Hue: 15 - 16 June

Our next stop was the historical city of Hue. Located along the Perfume River (which unfortunately does not smell like Perfume), Hue was the national capital, and base for the Nguyen dynasty, which ruled from 1802 until 1945, when emperor Bao Dai abdicated in favour of Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary government (thanks wikitravel).

During the Vietnam War, Hue’s location very close to the border between North and South Vietnam, resulted in some tough times and damage to some parts of the city, although we didn’t find this noticeable today.  

Interestingly, we were told that given the relative isolation of the centre of Vietnam during the War, the Vietnamese spoken here is very different and pretty much incomprehensible to Vietnamese from the North or South.

From Hue you can trek out to the Demilitarized Zone and the Vinh Moc tunnels, the former supposedly created as a buffer between the North and South, but which suffered intense fighting.  We decided to give this a miss and instead focused on the sights of Hue itself.

Throughout Hue, relics of the Nguyen dynasty are numerous, and include the Imperial Citadel, several pagodas, and the various tombs of the Emperors. The grounds of the Citadel were quite vast, but we found the Tombs to be the most beautiful – particularly that of Tu Duc, which is situated on a lake filled with beautiful lily pads.

There really is a lot to see in Hue, and we could have spent longer exploring the various tombs and pagodas.

As ever, we’re always keen to try the local specialties, and in this case, it was the Bun Bo Hue – a delicious noodle dish.

From Hue we took the sleeper train north to Hanoi. Arriving at Hue station, we ran into Ylan and Jerry, who were headed on the same train. The carriage Kylie and I were in contained two other beds, one occupied by a rather annoying Vietnamese woman. In the middle of the night, this woman suddenly decided it would be a good idea to watch home movies on her video camera, at full volume of course. She also carried on a number of lengthy, loud, phone calls. All this meant that by the time we pulled into Hanoi at 6am, we were pretty shattered.

Hoi An: 10 – 15 June

Hoi An is beautiful, with part of the city designated a UNESCO world heritage site. There are some truly stunning buildings and temples left over from French colonial times and before. The riverfront houses the historic area of town, but also some great little restaurants, food stalls, and markets. At night, this area really comes alive with beautiful coloured lanterns, and the hustle and bustle of people eating, shopping, and selling.

In Hoi An we met up with old friends Torika and Mike from NZ, also travelling around the region, and briefly saw Ylan and Jerry again. To combat the heat, (which reached as high 42 one day!), we enjoyed many a cold ‘fresh’ beer together. ‘Fresh beer’ or ‘bia hoi’ is beer brewed locally and available in restaurants straight off the keg. It goes for as cheap as 3000 Vietnamese dong a glass – roughly 18 cents NZ! A lot of it was quite tasty too.

Something else Hoi An is known for is tailored clothing. Many people come here expressly for some tailored clothes, and you can see why. Turns out we couldn’t resist the temptation either. Depending on the quality of the materials and workmanship, many times you could get some clothes tailored for you for the same price or less than you would pay for off the rack back in NZ. Kylie got a suit, some pants (oops, trousers to those in UK…), shirts, and a jacket made – which we’re sure will come in handy for job interviews in London. Meanwhile, I got a jacket, two dresses and some shirts as well. Not wanting to cart this around with us for the next month, we shipped it all off to my brother in London.

Hoi An also has a nice beach, which you can reach easily by bicycle, and we spent a nice afternoon there, cooling off in the water or with cold drinks. One real downside about the beach however, is the ladies hawking their wares. Never have we come across more persistent and annoying vendors, some were quite simply rude. In fact, also in central Hoi An, we found the many tailors vying for your custom got a little old after a while too. Sadly it seems as though many of the locals have grown weary of the mass of tourists which visit Hoi An, and have little patience or thought for marketing strategy. That said – the town is definitely still worth a visit.

In Hoi An, there are a few great places to eat. One street stall we found served the most amazing banh mi – this is a Vietnamese sandwich; served in a baguette, with all types of meat (including ‘head cheese’ (google it), cucumber, carrot, chilli, fish sauce, coriander, and sometimes egg – while it doesn’t sound like much, it’s simply delectable. We also discovered another delicious dish – bun bo nam bo – a type of noodle salad, served with grilled beef, fresh vegetables, sprouts, chilli, cucumber, mint, coriander and peanuts.  

Cambodia: Kratie, 4-6 May

After crossing the border into Cambodia, our first stop was Kratie, further down the Mekong from Si Phan Don. We took a tuktuk tour around some key sights in and around Kratie with a friendly local driver. This included some impressive temples, one of which was the 100 pillar temple.                                                                                                 

We also stopped to look at a floating village nearby. The village is populated by poor Vietnamese people who, owning no land back in Vietnam, erected their homes in the river and made a living from here. When the wet season comes, they take down their homes and rebuild further around the corner as the level of the river rises.

