Archive for December, 2008

I am just back from Halong bay, an area that is vying for status as one of the 7 new wonders of the world. I am hoping that Tooting Bec Lido pips it to the post but I reckon Halong will win.

The great thing about booking a tour on a junk is that you get to bob about right in the middle of Halong bay whilst getting wined and dined, all for the cost of a ticket to see Spurs play at white hart lane. Sitting on the top deck of the boat surrounded by impressive limestone monoliths has become one of my favourite things to do, give me a g&t and it becomes even more fun, then if you have a bunch of good folks on board you get the chance to chat away into the early hours watching the twinkling lights of the other boats reflected in the calm waters of the bay. Not much more I can say about that, I’ll just put up some more pics..

And another one, yup, it’s nice big rocks all the way…

So that’s that – I’m back in Hanoi now building the website for the hotel. I got to rename the hotel too which is nice, they wanted some western name and were going to go for the Birmingham hotel, I suggested that this wasn’t the most attractive name in the world and that they should go for linking up the fact that they have a ‘sword in the lake’ thing going on with our sword in the lake thing. Maybe there should be a global ‘sword in the lake’ collective reaching around the world, speak now all of you that have swords being chucked into your local lakes by ancient types with no care for the environment. I aks you. Anyhow I suggested either the Hanoi Avalon or the Hanoi Camelot, I preferred Avalon but not too many people knew that Avalon was an Arthurian thing, it would probably be more associated with Bryan Ferry – Ferry – Lakes, it all fits somehow.

I’m of to China on Tuesday, until then I’ll enjoy my coffee’s in lakeside cafe’s around here where they intersperse cool jazz with christmas carols. I love it.

At 9am I trot off with Tony to the Police station where he asks me loads of questions that I know are going to be useless in finding my gear. Whoever did this would have slipped into the night with enough gear to keep a family going for half a year in Hanoi, I only hope that that’s what it does do.

So the policeman is serious in the beginning but as the interview goes on he loosens up. In fact he loosens up so much that he starts showing me pictures of his daughter suggesting a liaison, he also suggests that now that he has my email address that he might visit me in the UK. Great I say, bring me my laptop and phone and you’ll get a room for the night with potato pancakes for breakfast. He is obviously over the moon about this because he orders me a beer. It’s 9.30 am by this time but I drink it, I’m giving in to fate by now so why struggle.

The hotel manager is looking worried. His hotel has been slated on the web so he doesn’t need this kind of publicity. He looks more broken than me, so we come to a deal. I get a laptop back and we re brand his hotel, build him a new website and get it listed on the web.

It’s actually a week later as I write this, I’m writing it on my new laptop and he has a website here www.hanoicamelothotel.com – I also had free lodging for the week and as much beer as I could drink, For some reason that I can’t fathom Tony thinks that westerners are fuelled by beer, so he makes sure the minibar never runs out and that my batteries are being recharged.

What a week, all grist for the mill.

I wrote this post after it was all sorted out as I didn’t want to worry the people I love that are reading this blog, but now it’s all over I can look back on it as one of those things that at the time test you, but also get you in touch of a side of a place you would not normally be able to access.

I was out one night watching Cambodia play Mianmar. I have told the Cambodia Football Federation that I can set them up a website so I needed to do some research – like what colours they play in, little things like that.

Anyhow, one thing led to another and I ended up having a fine evening with a Dutch university prof and a few other random people in various bars. I returned to the hotel to find the front door locked, but managed to rouse them with a few knocks on the front door.

On getting to my room I found that my laptop, mobile phone and rucksack were gone. The kind soul that had liberated my gear had been nice enough to dump as much stuff as possible from the bag so I still had most of my gear.

My first thought was that someone from the hotel had tea leafed my gear, so I insisted we get to the police over and get this sorted out. The police arrived in an hour and so I was then in my room with a few deliberating policeman and the manager of the hotel.

Now I must confess that I had left one of my windows open to dry some extremely smelly socks that I had washed. On sober investigation you could see footprints in the balcony of the property next door so it was becoming clear that some rogue had shimmied up the front of the hotel and had swiped my stuff.

I had not been so negligent though. On leaving the room I made sure that the right hand window by the balcony was closed as the left hand window could only be accessed after sliding across a very steep sloping roof. We were also around 20metres off of the ground, so whoever did this didn’t care much for their lives as it took some work to get into the room. I shooed the police, manager and entourage out and climbed into bed, it would be a busy day the next day of interviews with the police and negotiations with the hotel, so I wanted to be up to it – I was also supposed to be going to Halong bay but this cancelled that appointment. For a moment my love affair with Vietnam dried up, but not for long. It’s only stuff.