Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
Yesterday was a bit of a full on day seeing 3 sights that were too far to hike it so had to use local taxis.
First place was Trang Am boat rides. Basically 4 peeps (4 tourists but 6 Vietnamese) in a boat being rowed by someone about half my weight for about two hours. The route was through 3 caves, supposed to stop at 3 sites but somehow language problems meant we didn’t see the first.
The highly organised chaos that is find yer boat.
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The first & last caves were a tad low, too low to take many pics. I basically kept my noggin lower than the the chap in front, if he went “ouch” I had a little time to react.
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Our rowing lady at the first stop. After that stop we were given paddles and we all rowed.
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Fantastic views.
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Lots of turtles in the temple are carrying big blocks with lots of Chinese text.
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Highlight of that rowing bit was seeing a kingfisher that was following us, except when we pointed a phone at it. We visited one of the places they filmed Kong: Skull Island, that was naff in the extreme so didn’t bother with many pics.
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We use a grab to get to the next place, that all went fine and had a mooch around an ancient capital of Vietnam, Hoa Lu. It wasn’t a very big site and it wasn’t a capital for very long, only 42 years, but was a nice wander.
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Now seeing a lot of lion dogs, our name.
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Then on to the next site, Bai Dinh temple complex. That was the stressful bit as our Mai Linh taxi request met with no response and we were getting no end of hassle from motorcycle taxi peeps, hassle that was getting well past the piggin annoying stage. The Grab taxi we’d ordered went to the wrong place (don’t know if our fault) so luckily the app let me send a pic to him saying basically “we’re at this bridge’ and he headed straight to us. All worked out in the end.
Bai Dinh is massive, the biggest complex in Vietnam. It’s so big they do cart rides to get there, not bad at £1 each way.
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More Buddha statues than you can shake a stick at. I gave up after a few pics as there was hundreds of the larger ones. We think the little gold ones were for donations
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If it’s all looking a bit BHS (brand harry spankers), that’s coz it is, it was all built between 2003 & 2010. And there were lots and lots and lots and lots of steps and we were well and truely knackered once we got to the top.
Then to head back “ home”. No taxi issues this time, we’d arranged for the driver that took us there from Hoa Lu to come back, we don’t think he left, so he took us the 30km or so back.
To Hanoi tomorrow.
14th Mar 2019 1:38 pm
blue meanie D3 Decade
Member Since: 04 Aug 2005
Location: Newbury
Posts: 6861
great pics Del and theeeeennn......???
14th Mar 2019 1:57 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
Cheers
14th Mar 2019 1:59 pm
SN
Member Since: 03 Jan 2006
Location: Romiley
Posts: 13710
awesome stuff Del - are you EVER coming home?Steve N | 21MY Defender | 08MY Discovery 3 (history) | 06MY Discovery 3 (ancient history)
14th Mar 2019 2:16 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
Not for a while.
Got a couple of things to be back for, a significant birthday for the FIL and the Cardiff 10k. Oh, and to cut the grass.
14th Mar 2019 2:29 pm
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
Good morning all.
Up & attem, packed & breakfasted and waiting for train. Only 65 minutes to wait, positively late for us!!
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Had our first experience of a scamming taxi driver. The taxi to the hotel was 85k Dong, £3, and we knew the route. When the driver today took us what could only be the very long way round he was introduced to my GoogMaps screen showing the error of his ways. We then got a bit of a tour past the local hospital & barracks. Got to the station at 120k on the meter so I pointed at it & said in a stern voice that it should be 80k. Busted (prob not wanting us to call the hotel as they called him), we accepted his offer of paying 80k, we saved 13p over the out bound journey and £1.30 cf the meter. If he’d have gone the whole long way round he’d have prob put 250k on the meter and scammed us by £5.50.
Not big sums of money but annoying. That should teach the taxi driver not to underestimate the dude with the tech.
Grab all the way in Hanoi.
And it’s raining!
PS It was really nice when walking out the hotel with all our stuff and the hotel reception lady asking where’s the rest of our baggage. She was most amused to hear that we had it all. She had two bags for 4 days in Thailand, we’ve got this for 6 months travelling. And we’ve still over packed.
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PPS And there’s not even an escape from Brexit here, it’s the #1 item on VTV, on in the station.
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A few peeps have tried to discuss/mentioned the topic with us on the trip. They just get a non descriptive shrug and they get the hint that we CBAed.
15th Mar 2019 2:30 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
On the train, bit of fun turfing someone out of one of our seats, and one seat not locking in the upright position. And AC either not on or in lowest setting so pretty muggy. Apart from that, all well and heading to Hanoi.
Gratuitous pic time. We have 13.5gb that expires at midnight today so may as well use it.
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15th Mar 2019 3:44 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
Not a lot of pics from today’s travelling, now tucked up in the hotel in Hanoi watching Cars streamed from Da Pad.
This hotel!! Did I say I wasn’t that good with heights?
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Club lounge check in is on the 72nd floor!!
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But compensated for by being upgraded to a corner suite.
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Mind you, SWMBO’s not at all happy as there are no curtains in the shower/bath area. She’s deffo going to be showing off her assets to any passing helicopters and neighbouring tower blocks.
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Lucky them!!
15th Mar 2019 7:54 am
Down&Dirty
Member Since: 17 Aug 2012
Location: Somewhere out back
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Don’t forget the pics (or it didn’t happen )
Some most excellent pics MY24 Defender 90 X-Dynamic HSE
MY18 Disco 5 HSE Santorini Black Now Gone.
15th Mar 2019 8:39 am
kajtzu
Member Since: 11 Aug 2017
Location: Helsinki
Posts: 6568
The window glass is probably treated so that it isn’t possible to see in well even if there is a light source behind? That’s how they’re done in many places. Of course, might be that they’re not done so in ‘nam.
15th Mar 2019 8:55 am
nigethecat
Member Since: 11 Sep 2016
Location: Marnoch
Posts: 4142
Those helidecks don’t look CAP437 compliant... I want to see the sweets before I get into your windowless van... I'm not stupid!
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15th Mar 2019 9:11 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
kajtzu wrote:
The window glass is probably treated so that it isn’t possible to see in well even if there is a light source behind? That’s how they’re done in many places. Of course, might be that they’re not done so in ‘nam.
You’re not reassuring her. She’s now concerned about drones!
15th Mar 2019 9:36 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
nigethecat wrote:
Those helidecks don’t look CAP437 compliant...
I’m not concerned about those two, only the one that’s on the 72nd floor/roof of this building.
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Last edited by DSL on 15th Mar 2019 10:17 am. Edited 1 time in total
15th Mar 2019 9:38 am
kajtzu
Member Since: 11 Aug 2017
Location: Helsinki
Posts: 6568
DSL wrote:
kajtzu wrote:
The window glass is probably treated so that it isn’t possible to see in well even if there is a light source behind? That’s how they’re done in many places. Of course, might be that they’re not done so in ‘nam.
You’re not reassuring her. She’s now concerned about drones!
One would assume that the commies are relatively jealous of who is doing what in their airspace but perhaps they’re getting old.
15th Mar 2019 10:07 am
DSL Keeper of the wheelie bin
Member Since: 11 May 2006
Location: Off again! :-)
Posts: 72775
We’ve not seen many, maybe a couple in the whole time in VN so far. One was at the top of that viewpoint a couple of days ago, would have been good had it given me a little bit of assistance getting up there.
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We visited one of the places they filmed Kong: Skull Island, that was naff in the extreme so didn’t bother with many pics.
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