and another plus is that Bacuit Bay delivers on its promise – sundrenched (on occasion) private beaches, and a real slice of paradise.

Bacuit Bay is a protected marine area and we spent a lot of our first-day underwater in Bacuit Bay, and why not? Jacques Cousteau, the world’s most famous scuba-diver and marine biologist made a film based on the coral and marine life around Palawan, and South Miniloc, our first dive site was noted as the highest concentration of cabbage coral (like huge underwater cabbages!). It was very impressive, especially near the end when we ended up surrounded by hundreds, maybe even over a thousand, yellow snapper. It’s hard to explain scuba-diving to someone who hasn’t scuba-dived, so maybe this video (not ours) will help you imagine. While the others on our scuba tour went for their second dive, we decided to relax on a small island on a deserted beach surrounded by towering limestone cliffs. We did another dive later in the day with a manta ray, a moray eel and loads of starfish among the highlights (as well as loads of adorable clown-fish of course), before heading back to land as a storm rolled in behind us.

The next day we set off on our private tour. Most tours are set options which cover different parts of the bay. You pick A,B, C or D and off you go with a group, but we picked a mix. We had dinner the previous night at El Nido Corner, a restaurant on the waterfront run by a Danish expat and his wife. Other than serving delicious fresh fish caught daily in the bay at great prices, our host Ole, also served some great advice on the best spots in the bay which formed the basis of our private tour.
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We set sail in the rain from El Nido which meant the third day running that rain had interrupted our hopes of constant sunshine. It was still raining as we sailed slowly around the Big Lagoon, our first stop. It was still raining by the time we reached the Small Lagoon, so we thought we may as well get wet. We jumped in for some good snorkelling – never before have we seen so many sea urchins (like big floating hedgehogs) – it’s amazing to see them move around, although we couldn’t help thinking how tasty they would be. By the time we got out, things were brightening up. Our next stop was Secret Lagoon, so called as you have to climb through a small gap in the rocks in order to enter it. Once inside, you’re in your own private cavern with high walls on all sides, and a small pool of water – very impressive. From there, we moved on to Cadlao Lagoon. A lot of people will put Cadlao Lagoon at the top of their list of locations in Bacuit Bay, and that’s where it is on our list. The sun had finally broken out, and we floated around a corner which revealed a floor of coral carpeted in warm turquoise water and walled in by needles of spiky karst rock formations. It was breathtaking. We spent around an hour just floating in the water and snorkelling with the multi-colour, flourescent fish in the water. Our final stop was Helicopter Island. We landed on a long stretch of gorgeous, deserted beach with a magnificent view over beautiful Bacuit Bay. The only people on the island, we paddled in the waves and watched our boat driver harpooning fish for his dinner without success. It was our last stop, but left us wanting more.

As we sailed back into El Nido, we realised that some places do merit that lofty tag of paradise – just make sure you bring the sun!

Footnote: Palawan currently benefits from responsible governance which seeks to protect its environment and long may it continue. During our stay, we booked tours in Puerto Princesa from Joseph Hidalgo who we recommend. We ate at El Nido Corner restaurant, and the fish is fresh, fantastic and great value with a great welcome. We also frequented the El Nido Art Cafe and boutique which is a great place to while away the evenings in El Nido with thirst-quenching San Miguel beer, great kinilaw, and free wifi. And overall, the Filipinos (Pinoys) are among the friendliest people you’ll meet. For information, we recommend reading and contacting the websites of the very active Filipino blogging community.

The trip to Kyoto, Japan’s finest example of it’s rich history, started with a journey aboard one of Japan’s finest examples of modernity – the shinkanzen, or bullet train. Sure enough, the train rolled out of Tokyo station not a minute early, not a minute late. We covered a distance of about 400 km in just over two hours, reaching speeds of almost 300kmph along the way, but you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re standing still as it’s a very comfortable ride. The arrival into Kyoto station betrays nothing of Kyoto’s rich heritage, as it’s a huge, modern concourse in the middle of modern downtown, and is actually quite a sight in itself with it’s cute cartoon character signs and views of the Kyoto television tower.

If all you get from a year-long trip around the world is memories of Kyoto, it would quite possibly be enough. While wonderful to visit at any time of the year, there are undoubtedly two moments when Kyoto goes from merely beautiful to spectacular. One of those is the short cherry blossom season in the springtime, and the second is the longer autumn period when Kyoto’s wooded hills and landscaped gardens play host to a symphony of autumn colour. We arrived in Kyoto on the 7th of November, slightly early in the autumn display window, but favourably quieter than the tourist peak.

During the autumn festival, many of Kyoto’s famed temples open their gates to the public for a nighttime display of light and colour. After a light dinner of fine tempura, we made our way to the Shoren-In temple, where we strolled through the tatami (woven bamboo floor) corridors and through the light and shadow play in the temple gardens, carrying our candle-lit paper lanterns to guide us along the way. One of the highlights was a mesh of blue lights stretched over a grass lawn which would shine and dim as we explored. It was a nice visit, and a worthwhile experience to attend one of the nightlight shows, but with so much autumn colour, and clear sunlight available by day, Shoren-in remained our sole nighttime temple visit.

I had fears for this post becoming just a long list of temples in Kyoto, and that’s what it will probably end up like because that’s exactly what we did – visit one splendid temple after another without getting the least bit of temple-fatigue, interspersing our tour with breaks at vending machines for hot cans of coffee, sushi restaurants for potentially fatal yet energy-boosting blowfish sushi, and of course, the rare pleasure of being served a Japanese green tea by a geisha and her apprentice maiko. So please, read on!

The Strange Case of the Geisha’s Tea and the Poisonous Pufferfish Supper

Being the spiritual home of Japan, Kyoto is also home to the country’s largest Geisha, or Geiko, community which is centred in the historical Gion district on the east side of the city. While dinner for two with a geisha could easily cost upwards of $1,000, autumn and spring provide a bargain opportunity to share such expensive company. Geisha celebrate nature’s gifts with seasonal dances, and we bought two $40 tickets for an afternoon performance in the Gion Odori theatre, and paid extra to participate in a tea ceremony with a geisha and an apprentice geisha, a maiko. We arrived early and it seemed like everyone else attending the show had opted for the tea ceremony too, and far from being served by a geisha, we were served by a team of rushed waitresses. Only one person out of approximately 50 was served by the geisha who sat at the top of the room whisking tea, every movement at once mechanical, graceful and considered. We were disappointed and went to take our place in the theatre for the show.

