Upon arriving in HCMC we checked into our hostel, realsied that the tour operator was closed on a Sunday so would have to get up early the next day to book the tour we wanted to do in a few days and then headed out for food around the capital of Vietnam. We headed for Zen (a vegetarian restaurant listed in the LP). It was a good price and the food was very tasty, the red rice particularity. After a brief walk around the city we headed back to bed ready for an early start and hopefully the tour operator will be open tomorrow!

We had breakfast included with our accommodation at the Luan Vu Hotel in the form of eggs, bread, jam and coffee or tea, it did the trick to set us up for some sightseeing in the city. First thing we went over to Sinhbalo tours to book our cycling trip in the Mekong for the last few days of our stay in Vietnam and then we were free to explore. First on our list was The Independence Palace, also named The Reunification Palace, it’s an impressive building that has won architectural awards as well as playing part to historic moments in the Vietnamese War. The building itself has been left as it was when the Americans evacuated and the Viet Cong claimed Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. The rooms are set up to be as they were when they were used in the 1970′s so you find an old snooker table, retro furniture, an American replica helicopter sits on the roof and we were able to imagine what it was like in full use back in the day. Some of the rooms were used for entertaining, others for meetings and conferences, the basement though is a great place to explore. We came across the rooms which were used by the South for communications during the war, old telephones, maps, secretarial like rooms and secret meeting rooms for the President of South Vietnam. We could have spent the whole day there photographing as the light was just beautiful inside. We were turfed out though at around midday as most attractions close during the lunch hour.

Following on from here we wandered the streets several times attempting to find The War Remnants museum, it was actually really close to the Independence Palace but the maps confused us and we were quite happy to explore the city anyway. We arrived there during the lunch break so we went to grab some pho (noodles)  at a great little spot around the corner from the War museum. The vegetarian option wasn’t so good but the beef pho was very good indeed.

We went back to the museum for opening at 1.30pm and ended up spending most of the afternoon in there. In the grounds of the museum are tanks, planes and helicopters which were captured during the war. Towards the rear of the museum is an exhibition on the prisons and torture that took place during the war time, which in our opinion was as you would expect particularly one sided as we are sure that both sides committed human atrocities and torture. But as the North Communists won then you can understand the biased opinions. The main thing that attracted us to the museum was the photo exhibition that was mentioned in the Lonely Planet called The Requiem Collection based on a series of images taken by over 100 photographers that died during the war along with a little background info. One telling and very harrowing part of the museum is ‘The Agent Orange Collection’; a vivid portrayal of the lives of many children and parents who have been affected by the use of chemical warfare, many are still suffering from the long term effects of its use by the Americans.

So after spending the bulk of the day there we made our way back to the hotel via other parts of the city and found ourselves picking up a fruit shake at Zen where we ate the night before. It’s a really good vegetarian restaurant down a back street – they’re recommended in the LP.

Later on we packed ready for our cycling tour and then we went out for some Thai food that wasn’t that good to be honest. We keep looking out for decent Thai food but really we should just wait until we get there!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We started the day off once more with the cost effective filling breakfast provided by K’s before checking out to start the first leg of the journey. We anticipated around 5 hours of travel so we were keen to get an early start. Our first train with the JR pass took us out of Kyoto on an express train to Osaka where we changed to go to Shimamiya. From here we had to buy train tickets for another train company which included a long winded train journey into the mountains and finally a cable car connection from Gokurakubashi up to Koyasan. The cable car took around 10 minutes and was a steep track up to a small station which still had the same ticket operating gates you’d see in the metro. You tend to find technology in the most unusual places such as vending machines on your way up to a historic temple, or right on the drive of someone’s house, this is something that always amuses us.

So with a short bus journey to complete our travel to this world heritage site we landed at what we thought was our temple accommodation for the evening. The only problem was that Helen had printed off the wrong temple information, when booking this the agents sent through a list of temples even though we had booked only one, others in Koyasan were included in the email, so we realised we were in the wrong place and they sent us up the road to what they thought was our temple. This was around 15 minutes walk up hill with all of our backpacks with us, arriving at the second temple and we found out that this one wasn’t ours either! Nightmare!! Finally we found our temple and it was right near the site entrance, so it would have been the first stop off the bus and the cheapest fare too!! We managed to laugh about it though.

The temple we were checking into is called Rengejo-in, more expensive than some of the others in town but we had read some good reviews and it was a kind of birthday treat for Dave. We couldn’t get into our room until 3pm so we set out in search of some local world heritage sights. We weren’t disappointed and the light was fantastic with blue skies, bright sunshine and red autumn leaves teasing us all the while. The site closest to our accommodation is called Garan and is a temple complex with several halls and pagodas. The Dai-to (Great Pagoda) is the most impressive and beautiful Pagoda we have so far seen on our travels in Japan. It towers above you in strong golds, oranges and reds and glowed in the sunlight whilst school children sketched their surrounding landscape. There were many pilgrim tours taking place as well as tour groups dropping into the site for the day. We loved photographing around this site and with the addition of red leaves against a blue sky it definitely captured our imaginations.

