It seems to be a theme that I have to apologise for the delay at the beginning of each blog and this time I really have zero excuse. I spent nearly two weeks in Thailand  and I did very little apart from really chill out so I really had time to write, but I guess I didn’t feel like there was that much to write about. I will however give you a little recap so you know what I was up to!

I arrived in Bangkok two days before Songkran, the Thai New Year festival. I have always heard crazy stories about this festival and thought it would be fun to see it one day and this trip just happened to match up with the dates. I have to say, I am really glad I saw/experienced it but I am not sure I would purposely be in Thailand for it again. The Thais celebrate Songkran by basically having a huge city-wide water fight that lasts for 3 days. Granted, there are special designated zones for full on water action but realistically you can have a bucket of water thrown at/on/near you at anytime during the three days.

On the afternoon of the first day of Songkran I decided to go and check out  the Silom area, which was one of the designated Songkran festival areas. This is a huge area in the middle of a huge city and the main street was closed off and just full of thousands and thousands of people with water guns and buckets drenching anyone and everyone. I will admit I was a bit of a wuss on day one and I didn’t actually leave the walkway from the BTS station. It was totally overwhelming and I was also not prepared with what I was wearing at all! On the way back to the hostel I made sure to stop in and buy  waterproof bag that i could use the next day when I would be heading over to Khaosan Rd, another designated festival area and a crazy place at the best of times.

I had two days staying just around the corner from Khaosan Rd but when my taxi arrived to the area I realised that the designated festival area was a lot bigger than I had thought which meant that I had to get out at the road closure and walk the 3 blocks over to my hotel. I got drenched, like head to toe, dripping wet along with my bag which luckily kept things mostly dry inside. Once I checked in i put on my swimmers and a dress and didn’t really wear anything but that for the next two days while I wandered around the area. It was crazy and it was wild and it was fun but it was exhausting. On the third day I emerged from the hotel cautiously, even though I knew the festival was over I was still expecting to have buckets of water thrown at me … but no, it was all like normal (that Khaosan version of normal), not even any signs of the chaos of the last few days which the night before had left the streets looking like a total dump. Ahhhhh Bangkok had once again lived up to its top 5 listing of my favourite cities but it was time to head to the islands and I was excited!

For the next 8 days I hung out and did so very little on the beautiful island of Ko Lanta in the Andaman sea, just a little south of Phuket. i had not been to Ko Lanta before but it was exactly what I was expecting and needed. It is a really quiet and chill island with one whole coast lined with different beaches which all have a slightly different vibe and facilities. I was staying at the aptly named Pinky Bungalows on Klong Khong beach which i about half way down the coast. Apart from one day when I did a snorkeling tour out to Ko Rok (this was absolutely incredible! Beautiful clear water and stunning white sand beach) I spent every day in the exact same way. I got up for breakfast around 9 and then went promptly back to bed for an hour or so for the best holiday activity ever – the post-breakfast nap, before getting up and dragging myself the few metres to the hotel pool. In the afternoons I would usually walk down to the beach and either go for a swim or just sit in one of the many beach bar/restaurants and have an early dinner. bedtime was no later than 8pm, Everyday.

 

Hello again, I hope you have all had a lovely week and are now enjoying your weekends (I barely remember what those are … soz, don’t hate me)! I finished up my final week in Vietnam and have now officially passed one month away. It feels like it has gone super quick and super slow all at the same time. Vietnam was a lot of ups and downs for me and I will go into that a bit more in another post but overall my first month away has been a good time and I am looking forward to what the next 9 months has in store.

After leaving Hoi An I spent 2 nights in Huế followed by 5 nights in Hanoi. Huế was actually the national capital of Vietnam from 1802-1945. Because of this the main attraction (pretty much the only attraction) is the Citadel, complete with moat! Inside the walls of the Citadel are the Imperial City, some palaces and other old shiny things. I spent an afternoon wandering around the surprisingly deserted grounds and marvelling about how well preserved a lot of it was, until I overheard a tour guide explaining to his group that a lot of it had been rebuilt as during the Vietnam War (they, quite rightfully I guess, refer to it as “The American War”) a lot of the buildings were destroyed by bombs.

The rest of my time in Huế was spent enjoying the tasty food and unexpectedly trendy cafes that I found almost everywhere – within the 3 block radius of my hostel. It wasn’t until the morning I was leaving that I heard about the other big attraction in Huế which is a deserted water park that opened in 2004 and was never even finished before it was abandoned and left to the elements. From all accounts it sounds pretty cool and at minimum would be a pretty unique thing to spend half a day exploring, maybe next time!

