Scott Fletcher Travels

Well after a good nights sleep it was time to find out how easy it was going to be to get into China. According to the lonely planet you can not cross the border here unless your visa was issued in Hanoi or Beijing as the case may be. Mine was from sunny Sydney! Well after a brief breakfast I headed the 500m or so to the border. It could not have been easier, exited Vietnam in about two mins, walked 200m across a bridge then got into China in about 2 mins. It was quite funny on the Chinese side they were renovating their border building and you had to get your passport stamped in the middle of a construction site. There was jackhammering about 4m away, and then walking through a myriad of bamboo scaffolding and wires along the floor was something different.

Upon arrival I changed my money for Yuan, then went to the bus station. I was in Guangxi province (state) so heading to the capital seemed like a good idea. After about 30mins I was off to Nanning. The bus was easy and after managing to get a nap I was in sunny (extremely hot would be better) Nanning. A girl helped me onto the bus and I got to my hotel without any problems at all. One thing I was quickly realising is that English is next to useless in China, hardly anyone speaks it, and if they do it is like me trying to speak Chinese reading straight from a book, really hard to understand. The people were all nice though so that was good. One thing that really surprised me after going to India is how modern China is. In a lot of ways Nanning was more modern than Sydney, all the buildings look brand new, there are apartments everywhere, great shopping malls. Well that is how is appeared on the surface. I guess I was expecting a bit of a shambles.

After I settled it was time to walk around and see what was going on around town. I quickly started to realise (and had also read) that they have not really let anything stand in the way of progress. In Nanning they had no nice old buildings, the architecture was all extremely functional and cutting edge but lacked the human touch. The brand new malls were bustling but were all perfectly square, they did not have common areas like open food courts or something just corridors to fit in lots of box shaped shops. It was good to have a look around, but the problem with shops is they are only any use if you want to buy something.

The next day I booked a night bus ticket to Guangzhou which is the capital of Guangdong province, it was a sleeper and was meant to take 11 hours but I was surprised how expensive it was compared to what I had been paying in Vietnam. When I say a sleeper I really mean a sleeper, the bus was full of bunk beds, three across, two high and about maybe 8-10 deep.

Once in Guangzhou I made it to a hostel after some agitation on the buses, trying to find one to go where you want to go is very hard, but they are very cheap about 2 RMB which is about 30 cents. The hostel was good, it was clean and air conditioned which makes all the difference. I have a long much needed shower with hot water! That was joy! It was only about 9am so I decided to go and check out Guangzhou it is a great town with plenty to see and do.

I decided to spend the day walking around, I mapped out various things to go and check out, temples, parks, shops and food. The temples were good and there were hundreds of incense sticks burning all over the place. The highlight would have to be when I went to a great park called Yuexiu park, it was similar to the botanic gardens I guess with a lot of different paths and sculptures. A great thing about Guangzhou was their subway it was amazing, so fast and really easy to use, Sydney needs one desperately to get around the city and near by suburbs.

The next day it was off to Maccau so I jumped on a bus that took me to the border!

I can’t access my photos in China but you can see them at www.flickr.com/photos/fletch007  

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Tags>> Border crossing China Nanning Vietnam

Well arriving in Halong Bay was not all it was cracked up to be. I arrived after the last ferry had left to Cat Ba island so I stayed in Halong City for the night and planned to get on the ferry the next morning. That night I picked up some great food at the local market, some spring rolls, some warm potato dish and some bread. There was not a lot to do in the town so I relaxed and then went for a run(first one in about two months). I have been walking a lot but the fitness is really different, I kept going as I wanted to run over a huge bridge, which included jogging about 12 stories of stairs to get to the top (now that was tiring). By the time I was back at the hotel sopping it was a great feeling

  

The next day I caught the ferry to Cat Ba along the way we stopped at some caves and a floating village. The bay is amazing with hundreds of limestone islands rising sharply out of the water. The water is also an amazing emerald green colour and it truly is a great sight. The Islands (almost all of them) are not inhabited as they are too small and inhospitable. Cat Ba is the largest island at about 17km long. On arrival the Cat Ba town i found a hotel (with an awesome view over the harbour and a balcony) and proceeded to have a snooze. This was a welcome siesta and well worth the time. Since arrival I had a strange feeling that there was absolutely nothing to do on Cat Ba Island, and I was soon to be proved right. Don’t get me wrong there are a few attractions and they are beautiful but they are hard to get to unless you are on a tour.

