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Published: October 8th 2011
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We left Hoi An for Quy Nhon on the overnight sleeper bus on Wednesday 28 September. We were picked up by two men on motorbike taxis, who would take us to the bus stop. Chris let Natalie have the ugly one, just to brighten up the short journey and her face was priceless!
Once on the bus, we soon realised we should've got there earlier. The last two seats were what the other passengers had nicknamed, The Love Cave! It was practically the boot of the bus which had been converted with five beds! We shared the love cave with 3 vietnamese men, Chris had the honour of being the one next to them as Natalie quickly chose the window seat! One of them slept talked for most of the journey and even
started to snuggle up to Chris! A quick
prod and he shifted his body around
soon enough.
After an unusual five hour drive it was
our stop off. At this point we realised that the bus door had been held shut by a curtain the whole trip. The curtain tied the door handle to one of the beds and left a
nice breeze. This was the moment Chris
lost his flip flops as when he put them down to wear them, the bus bounced and knocked them where the lovely breeze was coming from! The driver did nothing but laugh, he certainly wasnt going to stop anyway.
Once again at the drop off point we were surrounded by motorbike taxis, we got a
taxi again and headed for our hotel. The taxi driver didnt speak much english which meant that he didn't have a clue which hotel we wanted! He dropped us off at one place, we were tired so we took it! It wasn't a five star hotel but for £3 each a night we didn't complain! Our room also came with a sea view.
In the morning, we wanted some breakfast so we went for a walk down the mile-long coast in search for food. What we had for breakfast that morning should not be allowed, chips for Natalie and stir fried noodles for Chris! They didn't have a breakfast menu at all and couldnt understand we wanted eggs, bread, something that is classed as a morning meal.
That morning we went all the way down the coast to see what was on offer, rented another
scooter and jetted off around the beach! The sea was covered with fisher boats in one area and many men were coming out of the water with heaps of crabs and fish! We think they were more interested in us though as we quickly realised that we hadn't seen any westerners for the whole day. This was the case for the whole time we spent there we didn't see a single foreigner.
We were greeted like celebs when we
went out for a meal, with the odd local
shouting "hello!" at us as we strolled past.
The meal we had that night was one of
the best. The portions were fit for a party of 5! We had egg fried rice, steamed mussels, beef noodles and French fries! The best part was that the waitresses kept refilling your glass with the local 25p beer...result!
The skies were bright blue the following day and it was scorching hot. We had the beach to ourselves and relaxed until our bus was ready in the afternoon! We almost missed this bus but fortunately the hotel called the taxi back to pick us up.
Nha Trang was the next destination for our trip and
in our eyes one of the best! We arrived in the evening so we dropped our bags and went for the sports bar! It was called Quavas and it didn't take long for Chris to find it! It was filled with foreigners and had a great atmosphere, so much so, that we went the next night aswell to catch the Merseyside derby and the United game!
Before the football, we hopped onto a sunbed in the morning to catch a few rays and chilled out on the beach! The beach was perfect, white sand, distant islands Natalie was in her element!
Our last day in Nha Trang started off quiet, we couldn't really afford a snorkelling trip as we were saving ourselves for the islands in Thailand but we were recommended the spa resort. It started with a mud bath, which we shared with a Chinese couple, where we soaked our skin for 15minutes. We then washed this off in a mineral shower before having our skin jet washed (very painful) then relaxed in a hot bath for another 15 minutes. Finally we had unlimited time in the pool which was just a hot bath but it gave you the
opportunity to swim round and float on top of the water. All this had created two very chilled out flashbackers!
Now because we were at a spa resort we couldn't exactly miss the opportunity of getting a massage whilst we were there. We paid £3 each for an hour long massage and if we're honest they should
have paid us for the experience. If you like having people trample over your back, snap your neck and pound your muscles with their elbows, this would be your thing. It was brutal, we thought we had said something out of line or they thought we were American, something to explain such punishment! We were relaxed afterwards to be fair but there must be a gentle way.
In the night, we went for a walk around town looking for somewhere to drink, in one backpackers bar we noticed two lads we were speaking to in the sports bar the night before. Adam and Mike are two brothers from Manchester, Mike was a
United fan and Adam a Liverpool one!
Straight away the banter started, it was
all harmless and great to see how
football can bring people into
conversation. They were really nice
and
very interesting! They go away abroad
together almost every year and they have
been to some really fascinating places!
We were swapping travel stories most of
the night and had a great time speaking
to them! They kindly bought us a couple
of drinks aswell which was great!
On Monday we were on the move again,
this time heading to Mui Ne. There were
many reasons for our trip here, firstly we
wanted to see the sand dunes! Here you
can quad bike up and down the dunes
and even sand sledge down them as
well! Natalie got over her driving fear and
had a whizz on the quad bike, Chris felt
safe as there wasn't anything to crash
into! After the dunes we were taken to
the fairy spring which was nothing
exciting, it's a shallow stream that takes
you to the red dunes and White dunes.
At the fairy spring a local kid showed us
the way around but had the cheek of
demanding a tip at the end of it. If
someone does something nice over here
it always comes at a price. We had one
man in Nha Trang, who was very kind
and spoke
great English, he told us
where to grab a sunbed then made us
feel guilty by saying he hadn't eaten last
night!
On our first night in Mui Ne we bought a couple of beers and sat outside our room
and talked about the crazy things we had
done in our first month!
Saigon will be our next entry and it's an
interesting one!
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