From Huế I once again skipped the 16 hour overnight bus trip and instead flew for an exhausting 50 minutes to reach Hanoi, home for the next 5 nights. Hanoi was the only place in Vietnam I had actually been before but my memories were a little hazy due to it being over 5 years ago and maybe having more than a few beers last time I was there. The benefit of visiting somewhere for the second time is that you don’t have that nagging feeling that you have to go and see all the sights when all you really want to do is sit in cafes and read for hours at a time. Can you guess what I did for 5 days?

I have been away for one month and I am currently onto my 10th book since I left. I have always been a reader but I am still impressed with my progress. I have set myself a goal of reading 52 books this year, which at the current rate I know is achievable, I am actually more worried about the cost than anything else. I would love to have any book suggestions from you all! Old or new, fiction or non-fiction, tell me what your favourite books are!

So, back to Hanoi. The area surrounding Hoàn Kiếm Lake is known as the Old Quarter and is where most tourists stay. Its where I stayed last time and this time also. I arrived on a Saturday afternoon and didn’t really stray far from the hostel for the rest of the day but on Sunday I decided to walk down to the lake and have a walk around. I got a pleasant surprise once I reached the lake and saw that all the streets (they are the crazy ones you see with the traffic weaving in and out) around the lake had been closed off and made pedestrian only. The place was absolutely full of people, mainly locals but a lot of tourists as well. It was clear that this was a big family day out with children everywhere, riding bikes, hoverboards, roller-skates etc. and dogs, SO many dogs. People were strolling and partaking in different games and activities, there were buskers, old men doing tai chi, young girls taking selfies … I had surely stumbled onto some kind of festival!

After nearly completing one full lap of the lake I noticed that there were a lot of groups sitting along the edge of the lake that consisted of about 80% Vietnamese and then 20% westerners sitting together.  Almost as soon as I noticed this unusual arrangement I was approached by a Vietnamese boy who would have been in his late teens and he explained that he was there with a group of fellow students and they came here to practise their english and asked if I could spare 15 minutes to sit and talk with them. My natural instinct was to make up an excuse and keep walking (thinking about this now makes me feel terrible!) but then I realised that wasn’t very helpful for anyone and I had literally nothing else to do so I said sure and followed him over to a group of very keen looking students.

There was about 15 of them and while they ranged in age from about 10 to 40 they all had the same super cute eager looks on their faces and started off timidly asking very simple questions and smiling enormously and repeating every answer I gave. They seemed to be especially interested in what I thought about Vietnam and what my plans were for the future. It started off a little awkward but we all warmed up pretty quickly and they were soon cracking jokes and trying out any slang they had learnt – one of them kept calling his friend an “egghead” followed by a knowing look at me each time. I ended up sitting with them for over an hour and it was probably my favourite hour in all the time I spent in Vietnam.

My last few days were pretty laid back. I slept late everyday and visited multiple cafes, reading, journaling and Facebook stalking you all. I went to the movies twice and finished every day off with a beer or two sitting by the lake. Hanoi was a lovely way to finish off my first month away. Next stop is Laos which I had always imagined as a poorer version of Vietnam but *spoiler alert* it’s really not!

Until next time xxx

 

 

If you have read my last couple of posts you may already know that up until now my time in Vietnam has been a little up and down. Ho Chi Minh was pretty fun, but then my phone got stolen so that put a dampener on things. Dalat was really great and a lovely change from city life. Nha Trang was disappointing mainly in that it was not at all like I expected and I also chucked a hissy fit and checked out of my hostel after one day but in the end I had a lovely relaxing time there. Da Nang was the next stop, only because it is the closest city to Hoi An with an Airport and it was just a big city by an uninspiring beach but I was only there for one night so I’m not sure I can even judge it really.

All was restored to positive vibes within about 3 minutes of arriving in Hoi An though. I had pretty high expectations for this place considering everyone I know who has been raves about it, but I was not let down in the slightest. It is just a lovely little town, not far from the beach and with a river running though it. There is a bustling “old town” which is open only to pedestrians, motorbikes and bicycles. The streets of the old town are lined with restaurants, tailors, leather shops and lanterns, so many lanterns, lanterns everywhere. At night time the streets are so lit up I found myself walking around for hours in the cool breeze coming off the river with a smile on my face.

There is no getting around the fact that it is by far the most touristy of all the places I have been so far in Vietnam but I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Luckily I haven’t become one of those travellers yet who is just like “oh I want to get away from all the annoying tourists and be at one with the real people” – not that there is anything wrong with that either …. but it’s not really me. I love to see new and different places but I am not opposed to doing that while still having first world amenities available to me along with the ability to get a good pizza at any time.

