Reset search
Asia and Australia 2017Asia and Australia 2017
SatelliteEdit route

Asia and Australia 2017

February - April 2017
A 77-day adventure by Coxlers On Tour Read more
  • 77footprints
  • 7countries
  • 77days
  • 434photos
  • 0videos
  • 13.8kmiles
  • 9.2kmiles
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    1
    Day 22

    Day 21 - Kraft Cheese and Hot Dogs

    March 1, 2017 in Laos ⋅ 🌙 21 °C

    A brief entry today as it's a transit day so we've spent a good chunk of it on the move.

    We started our day with a 'classy' hotel breakfast. It featured hot dog sausages and kraft cheese slices beautifully rolled. We thought we'd make the most of it so had about 4 courses each. We sadly said goodbye to our nice air con room and as we'd be room-less for the day tried to find some cooler activities.

    First we found a geocache of course. Then we walked to the COPE (Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise) centre. Similar to the UXO centre in Luang Prabang part of it was the harrowing stories of the unexplored cluster bombs in Laos but there's more of a focus on how they support anyone in Laos who's missing a limb or has a deformity for whatever reason to get assistance. There were some beautiful videos and stories about how COPE go into rural communities to find those who need help, measure them for prosthetics and get them to a city to fit them and give them rehabilitation plus lots of examples of the prosthetics people had made for themselves before getting help. A must visit for anyone in Vientiane.

    Needing somewhere to escape the afternoon heat we went to the cinema. Sadly the English audio choices were limited to one option so John Wick Chapter 2 it was. What a load of rubbish. The first one was good, this one was 5 minutes of story per 30 minutes of runny, smashy, killy stupidity. We did pay the extra 80p (so £4 total) to sit in the premium seats, or the 'honeymoon' seats as they're called. Weird. They seemed no different from the normal seats and there were only 6 people in the screen so we probably could have sat there anyway. A very late lunch at the shopping centre where the cinema was we headed back to catch our taxi to the airport

    Vientiane airport is a small, basic airport but with the nicest fridge magnets I've seen all trip. I knew it was worth hanging out for a good one! (When buying a magnet makes the blog you know it's a slow news day). A quick flight took us to Hanoi. After some minor visa confusion where no one seemed to recognise the visa we had despite it being the one the British government website directed me at we were allowed through and are now at our hostels. Let's see what Vietnam brings!    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    13
    Day 22

    Day 22 - Mopeds Mopeds Everywhere

    March 1, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 16 °C

    Hello Hanoi! We had a food tour booked at 11am so went on a quick explore after breakfast. We walked to the lake which should be an easy 5 minutes away but with our scaredy-cat ways of crossing the road it took about 10 hesitant minutes (this would soon change).

    Hanoi is a lot colder than anywhere we went to in Thailand and Laos so it's back to converse and hoodies, but less suncream which is a happy consequence of the drop in temperature. The lake was pretty grey and misty. We crossed over the little red bridge to the temple with its giant tortoise statue before heading back to the hostel to await our tour guide. We were really lucky as it was just the two of us on the tour with our guide Jacelyn. This meant a more personalised experience and made it much easier to get seats in the busy Hanoi eateries. We ate/drank:

    1. Bún chả - BBQ'd pork and veg in broth. You get a side of noodles, garlic, chilli and herbs to mix in. The place we went to sit was down an alley and run by a lady who was bored being retired so just serves drinks and let's people sit in there with street food (like us). We never would have found this, or most of the places in fairness.

    2. Bánh xèo - a pancake filled with meat and vegetables. You wrap lettuce around it, add basil and dip it into a dipping sauce.

    3. Bún bò - beef and noodle soup

    4. Bánh cuốn - a wide rice noodle filled with pork and mushrooms. Like a slippery spring roll. We sat on tiny stools on the street on a busy corner whilst the women who worked there churned out the noodles - it was cool to watch but no idea how it's done.

    5. Bánh mì - a baguette filled with pâté, ham, veg and herbs - my favourite dish of the trip.

    6. Bún ngan nhàn - duck and noodle soup

    7. A bonus stop for some little cakes to go with...

    8. Cà phê trứng - egg coffee, or for me egg cocoa. Literally coffee/cocoa with an egg in it. It's served over a little tealight and surprisingly delicious.

