WORLD OF WILL

We left Hano i on the 6.30am train to Sapa. Lots of travellers seem to prefer the overnight sleeper train but we thought we'd rather spend the ten-hour journey seeing some countryside and mixing with the locals o n the day train. Plus it was a third of the price. The journey's soundtrack is prov i ded by th e men in the carriage and their incessant hawking up and spitting out of phlegm. Entertain ment comes in the form of a never-ending barrage of women who board the train at each stop (sometimes through the window) selli ng steamed rice, crumbly bread, b oiled egg, gnarly fruit and corn on the cob. What a local pays for these items is very muc h different to what a tourist is charged. Even the official snack trolley guy invents a whole new price structure when approaching a Westerner. With all that food coming aboard, the floor of the train looks like a compost by the end of the journey - complete with cockroaches. Another minor annoyance is that Vietname se people don...

From Nha T rang we flew north. It's worrying when the folding table in front of you is missing a few screws and can barely support your in-flight breakfast. It makes you wonder what else on the plane isn't properly attached. We somehow managed to reach Hanoi without falling out of the sky, so that was a relief. After a o ne-night stopover we got a bus to Halong. The four-hour trip just flew by in the company of a South A frican guy, in his late fifties, who was very knowledgeable ("Do you know there is soya in asphalt?"; "D o you know that the Mexicans have fixed-term marriage contracts?"; Do you know I once had coffee that was made from beans that had passed through a cat?") and his little Cam bodian girlfriend who must spend her entire time being bombarded by his random facts. He was also fluent in several languages which meant he could bamboozle the French couple across the aisle and the Spanish couple at the back aswell. By the time we reached...

We left Mui Ne with screaming hangovers. Exactly what you want for a 5 hour bus journey up bumpy coastal roads. We headed to Nha Trang which is much bigger than Mui Ne but is still essentially just a resort for tourists. Only here they hail mostly from Australia. And in place of noodles and soup stalls ther e are pizzas and steakhouses. Everywhere. It's all a little bit fake and unreal, even down to the Ali ce In Wonderland- style topiary that lines the seafront. We braved an excursion out to the islands. I say braved because we were on a knackered old boat staffed by ove r-enthusiastic tour guides who wanted us to have a 'crazy time, yeah!' and tried to whip everyon e up into a frenzy of faux fun. First stop on our wild and wacky boat trip was an aquarium. Party time! Next we went to a sort of floating pontoon from which you could hire a jetski , go parasailing or try snorkelling. I don't think the Vietnamese ha ve a word for health and safety. One Japanese couple ...