I was back to hostel life after my sneaky hotel detour in Nha Trang but as I had treated myself to a private room in the (what turned out to be brand new) hostel it pretty much still felt like hotel living, but with the advantage of the chance for social interaction with other travellers. I had a vague idea when booking this hostel that it might be a bit of a party hostel but I figured by having the private room I wouldn’t be too bothered if it all got a bit much and I needed an escape. Boy I am glad I made that decision. Before I had even completed the check in process I had counted no less than 10 visibly drunk people who were definitely no older than 21. Thats cool, it was only 11:30am but whatevs man, we all make choices …. no, but really, of course its fine and if it had of been 20 year old me checking in I probably wouldn’t have even bothered going to my room to drop off my bags before going to join in the drinking.

In my old age I have become a little more responsible/reserved or as my parents would probably put it “boring” so I don’t have any tales of wild nights filled with beer pong and strip poker but I can tell you all about the delicious meals I had, the bike trips out to the good beach or the the lovely walks by the river I took. Honestly, the wildest thing I did was ride a bike wearing thongs and not closed toe shoes like it had been drilled into me as a child that I should always do. I felt totally guilty but like a bit of a rebel …. even though that is literally what everyone in Vietnam wears to ride any type of bike.

My second day in Hoi An was St Patricks day, so basically Christmas for a party hostel. At breakfast the staff were already getting ready, wearing big green sequined hats or bowties over bare chests. Beer was available with breakfast for free. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good breakfast beer and I certainly partake sometimes but for some reason excessively early day drinking with a bunch of strangers in their early 20’s just wasn’t appealing to me. Luckily I met a lovely German girl called Christina at breakfast who seemed to be looking at everyone with the same level of uncertainty (read; disdain) as I was so naturally we started chatting and eventually discovered that we were both 90 year olds (I had originally written 60 and then 80 year olds but I realised this characterisation would offend both my dad and nana who are both bigger party animals than me at this stage) trapped in 30 year old bodies and quickly made plans to hang out in the afternoon and go out for a nice civilised dinner away from the hostel.

We had dinner a few blocks away from the hostel and about half way though the meal, when we were discussing the current state of politics in Germany and Australia (I am not even joking or embarrassed about that) we heard all this yelling and crying and soon saw a couple from our hostel walking up the middle of the road having a full blown fight. The girl eventually yelled at him “Just leave me alone! I’m going this way, don’t follow me!” and turned around and started walking away. She walked about 5 metres and then turned around and then when she realised the boy was walking in the opposite direction, like she had told him to, started running back towards him yelling “Where are you going?!”. We considered that pretty good entertainment and decided we would both call it a night, it was 8:45pm after all. When we got back to the hostel it was carnage, passed out people on the reception couches, drunk people running around the pool, beer spilled on every surface. I literally couldn’t get to my room quick enough. The music was still so loud and there was no way I would be able to get to sleep so I just put on my noise cancelling headphones and watched about 4 episodes of Law & Order SVU. Best. St Paddies. Ever.

Anyway, thats probably enough super exciting stories for you all. Here are some photos I took over the last week in Hoi An. I hope you enjoy them!

Up until yesterday I was starting to despair. What wasn’t I getting? Why was everyone saying how Vietnam is the new Thailand? Why wasn’t I really enjoying myself? Had I made a HUGE mistake??

No, I hadn’t. Turns out I just hadn’t been to Hoi An yet. I loved this place within 3 minutes of arriving and as each hour passes I love it a little more. I am even finding that since arriving here I am thinking back more fondly on the places I have just visited, the ones that I wasn’t all that sure I had liked at all.

It is only day 2 here in Hoi An and although I was originally going to be staying 5 nights I am already thinking I will extend my stay by another couple of days. I know there is so much more for me to see and do here so I am not going to say anymore about Hoi An for now. I will write another post once I leave and tell you all about this place. For now I will bore you with tales of what I have been doing and the places I have been for the last couple of weeks.

So, you already know a little bit about my time in Ho Chi Minh. Between being robbed of my thongs and then my mobile I actually had a nice time there. It is another big city but I am a big city girl so the craziness wasn’t a turn off at all. The hostel wasn’t too big and had a very social atmosphere so I met quite a few cool people. While in Ho Chi Minh I visited the War Remnants museum which was quite confronting but definitely worth the visit. I also ate a heap of street food which was all really yummy and soooo cheap. I was averaging about $4 per meal (always including a beer!).