    Jacelyn was so lovely and chatted to us about her life as a tour guide and growing up in the Vietnamese countryside then moving to the city. I have no idea how they would have managed the tour with 8 (the max number) as it was hard enough to herd the two of us around. But at least now we know how to cross the road - just walk and the mopeds will drive around you as they all go really slowly.

    After we said bye to Jacelyn we headed to the Women's Museum which has exhibits on women's lives in Vietnam from marriage to education to having children as well as their contribution to the wars and some important beliefs like Mother Goddess. It was really interesting, I took pics of a couple of the things I learnt - like in some cultures machetes are common wedding gifts and that some people give their babies ugly names so spirits won't steal them. It was a great museum to spend a few hours but we totally hit the wall and negotiated crossing all the roads with our new found road crossing skills to come back to freshen up.

    We had dinner at a Pho place round the corner. It is a bizarre place in that they had 10 staff for a restaurant which seats around 30 people. None of them were particularly working hard or even working at all in some cases, except the chef in the open kitchen and even he gave up after a while and came to sit on his phone. We had to ask for drinks twice as they all got distracted by someone opening a bag of sweets. The Pho was nice though and as I'd (obviously) researched the place before we went I knew to ask for the secret off menu savoury donuts to dip in. One more beer before home and we're now anxiously awaiting the return of our laundry. We leave early doors tomorrow for a boat trip around Ha Long Bay for a few days so if the laundry doesn't come I might have to fashion pants out of unworn socks.

    Not sure how available wifi will be so the next blog might be a couple of days away. And I love getting comments on the blog but I only see who they're from if you register otherwise it just says 'Someone commented... etc' so if you don't want to register (that's cool) please sign off on your comments so I know who to feel love towards :)    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    2
    4212
    Day 24

    Day 23 - Ha Long Bay

    March 3, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    After the laundry cliffhanger yesterday just to assure you we got most of the laundry back minus 4 pairs of Matt's socks so we can survive the next few days.

    We left the hostel early doors and got picked up by a bus to take us to Ha Long bay, a Unesco world heritage site about 4 hours away from Hanoi which is basically hundreds of tall rock formations/islands in the sea. It's very beautiful and we'll spend most of the next 3 days in this area. Our guide is named Tiger. He's been doing Ha Long tours for 10 years and has got his patter nailed, though he does deliver at about 100 words per second so I only caught about 20% of the Vietnamese history and culture lesson he gave us on the drive up here. There's 18 of us in the group and I feel sorry for the non-native English speakers as they must have got 5% if they were lucky.

    For night number 1 we're staying on a boat. It's really nice, and has an astroturfed sun deck which reminds me of my fake grass garden. Though it's not actually very warm up here (makes it even more like home I suppose). We had a huge and delicious lunch when we got on board, squid, shrimp, salads (i.e. All the things the travel nurse told me we shouldn't eat abroad - though don't worry mum, I'm writing this 24 hours later and I'm still alive). We needed a big lunch as next we went kayaking around some of the islands. Those of you who know me well might know I'm pretty terrified of being underwater, of more accurately being thrown under large expanses of outdoor water - I can cope with the pool at Center Parcs - so combine that with Matt and I being rubbish at anything involving teamwork and steering and I spent the first 20 minutes panicking every time a small wave hit us. We got into the groove though once I convinced myself we might not actually tip up and then it was fun. The best part was seeing monkeys on the cliffs right near our boat, though momentary panic that one might jump on to the boat and push me out. All normal and rational fears.

    We got back on the boat and sailed to Surprising Cave. There's typically 600 boats in Ha Long Bay at any one time, of which 400 are day trippers. As our tour guide is experienced in this neck of the woods he timed it so we went not long before closing meaning we got the caves almost to ourselves. They're really impressive, and someone who'd had too much beer has named most of the stalactites and stalagmites after what they look like, e.g. chicken laying an egg, happy Buddha smiling at a lady. With a bit of squinting I kind of got it but it was a bit magic eye.

    Back on the boat for happy hour - though Mr Hung the bar man made it happy hour pretty much every hour we were on the boat so lots of cocktails (with generous spirit measures) were consumed over the course of the evening. We were all starving by this point so it was lucky it was spring roll making time. I like this tour company, they seem to read my hungry mind with when to produce snacks. Needless to say our spring rolls were more like burritos but still tasty. Dinner wasn't too far behind - lots more sea food. Tiger showed us magic tricks and brain teasers after dinner, my years of being a geeky brain teaser obsessed child paid off cause I solved one and won a beer. I knew they weren't wasted years!

