And so it all begins!!
Its been a few days now since we left the UK and already an amazing amount of stuff has happened. The first thing wasn’t as fun as I would have expected it to be however…
I got to the airport and began to prepare for the journey ahead only the realise that I had managed to leave the one thing that I never go anywhere without at home. My camera. Nightmare. After lots of swearing (I apologise to Becky’s parents for this as this was the first time that we met and I wasnt acting at my best) I calmed down, and figured that I was going to buy a new one anyway, and it would be cheapest abroad anyway, so not a total loss. Never the less, I was going to feel naked without it until i got the new one!
Nice bright, brand new, fashionable STA shirts
After the fury subsided, Alex (the big boss) gave us our ever fashionable STA T-shirts, which we had to immediately don to walk through the airport representing the company. Hmmm….
And so the time came to say goodbye to the family, my sister took a million photos as I headed through security and managed to hold back the tears as I wandered off. What a trooper! Got the security and for the first time in a long time managed to get all the way through without an alarm going off. Becky wasn’t so lucky. After they searched her bag (which revealed even more liquids in her bag after showing me the 500 bottles she had already removed before heading through) we were pulled aside and put through the new full body scans I had been reading about in the papers. Which was actually quite a lot of fun to be a part of! Not sure how we look like terrorists in our nice STA shirts.
The plane itself was amazingly empty and we ended up getting our own rows to ourselves. So a good nights sleep was in store.
After a long sleep (where I missed the dinner and the headphone I had from the airline were taken off my head by someone) we landed in Ho Chi Minh. At our transfer in Doha we had had 40 minutes to get to our next flight, and I never thought that our bags were going to be following us through. But against all odds, they appeared without problem!
Scooters... lots and lots of scooters
Once in a taxi we got our first feel of the Vietnamese lifestyle. And it appears that the word is SCOOTERS, lots and lots of them!
All the way to the hotel we were surrounded by them, they outnumbered cars at least 10 to 1, and there seemed to be no rules to them whatsoever. Driving in Vietnam is suicide!
Our first night
That night, I was thinking that we would have a nice quite one to recover from the jet lag and settle in, but it was not to be. After meeting our guide (cutely named Apple, who screams, loud, whenever she was drunk) and the rest of the group, we had dinner and then headed into town. The night was very much a blur after that and two hours sleep later, we were up for our first trip.
So still drunk and slowly moving into the realm of hang over we set off on the 1 and a half hour bus ride to the Cue Cho tunnels. I have to be honest, I did not think that crawling through tunnels the size of a coffin was going to be a very good hang over cure, especially when I was claustrophobic…
the bus ride was a good laugh and we got to know our group a little better, and pretty soon we were standing on the site of all those battles you see in the movies between the Viet Khong and the Americans. The sun was well and truly out and I was sweating as soon as I stepped off the bus, I could see what they meant when they said that the reason the americans did so badly was because they couldn’t handle this blistering heat!
Slightly too large for the Viet Khong
We were shown one of the original entrances, which I couldn’t fit into, but Becky could, which I was pretty glad about as what lay underneath did not look like my idea of fun. Later on though, there was a much bigger entrance and I was told I would be able to fit into it. Not being one to back out of anything I gave the tunnels a try. I got about 30 metres and had to bail. Hats off to the Viet Khong, there is no way I would have been able to stay in those tunnels for any longer than 45 seconds!
On the journey back, I thought about maybe getting a little shut-eye, but then got distracted by the scenery that I had missed on the way there. It was beautiful. there were miles of green fields all around, framed by an array of mountains, and in the distance you could see massive rolls of mist floating around the bases of the looming shadows cast across the sky. It was breathtaking.
Once back, many of the group retired for a little shut-eye, but I had spent too long without my camera, so ventured out with a couple of others from the group in search of one! It took a couple of hours, but eventually I found success, and once again I can been that geek in the back you can hear constantly snapping away!
It was on this little trip that I found out was it was like trying to cross the road. Just like driving, it is suicide. No one stops for you, but if you walk slow enough, the hoards of scooters can drive around you. Cars on the other hand you really have to look out for. Nether the less, it is still terrifying to see 1000 scooters driving towards you at speeds that would kill you. You just have to believe that those driving them know what they are doing and that the years of experience they have on them is enough to save your life.
A quick shower later and we were packed and on the 9 and half sleeper train to Nha Trang. And I welcomed it with open arms. After the two hours sleep that I had had in 48 hours it was beautiful.
We were woken at 5.30 as the train pulled into the station and heading straight to the next digs. We dumped all our stuff into one room (as only one was ready) and headed straight to the beach, at 5.30, and yet most of the town seemed to be up already. it seems that everyone in Vietnam follows the rule of waking and sleeping with the sun.
It's a hard life
We worked on the first video for most of the morning and spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach, where the water was beautifully cold, and so refreshing, seeing as sitting down for five minutes in the sun made you start to sweat. Everyone got burnt.
Painfully we all heading to dinner and most people couldn’t eat as they all had sun stroke… it was an early night for all involved. Unfortunately the hotel had had all the power cut off due to the building works next door so we couldn’t get into our rooms until later. And were we did the air con hadn’t been working all day. Nice sweaty nights sleep.
Later on today we’re heading to the hot springs around the corner and hopefully getting into a mud fight with the locals, at least that’s what we’ve been told!
Till Next time!!
Matt M
STA WTI 2010
Vietnam!!