On our way to see the floating village, we stopped in a local village, much to the delight of the children, who swarmed into the tuktuk with us and came along for a bit of a ride. Some of them took turns taking running jumps on and off the tuktuk as it made its way through the village. Every village we passed through on our trip we encountered gorgeous smiling kids waving and shouting out ‘hello’ at us, which was quite endearing.

Other stops including watching and talking to some women planting the rice paddy fields, and trying local palm sugar juice (not such a fan of this). Then we went to cool off at the local swimming hole. Turns out this was actually a set of quite strong rapids. Bamboo platforms are erected over the rapids for hanging out, picnicking, hammocking, and also to
cling onto so you don’t get swept off down the river.

In the late afternoon, we headed out on a boat to spot Irrawaddy Dolphins. These dolphins are quite rare and pods can be found in the Mekong around Kratie, as well as near Si Phan Don. Previously, they had been hunted. Although protected now, their numbers are still quite small. We did manage to spot quite a few as they briefly came up for air before slipping under the surface again. It was also a beautiful sight with the sun setting across the river.

Although our tour had officially finished, our tuktuk driver wanted to take us to his friend’s school to help the kids with their English. We went along and were stood up in front of the class, telling them about where we came from, etc. The kids were far too shy to interact with us, but it was a funny experience with thirty or so enthralled faces staring up at us and occasionally giggling about the way we looked, talked, or did something or another.

Chiang Rai, 27th-28th March

Chiang Rai was our next stop as we made our way to the Thai-Laos border crossing. Chiang Rai itself we didn’t find particularly exciting. As in Chiang Mai, it’s a good place to go trekking and do hilltribe homestays, but we didn’t have time for this. We did see the large golden clock tower in the centre of town, and watched the show it put on as it struck the hour.

Outside of Chiang Rai is a wat known as the white temple. This is quite impressive and quite different from other temples we’d seen. This one was somewhat fantastical – you walk over a small bridge towards the temple entrance, and below are a multitude of roiling and writhing hands and heads cast in stone reaching towards you. Inside the main temple building, three of the four walls are covered with a colourful mural. The mural is the work of an artist, Chalermchai Kositpipat and his numerous disciples, and is an impressive work of art. Fire-breathing dragons fight modern movie characters, like Neo from the Matrix, Darth Vadar, Superman, and all sorts. Not at all what I expected to see inside a wat but quite a sight. Alongside the temple is a museum housing more of his work, and a little of his history.

From Chiang Rai, we had a night in Chiang Khong. Chiang Khong is a small town bordering the Mekong river. The river isn’t particularly wide here and you can see across to the Laos border town – Huay Xai.

Sukhothai, 18-20 March

From Ayutthaya we travelled north to Sukhothai, another former capital of Thailand, built in the 13^th century. The old city of Sukhothai is around 12km from the new city, and is full of an impressive number of ruins wats and monuments, which are more intact than those in Ayutthaya. We rented bikes to get around the old city and enjoyed biking around from wat to wat - we managed to see quite a bit. Wat Mahathat is one of the most famous ones, as it is the largest, and quite beautiful. There were also wats on little islands, some of which you had to reach by footbridge. We also visited Wat Si Chum which contains a massive seated Buddha – at a guess around 10m high, it’s impressive and a little intimidating.  

 

Ayutthaya 16-18th March

Ayutthaya

After our 19 hour train ride into Bangkok from Malaysia we had a quick lunch at Bangkok railway station and jumped on the first commuter train north to the old capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya.
We arrived at a nice little budget hotel called Grandparents place, and headed off to the night markets for some dinner hunting. The night markets are situated next to a stream, in fact Ayutthaya is surrounded by a river which makes for a lot of mosquitos, and the hundreds of fluorescent lights lighting up the stalls seemed to attract every single mozzy in a 10 km radius.

After fighting out way through the mosquitos we collected a few take away dishes and headed home.
The next day we took advantage of the rental bicycles at our hotel and headed out on a cycle mission around the ruins that once were a thriving capital. The ruins are spread out across the city but all within biking distance as long as the roaming dogs don’t decide to take out your tyres.
After seeing a few wats (temples) we finished up looking at Wat Mahathat which boasts the famous Buddha head being lifted up in the tree roots. A lot of these ruins were poorly maintained, with many having been damaged by attacks from the Burmese. 

Later that night we headed down to the big muay thai tournament that was in town. With big crowds cheering and jeering and dozens of little food stalls dotted around we decided that this was the place to spend the evening.

There’s not a lot else to Ayutthaya except for these wats so the next day headed out to the bus station and headed for Sukothai  another  former capital of Thailand.