The Pass of the Ocean Clouds feat. Hue

One of the main sights I wanted to do on this trip was the Hai Van Pass. It was made especially famous in Europe through the Vietnam episode of Top Gear, where the not-easily-impressed Jeremy Clarkson described it as one of the most beautiful rides in the world. 

Panorama courtesy of Stef

My guide book called it the 'Pass of the Ocean Clouds' and many people describe it as one of the most dangerous roads ever which, dear Mumsie, I do not believe. Maybe in the past, but now they have built a tunnel which is used by the majority of the traffic that used to populate the Pass – now it's only petty tourists, newlyweds and massive trucks carrying oil or something else similarly dodgy. (I know trucks are called lorries in my dialect, but it's difficult to describe Vietnamese trucks as lorries. When you think of a lorry, you think of a big, modern, 'sensible' looking lorry. Whereas a Truck is dusty, funky, and definitely dodgy. Like Vietnamese trucks.)

 Anyways, we decided on renting a driver (and his car), and he arrived promptly at 9am (well, to be precise he arrived promptly before 9am but to the wrong hotel), picked us up, and off we went towards Da Nang and the Pass! It was a very interesting experience, never having rented a driver before. At the same time we didn't want to hassle him, or annoy him, but at the same time we did pay him money so that he would stop when we wanted etc (or so we understood).

Still not quite sure what the official protocol is to do with renting drivers, but we managed to get him to stop at a few points before the Pass – a big Marble Statue shop thing (literally, who buys a marble statue as a souvenir. Tell me.) and Da Nang Beach (unfortunately didn't get to do Da Nang properly... but one day!).

Marble statue shop garden

Being Buddha is a jolly life

Danang beach boulevard

The famous (and empty!!) Danang Beach

All we saw of the famous Danang Dragon bridge

The Pass itself was epic. We stopped at a few points, got ripped off by the 'Coffee Noodle'-lady, who, in all fairness, took a few group pics of us so we forgave her for her rippy offiness and her horrendous iced coffees. 

Coffee Noodle lady preparing our coffee noodles

Took loads of wonderful pictures. Admired the views. Admired the brides in stunning dresses awkwardly being helped up this awkward ladder to pose on this, er, block, to take STUNNING pictures. When I get married... I want to be them.

Prepping for photos

Group photo!

At the bottom of the pass there was this lovely bay-ey area too. 

Panorama courtesy of Stef

The rest of the trip to Hué was pretty uneventful, and we arrived a lot earlier than we thought.

Hué. Is known for its Imperial City, it's the ancient capital of Vietnam. I was excited to see it – not topping my priority list, but I was definitely interested to see it.

Halfway to Hanoi!

Into the Imperial City

So, after checking into our hotel, we wandered about Hué which seemed a pretty average town. We explored the surroundings of the Imperial Town with the eternal fear that a mahoosive storm would erupt at any moment. Vietnamese weather has the habit of loudly thundering and massively wind blowing but, in the end, not raining. Or, alternatively, start bucketing down with no warning. It's quite annoying.

We stopped at a lovely place where we had iced coffees and Hayzybobzykins had the most... interesting ever pink drink which advertised itself as some sort of strawberry shake, but it was essentially sweet pink strawberry flavouring mixed with condensed milk. (Condensed milk is, just to remind you, extremely sweet in itself.)

We also witnessed a cool parade.

And the traffic photo of the day.... 

Our evening meal was at the amazing DMZ-restaurant. Amazing food and possibly the best service in Vietnam, now let me tell you why...

Vietnam is not known for its ability to bring meals at the same time. I do understand the logic – bring the meal when it's ready, it's pointless letting it sit around and get cold while waiting for the other meals that the same table ordered. Not the European way of doing it, but I do understand why they do it. It's still annoying. Especially when they actually forget your food. Or bring the wrong food. For example, I had breakfast one day in HCMC with my friends Mary and Dafi. They brought us three sets of cutlery. Then Mary got her food. Then Dafi got his. I waited. They ate. I waited. I waited. I waited. They were just finishing when our waitress came over to collect my cutlery which I hadn't touched. This was the stage when we had to remind her that the reason I hadn't yet touched my cutlery was because I hadn't yet received my food. She rushed over (or well, ambled over, for in Vietnam one is never in a hurry) to the kitchen to inform that they should make another meal. By the time I got my meal, needless to say, Mary and Dafi had finished their's. I was not impressed, even for Vietnam.

ANYWAYS. So, when me, Hayzybobzykins and Stef got our meals relatively at the same time we were quite impressed. Mary had to wait a little longer, but we were all used to it. Normal. Five minutes in, the waiter came over to our table to apologise for Mary having to wait. Oh, no worries, she wasn't frustrated at all. The waiter left, then came back with a cocktail bucket. He placed it in front of Mary, and told her it's on the house because her food was taking so long. We found this utterly hilarious. Most places you can wait for ten, twenty, thirty minutes to an eternity for your food, here less than ten minutes was already worthy of a free, er, bucket of alcohol. Amazing.

Cyclo drivers waiting for customers

Then we cycloed it back and it was all in all a wonderful evening. <3

The next day we went into the Imperial City, which was fascinating but I regret to say I spent most of the time napping on a shady bench at some less-populated corner of the area. Lack-of-sleep and I are not on the closest terms. Nor are insane heat and I. 

This picture sums up the day:

And the story behind the picture: I was stood at the bottom of the stairs for a good while, trying to calculate if getting into shade for a minute or two was worth the climb up the stairs... 

But for more civilised pictures...

Anyways, the Imperial City was a really cool place with lots of history, awesome ancient houses and buildings and ruins, gorgeous gardens...

