Cu Cui Tunnels ... Rockin' with Vietnamese pop idol & onto Ha Long bay
Day 28: Full day bus tour at Ho Chi Minh on what was promised to be a "A/C bus, very comfortable, 10ppl max" - which, needless to say, was in fact at 16 ppl on an A/C bus that did not work - 6hrs on the road, 2 hours actually seeing things... such is the way of dodgy "full day tours".
Still, got to see a temple and the Cu Cui tunnels. Quite surreal to be walking through the bush knowing that many soldiers are likely to have died on the ground we were walking.
We actually went through some of the tunnels - crazy. Managed to overcome my claustrophobia to go through them - was pretty happy to get to the other end of them!
Got taxi to airport. Unbeknown to us, we had stepped into a hi-fi
getto blaster - our driver was a machine, who was not afraid of some serious tunes which he played on his VCD machine [i.e. he had a 'tv screen' of some sort attached to the sun visor [See pic attaached]. Wham, Abba & Lionel have never looked or sounded so good. The three of us did some serious singing all the way to the airport. Funny.
Our evening of pop rock was not to stop there however, and upon boarding our plane [bound for Hanoi], we discovered we were seated next to a living Vietnamese pop icon. Yep, you guessed it, we'd landed seats next to one of teh hottest acts in Nam pop. Goodbye Guy Sebastien, catch you Shannon Noll - hello, "Cao Thai Son" [www.caothaison.b4.to], winner of the original Vietnamese Idol!
Spent the following 2 hours reviewing his photo portfolio [what a beatiful man] and listening to his number one hits on his MP3 player. He was very friendly and insisted on sharing his beef jerkey with us... was my 1st time... chillified... saltified... chewified... a bit dodgified... yet strangely satisfying.
Arrived in Hanoi airport at 23h20 to discover our airport transfer was nowhere to be found. Luckily the only other ppl in the airport were a couple of helpful travel agents. They did a few ring arounds, and concluded that the hotel had never heard of us, and the 'travel agent' in HCM [who we had paid our $$ to] had taken our Dong and ran. Ah shizen...
Eventually got dropped off at another hotel at 1h15, had a shower and crashed - a very long day.
Still, got to see a temple and the Cu Cui tunnels. Quite surreal to be walking through the bush knowing that many soldiers are likely to have died on the ground we were walking.
We actually went through some of the tunnels - crazy. Managed to overcome my claustrophobia to go through them - was pretty happy to get to the other end of them!
Got taxi to airport. Unbeknown to us, we had stepped into a hi-fi
getto blaster - our driver was a machine, who was not afraid of some serious tunes which he played on his VCD machine [i.e. he had a 'tv screen' of some sort attached to the sun visor [See pic attaached]. Wham, Abba & Lionel have never looked or sounded so good. The three of us did some serious singing all the way to the airport. Funny.Our evening of pop rock was not to stop there however, and upon boarding our plane [bound for Hanoi], we discovered we were seated next to a living Vietnamese pop icon. Yep, you guessed it, we'd landed seats next to one of teh hottest acts in Nam pop. Goodbye Guy Sebastien, catch you Shannon Noll - hello, "Cao Thai Son" [www.caothaison.b4.to], winner of the original Vietnamese Idol!
Spent the following 2 hours reviewing his photo portfolio [what a beatiful man] and listening to his number one hits on his MP3 player. He was very friendly and insisted on sharing his beef jerkey with us... was my 1st time... chillified... saltified... chewified... a bit dodgified... yet strangely satisfying.
Arrived in Hanoi airport at 23h20 to discover our airport transfer was nowhere to be found. Luckily the only other ppl in the airport were a couple of helpful travel agents. They did a few ring arounds, and concluded that the hotel had never heard of us, and the 'travel agent' in HCM [who we had paid our $$ to] had taken our Dong and ran. Ah shizen...
Eventually got dropped off at another hotel at 1h15, had a shower and crashed - a very long day.
posted by Greer at 5:49 am
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