Health warning: This post is massive! Get a cup of tea and biscuits before attempting to read. Better yet, get a brandy.
The next day in Nga Trang was dedicated to the crazy lady in the hotel who recommended the days activity to us. Having mentioned the possibility of hopping on a day trip to visit some of the islands in the area she thrust 'Boat Number 4' upon us and promised it was one of the best available. For 7 dollars we were willing to take the gamble. It proved to be some gamble. Initially we weren't convinced; on arrival at the wharf we got on the most crowded barge imaginable with about a million Asian tourists. Only two Germans had skin the same colour as us or spoke English and they looked as confused as we did. Other boats all around were leaving with a much smaller and predominantly backpacker contingent. Anyway, we were there for the day so we decided to see the funny side. 
Then the tour began at about 5 million decibels over the tannoy in the local tongue and we had no choice but to laugh. Thankfully there was some broken English interpretation at the end for us. At the first stop (an aquarium we weren't particularly bothered about) the place emptied as everyone rushed ashore clutching cameras. We hit the sun deck with the Germans for some peace and quiet as unfortunately swimming wasn't allowed in this area :-( . When the rabble returned we moved on to the snorkeling spot at island number two (with further accompanying ear splitting commentary). Eager to get something out of the day we grabbed some gear and jumped in. Some good corals and fishies were about, but the snorkels were not attached to the masks, which is annoying as they can droop and fill with water, the masks leaked and then finally also decided to steam up. Oh dear. We had a swim about and headed back to the boat cursing our receptionist. Then things changed. We went to the third island which was the lunch stop followed by 'happy hour'.
The lunch spread appeared and was gargantuan and mighty delicious and then the crew somehow mustered a drum kit and some guitars to partner the microphones and the karaoke was unleashed. Bearing in mind that by this point we had decided the only reasonable thing to do was to hit the beers, and a number of the Asian contingent were of the same mind you can imagine the fun that was had. These guys cannot get enough of their karaoke!! We were not allowed to continue before 'the English' had done a Beatles number either so we launched into a pretty terrible rendition of 'Hey Jude'. So So funny. We were beginning to understand that from the start this trip was not about the swimming or the sights but that it was a party boat and the number one priority was a damn good time. To affirm this suspicion, next came the floating bar, which was essentially a lad in a big rubber ring with a basket of strong spirits and glasses who was jettisoned from the back of the boat. The simple instructions were that if you got in the water you got some free drinks. 'English' were first in, and we bobbed about getting steadily wasted. This was Gooooood. We partied our way back to shore and hugged the receptionist!! We later played some pool with the bar girls in a pub over dinner, who were surprisingly good and nearly shamed us, before surrendering to bed soon after.
After this we thought a bit of a chill was in order and would you Adam-and-Eve-it, we realised it was Grand Prix day, so we watched it. That was about it for that day, we had a bus to catch to take us to Hoi An and tailor shop Mecca...
After negotiating the usual fall out at the bus stop where you are half asleep and the whole world is waiting outside to sell you something, try to drag you into their hotel or whiz you somewhere on the back of a motorbike, we found a pretty smart little hotel with a pool and settled in. After a hearty breakfast stop we decided that there was no better time to wade into the confusion of Hoi An Towns' tailoring shops. I would say 90% of the places in this town want to make you clothes and everywhere you turn someone is trying to drag you in. Eventually, Lai, a particularly persistent so and so got us into his shop, mainly by virtue of the reviews he had on display outside which were in far to colloquial an English to be faked!
Then we got down to business. 'Next' catalogues in a mess around us, piles of potential materials stacked about the shop and nattering galore from Lai and his sisters as they tried to appease us we finally decided to get two smart casual shirts each (personal designs), a 'funky shirt' each in the most horrific material you have ever seen, and two sets of 'kung-fu' pants. Oh Yeah. Then we paid far more than we planned and left wondering what had just happened. We spent the rest of the day just wandering. After the big, crazy, cities we had been in Hoi An was a breath of fresh air and we just took lung full. As we were wandering we kept bumping into a lad who was on our bus so we thought it only right to have lunch with 'Phil'... a.k.a. 'RoboPhil', and also planned to meet for a few drinks that evening. The error of our ways was to meet in a bar that offered the dangerous mixture of alcohol and a free return bus to a beach party.
