Alice Smart

Saigon or Ho Chin Min city as it is officially known, is our last stop in Vietnam. The original name Saigon means cotton fields in Vietnamese as that’s what the first settlers found here. It acted as the capital city of South Vietnam when the country was split in two and fighting the Vietnam-US war, and once the communist north won the war they renamed Saigon to Ho Chin Min city after the communist leader, although most of the locals still refer to it as Saigon. It’s still the largest City in Vietnam with POPULATION. So our tour of the city on arrival was done on a bus rather than walking this time.

Our first stop was the War Memorial Museum or, as it was called before the US reached out to repair relations, the American war crimes museum. It was a really interesting and saddening museum, taking you through the history of the start of the war and the 17 years of fighting that followed. The Vietnamese were out numbered with less and worse equipment so they turned to gorilla warfare and their superior knowledge and familiarity with the terrain and climate. This led to the war being harder to win than expected and took a hit on the morale and phycology of the US soldiers with a third of them having a substance addiction while they were in service here. More and more drastic and inhumane actions were taken by both the US army and individual soldiers.

The museum showed the impact of the ‘agent orange’ pesticides used by the US to clear the vegetation and make it harder for the gorilla forces to hide. It scarred many innocent people, including US and allied soldiers and is still causing horrific and painful birth defects four generations from people’s first contact with it.

We also learnt about the victims of nayparm and zinc bombs. Over 2 million vietnamese people were killed during the war and two thirds of them were civilians. With the US issuing orders of ‘if it moves it’s VC’ meaning kill anything and we’ll just assume it was the enemy.

There were also at least two incidents of soldiers going into civilian villages, raping women, disembowing children and lining up and shooting, old men, women and children into ditches. They slaughtered over 700 innocent people in one incident and the army tried to cover it up until another soldier who had heard about it and found the army unwilling to investigate went to the press. There were also testimonials in the museum of press photographers who moments after taking photos of children playing by the side of the road had witnessed them being shot and killed by soldiers.

There was actually a whole gallery with testimonials of cases like this. It was really harrowing to see photos taken of people moments before death or in several cases the bodies of women and children who had just been killed. And even more harrowing to see that of the few of these cases that ever made it to court only one man was ever sentenced to prison and even then the president reduced his sentence to house arrest. The only conscience for giving orders to murder over 700 people.

After the museum we visited the old French cathedral and post office, left here from the colonisation. All of the materials were shipped over from France and it was very impressive to see. Unfortunately the cathedral was under renovation so we couldn’t go inside but we took a look in the post office, it looked like a huge train station inside. We had a nose around the souvenir shops and some of the group sent post cards. After that we headed back to the hotel.

On our second day we were up bright and early for the long drive to the Mekong Delta. We were really lucky once again to have the place to ourselves at least it felt that way we didn’t see any other tourists, our guide said we were the first group he had guided since before COVID hit.

After a boat ride along the larger river we went down one of the smaller tributaries and docked in a small village. The whole delta area is known as the land of coconuts and we could see why they were everywhere both normal and water coconuts growing and huge piles of them everywhere that have been collected.

We visited some women making food and drinks from the coconuts. They showed us how they quickly peel off the flesh of the coconuts with a spike and then crack them to get out the coconut milk. They then scrape out the inside of the coconuts and add water and sugar and boil it (over a fire made of coconut shells of course) and then let it set into chewy sweets. After watching them make the sweets we all got to try some and they were really tasty and I don’t even like coconut. We also got to try the water coconut strips in sugar again which was also a hit with the group and we bought packets of both to share. They then offered us some very strong rice wine from a bottle with a snake in it to say thanks for our purchase and we all had to try and keep a straight face as the shot burned our throats out.

We then got to hop on two tuk tuks across the town to the next spot, that was an adventure in itself as there was one thin raised concrete road that was crumbling away into the river at places and yet our drivers still insisted on driving around at maximum speed throwing us about like coconuts in the back! We also had to let a bike pass at one point which was a bit tight but the guy on the bike didn’t seem to think so as he did it one handed with a rooster under his arm!

The next stop was to a broom making workshop where they made, you guessed it, brooms from the dried out coconut leaves and we watched a woman finish off a broom and I got to demonstrate how you sweep with them as if sweeping isn’t a universal concept!

We then got a ride in a traditional boat up river, our boat rower was really struggling, he told us how this was his first time working on the boats as he lost his job during Covid and it was turning out to be harder to paddle than he thought! So it ended up being a long slow paced ride which we told him we were okay with and tipped him generously for the fact we didn’t have to struggle too in the heat.

The driver dropped us off at a local house over looking the river where the family had cooled us fish and shrimp from the river. The fish was an elephant ear fish, I’ve never heard of it before but it tasted nice enough although it was an ugly looking bugger with big old teeth! After lunch we made our way back onto the boat to start our long journey back to Saigon, we did get to try some tasty fruits as a desert on the move though.