 

That night I met a few people from Spain and Belgium and had a few drinks which was a welcome change from the towns pace of which there was none. The next day I decided to go to China, I was so close and had a visa so why not. I caught a local ferry to a town called Hai Phong (2 hours), then a bus 6 hours to a town called Mong Cai which is on the border with China. I arrived there at about 10pm and found a hotel which was good. I did not find anyone who speaks English all night and then went to bed watching some average movie. Mong Cai is an interesting place. The town is literally split in two halves China half Vietnam, obviously different names. Every shop is full of useless shit and heaps of it. Apparently lots of Chinese bring over all their goods to sell and a good profit to Vietnamese.

This brings me to a point of contention that I can usually deal with but it is starting to get to me Dual Pricing. When I boarded the ferry I saw the lady holding a ticket book and she reached in her bad to get another ticket book, I said I wanted the original ticket book and she said no you have to use this one. It was either 30000 Dong or 70000 Dong(Westerner). I can understand this at national monuments or points of interest for a moderate tax on tourism but transport is ridiculous. It is getting a little bit old. Can you imagine if in Australia we charged people with Blue eyes double for everything. So you go to buy a coke and they say $5, there would be absolute mayhem. Maybe it is me being tired or whatever but they really need to respect tourists more and not just treat them all as rich westerners especially when we are travelling on a budget! 

Scott Fletcher

Halong Bay Photos

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Tags>> Halong Bay Mong Cai Vietnam

A funny thing happened on the 14 hour bus, I was looking out the window with my earphones on when I was tapped on the shoulder. It was Richard Clifton Smith from school I was in his brothers year, and he was in Greg’s(my brother) year! He is travelling for 6 months with a mate Lachlan Robison (also St Aloysius ‘01). So we got chatting and we ended up sharing a room in Hanoi. The bus was pretty good considering the length, having two seats makes the difference. We were in the heart of the old quarter and 100m from 15 cent beers so that was the main thing.

We found a hotel with three beds fairly easily and it was only $3 a night so that was a bonus. Time for breakfast we decided to go to a cafe where they teach street kids to cook and about hospitality, the meal was great and I would thoroughly recommend Koto. Then it was off to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, but we arrived at 11:30 and it was closed. What about the museum, well that closes at 12. So after making a the decision to lye on the grass and have a read until it reopened at 2pm it was finally time for a rest. When 2pm came around we went to the door and found out that it was not open in the afternoon on Fridays for some strange reason, at this point it was home time via the market for some fried dumplings YUM! The rest of the day was chilling out, it was so hot there that it was hard to want to go outside, i know why they sleep between 11-3.

The next day Rich and Lachlan went to Halong bay and I stayed behind as I was doing it later. I thought this would be a good opportunity to go and check out Ho Chi Minh. I did not realise how crazy it would be on a Saturday of the Independance day weekend, the line was about 2km long, security was tight and it was bloody hot! He looks in very good nick (no photos allowed anywhere near there, wouldn’t take one even if they were), there is a joke that it is a wax body not really him. The main guards are like the guards at Buckingham palace, they are perfectly rigid and do not move (unless you watch them for a while). After this I went around the grounds where he worked and lived. He must have been a very humble guy because he could have lived in palaces had anything he wanted, but lived in a two room stilt house next to a lake! If i ever get some land I would love to build a place just like it, really simple, but everything you need at the same time.

The next day was a day was Vietnam’s Independence day 2nd of September. I could not find any particular celebrations but there were a lot of people around. I went for a long walk around town and then it started pouring for about an hour, I was soaked through, by the time i made it home to the hotel it looked as if I was swimming in them. I didn’t mind this break from the heat it was a welcome distraction really, and well worth it too.

On the 3rd it was raining so I took it easy and planned my trip to Halong Bay the next day. It is time for a rest this makes it 7 straight weeks on the road and I am getting tired. I think four days lying on a beach should sort that problem out for a while! I will let you know.

Scott Fletcher

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Tags>> Hanoi Vietnam