    What was a waste of time though was we had a go at squid fishing. In hindsight I think it was a task given to us to keep us occupied in the evening as none of us caught anything after an hour of trying. You chucked a green lure and hook over board then just pulled it up and down to try and attract them. Not a nibble. We gave up in the end and went to sleep in our cabin ready for day 2 tomorrow.    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    31
    Day 25

    Day 24 - Rock The Cat Ba

    March 4, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Last night out tour guide Tiger suggested that some people like to get up to watch the sun rise and if we did to set our alarms for 5.45. I happily would have taken the extra sleep time but Matt wanted to get up to watch and I hate missing out so for fear of it being the best sun rise ever I got up. Lesson learnt - always listen to your gut and stay in bed. It was really cloudy so we didn't see anything. Grumpily we went to breakfast at 7am. Luckily there was cheese spread and fried eggs which perked me up considerably plus gave us the energy we needed to climb to the viewing point at Ti Top island, the first stop of our day.

    The walk up was 425 steps - I know, I counted. And to be honest the view was nice but as it was cloudy it wasn't the best. But being positive there was a geocache up there - my first proper one in Vietnam. On the way back down two Chinese ladies also stopped me and took it in turns to have pictures with me and my sweaty face. I hope I adorn a photo album or even better a prime wall position some day soon.

    After this everyone doing the 2 night tour swapped boats and say bye to the 1 nighters. The new boat isn't a sleeper boat and a bit less glamorous (no fake grass anyway) but still has beer of course. We sailed for a while to Cat Ba island. The island is fairly large, around 13000 people live there and in the summer apparently gets packed out. We picked up some bikes which have seen better days, stocked up on water and cycled for about 20 minutes to a small village. I've not cycled in about 5 years so took a while to get back into the swing of it (and I'm now pretty saddle sore) but Matt was happy on his. There were many hazards and distractions like dogs sleeping in the road, electric carts using the roads and random goats walking along to negotiate. First stop was for rice wine. We started with a hibiscus rice wine, all nice and normal. Flowers in with the wine, great. Then we moved on to snake rice wine. So rice wine with about 10-15 dead snakes in it. That they leave in the jar. Just vile (see photos).

    A further 5 minute cycle (luckily not too drunk from the wine) we left the bikes and went for a trek through the jungle for an hour. We saw a tiny squirrel and went through a bat cave - though luckily the bats spend dry season elsewhere. There was some cool formations full of snail shells from when the sea level was higher and filled the cave. After some easy rock climbing with the drifting sounds of people in the village doing karaoke (at 12.30pm) we got back on the bikes and cycled back to the boat for a well needed lunch. I ate a Vietnamese special of teeny tiny prawns (Matt won't eat prawns of any size) which felt a bit grim for some reason. After lunch we had the option of kayaking again around the boat but we were all tired and lethargic so napped on the sun deck of the boat. Matt decided to jump in from the top deck a few times with mixed success (see video on Facebook...). Then it was time to carry on sailing around Cat Ba to the main built up town.

    We met for dinner and headed to a place one of Tiger's friend's owns. You would never, ever find it if you didn't know it existed despite it being large. It was down a couple of alleys, up some metal steps and into a really big, bare room with plastic chairs and a small BBQ in the corner. It was a hot pot restaurant so each table had a couple of gas stoves on them to cook your fresh sea food. They brought over a cooler of beer and more rice wine. The rice wine was in a re-used big water bottle, the Vietnamese equivalent of home brew. Tiger and Thuy cooked the barely dead crabs (I think I saw a couple move), squid, clams and prawns for us as well as some fish, tofu and veg. It was all delicious once you figured out how to eat it. It was an unusual place, very much a casual affair. While we were eating a group of women came in to practise singing, apparently in preparation for a performance at International Women's Day celebrations. When you needed the toilet you were taken to the person who owns the restaurant's house and I literally went through the bedroom of an old man in bed watching TV to use the loo. When Matt went another old man got kicked out of the bathroom whilst he was brushing his teeth. Quite the experience. And all for about £5 each. As were the draft beers we had on the way home - about 30p a pint! Needless to say we're having a great time on this tour.    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    1
    1
    Day 25

    Day 25 - Beer Corner

    March 4, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ 🌫 20 °C

    I am covered in bites. I have no idea what's bitten me or when but they're all over me. Tiger reckons a flea got into my clothes. They're not too itchy but it's a bit grim to think about.

