Sand, Sun, Sea and Cycle Tour Preparation

The town of Mui Ne in Southern Vietnam is basically a road along 10km of beach with a recurring Flintstones-like backdrop of clothes shops and seafood restaurants.

We arrived there by bus in the week long holiday of Tet (Lunar New Year) with a tentative guesthouse booking, which we didn't trust at all, and an optimistic plan to check into the nearest place we found. It turns out Mui Ne is completely packed over the holiday and after a sweaty walk to well over 30 full guesthouses we thought we'd give our original booking a shot. Unbelievably they'd saved our room even without a deposit. Chuffed we were!

The town is world famous for kite surfing, and on a breezy day you can see hundreds of kites over the sea each attached to a happy little Russian adrenaline junky. To learn ourselves was a bit too much of a strain on the dwindling moneys so we went for a slightly more frugal windsurfing lesson instead. It's really difficult. I never really got the hang of the yoga-like balance control it requires but Kath managed some smooth sailing between some hilarious flops. Unfortunately our second lesson was called off due to lack of wind which is apparently quite useful for windsurfing.

Kite surfers sure be crazy

Each morning in Mui Ne we could roll out of bed, grab a fruit salad and have a dip in the sea so we got tempted into stopping for a few extra days. How could we fill our days though? Oh yeah, with ostrich riding! Well, that didn't actually take that long - but it was weird and fun and only a tiny bit guilt inducing. Then there was the staple of beach towns everywhere; mini-golf. This time an awesome-hat-required tropical version. We also went sand-sledging on the Red Sand Dunes in the north of town, which is like snow-sledging where instead of getting cold and damp you get hot and sand in your pants.

Kath over par and still smiling

Even further north there are the White Sand Dunes - notably more white and less red than the Red Sand Dunes. This little desert area is quite popular for cheesy Vietnamese pop videos because it's incredibly beautiful and serene when you're not riding a quad bike through it. Which we did. We didn't dare go as fast as some crazy Vietnamese children though! There is just no health and safety here at all...

So fun

We took some time for a little culture so cycled up to see some serious looking Champa towers which are remnants of a civilization that was wiped out by the Khmer and Vietnamese a long time ago. Not too much is known about the civilization as they wrote stuff down on leaves which didn't weather too well. Near the Red Sand Dunes is a fishing village that manages to be amazing by its size and weirdness. The sea here is full of tub-like fishing pods which are occasionally rowed about by a fisherperson with huge nets, somehow avoiding getting themselves tangled up like a kitten in wool.

Fishing village, Champa tower and a cow road block

One of the biggest inspirations for coming to Vietnam, or traveling in the first place was the Vietnam Top Gear special where Clarkson and crew buy mopeds and ride up the coast road. This episode must have sailed a thousand Honda Wins, but we couldn't get travel insurance to cover us on motorbikes, so we settled on a new plan; bicycle touring!

To prepare, we got a bus back to Saigon which was rather more busy now the Tet holiday was over. Crossing the road in the city is an experience in itself; you have to walk through the traffic like a stone in a river - letting the figurative water filter either side of you. Although never go near a moving bus. Those things are nuts.

Enjoying Saigon's weird keep fit machines, make your own spring rolls, cool little alleyways and confused looking telecom engineers!

We got a month extension each on our visas which thankfully only cost $56 in total, so this would give us 5 or 6 weeks to try and get as far north as possible (can always stick a bicycle on a train). The problem is, bicycle touring is not a big thing here as Vietnamese people sensibly use mororised transport to lug stuff about. The bicycles here are usually, at most, 7 speed city bikes and not suitable for long distance travel. Therefore, we had to bodge stuff together from all over the city on a pretty tight budget.

After much getting lost due to slightly innacurate free city maps, we found a few places that sold suitable gear, did lots of price checking and research and eventually bought the following:

- Martin 107 in District 3 sold us two Asama Cross LX hybrid bicycles ($225 each). The suspension isn't great but each has mudguards, 21 gears, a rack and good brakes. Also they came with free ponchos to keep our luggage dry and a spare innertube (actually that cost $2).

- CAT (across the road) sold us a bunch of gear like helmets ($25 each), rear lights, combination lock, multi-tool (including chain tool), pump, puncture repair kit, bottle cages and a saddle bag.

- The upmarket and expensive Saigon Cycles in District 7 was surprisingly understocked. However, we both bought much needed padded bicycle shorts ($35 each) and a couple of bungee cords. A motorbike mechanic actually gave us another free bungee cord later that day as well.

- Saigon Square market in District 1 turned out to be good for a man's long sleeved sports top and sports bras.

- The tourist Ben Thanh market in District 1 sold us a good quality headtorch in case we got stuck stuck out at night.

- The Russian market, also in District 1, was fantastic for getting a good quality small cycling rucksack and a woman's long sleeve wicking top.

- Artbook, again in District 1, had a decent, albeit expensive, road map.

We were considering a tandem tour but we didn't because... we didn't want to.

We were relieved to find that our main backpacks fit perfectly onto the bike rack provided so no panniers were necessary. These backpacks have definitely been one of our favourite travel items. They are both Osprey Farpoint 40l bags which handily open like a suitcase for easy packing, fit into both airline overhead storage and under your seat on a crowded bus - and now, with the straps zipped away neatly, they fit on the back of a bicycle. We really love our bags.

In total the preparation cost us about $350 each (about £210) but hopefully it will be an investment for an interesting and challenging adventure that is different to the usual travellers route. As a symbol of our new adventurous spirit, and to save quite a bit of weight, we left our Lonely Planet book in Saigon as we pedalled off into the sunrise.

