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| Other countries sue_and_nathan visited in yearaway |
| Australia (4) |
| Cambodia (2) |
| Czech Republic (1) |
| India (6) |
| Indonesia (2) |
| Japan (1) |
| Malaysia (6) |
| New Zealand (2) |
| Singapore (1) |
| Thailand (7) |
| United Kingdom (2) |
| Vietnam (4) |
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| Just a quick entry to let you in to our first few days in Vietnam and to give you some of our first impressions. Well, first off, customs wasn't as horrendous as the guidebook had made out, in fact the uniformed chappy behind the desk checked our passports swiftly and with a smile! So we weren't instantly faced with the red tape that Vietnam is famous for. We've done a little bit of site-seeing, but there's nothing much to write home about - it's the general feel of the place that is great and watching life going on around you. One site we were impressed with was Uncle Ho's mausoleum. You walk into it (after removing your hat of course) and his box is in the centre of the darkened room with a guard at each corner. He looks perfect - with the same wisps of grey hair in his beard that he is famous for. It's all a bit sanitised though and weird, because after all he explicitly asked to be buried so that his body could go back to fertilise Vietnam's soil. Like we said, it's the snapshots of the city that make it so wonderful. Take the traffic for instance, hardly any cars and hundreds of bicycles and mopeds - all beeping and ringing their bells. This makes a very strange rush-hour and also makes crossing the road an adventure. You just close your eyes and walk and hope that people will steer around you! The highway code is certainly not a bestseller here - Sue's first comment when we arrived here was, "They drive on the left then?" - not long after that we realised that's only the official version - people drive where they want and, if that's the pavement, then so be it!! Then there's the eating. The first restaurant we went in to had delicacies on the menu such as cocks' testicles and tortoise blood in vodka. Mmmm... spoilt for choice "Waiter - can I have a small tortoise in a pot please, with a small serving of testicles on the side please!" Actually, since then we've discovered that the food here is awesome - even better than Thai. The exchange rate is amazing - 22,000 dong to the pound. So you go to the ATM and draw out millions and have to find somewhere to stash all this cash! The amusing thing we saw was a 25,000 dong shop, which is the equivalent of the 1 pound shop on West Ealing High Street. It's amazing how small the world can be sometimes - and they even sell the same useless things!! The streets of Hanoi are beautiful. Wide tree-lined boulevards, people always hanging out playing games like maejong and chess, people selling food and others eating, bicycles, cyclos - it's great to look at. They even have barbers out on the street with their mirrors on the wall and an electricity supply from god knows where! We watched one barber cleaning some poor guy's ears with a long sharp pointy thing - the barber had a miners light on his head and it all seemed very serious - needless to say we decided upon cottonbuds instead! So - as you can read we're loving it here - the people are ace and the city is beautiful - what else can we say - definitely our favourite place so far and it'll be very hard to leave. | ||||||||||||
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| 2 May 2001 : Phitsanuloke - Thailand | 14 May 2001 : Sapa - Vietnam | |||||||||||
| Last few stops in Thailand | Greetings from the Tonkinese Alps | |||||||||||