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Published: October 29th 2006
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yummy
Dessert wrapped in banana leaves Its been a couple of days since my last update and lots to share with you all. First of all, I had the pleasure of a vietnamese hair cut . Now, this wasnt any old regular haircut i must say. For the price of $2.50 you get a shampoo and hair cut and face and head massage for 1 hour. Now when I say face and head massage i am talking about a trip to heaven. Soft , warm hands with multiple sesations of lotions, hot and cold and fingers pressing on pressure points on the face and head I never knew i had. Then to top it all off i had strips of cucumber layed all over my face straight out of the freezer. What a rush. Wrinkles disappear for all of 2 hours until the hot sun warms everything up again. Drats. I had no idea all this was going to happen when i walked in for a haircut but you can be sure I will be heading to the barber shop as often as i can. Skin head here i come hahaha.
Friday night i decided to head to the beach and a weekend in beautiful Nha
Trang which is north of Saigon , on the coast with a lovely 5 km long beach to play on. It was nice to get out of the chaos and traffic of Saigon i must say, however, there was a heavy price to to pay in getting to my weekend playground.
On the map, Nha Trang looks like a short 4 hour trip by bus so I opted for that option never thinking of asking how long it actually took to get there by bus. Big mistake !!!!!!!
It wasnt until 4 hours into the trip and our destination no where in site that i asked someone and they told me it would be another 8 hours......HOLY &^$# I say and regret i didnt take the train or plane for a few dollars more. The bus only cost 6 dollars for a 12 hour trip and the train is 18 dollars. Obviously I am taking the sleeper train back to Saigon which takes 9 hours over night.
The bus was not your luxory coach , they dont seem to exist here in Vietnam. The seats were not made for long distance travel especially for a canadian with
not alot of meat on his butt. Less space between seats than you get on a commercial airline, so things were tight for a tall 6'4" dude . Needless to say i felt like a canned sardin and will not be taking buses in Vietnam again.
But that wasnt the worst of it !!!!
The roads were bumper to bumper traffic for the first 4 hours and the driver just had to lean on his air horn at least once every 2 seconds to force people in his path out of the way. These guys drive buses like they are formula one race cars, and I am NOT exaggerating here guys. They didnt even supply toilet paper or even a toilet on the bus either so all the excitement of passing trucks on blind corners one had to close your eyes and say a few hail mary's hoping you came out of it alive. Multiply these tramatic experiences once every few minutes and ultimately you just sit back, relax and leave your life in the bus drivers hands and hope he doesnt make a mistake.Dodging in and out of traffic with a bus as if you were a
Vietnamese Fishing boat
On my way out on a cruise to do some island hopping motorbike is an experience all westerners must experience at least once in a lifetime.
Suspension? Did i mention the bus had shocks that were obviously well over due for a refit. If any of you have ever driven on a school bus for any long distance you will know NOT to sit near the back of the bus because you feel every little bump like you are on a trampoline. Obviously sleep was not an option on this trip. With the constant bouncing about, air horn blasting every few seconds at 120 decibels and only 2 pit stops in 12 hours combined with constant race course maneuvers by the driver it was a white knuckle journey. But all is well that ends well and since i am typing this entry, obviously i arrived in one piece, albeit the joints a bit loser....
Thats all I have time for today gang. I wanted to share my weekend with you but that will have to wait for tomorrow back in Saigon. I cant upload pics with this entry either so you will have to wait for those too, so sorry. Trust me, i will try and make the wait worth
On the high seas off Nha Trang
off and on sunny/cloudy all day but nice while. The weekend was a blast !!!!!! Its a beautiful place and i will return for a longer stay next time...........
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Ken
non-member comment
Hi William: I'm still laughing from your posting about the bus trip to Nha Trang. Hope you soaked your butt in the ocean!! Looking forward to the photos. Remember as you say...enjoy the journey..albeit bumpy at times. Ken