That evening we went out for our last meal together, as two people were only doing the vietnam tour and would not be joining us in Cambodia. We went to a beautiful restaurant decorated with colourful ribbons and lanterns and four of us decided to try the local favourite of frogs for the first time. They were deep fried and actually really tasty, like a slightly chewier version of chicken. Although the bodies had very little meat for the amount of bones in them, I think the French have the right idea of just eating the legs.

After dinner we went out for some drinks on the busy bar street. All of the bars are pumping music out so loud in an attempt to outcompete the others, it’s a very overwhelming experience but food fun. Some of the group also tried the laughing gas balloons that are legal here and seemed to enjoy it, even if you do look a bit silly all sat about with a huge balloon. It was a fun evening and a good send off for two of the group who would not be joining us in Cambodia.

We had one last day in Vietnam before our new tour officially started. So most of us decided to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. During the war the North Vietnamese used the Ho Chi Min trail that ran from north Vietnam into neighboring Cambodia and down alongside vietnam to re-enter Vietnam behind the north south border with the aim of attaching the US air base near Saigon. Soldiers were sent from the north to the south via the trail, a trek that took 6 months and usually resulted in only half of those starting reaching the end due to disease and bombings. Near the Ho Chin Min trails entrance back into vietnam the soldiers dug an expansive network of underground tunnels, 200-250km of them on three different levels! They used these to conduct gorilla warfare on the US soldiers.

There were entrances to the tunnels dotted about which were covered by wooden doors and camouflaged with leaves. We were shown several by our guide and even when he pointed directly at them we couldn’t see where they were until he opened them. The Vietnamese are small people, especially when male nourished during war, and used this to their advantage, purposely making the tunnels too thin for the US soldiers to enter even if they did find the entrance. Only the skinniest of our group could fit inside and even for them it was a struggle and not quick. I had no chance, I barely got to my thighs before getting stuck! Our guide told us how when they were spotted the Vietnamese would leave grandes to blow up as soon as the tunnel’s covering door was opened.

The tunnels were an effective tool, they allowed vietnamese soldiers to move about easily, pop out of seemingly nowhere and also to shoot and attack from many different places and directions making it seem like there were more of them than there really were. The US’ solution was to drive the Viet com (VC) out of the tunnels by covering the airholes. But this proves difficult for a few reasons. First they had to find the air holes, the VC had made a lot of them and usually placed them in places where holes in the earth naturally appeared, a lot of the time through termite nests. If there were no termite nests where they wanted to place an airhole, they would place food there for three days and then termites would build there deciding it was a good spot for food. Not only were the airholes well camouflaged in the natural surroundings, they also created twice as many fake airholes so it was hard to know which to block.

The US decided to use sniffer dogs to figure which airholes were real. However the VC managed to disguise their scent as that of US soldiers by using children to steal soldiers sweaty laundry, they would then cut this up add some lucky strike cigarette buts and some Gillette shaving foam and place it in the air tubes, so the air would smell like US soldiers, surprisingly it worked!

Eventually the US just took to making the area a free bombing zone and any planes that returned to base and still had unused bombs would offload them there. It was so extreme that I’m one square kilometre there was 4-5kg of iron from bombs. The VC put this iron to good use forming shrapnel into long metal spikes and using it to create many different horrible types of hidden traps.

We got to go down into some of the wider parts of the tunnels which had wider entrances opened up. They were so thin and short you had to squat down or crawl and it was hard work and boiling down there we came out drenched in sweat.

It must have been horrible for the US stationed here. Enemies everywhere and anywhere, horrific painful traps you could step on hidden everywhere. Even the environment was against you. Locals are used to the heat but it honestly is oppressive here, a hot and humid environment that means you are covered in sweat as soon as you move, not to mention the mosquitoes that don’t seem to bother locals but can’t get enough of tourists. You can easily see why so many US soldiers returned with PTSD.

After the tour we had a chance to fire some of the type of rifeles used by both the US and VC during the war. Some people in the group fired 10 shots of both guns but I opted just to do the minimum of five shots from the VC AK-45, just to say I’d tried shooting a gun. You could clearly see the US had the better guns and the AK jammed or didn’t fire more than it successfully fired. But eventually I got my 5 shots, only one on target. I think it’s safe to say I’ll never make a soldier, I can’t shoot, am constantly sweaty and I don’t fit in the tunnels!

We also got to see how the VC sandals were made, they would cut sandals to size out if car tyres and use the iner-tubes to make the sandal straps. One of our group bought some and the straps were a bit tight but he insisted if the VC could march from 6 months in them he could last the day. I don’t think he factored in the 50% death rate which he would have probably been part of with how red and swollen his blood deprived feet became!

