Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam

Wrote this before it all went pear-shaped when we lost our passports and cash.

Interminable waiting for bus to Hoi An. Time seems to drag. It's 7.45 and the bus supposedly picks us up at 8.30, but no doubt it'll be late.  (If we'd known what was going to happen at the end of that bus journey, we wouldn't have been so keen to embark on it.)

Have had a good stay at Ninh Binh. Quite spectacular, but the town itself has nothing to offer the tourist.

Booked a tour today around a few local attractions. They take us to see more bleeding pagodas but we're more interested in watching a man and his wife with a buffalo, ploughing a field in a rudimentary three field system way. Loved the goats in the mountains and the occasional herd of buffalo crossing the road.

Apart from that, it's all good. Vietnam makes me appreciate what I take for granted at home - like not having to work 29 days out of 30; being allowed an education, despite being female. Living in a comparatively pristine environment.

Young woman today rowed us around the caves. She's 28 and very pregnant with her third child. She did five years of schooling but wasn't allowed to continue, despite her obvious intelligence and facility with several different languages. She had to row the tourists around the caves. When she's not doing that, she's embroidering - much of which she tried to hawk to me, when I was captive on her little boat. Felt rotten for not buying, but we'd already been scammed into buying her and her husband - rowing with his feet - soft drinks and snacks. BTW, Al and I shared the rowing to assuage the guilt of being rowed around by someone ready to give birth any minute.

The Chilean chardonnay is going down well and we're looking forward to warmer weather in Hoi An. And more of a night life. Here, there is the hotel and not much else. The streets are for the locals and not really tourist friendly. Perhaps that will change, as long as people want to see monolithic mountains and glide through river caves - an almost spiritual experience.

Nearly scammed in Hanoi. The second sign?

Wrote this on arrival in Hanoi, early January. Bit more backtracking.

Caught taxi at airport. Agreed on $20 US. Gave address of the hotel we'd booked. No worries.

Half-way along the hair-raising ride into Hanoi the driver gets a call on his mobile. It's the guy who'd touted us at the airport. He has brief exchange with Al, who's not happy. Now we have to pay $40 US. What are we going to do? Babes in the woods.

So Al agrees to the new fee.

We're taken to a different hotel. Another tout assures us that this is the hotel we'd paid for. 'My family has many hotels.' He's nodding and solicitous; obsequious. We are shown a hotel well away from the old town, as far as we can remember. Led up a flight of dingy stairs and shown an okay room. But it's not right.

Al's happy enough to stay there, being desperate for the facilities - the bathroom. But I'm not.

'I want hotel we saw on internet,' say I, in assertive, but hesitant English, dropping direct and indirect articles, as you do.

'This is hotel, but different one. No room in other hotel. My family have many hotels.'

'No. We have been in Vietnam four times.' Somehow this hits the spot. Okay, now we're descending in the lift, and a taxi is summoned. The tout goes his own separate way and we're driven some distance to the heart of the old town, and this hotel, where I'm now typing.

It's okay. Not as good as the photos on the net, but it suffices. The room's warm; the bed sheets are clean. The mattress and pillows are firm but friendly. I've already tried them, being exhausted after the flight. I had an hour's kip. Funny how a four hour time difference after a plane flight can totally throw out your system. I'm working on avoiding hypos by reducing basal rates. Seems okay so far, but we've bought, after lots of searching, some carb supplies should the need arise.

Good to get off the streets of Hanoi for now. Frenetic and grotty. Looks better at night, cos the dirt's not so conspicuous.

And feel quite proud of having foiled the scammers.

Melbourne to Singapore, with 'extras'.

Little bit of back-tracking here.  This is something I wrote en route to Vietnam.  Should have seen it as a sign of things to come, perhaps?

I'm only writing this because we're in the middle of a four hour stop over at Changi airport and this kills time. Gets a bit tedious dawdling up and down. I've had 500 ml of Earl Grey tea from Starbucks - well, half an hour ago. But I've just had another to stave off boredom, and flush the system, I suppose.


We're due to catch our flight in 75 minutes. Should be in Hanoi noonish.

So, the flight.


Al booked two seats together on our flights to avoid the third wheel clambering over one. As a result, we were practically sitting in the loo - only a wall and the backs of our seats protecting us from the constant flushing. Glad about earplugs. But that was okay, really.

What was terrible was the vomiting woman - 20 or 30 something and travelling solo. Probably because no one will travel with her. She started retching, immediately after take off. I turned to see what the noise, immediately across the aisle, was, and saw this ET type, hunched looking straight at me, poking two fingers down her throat and holding her mouth over her 'hot towel'. She'd considerately turned away from the passenger immediately next to her. At least we had a half metre aisle between us. But I got the full force of it. My gorge rose, of course, given I'm a sympathy vomiter. Perhaps worse than her very public retching was the accompanying loud braying that punctuated the entire 7 hour flight. And being ill, every time food was served she started up again, so all of us sitting around her had to try to eat with that going on.