Just before the show however, I walked past the ceremony room again and noticed that it was entirely empty. And so I complained to the organiser that I felt the ceremony had overpromised and underdelivered, and could I go again. She was a nice lady, and after about 10 minutes deliberation, she acquiesced, and I took my seat in front of the geisha and maiko. What followed was amazing, as the geisha poured hot water into an ornate cup, added tea and stirred it. Then the maiko took the cup, brought it to my table. I drank the tea, and the maiko then took the cup away again. Make up your own mind, but that’s one more thing off the bucket-list.

The show was actually very good, full of Japanese cultural expression, unique music, beautiful silk costumes, white faces, and studied movements. I made a video of a lot of it, and while quite long, skipping through it will give you a sneak peek at a unique moment of celebration of Kyoto and Japanese culture. As with all movies, the end is the best bit, and without giving too much away, concludes with a full stage geisha and maiko finale.

After the show, we took a walk through Gion and with a hot can of coffee for courage, took the plunge into the dangerous world of fatal sushi – fugu! Fugu is the Japanese word for blowfish. Pufferfish is a balloon like fish and is a speciality of Japanese sushi. To serve fugu, a chef must train for three years. The liver and skin of fugu can be lethally poisonous. There is no known antidote to this poison. So what better way to follow up a few tasty gyoza than playing dice with the devil and a last supper moment, Japanese style. The fugu sashimi, reassuringly expensive, was sliced thin, tasted good, and no doubt fully aware that dead customers don’t tip, turned out to be a near miss, rather than a premature end to our trip. Check out the live video here.

A Long List of Temples

All good guidebooks will tell you to plan your Kyoto sightseeing by district – follow that advice. Our first day took us to the southern part of Higashiyama where we started with the Kiyomizu-dera complex of temples. This is a real Kyoto highlight! At the entrance to Kiyomizu-dera, try not to miss the small Zuigudo Hall which is a monument to Buddha’s mother and meant to symbolise the womb. Take off your shoes and descend the stairway into darkness. And don’t take your hand off the rail, or you may end up crying like a baby. It’s fun and probably gets the vote for most novel temple we visited. Although the love stones in the Jishu Shrine inside Kiyomizu-dera are a close second. Blindfolded, the hopeful lovers must cross the 6m between the stones and successfully arrive at the opposite stone. Doing so augurs well for your future romance, assisted success suggests a go-between will be needed, and not getting there … well, just try again! Despite being crowded, I accepted the challenge and not without difficulty or appearing drunk, finally succeeded – watch my destiny unfold here.

From Kiyomizu-dera, we walked to Kodai-ji temple passing through the charming, stepped streets of Ninnen and Sannen-zaka. A trip or a fall on these steps condemns you to 7 or 9 years of misfortune depending on the street. It is Japan’s rich culture (or superstition) which makes it so interesting and so much fun to discover. Along the way, we found several adorably cute statues to Japanese deities which should be rubbed in order to pay respect and gain good fortune, and we couldn’t resist giving them a cuddle.

Further north, we arrived in perhaps Kyoto’s best know park, the Maruyama-koen. This was one of my favourite places in the city. Little ponds, a setting sun, a chill and clear air and some beautiful autumn scenery effortlessly combined to create a natural masterpiece. Have a look in our Maruyama-koen photo album and judge for yourself.

On day 2, we took the bus to the Arashiyama district in the western reaches of the city. We got up early as we wanted to beat the crowds to get to Kyoto’s famous bamboo grove which is situated behind the Tenryu-ji temple. We skipped the temple and went straight to the bamboo garden, and it proved to be a great move as we got the whole grove to ourselves for a few minutes before the cars and taxis started arriving. The green just shines all around you, and when the wind blows the bamboo sing out their klak-klak tune as they sway and swing together in the breeze. Bamboozling!

As the grove got busier, we took a stroll around the Zen garden of Tenryu-ji. The centrepiece, in front of the main temple building is a small lake which is designed to offer a perfect view from any standpoint around it. It is also one of the finest examples of Zen landscaping called “borrowed scenery”. The lake is surrounded by a frame of trees in the garden, which are themselves framed by the row of wooded hills around them. The ability of the Japanese to blend the man-made with the god-given is an important metaphor of their religion, a beauty to behold, and an eloquent means to remind us of the need to respect the environment.

After lunch, we headed back into town to the northern part of the city. Our first stop was Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Pavilion which is absolutely breathtaking. Borrowed scenery, a lake that serves as a mirror, and a shimmering golden refuge framed by autumn. Waoh!

From here, we walked to nearby Ryoan-ji which is famous for its dry landscape Zen garden. We didn’t quite have the time to achieve the tranquility which contemplation of the garden can provide, but it is undoubtedly the most original theme for a garden I have ever seen. And being Japan, it is meticulously designed in that all 15 rocks in the garden can be seen together at the same point from only one point in the adjoining pavilion. The following quote seems to sum up the garden and the Zen theme quite succinctly: “- What’s so special about the garden at Ryoan-ji? – The spaces between the rocks”.

Our final day brought us back to Higashiyama, this time to its northern end. The gate to the massive Chion-in temple is suitably monumental and veiled in rich purple. In the main temple, we listened to a monk chanting a prayer while playing a drum and cymbal, an image which evoked memories of Tibet, although thankfully without the smell of yak butter.

From there, we continued on to Nanzen-ji which looked superb in the softening Autumn-sunshine, with the red and yellow leaves falling around the feet of the aqueduct which passes through its gardens. And as the light faded we continued on along the Path of Philosophy (Tetsugaku-no-michi) before we finally decided that it was time for home.

And that doesn’t even leave me time to tell you about all the wonderful mushroom buns and squid stuffed with boiled egg, and loads more to tickle your taste buds at the gastronomic arcade of Nishiki market. Or the invigorating bath in electrified water in the traditional hot springs at the Funaoka onsen. Alas they will have to wait for a chat over a sake or a drink of winter beer along with a supermarket sushi takeaway.

Overall, we spent three full days in Kyoto, and we could have spent more. I have never seen any city with so many UNESCO sites in the same area; I can guess that only Athens or Rome could rival it. In the end, with the limited daylight hours and lots of walking, we had to drop some of the far-off temples off our itinerary. Additionally, we did not manage to make it to Nara, another former imperial capital which is only a few hours away by train. As much as we wanted to, we felt a little too weary to bring all our bags with us and have the unnecessary stress of having to rush to Osaka for our flight, so in the end we spent the last afternoon of our stay taking it easy and getting ready for our next destination, and unfortunately our final stop in Asia, the Philippines. Until then, from Japan, undoubted highlight of our trip and contender for number 1 destination: Sionara!