In the evening we met our new tour guide who is taking us over the border to Cambodia in the morning. I will tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

Hoi An was amazing! One of my favourite towns so far in Vietnam. It is heavily influenced by Chinese culture as it is where outcasts from China settled after the Quin dynasty overthrew the Ming dynasty. Eventually marrying Vietnamese people and creating a hybrid culture. Today it is filled with colourful lamps and Chinese temples.

Our first stop in the city was to the old town where we got to see several Chinese temples . They all had large intricate statues, big wall murals around the legends of moving here and also spirals of incense that take two weeks to burn. People can write wishes to hang in the spirals and after two weeks the legend is that they should come true.

We also got to see a traditional house, they are known as tube houses as they aren’t very wide but are quite deep, they have an open garden section in the middle to let light and air into the house. The one we visited had been in the woman’s family for 8 generations. Although it had had to have several renovations as the house is mostly made of wood and there have been several floods over that time with some of them being 3 meters or more in height.

In the afternoon we walked around the shops, Hoi An is famous for its tailors and some shops employ over three hundred! So it is easy to get a custom made suit in 24 hours at a decent price. Most of the men were keen to get suits so us women headed off in search of dresses instead, I got three tailor made dresses for £50! And a pre-made top and trouser combo for £5 so some great bargains but it is also hard to close my backpack now!

After we finished shopping we walked along the river to find somewhere for dinner. The river was very lively with lantern lit boats and floating candles. We picked a restaurant overlooking the hustle and bustle of the town and enjoyed a lovely dinner.

Our second day in Hoi An was a free day to do whatever we choose. A few of us decided to do a bicycle tour through the countryside. It was slightly terrifying getting out of the city on bicycles when everyone else was on motorbikes and it was rush hour, especially with my history on bikes, I still have a scar from when I fell off in Mexico! But it was wonderful in the country we got to ride through the paddy fields and see the farmers harvesting the rice, although it was a bit of an obstacle course weaving around the large sheets of rice left to dry out in the road.

Along the way we stopped off at a farmer’s house and got to see his other non-rice crops and he was letting us smell his mint and basil and we all had a go watering the plants with a large water can holding device that went over the shoulders. He seemed slightly anxious that we were over watering his crops and with good reason, it was harder than it looked to use! Hopefully he’s crop are okay and he won’t get skurvy because of us!

After this we continued on the road for a while until we came across a farmer riding a water buffalo and we all stopped to take photos. After our guide talked to the farmer he offered to let us have a go at riding it for 5k Dong which is 16 pence you can’t really say no at that price can you! So the three of us brave enough had a turn being led around in a small loop and boy was it hard work to stay on, I swing from one side to the next with every step, I felt like I was on one of those bucking broncos you get at bars. Luckily I managed to stay on and we were quickly back off on our ride again.

Next we rode along a river for a while until we reached a hut with some locals inside, they gave us some cool tea and used reeds to make jewelry for us while we drank it, I got a flower bracelet and a cricket shaped ring. It was very impressive. They also brought us some sugary coconut strips made from water coconuts in the river. I don’t normally like the texture of coconut and it’s very bitty but this was chewy and very nice.

After we finished our drinks and snacks we got to ride in the traditional basket boats. They showed us their party trick of making the spin in circles at speed before taking us down the river, or maybe up the river… it was hard to tell after all the spinning! They also let us have a go at rowing but that also led to us spinning in circles, this time unintentionally. One we were down river they took us into a spot amongst the water coconut plants and handed us a stick with fishing wire and some meat attached to go crabbing. Apparently, along with making cucumber based decorations, this is a skill of mine and I caught crab after crab, getting about 8 in total. Our guide was very proud and rowed us to the other groups where he proudly presented our crabs to the others who had yet to get any. After that I got teased quite a bit, ‘if you hang out with Alice you’ll catch crabs’ was the quote of the afternoon! I was quick to point out it wasn’t my fault they weren’t getting any…

In the evening we went to our second fitting for the clothes and then to dinner. The boys had already had their second fitting for the suits so they were able to pick theirs up on the way to dinner and decided to wear them which lasted all of 15 minutes before they had to head to the bathroom and change back into shorts before they sweated through their new suits.

After dinner we decided to take a ride down the river in one of the pretty lantern lit boats. It was really busy with other boats but they all looked so beautiful it only added to the experience.

After that us girls had our third and final fitting and headed home ready for and early morning flight to Ho Chin Min / Saignon City. I’ll tell you all about it soon, love Alice x

After our long overnight train we were all a bit knackered. Everyone in our group is really nice and enjoys trying the local food and snacks, except for one Dutch guy who seems to exclusively eat fried chicken and that’s about it. He was super grumpy and has previously been quite difficult (at one point not bringing an overnight bag onto the boat trip, even though we had been told to do so several times and he took it out on our guide). So in an attempt to please him, we ended up at an Italian restaurant for lunch. The rest of us chose from their small ‘local food’ section and he got a chicken burger he moaned was not the same as home.

