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Published: June 12th 2011
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It's me again ...I'm alive.
Since my last blog I've bought a bike from a lithuanian girl who was despirate to get rid of it, So I managed to bargin a deal for $100!! Even the Vietnemese think thats cheap so I'm onto a winner.
The rest of my time in Hoi An was with the ladies from Norway, we all manged to get some items of clothing tailored. I got a a jacket and 2 shirts for $90 and they look very good on so i'm very happy. Hoi An is such a cool place and especially good for food and a couple of good nights spots are before and now bar and Europa!! The latter especially as it has an outdoor pool that all can enjoy with fresh beer.
So the tour contnued with Spencer and Terry to Dong Hoi for the next three days, We all had such a good time and I have many moments to think back on. The funniest has to be when a lady thought Martha & Tina were so funny she rushed home to get her best outfit on so she could have a picture will all of us! The
route from Hoi An was spectacular with white sand ocean roads all the way it was like something out of the OC!! We visited some limestone caves and had a boat ride inside them and we also made it to more wartime tunnels, this time much better than Cu Chi However, no shooting range. Some other interesting sights included the De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) and a School used to teach monks targeted by the americans in the war. But a really incredible sight was when we witnessed a monk who was walking from Saigin to Hanoi (1700km) taking one step, bowing to the floor and repeating that process all the way to test his mental strength and to become a well respected monk within vietnam.
Three days came to an end and I could see in Spencer & Terry's faces that they had an awesome time and where very sad to be leaving! We said our good bye's to the ladies as they had to catch a flight in Hanoi and I said goodbye to them after dinner (which the kindly bought me)
I'm all alone now and it has been fun to say the least, Definatley been lost
a few times and I've now become a excellent mime artist, as this is my only form of comunication with some locals. But it has been fun the past three days travelling through no tourist land. At least from now I'll be finding more westerners!! I do miss Spencer & Terry as they made life easy, ordering dinner is a definate challenge now But I'm getting by and it's all part of the experience. I'm so excited to tell all about this when I get home because this whole experience has been the best.
Some highlights from the past few days from Dong Hoi-Vinh-Lam Son-Ninh Binh
Being pulled over by the police and fined 250,000 dong for not having a licence! (I also found out it's illegal for foriengers to drive in Vietnam). Inside I was so scared as they said they were going to take my bike from me in the middle of nowhere on the HCM trail (this was all through an interpretor on the phone by the way) But... thinking on my feet I slip the officer 100,000 dong and hey presto!! what licence??? and I was on my way again.
Secondly I manged
to get the name of a good town that terry recommeded to me and ended up staying in a place called Lam Son! It had one hotel so I had no choice but to stay there. I only found out once I checked in that it appeared to be used by truckers and military officers to take hookers to bed!! I braved it out for dinner only to find nothing open so I hid in my room all night with hookers banging on the door saying " happy ending massage, sir" Don't think I'll be going there in a hurry again.
Finally yesterday taking a complete wrong turn and ending up on what was not a road but a mine field!! Old war ordinance still not recovered and locals were using it like athe M6 motorway. I just rolled with it following every vietnemese person who survived! It was definately not a road but got me to Ninh Binh eventually after about 4 hours with my backside hurting soo much because of all the potholes.
Today my arse is still killing me, I took the day off riding and saw some of the sights of Ninh Binh. But
time is now lacking and it's time to move on northeast to Haiphong and Cat Ba Island so I can access Halong Bay!!
see you all soon
chris
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