...til you drop

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Wow, we are in shopping heaven! More of that later tho..

Dalat - 21st September

We weren't exactly overawed by Dalat. It was nice to spend a few days in the cool mountain air (for the first time since we've been away I was actually cold!) but the scenery wasn't quite as spectacular as we had hoped and the people weren't the friendliest we'd met so we decided to shelve the mountain hiking until we get up to the mountains in the far north of Vietnam, which is good news for me as I now have time to get fit first!!

We hired a bike for a couple of days to cruise around town and check out the sights which was good and then we packed up and headed further north.

Nga Trang - 23rd September

Nga Trang is pitched as "The beach capital of Vietnam." However it should be called "The tout capital of Vietnam"! We couldn't walk 5 meters without being offered a bike ride, a hotel, sunglasses, chewing gum, marijuna..

We spent a couple of days exploring Nga Trang, and Will enjoyed chaffeuring me around on the back of a bike again although I was a little less enthusiastic this time having seen 3 motorbike accidents in 2 days! (The traffic has been pretty terrible for most of our trip, many of the roads are in poor condition, there are far too many bikes transporting far too much cargo - we've seen at least 5 people squeeze onto one bike not to mention all the baskets of fruit/boxes/doors etc they balance on top! - plus the tendancy everyone seems to have just to drive up the wrong side of the road here makes just crossing the road pretty hazardous. But the vietnamese do all this and at a very great speed!)

We took a trip to Doc Let beach, which was nice although we've still yet to find a beach to rival Thailand's Ko Samui. We also had a rather eventful day trying to find and then conquer Ba Ho Falls. Taking the bike out on the highway was scary enough but at no point did anyone care to mention that a) the road turn off to the waterfall isn't signposted and b) you need to be a fairly accomplished rock climber to reach the top!! We had fun trying though, and once again I found myself to be glad that we finished the day alive 😉

We also had a look around Long Thanh gallery which displays beautiful black and white photographs of everyday Vietnamese life (you can see a few examples at http://www.pattayacity.com/nt/long/ ) and we took a visit to the oceanic institute and saw... some fish!

Hoi An - 27th September

Next stop Hoi An, where we had read great things in the guidebook and on the web about the shopping. They are absolutely right. We both, along with my credit card, have gone into complete shopping mania!

We just about survived the overnight bus journey from Nga Trang (I am learning it's better not to look when they speed ferociously along moutain paths with sheer drops and overtake uphill on blind corners!) and for the first day we decided to take things easy and just see what kind of stuff they had on offer. 2 Suits, 1 shirt, 2 pairs of trousers and 5 dresses later we agreed we liked what they had on offer! And the last few days have been pretty much the same. I never want to leave! You just walk into a shop, pick out a fabric and design you want and they measure you up and have it ready for a final fitting the next morning and it is a fraction of the price of back home, brilliant! Now all I need are bags and shoes to match..

We managed to drag ourselves away just long enough to see the Cham ruins at My Son and see the Japanese friendship bridge but mostly it has just been shop shop shop. Unfortunately we now have to move on so we are off to China Beach tomorrow. We've had a lot of fun here and both have new wardrobes (see a small selection below) with the only downside being that I was hit by a motorbike! (Don't worry mum - just a bit of a bruise!)

PS you can check out some more photos (plus Wills diary) at travelblog.org/bloggers/willonasia

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Photos

Grr! Tiger Falls, Dalat
As the name implies there was also a waterfall but the tiger is more impressive!!