roman holiday.

The charming little town of Hoi An, where we have just spent a few lovely days, is all about clothes, shoes and being Parisian (though this post is called 'roman holiday' because a)I couldn't think of a fitting movie title including Paris and b)Hoi An reminded me more of Rome than Paris).

You need to do little more than wander the gorgeous streets, slipping down alleyways and admiring the lovely old buildings in Hoi An, but when you tire of that you can cycle to the beach or lose yourself in the hundreds of stores filled with gifts for loved ones...or for you...and all the while the tailors and shoemakers are busy whipping up those additions to your wardrobe that you ordered the day before.

Clearly, I liked Hoi An. It was just like being in Europe (well not quite; you still get hassled to the absolute limit- after all, it is Asia) except a million times cheaper. And there are pedestrian only streets, which seems like a godsend in Asia, where 'road rules' isn't a phrase and the horn is used as a warning, and an indicator and pretty much anything else the driver wants to say.

Here's a little taste of Hoi An...I'm pretty sure it will arouse a longing you never knew you had to visit this winner of a town.

good morning Vietnam continued.

Okay. Sapa to Hanoi to Halong Bay to Cat Ba Island (the only inhabited island in Halong Bay). Not a great journey...maybe one of our worst. I stupidly suggested we get a seat on the overnight train ride from Sapa- as opposed to a sleeper- in order to save money. Terrible Idea. It was hot, uncomfortable, hellishly noisy and took forever. And we only saved $10.

When we arrived in Hanoi we were hungry and exhuasted, having walked the kilometre from the train station, so we decided to book our bus ticket to Halong Bay from the hotel even though it was twice as expensive as from the bus station. Turns out it was so expensive because we ended up on a tour bus and the driver, upon our arrival in Halong Bay, tried to get us to go on a tour of the bay with him (and inevitably give him more money); obviously we didn't do that.

Our trusty Lonely Planet Asia book promised booking a passage to Cat Ba Island on a tourist boat (as opposed to an organised tour) would be relatively cheap and easy. Hahahahahaa! Not really! The first man we asked told us locals didn't go to Cat Ba anymore and the only way to get there was on a tour, specifically HIS tour. Then he yelled at us when we said we didn't want to. When we asked the lady at the ticket office she just said no, there isn't and then ignored us. And basically everybody else ignored us also. We were both about to completely lose it and just start attacking random people or wailing inconsolably into our hands when somebody finally told us we could catch a local ferry from the marina. So we did. It was only $2 each and took an hour. We were very self-congratulatory. Until we arrived on the island and we were a 40 minute drive (and an impossibly long walk) to the town. Then it cost us $8 each to get a ride on a motorbike. I'm not even sure if it was worth it in the end.

On the ferry...

Things did start to get slightly better when we got to the town though (apart from the man that swore at us when we said we didn't want to eat at his restaurant and the fact that both the atm's weren't working the entire time we were there).

We were there for two days only...the first day hired a motorbike -it's our new fave thing to do- and drove to the beach, then to a national park where we climbed to the top of a mountain (a small mountain) and saw a snake and a lemur and a really long worm.

Almost at the top of the really high, really old looking structure on the top of the mountain we climbed...was it safe? Who knows...it's Asia.

The second day we went on a cruise of Halong Bay which included a seafood lunch on the boat, some kayaking and a stop at monkey beach where the monkeys were incredibly hostile and chased us around baring their teeth until we left them alone. It is mostly terrifying because we wouldn't much like to get rabies. We watched the sunset on monkey beach (away from the monkeys) and then boated back to town.

The boats of Halong Bay

We decided to book a combined ticket for our journey back to the mainland rather than suffer the hassle of doing it all separately again. We made it to Hanoi, then to the train station, then to Hue on the overnight train (on sleepers!) all with ease.

And that is where we are now. The weather isn't great so we are hiding in a cafe...I am writing (hence this blog) and Will is playing solitaire. Later we may do some sightseeing, but only if it tickles our fancy...after two and a half months of travel and a lot of moving around sometimes it is much nicer just to sit and not do anything than to traipse all around checking sites off a list (that's what I think anyway, maybe I'm just lazy).

good morning Vietnam.

It is raining in Hue, a town on the central coast of Vietnam in which we have found ourselves. Two days ago there was a flashflood. It isn't the ideal weather to be doing much at all, apart from sitting in cafes or watching movies in bed. But, I hear you ask, how did we get from Siem Reap to Hue and what adventures have we had on the way?

Well....

We were able to catch the bus to Bangkok, though the schemer who sold us the tickets and promised the bus would take us to the airport spoke not a word of the truth and we sat fuming on the bus as it drove straight past the airport and into central Bangkok, from where we had to go back exactly the same way as we had just come to go to the airport.

We slept at the airport and caught our early morning flight to Hanoi. Hanoi is a fairly insane city. The noise is constant, there are literally millions of motorbikes and the smog is thick. There is a lot to explore though...crowded little alleyways, cafes, restaurants and shops.

We did a bit of shopping, a bit of eating and a bit of sightseeing.

We got accosted by a lady who forced us to take pictures of ourselves with her wares, the afterwards it was 'you take photo now you buy! you buy!'...but we didn't. We ran away.

Our first night there we saw a show of water puppetry, an old art form originating in northern Vietnam. It was great. There was a band of musicians accompanying the puppets, which were made of wood and stuck on the end of long poles at the end of which the puppeteers were in control as they hid behind a large wooden facade. The puppets re-enacted various scenes from Vietnamese life, but it was all done in a shallow pool of green water. My favourite part was when two water buffalo stopped working in the field to have a fight then a little man had to separate them...imagine that scene (you have to imagine it because tickets were more expensive if one wanted to take photos, so obviously we took no photos) in water, with funny looking wooden puppets and sound effects in Vietnamese. Oddly funny.

We also saw some sights...Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum (though we didn't get to see the man himself, as his body is currently in Russia for restoration), the Temple of Literature (Vietnam's first university) and we caught a bus out to the suburbs and found our way to the Museum of Ethnology, which housed a very interesting account of Vietnamese life, both past and present.

Will got his faced shaved with a razor finally (he wanted to since Phnom Penh).

The Temple of Literature.

We escaped the smog and the traffic and the people on a train up to the mountain town (former French hill station) of Sapa. Where it was actually quite cold, but the air was amazingly fresh. And he fog was incredible...it engulfed all of the surrounding mountains until we were basically in a town in the clouds.

We hired a motorbike -I didn't drive!- and explored the mountainous roads and a waterfall in a national park. We met a lady from a nearby village (or, actually, she met us) and she took us over the mountain to have lunch at her house in a small village of 100 people.

The 'Love Waterfall' and me trying to make a loveheart (it's a subtle reference to the name...it's ok if you didn't get it)

A pause in our mountain trek and our lovely guide Chou.

After we had our fill of the slow pace and fresh air of Sapa we caught the train back to Hanoi, in order to continue on to Halong Bay. And I think that might be a good place to leave this entry, or it's going to end up being too long and you will all get bored...so see 'good morning Vietnam continued' for Halong Bay and Hue.