- Jon

Celebrating Tet in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

The Vietnam border crossing was our simplest yet - we managed to catch a bus not normally used by foreigners and so had an unusually short stress-free border stop (without any tourist traps) before being welcomed to the country with the legendary Vietnamese dish phở (beef noodle soup, with a ton of fresh herbs, lime and chilli).

Can Tho, our first stop, is in the middle of the Mekong delta in South Vietnam and famous for its floating markets, where hundreds of boats gather each morning to trade fresh fruit and veg. Fuelled by the ubiquitous Vietnamese coffee, which is extremely strong and sweet (sort of like Stay Puft from Ghostbusters), we took a dawn boat trip to see the action and visited a little rice noodle factory while we were at it. The process is quite different to spaghetti - rice flour batter is cooked like pancakes and then dried in the sun, before being fed into something not unlike an office paper shredder to cut the noodles. We even got to meet the factory mascot - an albino hedgehog!

A Can Tho Attitude

We arrived in the week leading up to Lunar New Year (known as Tet) - when Vietnamese people often go to stay with family in their home towns, with the result that the smaller towns fill up with people from the big cities. Can Tho and Ben Tre, our next Delta stop, are described as 'quiet' by the guidebooks but the brilliantly bright seasonal flower markets were brimming with thousands of people, often weaving through on mopeds laden with bonsai trees in a chaotic and deafening fashion. Everyone was enjoying the festival atmosphere, and when we were drawn to a tempting food cart selling sticky coconut wafers, the merry people around it decided to treat us to some and chatted to us happily, despite us not speaking one another's languages.

We felt more integrated into the crowd than we had in Cambodia, perhaps because of the festival busy-ness making us stand out less. Instead of being hassled by tuk-tuks and souvenir stalls we were largely ignored. This didn't feel unfriendly and was a welcome relief. When we did show interest in products the people were happy to help and joke around (one lady thought our attempts to indicate a quarter kilo with hand gestures was particularly hilarious, and another guy saved us from eating a bright orange fruit intended solely for decorative purposes).

We toured the beautiful waterways around Ben Tre; quickly visiting a brick kiln, eating our way through a large Elephant Ear fish, listening to a pretty good local band practice (who keep the neighbouring restaurant owner awake at night) and then seeing a coconut candy workshop. Coconut candy is amazingly chewy and sweet, like soft nutty toffee, and is made from coconut milk mixed with local palm sugar and malt, sometimes with an added bonus of peanuts or chocolate. This process of turning coconuts into sweets is all done on one site with the aid of some alarming tools, including a machete embedded in the ground for tearing the husks off and a grinder to remove the flesh!

Mekong Delta in bloom

I had a great time getting stuck into Vietnamese food (not literally), which is fresh, cheap and very varied. While rice dominates in Laos and Cambodia, noodles, pancakes and dumplings play greater roles in Vietnamese cuisine. We messily tried Bánh xèo – a crispy pancake with meat and veg, eaten by wrapping a chunk in lettuce leaves with mint and dipping in fish or sweet chilli sauce. Bánh bao is Jon's new favourite snack - a large Chinese-style steamed pork bun, often with boiled quail eggs inside and available everywhere.

Top-left: A street pancake pizza fusion!
Bottom-left: Bánh xèo pancake construction
Right: Frog - the exact texture and flavour of chicken

Ben Tre town lacked any kind of English language travel agent so when it was time to leave we were lucky to happen across an out-of-the-way coach depot which ushered us and our bags on to a bus that departed instantly. Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City (also still known by its older, more famous and exotic name of Saigon), we were pleasantly surprised. It's Vietnam's largest metropolis, but feels more green and spacious than the comparatively crowded Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Even bearing in mind that many people had left the city for Tet (and many businesses were indeed closed) it was calmer and friendlier than the urban insanity we had been told to expect.

Our first night in Saigon was Tet Eve, the last night of the lunar calendar and the night of the biggest celebrations. We hadn't known in advance, but while we had been looking around some of the impressively colorful, horsey street decorations (2014 is the year of the horse) we met a Canadian-Vietnamese couple who told us about the midnight festivities taking place by the river.

We headed down that evening, joining a mass of people that grew steadily more dense, until we had to hold hands to keep from getting separated and even the moped riders parked up and went on foot. At the riverside there must have been a hundred thousand or more, all eating and drinking in a much less raucous fashion than they would have been back home. There was only one block of portaloos nearby - we queued for over an hour, but thankfully were out before midnight. The ensuing fireworks display was the most protracted and lavish I have ever seen, going on for over 15 minutes and including huge rosettes, colourful flares and golden falls of sparks.

We stayed in Saigon for a few days, mostly visiting some of the hundreds of cafés in the central District 1, where the backpacker streets are situated. We had been hoping to add another month to our visas, but with all government offices along with most other places closed for the holiday we were resigned to checking out the tourist markets and drinking matcha (Japanese style drink made from powdered green tea, one of my favourite things).

Tet celebrations in Saigon

There was a tiny bit of drama on our last night when we returned to our guesthouse to find the shutters down and the entire Ho Chi Minh City fire department watching a chip-pan esque fire raging in the eatery next door. We sat on a wall across the road, mulling over the prospect of our belongings, passports and money potentially going up in flames. Fortunately it didn't come to that as once a few gallons of water had been emptied into the building, the inferno was quenched and all was well.

- Kath