Hue & Saigon

After all the frantic activity in Hanoi and Halong Bay we were very tired and were looking forward to the overnight train to Hue to get a good night rest.  When we arrived in our carriage we met two English guys, Steve and Luke.  They were totally sound, we got chatting and started drinking, and our good night rest plans were thrown out the window.  We ended up getting rather inebriated with them, finishing off the night with some Cambodian whisky that Nev had fallen in love with, called the Grade of Baroso.  It didn’t taste good, but the peculiar name and the bizarre photo of an Italian dude with a world class trout pout on the bottle sticker was enough to capture Nev’s heart. 

Steve and Luke hadn’t booked any accommodation in Hue and decided to come along with us to our Hotel and see if there were any rooms available.  There were and after check in we decided to meet up for lunch.  We had a few beers with our lunch then went off to visit the Royal palace.  It wasn’t really anything to write home about, so I won’t go into detail.  Hue is a walled city, and the Royal Palace is like a citadel within a citadel.  It has a fascinating history but it just hasn’t been taken care of well, with overgrown gardens, and paint peeling of the buildings.  It’s in dire need of a refurbishment.

Myself and Nev at the Royal Palace

Luke and Steve on a Cycle Rickshaw

 After the Royal Palace we went back to the pub.  We played pool for hours, and ended up having a very long drawn out England vs. Scotland contest.  We were 8-2 up at one point until Steve and Luke made a whirlwind comeback beating us something like 8-11. 

The next day we woke up and went down for breakfast to be met with Jamie and Heather at reception.  We had a rather late breakfast and decided to meet up with them at dinner time.  It was the night before my birthday and we planned to have a big night out to celebrate.

Myself and Nev hired some bikes and went about exploring.  We visited some interesting temples, and cycled about some small towns and little back streets after we finally managed to get out of Hue.  We were having a good time until the con happened. 

We were getting hungry, we’d been cycling for hours and it was lunch time.  A guy on a motorbike, with his wife on the back, started talking to us as we were cycling.  He got us to stop cycling and started to have a proper chat.  He told us he was an English teacher, he was keen to practice his English and asked us if we wanted to join him for lunch at a local Vietnamese place.  He seemed trustworthy, he was with his wife, and we were very hungry, so we went for it. 

He took us to a great restaurant, the food was excellent, bbq style with seafood and beef.  They both seemed very nice and the lunch was going well.  The guy proceeded to get us rather drunk.  We were drinking beer from small glasses, every time he said cheers, which was about every 5 minutes, we were not only meant to clink our glasses together but to down the contents.

Myself and Nev have a few code words, we were slightly unsure how the arrangement of paying the bill was going to work out.  We started getting suspicious when they told us how much money they earned and asked us what our salary was.  So I asked Nev, in code, if we should offer to pay for the whole bill.  He agreed up to a certain amount.  When we had finished and were ready to go they said they would pay the bill as they would get the Vietnamese rate, then we could pay them back.  In our fairly tipsy state we agreed, we crucially never actually saw a copy of the bill.  When they told us the full amount it was at least double what we were expecting, clearly they were at it.  We were really disappointed, because they seemed nice, and what’s more we’d fallen for a scam.  When we asked how much we should pay, the couple said, “it’s up to you”.  But when we offered two thirds of the bill we could see the guy wasn’t happy.

The couple had invited us back to their house after the meal to meet their children, to have a shot on their piano, and drink some Vietnamese whisky.  We had agreed initially but obviously we were now having second thoughts.  On the way back, eventually we stopped them to tell them we weren’t interested.  On the news the guy was furious and demanded the rest of the cash for the meal.  We gave him it just to keep the peace, after which they sped off into the distance.

The Con Artists

It’s not nice falling for a con, but myself and Nev should have known better, we have travelled extensively.  We were kind off kicking ourselves afterwards, and it put us in a wee bit of a foul mood.  But, sometimes you have to take these risks when travelling and sometimes they pay off.  On this occasion though it restored my cynicism, and I’ll now be less open for offers from seemingly friendly strangers.  Och well, at least we had a good, albeit expensive meal out of it.

We met up with Jamie, Steve and Luke at reception.  Heather had decided to stay in, to let us have a boys night out.  We went out for dinner, then onto a few pubs then onto a club called Brown Eyes.  They had an amusing slogan on their flyers, ‘the bar doesn’t shut until the last person passes out’.  We were on our way when we arrived in Brown Eyes, then Steve started buying shots.  Unlike the rest of us, he was on a three week holiday and had no real budget.  After my third sambuca, everything from then on became a bit hazy.  I remember visiting another club with a crazy neon light display, I have flash backs of dancing enthusiastically on my own on the dance flower.  We then returned to Brown Eyes and lost Steve and Luke in the process.  Jamie went home around 2ish, and Nev hit the wall by 3 and was falling asleep at the bar, I told him he should go home.  I remained in the bar, playing pool, I vaguely remember swaying around not even being able to hit the cue ball in my drunken stupor. I'll let the photos do the talking.

I left to go back to the Hotel around 5ish I think.   I couldn’t find the Hotel for love nor money.  Hue can be quite confusing with a maze of back streets, it was especially confusing when I was steamboats.  I refused to get a motorbike taxi because I knew I was so close so I kept on walking around trying to find it.  I staggered around for 2 hours, knowing at every point I was only a 5 minute walk away.  I finally cracked and got somebody from another Hotel to write down the name and address in Vietnamese.  I jumped on a motor bike taxi and gave him the slip of paper with the name and address on it.  He didn’t have a Scooby where it was, even though he told me he did initially.  It took him nearly an hour to find the Hotel, after stopping to ask numerous people en-route. 

I finally got to the Hotel around 8am.  Once I got to my room I realised I’d lost my iPhone somewhere.  It was a bit of a downer, but not the end of the world, it was nearly out of contract and I was insured.  I certainly didn’t lose any sleep over it and was out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow.

 I woke up at lunch time and went out for food with Nev.  Heather, Jamie, Steve and Luke were at reception, they were all off to Hoi An.  We said our goodbyes and got some lunch.  After lunch the hangover started to kick in, so I ended up going to bed.  I was awoken with a knock at the door around 4pm.  The girls at the Hotel had bought a birthday cake for me complete with a candle.  Unfortunately I was so hung over I couldn’t really express my gratitude, or look happy.  I just managed to muster enough energy to blow the candle out.  I was really touched though.  The Hotel staff were amazing!

Myself and Nev had a train to catch to Saigon that night.  I managed to get a good sleep on the train and woke up feeling fresh.  It was a long journey, around 22hrs, we finally arrived in Saigon in the late afternoon.

I’ve been to Saigon before and had a plan in place for what we should do for our few hours in the city.  There’s a great bar at the Sheraton, about 40 stories high, with amazing views of Saigon and 2 for 1 cocktails between 5-7pm.  We left our luggage at the train station and jumped in a Taxi straight to the Sheraton.  It wasn’t quite 5pm when we arrived so we wandered around for a while until the start of happy hour.  The cocktails were sublime, as was the view, we were perfectly positioned for sunset. 

We had some food then got another taxi to the airport.  Our flight to Manila was at the most anti social time, departing at 3am and arriving at 6am.  As you can imagine it was the cheapest option which is why we took it.  We hung around the airport until we could board the plane.  I managed to get about 30 minutes sleep on the flight arriving in Manila absolutely shattered.