We arrived in Tokyo and we had stepped into another dimension. We flew from Vietnam via China. Our second flight was in Japan Airlines (JAL), and from there things started getting good. Our JAL flight was a small sample of what awaited us: a modern, efficient, clean and polite society that make excellent bento boxes. We could not believe how friendly and helpful the Japanese people were. To my surprise they spoke very little English, but they will do anything and everything they can to help you. What a change from Vietnam it was. And another big change from Vietnam were the prices! At the beginning I could not get over how expensive Japan was. We had been traveling in South East Asia for some months, so of course the increment in expenses was humongous. However after reflecting on it, I realized that most things, with a few exceptions like transport and internet are about the same prices as in Ireland. The difference is that in Europe we have income in Japan we didn’t.

With its sky-high buildings and an efficient and ample transport network, Tokyo is a first class ultramodern metropolis. But if you look closely and pay attention, you will find a very traditional society. And that is precisely why they do not speak English, they want to preserve their own culture. Globalization is there to stay, and as the years pass they will inevitably and regrettably lose some of it. By far Japan has been the country where we have experienced the most intact culture, they preserve their arts, religion, language, cuisine, dress, etc. For many centuries Japan was closed to the rest of the world, Japanese were not allowed out and foreigners were not allowed in, until the West finally forced them to open their borders. Japan is another dimension, we could easily see how they could survive on their own, they are very unique and creative people who have developed extraordinary skills.

In modern Tokyo we delighted our eyes by every minute watching thousands of Japanese at the most famous and busy crossing in the world: Shibuya. I also discovered that neither New York, London or Milan are the cradle of fashion. It’s Tokyo, by far! Japanese men and women are so undeniably fashionable. Girls try very hard from a small age to represent fashion. Some of their school uniforms were just too much, or actually too little, some right out of a fantasy world . I don’t know how, but it seems that most people in Japan have money to burn. In Europe you see wealthy Japanese on shopping sprees at the very fancy shops, but in Tokyo it seems that everyone is shopping all the time. Merchandise is on sale everywhere you can imagine, and they are always buying everything and anything they see. We had thought about buying a new camera and computer, but we did not as we were surprised to find no special prices on electronics for export models. It seems that Hong Kong has left Tokyo behind in the international electronic market. Our laptop was not working well and it seemed it would crash any minute so we tried to find a place to get a backup of all our info. Well, the cheapest we could find was for almost 1000 Euros, 3 times the cost of the computer itself! No way, thanks! Akihabara is the big electronic city quarter, but 99% is for domestic Japanese electronics (ie no English interfaces). It is full of gadget savvy nerds who also enjoy their comic books, too much… In this quarter you can also find plenty of adult shops and the peculiar “Maid Cafes”. We were really curious about both, so we went in. The adult shop was a very big building with about 5 floors. It has all the usual stuff, but the higher up you go, the more strange things to be found, things my eyes could not believe. One of those things was a made up actual size woman. Men (or women) buy the different parts of a woman’s body and create their own model. The most expensive part is not the face, you can imagine which one it is, and you can do the same things to it… The price for these parts are thousands of Euros. Oddly enough, there were no men parts to build up a Mr. Perfect. The Maid Cafe is a place where you can go and have small food and mainly drinks. A girl dressed in sexy French Maid outfits (which you will see all over Akihabara luring people to their cafes ) welcomes you, takes your order, pours your coffee, and I don’t know what else. We did not stay to find out as the cheapest item on the menu was a regular cup of coffee for 7 Euros. There is also a cover charge. I cannot understand this Japanese obsession with servitude. We were told that Geishas can get paid $5,000 a night just for serving Japanese businessmen. If a deal has to be closed they will hire a geisha to serve the businessmen during the meeting. Serving means from serving the tea to repeating to him how handsome he is, and apparently it works. He will close the deal. Crazy to me, but it’s their culture. Oh yes, we were continuously culturally shocked in Japan.

Japan is karaoke crazy, but unfortunately we did not have enough time to try it ourselves. Actually where we had quite a fun night was at an Irish pub. We met Raymond, a friend of Tony from Donegal, Ireland who has been living in Tokyo for many years. Raymond was really nice and hospitable. He invited us to a local small traditional Yakitori (burnt meat on a stick) restaurant. It was delicious and it was an authentic Japanese experience. As a good Irish, Raymond took us afterwards to an Irish Pub. A Guinness became two and three, and whiskey… and we missed the last metro of the day! Oh oh, we had to do the unthinkable, get back to our hotel by taxi. The price of a taxi ride in Tokyo is exorbitant. We could have gone and spend the night in an internet cafe instead, but we didn’t. Internet cafes in Tokyo are crazy places as well. People who miss the metro or trains spend the night in them. You get a computer and dvd player in a closed booth that has quite a comfortable sofa to sleep in. It was really a strange concept, and men and women are separated by floors. There are showers and vending machines for food and drinks.

In Japan you can get anything from a vending machine, even hot coffee, but not from a glass, from a can that is hot. We even went to a restaurant where we had to select our food from a vending machine, and once we got the ticket we handed it in to the waitress, who promptly brought our food. Nothing is in english so figuring it out was no easy task. I am crazy about sushi so I had a mission to eat as much of it as possible. I thought there would be a sushi restaurant in every corner, but surprisingly there weren’t. We finally found one with the revolving band, and then a “standing sushi bar”, a tiny place where people stand around the chef and he makes your pieces and delivers them to you in a green leaf, then you leave; all very fast. Service is impeccable in Japan, and they do not expect or accept any tips, excellence comes by nature. We love this culture! We also discovered that where we could get really good, fresh and not so expensive sushi at the supermarkets, so I indulged quite a bit! Tony was happy as well as there were plenty of French boulangeries to satisfy his sweet tooth.

One of the main highlights of a visit to Japan is attending the auction at the Tsukiji fish market. A lot of the fish sold in the world goes through here. To do this we had to take a taxi before 4 am to Tsukiji. Only 140 people separated into two groups are allowed daily to watch it. We were there at 4:15 and already there was a big queue. We were fortunate to get in, as many people just minutes after us were turned away. If you make the effort of getting up so early and paying a taxi (only possible way that early), might as well get there really early. Since we were in the second group we had to queue for an hour in freezing temperatures. When we were finally allowed in, we saw an interesting video explaining the history and present operations of the market.

