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Published: December 14th 2006
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We took the overnight train to Danang. We made some Vietnamese friends on the train - one of them spoke decent enough French! We headed to the restaurant car where we met a bunch of Australians who were on a package tour. They harassed Johnny to play the fiddle but after a few tunes they lost interest and started a singsong of all the worst karaoke songs ever and Johnny sheepishly put the fiddle away!
We took a taxi from the train station to Hoi An. Found the hotel, Hai Yen Hotel which had the luxury of a pool outside. Hoi An is famous for tailoring and there’s over 200 tailor shops in the town. I got a suit and a couple of shirts made up which fitted perfectly first time. There wasn’t much to see in Hoi An, nice quiet town but the heat was up around 5 degrees celcius from Hanoi. We met a lot of people we knew from Hanoi and played pool til all hours. I managed to find the second All Blacks vs France game live on TV5 so I was happy out.
After Hoi An we took another overnight train to Nha Trang.
Here we hit the beach, did an islands tour, some snorkeling on a coral reef and parasailing for the equivalent of only 10euro. We found a pub in Nha Trang called the 'Why Not Bar' with a nightly Killer Pool competition so we couldn’t pass that up. Johnny placed 2nd two nights but we never managed to win it.. During the day we lounged on the beach a couple of days and saw a few temples one of the other days. But the real attraction is the beach which is miles long and quite like Marbella without the crowds. The food in Nha Trang is really good with the hilight for me being the Coconut Chicken Curry in Cyclo Cafe. The food is served inside a fresh coconut. They put the whole coconut on a plate and douse the bottom half of the outside with alcohol which they light. It stays on fire for about ten minutes after they serve it so it's pretty cool.
Gordon caught up with us on Thursday night in Nha Trang. He had flown back to Beijing after losing the football final at home by 2 points.. He was gutted of course but glad to
be back on the road and it was great to see him back.
The next morning we caught the bus to Mui Ne. We were hoping to surf. Unfortunately the conditions weren't right though and there was no surfing going on. There was plenty of kitesurfing, since Mui Ne is supposed to be one of the best places in the world for it. It was great to watch but the lessons are a little expensive - $400USD for 10 hours which is what you'd need to spend at it. We dragged Johnny along for a 4 wheel drive tour of the countryside at 7am one morning. The hilight was sledding down the sand dunes on a plastic board. Very simple but great fun. We also visited a canyon, local fishing village and various sand dunes but nothing too spectacular.
Saigon wasn't as crazy as we'd expected. It was definitely harder to cross the road in Hanoi! The backpacker area is quite concentrated around the Pham Ngu Lao so the place is very lively. We also met up again with Felix who followed us here from Laos. Good to see him again. A visit to the War Remembrance Museum
is essential while in Saigon . A lot of facts, figures and graphic photos so it was pretty heavy going but worth it. We also took a daytrip to the Mekong Delta, where we visited a few islands, local fishing villages, a coconut candy factory. They gave us a demonstration of how the candy is made right from the coconuts but the most impressive part of the operation was the speed of the girls handwrapping the sweets. Their fingers were literally a blur as they double-wrapped the sweets with rice paper. We rented bikes on another island on the Mekong and cycled miles into the island where we saw some more authentic village life. Otherwise the tour was pretty disappointing but maybe one day is not enough to get beyond the tourist traps and a 2 or 3 day tour may have been much better.
On our last night in Vietnam, 5 of us headed out to a nice restaurant where we ate the best food of the trip so far. We ended up sharing ten main courses plus rice between us it was so good. It was a lot of Vietnamese style marinated beef and chicken along with
vegetables. The bill took two pages of paper but cost us the equivalent of only 5 euro each!
My camera was stolen later in Cambodia so I lost a lot of photographs but I've borrowed a few here from the other lads.
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niki
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oi oi oi
hey guys im in Hoi an leaving to go to Nha trang in an hour!!! wicked page man ill be lookng into some of the good stuff you talk of!!! how are you guys???? i hope wel!!! keep up the good work