Hoi An

25 – 26 July 2011

The side I rode up

The day started with riding over “Pass of the Clouds”.  Thought I had ridden over this the day before but I was wrong, just a couple of wee fellas to warm me up.  Quite a climb right on the coast (about 500m), incredibly hot and the clouds kept on parting way to the sun above me.  There was a tunnel for buses, trucks and cars but motorbikes and bicycles have to ride over.  A bit unfair but the view was pretty good and the descent always a great reward.

Some old US structures remaining at the top

Hoi An reminds me a lot of Luang Prabang.  An ancient city that has kept much of its character, it is very touristy but has a nice feel about the place.  The streets are great to wander down and at night the old city is lit up with hundreds of different lanterns looking very cool while you enjoy your meal overlooking the river.

The streets in the Ancient Town

My pineapple lady - cutting it up for me

The local back streets of Hoi An 

That's a really nice photo.

Looking up the river

So I went off and checked out My Son (pronounced Me Son).  Similar to Angkor Temples and some in Indonesia, Thailand and Burma.  All these sites were constructed by the same people, the Champa civilisation.  They were renowned for their fine craftsmanship as you can see in the carvings of all their structures.  I would agree after seeing Angkor Wat and My Son.  I’m only half good at drawing stick figures and these guys carved intricate detail into stone – incredible.

A few interesting facts about it:

No mortar is used to bind the brick together and it still is unknown today how exactly they were constructed.

This monument represents a penis. If you touch it, it brings you good luck…

This monument represents a vagina.  Celebrations/ceremonies involved both of these…interesting.

The heads and hats of all the people statues and carvings were removed and taken by the French.  They are now displayed at the Leuv Museum in France for some reason.  All the heads here have been reconstructed.

A fake head (reconstructed)

This one grew a new head

US bombed much of the My Son site as it was a known Viet Cong base so many of the towers are destroyed.

bomb crater at the main site (nicely burnt for affect)

Some remaining ruins

The French only re-discovered this area in 1895 (I think, 1890 something) as it was covered in dense rainforest and when clearing began they kept on discovering more and more sites.  Would have been incredible to stumble across!

I visited My Son on a ridiculously hot day and drenched myself in sweat. Nice.

Hue

22 – 23 July 2011

A bit more of a chat with the local lady from Cam Lo before heading away to Hue.  Kind of awkward broken chatting.  A lot about her kids and how many grandkids she has, a rundown on her American boyfriend wanting her to go back to the US with him but her parents not letting her and some about her husband who was killed crossing the road by a drunken truck driver.  Man a pretty interesting run of life!

One of the early milestones for Ho Chi Minh.
A wee way to go.

Came across this large grave and memorial site for those
who died during the war on my way to Hue.

Stand your ground and take!

More Big C Supermarket action in Hue and the frenchstick wars continued, it’s great entertainment!  One kid was grabbing batch after batch coming off the trays and stacked up two baskets full while everyone looked like they were getting a bit pissed with her, classic greedy frenchstick gabbing situation.  The following day when I went back for some more (think I might soon become an obsessed frenchstick person too!) there was an old lady checking all the sticks and trying to find the perfect one, I think frustrating the baker who was bagging them with her fussiness.  It seems to be an artform with choosing frenchsticks but when they are going hot it’s just go for gold.

Other happenings at Big C. Free internet games to entertain kids in the  food court.
NZ is so behind the times, we don't even have free internet!

Anyway enough about frenchsticks, but if you come to Vietnam go to a Big C Supermarket at 8pm and just sit by the bakery and wait for the mayhem.

Just inside the old city, with the Forbidden City
behind the camera

Alright! Hue.  A nice city and quite a lot of history in this place.  When arriving into Hue from the north you ride past the old city which is surrounded by massive wall and moat.  There are a series of entrances through grand archways and once on the inside it’s all city as normal quite a funny contrast.  Within in the old city is the Forbidden Purple City, which again has a moat and wall surrounding it.  This was a very sacred place and was unfortunately heavily bombed during the war so many buildings destroyed.  However, many have been preserved, restored and maintained over the years as well.

Tombs of the Nguyen Emperors.  I think there are seven of these scattered around the countryside and I headed out on my bike to find them.  A bit more of a mission than I expected as there is next no signage to direct you to them.  Maybe a trick to get tourists to have to use guides.  Anyway found the Khai Dinh Tomb and man it was an impressive memorial!!  55,000VND which was about double or a bit more than all the other attractions I had been too but had to check it out after finally finding something.

Khai Dinh Tomb:

At midnight on a full moon these guys come alive.

Headed off to the Minh ManhTomb.  Got confused, lost, wrong road and then following the sign I finally found I still missed it and was told I was heading towards Laos.  Hmmmm.  Anyway parked up the bike at some guys café and he said I just walk around to entrance.  A nice wee wander through the “bush” around the external wall to the entrance and… another 55,000VND, man this is going to be an expensive day!  Decided to flag that one and walked back.  Noticed a couple places that I’m sure people had scaled the wall and gone around for free.  One was some fat bamboo branches leaning against the wall to walk up and the other a series of sticks jammed in the wall where it had cracked so it was like steps.  I clambered up and got wee look into the area but wussed out on jumping over.  Damn conscience was thinking what if I couldn’t get back out and what would happen if I got caught.  Sight-seeing has taught me that a lot of temples, pagodas and probably tombs are all very similar so I had done my tomb – which was similar to a temple anyway.