Look, poor thing. There's nothing worse than travel sickness. But couldn't she use the sick bag? Or the toilet, immediately next to her? And what's with the need to make that noise?

So that was the first part of our $1700 flight over.

Home

Brief update.

Finally picked up our passports with visas attached at 3pm on January 31.

(Have I ever felt such relief in my life?  Maybe.  There were those two instances during two C-section births, when I was lying on my back, ready to be delivered of my babies, and the obstetrician started the op and released the amniotic fluid!  That felt good.  Oh yeah.  And the babies were healthy.)

All right.  I suppose the healthy babies were a bigger relief.  But I digress - and use a cliched expression at the same time.

After we'd got our documents sorted, everything went smoothly, even the six hour stopover during which we watched,and enjoyed, some animated film starring a Kung Fu panda.  It tilled in a few units of time.

The air at Melbourne Airport smelled sweet, and I breathed in great lungfuls of it while we waited, in perfect Melbourne morning weather, for our son to pick us up.

My vitreous floater - the eye prob - seems stable and the ophthalmologist has reassured me that it'll be okay for now.

Yesterday I wore my voice out teaching a full load of year 8s and 10s and telling the other staff of my intrepid travels.  Nothing like getting straight back on the bike.

So now I'm back, did all that trauma really happen?

Next stop, Munich in May.  Can't cancel.  Already locked in.  Think I'll carry the passports.

Stranded in Saigon. Still.

When you lose your passports just before Tet in Vietnam, you're in for a long wait.

I've been trying to see my detention in Saigon as a wonderful experience.  Get to immerse myself more in the culture. Was so excited to be returning to Vietnam and hanging about for a couple of nights in steamy Saigon bars drinking cheap wine and watching the traffic chaos.  That part of it hasn't been bad either. We've knocked back a few bevies between us, Al and I. Self-medication for sure. But we've been here twelve days now.

It takes two days to get your emergency passport.  Once Tet is over.  You go to the 20th floor of the new Vincom Centre in District 1, pass through a friendly security check and then you're in quiet, pristine air-conditioned surrounds.  A beautiful, personable Vietnamese woman with impeccable English, sits behind glass and listens sympathetically as you relay your story.  You shed a few tears of relief that you're there making progress; finally organising your precious passports.

The middle-aged Aussie woman ahead of you has a worse story to tell.  She was attacked by two men on a motorbike, who nearly ran her over, then fought with her to get at her bag. She had it under a jacket and across her shoulders.  They won.  She was on the way to the airport; just stepped out of her hotel.  Her travelling companions gave her some money to tide her over, then caught their own flight home, leaving her alone to sort it all out.  During Tet.  She hadn't left her hotel room except to taxi to the consulate.

You fill in a new passport application and write a statement explaining how you came to lose your documents.  BTW, make sure you pack a few spare passport photos.  We had.  We thought we might need them to get visas to visit Cambodia.  As if.  But they came in handy.

It's Friday, so you have to wait through another weekend.  You finally return to the Consulate and collect your passports the following Monday.  Huge, inexpressible relief.

But wait, there's more.

You have to take a letter, and your passports, across town - two dollar taxi ride - to the Vietnam Immigration centre.  It's a pushing, shouting, crowded run down official building.  Total confusion for us idiots abroad.  We take a place at the back of a shuffling mass of people.  Couldn't call it a queue.  It's edging forward and we don't even know if we're in the right place.  I hold our spot while Al does a recce.  So relieved when he signals me over.  He's found the right counter to line up at.

Remember, keep smiling.  Speak slowly.  Don't shout.  Don't lose temper.  It get you nowhere.  (Learned that lesson when me, Al and sister, Reggie, got thrown off a Vietnam cycling tour a few years ago.)

We're interviewed by a cross, uniformed officer.  He inspects our documents, reads our police statement, shakes his head.  "You. Photocopy.  All this.  You go.  Over there."  He waves us off and we get into another touchy push of people.  Another grump snatches our documents.  Photocopies them.

Back to the other guy.  "You come back yesterday,' he says.  "Counter 6.  Three hours."

"Tomorrow?"

He laughs at his mistake.  "Yes.  Tomorrow."

It's 12.45 pm here.  Killing time on this blog waiting for 3 pm pickup.  Can't relax until those passports with visas are in our hot little hands.

Stranded in Saigon. Day 9.

Been spending lots of today, Day 9 in Saigon, Day 15 in our stranded-without-passports adventure, trying to think of reasons to be grateful that I'm in this situation. Hmm. They're not flying thick and fast.

Met a couple of English tourists on Friday, the day we finally organised and paid for our passports, which should be available tomorrow, or the day after - ie.: before our rescheduled flight on Wednesday.  That was good.  This couple was our age; they'd arrived in Saigon from England, via Hong Kong. We met them at a crossroad bar when we were feeling buoyant, and not a little drunk. We shared travel stories, as you do, and decided to have dinner together.  Lovely.  Contact with people who speak idiomatic English, albeit with a London slant. No matter.

