See What Tim Is Doing: Vietnam Part 1 – Ho Chi Minh (Siagon), Mui Ne and Nha Trang (4

After a rather good bus ride where I had two seats to myself, I arrived in Ho Chi Minh around 7pm and with a very rough address where I was staying. Ho Chi Minh was a little different to what I expected and to what I was used to. It is a big, bright, bustling city that never sleeps. I gave a taxi driver my address, insisted on the meter so he couldn’t overcharge me and got in what was supposed to be a short 5 minutes drive. 15 minutes later though I was still in the cab, and I could tell was being taken for a sucker, and to alter my senses even more, I saw the cab driver play around with his meter and have it go very quickly from 50,000 to 480,000 with a swift bump of his hand on something underneath. So I asked him if we were nearby and he said yeah two minutes, and we drove past where we had already been and I said it to him and he said something along the lines of one way streets make hard, although all the roads we had been on were dual way.

I’d had enough and told him to pull over as he was taking the p*ss out of me and I saw him tinker with his meter and he laughed as though I was joking, and finally another minute or two of gradually getting more stern with him he pulled up at my address (which to this day I am not sure if it was even the right address) and pushed another button on the meter and it finished at 910,000 (nearly £30) which is a lot in Vietnam. I refused to pay him that as I knew he took me around the traps and he messed with his meter and he wasn’t opening the door. Lucky a tourist officer (kind of like a police officer without as much power but are there for the safety of tourists and for information etc) walked by and I started banging on the cab window saying he won’t let me out and is trying to rob me. Long story short, the cab driver I think got scared, told me it was now 91,000 (that his meter has an extra 0 on it for some reason) and opened my door, and the back door so could get my bag out, and then refused to give me my change from 100,000 which really is worth nothing but I wanted it out of principal. He quickly drove off before the tourist officer could take down his details and I was left on a random, but at least busy street, located a guesthouse, different to the one in my original plan but it did the trick.

Not impressed with Siagon already I was a bit sour and thought I would get out of here asap as I heard scams and robberies were common and last thing I wanted on a holiday was those kind of worries. Luckily while strolling the streets I randomly ran into Binks and Nat who I had hung out with in Laos and they had met some locals and we went and sat on plastic chairs on the street and drank beers with the locals and my thoughts on the place rose with the locals we were hanging with being super friendly and also Nat and Binks reassuring me that Vietnam was awesome. So we enjoyed some beers and laughs and general chat on the road side and eventually retired to bed, saying my byes to Nat and Binks as they were leaving the next day.

The next day I did was I do best, explore the city, try and find a post office to post some crap I had been lugging around for weeks that was getting annoying and checked out the market there that was supposed to be one of the best in South East Asia, but to tell the truth it was just like all the others which was still cool. Although I did have an amazing feed there which costs £3.50 and consisted of a bowl of Pho with prawns and 6 prawn rice paper rolls and a can of drinks. The best thing about these markets which I ate at a couple of times was that you didn’t have to order, they just gave you what they thought you wanted or would like, and it always worked out well. Second night I booked a trip to Chu Chi Tunnels and then hit the hay pretty early, as the tour was an early start.

The Chu Chi Tunnels were pretty interesting, and pretty amazing at the same time. How these people lived in these networks of tunnels amazed me, the sizes of the tunnels were tiny! One tunnel you could try get into was so small that I barely fit and had to raise my arms to get in. Another that is opened for you to crawl along is a couple of hundred meters long, is bigger then the majority of tunnels (but is still only about 75cm tall and wide and after crawling through the small section of the tunnel, you come out with a glossy shine on your skin courtesy of the instant sweat brought on from the heat of the tunnels.

Also interesting and disturbing at the same time were the traps and methods the Vietnamese used against their enemies which involved sharpened bamboo pits, hidden spike wheels and some other barbaric contraptions. The ventilation of the tunnels also impressed me, with the Vietnamese using termite mounds to disguise their ventilation holes, and also making chimney like tunnels that made the smoke raise far from where they were actually cooking. They even used to rub American soldiers clothes around the entries to the tunnels so the sniffer dogs would not pick up a foreign scent and think that there were Americans around, not Vietnamese, clever little fellas they were. I capped off the tour with what every good tour should finish with, shooting a few rounds of an M-16 at some targets on the open air shooting range.

That night was nice and relaxed, a couple of Americans I met on the tour (Jen & Jen) and also two Irish (Ian and Marian who I met in Laos) went for a couple of 30p beers on the little plastic table and chair set ups on the road side in town. These little set ups are everywhere and not only provide the cheapest beer in town, they are also much more enjoyable then the bars where beers were four times the price. You could sit there and people watch for hours, meet both locals and other travellers, enjoy cheap beer and food and just lap up the Vietnamese culture.

The next day I boarded a bus to Mui Ne, about a five hour bus ride away from the chaos of Siagon. I hadn’t heard many people go to Mui Ne, but I read it was a chilled out beach town that gets some small waves. That was all I had to hear, beach, chilled and waves.

The bus pulled up at a rather nice hotel and straight away was hussled inside and showed rooms, which were nice, but just a standard hotel style room. I wanted a little shack/bungalow that had water views, and this concrete jungle with not even a glimpse of the water wasn’t my cup of tea. So I literally crossed the road, went into the first little place I found and it was perfect. $8 a night for my own room with big bed, view out my window to the beach (which was only about 25m from my door as well) my own bathroom and wooden shack style walls.

