Good Morning Vietnam!

Here is possibly one of the last blogs that I will write about our time in Hong Kong as we are only going to be here for another couple of weeks. On the 9th August we made our way to the airport for the last time before heading back to the UK at the start of September.

This time we were heading for Vietnam for 9 days of relaxing on the beach in Mui Ne and a night in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh as it is now) before we flew back to Hong Kong.

The trip got off to a very bad start as D woke up with awful sickness and worse, caused by the malaria tablets that we had had to start taking before we left for Vietnam. The journey to the hotel was long and uncomfortable for D but after the 5 hour taxi transfer to Mui Ne, we finally made it to our hotel room in the dark around 10pm. 

Bed and mosquito net

Our little bungalow for the week

Bungalow Exterior and Beach

The next few days followed a very similar structure for the both of us (D suferfing somewhat more than I was). Eat something plain - feel ill - visit toilet - eat something plain - feel ill - visit toilet.

After four days we finally managed to make the most of our time at Coco Beach Resort in Mui Ne. The hotel proved to be one of the most beautiful that we have ever stayed in and our room in particular was amazing. Our private bungalow was right on the edge of the beach and with its own private balcony/terrace we were able to chose between the beach or the balcony.

Hotel Entrance

The hotel also had its own private beach and beach bar which meant that we were able to stay in and around the hotel during our stay. The standard of the food at the hotel was also brilliant for such a small hotel and we were able to enjoy a number of excellent meals on the evenings when we were able/well enough to venture out of our bungalow.

Beach Restauran where we had breakfast

Beach Bar

The Champa restaurant in particular was particularly good and on a number of nights we were able to enjoy some delicious culinary delights. The duck confit was amazing and followed up with a tasty chocolate fondant and washed down with a VERY strong mojito.

The Champa Restaurant at Coco Beach Resort

On the beach the swell was good enough to let me practice my surfing on a couple of days, but unfortunately all my practice did not seem to make me any better and I was still struggling to stand up after all of my efforts. 

This is about a close as I got to standing up on the board

The view from our balcon!!!!!

Our Robinson Crusoe Bungalow

Mui Ne Beach

After our 8 nights in Mui Ne, we headed back to Siagon on Friday on for one night before we flew back to Hong Kong. Having left Coco Beach early in the morning, we arrived in Siagon with plenty of time to spend the day wandering around the city and visiting a few of the main tourist spots including the old post office and cathedral area.

Our HUGE room in the very aptly named Grand Hotel Saigon

Saigon Cathedral

The biggest impact of the day was definitely caused by our trip to the War Remnants Museum, which to paint a picture for your was previously called 'The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam'. The exhibits in this museum make those that we have seen in Aushwitz seem understated. The crimes committed by the USA are shoved in your face along with some of the most vivid and disturbing pictures that I have ever seen, including a truly grotesque exhibition on Agent Orange, which was used on a massive scale throughout the Vietnam War. 

Examples of 'American Imperialist Miltary Might'

Use of choice phrases and quotations was prominent

This is probably the least distressing photo in the whole exhibition

There was also a less disturbing collection of US planes and tanks outside the museum which are used to highlight the massive military superiority that the Americans had over the Vietnamese at all stages of the conflict in Vietnam.

Examples of American Jets used during the war

The 'Huey'' Helicopter which became synomonous with the Vietnam War and American Troops

After this we made our way to the Ben Tranh Market which is a covered market in Central Saigon filled with some of the most colourful and lively stalls that I had ever seen. The atmosphere was great and bargaining was the order of the day, so after a lot of haggling we made our way back to the hotel laden down with a few bits and pieces from our trip to the market.

Ben Tranh Market in Saigon

A huge selection of stalls selling a huge variety of stuff

Less a shop, more an overstocked cupboard

Not good for someone who is nearly 6"2'.

We were staying at the Grand Hotel Saigin, which was indeed VERY grand and we were pleased to find out that we we're able to use their courtyard pool for a late night swim before we went to bed. After a hearty breakfast on Saturday morning we made our way to Saigon airport for our flight back to Hong Kong.

I hope that I haven't made you too jealous with the pictures of our hotel in Coco Beach! I may write again, but in case this is the end. Good bye and good luck!

Live long and prosper!

May the force be with you!

Hello to Jason Isaacs and all that!

JR

A Weekend in Shanghai

This weekend we headed away for the last of our weekend breaks before our longer summer holiday trip to Vietnam. Early Thursday morning we headed to HK International Airport to take our flight to Shanghai which was due to take-off at 08:20. This was supposed to allow us to spend the entire afternoon on Thursday looking around Shanghai. Instead what we found at HKIA was absolute chaos. With hour long queues just to check-in to flights. When we finally reached the front of the queue at about 07:45 having queued for 55mins we were told that our flight was delayed (no time given at this point) and that we wouldn't be ale to check in our bags, instead we were given a £4 breakfast voucher and told to come back 135 minutes later at 10am. When we arrived back at 10 the queues had doubled in length and this was the view that awaited us at the HK airlines check-in desk.

