All good things must come to an end

Suddenly we have reached the end of our Intrepid tour! The last week went really fast and then it was all over. Its been great fun.

Since the last entry, we have been to Nha Tran and are now in Ho Chi Minh City, a.k.a. Saigon.

We took the day train from Hoi An to Nha Tran. I'm not a big fan of day trains. It went for about 12 hours, which we spent playing cards, reading and failing to get some sleep. All of which was made difficult when they turned on the TVs extremely loud. We arrived in the late evening and crashed (metaphorically, not literally) pretty quickly.

Nha Tran felt a lot like the Gold Coast. It's a beach city based around two industries, fishing and tourism, the later having shaped the city in recent years. There has been a big growth in hotels, apartments, beach-side resorts, restaurants, bars, and apparently crime. We didn't have any problems, but we were constantly warned to watch our belongings, not to walk the streets alone at night, etc. A notice on our bathroom door warned us "Not to show your jewellry while trafficking". We aren't really big on jewellry or trafficking, but we headed the intent of the message.

Our first activity in NH was a motorbike tour - always a great way of seeing a city. We went to a few more pagodas, saw some buddhas, drove through a market, saw a Champa temple (the kingdom that ruled the middle part of Vietnam until the Viets kicked them out in the 18th(?) century), and learnt how to do some weaving. They did their best to teach us how to do it, but Bek and Blacky were much better than me. Apparently I'm not cut out to be a weaver, so I can cross that one off the list of potential occupations.

The motorcycle tour finished at mud baths. A mud bath involves a multi-step process. First we got into a bath which they filled with a light-coloured muddy water (quite fine-grained mud, not thick, icky stuff). After about half an hour of pouring mud on each other, we stood in the sun for a bit, had a shower, got sprayed with hot mineral water, had a hot mineral water bath, then went to a hot pool. Very nice. The only downside was that there was nothing cold to finish it off - a cold shower or swim would have been perfect.

After dinner that night we got to see the "party town" side of Nha Tran, dropping in on the Sailing Club, which had transformed itself into a thumping nightclub that extends out onto the beach. There were heaps of young Vietnamese holiday makers there, and only a few foreigners. The drinks were cheap and the music loud - what more could you want from a nightclub?

The next day was our on-again, off-again, on-again boat trip. The hotel stuffed up our booking, but Phuc saved the day with a phone call to a "friend" (he seems to have a lot of friends). We putted out to an aquarium in the shape of a big concrete sailing boat (touristy but interesting) and fed some enormous turtles. Then on to a resort island where we stopped off shore for some snorkelling off a reef. On the island we had a seafood lunch and lots of relaxing and napping on deck chairs, accompanied by a happy group of Vietnamese holiday makers singing, playing guitar and slapping things. Bek and Blacky sat back and got petticures on the beach.

We then said goodbye to Nha Tran and hopped on an overnight train to our final destination. Unfortunately it was a bit of a rough one, and not long enough to get a good night's sleep, so we arrived in Ho Chi Minh at about 4:30am feeling tired and drained. The hotel was full, so we had to wait until 11am to check in, which didn't make us feel any better. After a quick shower and nap, we took a cyclo tour in the afternoon. That took us past most of the landmarks in the city, with stops at the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace. This gave us a detailed, if somewhat distorted, view of the modern history of Vietnam (more on this in another post if i get time).

That night Bek, Blacky and I had dinner with my fellow PhD student Vuong, who has been back here with his family for the Tet holiday. He took us to a fantastic restaurant for dinner, full of locals and with a big waiting list for entry. He showed us all the best local cuisine and very kindly paid for dinner. Voung is very happy to be back here with his family and friends - I think he has been missing them and his country a lot. With the time that I've spent here over the last few weeks, I think I understand him a lot better now. Moving to Australia was a huge change for him, and lots of things would have been difficult to adjust to.

The next day, it was suddenly the last day of the tour - and probably also the best day. We took a bus out to ?? on the Mekong Delta for a boat cruise and various other activities. First we stopped at Turtle island to see how they make coconut candy, then stopped for some exotic fruits (dragon, milky apple, longan (?), pineapple with salt and chilli) and traditional music. The main attraction on the second island was an enourmous python which they chucked around without much concern and draped over us. He took a disturbing interest in my face, and I had to use quite a lot of strength to keep him off!

After that we went to another island for some tasty elephant-ear fish for lunch and cruised back past some fishing villages. A good trip - but only half of our day's adventures.

In the afternoon we went to one of the big attractions in the surrounds of Saigon - the Cu Chi tunnels. This is a huge network of tunnels dug by the Viet Cong firstly to fight the French, and later the Americans, that allowed them to fight an effective guerilla war. From the thousands of hidden trapdoors, they could launch strikes and then disappear without a trace, while living and storing weapons and supplies underground. The trip consisted of a half-hour propaganda video and a tour of some renovated (and widened) tunnels. The ones they took us through were extremely cramped and a little scary - we could barely walk hunched over - but the original tunnels would have been worse. To round off the whole experience, they took us to a rifle range were we could fire M16s and AK-47s. Shooting a gun is not my idea of a good time, but I gave it a go. I'm a terrible shot and would be useless in a war (there goes another career option!).

The only thing left after that was our farwell dinner and drinks. The group has gotten on really well and its a bit sad to say good bye to these people who we've gotten to know so well over the last few weeks. But all good things must come to an end, and its time to move on. Cambodia awaits! If I get time, I'll put some concluding thoughts about Vietnam in another entry.