Advertisement
Published: April 7th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Another over night bus later and we landed in Nha Trang and found our cheapist hotel room yet, $6 a night at this very cute family run place. We had the best Indian food outside of India here for a great price. We were able to squeeze a day of warm weather out of Vietnam and spend a day at VinPearl Entertainment Park. For $18 you got a cable car to and from the island, entry to the water park, the aquarium, all the rides and all the games in the arcade, we spend the full day being really big kids. We walked to the large seated Budda on the outskirts of town and enjoyed the walk back in the rain. Matt was a little disappointed that Daniel wasn't here to play in the massive waves along the beach with him and only spent an hour down at the beach due to bad weather.
We left Nha Trang for Mui Ne hoping that the sun would show it's face and we could enjoy time at the beach and at the sand dunes. We checked the weather reports after arriving in rain and thought it would be best to move on
as the weather wasn't going to get better and there isn't much to do in Mui Ne.
On we went to Ho Chi Minh City, home for Matt for 4 years, we were both excited, Matt to be returning and Kerry to see where Matt used to live. Kerry picked a dump of a hotel that cost $11 a night but did have a balcony (that we didn't use) by far the worse place we'd stayed in. After a good night's sleep, happy twenty something birthday Kerry, we got up early and had a walk around Ho Chi Minh in the light rain stopping for dinner and having pizza that looked amazing but was completly tasteless. We decided to call it a day when the rain was heavy and we were soaked right the way through, not before a stop at a little bakery to get cake though. Beans on toast for Matt's birthday, yummy cake for Kerry's (Matt didn't think this was fair). When walking around the following day we realised that trees had been blown down and the first big storm had hit, unlucky that it had to be on the 1st of April!
We visited
the War Remnants Museum, which like the Prison in Hanoi explained how the American's had done wrong and how Vietnam had been a victim. The Museum was very interesting, especially the part explaining the affects of Agent Orange and the victims it claimed. We walked past the Reunification Palace and Notre Dame Cathedral. We also spent a lot of time in ben Thanh and Saigon Square Markets looking for things to buy.
We took a local bus to the area where Matt used to live and walked to find his old school, stopping and having a Ca Phe Sau Da (Iced Coffee) at a place facing the school. We walked to the compond where he used to live (kerry said it was like being back in Hollywood) and Matt even got a glipse of his old head teacher, but didn't say hello.
We took a half day trip to the Chu Chi Tunnels, which is where 16,000 people used to live under ground during the war. We were shown some of the entrances to the tunnels, some of which have been widened so westerners can fit in them, we also got to see the actual size. Traps that
the Vietnamese used to use against the American's and also how the tunnels were venterlated and lived in. We went into one tunnel that had been made either double or tripple the size and walked through hunched over. It was very strange and hard to imagine so many people living in the tunnels for such a long time, they were so small.
Well that's Vietnam finished, now off to Cambodia.
Sending Love
Matt and Kerry
Advertisement
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0383s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mammy
non-member comment
Memories!
Brings back lots of memories seeing your photos! Wish you'd had better weather though....such a shame. Still, looks like you enjoyed yourselves as usual and made the best of it. What did u get in the markets?? Love you. XxxxxxxxxxxxxX