The Forbidden City cost 55,000VND as well so I saved my money for that.  Had to see what it was all about and it looked so mysterious from the outside.  Loads of temples, houses, halls and gardens and the barren sites where buildings were destroyed. 

One of the entrances into the Old City

Entrance to the Forbidden Purple City.
This is where the Emperor would sit and look over everyone during ceremonies 

 

His view

Looking into the Forbidden City

9 massive urns symbolising something that I have forgotten

Me being very spiritual

ROAR!!!!

The rear of the city where many of the buildings were destroyed from the war

Bombed

Site of the The Chanh Palace.  The most impressive building of the Forbidden City and it was destroyed during the war

Cam Lo

Arrived 21/07/2011

Round 2.  I was almost robbed again!!

The Eastern Ho Chi Minh Road is quite the contrast to what I have been riding on previously, it almost felt like riding through the Australian Outback.  Vast and open, shrubs around but that was about it and red clay soil.  No rich green rainforest and karst landscape anymore.

The barren landscape

Looking out west to the hills of the Western Ho Chi Minh Road

Some of the locals riding along

A solid feed for dinner tonight.  Rice, chicken and vege.  A good feeling to be full afterwards.  And even had a bit of a chat with a local lady who use to have an American boyfriend from “VC” she kept saying – Viet Cong.  I have now been invited to her house tomorrow morning before I leave.

My nice view from my room

Phong Nha

Arrived 20/07/2011

Taking the good with the bad.

Everything as usual in the morning, gear up my bike… ah there’s something missing. 

“Where’s my helmet?” left it clipped to the bike overnight.  I’m in the middle of nowhere, the place is locked down with massive steel gates, thought it would safe and I've not had any other problems before.  First time leaving my helmet on the bike though. Maybe someything shiny and easy to take.

One guy staying there who could speak English helped to translate what the owners were saying.

“Ah someone took it last night.  Some teenagers.”

“What do you mean!? You watched them take it and did nothing!?”

He then offered me a piece of s#it moto helmet that didn’t fit to replace mine.  That seems like a great trade off, all my problems are solved. Aaarrrggghhh!!!!

The poor guy continues to explain to me,

“They don’t understand (respecting people’s property) you see.  It is different in Vietnam” No beep beep they don’t beepin beep under-beeping-stand! BEEEEEEPPPP.

So I wandered down to the couple of local shops with the false hopes of miraculously seeing it.  No chance, it’s like finding a needle in the hay stack or in this case 1 person out of the 90 odd million population of Vietnam and they would have already happy driven away after steeling it.

A bunch of cyclists rode past.  None of them wearing my helmet but think I recognised one guy as Tony Nguyen from the bike shop in Hanoi.  “Hello.” I was just ignored.  I currently don’t seem to exist.

Well that’s my anger vented at the crappy situation and I shouldn’t have left my helmet down there or at least I should have locked my bike and helmet.  The owner was then nice enough to do a wee scout around the town to see if he could find it or the culprit but no success.  They then gave me a refund on my room, 150,000VND to help buy a new helmet, not much but think they realised how I felt.

Well looks like I’ll be cycling for four days without helmet until I get to Hue and probably buy myself some budgo moto helmet that fits.  What can you do, it’s not the end of the world it’s just a stink situation. Cycling away I started to think I was probably lucky I still had my bike!

Isn't it a lovely road?

The good. The Ho Chi Minh road continued to be a fantastic road to cycle along.  Amazing scenery winding through a valley of krast landscape and rice fields.  About 25km down and who do I run into… the group of cyclists from earlier and I was right about Tony.  They were packing up their bikes into their van to ‘transfer’ to Phong Nha to visit the cave there.  Taking a van transfer was not quite what I thought guided cycle touring was but going from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh in 17 days is pretty quick and now I know why.  Anyway had yarn with the South African couple doing the tour telling them of my situation and asked Tony if he knew a cycle shop in Hue I could buy a proper cycle helmet.  He laughed and shook his head.  I didn’t think there was anything.  Then out of the boot of his van he pulls out a helmet for me try on.  Holy torledo chips I could not believe my luck!!!  Not the best fit but I’m not going to anything this good until I get to the UK.  900,000VND and I had a helmet again from the most random chance luck roadside sales.  I later thought of the probability of seeing these guys on this stretch of road and just after I had my helmet stolen.  Lucky but not.

And the next best thing was that my lunch today was rice, beef and an egg omelette!!!!! So good.

Phong Nha is set in a World Heritage National Park.  A nice area and apparently there was some big cave close by.  So after arriving in Phong Nha (a bit later than planned due to the morning's disaster) I got myself a room, dumped my gear and headed out on my bike to check out the cave. Got within about 100m of it and that was as far as I could go.  A river blocked me and seemed you had to get a boat from town to get over.  Oh well I've seen loads of caves on my travels so far and didn't feel paying to see another.

A nice big National Park sign whacked onto the natural landscape.
Seems a bit of a contradiction

The township along the river

The cave and I think there was a fair bit more up the hill too

Phong Nha is also where the Ho Chi Minh Road splits into an eastern and western section.  The western side throws you into no-man's land talking to Tony (bike guide) and a bunch of motorbike tourist who I met on the road pulling a bike apart to try and fix it (happy that wasn't me and made my helmet situation not seem so bad) and some massive hills.  The eastern side is the easy way out and hopefully still kind of quiet even though it runs close to Highway 1.  As you guessed I'll be going east due to time constraints and not that keen or in the frame of mind for the unknown adventure of the west - another day I think.

The new helmet