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Published: September 28th 2010
Me on the boat
Engrossed in my book - again!!We are now a little behind with blogging since we have been spending quite a lot of time with Scott & Sara, a couple from Chicago, and have therefore happily had less time available to cogitate upon our travels.
25 September 2010
A couple of days ago Owen, our host, asked us if we would like to go on a snorkelling tour and we said that we might be interested if other people from the hotel were going. We then completely forgot about it until last night as we were coming in from dinner. Owen told us that another couple from the hotel were going on trip this morning and asked if we would like to join.
So, the obligatory early rise later and we were once again in a battered old minibus. We did a circuit of the city hotels and then stopped in front of a shop/house (they are more often than not one and the same thing here) where our guide collected food, towels and snorkelling gear for a trip. Shortly afterwards, we arrived at the harbour. This place was extremely busy, filled with hawkers as well as people working on and trying to get
Modelling
Summer Fashions 2011 - its going to be a big look next year to the boats. Amongst the frenetic activity were boats being filled with large sacks - we presumed rice - and other goods and lots of tourist vessels being loaded with lunch, water and, of course, beer. Once the boat was ready, we headed away from the constant tooting of motorbike horns and cries of “hello…where you from?” and towards an altogether more relaxing day.
We stopped in three different locations and saw beautiful coral reefs amongst which all manner of colourful (and not so colourful) fish ducked, dived and weaved their way through life. Of course, our boat was one of many holding a cargo of divers, snorkellers or none swimmers who got their glimpse of the under water world from a glass bottomed boat.
On the trip were 7 other people and we got talking to three in particular - Marie from Dublin and Scott & Sara from Chicago. As the trip came to an end we arranged for them to come to our end of town for dinner as Scott and Sara were keen for some seafood which is, apparently, harder to find at the tourist end of town.
We had a lovely evening with
all three of them - more massive prawns and a few beers - and, since Sarah and Scott have similar plans to us for moving onwards, agreed that we would meet again tomorrow in order to organise moving on to Dalat together. Dalat is the destination of choice since it is in the hills and is therefore said to be much cooler than anywhere that we have been so far in Vietnam.
26 September 2010
Today was one of our slower days. We had a late morning swim and then sat in the lobby of our hotel, catching up on admin and watching the world go by. Sara and Scott arrived in the early afternoon and we all decided that we needed lunch so we headed around the corner to a local eatery where we enjoyed yet more beautiful food and great company. Later, we returned to the hotel and the guys had a beer before we all headed to the beach for another swim.
It was around 4pm by this time and the beach was absolutely packed with locals. We all left our valuables in the hotel safe and, since they had come out for the
day, Sara and Scott had a bag with them. Whilst we were standing in the sea talking, Sara noticed that a couple of young lads seemed to be paying the spot that we had left considerable attention and then suddenly they had grabbed her bag and were making off along the beach. Gregg and Scott gave chase and hadn’t got very far before the boys dropped the bag (in a hole that seemed to have be pre-dug for exactly that purpose) and ran off.
Gregg & Scott were pretty impressed with themselves for having stopped these would be thieves in their tracks at a good 20metres distance. It was then that we noticed that a policeman with a gun had also been giving chase - perhaps Gregg & Scott weren’t as much of a force to be reckoned with as they had initially thought!
Fortunately, nothing had been taken from the bag and all was well but this serves as a reminder to us, and anyone reading this who is currently travelling - take the bare minimum to the beach and be particularly careful when it is crowded.
After this excitement, we returned to the hotel for
another beer and then all headed in to town as I had a couple of books that I wanted to exchange at a book exchange I had noticed a few days before. It took us forever to find this book exchange since it was, by then, dark. Unfortunately, when we finally found it, the shop was shut which left me without a book to read. This isn’t actually such a bad thing because I am completely antisocial when engrossed in a good book.
Having been eating very cheaply around our hotel for the last few days, we splashed out on burger (chicken & pesto - with cheese????) and Sauvignon Blanc for dinner and then returned to our hotel to pack and prepare for our next bus ride tomorrow. Gulp…
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