Next stop was Dalat and thanks to being a chronic organiser I had managed to book a cheap flight 3 months earlier, so rather than spending $10 and enduring 7 hours on the bus I paid $35 and spent a little over 50 mins in the air. When checking out of the hostel in Ho Chi Minh I happened to start chatting to a lovely English couple who it turns out were not just on their way to catch the same flight to Dalat, they also happened to be staying in the same hostel. This was super convenient as we shared a taxi to and from both airports. It was also nice arriving and already knowing someone. I shouldn’t have worried though because this hostel was even more chilled and social than the last.

Dalat is a lovely little town that centres around a lovely lake (swan peddle boats and all) and is surrounded by countryside, mountains and waterfalls. Its higher in altitude which means that it is also significantly cooler than Ho Chi Minh. It was a welcome change! My days in Dalat mainly consisted of breakfast at the hostel, a walk around the lake and then some other activity in the afternoon – visiting a pagoda, waterfall, flower park etc. Every night I partook in the “Family Dinners” that they did at the hostel. It was basically everyone in the hostel crammed into the living room all eating together that amazing local dishes that the hostel staff spend all afternoon preparing. This hostel really was amazing and I think I am going to find it hard to top it anywhere along the way. The beds are super comfy, the bathrooms are huge and private, the atmosphere is super friendly and social, the meals are great and the staff are incredible. They learn everyones name straight away and always greet you and ask you how your day had been and seemed to genuinely care about the answer.

After my 4 nights in Dalat I reluctantly said goodbye to the staff and all my new friends and made my way to Nha Trang by bus – this one only took about 3 hours. I unfortunately don’t have that much great to say about Nha Trang. It is a coastal resort town but the beach isn’t that great and the place is full and I mean FULL of Russian tourists. All of the signs, shops and tour agencies are all geared towards the Russians and I was finding people talking to me in Russian before trying English. I don’t know why but I found this really off putting and I think put me in a bad mood from the beginning. I stayed one night at the hostel I had booked for 5 nights and then decided the next morning that 10 days of dorm life was enough for me for a little while and I promptly found a cheap mid range hotel near the beach and checked in. I spent the rest of that day sitting in the hotel room watching shit TV and feeling sorry for myself (poor me, boo hoo right?!).

The next few days in Nha Trang did get better though. I think I was already suffering a bit of “people fatigue” and just needed to have some alone time to chill out and not get asked and answer the same 10 questions over and over again. For the next few days I went to the beach every afternoon and hired a sun lounger and spent my time drinking beer and eating fruit from the beach vendors …. ok, maybe this place wasn’t so bad.

Once my 5 nights were up another flight (another flight I managed to still have no anxiety on!) took me to Da Nang. I was only there the one night and found that it was really just a big city by another uninspiring beach but I didn’t really care because I knew I was going to Hoi An the next day and I was feeling excited again. And so, here we are …

Sorry for the thousand indulgent words, hopefully you have made it this far and I haven’t bored you to death. The next post should be more interesting, or at least more generally positive. Hoi An really is a gem and between starting this post and finishing it I have decided that I definitely will extend my time here and spend a full week.

Thats all for now friends! Talk to you all soon xxx

 

Look, I’ll be honest, I knew I would be writing a post like this at some point but I really didn’t think it would be as early as day 5. Before you worry, it’s really ok, I’m not hurt in any way and its only 5 hours since the “incident” and everything is sorted out … lessons have been learnt, no real harm done.

So, here is the story; Picture me gossiping this morning to the SLC (Thats the “Sydney Ladies Club” for those of you not lucky enough to be in it) about this boy staying in my dorm who was a little bit silly last night and had too much to drink and ended up stranded with someone having relieved him of his phone, cards and cash. OK, I was totally judging him but I really shouldn’t have as I have been that silly drunk tourist in South East Asia more times than I can count. Apart from one terrible night on Khao San Road in Bangkok, which we just don’t talk about, I have been incredibly lucky to never have had anything stolen or had any mishaps due to inebriation. My room mate was not so lucky and I should have been kinder with my thoughts towards him.

A little later this morning, after another delicious breakfast at my hostel I was getting ready to head down the street to buy a Vietnamese SIM card for the rest of my stay. As I walked past reception my hung over dorm-mate was pleading with the hostel staff to help him somehow. There wasn’t really much they could do but they were being lovely and trying to help him anyway. I walked out thinking to myself how glad I was that it wasn’t me. You can see where this is heading right?

After a very quick and painless trip to the phone shop I was up and running with my Vietnamese SIM and as I walked out of the shop and down the street I was hastily sending messages to basically everyone, talking about how free it felt to not have to search out wifi to stay connected. After a little while I realised that I hadn’t really been paying attention to where I was going so I stopped and opened up google maps, once again so glad I could use it right then and there, to see if I was heading in the right direction. As I stood on the side of the street looking at the map, I heard … well … I heard nothing, but all of a sudden I could see a hand on my phone and a man on a motorbike next to me. In the next second he was gone and so was my phone. I was standing still, open mouthed, staring at the back of this person who then disappeared into the literal hundreds of other motorbikes on the road.