Airport chaos!

Well, this time we were able to check in our bags, but instead of an imminent departure we were told that we would not take off until 17:20. With a 2 hour flight up to Shanghai, this meant that we would lose the entire afternoon and have to cram our visits into a smaller timeframe than first thought. Well, as exciting as it was to spend 10 hours of our lives in HKIA we were very relieved to finally take off at about 18:00, some 12 hours after getting to the airport.

Having landed in Shanghai, we headed for the Maglev airport transf train. This is a magnetically levitating train which runs from the Airport into the city and hits rather straightening speeds as it winds it's way towards Shanghai city centre. A short metro journey took us to Nanjing Street East and from here it was just a short walk to our hotel, The Bund Riverside Hotel on Beijing Road East. Once checked in we hit the sack straight away as we knew we would have a busy weekend ahead of us.

Our room

Our hotel room view. (Skyscraper in background is the 'bottle-opener' shaped SWFC)

 On Friday morning, after grabbing some breakfast from an extremely delicious and unbelievable ycheap fresh smoothie bar we headed to the People's Square area of the city which is home to an array of museums, galleries, exhibition centres and green spaces. The sun was out in force and we soon sought refuge in one of the galleries on the square. Our first destination was the Shanghai Art Musueum which is located on the West side of the park and is supposedly home to one of the finest collections of Chinese art in the city. We soon realised that most Chines art either requires a very specific taste, or the ability to read Chinese calligraphy and although there was an interesting exhibition on 'Art and the Railways' on, most of the museum was pretty dull.

Shanghai Art Museum

Painting from Art and the Railways Exhibition

From here we headed further round the park and headed to the Shanghai Museum. This is the city's main museum and contains a number of huge collections including coins, furniture, national dress, painting and most impressively china and bronze-work. This mammoth museum was best attacked in small sections and we decided for the sake of our own sanity not to spend to long getting lost in the huge exhibits. We saw all of the highlights of the museum including some of the best example of bronze work and many other fine artifacts that have been dug up from the tombs on previous emperors, like that which we visited whilst in Beijing.

Ming Dynasty Bronze Work

Qing Dynasty Chineware

After the Shanghai Museum we headed to the excitingly named Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Centre. This building is actually home to one of the finest exhibits in Shanghai and details how the city has expanded from its port roots into the urbanized metropolis that it has become today. The highlight of the centre in the HUGE model reconstruction of the city which shows all of the buildings of Shanghai, including those which are n the process of being built, including the tower which will be the second highest building in the world when it is finished in 2014. The model also goes through day and night as you wonder around its edge to show what the city looks like when the sun goes down. Think Beaconscot meets the 21st century.

The Shanghai city model

Central Business District by night

After the urban planning centre we headed for a spot of lunch at restaurant called Kung-Fu which was located in one of the hundred or so different shopping centres along the main Nanjing Road East which connects the People's Park to The Bund riverside area.

After heading back to our hotel to cool down and have a bit of a rest we decided to cross the river that runs through central Shanghai and head to the Pudong area of the city. This is the main financial and commercial centre of the city and is home to three of the top 10 buildings in the world.

Getting across to the Pudong area would invovle in crossing the river and rather than getting the metro to do this we decided instead to the much discussed Bund Sightseeing Tunnel. This short rail car ride is like nothing I have ever seen before. It was a distressing mixture of It's A Small World in Disneyland and the Wondrous Boar Ride scene from Gene Wilder's version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Our senses were subjected to a number of strange sights and sounds as were descended beneath the river in a small glass box.My photos came out just as I imagined and just how I felt during the ride (slightly disorientated)

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (just never worked out what 'sights' we were supposed to be seeing exactly)

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel

The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel View from car

Oriental Pearl TV Tower

This area of the city had a totally different feel from what we had seen of the rest of Shanghai and as you walked around its huge elevated walkways you felt like you were in a Ridley Scott sci-fi film with the enormous towering buildings, coloured lighting everywhere and huge televisual advertising hoardings.

Self-stitched panorama of Shanghai CBD

We had decided that if we were to go up one of the skyscrapers in Shanghai, we might as well go up the highest, so we sets our sights on the Shanghai World Finance Centre. This bottle-opener shaped building is currently the 3rd highest in the world, however it is also home to THE HIGHEST viewing platform in the world, located on the 100 floor of the building. Having paid our money we headed for the lift which took us 425m up into the sky. This was only to the 94 floor, which is located at the bottom of the bottle-opener section of the building, please look at the photos if you're not sure what I mean by 'bottle-opener' shaped. The view from here really emphasized the size and extent of Shanghai but we had soon had enough of this area and were determined to get to the top of the building to watch the sun go down over the horizon.

