The end...

...beautiful friends. Woke this morning and briefly wondered which country I was in, then remembered. It's one degree outside, the trees are bare and everyone speaks English; suddenly the equivalent of two weeks' wages that I had in my wallet three days ago has metamorphosised into less than the cost of a round of drinks; I no longer require ten minutes and the protection of a passing deity to cross the road.

In many ways it feels like I've been gone for 15 minutes not 15 months: Bromley's sole addition appears to be a new fish & chip shop, everyone at the council is still pissed off with their job and my chums the scallies still patrol the local parade of shops scowling darkly. Still, for now I'm actually not hating it - novelty value I suppose, but I'd forgotten how beautiful the sky here can be in winter and, bleak though it is out, there's an Englishness to the scene that's appealing. For now.

Saigon (prefer the old, evocative name to the propagandic Ho Chi Minh City) made Hanoi look like Little-Cholmondeley-on-the-Marsh: brash, bold and teeming with 8m inhabitants (only 10% of whom are from the city: like all cities, the job market acts as a magnet on the surrounding areas), it's noticeably much more Western-influenced than its little northern sister. The central, posh area around Dong Khoi with its Guccis, mechanised Santa Clauses and coloured fairy lights would almost make you think you were in London (but for the 25° temperature difference), while the ladyboys on scooters remind one, inevitably, of Bangkok. It's a bit intimidating at first and I wasn't sorry after the first night to be leaving for somewhere calmer.

Got the bus to Vinh Long in the Mekong Delta, arranged a small tour and homestay with a local family and set off in a boat for the nearby An Binh river island. The nutrient-rich mud of the Delta is responsible for its incredibly lush landscape: boating down the overgrown canals you see the fruit farmers' posh houses on the banks, testament to the fertility of the soil. You can practically stick a fence post in the ground there and it'll grow. The air's hot and moist and I was grateful for the fan, hammock and cold beer waiting for me at the homestay. 'Homestay' is a bit of a misnomer - it's a fairly well-established industry now and rather than the mat in a corner I was expecting you actually get a private hotel-style room: it's more like a hostel that a family happens to live in than a family home. That said, I still prefer it to most of the hotels I've stayed in - you do get to meet the family (altho as they usually don't speak English and my Vietnamese is practically non-existent, communication is somewhat limited - we ended up at several points simply pointing to the appropriate sentence in the phrasebook rather than face the frustration of trying to say it). The night outside was quiet, broken only by the creak of cicadas and the putter of an occasional scooter; the evening meal was fantastic, a massive seafood and pork banquet - the family seems to have taken it as a point of pride to leave every guest stuffed.

In preference to a second night in the big smoke I went to another nearby homestay the day after and ate curried frogs' legs and eel-fish, very good too. After that it was the bus back to Saigon, an afternoon's sight-seeing (Reunification Palace and the extremely grim War Remnants museum) and the plane home via Hong Kong. After five countries, a dozen or so cities, 450 days and God knows how many thousand miles it's all over. No depression as yet, just a sense of unreality - seems impossible to believe I'm actually not getting on a bus tomorrow and heading off somewhere new. That will fade no doubt. As it is, I'm hoping to eke a few free beers out of generous friends and to sound interesting for five minutes before having to whore myself again at the temp agency. Reality beckons.

To anyone who's made it this far, thanks for bothering; and to the older version of myself who might happen to chance again upon this blog one day, this trip was one of your better ideas. As for the next one? With a bit of luck, Japan in 2009 to work as an assistant language teacher - the countdown starts here...

Merry Christmas, over and out.

