Lee and Clare, The road home

Vietnamese Mayhem

5^th December 2003

We never thought we would be sad to leave China, in fact at times we couldn't wait to get out of the place, but as we went over the border there was a pang of sadness at leaving the crazy place behind us. It gave us some serious ups and downs, from moments of "Wow, this place is blu ddy fantastic!!" to "oh my god, I hate this country, I hate the food, I hate the people, I hate the weather and I want to kill someone". But looking back we wouldn't change anything, even the experiences that were awful at the time we'll laugh at for years to come. And we met some fantastic people there too - you know who you are!

So now we are in Vietnam and it's time for me to master another currency. Not that I ever fully mastered the last one - Lee is so the bank manager, he has everything sorted in his head within a few minutes of entering a new country.

We made it to Hanoi from Kunming in southern China by way of about 24 hours and 800 kms of pretty hellish travelling. Well at least the first bit. After managing to avoid sleeper buses for 5 weeks in China we had no choice but to get one to the border. We spent 11 hours on one of the blighters. The adventure started when we were running late for the bus to start with as we overstayed our last Chinese meal with a great English girl we met and cut it real fine getting to the station via 2 buses. Then we had to find the long distance bus station, then find the bus. You have to be really careful in China with who you believe, as for instance if you tell someone that you want to go to Hekou (Chinese Border) and even show them the ticket they won't necesarily show you to the correct bus. But we got on the bus with 5 minutes to spare. Then more stress as I had to get off to run to the toilet before it left then couldn't find the bus again after. There were at least 50 buses lined up in the station and I was starting to panic even though I knew that Lee wouldn't let the bus go without me!

We hate sleeper buses! You can lie down but the bed is not very wide, only shoulder width as there are 3 rows of beds down the length of the bus. When Lee lay on his back both of his arms hung off the sides of the bed. I was lucky enough to get by a window whereas Lee was in the centre of the bus. He had to hang on every time we went around the corner. Neither of us got any sleep on the 11 hour bus ride.

We got to the border at 6.30 but it didn't open till 8.00 so we had the enforced company of 2 Chinese guys who wanted to practice their English on us and try to change money with them. When we showed them that we had only equivalent of $1US left in Yuan they told us that we could go to a ATM and withdraw Chinese Yuan and change it with them into Vietnamese Dong! As if we are stupid.

It wasn't much of a hassle getting over the border. We both thought it quite funny that we were talking beforehand and we asked eachother what we think of when we think of Vietnamese people and we both said that they wear those round straw hats with a point at the top and sure enough every Vietnamese person that was streaming over the border in the opposite direction to us was wearing one of those hats.

After a bridge and immigration on the Vietnamese side we made it to the train station where we filled in the time waiting for the train by eating the food we'd stolen from the breakfast buffet the day before.

We travelled "hard seat" for the first time on the train down to Hanoi. It was 10 hours (to go less than 300 km!), it felt like 20 and the hard seats were just that! But there was a great view and plenty of interesting activity on the train to make up for it. From the views out the window we could tell that we were no longer in China. There was lush vegetation, everything was very green, palm trees and people working barefoot in the fields. Too cold for bare feet in China that's for sure! Loads of people came up and down the train selling stuff, like hot corn on the cobs, something wrapped in leaves, bread, hot tea and this huge bong looking bamboo pipe that they put some type of seeds in the end of (?). We had people climbing in the windows to avoid buying a ticket and it was fun trying to watch them dodge the ticket inspectors for the whole journey!

The main excitement is that we are wearing sandals today!! It is warm here. We can feel the air on our feet and shoulders, and tomorrow we'll even progress to shorts. This is after being weighed down with big jackets, thermals, hats and scarves for the past 3 months. Yay!

We were amazed at how many foreigners there are here in Hanoi. For a lot of the time in China you see about one foreigner a week and feel like you have a special bond with them even if you just smile as you pass them. They are everywhere here.

So in lots of ways we're entering a new era in our travels with our arrival here. The main thing is that we have another person along with us now - we met my sister Lisa at the airport yesterday, and we're happy to have a form of entertainment (ha!) along with us. Also it's warm here so we're cracking out a whole new wardrobe, there's foreigners everywhere, everything is easier to arrange, loads of people speak English here AND Lee even had a shave.

It's great to see things through a new and "green" set of eyes after being on the road for a while since Lisa is a new arrival on the scene. She thinks so many things are cool that we otherwise may take for granted. And some of her lines are great. The best quote so far, after going past a very simple stick and straw house on the way back from the airport was an incredulous "Is that someone's house?!"

We're loving Hanoi so far. There is just a great atmosphere here, everything is always so busy. There are zillions of motorbikes and crossing the road can be a serious mission. Lee caused an incident (he won't let me call it an accident!) within a few minutes of arriving here. He got out of the taxi from the train station and walked straight out in front of a motorbike. It managed to stop in time, but it still toppled over, sending the two ladies and a baby that were on it sprawling all over the ground (no helmets!). Luckily the lady at the back that was holding the baby made a good save by holding the baby on her stomach while she fell onto her back. It all happened in slow motion to me and I was having visions of the baby splattering all over the road. They were quite good about it though and just smiled and got back on and drove off.

Lisa calls crossing the road here "human Frogger" I think she might be showing her age a bit, though I do remember playing Frogger on our Commodore 64 when I was VERY young.

The most amazing thing that has happened here is that Vietnam won the football at the South East Asia Games that's on in Vietnam at the moment. Everyone just went completely mental. Everyone took to their motorbikes with their flags and up to 3 other family members and friends on the back and drove round and round the lake near here in huge crowds, yelling and screaming. I tell you it went on for hours - I wouldn't be surprised if it was still going on now. There must have been thousands of them, all the motorbikes and bikes bumper to bumper - no road rules and you can fit at least 15 bikes across 2 lanes. We had Vietnam ribbons tied around our heads and the best thing was that when we stood on the side of the road and people noticed we were foreigners with their ribbon on, we would just have to start yelling and waving our arms around and everyone would just go mental!! It was the most amazing atmosphere, and it was such a buzz. One of those situations that you run into when you are travelling that you can just never plan! Wow.

We're off to Sapa tomorrow then on Tuesday to Halong Bay. We can't WAIT to get to the beach after our months of coldness.