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Published: June 11th 2009
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Dear all,
No wonder the Lonely Planet knew nothing about this crossing. It’s in the middle of nowhere at the end of a pothole filled red dirt road. We've had enough of border crossing & I’m sure you're tired of hearing about them, but picture this, Sar & I each on the back of a moped (with our 20kg backpacks) being driven 10 kms over this dirt track, nobody spoke English, our Vietnamese sucked & to top it off we were dropped in the middle of nowhere twice….just another border crossing really in the world travels of G & Sar.
We slept very well that night, however we were up at 4.45am the next morning to see the largest floating markets in the Mekong delta. What a fantastic day. We saw the sun rise over Can Tho & watched locals trade anything & everything on the water, before our guide took us around the canals in the countryside. We had breakfast here & while eating, our guide bought over a baby python for us to hold… awesome!! We made our way up north to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon to the locals) & visited the Cu Chi tunnels where we crawled
100 meters on our hands & knees, all the while hearing round after round being dispensed by a M60 machine gun…very eerie. From Saigon we headed north to a town on the beach called Mui Ne, famous for their sand dunes. Sar & I hired a moped & headed to the white sand dunes, hired a few sheets of plastic from a random house & proceeded to play like kids in the sand. It was ridiculously hot, so we headed back home & took a bus to the highlands town of Da Lat. While walking the streets we ran into Dan & Denise, an English couple who happened to be staying at our hotel & were on our tour of the floating markets in Can Tho. We spent the next few days exploring Da Lat & took an organised motorbike tour of the countryside with Dan & Denise, Paul & Maeve, Sar & myself & our tour guide Rot. The tour was the best so far! We saw a minority village, coffee plantations, a silk factory, waterfalls, cricket farm (Sar & I ate a cricket…yummy!!), not to mention all the homegrown fresh fruit and vietnamese coffee we had at Rot’s
house. It really was an amazing day & after it was over all 6 of us made sure we went out & celebrated. The drinking stopped sometime in early hours of the morning & given our bus left at 7am the next morning, it made for a very queasy ride down the mountain.
Our next stop was Nha Trang & what a trendy little beach town this was. Paul & Maeve (our new Irish buddies) continued to travel with us & we booked a snorkelling trip on the Mama Linh’s Party boat. The boat lived up to its name & when you add beer, sun, jellyfish stings & my rendition of Waltzing Mathilda, the next day wasn’t going to be pretty. Before our overnight train to Hoi An we decided to hire push bikes (in 40 degree heat) & check out the local mud baths. We covered ourselves from head to toe in “healing power” mud & waited for the sun to bake us before scrubbing it off. It was certainly an experience & I think 2 months of suncream layers must have come off with the scrub. After an overnight train ride, we arrived in one of the most
picturesque towns of our trip - Hoi An. Marble Mountain was a highlight, as was the “old town’s” coble stoned streets with overhanging trees, but I found out why Sar really wanted to come here. Two days later we left Hoi An with some amazing memories, plus a custom made, "super cheap" suit each!
Our travels took us through Hue & then onto Hanoi where we caught up with Alex, a mate that used to work for Westpac & now living in Hanoi. Alex was a fantastic host, sent his personal chauffeur to pick us up and shouted us to a very up-market restaurant… thanks Alex!! We also ran into our friends Paul & Maeve again & decided to book a trip to Halong Bay together. The tour & service wasn’t great, but the scenery & company made up for it. We explored caves in the bay, went kayaking and climbed to the top of Cat Ba National Park. We also stayed the night on a boat called a 'junk'...sitting on the top deck watching the sunset with a beer in hand until the early hours of the morning made for a very memorable night. Sapa, in the far northwest
of Vietnam was our last destination & it certainly was a spectacular place. It was like you had stepped back in time with the villagers dressed in their tribal clothing, beautiful terraced rice fields and buffaloes ploughing the fields. We spent our time trekking through the local hill-tribe villages and enjoying the magical scenery. Sar & I hired a moped one day & decided to do a tour of the Ban Ho village. 3k’s out our Moped got a flat tyre & a local, who spoke no English, came to our rescue. 45mins & $150’000 dong later ($12 Aud), we were back on the road to the hot springs & waterfalls of Ban Ho. On our last day in Vietnam we witnessed the local Bac Ha markets which you had to see to believe. The “flower Hmong” people live here & trade anything & everything including buffaloes, chickens, pigs, dogs & cats. If you were feeling a little peckish, dogs were on the menu & all the locals sat down with a pint of beer enjoying the delicacy of dog for their Sunday roast. That night we took an overnight train back to Hanoi & after a postage debacle that
had Sar & I running 2 km’s back to the airport, we flew through customs & were the last couple to board our flight to Chiang Mai, North Thailand.
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Nicki
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eagerly awaiting
Another great email guys - we eagerly await them and think of you while we are having another boring day at work! Enjoy!!!