Not wasting any time, I dumped my bag and headed down to the beach. Greeted by a Caribbean fella (Didier) who was smiling and super keen to chat with everyone, he ordered me a tea (like a mojito without the bicardi and some ginger, amazing!) and got chatting about where I was from and what I was doing etc and he told me about himself and how he came there for a holiday and ended up opening a kite boarding school. He then introduced me to Jordie who was another Australian (the first I think I have met since China) and we started chatting just about everything and anything and ended up grabbing a few beers and playing some pool. Turned out Jordie was writing an article for a new surfing magazine coming out and he had no photographer and wasn’t sure what he was going to do, so I put my hand up and assumed the role as his photographer, which was really good fun, challenging at times due to no zoom lens and having to stand in the water to shoot while avoiding the rain and waves, but was wicked fun.

I don’t really need to go on day by day of Mui Ne as it was all nearly the same thing, get up, swim or surf, eat, swim or surf, eat, maybe swim or surf depending on waves and then finish the night with some food, beers and pool. Sounds repetitive but it was just what I wanted, no need to have to do anything except chill, and getting back on a board after more then two years was hard, but still just as much fun as always! Planned to stay there three days, I think I ended up staying nearly a week and loved it. Weather wasn’t perfect but got some sun and got some rain, didn’t matter still loved the place.

Only down side to Mui Ne was their Red Dunes, which when you google image them, they look stunning! So I got up early one morning, got on my motorbike and rode there for sunset. I got there, it was cloudy so sunrise was shite, but to rub salt into the wounds, the dunes were extremely sub par. The photos of them were either taken years and years ago, or photoshopped to the max, or simply not those dunes. So pretty disappointed, the start of my one day seeing touristy stuff was not off to a good one, and it put me in a sour mood, so I just decided to skip the 20km ride to the White Dunes as I couldn’t be disappointed again and then have to ride a long way back to town. Unfortunately I was informed later that the white dunes were actually pretty impressive, oh well I’ll survive!

So a week passed in Mui Ne and decided it was time to make a move up north, so Jordie and I booked an overnight bus to Nha Trang, an overnight bus north of Mui Ne, but still on the coast so still time to get some sun and some time in the water, although there was no chance of waves here.

Spent day one exploring the beach, getting some sun and taking some shots and then got some amazing dinner and played pool, which had become a bit of a ritual and then retired to bed pretty early as the bus rides aren’t the most relaxing.

The next day we caught up with Sean, Kai and Danni, three Californians that we met in Mui Ne and we chilled with them, just caught up on bits and pieces I’d been putting off for a while, explored some more and relaxed at the beach. No sights to see here, just time to relax which is nice for a change. So far Vietnam had been pretty relaxed, until our third and final night in Nha Trang.

We all went out for dinner and then the others went to the pub for a few drinks while I went out and took some photos at night. I only took a few as I didn’t feel that comfortable walking around with big camera and tripod by myself in the dark as there is a lot of chatter about men (yep men) being mugged by kamikaze hookers, who ride up and steal whatever you have on them, some just ride and snatch, some pick pocket and some may even pull a knife on you.

So after snapping a few shots, I took my camera back to the hotel and met up with the others at the Red Apple and started what would turn out to be a pretty messy night. The night in bullet point went a little like this:

• Casual drinks at Red Apple with just the 5 of us

• Moved to another table and the group grows to 12+

• Tequila suicides and flaming Sambucas are ordered.

• Happy hour ending soon so every orders more then enough drinks

• Move to Oasis(?) another bar, play some pool and the cut some serious shapes on the dance floor that had no one on there until we showed up, Dj loved us

• Jordie and Sean have their way with the stripper pole

• Moved onto Ice Bar, which is a bar in a giant freezer pretty much and the furniture is made from blocks of ice. Order some hectic strong cocktails that we had never heard of before

• Free shots so made the most of them.

• Caused havoc in Ice Bar for a while

• Vietnamese guy comes in and says if the guys get nude for a minute they get free shots (cause everyone really needed it)

• Jordie and Sean are chased around by the Vietnamese guy who is smacking them with a rolled up newspaper. And then swaps the newspaper for a ice cold bottle of vodka.

• After the shots and dressing again, move down to Sailing Club, a big bar on the beach.

• Bouncer kindly points us away, no idea why

• Go onto the beach, Jordie attempting to run while undressing while hammered resulted in a few comical tumbles.

• Swimming in the water

• Some annoying Australia girl coming over and telling everyone to get out cause its to dangerous as rips are strong at this time, and then hammering in the fact she was Australian so she knows everything about the surf. Except she didn’t let us get a word in to realize she was talking to two Australians who I guarantee spent more time in the water then her (she wasn’t the most beach looking girl). And more to the point, everyone was in shin deep water in pretty much a bay with not even a ripple, so there was no rips, she was just one of the many giving Australians a bad name abroad.

• Walk home from beach, Sean taking one of the cyclos for a ride.

• Retire to bed, ready for an early wake up as we had a whole day boat tour planned the next day.

It was a fun night!

Our last day in Nha Trang and we did a boat tour which took us around a few island and to one of the most depressing aquariums I have ever seen in my life. The tanks were tanks, maybe a rock or two in there but that’s about it, some faded wallpaper on the back of the tanks with some rocks and coral on there. No much stimulation for the poor incarcerated animals.

Next stop was an area for snorkeling, but we heard the snorkeling was lame, so we decided to throw ourselves off the top of the boat into the crystal clear water instead (and really I think this was what the three of us boys were most looking forward to all day). Ate some nice local cuisine and chatted to the others on the boat.

Next stop was another island, this one had nothing on it but was a pretty nice island. We just lazed in the sun and swam and chilled. Then after we got back on the boat and the crew put on a bit of a show and played some songs and got people from the crowd up onto the stage to sing some songs from their countries which was a good laugh. Then it was some more swimming in the ocean and a floating bar, so we jumped, swam, floated in tubes and drank some weird fruity wine concoction before boarding the boat again and setting sail back to the mainland, just in time to get our next overnight bus up to Hoi An.