Completely not planning it we ended up having a very nice chat with RoboPhil and a Swedish couple before literally piling in a minibus (were talking people on everyone’s laps, and people in between these people and hanging out of windows, this is certainly one way to meet people!!). The beach party was at some sort of resort that also had a swimming pool. A few buckets and games of pool later everyone was in their underwear and in, English lads included. Then managing to get split up in the forest of lingerie somehow (oh no) we both made our way back, Stu on MotoTaxi, me in the free bus (thank god because Stu had all the money!!) to two completely different and completely random locations, mainly as a result of not being able to pronounce our hotel name, or known where on gods green earth we were. By some miracle we both found our way back to the hotel as the sun was rising and slept. After a minor lay in till the afternoon the next day we eagerly rushed to the tailors to collect our clothes. They were good. So good I may have spent even more money...
That evening we went out for dessert (we had been keeping very strange meal times through the day) and ordered a caramel cream, thinking it sounded great as we both liked caramel and cream. We received tiramisu. This is a poor menu spello even by Vietnamese standards. But when you are presented with it and asked 'caramel cream... you know?' you find that somehow you do.
Next up the multi leg journey to Hanoi, via Hue, upon which bus we met a couple of English girls who joined us for the couple of hours wander around the Citadel (Hue used to be the imperial capital) to fill the gap between buses. Overnight to Hanoi was not a pleasant experience, with the two of us somehow managing to find the beds either side of the rather fragrant on board toilet. Nice. More chaos on arrival, but we managed to fight our way through and persuade the owner of the worlds most dinky taxi that he really could fit four people in and take us what turned out to be a surprisingly long way across town to the old quarter. After bumbling about we managed to find a room in our extreme budget price range, with free breakfast allowing us to look past the somewhat extensive damp!
We figured it was only right to go and book a Halong Bay trip, so we did. We then went for a wander, ate strange and most probably unhealthy things from markets, nearly got run over several times and then also booked some water puppet show tickets for the evening. (Seriously, we have seen our fair share of mad traffic about, but this is another level. The volume isn't as great and the roads may be smaller, but they are all bloody Kamikaze!)
So that evening we got battered by the noise, smells and sights on the streets before eating a balcony based dinner and reaching the water puppet theatre. Thinking it only right to watch a bit of historic Vietnamese culture we went in with mixed feelings about how it would be. It was hilarious. Can't put it simpler than that, it was a damn good time. You will most likely understand if you see the videos... Possibly the best two pound we have spent.
This opened the door for Hanoi being the perfect ending to Vietnam. And in the morning we would start our Halong Bay adventure...
The next day in Nga Trang was dedicated to the crazy lady in the hotel who recommended the days activity to us. Having mentioned the possibility of hopping on a day trip to visit some of the islands in the area she thrust 'Boat Number 4' upon us and promised it was one of the best available. For 7 dollars we were willing to take the gamble. It proved to be some gamble. Initially we weren't convinced; on arrival at the wharf we got on the most crowded barge imaginable with about a million Asian tourists. Only two Germans had skin the same colour as us or spoke English and they looked as confused as we did. Other boats all around were leaving with a much smaller and predominantly backpacker contingent. Anyway, we were there for the day so we decided to see the funny side. Then the tour began at about 5 million decibels over the tannoy in the local tongue and we had no choice but to laugh. Thankfully there was some broken English interpretation at the end for us. At the first stop (an aquarium we weren't particularly bothered about) the place emptied as everyone rushed ashore clutching cameras. We hit the sun deck with the Germans for some peace and quiet as unfortunately swimming wasn't allowed in this area :-( . When the rabble returned we moved on to the snorkeling spot at island number two (with further accompanying ear splitting commentary). Eager to get something out of the day we grabbed some gear and jumped in. Some good corals and fishies were about, but the snorkels were not attached to the masks, which is annoying as they can droop and fill with water, the masks leaked and then finally also decided to steam up. Oh dear. We had a swim about and headed back to the boat cursing our receptionist. Then things changed. We went to the third island which was the lunch stop followed by 'happy hour'.The lunch spread appeared and was gargantuan and mighty delicious and then the crew somehow mustered a drum kit and some guitars to partner the microphones and the karaoke was unleashed. Bearing in mind that by this point we had decided the only reasonable thing to do was to hit the beers, and a number of the Asian contingent were of the same mind you can imagine the fun that was had. These guys cannot get enough of their karaoke!! We were not allowed to continue before 'the English' had done a Beatles number either so we launched into a pretty terrible rendition of 'Hey Jude'. So So funny. We were beginning to understand that from the start this trip was not about the swimming or the sights but that it was a party boat and the number one priority was a damn good time. To affirm this suspicion, next came the floating bar, which was essentially a lad in a big rubber ring with a basket of strong spirits and glasses who was jettisoned from the back of the boat. The simple instructions were that if you got in the water you got some free drinks. 'English' were first in, and we bobbed about getting steadily wasted. This was Gooooood. We partied our way back to shore and hugged the receptionist!! We later played some pool with the bar girls in a pub over dinner, who were surprisingly good and nearly shamed us, before surrendering to bed soon after.After this we thought a bit of a chill was in order and would you Adam-and-Eve-it, we realised it was Grand Prix day, so we watched it. That was about it for that day, we had a bus to catch to take us to Hoi An and tailor shop Mecca...