The auction in itself went by really quick. Experts placed live bids at the auction, the loud tuna auction being the highlight. It was really worth getting up so early for. Previous to the auction we saw the expert bidders carefully examining the huge tuna fish. Once the auction is over, the thing to do is head to the sushi eateries in the market. Apparently there are some eateries better than the others, where the queues to get a seat were more than 4 hours long. Personally I think that they are all the same, and only because an eatery was mentioned in a guidebook I was not willing to queue more than 5 minutes. In any case, if it was of better quality, I am no expert, so I wouldn’t have known the difference. Besides the queue, the prices were just ridiculous. A small plate of mixed sashimi (no blue fin or anything of the sort) had an average price of 40 Euros. Tony still wanted to try it, so we went into an eatery that was full of locals and no queue. Afterwards I ate my sashimi at the market, which was a 5 minute walk away from Tsujiki and for 7 Euros only. We also found a very famous and delicious noodle shop nearby to fill our half empty stomachs. Afterwards we went back to Tsukiji which was entirely open to the public by then to see the fish sales to the public. Never had we seen so many different types of seafood, including giant oysters which I still crave for.

Another must in Japan is trying the different accommodations. We stayed in a “normal” hotel the first nights but we had to try something different. The normal hotel has the tiniest rooms imaginable, smaller than those in a cruise ship. You could not walk around the bed even. It had a bathtub, suitable for the size of a 4 year old at most. The highlight in Japan of course are the toilets, which do everything from massaging you, fanning you to playing tunes. Then for one night we slept at the capsule hotel. The main concept of it is to provide a rest for a night, especially for Japanese men who did not make the metro or train. Most are for men only, so we had a hard time finding a mixed one. Check in time is after 9 pm and check out before 9am. We paid the student price which was about 18 Euros each and were given funny slippers to change into, as we had to deposit our shoes in lockers. Men and women are separated by floors. There is a common bathroom in each floor which has normal Western showers and also the typical Japanese baths, which are basically common pools heated to a very high temperature. At 2:30 am they were great as I was the only one in them. Each floor had about 40 capsules one after the other, in two rows The capsule in itself is quite tiny, it has a mattress on the floor, a towel, sheets and a warm blanket, all extremely neat and clean. As well a kimono is provided. There is a tv (put coins in to turn it on), and a small fan. It was comfortable enough, but I hardly got any sleep. I went to bed early, the first one in the capsule; but after midnight most people (some drunk) came in so it got noisy. Secondly, I had no alarm, and next morning we had to be up by 3 am for Tsukiji, so I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up and had no way of communicating with Tony either.

Yet another highlight was watching the sunset over the snowy peak of Mount Fuji in Tokyo. This can be done for free from the Municipal Government buildings. We strolled through Kagurazaka district which is a complete different pace than the rest of Tokyo. It’s a quiet, traditional and well preserved district. It has beautiful residential areas, which have delicately trimmed gardens. As well, we saw many different temples; some Buddhist, but very different style than the rest of Asia. A famous and big temple we visited in Tokyo was Senso-Ji, in Asakusa, another old nice district. In Senso-Ji we did a traditional ritual which gives you your fortune. Tony got the best fortune possible, and I got the opposite. So I did what the Japanese do, leave my fortune behind and tie it in the temple so the wind takes it away.

A visit to Tokyo would not be complete without a visit to Ginza, one of the world’s top 10 most expensive shopping areas by square meter in the world. All the famous brands have their own buildings. I was not really impressed by the products they sell, which can be found anywhere in the world, but by the incredible architecture and design of the buildings. Personally I was impressed by the Hermes building, a rectangular high rise building, its exterior made all of transparent bath style tiles. Again, in Ginza, you can witness the high fashion of its population, including the canines.

It was time to continue our journey to Kyoto by riding the fastest train in the world, the famous bullet train. We left Tokyo behind, but there were so many things left undone. We are definitely returning to Tokyo, next time with a big budget and a big month! Japan is now battling South Africa for my favorite country visited.

Next stop after Hoi An was Hue, a few hours north. We had bought our bus tickets at a travel agency in Hoi An because the girl there was very nice and had let us use the internet to look for hotels on our first night. The bus left at 7am and was a sleeper bus. I thought this was great – a lazy early morning bus, but it was quite dirty. The bus attendant was really rude, and took to hitting Ninfa’s feet with a magazine because she was restring them on the empty bed in front of her. I don’t know why he didn’t try a subtler form of communication, nor why it was ok for a Vietnamese man opposite us to do exactly the same thing. This is the key contrast in Vietnam – there are some very nice welcoming people, but there is more than a fair share of people who seem to take pleasure in being as rude as possible.

We arrived in Hue on a dull, grey, humid afternoon and set off to explore the citadel. Hue was capital of Vietnam in the 19th and 20th century during the rule of the Nguyen dynasty, who ruled from the citadel on the northern banks of the Perfume River. The walled citadel would have borne similarities to the Forbidden City in Beijing during its heyday, with the interior walled enclosures accessible only to the emperors closest court members. However, much of that similarity has been erased due to the heavy bombing that Hue endured during the Vietnam War, lying as it does on the edge of the former DMZ, and less than 100km from the former Vietnam border. The citadel itself was the scene of a long siege during the Tet Offensive, and it’s old defenses of high walls surrounded by moats proved a costly and difficult conquest for the American forces.

One of the surviving highlights of the citadel is Vietnam’s highest flagpole! The flagpole lies at the end of a huge square facing the impressive entrance to the first inner enclosure where we bought our tickets. Once inside the inner enclosure, there are more moats and ponds, which are full of carp and catfish which resemble giant goldfish. We were told that these carp contain the souls of deceased dragons, and they share a few of the artistically attributed features of dragons from Vietnamese culture. We bought some fishfood and threw it in for the fish. Waoh – what a battle they put up for it. The carp would slide out of the water on top of the other fish to try and get a bite. This provided me with great amusement, until Ninfa pointed out the rats which were crawling along the holes in the wall below us. Yuck! We quickly continued further on through the citadel, and as we did, the more the area turned into ruins and then just heaps of grass. There is a lot of restoration work taking place and what remains is quite impressive. On our way home, we took a different route and encountered some elephants chained up in a yard. The poor fellows seem to have been traumatised by their captivity as one of them swayed back and forth like in a trance. It was sad to see these majestic animals in such a state, a fitting metaphor for an imperial palace now a shadow of its former glory.

