They keep on coming!......Coincidences!

 Recently my wife and I walked on one of our normal walks along a street called Wicklow St, in Auckland's North Shore.

It has an old bus stop, presumably not used.  Someone has decided it would make a good free library, and you can go there and take books you like the look of.  Eventually the ones we have taken, will be taken back.

My wife got out a book by Cathy Kelly called "Once in a Lifetime".

Upon reading it , she noticed the word Wicklow.  See the pics.

The other coincidence is that our dentist has a first name of Ella, as does the lawyer we just visited.

Yet More Coincidences and a Trip to the Chateau

 First the coincidences:

1. We traveled with 3 other couples, one of whom had a book, written by Fiona ______

Now would it not be strange that our conductresses name was Fiona? No? Oh well.

2. We were about to leave, and were waiting in the lounge and got talking to some people on a bus tour.

Of course they were from Pukekohe, where we had recently spent 4 years.  Then one of their party mentioned he was from Onewhero.  Hmmm.....my wifes father had the general store there years ago.

Yup, just another coincidence.

For us the trip was unusual in that nothing went wrong.  We got on the train at Auckland nice and early.

This is a view of Mount Ngarahoe:

It was a diesel train, but very nicely done out, plenty of legroom and a cafe car and a carriage with no windows so you could feel the air and see the scenery.

The Chateau is an old hotel for New Zealand and has a plush 1930's air about it.  Getting there took most of the day, so just time for a rest and then down to have drinks in the lounge.  They make a top notch Mai Tai.  Then off to the dinner, which was in the price of the ticket.  It all felt 5 Star, what with Venison and a nice desert. The service was excellent.

The next day we just had time enough to catch a bus up to the "Top of the Bruce", which is the start of the ski fields.  There is a beautiful new closed in gondola ride, which we went on.  Just an old fogies note: Normal price is $39.00 per person, with your seniors gold card, it was $18.50, which is a massive and welcome discount.

The terminal at the top is beautifully designed, with wide expanses of glass to catch the views.  Truly a wonderful place for a restaurant and at the time we were there the prices seemed quite reasonable.

No time for lunch unfortunately.

Then on the bus back to the railway station at National Park, the train trip going back spent with playing cards.

Hotel Lounge:

Restaurant at the top terminal:

Hotel Entrance:

Coincidences?

 One of my friends is a skeptic.

All I can say is these coincidences keep on coming!

I am going to try to record them as they happen.

The latest is where I was lent a book by Kathy next door, called the "The Second Sleep".

Which is a novel about a possible future world where we have gone back to medieval ways.

I also started reading "The Longest Day" by Cornelius Ryan.

The coincidence is that the name of the dead priest in the first book is Father Lacy, and that on 

page 162 of The Longest Day, there is a Lieutenant Joseph Lacy, a chaplain.

Auckland needs a new bridge?

So Auckland needs a new bridge? 

Really? 

Where would you put such a bridge and what would it cost? The common answer seems to be a tunnel under the harbour. That is the where, so what about the cost? The Waterview tunnel cost around $1.5 Billion, so the new tunnel would be around that, and take about 10 years to make. 

Such a scheme would produce enormous disruption. At this point, anyone sensible is asking themselves the question: Are there any alternatives?

As it happens, there is. If you think of the shape of Auckland, it is a blob, with 3 connections, The Bridge, New Lynn/Western Motorway, and the Southern Motorway. Each of these is a pinch point. It is the sea that is the cause of all our problems. 

It might be the answer as well. 

The current crisis could be reduced by tucking away the rule book that says you have to be a qualified person to run a ferry. Immediately, any unemployed person with a launch now becomes a transport provider. 

In the future, it may be a lot cheaper to run way more ferries than there are currently. If these were battery powered it would be a clean, green way to go.

We already have a company in New Zealand, Wellington Electric Boat Builders Ltd,

see their site here:

https://www.electricboatbuilders.co.nz/projects

There is the added advantage that these ferries could be built in New Zealand.

Years ago, around the 1960's they had a fast ferry, using hydrofoils.  Maybe this idea needs revisiting, as it would be a way of making trips at such a speed that only silly people would take a car.

Covid-19

Ba Na Hills in Vietnam

Hoi An

This is small town about 30 minutes south of Da Nang.

Very old, and very pretty and has lots of tourists for that reason.

This is a corner that I chose to sit down to wait while certain people got measured up for blouses etc. These were very well put together and quite a reasonable price.

This a typical coffee bar, where we had coffee:

Typical street scenes:

It even has lakes and canals:

You can ride in a rickshaw:

Ba Na Hills

In simple terms, a copy of a French village, built on a very high hill, around 1487m above sea level, ie around 4800 feet. 

The reality is a breathtaking undertaking by someone with a huge imagination. 

First you have a cable car system, amazingly fast, but still takes about 15 mins to get up the mountain. 

They say village, think more like large chateaus and castles. The scale is enormous, and so are the crowds. This in the Vietnamese winter too, so heaven knows what it is like in summer time. 

This is the view you get approaching in the cable car:

There were at least 30 tour buses in the carpark. Lots and lots of themed restaurants, even a hotel or two. A kids amusement arcade that even had a dinosaur collection with moving arms, jaws and dinosaur noises. 

Some nice gardens to visit, even a maze to get lost in. 