So it was fair to say we were all a bit tired and grumpy and not super excited to spend the afternoon walking around the imperial city. But even in the worst mood it was still amazing! It is a huge complex built for the royalty and had areas for absolutely everyone to stay. The king’s mother’s house, the king’s grandmother’s house, the king’s mistresses house, the king’s doctors house. So you can imagine how huge the place was. Lots of the buildings had been damaged after the war, you could still see bullet holes in a lot of the buildings and artifacts, so they were in the process of renovating them. But it seems a complete travesty that instead of repairing them they just knock them down and start again, building it in the same style. Although, not always in the same materials, we saw many concrete posts painted to look like the traditional wood beams.

We also learnt a lot about the royal families, traditionally the king would have one wife but hundreds of concubines (mistresses). These would be daughters of government officials and scholars who would offer up their daughters in tribute and it was considered rude of the king to refuse so he accepted hundreds of them. Most never even met the king, but could see no other man for the rest of their lives. Once the king died they still had to remain in the imperial city as widows until they died, unless they had had a child by the king, in which case they were given land and riches to raise the child. So a lot of the women wanted to meet the king and get pregnant.

To make sure the women would only have children by the king they saw no men apart from eunuch servants. Our gide seemed under the impression this was because if a man looses their testicals they instantly become gay. None of us quite knew what to say about this so we let him continue his tour, slightly worried about the accuracy of it after that. Apparently any man seen even near the wives was sentenced to death. People sentenced to death were given several options, being boiled in hot oil, a fight to the death against a tiger, poison or hanging. I doubt there were many takers for the first two!

For dinner we visited a local families home, where they cooked us dinner. We were worried there wouldn’t be room to fit us all in but we found out Vietnamese families often live several generations in the same house so their table was big enough after all. We were treated to various tasty dishes, pork and tofu soup, crispy jackfruit and crackers, deep-fried aubogine in soy sauce, lemon fish etc and some also not to our taste such as a parcel of sticky rice paste.

The family had lots of little children running around all keen to look at us and say hello. They seemed fascinated by my blue eyes and I nearly had them poked by little fingers a few times.

After dinner the younger ones of us in the group decided to go to a bar that K recommended. The owner was overjoyed to see us, telling us we were the first white people he had seen here since Covid and giving us lots of free shots, including one which was tequila and vodka mixed and poured over one glass and into a second and then the first glass was set on fine and we were given a straw to drink out of the second. Honestly, it’s a miracle we all managed to escape with our eyebrows intact! We all also shared an apple flavoured sheesha they gave us. I think the bar was hoping if they got us started we would stay and buy lots of drinks but as we were all knackered we ended up heading home around midnight.

On our second day in Hue we went on a motorbike tour. Just driving around Vietnamese traffic in a motorbike was an experience in itself. There is no priority late or right of way, everyone goes in every direction and all at once. Bikes just weave their way through the chaos with a liberal amount of honking. But we were all assigned a bike and a driver and set off through the city and into the countryside.

I wish I had taken more photos in the countryside but at first I wasn’t confident to get my phone out while riding. But there were so many people out tending to their rice fields in the traditional weaved cone hats. It was a beautiful sight. There were also a lot of people drying their rice on the road that the bikes had to weave around.

Our first stop was a duck farm where they keep the ducks for eggs and later for food. They let them graze on the already harvested rice fields fishing any rice that has been dropped out of the water. Our second stop was to see one of the ancestor buildings.

Vietnam is 90% non-religious, but they still have quite spiritual beliefs and one of those is that you should make tributes to your ancestors. So they build large elaborate buildings dedicated to their ancestors that they will visit on New year’s. For the rest of the time it remains empty, there are no bodies or ashes in there just a building in their honour. K told us it’s becoming quite an issue especially in cities where there is a limited amount of space and just as many houses for the dead as there are for the living.

Our next stop was one of the three covered bridges laft in Vietnam. The used to be a big part of communities here as people would gather on the bridge and socialise due to it having a good breeze on the river and shade. Now days it was just full of hundreds of primary school children in their cone hats all wanting to say hello, it was an adorable sight.

Near the bridge there was a market that we walked around. The fish here were so fresh they were still flapping about on the tray, we also saw a woman selling baby ducklings to raise for eggs (or so we hope!) and obviously all had to pet them.

Next we visited an inscense making town. There are many beautiful reeds painted different colours and once you have chosen a colour you like you can choose a scent and they will roll the reed in a paste with the scent mixed in. We all got to have a go creating our own and mine looked more like a hotdog on a stick than incense!

Our last stop was to the 4th king’s burial complex, again like a minni city, he actually lived in it for 14 years before he was buried there. It had a boating lake with a little island they would release animals of for the king to hunt. We also saw the supposed tomb of the king himself, however during the colonisation the French dug up the king’s tomb in the attempt to steal any gold he was buried with, only to find that it was empty and the king had been buried somewhere else is a secret location, probably to prevent such grave robing acts. The Vietnamese government believes he is still buried somewhere in the complex but refuses to do a geological scan as they believe the king should be left in peace.