The following day, I set off on a tour of the DMZ, the DeMilitarized Zone, the scene of some of the most ferocious combat in the Vietnam War and the graveyard of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands US soldiers. I arranged a tour on a minibus through the Stop and Go Cafe in central Hue which meant a small group of only 5 people along with a guide who was a former South Vietnamese soldier during the war. Ninfa passed as military history isn’t her cup of tea.

Our guide’s name was Han, and as we set off from Hue towards “Horrible Highway”, he started explaining his own role in the war, as well as the importance of the sites we were visiting. Han used to be a scout in the South Vietnamese Army, and therefore worked very closely with the US troops based in the DMZ. His job was to perform reconnaissance missions by land and by helicopter. From Han’s recollections, it seemed that all orders issued by the US Army during the Vietnam War were suffixed by the term “motherfucker”. Not all of Han’s war memories were bad. He told us a few tales about the big money he earned, the time off on the beaches of Danang, the cheap booze and cigarettes and the drugs smuggled in from the marijuana and opium fields over the border in Laos. When the US soldiers would go home, they left anything they had with Han or other Vietnamese. Of course, when the North Vietnamese won the war, they took everything Han had earned and he was left with nothing. Even to this day, he is remembered as a South Vietnamese – a former enemy and a traitor. He receives no recognition from the US Army. He told us one story about how a sympathetic Vietnam veteran from the US gave him some money with which he bought a small Honda motorcycle, which he held in great material and sentimental value. Not long after, he was arrested by the Vietnamese police and convicted of a trumped-up charge – the result: he had to sell his Honda to pay the fine. He told us also of how his children have told him he is an evil man based on the education they receive at school. Although the cynics may say that this is part of Han’s ploy to extract a good tip from his clients, I believe that most if not all has more than a grain of truth in it.

Visiting the DMZ itself is a bit of a disappointment. Much of what I expected was drawn from memories of the iconic, timeless images of war photography, as well as Hollywood productions. But today the DMZ is barely recognisable as a former war zone. Most of the bases there were temporary, built only of wood, dirt and sand, and some of them are now Vietnamese military installations and are therefore off limits. Horrible Highway is no more horrible than any other highway, and no longer a sniper alley. Therefore, Han was indispensable in adding significance to the landscape.The shelled buildings have almost all been demolished, except for a one or two sites such as the Long Hung Church, in which it is easy to imagine the intensity of the battle that took place there. At another stop, we hiked through a rubber plantation to a former US camp. On our hike, we passed a ditch which was formerly part of the famous Ho Chi Minh trail. Han pointed out an old booby trap (now dismantled), and showed us a small fern that curls up on contact which was an invaluable natural aid to a scout in spotting the traces of the enemy. At the camp, all that remained was one concrete bunker, which bore the scars of bombs and grenades both inside and out. It’s not wise to wander in Vietnam as unexploded ordinance (land mines) remain and claim many victims every year. Nevertheless, a stroll around the bunker revealed ripped sandbags appearing beneath the surface as well as the shreds of old US soldier kagouls and raincoats. Again, you have to use your imagination, or otherwise be thoroughly bored at the lack of evidence. I was glad Ninfa had decided to pass.

Following this stop, we continued on to Truong Son National Cemetery, a large military monastery of fallen heroes of the North Vietnamese Army. As expected, there were row upon row of almost identical graves – all that differs is the name and the dates of birth and death. Of course, many of the graves are unmarked, and those bearing names may also be unreliable as North Vietnamese had no tags to identify them. Ho Chi Minh was defiant is his battle with the US, promising to continue fighting and sacrficing lives until they had won or until they had all died. Against such an enemy, victory is all but impossible. And despite the size of the cemetery, it holds but a few of those that lost their lives in this bloody war.

After the cemetery, we arrived at the border. A huge Vietnamese flag flies on the northern side, and the old Hien Luong Bridge bridge over the Ben Hai river which divided the two nations still stands. On either side of the border are the two lookout posts. On the southern side stands a huge monument to the civilian dead, and on the northern side a large arch which was once the official border post. Sometimes the weapons employed in war are more subtle than guns and bombs, and on either side of the river are large pillars of megaphones – these were the weapons in the war of propaganda, as each side goaded each other and shouted across claims of bounteous supplies of food on either side and other claims and counterclaims – amusing.

Our last stop on the trip was on the coast near the village of Vinh Moc, which used to be a fishing village before being bombed to oblivion. While the village perished, the target of the bombs survived; an expansive network of supply tunnels and secret hideouts which descend more than three storeys underground. The tunnels are close to their original state and are actually a little larger than I had expected. Nonetheless, they’re full of damp, and beyond a few minutes inside, I would have been feeling very claustrophobic, nevermind if there had been B52s dropping tonnes of explosives right above my head. These tunnels, along with the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon, were a crucial part of the North Vietnamese success in the war, and a symbol of the lengths that the Vietnamese were willing to endure in order to win the war. After the tunnels, we headed back to Hue and bid our farewells to Han, before I caught some sleep before our early morning departure to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

Everyone had told us that traffic in Saigon was much worse than Hanoi, and it probably is, but at least Saigon has the wide avenues to deal with it. Given the grandeur of the city compared to Hanoi, it felt like a breath of fresh air promenading through its big city streets. What nobody told us however was that the food in Saigon was so good. We had lunch in the same place, Quan An Ngon, each day, a marvellous restaurant which serves a huge range of Vietnamese specialities freshly made every day. We chose from the menu the first day, but just walked around pointing at what we liked the second day. The place had a nice mix of well-heeled locals and well-informed expats and tourists, which is generally a good sign, and was a change from the sterile surroundings of some of the numerous “pho” (noodle soup) shops around the city.

Most of the sights we visited in Saigon were again related to the war. The first was the Re-Unification Palace, which is an instantly recognisable landmark in central Saigon. It was through the gates of this 1970′s style edifice that tanks rolled on 30 April 1975, marking the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the victory of the North Vietnamese, and the reunification of Vietnam. We took a free tour of the building with a young Vietnamese guide insistent on indulging us in such awful jokes that she should have been placed in the Hanoi Hilton (and not as a guide!). Nonetheless, the visit was moderately interesting, due to the historic significance of the events that took place there. The building is stuck in the moment of that day in 1975, with all the presidential decor of the era still in place – coloured telephones, big red buttons, huge computers, and maps pasted over walls in the bunkers downstairs. I couldn’t resist ignoring the “Do Not Touch” signs in the control room in order to issue an urgent command to the secret service to remove the tour guide immediately or risk a renewed outbreak of war!