SWFC Entrance 

Shanghai World Finance Centre

West view from 94th Floor Viewing Platform

What greeted us on the 100th floor was one of the most breath-taking sights I have ever seen. Watching the sun go down over such an amazing city was indescribable and also unfortunately unphotographable with my meager photographic skills. Much to D's dread there was also a section of floor up here which was glass and through which you could see right down onto the street some 474 metres below. From up here you could see the slight curvature of the earth and as the sun went down, the lights on the cities buildings started turning on to give us a totally view of the city.

A rather disturbing view (And no... I don't mean my legs)

The Jinmoa Tower (foreground) and the Oriental Pearl TV Tower nearer the river

Shanghai at night

Panorama of the city view from the 100th Floor of the SWFC Building

After our trip up the tower we decided that Din Tai Fung was our destination of choice for some dinner. Luckily for us the SWFC lower levels was home to one of the Shanghai branches of DTF (our favourite HK dim sum restaurant). We had another delicious meal here and although the menu was slightly different we still manged to try a number of new dishes, as well as some usual specialities (Xiaolongbao which are Shanghainese soup dumpling and extremely delicious)

On Saturday morning it was time to see some of the more historic areas of Shanghai so we first madde our way to the YuYuan complex which is home to the YuYuam Gardens, tea house and the City God Temple. These were all very busy and although we took time looking around all three, because of the heat and the throngs of tourists we soon decided that it was time to head somewhere a bit cooler.

Inside the YuYuan Gardens and Rockery

Tea House and Zig-Zag Bridge

Inside the City God Temple

We then headed for a spot of lunch at a restaurant that I had found before we left Hong Kong. It was called Whisk Choco Cafe and as you can probably guess from the name, it specilaised in chocolate desserts, as well as having a good selection of Italian style main courses to choose from. We both struggled to pick what we wanted, but both plumped for pizzas. The desserts were even harder to choose, and even with the help of the refrigerated cabinet of puddings, we both struggled eventually going for one called Molten Chocolate Delicious, which tasted as good as it sounds.

Whisk Choco Cafe, Shanghai

As you can imagine, we were both stuffed after our lunch so after a walk back through Shanghai, we made our way back to the hotel where we wanted to catch up with some sleep. This was because we had woken up at 0355 in the morning in order to watch the stunning London 201 Opening Ceremony.

The next day, as our flight wasn't due to take off until 19:00 we decided to visit a couple of new areas of the city that we hadn't visited yet. We first made our way to The Bund, which is the waterfront area of the city abut 5 minutes walk from our hotel. The Bund was originally home to the financial centres of Shanghai (before the development of the Pudong District across the river). It is still home to the original buildings of the era however, and having been in Hong Kong for 5 months it was great to see a city that has protected some of its historical buildings rather than destroying them and covering them with more skyscrapers. From here there was also the best view of the CBD of Shanghai from across the river.

View of Pudong District from The Bund Waterfront

Former Hong Kong Shanghai Bank (HSBC) Headquarters

Financial Buildings on The Bund

Peace Hotel on The Bund

After this trip to The Bund we made our way to the former French Concession area in South-West Shanghai. This area belonged to the French until 1946 when they handed in back over to the pro-Japanese puppet-government who were in place after the end of the Second World War. This was a truly remarkable area of the city and was very much European in style with tree-lined residential avenues and two-floored houses with a definite European style.

European-Style Streets around the French Concession

Within the French Concession is the Taikang Lu area, which is an area full of narrow shop lined streets which specilaised in all forms of Chinese arts and crafts as well as a few typical tourist souvenir shops. We visited a tea shops where we were treated a traditional tea ceremony and were able to try a number of delicious flavoured teas. We spent a couple of hours wondering around the narrow alleys and finally that is was time to grab a bite of lunch before heading back to the hotel and then the airport. For lunch we went for a Thai restaurant which was a real find and mixture of great surroundings ad great food meant we finished of our time in Shanghai in style.

Tai Thai Restaurant in the French Concession

After making our way to the airport we were gutted, but not surprised, to find that our flight was delayed again, this time for 4 extra hours. The oympics and grand prix were on TV which made the time go a bit faster, but still meant that we were not back to the flat in HK until 03:30, with D having to get up at 07:00 to go to work, it was not the real end of the trip that we wanted.

That's it from me for today. My next update will probably be when we get back from Vietnam in mid-August. Until then.... Live long and prosper...