Hanoi and North 'Nam

I am still in Hanoi, but contrary to what I assumed would happen I haven't actually been here for the last nine days. I managed to get out and about thanks to a combination of antibiotics and my incredibly high tolerance for pain. Amanda-Sue is still here and hasn't yet started complaining about me too much but I will start complaining about her soon - her idea of looking after me so far has involved palming me off on a hospital and buying me a banana.

It's Day 2 in Hanoi. I'm out of hospital and pumped full of antibiotics. The doctor says at this point I need a very strict diet. No meat, no dairy, no uncooked anything, no vegetables or fruit except bananas; basically I can't eat much. I assume, since my cellular make up is now 80% antibiotic I should be able to throw caution to the wind and eat anything from anywhere. Amanda-Sue doesn't let me. We book tickets to Sapa for the Saturday giving me a full two days in Hanoi to get better.

We meet Amanda's friend Zoe who is travelling the north of Vietnam and go out to a very exclusive Hanoi restaurant. The food has received rave reviews. I'm only allowed a canned drink. I sit there with a Sprite like the designated driver only in Vietnam the idea of a designated driver doesn't exist so I just get strange sympathetic looks from the waiting staff. The following day we get up early to go and say hello to Ho Chi Minh in his little mausoleum. But it closes at 9.15am a full hour before the Lonely Planet says. The more I travel the more I realise I could write a Lonely Planet. You don't actually need to visit anywhere and you don't need to get any of the actual facts right.

Our afternoon is spent in the Literary Museum which has a turtle pool (a big draw here). Turtles here, along with dragons, unicorns and pheonix, are spiritual animals and seeing one is considered lucky. That said, they also eat turtle - so it's not THAT lucky. And I've seen a few now; still ill and still miserable so I dispute their good fortune bringing abilities.

The train to Sapa is an overnight - usually 4 berth soft sleeper, but since we are both signed up members of the flashpacking club we upgrade to the only VIP cabin with just two beds. It doesn't matter though, sleep is impossible as the train tracks are so old the train struggles to stay on them most of the night. We arrive at 5am and have to wait until 10 for a bus to our "Eco-Lodge". I'm always skeptical of places with names like that. I assume Eco means cheap and we will be staying in a bamboo bivouwak. But this place is Danish and they have built proper bungalows on the top of a remote hill. The fittings are luxurious and the view up the Sapa valley is probably as good as it gets. We are only here one night - it's a chance for me to recharge and for Amanda-Sue to work on her bedside manner. The food up here is very traditional so naturally I'm not a fan, but I struggle on without complaint. It's supposed to be cold in the mountains, but it's not and we sleep with the doors and windows open letting every bug in without care as we have a mossie net. An hour later and somehow a cockroach has perched himself on the inside of the net very near my head. Cockroaches here are like the Great White in jaws. They carry vendettas and pursue their victims for miles. I recognise this one from Burma. He woke me up by crawling on my face there.

After the nightmares that ensue we trek down to the local village in the morning. It's a long way down and difficult to stay upright. Sights are the usual fayre - buffalos, rice paddies, locals in embroidered costumes. We are walking with a Danish 18 year old who is the cousin of the lodge manager and is spending five months here. He tells me how he has moved his bed to the middle of his room and sits all night with an aerosol can and lighter ready to open a can of flamethrowing whoop-ass on any insect he finds. I don't think he'll make five months. Before lunch we come across a waterfall and as is now traditional we swim in the lagoon. This waterfall is massive and the lagoon a death trap so it's not quite the magical experience I have come to expect from waterfalls. To get back up to the lodge we take mopeds for an hour on switchback paths not really designed for mopeds. Predictably my chain breaks and perhaps the turtle comes to my rescue as we don't careen into the ravine. And then it's back to the station for our VIP train journey back to Hanoi. No sleep again thanks to something (probably a wheel and probably incredibly dangerous) broken directly under our cabin.

We are due to head out to Halong bay at 8am and arrive in at 5am so we take a long walk with back packs into Hanoi. Everyone here gets up early and by 6am the whole of Hanoi is well into their early morning routine. This seems to be Tai Chi by the lake if you are an old widow or badminton by the lake if you have a partner. It's lovely to see that socialism here involves more socialising and not many 'isms.

A quick breakfast stop and we are off to Halong Bay - limestone cliffs jutting out of turquoise blue sea water north of Hanoi. It's a tour so we have to put up with other foreigners, but the group size is limited to twelve and no one stands out immediately as an undesirable. The boat is beautiful. We get an air conditioned cabin with en-suite, for once something exceeds my expectations. The food is also vast and flavoursome. It is, however, biased towards sea food. Something I should have expected on a boat, but still a dissapointment for someone who doesn't like anything with a shell. I'm still on antibiotics though so I manage to keep down what little I eat.

The boat cruises all afternoon between this stunning scenery. It's difficult to do it justice either in a photo or writing. But two hours later and one limestone cliff surrounded by turquoise blue waters looks very much like the other hundred (or officially 3000). The boat docks at a cave where we are all taken around by our guide Thwan. He points out the rock that looks like a person, the rock that looks like a turtle, the rock that looks like a dragons tail and then, predictably and in a cave with thousands of stalacmites rather too easily, points out the rock that looks like an erect penis. I'm about to say that I can see hundreds of penises all around me but I don't want that label. It's too hot for caves but perfect for a swim, so pretty quickly we take the boat to a cove and all jump in. The water is the temperature of my bath. It's a perfect place to unwind. But after two months of unwinding it's probably wasted on me. One of our fellow sea-mates is a nine year old girl called Jasmine. She is beautiful and has that enthusiasm that I haven't been able to muster in the last twenty years. As a memento she goes around the boat taking photos of everyone in the group. When she reaches me I try to smile but only manage a half grimmace that screams sex-pest. She tries to say it's a good photo but I can tell, in her head, she hears her parents' voices warning her about weird looking strangers. I keep my candy for myself and pray she doesn't show the picture to her parents before I'm off the boat.

Our night on the boat is interrupted by a rat that has detected my shortbread biscuits. Like me he sees the picture on the box - rips that to pieces - and discovers the actual biscuits inside are nothing like the picture. He discards the biscuits as I did and proceeds to rip little holes in my pants (not the ones I'm wearing). I can only agree that these are probably more tasty than the biscuits.

After a couple of days of this we head back to Hanoi. The city has grown on me as my health has improved and coming back this time I feel more like a local than a tourist. I still look more like a tourist than a local though. We need to move on but I need to extend my visa and we both need to push back the flights so we can stay here longer. A day of administrative stuff and we are now ready to fly south for the winter. So next stop is Hue and Hoi An. Lots of culture and old buildings so expect the next post to be full of moaning.

Photos of Northern Thailand: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600832512261/

Photos of Northern Vietnam: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinsouthgate/sets/72157600833024197/