After the Palace, we took a walk through downtown Saigon, which retains a flavour of a Paris of South-East Asia. The post office wouldn’t look out of place on the Champs Elysee. There are plenty of posters of communist propaganda everywhere, and wherever there’s a smiling face in Saigon, 9 times out of 10, it’s Uncle Ho.

The next day, I indulged in more war nostalgia with a trip to the War Remnants Museum, Ninfa again declining, but this time as she had heard that the museum was an exercise in propaganda. I had been advised by some fellow travellers on the DMZ tour to start at the top, which was a good recommendation. The top floor is an exhibition of photo journalism from photographers who lost their lives in the battles of South-East Asia. Given the role of the press in shaping opinion in the US during the war, it was a fascinating exhibition. There are numerous recognisable images reproduced here, and it was amazing to see them all exhibited together in a common context. There were photos from Robert Capa, a personal favourite, and Life magazine’s Larry Burrows, probably the most famous of the Vietnam War photojournalists. There were photos from their final reels found on their bodies after they died, there were photos of some of them lying slain on the battlefields, and there were others still missing in action. The exhibition ended with a close look at the immediate aftermaths of the chemical warfare employed by the US in Vietnam as well as a photo documentary of the legacy of Agent Orange (a chemical poison of dioxin) which continues to deform both Vietnamese and Americans to this day. Crimes like these take a long time to be forgiven, and the exhibition said a lot through a few carefully chosen images. A quick look around the impressive parking lot surrounding the museum – tanks, planes and choppers – and that was it, for me the Vietnam war was over. Alas for many others in Vietnam, it is not so easy.

So what’s the final verdict? Overall, did we like Vietnam? It’s hard to tell. It was the last country we visited in mainland South East Asia, so perhaps we were a little jaded. Some Vietnamese were very kind and warmhearted people like some of the locals around Hanoi, and obviously just a little shy behind a large communication barrier, but nowhere else in the world have we encountered people who acted as plain rude as some of the people we met in Vietnam. I personally believe it is a minority, although concentrated in the tourist trade. It has it’s charms, it has the best food in South-East Asia and some great coffee, but if you offered me a trip back there for free, what would I say. Well, the country has had a terrible past, it has some wonderful culture, and some beautiful scenery – natural, human and cultural – and a tremendous national identity and its now a booming industry with a promising future. So, maybe, if you twist my arm.

We had spent a few days in the chaos of the Old Quarter of Hanoi, which we have been informed is not half a chaotic as Saigon (something to look forward to), so we were happy to take a change of pace in Hoi An in central Vietnam.

Hoi An attracts visitors for two main reasons: the first, its old town which has been granted UNESCO world heritage status, and the second, cheap clothes custom-made by the latest generation of a long line of Hoi An tailors.Walking around the streets of Hoi An, you quickly realise that the latter is a far bigger attraction than the first. Everyone on the street is talking about the same thing – comparison of dollars spent, number of suits, shirts and dresses bought, extra bags required etc. I’ll come back to this point.

Just before we arrived in Hoi An, Vietnam had been hit by heavy rain which had flooded central Vietnam just north of Hoi An. It was for this reason that we had flown from Hanoi, as the train tracks were still flooded and impassable. This means we will have to climb back north to visit Hue, another UNESCO world heritage town 4 hours drive north of Hoi An. From there we will fly south to Saigon, or Ho Chi Minh City to use its formal title. We booked all these flights at the last minute and fortunately got great prices on JetStar, a quality budget airline owned by Qantas. Given the stories we’ve heard since of cockroach infestations in the premium cabins of the sleeper trains, we’re very happy the floods necessitated this change of plan.

Hoi An, while not flooded itself, is no stranger to wet weather. The town is located on the banks of the Thu Bon river which meets the sea around 4 or 5 km downstream. When the tide comes in, the main street along the riverfront is completely flooded, and it’s hard to see where the footpath ends and the river begins – at times it looks like the boats are actually parked on the street. We had one funny moment when Ninfa thought it would be nice to have her photo taken cycling through the water – she was right, it would have been nice, but she didn’t predict how funny it would be (for me) when she got stuck and ended up ankle-deep in the muddy riverwater.

Hoi An was largely spared from bombing during the Vietnam war, but it seems that mould and damp will eventually succeed in destroying the charming old town at some point in the future. Although undoubtedly detrimental to the health of its inhabitants, the damp mould that covers the towns old pastel-coloured Vietnamese and Chinese-style buildings gives the town a very picturesque quality. Add to this the fact that the town centre is open only to “primitive vehicles” in the evening, and Hoi An ends up a relaxing place to just soak up the atmosphere and the setting. And it would be amiss of me not to mention the wonderful eateries in the old town – we visited one restaurant, Morning Glory, twice and were very impressed by the quality Vietnamese cooking in this restaurant set in an old colonial townhouse. This restaurant is one of many owned by a lady who seems to have a monopoly over all restaurants in Hoi An – which is not necessarily a bad thing. To visit the attractions – old merchant’s houses, temples and assembly halls – you need to buy a town ticket which grants you access to one each of these different types of buildings. We had a quick look into one of the houses, but decided not to opt for digging deeper. Additionally, the Japanese Bridge, the highlight of Hoi An, is not exactly awe-inspiring, and if this is as good as we’re going to see in Japan, our next country of call, I’ll be sorely disappointed. So we decided to just take it easy exploring the city on our rented bicycles, sip coffee on cafe terraces, and partake in the pastime that most visitors to Hoi An will devote their time to – shopping.

Every second shop in the city, and more sometimes, is a tailor. Sitting outside most of them, you’ll find Vietnamese women doing their best to befriend you with compliments or stories of how they are maintaining a family tradition of tailoring which began before the Stone Age. Since we arrived in Vietnam, people have been raving to us about the bargains they got in Hoi An, so we decided to see for ourselves. Ninfa, who rarely succumbs to retail temptation, decided she’d get a few dresses, reminding me at every possible occasion that she didn’t know why she was doing this as in Honduras, the only reason people visit tailors is when they can’t afford to shop in the normal stores. I thought I’d get a few shirts for casual wear, and a traditional Vietnamese suit to use as a pair of pyjamas. And basically, this is how it works.

