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Published: August 7th 2006
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Ahhh.....now this is more like it!!!
All of us hangin' pool-side at a resort in Nha Trang. To use the resort it cost a dollar a day...not too shabby!!! Hello everyone... we finished up our last day in Hanoi on a city tour. The tour was not bad although it poured rain at the end of the day, we have a picture, pretty sure you can see the huge raindrops in it. Hanoi has a ton of lakes within the city limits, makes for nice places to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, this is where we took the pic of the rain. The tour showed us multiple temples and pagodas, we learned that pagodas in vietnam are a tribute to buddha, and the temples are tributes to mortal heros. We also visited the temple of literature where Confucious studied and trained his diciples. Our final stop was at the "Hanoi Hilton" which was a prison used to hold american fighter pilots who were shot down during the vietnam war. The vietnamese would rescue the piltos, give them proper medical care and then "lock" them up at this prison. Inside the prison they were allowed to study, cook, read, and play sports, therefore it was nick named the "Hanoi Hilton" by the pilots, they lived a pretty cushy lifestlye.
After Hanoi we hopped on a
And you all thought the weather was nice here??
The day of our City Tour of Hanoi caught us a little off guard!!! We got a tad bit wet that day!!! bus to Nha Trang a beach city in the southern half of Vietnam. Our journey to get here started out in Hanoi, we had planned on stopping in Hue, which is halfway down the coast of Vietnam. We got on the bus at 8pm to start the trip that was supposed to be 12 hours long.... so much for that. There was a bunch of rowdies on our bus drinking, a group of 10, some young, some old and a few parents with young teens. So anyways, the youngest guy maybe 18 was having a few drinks.. he had a nasty infected motorbike muffler burn on his leg by the way. So after the kid had a few drinks one of the adults gave him some pills, we figure pain killers or antibiotics. We just sat back and watched..... about 3 hours into the trip the kid started feeling ill and he developed a major fever. The bus is now in the middle of nowhere and this kid takes a turn for the worst, respirtory distress etc ... the dad realizes his kid is in trouble so he stops drinking to help, but he is too mangled to help him
Rajan and a Saigon Special....
This was his first one....the expression changed after the 5th...sick shit! out. One of their travelling buddies was sober enough to take care of the guy. And to make it even worst...this whole ordeal was happening right in front of Rajan...he was less than pleased to say the least!!! They dropped him off at some random hospital in the middle of nowhere and it took almost 2 hours for the group of ten to sort their shit out... 4 of them ended up staying with the kid, that is the last we saw or heard, but the kid was in pretty big trouble when we last saw him ... stupid parents .......
Anyways, we ended up missing our connecting bus in Hue because of it. As we where sitting in the bus station, having been travelling for 20 hours already, Will looked at the bus board and realized that we could take one more bus and make it all the way to Nha Trang. After a good hour or two of convincing Raj, we sucked it up and took the bus, we had to take turns sitting on plastic chairs in the isle becasue the bus was full by over 10 people. 36 hours after we started we made it
View from our balcony in Nha Trang...
The only problem with this room was the construction that began every frickin' morning at 7am....now come on!!!! here to Nha Trang. Oh My God....finally!!! We all ended up having a mild case of DVT Deep Vein Thrombosis, which is blood clotting in the lower leg due to a lack of activity. We all had swollen feet and ankles, it went away a day later with no problems. The worst case scenario was that the clots moved to our lungs and we die, but that didn't happen :P haha
In Nha Trang we are spending most of our time lying on the beach and eating. They have a little club here where you pay $1 to rent a comfy beach chair for a day and swim in the pool 😊 We met up with Shawna and Adele for a day or two again, before they headed on to Saigon. The next people we met was a family from Holland with 5 kids... Raj and Bryan ended up playing with the kids throwing them around the pool etc, one of the kids was named Ramko, this little kid managed to tire Raj and Bryan out big time, had to take the next day off haha. Will ended up not swimming to much cause Ramko almost drowned him hahha
Yet another Pagoda or Temple...
So many of these Temples and Pagoda's that we don't even know the difference anymore!!! j/k We managed to learn a few dutch words, tell ya when we get back...
One night we met up with some Vancouver guys that we had met in Thailand. A quiet night turned into an all nighter playing foozball and pool and talking to a ton of ppl all over the world 😊 Good times.. After leaving the bar there were 6 of us, we started walking down the road and got swarmed by around 8 Viet guys, hookers, and ladyboys.. this was the craziest thing that has happened to us yet, we had read about the scam in Lonely Planet so we all grabbed our wallets etc. These guy / girls / and combinations of the 2, tried and grab our cash etc, but they start by grabbing everything else "use your imagaintion" .. they are relentless. Rajan ended up wrist locking one of them and throwing him/her (no idea) to the ground, we have to squirm our way home and duck under the gate to our guest house. We had no idea what to do, you cant knock out a girl, you cant tell who is a girl, and if you punch one of the guys
Bryan and Will hangin' outside the Mausoleum
We didn't even know that there was a REAL dead guy lying in there....ewwww! out its likely his buddy has a gun or knife. We are lucky there was 6 of us, and we were all twice the size of them... Earlier on in the night one of the other guys was asked how much cash he had on him, and when he answered a large group of Viets let him go.. if you have a lot they will use a knife / gun to get it from you..... CRAZYNESS.....but in the end....we were all fine and happy to get out of the situation un-robbed!!!
We were scared to leave the Vancouver guy's place but we did and at 5 AM just before sunrise :p We went on a munchie run and found our bread lady haha, every night on the way home at all hours of the night we buy baguettes from here for .15 cents a piece, they are soooo good 😊
Woke up yesterday at 4pm and went for breakfast haha. Then we finally cracked and ate a seafood platter for dinner. We were kinda sketched out, but we have been going to the same restaurant everyday so we know all the staff by name. They gave us a
French Palace
Ho Chi Minh prefered smaller shacks to giant palaces ... deal so we tried it, $9 for red snapper, clams, muscles, prawns, squid and scallops + rice and veges... not bad 😊 The food was awesome, and we ended up not getting sick BONUS haha
Now it is down to 1 more day of chillin in Nha Trang before we head to Saigon for a few days and then back to Bangkok (yet again), thats all for now.. sorry for the lack of pics, unless u wanna see us holding beers by the pool a hundred times over haha ... see you soon 😊..... 9 days or so left!!!
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Nick
non-member comment
A little disappointed...
Where's the newest picture of Bryan getting some action from an animal statue!?!? What the hell... Haha Looks like you boys are having a blast. Not too much longer before yer home, so better get ready for the COLD! I still haven't adjusted to the weather, and it's been a month now.