In the evening a few of us decided to do a cooking course. We all had to choose one menu to do and as one of our group, Rema, is currently vegan for religious reasons we picked one of the two vegan options making fresh vegetable spring rolls, soy sauce egg plant and tofu noodles. They also had an option to learn how to cut vegetables into fancy patterns for $2 extra so we opted in for that too, how hard could it be?

It turns out really bloody hard. We had to do three designs a flower made from a tomato, a heart leaf design from a cucumber and another flower made from a carrot. The designs themselves were hard to do but we also had a terrible translator, the chef would spend 2/3 minutes talking and indicating different cuts and directions and the translator would wait for her to finish and then say ‘she say cut it’. So we had to just do our best, which by the chef’s reaction was not good enough. After I messed up my second attempt of the tomato she almost threw the third one at me. Although I had a weird talent for the cucumber leaves, I think it may be my new calling. Everyone was struggling so I made enough for the whole group and slyly passed them around to avoid the chef’s disappointment. The carrots were an absolute disaster we couldn’t get all the way around without breaking the peel so ended up with petals instead of flowers. After a solid hour and a half the chef (and us) had had enough and decided we didn’t need carrot flowers, we were done.

The rest of the class continued in the same fashion with bad translations and us not really knowing what was going on, trying our best and it mostly being wrong until the chef just took over and we ended up watching her. So I can’t say I learned a lot about Vietnamese cooking except it involves a LOT of sugar. And also that they don’t seem to know what vegan is using fish and oyster sauce and egg noodles. So poor Rema spent four hours cooking only to end up hungry. Although after tasting the food she may have had a lucky escape… No honestly it wasn’t that bad just very average. It was a fun afternoon but not because of the cooking more us taking the piss out of eachothers tragic attempts to cut and guess the instructions to varying degrees of success.

After the course I went to pack only to find the hotel laundry had died all of my white tops a milkey Green and had added so red splodges for extra decoration so, all in all, not the most fun afternoon!

Tomorrow we get the bus to Hoi An, I will let you know all about it soon. Lots of love, Alice.

Our tour started in Hanoi, there was 11 of us in total and a good mix of countries, ages and solo Vs friends and couples. We met in Hanoi for a welcome dinner. The restaurant we ate in is dedicated to teaching homeless children in Hanoi a trade of cooking or waiting and the food was delicious. We had a set menu which had several dishes brought out, meaning we got to try a little of everything. There were balls of prawn paste cooked in lemon grass, a beef salad, BBQ chicken, rice and beef and onion in a soy sauce followed by a fruit salad.

Our guide is a Vietnamese guy called K he has been working as an intrepid tour guide for over 10 years and really knows his stuff and genuinely seems to love his job. Happily sitting through hours of questions from us about anything and everything. After dinner a few of the younger members of the group wanted to grab a beer and K volunteered to take us on an impromptu tour of beer street which it turns out was very busy as there was an event on celebrating the start of the south east Asian games. It felt absolutely rammed although K told us it was nothing compared to the normal precovid crowds for a weekend.

We sat down on some of the tiny stools they seem to have everywhere here, they’re like tiny foot stalls and sitting on them makes me feel like I’m a giant or at a parents evening in a primary school. K ordered us all beers and also got us some dough balls dipped in honey to try. They were nothing special but nice enough to accompany the drinks.

After chatting and getting to know each other a bit more we headed back to the hotel ready for a busy first day.

In the morning we left early for our four hour bus trip to Ha Long city. On the ride K was telling us the history of Hanoi which is over a 100 years old and how Vietnam is from the Chinese name of southern people. He also told us about Vietnam’s long history of wars against China and occupation by France and a bit about living in a communist country. He also told us about how when he was a child the currency of Dongs was in the single digits but the leaders just keep deciding to print more money whenever they don’t have enough, so inflation has gone up and up until they are now using hundreds of thousands on dong. This led to lots more questions of communism and how the country has shifted to more capitalist ways over Ks lifetime and how elections work here and so on. It was a very interesting and informative bus trip.

Once we reached Ha Long Bay we were boarded into our boat and set off into the bay towards the maze of large sheer islands the area is famous for. Unfortunately for us It was overcast and rainy the whole day, but it was still a sight to behold!

The islands had been formed by colliding tectonic plates forcing up the sea floor and we got to stop at a huge cave which was once at sea level and eroded by the water but was now required us to climb several flights of steps to access it. It was an impressively large cave with four different sections and it took us 45mins to climb up to and walk around.

Our next stop after some lunch was one of the islands that is not too sheer so you can actually walk steps to the top. It was a long way up but a very cool view and once we had taken our photos we were ready for a dip in the quite chilly sea. The island itself is named after a Russian astronaut who visited it once, as a way to strengthen ties with Russia who has helped the Vietnamese during the US-Vietnam war.