    Anyway, an underwhelming breakfast at the hotel and on to the bus to the boat. A delayed started as a hotel staff member ran down to say there was a towel missing from one of of the rooms a group of young hungover guys were staying in and one had left 'pants and 2 pens' so we had to sort all that out. Eventually we got going and were back on the little boat. The morning was all about sailing through Ha Long Bay to shore again. It was beautiful and relaxing, we were sad to leave. 4 hours on the bus back (via a rest stop which also sold some interesting statues) we arrived in Hanoi.

    We're staying at a different place from when we left Hanoi (the old place smelt of damp). We were welcomed by some good ol' towel sculptures which is always a good sign. Both of us were ravenous though so after a quick pharmacy visit for anti-histamines (whoo) we went to Chops for massive burgers and loads of sides. Sadly we were sitting next to the most irritating American girl I've even encountered who kept asking what we were eating and generally loving the sound of her own voice. At least the burgers were amazing!

    As I've dragged Matt to so many cookery places I thought it only fair to watch the football with him. Lucky for me there was a random band playing traditional music outside so I could check that out. Post-football we kept walking and found another band doing rock covers in the street. A random older lady was going for it dancing in front of them loving life. Then we headed to Beer Corner. A street corner where there's hundreds of small stools outside bars and you just sit and drink beer. Inventive name then for it. I have no idea how they manage the bills as the stools aren't fixed and are just plonked wherever you want and they had one guy with a wad of money and tickets managing the whole operation. Apparently if the police come along everyone has to move as having outdoor seating isn't allowed here and the businesses have to pack the stools away for 5 minutes until they go. Luckily that didn't happen, though there was a guy walking up and down with a megaphone singing 'Hello, hello, hello' to the what sounded like the tune of Auld Land Syne. I don't think he was a law enforcer.    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    1111
    Day 26

    Day 26 - Bonkers Hanoi

    March 5, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Today has generally been a day of bonkersness. Before today the most bonkers thing I'd seen so far this trip was probably the pick up truck carrying the giant Buddha and a monk in the back blasting out pop music. I'm not even sure that's top 5 anymore.

    Fuelled by cheese and ham toasties we powered the 40 minute walk to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum complex. Sadly we missed the times to go actually see Uncle Ho's embalmed body but we did get to walk around the rest of it. This involved seeing his classic cars gifted to him by the Soviet Union and his old house which is on stilts. Also their equivalent of the Changing of the Guards which is a lot camper than the Buckingham Palace version. Something weird we have noticed a lot in Hanoi is groups of friends and family all dressed the same, in this case a group of 4 in striped Where's Wally? style tshirts but also more subtle things like groups of girl friends all wearing pale pink skirts or having matching handbags.

    We headed towards the botanical gardens next which was mostly underwhelming, except for maybe the man doing some of the worst singing I've ever heard at an event in the park. On the way out we saw something amazing though. At first it was only semi weird. A lady next to a moped with two small dogs, one of which was wearing a tiny muzzle and she put it into her hand bag. Then just after we went past she climbed on to the moped and shouted something and 3 larger dogs appeared. The original non-bagged small dog and one of the big dogs jumped on the moped floor in front of her, one jumped to stand on the seat behind her and one followed along side as she drove off. The picture I hastily took does not do the scene justice. After that nothing else on a moped compares be it a potted tree, two of those toy ride on jeeps or a family of 5. It was truly bonkers thing number 1.

    We headed towards the lake and grabbed some noodles and rice for lunch. Then we took a swan boat out on to the lake (minor weird thing, there was a man flat out asleep in a swan boat moored at the collection point). At least this was some minor exercise for the day. On the walk back from the swan boats we went to a pagoda where a woman was burning brand new, out of the pack dolls houses, hats and shoes (?!) and to the Temple of Literature where kids were graduating in brightly coloured robes. At this point Matt's flip flopped feet were about to give out so we headed for dinner (more noodles, more rice) and back to the ranch for a hot shower (we're getting much better at selecting places to stay with decent showers now)