Walking up from Garan we retreated to the temple as we were keen to get our monies worth here. We were introduced to our grand, traditional Japanese style room by a friendly monk who spoke good English. He informed us about the do’s and don’ts, bath-times, ceremonies taking place and so on. We had an hour or so to settle in before the first ceremony which was a 45 minute meditation session. We drank some tea and kept our legs under the table which sneakily had a heater fixed into it, we had noticed the drop in temperature in Koyasan and the paper thin walls weren’t keeping us any warmer. At 5.30pm we attended the meditation session along with other temple guests. It was a really insightful experience as you only ever go into a temple rather than being part of any kind of Buddhist ceremony. The lead monk introduced the session and told us we would meditate until the incense stopped burning some 40 minutes later. Helen has some experience of meditation from her yoga class back in the UK and a few other retreats but for the most part around 10-15 minutes would be the longest. It was a very long 40 minutes but equally we were surprised that it didn’t feel longer. He finished the ceremony by telling us a few tales about the mountainous area, the importance of meditation and a few other more Buddhist related facts. It was something we will both never forget. Afterwards we were led into the dining room where we sat with the other westerners staying the night. We had something like 9 dishes placed in front of us from fruit, to miso soup, several kinds of tofu, pickles, squash, rice and other things we can’t quite remember.

After a quick chat with a nice Dutch couple we went back to our room, used the onset baths and then settled into our beds for an early night. We were due to rise at just before 6am for the morning ceremony. Not before passing the time by light-painting with our head torch and some fairy crazy moves. Much laughter followed!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Along the train line towards Nara are some recommended walks and world heritage temples to explore. They’re a little further away from the tourist crowds accumulating in Kyoto every day but close enough to stop at a few places in one morning or afternoon. So with another filling breakfast setting us up nicely for the day our first port of call was Inari.

This is only two train stops away from Kyoto and using the JR pass we eagerly set off in-search of more temple goodness. We have had a knack of walking past the places that we want to visit / restaurants that we want to eat at, which as you can imagine becomes something of a running joke between us. This time it almost happened again. A massive bright orange gate opposite the train station exit was almost missed, however we spotted it just in time before heading off down the road in the opposite direction.

Fushimi-Inari is a huge complex of shrines and temples that are a big draw to many worshipers. As Fushimi-Inari Shrine is so big it did not feel too crowded, which is what we like. There is a tunnel of 10,000 orange shrine gates (torii) which form the path up to Mt Inari, 233 meters in height. The 4km path involves steps most of the way up so it also felt like a good workout. Groups of business men in suits were climbing the hill, stopping for beer in the many cafes on the assent to the top, they must have been roasting hot in there clothing attire. Half way up we found a great view of Kyoto city just behind some small shrines, however at the very top there is no view due to trees dominating the summit, Dave was not happy about this! We had a celebratory orange at the top and then headed down. A very worthwhile visit indeed and with free entrance it’s just marvelous. We were pretty intrigued by the small dog statues wearing bibs – this is something to do with having protection from the cold winter ahead. Helen thought they were particularly cute, you may see a few more of these!

One stop back towards Kyoto station we stopped at Kyoto’s largest Buddhist Zen Monastery, Tofuku-ji. This was lovely, really well looked after and some great photo opportunities, just a shame the sky was thick with grey cloud. A look around the gardens and temples and then our stomach’s started to rumble. We headed back to the station where just down the road is a great little organic cafe that sold a mix of Japanese and Korean food.

We made a classic Western error here. Doors can “swing” open as we are used to, but most tend to “slide” open. We tried about three times at pulling and pushing the door, wandering around looking for another entrance and getting mildly frustrated that the door appeared locked, but we could see people inside enjoying their food. Finally we tried the slide method and Hallelluja we were in. We got a few strange looks but we dealt with the shame! We had good portions of sashimi salad and rice for Helen and teriyaki chicken salad and rice for Dave, which we both enjoyed.

After returning to K’s Guest House we had some relax time with a few blog post updates, a cheeky rum and ginger ale (ginger beer is so much better but its hard to find over here) and some snacks from the bar. Helen made a skype call home to the Roscoe’s to brighten up her stay, they were all out in force with the Roscoe-Elwood addition and lovely Sukie smiling and waving away. Much love to them all, Karl was messing around and we giggled lots – missing you all! xx

After the excitement of skype we read about some temple gardens in Kyoto are only open during the evening and decided that a night garden experience was something that we wanted to do. Luckily there was no rain in sight and we easily found our destination; Kodaiji. Using artificial illumination in this garden works brilliantly, red and orange leaves reflecting off the pool waters bring very much of a mystical feel. The bamboo forest was also great with vertical lines shooting up to the canopy above. We both loved it.

For a late night bite to eat we stopped at a cafe and ordered a kind of omelette, rice and sauce. Dave opted for the curry and cheese version which was surprisingly nice and Helen went for a yellow pepper / white bean sauce which didn’t go down all that well, quite bland. The photos might not tell a great story of these, but they were OK and the price was reasonable.

K’s guest house was having a 7th Birthday party so we headed back to our lodgings and joined in the celebrations with a few drinks. Up early tomorrow to leave Kyoto and head to more peaceful and serene surroundings.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)