Once back on the boat we had some time to chill as we sailed along and then at 7pm dinner was served, again it was a set meal where we could try various dishes. Carrot and cucumber salad, prawns, clams, fish in a garlic sauce, a chicken curry and rice followed by fruit. At this rate I won’t fit in the airplane home!

After dinner we all sat chatting, comparing and contrasting our home nations, UK, USA, India, Argentina, the Netherlands and Germany. Everything from the metric system to arranged marriages.

There were 5 other boats docked in a large laggon for the night and one of them seemed to be doing kariokie, which is huge here in Vietnam. Unfortunately the singers really weren’t very good, but it provided good entertainment for us!

The next morning we were in luck, the weather had improved and we got a chance to see the rock formations without mist hanging over them as we sailed back towards the port. On the way K was telling us how lucky we were it was so quiet, normally there are 50 different ships docking overnight, I can’t imagine the volume of kariokie then!

After a long bus ride back to Hanoi we had a free couple of hours before we had to catch a night train to our next stop Hue. I mentioned I would have liked to do a foot tour but would be able to on such short notice and K volunteered to take us on one, which was very kind of him considering this was also his time off. But he told us how he just loves sharing his culture, especially the food as a lot of travelers don’t want to try the local food. Our group is very keen to try new things except one Dutch guy who decided to visit KFC rather than join us on the food tour. We all laughed when he told us his plan until we realised he was serious.

Our first stop was to a Bahmi shop, to try the French Indonesian fusion of French bread and spicy Indonesian meat filing. In this case it was beef with a carrot and cucumber salad. It was delicious. Our next stop was for Bun Cha the traditional dish of slices of pork in a broth that you dip noodles into. I had had this before on the day with Cao, but it was even tastier this time. After this we were all pretty stuffed, even sharing portions. So we moved onto drinks and tried the famous egg coffee.

At one point in time there was a milk shortage so someone mixed egg yoke with honey as a replacement and it stuck, becoming a local staple. I don’t like coffee but luckily they had. Hot chocolate version. It was actually a lot nicer than I was imagining, it made the hot chocolate very rich and creamy, I can see how it caught on. Our last stop was for dessert, because you’re never too full to make room for dessert. We had these sweet dough balls dipped in honey and sesame seeds. They were okay but nothing to write home about.

After our food tour we got showered and ready for our night train to Hue. We were sleeping in compartments with two bunk beds on each side. My room was me, Vivian an Argentinian woman in her mid thirties, Jordan a Twenty two year old Australian and Arno a German guy in his late thirties. We also invited the other 7 guests to our room and we all squeezed onto the beds. It was cosy but the beers helped everyone feel more comfortable. Leo and Ben two American university students brought a speaker and put some music on and Rima and Navid, an Indian couple in their early forties, brought some cards and we all played some games and chatted. Apparently the staff noticed our socialising as the drinks trolley that had been going up and down our train decided to just park up outside the door and the woman joked to K that we were a gold mine.

Eventually we all drifted off to bed around 11pm…. After a tense pre-bed wee in a squat toilet on a moving train! Although it was kind of hard to drift off when every ten minutes you are violently shaken from side to side!

I’m on the train writing this now and getting slightly motion sick, so I will tell you all about Hue when I wake up there tomorrow!

Lots of love, Alice x

To everyone’s suprise, including my own, I arrived in Vietnam without my chief navigator Grace, completely on my own with no issues. Well almost, in my worry about being able to get my COVID test done in time and having heard stories of people running from hospital to hospital trying to get one and having to wait in long lines, I got to a testing center as early as possible. You have to have the test up to 24hrs before your flight and my planning had gone so well I didn’t face any testing issues and got it done in record time, meaning the time on my test was 24hrs and 20 seconds before my flight. Thankfully a nice member of staff let it slide on the promise that if I was caught I would conveniently forget who had entered the times onto the system wrong for me.

On entry into Vietnam I did have a border control man ask if my passport photo was really me, which is never a good sign, but he let me in with just the comment ‘you fresh in photo, you very very old now’ but otherwise the journey was uneventful.

I had three days in Hanoi on my own before the tour started as I wanted to explore the city before the tour left. I booked my self into a 5* luxury hotel in Hanoi for the grand total of £11 a night, fancy I know! It was absolutely beautiful and a welcome calm break from the chaos outside. If I thought traffic in Asia was crazy this far, it was nothing compared to Hanoi. There were cars and scooters everywhere on the roads and pavements, well to be honest the pavements are more scooter car parks than pavements at this point. But nowhere is safe from vehicles, they go the wrong way down roads, onto pavements, into restaurants and houses. Traffic lights and road signs are ignored completely. I can’t even explain the pure volume of bikes everywhere.