    After dinner we went to the Water Puppet Theatre. Again bonkers. I didn't take any pics of the show but go on YouTube and search for the Hanoi Water Puppet theatre for clips. We weren't really sure what to expect seeing as all we knew was that it involves water and puppets but it was so much fun and passed the six laughs test easily - how could it not with acts named 'chasing the fox that tries to catch ducks'? The set is a shallow water tank set in a pagoda and my best guess of how it works is that the wooden puppets are on underwater rods controlled by puppeteers at the back of the stage behind the curtain that the puppets enter through. (They all came out at the end wearing waders). There's musicians too playing along on instruments I've never seen. It's very clever and charming, we never saw the rods even when the puppets jumped out of the water. The stories didn't make much sense to us as 1. any speech was in Vietnamese and 2. it was crackers but I'd definitely go again.

    After the show we walked around Hoan Kiem lake. At the weekend they pedestrianise the roads around the lake which makes it an enjoyable walk rather than the stressful dodging vehicles walk it was when we visited a few days ago. In Hanoi there's either no pavements so you have to walk in the road, there are pavements but you can't walk on them for parked moped or there's mopeds driving on the pavements. There is no absent minded strolling. The closed-to-traffic roads are where friends and families go to meet up, playing keepy uppy games, hire hover boards and picnic on the pavement. There's also lots of people who bring instruments and/or a mic and amp and just perform. As with the guy at the gardens there were some terrible singers, including the one which looks like a semi professional set up involving fire and dancers.

    We leave Hanoi tomorrow. It's a cool place. Would be cooler without the vehicles.    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    2
    Day 27

    Day 27 - A Tale Of Two Cities

    March 6, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    We spent our last morning in Hanoi. Today at breakfast there was a man eating more loudly than anyone I've ever heard eat, it was vile, and the friendliest staff member ever (and she continued to be whenever we set foot near reception) so a mixed emotion meal. We had a 1pm pick up for the airport so did some last bits of sightseeing. We went to Hao Lo prison, which was originally built by the French in the 19th century for Vietnamese political prisoners. It was harrowing. There were stories of abuse and torture of the prisoners and a chance to go into the cells where dozens were kept in one place, plus the guillotine and some of the torture implements. Many prisoners escaped by various means, commonly by crawling through the narrow sewers, and they has a section of the sewer pipe there. When the French left Vietnam is was used for American prisoners of war. According to the info in the museum they were treated much better with sports courts, games and no mistreatment however other ex-prisoner accounts massively vary and the nickname 'Hanoi Hilton' is spun in very opposite ways. It was a very interesting way to spend an hour. We visited St Joseph's cathedral briefly on the way back before negotiating the pavements again and heading for another incredible Banh Mi sandwich (must be the quality of the ham Michelle). I like Hanoi but we are very, very much over the traffic and were glad to get safely back to the hotel, and the over friendliness, and into the taxi to the airport.

    (I forgot another weird thing from yesterday. Matt got stopped at the Temple of Literature for a photo with an Asian guy - we're celebs here obviously)

    The airport time was pretty uneventful, apart from bumping into a family we've now seen 3 times on our travels and spending the flight being kicked in the back by a small child. We landed in Hoi An an hour later, smooth pick up (apart from the driver not knowing where we were going despite having a board with our name so I thought we were being kidnapped) and an hour later were at our Homestay in Hoi An. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between a Homestay and a Hostel (or a Guesthouse for that matter) - same same but different as they say in Laos. I was a bit hangry so we headed out to Red Gecko for an awesome meal. Times is strange when you get excited that they have soda water on the menu - travelling brings an odd state of mind.

    After dinner we went for a walk. Hoi An is the opposite of Hanoi. There's a river running through the middle with beautiful buildings either side and lots of brightly coloured lanterns. The Ancient part of town is pedestrian and cyclist friendly so no mopeds or cars to avoid. Everyone is friendly - they're still trying to get you to buy something but they're not forcing baskets on to your shoulder for a 'picture' or trying to get you into a fake North Face shop. There's a ton of nice looking restaurants and bars, and delicious looking street food of course. I think we're going to like it here, as we have with all the more laid back places. Tomorrow it's time for general sight seeing and a chance to see if it's as nice in the day time.    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    1
    212
    Day 29

    Day 29 - Beach Day

    March 8, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    A short entry for today seeing as we spent the hours of 11am-6pm at the beach sitting in a cute cabana at a bar and catching up on Broadchurch/The Crown/Horse Racing things whilst drinking and eating enough to keep our spot (approx £25 all day). Some interesting/amusing things from the day:

    - We took 2 taxis and neither scammed us. This is a rarity in Vietnam.
    - We spotted a man asleep on top of a lying down buffalo. Flat out. Sadly we were in the non-scamming taxi and I couldn't get my camera out quickly enough.
    - The cabana opposite ours had a dog in it for a good hour living the life.
    - Matt went for a swim at the same time as a large group of Vietnamese men ran into the sea and started doing somersaults. All were in trousers, some were wearing jeans.
    - The Homestay gave me a rose for International Women's Day.
    - It's become a general theme in Vietnam that all components of a meal don't arrive at once, generally it has taken 15-20 minutes to get both our mains and sides out.
    - Matt's dinner involved triple carbs - rice, noodles and bread.

    I reckon that's about it. We had a lovely meal, albeit with the triple carb action, and walked back home to pack. Tomorrow is another cooking class (wahoo) and another sleeper train (less wahoo)    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    1
    1
    Day 29

    Day 28 - The Great Happy Hour Quest

    March 8, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    4 weeks in now. I'm not sure if it's flown by or if it feels like forever since we were in the UK. We're over a third of the way through and think we're getting the hang of it now - I'm a whizz at packing and unpacking my backpack. There are a lot of quirks still to get used to, like the point of wet rooms and how it's perfectly fine to go through a restaurant kitchen to use the toilet (and how quite often the toilet is the family bathroom).

    Hoi An is just as pretty in the day as it is in the evening. It's also a lot hotter and more humid than it was in Hanoi so sweating is immediate when you set foot outside. Today was an exploring day. Technically you need to buy a ticket to be in the Ancient Town at all but in reality it's only checked when you want to go into one of the historic buildings. So we bought a ticket and picked up a not overly useful guide pamphlet (which has one photo which it credited to 'The Internet'). A ticket allows entry into 5 of the 22 sites but with no description of what the sites are other than them being split into sections like 'Old Houses' or 'Assembly Halls' it was a bit of pot luck.

    We started with Quan Âm Pagoda/Quan Công Temple (category Communal Houses). The temple was very pretty and colourful, originally built in 1653. Lots of nice artwork inside, in particularly I liked the kitten made out of rice.

    Next stop was Triêu Châu (Assembly Hall) built in 1885 as a place to worship the Gods and Goddesses who control the weather at sea. Hoi An relied heavily on shipping, and merchants would come from all over the world to set up shop here for part of the year. There were lots of interesting carvings everywhere from the walls to the tables.

    Our third ticket was given to the Museum of Folklore. We had heard all museums in Hoi An were a bit rubbish but that this one at least had creepy mannequins so was most worthy of a visit. The mannequins were indeed creepy but helped to bring to life the strangely translated text information which went from very vague ('some kinds of saws') to slightly less vague ('firefighting tools - used to fight fires'). It wasn't the most thrilling museum but was fine.

    After all that excitement we had a couple of beers. You can get a glass of draft beer here for less than 30p and it's not bad. The place we went was a use the family bathroom kind of establishment though. We also picked up a Banh Mi sandwich - addicted - at what Anthony Bourdain (an American TV chef) called the best Banh Mi sandwich shop in Vietnam. It was a very very good sandwich though there's a good chance I'll turn into a baguette this trip as already had the homestay's version for breakfast.

    Carb fuelled we went to two of the Old Houses. The first was Tân Ky. A wooden house inspired by Japanese architecture. It floods massively most years but hasn't sustained much damage amazingly, the flood lines are marked on the wall and most were taller than Matt. In nearly every place we went on our tickets someone actively tried to sell us things as we walked around. Here our tour guide even did a sales pitch mid tour to try and get us to buy horoscope coins (the tour was roughly 4 minutes long. The sales pitch was about the same length)

    Finally we went to Dúc An house. Similar to the previous one but this one has loads of pictures of one of the family who lived there. He lived to 102. There wasn't really much explanation on who he actually was though but I guess important.

    All in all we saw some mildly interesting things but nothing groundbreaking. Maybe we chose the wrong 5 but it passed away a few hours between sandwiches.