At to top, there is a large communal area:

There is even a bridge held up with giant hands:

This is probably one of the hotels you can stay at:

We did not cover every last little thing, as legs and energy were starting to go. You could spend a whole day there easily. It is fairly costly to get in, at 750,000 dong, which is around NZ50.00. The money here is a bit 

While I was there, I suddenly realised most of the people there were asian (!), and that there were no heads with grey hair.  Bald persons were almost non existent!

Not only that, but most were not overweight.  It seems the New Zealand diet could be due for an overhaul?

A Vietnamese Shopping Mall

Today, running out of proper touristy things to do we went to a mall. These look distressingly like the ones in New Zealand. Clothing was cheaper than New Zealand. A turn up and down the supermarket aisle revealed all the same crap we have in New Zealand , just different brands. 

A stop at the coffee shop was a wait of 3/4 of a hour for an iced coffee. 

We go home tomorrow, and although our flight is at 6pm, we have to check out at 12.00 midday. So maybe just a walk around the block one last time in the morning will be in order.

Previous walks have had the definite feeling you were somewhere strange: all the kerbs are sloped, so people can drive their scooters on to the footpath. All good, except all pedestrians are dodging back out on the road all the time.

 The shops and businesses were all strange as well, which adds to the interest.

Da Nang in Vietnam

A four hour trip from Auckland to Melbourne.  Then 8 hours Melbourne to Ho Chih Minh City.
After that 1 and 1/2 hours to Da Nang.

Looks easy written out, just your butt turns to concrete in the process.

The 2 hours in Ho Chih Minh City airport were obviously not sufficient, because you have to factor in the customs and visa checks.

This is a city of 10 million people, and so the airport is a busy one.  The trick is to have an electronic visa done before you go, so all you supposedly have to do is walk up to a Visa window before going to the passport control and have them stamp this.

After queueing for half an hour, the man said no need, just go to passport control.

An hour in the queue for them only to be told no good, and then to be taken back to the visa window to get the back of the visa stamped and initialled.

By which time we start assuming we have missed our connecting flight, so down to get our bags.  Oops, one of them is missing!  It's only a bag, it's only a missed flight, so why stress, but you still do.  Note to self: sometimes travelling is a stressful business, so travelling is to be avoided.

If ever anyone from Vietnam Customs Department ever reads this, please consider:

1. Why not make the customs man stamp the Visa?

2. Your government spends money advertising Vietnam as a destination for tourists, so why make them wait an hour in a queue?

3. If you are trying to create a good impression, might it be an idea to have the customs man give a smile? Even a smirk would do.

So off to the domestic terminal where they say: 6pm flight, its only 10 to 6, sure you can get on that.  Seems they were running a bit late anyway.

This is Da Nang from a distance, to give an idea of size:

We had heard the traffic in Vietnam is a bit different to ours.  

You can say that again, as the trip from the airport to the hotel had the flavour of a race track or dodgems or something like that.  Most terrifying are the intersections where it is a bit like the formations of marching girls where every one is going at right angles to each other and just missing each other.

To go with all this is much tooting of horns.  It takes a while to realize this is not a hostile thing, more of a communication device. 

After being there a while you realize there are rules that they seem to use but from the outside it appears there are none. Never did figure out what they were.

A walk around the block near to the hotel was quite interesting:

Then there was an ultra modern coffee bar, complete with fishpond out the front:

Hue

Our first trip was to Hue, with a driver and a guide. We were with friends who had been there before and they said this was the best way to go. 


So we were introduced to Huyen Trang, and I can recommend her as an excellent guide.  
She lives in Hoi An, which is close to Da Nang, about 20 minutes away.
Her mobile is +84 387 117 888

Here she is, the smile says it all and she is wonderful company.  Not only that, but she went the extra mile on a couple of occasions:

1. I went back to the airport to get my lost bag, but it seems you cannot go from the outside world into the arrival hall for obvious reasons.  But that is where the lost bag office is.....
She was able to talk to the airline concerned and someone came out with the bag.

2. The husband of the friends we with had his wallet stolen while under the dragon bridge.
Yes, everyone but the silly tourists know that the dragon spouts water after the fire!
In the ensuing melee, he had his wallet taken from a pants pocket.
Huyen made several visits to the police station with him to allow him to receive the form that says it was a theft, so insurance claims can be settled. You could almost bet this is a very common occurence when the dragon show is on.

Apart from that incident, it feels like a safe place.

Hue is where generations of kings had their palaces. Each one seemed to have the need to build a palace for themselves, so everywhere seems to be a palace.

Some of them were quite ornate:

The French invaded around 1858 and took over most of Vietnam calling it Indochina. They kept the idea of kings but these men had no real power.

Vietnam seems to have suffered a lot from invading forces. The Chinese ruled Vietnam for at least nine centuries. Then they had the French. Then they had the Americans.  

Then off to the Perfume River to check out a pagoda:

This is a typical restaurant:

My Son

The next day we went to area called My Son.

It was a drab, overcast day, so not shown in it's best light:

This is an area just to the west of Da Nang that was discovered by the French somewhere around 1950s. It is a complex of several Hindu temples.

Built in the 4th and the 14th century by the kings of Cham. 

All built in carved sandstone.

Bomb craters from the Americans are still there.