brief encounter with beauty

Monday 17^th August 2015

The night bus was supposed to arrive at 6am but I knew that wasn’t going to happen when I woke up around 4am and we still had (according to goggle maps) more than three hours to go. Eventually to long before 7am the driver shouted Ninh Binh and turfed us out on the side of the road.

It was 3km to the hostel so we jumped in a taxi and were soon checked in the dorm was full so I was upgraded to a private room which was pretty nice and had fantastic views! After a quick shower I had breakfast and then chilled out for a short time.

Ninh Binh was the place I was most excited to see so I was disappointed that the river trip I wanted to do was quite far away. But there was one right on my doorstep and it was super stunning it was only 90minutes but that was enough as the combo of extreme heat no sleep on the bus and my throbbing arm was making me wish for the cool ac room.

The boat went up river for about 12km through three caves and then back the same way the natural landscape was amazing and the river was fairly quiet except for the many boats touting beer and other cold drinks.

Back on land I looked through my photos and uploaded some to fb then went and ate pretty much the worst meal I’ve had in Asia before crashing and watching a film.

In the evening we found a nice little restaurant that whipped me up a delightful tofu and noodles dish then I had an early night

hospitals hospitals hospitals

Friday 14^th August 2015

After a sleepless night I got up with my arm bulging out of my splint and my fingers all looking like fat little sausages they were so swollen. I got myself sorted for the bus to Hue which was three hours of painful bumpy roads I arrived in heaps of pain and hearing all the horrors people were telling me about fucking my arm permanently I was seriously considering moving my flights and coming back to the UK early.

I spoke with my insurance and they needed a full medical report so off I went to the hospital. Thankfully it was only 20mins walk away but it was hard to find the right place and after walking around dazed for a while a security guard picked me up on his scooter and drove me to the right place.

I arrived five minutes before they closed and luckily Dr Hu agreed to see me (he is my new favourite person) he took one look at my x-ray which he declared crap then said the splint was crap (and was mortified a Dr gave it to me)

Soon enough I was having more x-rays which confirmed a radial fracture. After some hideously painful manipulation my arm was wrapped up in a pop cast and will be for the next 8 or so weeks!!!

I headed back to the hostel but had to return in the morning to check the cast and collect my medical report. Once I arrived back I went and got dinner with a few others and then crashed when we got back.

Saturday 15^th August 2015

I was happy that I slept well last night and woke up feeling pretty good. I got dressed which took an age and I couldn’t do up my shorts one handed luckily I don’t care what I look like as I can’t tie up my hair and look like medusa.

I headed to the hospital and got a muffin along the way as the hostel said I couldn’t have the free breakfast because my room was too cheap… I got to the hospital and didn’t have long to wait before the Dr saw ne he was happy with the cast and issued instructions to wriggle my fingers and thumb and to keep an eye out for swelling.

Then I had to wait for more than an hour as the card machine was broken but eventually they had it sorted and I was free to go. I walked back to the hostel via the post office for stamps and then went and got some food before walking around the imperial city.

I didn’t get much out of it as it was superhot and my sling was cutting into my neck so after a couple of hours I retreated back to the hostel.

In the evening I booked a night bus to Ninh Binh for tomorrow and went to an Indian restaurant with some friends

Sunday 16^th August 2015

Today was a write off I pretty much woke up and hung out in the room until checkout then went and ate a long lunch before heading back to the hostel to sit and wait for a bus to Ninh Binh. Whilst I was waiting I received a call from the medical team responsible for accessing my insurance claim. They believe that my arm requires surgery and so I need to cut short my time in Ninh Binh and head to Hanoi for yet another medical assessment.

I got on the bus feeling pretty low about the turn of events and to make things worse I got really travel sick and didn’t really sleep.

beaches, bicycles and broken arms

Wednesday 12^th August 2015

I had a bus to catch at 8am this morning so was up and stuffing my face full of eggs and pancakes far earlier than I wanted to be. I checked out and then headed down the road to the bus which bizarrely was a sleeper bus but this time I was on a bottom bunk.

The drive to Da Nang only took about 45 minutes so I was there before I had a chance to think about it. I got off the bus and walked for about 15minutes to the hostel which was tiny with just two rooms but the rooms are huge. I chucked my things in a locker and then set about trying to find a bike to rent.

There was only one at the hostel and as there were two of us we needed another we ended up going on this wild goose chase to find bicycles only to end up back at the hostel after giving up so that we could hire a scooter instead. We walked into the hostel and there were two bikes there but no staff.

We waited an age and eventually the girl appeared it seemed she had been asleep somewhere. We hired the bikes and headed to the Lady Buddha statue which is huge she stands at 75m tall and is 17 stories high apparently each level is dedicated to a different Buddha but unfortunately they wouldn’t let us inside other than on the ground floor.