Time's running out and I hate it - I could happily explore Vietnam for another 6 months. Now in Hoi An, in the south-east part of the country and one of the few towns in the area to escape significant war damage. As a result (also thanks to restoration work and World Heritage listing) parts of it look much as they would have two centuries ago, and much like the set of a martial arts movie - dark, narrow streets consisting of squat wooden dwellings, Chinese lanterns swaying in the breeze. Enchanting, would be even more so if the clientele of all the bars and restaurants weren't exclusively Western. But without the tourists you wouldn't have the cool stuff, and anyway I'm one, so.
Halong Bay produced a similar feeling - undeniably gorgeous and strange as it is (despite the mist) the tourist scrum at the harbour does put you off a bit. We sailed for a day (not in a junk as it turned out, that was a bit beyond my budget), had a look round 'Amazing Cave' (it does actually live up to the name - weird, H.R.Geiger (designer of 'Alien') -style limestone formations, vast size (the last of the series of three caves must be the size of 2 or 3 concert halls) and a rock that looks like a penis. Unbeatable. The second day was spent kayaking, which was fun, and drifting in silence amongst the huge limestone karsts was special, but it's a bit knackering and uncomfortable for the terminally unfit such as me - for once I actually didn't mind getting ripped off ('all-day kayaking' turned out to be about 2 hours but was a relief to give my back a break).
After a night on Cat Ba island (where everyone goes home from the disco at 11 o'clock, on a Saturday night! Mental) I headed to Hue, the old Imperial capital in the 19th century which had 7 kinds of sh*t knocked out of it by the French and Americans in the 20th. As a result many buildings are now almost completely destroyed, which is a shame as the remaining, obviously Chinese-influenced ones are lovely. See the Ringo page for a few pics.
A sobering correction to my naivety a couple of posts ago - yes, there actually are vehicle accidents here all the time, Vietnam has the 2nd or 3rd highest rate of road deaths in the world. On the way to Halong something horrible happened - a guy on a scooter in front of us hit and then got rolled over by a truck. Must have broken both legs and maybe his spine too, and that was the fifth accident I've either seen or seen the aftermath of in the 2 weeks I've been here. My nerves have gone now, I have to be half-canned not to be convinced I'm about to die when on the back of a moto (as a passenger, you understand). One of the few aspects of British life I'm looking forward to is the slightly saner road conditions.
Off to Saigon tomorrow night, from there into the Mekong Delta region of the south-west for a few days and then, ulp, Blighty...

Among the clouds

Back in Hanoi after a wonderful few days in Sapa. It's a different country in everything but name to the capital; the views really are as good as the pic above (not mine, unfortunately - like a complete 'tard I left my camera battery here in Hanoi so will have to wait for the pics from my crappy disposable to be developed before I can see whether I've fluked any half-decent ones), albeit a lot foggier and vaster - the distance from the top of Tram Ton Pass, 15km from Sapa, to the valley floor is dizzying. The ride's a bit hairy as a result (the trucks caning it up and down the narrow, winding road don't help either when you're on the back of a scooter), but if you're going to risk certain death it might as well be for something like this.

Another highlight were the locals; the ones you meet in Sapa are mostly from the H'Mong or Dzao minority groups (there are another 52 minorities, quite bewildering), splendidly kitted out in traditional garb (see Flower H'Mong below). As a fellow visitor observed, you don't have to take acid to trip out here, just go to the market! My trek guide, Mimi, was a fantastically fun Black H'Mong woman: fierce-tempered but sweet, occasionally stern but genuine and as honest as the day's long. We stayed overnight with a bunch of American tourists at a lady's house in one of the local villages, eating a vast banquet cooked by the tour guides before getting ratted on rice wine drinking games and singing along to Backstreet Boys on Mimi's mobile (one of the unexpected features of the local kids is their savviness with mobiles and the internet - Mimi's phone is better than mine and she's even on Facebook! Welcome to the 21st Century).

After the tour finished I got invited to the wedding reception of a local H'Mong couple; wowee, I have never in all my years seen so many people get so drunk so quickly - with firewater toasts to the happy couple literally every 30 seconds we barely had time to shovel any food in our mouths before another friend or relative (the groom's cousin fresh from a motorbike accident but unbothered) is at our table and we're shouting 'Mot, Hai, Mai, Yo!' ('1-2-3-4') again and downing another shot. Everyone was smashed by 8 and staggering home, in my case just about remaining vertical. Needless to say, a great time was had by all.

Off with a bit of luck to Halong Bay tomorrow for cruising the waters in a junk, doing some kayaking and seeing some caves. If it's half as fun as Sapa was it'll be a treat. Bye for now.