James & Heather Travelogues

Once back in Hanoi, we did some further investigation and found that one of the receptionists had found our video camera and locked it in the safe. When she gave it to us, she said "you owe me thousand dollars" and burst out laughing. Then, whenever we saw her she said "you still owe me thousand dollars". It became a running joke between us for the last couple of days that we were in Hanoi.

We decided to visit the Temple of Literature, which is just outside the old quarter, and after consulting the map, we figured we could walk it. It was a very distressing experience for me, as I found a street with a number of stores selling cheap PC hardware and software, and I didn't have the time to browse. I tried to convince Heather that the street would be more interesting than the temple, but it would not wash.

We arrived at the temple and wandered around it for about an hour and a half. It was built around 1070 and had been used throughout earlier times as university. At the time, they were preparing for an event to be held there that night but we still managed to see all of it. It was a very peaceful place in the centre of Hanoi. After finishing up there, we decided to get a taxi back to the hotel as walking was a stupid idea in the first place.

We have been travelling since February now, and poor Heather has not been able to buy any souvenirs. Hanoi was her chance to rectify this, so we spent the better part of a day wandering around the old quarter sizing up what to buy. In the end we settled on a Chinese lantern (very common in Vietnam), a set of bowls (for practicing our new Thai cullinary skills in) and some chopsticks & holders. Heather seemed to enjoy the haggling more than me, so I left her to it.

The final acivity in Hanoi, was to visit the Water Puppet theatre. This was created in ancient times by farmers during the floods to keep the locals entertained. It was very entertaining, and I was annoyed at myself for not bringing along the video camera. The show was split in to a number of smaller parts such as "a student returns from studying in the city" and uses limited pyrotechnics and lighting effects to add to the atmosphere. Stories were told in each segment, although being in Vietnamese, I wasn't 100% sure what was being said. I certainly didn't hear any "flobbalobbalob"

Finally, it was back on a plane and off to Hong Kong. Time for me to do some retail therapy.

Before arriving there, Vietnam was a bit of an unknown for us. We only knew a couple of people that had been there, so we didn't know what to expect.

Having experienced it, Vietnam is probably the nicest place that we have visited so far in South East Asia. The towns offer so much for the tourist, the surrounding landscapes are beautiful - the bus ride from Dalat to Nha Trang was just amazing, and neither words nor pictures could ever do it justice. Finally, the people almost without exception are wonderful and friendly. The only place where there was a degree of antipathy was Hue, but given that just 35 years ago the entire area was in a very dreadful war subject to repeated bombings and artillery strikes, it is not that suprising.

Without reservation, I would recommend a holiday to Vietnam to anyone. I would hesitate to recommend the Vietnam section in Lonely Planet's South East Asia on a Shoestring, unless you are into playing pool at bars, eating pizza or vegetarian food only. To be frank, it was about as much use as a chocolate teapot

Well, tomorrow is the start of the big trip. Been spending the last few days saying au revoir to all our good friends, and clearing up last minute details.
Vacating our apartment was a surreal experience, as our shipper had done all the packing for us. Heather was at work, so I was sitting around as an unemployed layabout watching a team of 8 scurrying round our apartment as our lives for the last 5 years were locked away.
After that it was a clean up in attempt to get our bond back (no sign of it in the bank account yet, bugger!) and goodbye to the place where we had spent the past 5 years.
Since vacating our place, we have been staying with Mike & Hazel (thanks guys) and catching up with all our friends. It's been pretty traumatic for all involved, as we have amassed a number whom we will miss (until they come visit us in London).

There is this six months of holiday first...

By the Thursday, the large majority of our guests had arrived. We had given advance notice to all that there would be a combined Hen's & Stag's night before we left Australia, but as we did not know Santorini at all, we had to pick a bar after we arrived.

The bar for the guys was the Tropical Bar, where Jeannie played host. Kick off time was 3pm and we had booked the balcony out, so we were able to sink a few while the sunset over the caldera. It all started rather civilised, but things rapidly degenerated once the tequila shots started flowing... Several times that night, my camera was dropped much to my consternation.

Eventually, the more senior members of the group and those with young children had to leave and at that point, the ladies joined what was left of guys. Jeannie had ordered in some snack food for us and was pumping cheesie music through the speakers), so naturally bad dancing was the order of the day/night.

The end of the night came for Heather and I at around 2am. Of the 40 or so people that had joined us, only one (our Danish friend Kenneth) was left. We headed of to a snack bar and bought the customary kebab, except in Greece it is called an Eros (and the Greek way of spelling it, makes it look like Gyro). While in the eros shop (which sounds as if it should be selling something else), we saw Jeannie as she had finished her shift at Tropical. Then off home to bed...

Most of this day was spent hanging around at the beach in Vlihada. The reason that this was chosen was because it is home of the Santorini Submarine. Heather and I decided to take a ride on this, along with some of my family and Col.

The submarine tour started at a secluded port and chugged to open waters before descending. While underwater, we were "treated" to a 15th century sunken wreck of a small boat (complete with drive shaft), a couple of ancient containers and an Ionic column that was about 3 feet tall (obviously from a temple for midgets).
You can probably tell, that I thought that part of the ride was slightly touristy. However, the experience of submerging was quite surreal, and I naturally played the role of a tacky tourist well, by videoing everything. For future reference, if filming underwater, switch off the auto-exposure on your camera and adjust it manually - it allows you to see the underwater environment much more clearly (you may want to turn off auto-focussing as well).

After the spending the day at the beach, we headed off to Ia. Ia is supposed to be the place to watch a sunset from in Santorini and as we got there, it was obvious that a lot of people knew this, as the place was heaving with tourists. Heather, Hazel, Mike and I found a spot reasonably high up the caldera and watched the sunset. Although nice to look at, it was pretty similar to the one that we experienced at hotel, so it was slightly disappointing in that regard.

However, there was a slightly surreal experience, as most of the tourists around us applauded when the sun went down. Now, I am all for giving praise where it is due, but this is something that happens daily and (unless the Santorini local government knows something that rest of the planet does not) is a natural event with no human involvement. The question still remains though: "who were the crowd applauding?". I have been thinking about it and come up with the following:

• Someone was bungie-jumping off the edge of the caldera, and we did not see it
  
• The blokes were pleased that they could now get to a bar and sink a few Mythos
  
• There was a sweepstake running as to how far down the sun would go, and someone guessed "below the sky" correctly
  

After sun down, we called Col and he joined us for dinner, having received excellent directions from me ("we are in a restaurant overlooking the caldera" - this meant he only had to search about 30 instead of 35). Later on in the evening, my mum and dad joined us for dinner as well, which rounded off a pleasant evening. Again, they got fantastic directions from me ("we're near a church" - every town in Santorini has at least half a dozen, probably more).

Must remember to applaud the sunrise in the morning...