The cycle there took about 40minutes thankfully only the last part was uphill as I had a flat tyre and it was proving difficult to get moving upwards. At the same place there is also a beautiful pagoda with many statues and bonsai trees as well as a fantastic view.

We stayed there for about 90minutes and then free wheeled down the hill and stopped at the beach for the remainder of the afternoon. It was still really hot but the sun was behind the clouds which made laying out a bit more pleasant. We stayed there until about 6pm laughing at the hilarious music booming out of the loud speakers and watching the scores of people out for an early evening swim.

Back at the hostel we showered and then walked a few blocks over to a vegan place I found on line the food was pretty fantastic and we had the whole place to ourselves so service was quick.

Back at the hostel I spent time uploading ever more pictures and reading before heading to bed.

Thursday 13th August 2015

This morning we set out on another adventure on the bikes first of all we stopped off to sort out bus tickets and then cycled about 12km to the marble mountains which aren’t really mountains but rocky outcrops. We paid to get in which for once was cheap as chips and then walked up the 100 or so steps to the top.

At the top there are four caves and a bunch of pagodas which I spent about four hours exploring it was super beautiful and I took a ton of photos. I climbed back down and got back on the bike and cycled back into town and out the other side to the other beach where we sat in chairs reading for several hours

On the cycle back disaster struck when I got knocked off my bike and wrecked my arm, knee ankle and shredded my foot. The arm was the worst. I walked back to the hostel where the girl got me ice and her dad who is a Dr before he even looked at it he said I needed an x-ray which was right around the corner it showed it was broken so he arranged a splint for me.

Once that was down I got some food and headed to bed in agony

Hoi An

 Monday 10^th August 2015

The night bus arrived in about 2.5 hours late but it actually made things better for us to not arrive at 6am we had a hotel transfer which we all piled into only to be taken back to the bus station to pick more people up and eventually get to our hostel. We couldn’t check in until about 11am so I went out to find some food with one of the guys from the bus.

We found a little café in the ancient city and after eating took a walk around for a few hours we didn’t have the ancient city ticket so we couldn’t go inside everywhere but popped our heads through the door and carried on. Around 10.30am we started back to the hostel where we had to hang around for about an hour before we could check in and the staff were super rude about it.

Eventually we could get into the room I dumped my bag and got changed and then went with a couple of other people to rent bikes to cycle the 4km to the beach. The ride was easy it’s a straight flat road so didn’t take much time but when we arrived there seemed to be a bit of a scam to pay to park we did it as it was cheap and that seemed the safest way to ensure our bike didn’t ride away.

We arrived about midday and spent most of the day swimming and sunbathing I took a book from the hostel which kept me occupied and I enjoyed getting a bit more bronzed. Around 4.30pm we set off back to the hostel where I had a shower in a dingy bathroom with a grey towel (this hostel is the worst in Vietnam!!!) and then chilled out a while before dinner.

We went to an India restaurant for dinner which was amazing and the portions were huge and delicious which was just what I needed. After we ate we walked around the ancient city for a while before heading back to the hostel feeling pretty exhausted.

Tuesday 11th August 2015

This morning I woke up and wanted to sleep more but it was one of those days were sleep eluded me and so I got up and had breakfast. It was an all you can eat buffet and I ate all I could eat. After breakfast I booked my next bus and then rented a bike to go to the beach.

We went to Cua Dai Beach which was about 7km away from town and was much smaller than the other one it was a pretty beach but the coastline was clearly suffering from erosion and there was sandbags along long stretches of sand.

We set up a little place on the beach under some trees and spent an enjoyable few hours reading in the sunshine. After a bit a couple of girls I met in Dalat arrived and we sat and talked to them for quite some time before they had to head off and onwards to their next destination.

We stayed sitting on the beach for quite some time and headed back into town around 4pm. After a quick stop at the hostel we went to the ancient town to a café we had been told about at breakfast. It was called reach out café and is run by deaf and speech impaired locals. It’s a silent café and all ordering etc. is done by hand gestures, writing things down and little wooden blocks with words on.

It was a really tranquil place to sit and drink several pots of tea and eat plates of cookies for an hour or so. Afterwards I walked back to the hostel via the post office to post some postcards and then back to the hostel where I had a shower and chilled out before dinner.

This morning at breakfast I had overheard a girl talking about a vegetarian restaurant and had asked her where it was. It was an amazing little place and I had a huge bowl of pumpkin it was so exciting! All the food was Vietnamese but without the stress of making sure it didn’t contain fish so was an absolute win after eating we just headed back to the hostel and I read until late.