You visit the tailors, and browse the material on offer. They will plead with you to buy something, and then you select the material. They have hundreds of brochures where you can select one of their previous creations or ask them to copy another design. Ninfa ordered four dresses, two each in two dressmakers’, for a sum of around $40. I ordered an embroidered Vietnamese suit for $12, and two shirts fo $8 each. The ladies took our measurements, then sent these to the tailor who calls by on his moped to collect the materials. We paid a deposit of approximately 50%.

The next day, we came back for fitting. I was impressed as both shirts fit really well. Unfortunately, there was a small stain in the material of the black shirt, so I ended up getting that for $6. As for the other striped shirt, maybe an even better fit, the stripes on the button area were stitched crooked so that the lines weren’t parallel anymore. The lady told me I was being difficult. This is an allegation that has been levelled at me before, but Ninfa quickly confirmed that this was not the problem at hand on this occasion. The lady agreed to keep the shirt. The “pyjamas” needed a quick adjustment to narrow the shirt, but they ended up in a satisfactory state, so I ended up doing reasonably well.

Ninfa, on the other hand, was having trouble. None of the dresses fitted right. For one of the dresses, the tailor had managed to make a complete mess, but she agreed to return later to try the alterations. When we returned to the first place, the dresses – one Chinese style, and one summer dress – were pretty much according to requirements, so we took them. In the second place, it was a complete disaster. One dress was too small to begin with, and there’s no fixing that, and the other was altered to be too small, which ended up with two dresses that Ninfa couldn’t even wear. We told the lady we couldn’t take them and we were entitled to our deposit back. Given that Vietnam is a poor country, I told the lady that she could keep half the deposit to cover her material costs, but the tailoring was poor and nothing even fit, so we wanted the other half back. Cue excuses, shifting of blame, recriminations … needless to say it did not end well. We ended up getting none of the deposit back, and I ended up throwing the dresses in the bin outside the shop, much to the dressmakers horror.

It’s not just dresses that they make in Hoi An, but shoes and trainers too. The previous day, we had got offered the opportunity to create our own trainers for $13 each, so we said what the hell, let’s do it. I created a Chinese zodiac inspired design of dragon material, snake-skin (fake), and tiger-skin (fake and actually a leopard print). Ninfa took her inspiration from flourescent colours in a seemingly impossible combination. Given they were so cheap, we thought we’d make the craziest designs possible, and these actually turned out looking slightly less terrible than we expected. Judge for yourself.

So, what is the verdict on Hoi An? For one, it has probably proven beyond doubt that neither I nor Ninfa will ever become shoe designers. As for bargains? Well, perhaps there are other tailors who produce better quality, but in our opinion, if you have a developed sense of taste in clothing and an eye for detail, then probably you have the means to pay for your clothes in a reputable shop, rather than a tailor in Vietnam. We saw people buying silly 70s-style suits for stag parties, and that’s probably the limit you should respect. In our opinion, a bargain is not always the same as something cheap. In conclusion, Hoi An with its streets full of stores selling bootleg DVDs, photocopied books, cheap clothes and fake designer bags is, in more ways than one, a false economy. Our advice, keep your money in your pocket.

Hanoi airport is about 35 km from the city, and had the usual groups of touts or taxi drivers waiting to greet us. We ignored them all and crossed the highway to the public bus terminal and jumped on a bus to the Old Quarter. It worked out well as we only had to pay $.25 each. Actually so well, that on the way back we did the same. It looks like no foreigners take this bus, as the locals were quite in awe about us boarding it.

Once again, we had a dramatic change of location. From very conservative slow paced Luang Prabang, Laos to completely crazy Hanoi, Vietnam. The first difference I noted was that women were wearing pants (In Luang Prabang they were all wearing long skirts), and those that were wearing skirts, were barely wearing anything. It seemed that everyone was out on the street that night. Motorcycles have taken over this city, this country in fact. It was hard to walk with our bags, as they are driving on the sidewalk or it is covered with parked motorbikes. It was so chaotic, so noisy, and so dirty. First impressions of the country were not great, and overall, these impressions lasted; unlike Laos where our appreciation of the country changed drastically, from the worst first impression of a country to absolutely delighted and not wanting to leave it. The biggest difference we perceived from Laos and Cambodia were the people. I’m not generalizing, as we did meet a few nice and friendly persons, but overall we have to say that of the 28 countries we have visited in this trip, in Vietnam is where we felt the least welcomed. It seems that the answer is always no or negative even before you have finished asking the question. Getting efficient travel services in Hanoi was impossible. It seemed that all the budget travel operators are out to get the most of you, providing the least possible in return. To be fair, we visited a few travel agencies which had very good service and attentive personnel, but unfortunately only cater to very upscale markets. As a long term traveler you are always talking to others doing the same, reading blogs, travel advice, etc. Everyone has different opinions on places, and a lot of the times are different than what we experience. We always ask to have an idea of what to expect, but we always keep an open mind and then make our own conclusions. On Vietnam, and especially Hanoi almost all opinions were negative, and this time we agree with the general consensus.

Hanoi, a city of 6.5 million inhabitants, is situated on the banks of the Red (mostly brown) River, and this year celebrated its 1000 birthday. It was the imperial capital of the kingdom, later the capital of French Indochina and then of North Vietnam. Vietnamese folklore is full of talk of dragons, but in old Hanoi the real danger comes from something else with horns – the motorbikes that swarm over every inch of road, street and footpath. The old town has some nice old architecture, but it’s hard to appreciate it, as it’s all covered with signs and advertisements, and it is very dirty. We found Hanoi to be the dirtiest city we have visited. One good thing to say about Vietnam is that it is rich in culinary arts. We could not get enough of it; there are so many delicious dishes to try in every region. I could have kept on eating fresh spring rolls all day. We ate many variations of their famous rice noodle soup “Pho” at street stalls, and also more gourmet dishes at fine restaurants. Tony delighted himself by having plenty of traditional Vietnamese iced coffees, which are mixed with condensed milk. Although the source of the ice couldn’t always be traced, the strength of the coffee seemed to keep him safe.