The traffic never stops, if you want to cross a road you have to just step out into traffic and the vehicles will manoeuvre around you. It’s important to move in a slow predictable manner, no matter how scared you get, you can’t stop, slow down or speed up or step backwards or you’ll end up mushed. I met a few fellow tourists who advised me to not even look at the road, you just walk forward at a pace staring at something off in the horizon, I was never quite that brave. For the first few days I planned every route to a tourist attraction with as few road crossings as possible, even if it added ten minutes to a journey. After a while of holding your nerve and making crossings, you eventually get used to it.

My first full day in Hanoi was pretty jam packed, there is so much to do in the city and I wanted to see as much as possible. My first stop was to the Hoan Kiem Lake a beautiful lake in the historical centre of the city, it’s name means ‘Lake of the returned sword’ according to legend after defeating the Ming China, the Vietnamese emperor was boating on the lake when a Golden Turtle God surfaced and asked for his magic sword, that had been given to the emperor to defeat Ming China.

I had a pleasant walk around the lake and then paid the entrance fee to visit the small island on the lake containing Ngoc Son Temple, a temple dedicated to a general that defeated the Mongols in the 13th century.

Next I visited a museum about women in Vietnam it was super interesting, I learned a lot about marriage, childbirth and work as a women through the years in Vietnam. There are also many communities in Vietnam where the roles around marriage are reversed, the husband takes the wife’s name, and the wife’s family is paid a dowry and the husband moves in with the wife’s family. I also saw how Vietnam were keen to recruit women into the army and about some of their more famous female generals and their accomplishments.

Next up I headed to the Imperial Citadel, on my way there I walked to get there I passed through a park where lots of old men were playing a card game I’d never seen before with lots of long cards, they saw me watching and tried to explain how to play but unfortunately, knowing no Vietnamese, their explanation wasn’t super helpful. After watching for a while I carried on my journey also passing a grand and unexpected statue of Lennin.

I decided to make a pitstop for a late lunch on the way to the Citadel, so far my experience of food in Vietnam had been a late night cheese pizza from the only place open when I arrived late at night. I chose a cheese pizza as I figured this would be the safest most edible option. I was edible but that’s about as much as could be said for it… It was a regular pizza base but the cheese was multiple slices of those cheap American burger slice cheeses. Thankfully this time I had more choice, and I opted for some ‘Banh Mi’ a fusion of Vietnamese and french food from when Vietnam was under french rule. It’s basically a baguette with paté topped with spicy Vietnamese meat filling. It’s absolutely delicious, (I’m writing this six months later, still salivating at the memory!).

The Imperial Citadel was also a very interesting place it’s a UNESCO site built in 1010 and has been a key site in many parts of Vietnamese history. It was the centre of regional political power for almost 13 centuries without interruption. More recently the Citadel was used by the Imperial Japanese Army to imprison over 4000 French colonial soldiers captured in March 1945. During 1954, when the Vietnamese Army took over Hanoi, the Citadel became the headquarter of the Ministry of Defense.

It was very interesting and varied history ancient political halls mixed with underground war bunkers, I spent a lot of time there wandering about and reading about the long and varied history. After I had seen the buildings and museums I went to look at the archaeological site, and saw them excavating the soil which was interesting and a nice cool break in the shade, I stayed watching for a little while until I realised the museum was closing.

After a jam packed day I headed back to the hotel and relaxed in the last of the days sunlight by the rooftop pool, where I met two English girls who were about to start a tour of Vietnam the next day and a Vietnamese guy in his early 20’s called Cao. Cao was originally from Hanoi and had moved to another city to start a business but was back here for work. The four of us shared a dinner and drinks at the hotel it was a nice evening, afterwards we wished the girls good luck as they were heading of on their tour the following day.

The next day I continued on my tourist trail, first heading to the Temple of Literature which was founded in 1070, as a temple to worship the Chinese philosopher Confucius. In 1076, the Imperial Academy was established on the site as a royal school for only members of the elite such as princes, nobles, and bureaucrats, it was open for about 700 years and educated hundreds of well-known scholars and mandarins.

It was really cool to look around and I visited on an interesting day as there were actually some students graduating and having a ceremony. They were dressed in all white and each approached a figure who gave them a piece of paper while everyone chanted a short phrase and then he rang an huge gong. No idea whit it all symbolised but they seemed pleased.

My next stop was a prison, after another Bahn mi lunch if course… The prison was used first by the french to hold Vietnamese prisoners during their occupation and then by the Vietnamese to hold American soldiers during the US-Vitnamese war, nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton by US soldiers. During both periods the prison was a horrible place to be held, with terrible conditions and torture happening on a regular basis. It was actually the prison John Macain was kept in. Not that you would know from the information within the prison, it was all photos of smiling US soldiers playing volleyball, but Vietnam is still very communist and there is a very pro-government no-negative rhetoric, a lot of museum visits had to be accompanied by reading between the lines or reading Wikipedia afterwards. But the museum was still super interesting. I was made to wear a brown smock dress, that covered 90% of my body on entry. It very hot but understandable, as the dress I was wearing didn’t cover my shoulders and it is a place where you need to show respect. I had no issue with this but it did make me laugh that the rule apparently didn’t apply to locals, who were allowed in in miniskirts and tube tops.

