Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Viet Nam continued

Sunday 25 May

The vehicle was military green. Tick. It was a 4x4. Tick. It was a Toyota Landcruiser from the old skool. Tick. The driver smoked War Horse Brand. Two ticks. That’s where the ticks end.

My quest for inner peace took me through the industrial outskirts of Hanoi. Whe3re I might add, the road manners are no better than the old quarter. A journey of 150kms took all of 4 hours. Anyway, what awaited me on the other end was a veru pleasant surprise. Seems I had signed myself up for a homestay.

It was great. To begin with, it was the first good meal I had had while in Vietnam. A note on food: Vietnam is the world’s second largest net exporter of rice. And yet, to date, I had not seen a grain. Noodle soup, rolled up pork mince, processed meat of some description. But no rice. WTF?

Anyway, here there was rice in abundance. As well as fried bugs. A delicacy, I’m told. Not one to shy away from such things, I tried one. It tasted, not surprisingly, like grass. That was it for me, but I was amused by my hosts’ sorting through the plate and picking out some particularly juicy ones to crunch on. I enquired, as you do, which ones were the best, and they assured my that the big ones were. Well, you can’t fault the logic.

The next thing that stood out for me was the quiet. Like game farm in the Northeren Transvall quiet. Luvly. In fact, the frogs were so loud they sounded like small dogs barking.

Monday 26


Woke up to the faint smell of cow dung and burning grass. Fabulous. It’s really at times like these that I get a little homesick for SA. Nevertheless, I decided I liked the countryside so juch that I would simply push on to Laos. Unfortunately this was not to be. My guide could not find out whether I could get a visa as the border; and at 180US extra for the privilege of going the extra 160kms, I thought better of it. Next time.

Back in the hotel in Hanoi, I tried to book a ticket back to wherever. A shambles. I still couldn’t connect to the Internet with my own computer and the PCs in the foyer were all set to 2002. The airline booking engines were not happy. And they put on the moon. I ask you.

Some negotiation and a hefty commission later, I had an airticket back to Bangkok.

Tuesday 27


And so here I am. Back in Thailand. My original return ticket to KL has been successfully changed to tomorrow afternoon. (Always buy the most expensive ticket you can – that way you can change it, and not have to put up with various arbitrary airline rules.)

I have a few good pics. I’ll post them when I’m in the mood.

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