We visited all the usual attractions on the tourist trail. Tony is the one interested in War History, but I was the one most impressed with Hao Lo Prison. It literally translates as Hell’s Hole, but is infamously known as the Hanoi Hilton. It was built by the French during Colonial Times to house political prisoners. It was later used by the Vietnamese to hold the US prisoners captured during the Vietnam War, including the Presidential Candidate John McCain. I was not impressed because of the sad stories or because it is rich as a museum. I was shocked of how a country can be run on propaganda. Just a small example like this opened my eyes to realize how a government can manipulate the general opinion. I am grateful to have been born and live in countries where we have all kinds of freedoms and rights. First of all during the tour you go through a section where they display how evil the “French Colonials” were and how innocent the poor Vietnamese were. By the end of it, you will hate the French. The second part takes you to the Vietnam War. It displays how well they treated the United States POW’s. They even show how these prisoners were so happy to be there, how they enjoyed very day and were almost sad to be released. I did not know if I should laugh or believe it. Seriously, I almost believed it all. I have done some research since, and it has been proven that these prisoners were inhumanely treated, and I am not a fan of the USA and their wars. In my opinion, war is always catastrophic, both sides are wrong and both sides always lose. I am not interested in war stuff, and at this attraction I felt I should have been paid for an attempt to manipulate my brain, instead of having to pay an entry fee myself.

From the outside, it seemed that Hanoi was quite modern and liberal, as people seemed to be enjoying themselves at night, sitting in tiny stools in the sidewalks sipping Bia Ho (homemade draft beer) or teas. But in reality, it is not modern or liberal, and communism (so called socialism) seems to be still present. As a lawyer I am always looking at certain details, in Vietnam there seem to be no intellectual property rights, and this is just a small example. Businesses just copy each other’s name and logo to fool customers. We were looking for the Sinh Cafe Travel which supposedly had good budget travel services and we ran into at least 30 copycats (even in our hotel lobby) before finding the original. If we had known their service was that bad, we would have saved us the trouble and time and just booked with any of their imitators.

When in Hanoi, a trip to Halong Bay (HB) is a must, and that’s what we booked with Sinh Cafe. Halong Bay (Bay of the Descending Dragon) is a UNESCO World Heritage site in NorthEast Vietnam. It features almost 2000 limestone karst formation isles in various sizes and shapes. The legend says that they were formed by a dragon who was summoned to defend Vietnam form Chinese invaders. The isles are supposed to be jewels and jade the dragon spat.

Somebody had told us that the junks (that’s what HB boats are known as – right on the spot) were all bad, so we should just book the cheapest one. We didn’t listen, but we should have. We did not want to go with the cheapest option, so we booked a “superior” junk, the Marguerite for a one night two day cruise (other options are two nights, or just a few hours cruise). On the way to HB the guide kept saying that this boat had been finished a few weeks ago. When we got on, I asked him if it had been a joke, and he said it wasn’t. To make the story short, the boat was about a decade old, broken down, the food was terrible, there were cockroaches, and did not look like the pictures of what was sold to us. The staff were as rude as can be, treating the passengers like slaves, lying and not delivering all that had been promised by the tour company. We had predicted this would happen, so we demanded from the tour company to give us all in writing and signed, which after much arguing and hesitations they did. When the staff wouldn’t comply, Tony showed them the paper, but nothing changed. It turned out that everyone on the boat had paid different amounts, and some quite a lot. Fortunately we were on the other end of the scale. Alcohol is not included in the price, so of course everyone brings their own. Once on the boat, (and not before) they tell you it is not allowed, as they want you to buy it at their very expensive prices. One couple got their alcohol confiscated, and were demanded to pay a very high service charge. Tony successfully managed to sneak a six-pack on without anyone noticing though, although he was scolded for delaying the group for two minutes. As well the air conditioning and hot water we had paid extra for only works for a few hours during the trip, this information was also not disclosed to us previously. On the way back to Hanoi and in Hanoi we heard so many people complaining about all the same we do, almost everyone we talked to was quite unsatisfied with their junk.

Halong Bay is a natural beauty, there is no doubt about that, and unfortunately the only way to see it is this way. Apparently it’s better to visit it other times of the year when the sky is actually blue. When we were there, there was hardly any visibility, too much smog in the air. We did not jump in the water, as we had our reservations about the contamination. The Bay is filled with hundreds of junks daily, that not only emit their gas and oils into the water but people’s wastes, so no we did not feel any temptation. As part of the tour we were taken to a cave in one of the isles, called the Amazing Cave. They have put on a colored light show inside the cave to highlight the stalagmites and stalactites. We also did some kayaking and saw up close the floating villages. We really enjoyed the kayaking (except the rowing) as it was a great opportunity to get away from the convoy of junks and into our own private Halong Bay. It was amazing to see how these people have made their lives on the water, living a normal life off a boat, some with dogs included in the family. At night they all tie their boats together and it becomes a village.

Back in Hanoi we had one mission to accomplish, that was to find a live snake so Tony could drink its blood. It is disgusting, inhumane, and horrific but it is part of Vietnamese culture and he wanted to participate in it. On the outskirts of Hanoi there is an area called Le Mat, known for its snake restaurants. We knew about a restaurant, but when we got there they wanted crazy money. They wanted more than $100, when we knew that people had paid only $5 before. We were willing to pay no more than $10. Apparently Vladimir Putin visited this restaurant recently, maybe that’s why it raised its price. They showed us all their live snakes, but did not go lower than $40 so we left. Just a couple of doors away we saw a “normal restaurant” so we asked the friendly owner there we could find a snake restaurant. She said she had snakes, so in we went to see them. They can cook you a seven course meal (soup, spring rolls, steak, etc) after the snake has been killed, but Tony only wanted to participate in the blood drinking, eating its meat is nothing special. She agreed to kill the snake for $12. I was trembling and getting sick. I’ve always had a serious phobia of snakes. Sometimes I wake up at night because I think that snakes have crawled up my bed. I did not want to see it even, but Tony wanted me to film it. So they killed the snake, took the blood out and put it in with some local liquor, and its heart on the side. Tony drank it immediately with no hesitation. Several minutes passed and the snake kept moving and its heart kept beating. As the tradition goes, Tony ate the heart also! It is horrible, is it? But then again, what makes it so more horrible than eating other animals including their hearts and organs? There was more blood left and Tony yelled to me “Drink it baby, beat that fear of snakes”. I don’t know how, but I did it. I don’t know if I should be proud that I beat my fear, or ashamed to participate in animal cruelty, being an active defender of animal’s rights.

If you have a strong stomach, you can witness the gory, alcohol-aided events yourself in the videos below.

For all the pictures click here.