    In the evening we bar and food emporium crawled looking for happy hours. I think we managed 7 different places of which 2 were just for food - a cart selling Cao Lau noodles - a Hoi An speciality - with long tables and small stools on the street and full of local people so we knew we were on to a winner (and Matt managed to use chopsticks for the first time) and a Mexican place we got to about 10 minutes before it closed much to their delight and had the best nachos I've ever eaten. Drinks wise we had a lot of cocktails with a particular highlight being the place we sat in the doorway and watched a rogue dog chase and dog or toddler that went past whilst old ladies tried to shout people on to their rowing boats. We ended up in a place crammed in with lots of backpackers younger than us talking loudly and doing shisha pipes. That's when we knew it was time to call it a night.    Read more

  • Coxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
    1121
    Day 31

    Day 30 - Cooking and The Hell Train

    March 10, 2017 in Vietnam ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Day 30 brings us to the third of four cooking classes I intend to do and Matt is still going strong joining me. Today's was with Thuan Tinh Cooking School and our guide was Mo. Mo reminded us that no one in Vietnam can say Matt's name. Should be very easy, just one syllable but despite repeating it he still gets Maths or Mass.

    We went on the usual trip around the market though in a slight variation we all got cutesy shopping bags and picked up the ingredients as we went along. After two of these market trips I'm getting good at the ingredient identification portion - it's turmeric! Thai Basil! A kumquat! (I always was a swot). From the market we caught a large boat for about 20 minutes, then switched to a mini bus then to a rowing boat - all a lot of effort when the taxi back only took 10 minutes.

    The cooking course itself was run by Ms Thy. She spoke very basic English with Mo translating for the most part but her well trodden mix of mime and chatter patter was hilarious and when you got an enthusiastic 'good! good!' you felt like a Master Chef. We started off making beef broth for a meal coming later. Really that involved holding ingredients over a gas flame then chucking them in a pan with beef bones whilst we did everything else.

    Dish 1 was fresh spring rolls. Was made a dipping sauce then wrapped lots of pork, veg, shrimp and noodles in rice paper. Ms Thy made it look easy but our rice paper was sticking to things all over the shop. They looked alright in the end though and easy to recreate at home.

    Dish 2 was my favourite of the day. Banh Xeo, apparently named as Xeo is the sound of sizzling in a pan. It a rice flour pancake with veg, pork and shrimp cooking into it then wrapped in more rice paper and filled with lettuce and herbs. We both successfully managed not to drop our pancakes whilst flipping despite it being done one by one in front of the class. The final pancake was super crispy though I don't quite understand the rice paper.

    Dish 3 was a beef and noodle salad. We got to decorate our plates first. I did birds, Matt did his name in the hope people might learn to say it correctly. You could also try to set the pan on fire to cook the beef if you liked. I got a flicker but Matt was a pro. Though he won't be doing it in my kitchen (plus I think if you manage to set a pan on fire on an electric job something's gone wrong.)

    Final dish was beef Pho (noodle soup) which was basically a construction involving out pre prepared broth. The course felt like a lot of construction rather than much hands on cooking but I think that's more the nature of Vietnamese cuisine than anything. It was still good fun and in a pretty surrounding, though bizarrely was saw probably 20 ducklings all swimming together which was cute but weird.

    The rest of the afternoon was time wasting in Hoi An before our night train. We went to the spa. I had a facial and Matt a massage for which he got to wear very fetching silk pyjamas. (I've promised not to put it up online by private viewing available if the price is right). Then we moseyed around having some drinks and the best nachos we've ever eaten at a place called Hola Taco.

    Then we went to the station for what I'll affectionately call the Sleeper Train from Hell. Our first Sleeper experience in Chiang Mai was fun. Private cabin, clean, wifi. I'm sure this time could have been worse but it can't have been far off. We joined the train at 11pm so it'd been running for a while. We booked a 4 bed bunk. What we didn't realise was that just because there's 4 beds doesn't mean 4 people and already in the room we're two women and two young children who'd clearly been using our bunks before we arrived and had left them in a state so we had to sort that in the dark. The train was mouldy, damp and loud. Add to that crying children in the night, the adults deciding 4.15am was fine to sit up and have a loud conversation and insisting that the door and curtains were kept open the whole time made it not ideal for sleep. Oh and one of the kids kept reaching up and poking me to the point I had to say 'no' in my sternest voice. They eventually got off the train at 6am (we were getting off at 8.30am) so we did manage about 30 minutes of sleep. Good job it's destination Nha Trang, a beach resort, so bring on the sun loungers.    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English