A bunch of Vietnam

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Well I've discovered that the majority of internet places here in Vietnam are useless. The few times I could manage to log in to the blog I could never get to the page to make a post. But we've found a good connection here in Hue, so I have a bunch to update on.

Alright, first off is Nha Trang. Nha Trang is a beach city. It's a municiple beach and it's very busy at night. Well, at least the one night we actually went to the beach, for five minutes while we walked back to our hotel. The first full day we spent in Nha Trang we went on a boat tour that cost us an additional $2 when we bought our Open Bus ticket. It was definitly a wise purchase. The boat brought us to 4 islands around Nha Trang, but the majority of the time we didn't even bother going swimming or snorkeling. Everyone just relaxed on the top of the boat talking, drinking, or jumping off into the water. It was a very very hot day and everyone probably got tanned. We were served a huge communal lunch, it consisted of rice, spring rolls, fish, squid, beef, and plenty of other stuff. It's one of the few provided lunches that not only did I eat, but I enjoyed. After lunch we were informed it was happy hour, and we were then surprised by the staff of the boat playing in a boy band. They had a guitar, a tamborine, and a really beat up and improvised drum set. It was hilarious and they played a few reconizable songs, like Hotel California. After their hilarious performance it was time for the water bar, or whatever they called it. We all got in innertubes and floated around one of the staff members on a floating bar where he served us some disgusting Da Lat wine, it was potent undrinkable stuff, but it was free. After this ordeal we had a Fruit Buffet, lots of fruit to eat. Pineapple, Banana, Dragon Fruit, etc. It was good and all in all an enjoyable day, especially compared to the last boat tour we went on, in Koh Phangnan.

The next day we were off to go Scuba diving. Scuba diving in Vietnam is even cheaper then in Thailand, and it was definitly just as enjoyable, if a little weird in some cases. First off, the dive boat was quite small, not at all like the mammoth boat we were on in Koh Tao. So this would normally hinder us all getting geared up, except for the fact that they geared us up. They set everything up and strapped it on to us. So we never got to do our buddy checks, and the BCD's were pretty big and loose. We also never had to clean any of our gear at the end, this was all handled by the staff presumably, unless they just never clean it. Our first stop was at a dive site called Madonna Rock. Underwater there were huge rocks looming over us like cliffs, it was quite a site. Throughout the dive we also swam through a few underwater passages, the most spectacular of them being about 10-15m long going from a depth of 9m to 6m. Inside was a tight fit, especially with tanks on our backs, but the amount of fish inside the passage was amazing. There had to be tens of thousands of them. It was awesome, and of the 6 dives I've done in my lifetime, it was the best one I'd been on. Our next dive didn't match the first dive, but one of it's highlights was watching a Moray Eel twist and turn in a piece of coral, it was very cool. That's about all the happened in Nha Trang and our next destination was Hoi An.

Hoi An is a very very small city with over 100 tailoring shops. This proved to be quite a rush. The next couple days were pretty busy, rushing back and forth from about 3 tailoring shops in which we'd placed orders to. In the end I ended up with a black pinstripe suit with a dark grey dress shirt, and hot pink dress shirt, a green button up t-shirt, a pair of corderoy pants, and a pair of pajamas for each of my parents. In our visit we've determined that the quality is much better at the tailoring shops then at the cloth market. The cloth market is usually a bit cheaper, but nothing we got made there matches the quality of what we had done at a tailoring shop. For anyone visiting Hoi An I would recommend the shop Ngoc Phuc at 02A Le Loi Street. They are very helpful and make excellent clothes. It's the only place that made clothing for me then had me come try them on to see if they fit, and if no alterations had to be made they'd then double stitch them. Overall it was excellent service. That's about all that happened in Hoi An even though we were there for just over 3 days. Oh, and White Roses are awesome. Shrimp wrapped in some noodle stuff. Very good.

Well we're currently in Hue, it's pretty much a stopover to Ha Noi while we get our laundry done. That's all for now.

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