Vietnam

Got to do a bit of catch-up. What with taking a day-off (during my holiday, no less) and then generously doing two entries for a single day, I've fallen a bit behind...

So then, having been told tales, overhead candid comments and Mark having read in the book how nice the drive from Hué to Hôi An is, we had arranged a private car to take us on the journey to our next destination.

An then the car arrived at the time we'd scheduled so we got in. It was a nice car, but I don't do car-brands so that's as much as I can tell you. We set-off through the busy morning Hué traffic, the roads entering the city packed with travelling culinary connoisseurs hoping to taste these Royal Rice Cakes they'd heard so many good things about.

An then, a bit later, we arrived at the first stop on our drive. It was a drive with stops; forgot to mention that. First stop was a beach; I'll ask Mark what it was called later before I post this, unless I don't. There was a thin strip of sand to walk on out into the water, which was either the sea or a lake depending on where we were. We took a selfie as you do, or we do...or I do and they smile politely when caught in in the snap-radius. There was a theoretically nice view, but it was shrouded in mist.

Now then, the weather. Aside from the one mention of rain I've been rather coy as to the weather we've been experiencing. Our pictures might tell a thousand words, a pitiful benchmark I smash daily, but there's truly just one word needed: overcast. Like, all the time. There's been a few isolated moments of cloud-break, and the sun made a brief cameo appearance to ensure we were toasty and warm climbing that mountain in Phong Nha-ke Bang, but that's been it. Travelling south, we held hope this might change.

An then we reached Hai Van Pass; the highest pass in Vietnam, made famous by Top Gear back when it was great; when the trio felt like a begrudging partnership fuelled by cut-throat one-upmanship as opposed to the warm friendship they share now, which I guess is what happens when you hire the friendly guy from Friends. There was a ruined French fort at the peak crawling with tourists, so we joined them. You could climb around, in and on it, but for some reason at no point did any one of us stand on top, fart in a general direction then issue command in accent to boil bottoms and compare the aroma of mothers to elderberries. Must be the humidity...

An then we reached the Marble Mountains, a cluster of five hills (so not mountains then...) just south of Da Nang, made primarily of marble and everybody's favourite sedimentary composite, limestone. There's only one hill you can go up and, despite strong 4/5 odds against, by lucky chance our driver took us to that one. There were tens of street stalls at the base selling marble figurines, but Mark advised this was imported marble, not marble from the Marble Mountains as if they were to use marble from the Marble Mountains there'd be no Marble Mountains where they could sell their imported marble. There was a neat-looking lift that took visitors to the top.

An then we took the steps. We found a fantastic dragon sculpture,a temple, a giant buddha and a pagoda. Not entirely surprising, but a far more satisfying peak experience than the fabled temple-in-a-cave fiasco.

An then we found a temple in a cave! It was genuinely impressive, making the previous broken promise sting all the more in retrospect. Within this temple we found a bank of rocks you definitely were It supposed to go up, so we scrambled up and did some free-hand rock climbing that none of us are insured for. It didn't go anywhere special, so we came back, but got to briefly feel like Indiana Jones. He never used to take lifts either.

An then there was light! Not merely a trick of the eyes on our exit from the cave, the sun finally made it's overdue entrance in a sustained capacity, finally justifying the sun-cream we'd been applying daily, the volume of ice-cream we'd been consuming I'd somehow managed not yet to lose.

An then, later that day, I lost my sunglasses.

An then we thought we were done, but instead of turning toward the exit we tried the other direction, for a giggle, and found the place was even bigger than it looked. We found another pagoda, another cave...

An then another. An another.

An another.

We climbed up a steep set of steps leading to what Mark told us was the highest point on the mountain.

An then another, when the first turned out to be only the second highest peak. An then another cave/temple/combo. An another an another an we were running out of time, the amount of time we'd self-determined would be likely too long to expect our driver to wait, so had to rush through the final twenty-to-thirty attractions and get back to the car.

An then, after checking-in to our Hôi An hotel, we went for a wander to the old town. The streets lined with tailors, on a whim we decided to spend a few hundred quid on suits.

An then we did. Mark made a beeline for the best fabric for his suit then issued a decree that nobody else could have it. Woody complied, but I waited until Mark had gone for his fitting before sneakily selecting the same one. For the fitting itself we had to strip-off, put 'special' underwear over our own then be scanned by a Terminator-style red laser so they could build us polystyrene doubles to dress. It's here I think I lost my sunglasses. Something something T1000, something something sunglasses, something something chill out dickwad.

An then we went for a lovely meal where we feasted on local specialties that don't make you hurl. Hué take note. We had white rose dumplings (5/10), spring rolls (9/10), crispy wontons (7/10) and local dish Cao Lau, which is basically noodles, pork and veg in a broth but was delicious (10/10). They supposedly achieve this unique taste by using water from an undisclosed ancient Cham well outside of town for every dish.

An then the next morning we visited the Ba Le well, claimed to be the source of this water. This location is both disclosed and is inside the town. A mislead perhaps? It wasn't much to look at. Mark called it under-well-ming, which I told him was good enough to get in the blog.

An then we properly toured the old town. Once again there were temples. I'd say they were amongst some of the best temples we've seen yet, though I'd be hard-pushed to tell you why. Probably because it was sunny. One had conical ringed incense burning sticks hanging from the ceiling, confounding all those who'd claimed innovation in the incense field had peaked.

An then we tried to view a heritage house but it was closed for three weeks because the owner was away. Like how they close Alton Towers every time Mr Towers has a dentist's appointment.

But then we found another an then another etc. They each had their own 'special skill' they were keen to demonstrate to us with a view to selling us the product. Be it embroidery, silk, lucky coins, ceramics...we saw all and bought none. Well, we bought one, but I bought it for a gift so won't say what.

An there were lots of these places and a Japanese bridge an they were all very interesting but to tell all would frustrate my 'catching up' intent.

An then in the evening, after two suit follow-up fittings and a failed attempt to find a massage venue with availability and reasonable pricing, we had everything we'd had for dinner the previous night for dinner again that scored 7/10 or higher. Incidentally on our first night there'd been some sort of festival/celebration happening in the town with boats and lanterns aplenty and we felt lucky and fortunate to have coincidentally arrived in Hói An on such an occasion.

An then they did the same thing on the second night.En savoir plus