After negotiating the usual fall out at the bus stop where you are half asleep and the whole world is waiting outside to sell you something, try to drag you into their hotel or whiz you somewhere on the back of a motorbike, we found a pretty smart little hotel with a pool and settled in. After a hearty breakfast stop we decided that there was no better time to wade into the confusion of Hoi An Towns' tailoring shops. I would say 90% of the places in this town want to make you clothes and everywhere you turn someone is trying to drag you in. Eventually, Lai, a particularly persistent so and so got us into his shop, mainly by virtue of the reviews he had on display outside which were in far to colloquial an English to be faked!
Then we got down to business. 'Next' catalogues in a mess around us, piles of potential materials stacked about the shop and nattering galore from Lai and his sisters as they tried to appease us we finally decided to get two smart casual shirts each (personal designs), a 'funky shirt' each in the most horrific material you have ever seen, and two sets of 'kung-fu' pants. Oh Yeah. Then we paid far more than we planned and left wondering what had just happened. We spent the rest of the day just wandering. After the big, crazy, cities we had been in Hoi An was a breath of fresh air and we just took lung full. As we were wandering we kept bumping into a lad who was on our bus so we thought it only right to have lunch with 'Phil'... a.k.a. 'RoboPhil', and also planned to meet for a few drinks that evening. The error of our ways was to meet in a bar that offered the dangerous mixture of alcohol and a free return bus to a beach party.Completely not planning it we ended up having a very nice chat with RoboPhil and a Swedish couple before literally piling in a minibus (were talking people on everyone’s laps, and people in between these people and hanging out of windows, this is certainly one way to meet people!!). The beach party was at some sort of resort that also had a swimming pool. A few buckets and games of pool later everyone was in their underwear and in, English lads included. Then managing to get split up in the forest of lingerie somehow (oh no) we both made our way back, Stu on MotoTaxi, me in the free bus (thank god because Stu had all the money!!) to two completely different and completely random locations, mainly as a result of not being able to pronounce our hotel name, or known where on gods green earth we were. By some miracle we both found our way back to the hotel as the sun was rising and slept. After a minor lay in till the afternoon the next day we eagerly rushed to the tailors to collect our clothes. They were good. So good I may have spent even more money...That evening we went out for dessert (we had been keeping very strange meal times through the day) and ordered a caramel cream, thinking it sounded great as we both liked caramel and cream. We received tiramisu. This is a poor menu spello even by Vietnamese standards. But when you are presented with it and asked 'caramel cream... you know?' you find that somehow you do.
Next up the multi leg journey to Hanoi, via Hue, upon which bus we met a couple of English girls who joined us for the couple of hours wander around the Citadel (Hue used to be the imperial capital) to fill the gap between buses. Overnight to Hanoi was not a pleasant experience, with the two of us somehow managing to find the beds either side of the rather fragrant on board toilet. Nice. More chaos on arrival, but we managed to fight our way through and persuade the owner of the worlds most dinky taxi that he really could fit four people in and take us what turned out to be a surprisingly long way across town to the old quarter. After bumbling about we managed to find a room in our extreme budget price range, with free breakfast allowing us to look past the somewhat extensive damp!We figured it was only right to go and book a Halong Bay trip, so we did. We then went for a wander, ate strange and most probably unhealthy things from markets, nearly got run over several times and then also booked some water puppet show tickets for the evening. (Seriously, we have seen our fair share of mad traffic about, but this is another level. The volume isn't as great and the roads may be smaller, but they are all bloody Kamikaze!)
So that evening we got battered by the noise, smells and sights on the streets before eating a balcony based dinner and reaching the water puppet theatre. Thinking it only right to watch a bit of historic Vietnamese culture we went in with mixed feelings about how it would be. It was hilarious. Can't put it simpler than that, it was a damn good time. You will most likely understand if you see the videos... Possibly the best two pound we have spent.This opened the door for Hanoi being the perfect ending to Vietnam. And in the morning we would start our Halong Bay adventure...
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