In the afternoon we had an amazingly fun motorbike ride through more countrysidey roads to a pagoda. We had no time to check it out, but, well, I do love motorbiking.

Empty roads!

On our rented bikes

Steps to the pagoda

And then, it was time to say bye bye to Marykins, and be thrown onto the night bus towards Hanoi...

BZAAAAAAA

Emzy

xxxxxx

Two days in the gorgeous Hoi An

Hoi An was a stunner. All of our's favourite destination on this trip. Yes, Hoi An is becoming a tourist trap and was packed with tourists but, you know what? We were tourists. And we enjoyed it. It was amazing.

Hoi An is a World Heritage Sight and “an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating from the 15th to the 19th century” (says wikipedia). It is most well-known for its gorgeous old town and its lanterns at night time.

Our two days in Hoi An included:

• Sightseeing the Old Town at day.

The famous bridge of Hoi An, also stars on the 20,000 dong note

The centre of the town was meant to be walking and cycling only. It was reality depending on the amount of police around.

Riverside path

As mentioned in the previous entry, these fanciest photos are courtesy of Steffy

Near our hostel. The old town is over the river.

• Sightseeing the Old Town at night. 

Lanterns are Hoi An's trademark

On the way to Why Not?

Mary on her bicycle (the most traditional way of getting around)

• Visiting the tailor. Hoi An is Vietnam-renowned (if not world-renowned) for its cheap tailors, so it was a must for me. After a long, long debate and contemplation, I settled on a casual turquoise dress (a copy of my polka dot one), a white top (a copy of my ancient, manky, stretched, ex-white one) and matching dresses for Hayzybobzykins and I. :)                                                                                                                                                          

         We went in at about 11am, and at 7pm we had our first fitting. Impressively fast work.

• Lovely meals at lovely quaint restaurants. 

Wonton soup for lunch

Cao Lau - Best Food of Hoi An

White Rose - another speciality of Hoi An

Mary tried this street snack - basically softened crab. She says it was very srcumptious. I'll take her word for it.

The best meal, in all of our opinions, was one at Hong Phúc II-restaurant, a set traditional meal with all sorts of scrumptiousnesses, absolutely stunning. Very, very highly recommended! 

Hong Phuc <3

The starter platter of Hong Phuc - spring rolls, white rose, cao lau and crispy pancakey stuff

• Buying a hat. I literally (well ok not literally, but quasi-literally) buy a hat on every holiday I go. One from Saigon, one from Thailand, two from Malaysia, and now one from Hoi An. I don't intentionally collect hats – I just always forget them, or just figure out it's less of a hassle to buy a new one than carry an old one about everywhere... But this hat buying was special, due to the special Hats Saleslady.

                                                                                                                                                      
Quiz time! What is the best marketing method to selling a hat?

a. Smacking your customer's bum multiple times
b. Attempting to force a wetwipe down your customers shirt
c. Squeezing your customer's nose
d. All of the above



Trying on hats

Aaaaaaand the result iiiiis, yes, d. All of the above. 

She was actually a nice lady, and I didn't feel pressurised into buying the hat, though her persuasion methods were not the ones I would recommend all people. I did feel a mix of smugness and embarrassment though when she squeezed my nose (seems a habit of the Vietnamese, I guess I have a special nose) which was, thanks to Dalat, very full of snot.

• Visiting some cool old houses and temples. 

Courtesy of Steffy: Entering some fancy place

• Visiting the ancient jungle ruins of My Son. 

In bus

My Son means beautiful mountain, and it was beautiful and the ruins were fascinating, however the HEAT was unbelievable. 

On the road to My Son

Usually they have 'elecic cars', ie. sort of golf-cart type thingies to take you up to the ruins from where the bus stops, but today all the other tourists had bagged them, so we got to walk twenty minutes to the ruins. I managed that quite happily, but, well, it was hot.

Them elecic car stealers

I can't think of many words that describe a situation as well as our My Son-visit could be described with the word stifling. There were momentary claustrophobic moments where you literally felt you couldn't breathe due to the H_E_A_T. So, I must say My Son was not my favourite moment, just because it was impossible to enjoy it properly due to this slightly tropical climate...

Even picture were a little bit of a forced ordeal at the end. "I guess we should take pictures while we're here..."

When I was lying on the grass dying and this dude was taking pics of me, highly amused

Stefan managed some cool pics tho:

• People-watching.

Look closely... the little boy has a T-shirt of himself 

Motorbike taxi or taxi?

Those dudes I found interesting - a xeom (motorbike taxi) and taxi driver chatting but also both scouting out for customers... I needn't but look in their direction and I got both a "motobike, motobike!" and a "taxi?"-offer.

Canalside salespeople

Where motorbikes are not allowed...

• Going on an evening boat cruise. 

 We were walking down the canalside, and decided none of us would mind saying yes to one of the mirriad boaters offering their services. We chose a very cute old man, who offered a decent price, and we were helped down onto the rickety boat which nearly capsized at each step we took on it.

Once we'd all got on it, we realised there was a bundle next to Mary – a bundle that moved. It was a baby. 

As we started moving, the baby became less happy, so after a few minutes of poor Mary being very confused if she should somehow attempt to help/entertain the baby, our gondola driver gave up the paddling of the boat, and picked up the baby. Next thing we knew, he had the baby peeing over the side of the boat. A surreal moment and we weren't quite sure where to look.

Happy post-pee baby on lap

But, all in all, a lovely scenic boat trip. We got our own lanterns as well due to my quality bargaining skills (hrm) which we then put into the water to join all them other lanterns. :)


***


Summary: A very lovely two days. I <3 Hoi An and I am definitely going to go back.

Next, we hopped into our rented car with rented driver, off to go over the Hai Van Pass towards Hue...

A bientot mes chérs,

Emzy

xxx