At the end of the first evening, decided to meet up and swap stories the following evening, which we did.  That meant they'd had two entire days walking around District 1, I suppose.  They'd been to a couple of tourist meccas and done the done things.  They'll be in Nha Trang now.  They decided that after two days in Saigon, they'd pretty much had it and needed to move on.  Really enjoyed their company. Even took photos of them and swapped email addresses.  But sorry, new BFFs.  If it's a choice between meeting you, and blinking ourselves back to January 14 and not losing our passports, I'll take the passports.

As I was saying, for us, this is Day 9 of Stranded in Saigon.

I know my way around now.  After breakfast, we do this amble down through a park, down the seafood aisle in Ben Thanh markets, down a few streets around there towards the Saigon River - wide, muddy, fast flowing wash with vegetation scudding along. Water lilies? Not real sure.  We walk up through the manicured garden displays in some CBD area. Stare up at the buildings, swig from our water bottle and walk on, holding onto each others fingers, like elephants, trunk and tailing it.  No public displays of affection, please, in Vietnam.  Won't get started on what apparently is allowed cos I don't want anyone reading my anonymous blog, tracking me down and making me stay here any longer.

The food is definitely good and cheap.  Try Vietnamese Kitchen.  Couldn't tell you where it is, but it's good. They don't rush you from course to course, and by god that Johnny Walker hit the spot after today's shit walk.

Back in our air-conditioned hotel room now, showering off the shit walk grime and I inadvertently found something that I think the Vietnamese - and the Europeans - do really well.  Much better than Australians, who should adopt this practice.  English guy last night told me it wouldn't be too hard to plumb in, and I'm thinking of investigating the possibilities when I'm safely home in Aussie.

It's a very useful gadget; easily operated.  Serves a variety of functions - foot washing; shoe washing, and that little frisson of delight, bum washing.  I'm talking about that hose, hanging by the toilet cistern.  Extremely useful, especially when one's paper may not be flushed tidily down the toilet.

Still would have rather not lost the passports though.

Just sayin'.  Cheers from Fraudster. (More sanguine than even she realised; second detached retina seems to be hanging in there.  Year 10 English, last period Friday Feb 3 is looking awesome.)

Fine dining in Saigon.

Thought we'd try out a more 'upmarket' looking Saigon restaurant; a place with several smiling, solicitous uniformed wait staff in red monogrammed shirts and black pants. A bigger place, with polished wooden tables and chairs, it looked reasonably appealing after our morning 'shit walk'.

(Today's 'shit walk' featured a middle aged man on a motor bike, riding through the park. Yelling something unintelligible, while riding his motor bike, he corralled a younger man who'd irritated him in some unknown way, and beat him with a piece of bamboo.)

But back to New Pearl restaurant.  We ordered our 'Lip-ton tea, fresh milk', and snack of choice, deep fried bean curd and Hong Kong spring rolls.  The tea came quickly.

A considerable time later, so long that we were going to cancel the order, out came some squishy fish-fingery looking things and a plate of dog biscuits.  Except the dog biscuits were harder than dog biscuits.  I know, having tried a doggy treat back in my childhood. (Al was surprised at this. I thought everyone had eaten at least one dog biscuit.)

Al tried to bite into a dog biscuit. He barely made an indent, just a few little teeth marks, which we surveyed with amusement.  He then tackled it with a knife, slicing motion and full bicep press. No luck.

Decided to return  the dog biscuits posing as deep fried bean curd.  A waiter removed the dish. Half a minute later, his male supervisor and an authoritative woman in very tight aqua jeans and black high heels returned with our dog biscuits and told us to eat them.

We can't, we said.  Too hard.

Bemused they looked at each other, at the dog biscuits, at us and seemed reluctant to accept our verdict.

So Al picked up his knife and demonstrated that indeed the little brown squares were impenetrable.  But they still wouldn't have it and pushed the plate towards us.

Look, we don't want them; too hard.  I demonstrated the consistency of the biscuits by rapping several times on the wooden table.  Seeing Madam Aqua Pants' still incredulous look, I leaned forward and mimed taking a bite out of the corner of the table.  Also picked up a chopstick and demonstrated that I couldn't bite into that either.

Finally, the plate was removed.  But when we tried to get our bill, the waiter indicated that we must stay and eat some more dog biscuits that would be ready in five minutes.

No, we don't want them, just the bill, said Al, miming the bill using the universal signal of scribbling with an imaginary pen on the palm of his hand.

You must eat them. Five minutes.

No, just the bill.

The only way we were getting out of there was by paying for them.  Not much, of course.  It's Saigon. But enough for a waiter, or chef perhaps, to 'lose face' and maybe his job.