The museum it self was interesting with surviver stories about what life was like in the prison during its various uses and with models and mock ups of how prisoners were kept and shackled. It was an interesting visit.

I was exhausted after sweating out in my brown smock so decided to head back to the hotel. I’d had a busy two days and it’s hard to explain why, but just being in Hanoi solo is quite exhausting, it’s such a busy city and you have to be constantly aware of vehicles everywhere and it’s so hot and noisy so the hotel pool was a welcome relief, honestly the best £12 I’d spent! I saw Cao again around the pool and was telling him what I’d been up to and he pointed out a few suggestions of more things to do the following day, he used to be a tour guide in the city as a student and offered to take me out to some local food spots for dinner so I could try some local food other than bahn mi.

It was a super fun evening and honestly so nice to have someone else navigate, we all know that’s not my strong point! He took me to a night market/festival in square in the city that was a celebration for the start of the south east Asian games, with I think was basically like an mini Olympics for east Asia. After we had grabbed some drinks and had a look around we then headed to get some dinner at a local Pho restaurant. The place was super busy and there was no English anywhere so I just let Cao choose what one we had. Pho is the national dish if Vietnam and is a broth with meat, herbs and rice noodle. It was really tasty! Cao joked that he had to let me taste the safe food as tourists never want to try actual food that locals love, like snails. So not one to be outdone, I agreed to go a try snails from a street vender nearby, Cao bought us a small portion of small snails. He told me that they are farmed and come in small and large size. The snails came in a big bowl with a small dipping sauce on the side and I made Cao show me how to use a fork to pull the snail out of its shell and how to tear of its stomach before eating it. He didn’t believe I was going to actually do it up until it was in my mouth, and was shocked for ages afterwards that I had actually eaten it and kept telling any locals who would listen, who all also seemed to be impressed. I’ve never impressed so many with so little effort before! The snails were fine, a little chewy but not particularly gross and they just tasted like whatever you had dipped them in.

Our next stop was much more touristy, the famous beer street which is just like it sounds a street full of people selling beer, the road is lined with bars and the street itself is full of tiny stools the Vietnamese sit on for outside dining, a bit taller than a step. Cao found it funny that I was more grossed out trying his local beer than the snails. Can confirm I still hate beer even the Vietnamese variety.

Our last stop on the way home was into a local art exhibition, which was an interesting mix of paintings that looked like they had been done my an amazing artist next to one that looked like it had been done by a child. But it was an interesting look into the day to day sights of locals and seeing the city through there eyes. All in all it was a really fun evening and when Cao offered to take me to a few other tourist sights the next day I happily accepted.

I lucked out meeting Cao, not only did I learn loads of interesting stuff about his life and growing up in Vietnam and got to get free tours from a former tour guide I also got the use of his bike. The main tourist attractions I had yet to visit were those which weren’t within walking distance as I wasn’t super keen on renting a bike and taking my life into my hands. But Cao had his bike with him as drove us to the tourist attractions the next day. That was an experience in itself, being in a river of bikes, luckily Cao was a good driver and we arrived at all of our stops unharmed and with no close calls and after I stopped fearing for my life and realised we were going to be okay, I actually kind of enjoyed the rides.

Our first stop was the Ho Chin Min mausoleum, where the preserved body if Vietnamese leader Ho Chin Min has been stored. You have to wait in qué for several hours to walk past his body and no photos are allowed. We also got a look around the area where he used to live and got to look at the building and his cars and house. It was interesting to look around and he is obviously deeply loved by the Vietnamese.

For lunch we went to another local restaurant where I was the only non-local there. This time it was a fragrant soup with meatballs and cold noodles that you dipped into the soup before eating. Again very tasty!

After lunch we visited the famous street with the train track in the middle. Super interesting to see, the shops all have their wares on wheels and when a train comes down the narrow street, they pull all their items in and everyone in the street has to find a shop of doorway to stand in to avain getting squished by a train.

After train street Cao took us on a quick ride around west lake, another large lake in Hanoi and we stopped to try some fruit teas. It was a nice way to end the day. After this we picked up my bag and Cao dropped me off at the hotel my Intrepid your would start at and we said our good-byes. Cao had been a lovely tour guide and I saw so much I wouldn’t have done on my own, I was super grateful to have met him.

Once I had checked in at the hotel and unpacked I went down to the welcome meeting for my tour and met everyone and then our tour guide took us back to beer street to grab some drinks and get to know each other as we would be spending the next few weeks together.

So many more stories to come! Will tell you all about it soon, lots of love Alice x