The next little while is a blur. I know that I asked a young Vietnamese boy who had seen what happened a heap of questions, even after it became very apparent that he didn’t speak any English. I think I asked him where the police station was about 15 times, no joke. I eventually walked away in a daze, just aware enough to look at the shops around me so that I could explain where I was when this happened. I walked about another 50 metres when I realised I knew exactly where I was and turned to walk towards a cafe I had been at a couple of days ago. I asked at the cafe where the closest police station was and she pointed literally across the road. I went up stairs and into the station, which was really just an open room with a couple of uniformed guys watching UFC. I tried to explain what had happened but it soon became obvious that they also didn’t have enough English for this process to go smoothly. One of the officers took me to the shop next door and spoke to the lady working there. She then told me that I should go back to my hostel and get someone there to help me lodge the report. I immediately thought of my dorm-mate at reception just an hour ago.

The rest of the day has gone by just fine. The lovely manager of the hostel went back to the police station with me and translated to a different officer who took down the details and said a report would be ready tomorrow afternoon and because I am leaving in the morning for Dalat the manager is going to go back again for me and get the report so she can email it to me. As I left the police station the officer who took the report stopped me and said so genuinely “I am so sorry this happened”. One bad Vietnamese man taking from me made me realise how lovely and kind the majority of the Vietnamese people are so that can’t be so bad. I have started my insurance claim and I have already gone out and bought a new phone so really, like I said earlier …. lessons learnt and no real harm done.

PS. I also had my thongs taken from out the front of the hostel earlier this week … I honestly think I’m still more annoyed about that.

PPS. The photo is not one I took of the bad guy getting away … obviously … because he had my phone.

It’s currently 2pm on my second day in Ho Chi Minh. I sit here writing in the common room of my hostel, located in a little side alley off Phạm Ngũ Lão, the backpacker area of Ho Chi Minh. I am actually feeling a bit sick, but don’t worry, it’s no longer because of the emotional turmoil brought on my leaving my loved ones, I am pretty sure its because I am a bloody idiot and I brushed my teeth with tap water.

As most of you know, I am in no way a religious person, but, sometimes I feel like there is something out there in the universe that makes sure that when it’s really important we all have the experiences we need to keep us going. Yesterday was a tough day for me. I have literally been planning this trip for 3 years so you would think I would have been emotionally prepared for it, but you would have been wrong. As I hugged and kissed my family goodbye the tears started the fall and once I had cleared customs it really took a while for me to relax my face from an ugly Kim Kardashian crying look to one that was maybe a bit puffy, but at least semi-normal for a human.

We boarded the plane and I had just managed to completely stop the tears when I got to my row and saw that I was not going to have the free seats next to me that I had hoped for. What I actually got was way better though. Sitting next to me were a lovely little (and I really mean little) Vietnamese couple who started chatting to me right away. They were lovely, so so lovely and exactly what I needed in that moment. From our conversation I found out that they were from Ho Chi Minh City but had been living in Australia, specifically Burwood, for the last 20 years and that they owned a nail salon (it’s called Channail – thats right, a nail pun) that I have actually been to several times. They were on their way to Phuket for a big group holiday with friends coming from all over the world. They asked me all about my plans and gave me tips and suggestions of things to do. Several times throughout the flight they checked in on me again and kept asking me more about my life in general as well as the trip I have planned.

The last time I was befriended and treated so warmly  by the people sitting next to me on a plane was when I was just 18 and I was on my way to London, when I was also travelling alone and having just left my family and friends behind for an unknown amount of time. I needed it that day and I needed it again yesterday. The lovely interaction not only made me feel much less emotional it also completely distracted me from the fact that I was hurtling through the air 30,000 feet above the earth and for the first time in well over 2 years I had no feelings of anxiety related to flying – another thing that had been playing on my mind as the trip got closer.

All in all, the day was a success and I am here now and have already had a bunch of cool experiences, just from walking down/across the street, and feel I confident that I can do this now. For the last few months people have been telling me how brave what I am doing is and I felt like a total fraud as I didn’t feel brave at all but I do now and I am so ready to have a bunch of adventures and hopefully yesterday will be the most (irrationally) emotional I will be … I probably shouldn’t have said that … don’t get me wrong, I know I will get home sick and miss people a whole heap but for the first time I really think I can do this now.

I will hopefully post again soon, just need to do something interesting enough to write about!