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We're in Ho Chi Minh right now waiting a few hours for our flight to the hill station Da Lat in south central Vietnam. We were essentially without internet the past few days in the Perhentian Islands (and didn't want to spend time in front of a computer anyway) so this might be a long entry... sorry.

After our last post we jumped on a bus to the Perhentian Islands on the east coast of Malaysia. Kate, one of the Americans we had met the day before in the jungle was headed the same direction and joined up with us for the remainder of our trip in Malaysia. When we got to the town of Kuala Besut, the jumping off point to the islands, we found out there wasn't a bank/atm anywhere on the island or in the town. We got mildly ripped off exchanging cash out of some guy's restaurant and then jumped on the boat to the island.

We spent about 2 hours looking for a place to stay once we arrived on the islands because everywhere was full or disgusting. We found a place up off the beach called Bintang View Chalets which turned out to be a steal. No A/C and no light between 7am-7pm, but some nice breezes at night, bug nets, and pretty clean bathrooms considering. Our only problem was the two giant lizards (4ft+) that guarded the trail from the beach. We didn't think they were too bad at first, but when one jumped out of the bushes a few feet away from Matt and Colin blocking the path and hissing, we changed our minds. Lets just say there were numerous occasions late at night where we stared at patches of grass for five minutes that looked like giant lizards.

Our first night on the beach (and just about every one following) we went to a set of 3 BBQ stands for grilled prawn. Hard to beat at the price of $3 for the whole meal. Later that night we went out to a bar and were pulled in by a group of backpackers to drink some Monkey Juice and vodka. Learned about some interesting (and by interesting we mean crazy racist) Christmas rituals in the Netherlands and got to meet some Irish that we're hoping to run into during our time in Bali.

We all woke up at 7am the next morning (once the fan goes out its impossible to sleep) got some breakfast on the beach and went swimming. Colin and Matt got set up for some dives the rest of the week which were crazy cheap while James and Kate spent the day getting burnt. The next day Colin.Matt went diving at Sail Rock with some Swedish divemasters and saw lots of fish/coral (they'll have to give a more thorough description later.. I'm still banned from diving). Got some baracuda for dinner and some more monkey juice and tiger beer. Spent the rest of the night star gazing and tried to get Kate's iTouch to get the constellations program so we could tell what we were looking at. We didn't have any luck but star gazing with monkey juice on an island that looks like its out of "The Beach" is alright either way.

The next day we went on a 7 hour snorkeling trip (think really really sunburnt backs across the board). Our first stop was around a 30ft+ lighthouse with some impressive fish/stingrays and coral surrounding. Matt and Colin both jumped off twice and sustained some minor injuries. Our next stop was Shark Point which definitely lived up to its name. We saw about 5 black tipped reef sharks each including one that swam about a meter away from James for a few minutes. We jumped back in the boat to chase after sea turtles and found two swimming in the channel between the two Perhentian islands. We jumped out and swam with them for about 30 minutes though they are deceptively fast and we weren't able to grab on to any. Colin did manage to tail one at an inopportune moment though. We went to a huge coral reef after with some very colorful clams/coral and Kate managed to spot another reef shark. In water with only a few feet of clearance from the bottom though, this can get pretty scary so we got back in the boat and headed to Turtle Island. There were baby turtles being hatched on the beach and we decided to jump back in the water to find Blunt faced Parrot Fish (might not be the exact name). We ran into a giant school of about 50 of them and they were MASSIVE. Each was about 4 feet long and 3 feet tall. They take giant bites out of the coral and spew it out the other side promptly after. The entire ocean around where they are swimming losses about 10meters of visibility because of it. We headed back to our beach for some milkshakes and sleep. We had underwater cameras during the day so we'll post some pictures of everything later (they're getting developed for us back in the States... thanks Kate!)

Matt and Colin dove at the Temple of the Sea the next day with some newly trained dive masters. Supposedly they were very impressive and almost outlasted the guides (this is when you breathe less air then them the entire trip, your dive is limited to this so if you can breathe really slowly underwater you're considered to be a better diver). They were very content with themselves when they came back and then found out that a whale shark had come around right after they'd finished diving. Evidently the entire island cleared out, teachers ditched their dive students, and every boat went chasing after. I guess this hasn't happened in 5 years+.

The next day we split up with Kate and flew back to Kuala Lumpur. Made it to Ho Chi Minh City the next day around 10am. We absolutely love it here as hotels have been awesome and cheap, food has been great, the people have been very nice, and Colin gets to feel like he's almost back in Paris.

We took a walk around the city saw the Ho Chi Minh city museum and learned how terrible Americans have been in Vietnam (a reoccuring theme of museums here). Went to a market in the center of the city and finally got a watch since we've been guessing at time the entire trip. We had a great dinner at the Vietnam House and watched the worst movie about a school teacher overcoming Tourettes ever.

The next day was Matt's birthday and what better way to celebrate than visiting the tunnels around Saigon that the Viet Cong used to attack US military bases in the south. The Cu Chi tunnels were about 2 hours outside the city and were about 200km of underground tunnels to avoid US bombing. They were very impressive and our guide, Duong, was surprised that three Americans could make it into the unwidened tunnels. We learned about how school girls became "American Killer Hero" and how weak our bombs were. Our guide told us most people don't care about the war anymore, especially younger people, but the videos we watched definitely didn't give that vibe off. We went to a shooting range after and got off a clip of AK 47 rounds each. Walked through a 200m stretch of the tunnels on the way our which was crazy tiring. We all feel like we went through squat workouts yesterday. We got sushi for lunch and celebrated Matt's bday dinner at the top of a hotel in downtown Saigon, got a hot pot and tons of appetizers. Finished the night with a sample of every beer brewed in Vietnam. We then convinced the bar to put it on the menu as a Saigon Sampler of Ho Chi Minh Hodgepodge.

Thats all for now... lets see if I can get these pictures up. There should be some new ones in the last three entries or so since I can finally plug my camera in instead of just Colin's.

-JMC

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