March 3rd Nam+++

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First off let me apologize for not posting sooner. I had wrote and entire blog and when i went to save it and post it and the website was down so i lost the entry.

March 3rd
Today i caught the bus to Munie. It was only a 4 hr drive but to me it felt like forever because the night before Albert and i had gone out to get some sushi and the chef had snuck a massive glob of wasabi in mine. Lets say spicy food makes me loose. haha So the last 15 mins till we got to our first rest stop was torcher as well as the last 15 till we finally made it to Munie. During the trip the Swiss woman next to me and i some how started talking to the woman across the isle. This woman claimed to be American but i think she was a Vietnamese American. Any way she was so so so paranoid about everything. She wouldn't eat or drink anything from anywhere except probably her 5star hotels. haha It was hilarious. She claimed that she had heard on the TV or read that the locals here put things in drinks or food that can make you sick. She claimed they put detergent in coffee to make it taste different. Even if they do apparently it isn't killing them so ... whats the big deal. She was so nuts it made me think why she even left the states if you not willing to try the local things why bother leave. That's have or more than half the experience.
Any way when we finally made it to Munie i got the cheapest hotel and ran into Graze again. After grabbing some lunch and settling in i decided to walk to the "Fairy River." Oh about and hour or so later i still didn't see any river so i stopped in some cafe and tried asking where i was and where this river was. After some miming i found out the river was only about 50 meters away now. So i decided to push on. The river was brownish reddish with a sandyish bottom. So i was able to walk right up the middle of this stream to the "waterfalls" Which turned out to be crap not much more than a 2 meters and a tiny stream flowing off them however, the walk to them was beautiful. A little ways up the river there was a red sand/clay cliff on one side and the other side was a normal bank with vegetation. It was absolutely amazing. Every step was more gorgeous. On the way back from the crappy waterfalls there were some local boys running up the sand/clay cliff. So i stopped to take some photos. They asked me to get something from their moms shop so i decided to stop in. As it was right on the stream and was a beautiful setting to chill for a bit. The boys were so cute. We started making faces at each other and doing face and hand tricks. Tongue to nose and rolls in tongue ect. Then one of the lil boys touched my nose and started laughing hysterically so the others touched it and more laughing pursued. So i touched theirs which was much softer and flatter but im not really sure what was so funny about my harder bigger nose but we all laugh.
When i finished my drink and went to pay the mood shifted to the boys begging for money and when the mother gave me my change she even motioned me to give her son money. It was terrible how something so fun and innocent turned into begging. I felt bad but just left.
when i got back to town i booked a sand dune tour for tomorrow and then grabbed some street dinner. Which was BBQ beef and BBQ clams both were very good. It was really cool because i don't think many tourist eat off the streets and everyone there was smiling and staring at me and saying hello. It was really cool. After dinner i headed to bed but Grace woke me up to tell me about this Easy Rider tour thing. Where you hop on the back of a motorbike and ride into the highlands for a few days. It sounds like an awesome way to see some of the country and "real" Viet Nam. However its 50-60 a day which in the traveling world is alot of money 60 bucks could last me at least a week or so.

March 4th
Today was my tour of the sand dunes. I got picked up at 5 am to see the sunrise on the dunes. Which was fantastic. The first dunes we went to were white and quite large. They had a desert wind blown feel to them. It was really beautiful. I could have sat there for a long time taking it all in but had to move on with the tour. The tour was small just 3 of us in a old military jeep. On our way out there was a woman in a weeding dress having photos taken of her on the dunes. A pretty sick place to get wedding photos taken. Our nest stop was the red canyon. Which was pretty cool. It was probably 3 meters deep. However the walls were sand/clay and they were soft. So many people had written something in the walls which took away from the beauty but it was still pretty cool. Next up was the red sand dunes. They defiantly were cool but there wasnt a whole lot of contrast in colors so it was hard to really see how red they were and they werent as wind blown as the white ones. Our last stop was the fishing village. We stopped here very briefly. I would have liked to walk around a bit and try and hop in one of the round fishing boats but we only got to snap a few photos. During this my camera LCD starting failing on me. Big bummer i think its the connection cord it works but not well. hopefully my photos will still come out ok.
When i we got back to town i rented a bike and decided to bike to the Cham towers. Which were some ruins over looking the city. However i didnt realized again that they were overlooking the town that was about 30k away. Haha so again i biked for about an hour or more and stopped a few times to try and figure out where it was finally when i was about to give up i spotted them up a hill. They were pretty cool but not amazing but then again i didn't really have anything else to do until my night 1am bus to NhaTrang.
As i was biking up the hill i could hear a familiar bad sound of a chain under stress and about to break. So i hopped off and walked it up. Then when i was riding home i thought i had snapped the chain luckily it only half broke so i managed to get it back on the cogs and had to peddle very gingerly home and had to walk the hills.
When i got back to town i grabbed some more street dinner. This time they had the biggest snails i have ever seen so i got one of them and some other larger clam. Both were terribly chewy but i managed to choke them all down. Then i just chilled at my hotels restaurant and ate again and waited for my bus. However 1 am rolled on by then 130 i called my "travel agent" guy and he kept saying its coming i must have rang him 5 times in the next 20 mins. Then around 2am a bus drove by the same company as mine but in the wrong direction so i ran after to try and talk to the driver, i didnt catch him but i saw my "guy" and he said they were late, maybe car problems. The only reassuring thing was the driver said they have not been by yet. That was my fear there were lots of bussed the drove by between 1-130 but none stopped to pick me up. I thought they might have just missed me. However, finally at 230ish they showed up, terrible but i was on my way to Nha Trang

March 5
So needless to say i was pretty beat from the night before. So i spent most of the day just chilling on the beach(large sidewalk next to the beach with trees and things.) I found a street lady that made great sandwiches for under $1 so i ate there a few times through out the day. While i was chillin on the "beach" i had 2 girls come up to me, they wanted to practice their English. So we had some small convos it was really cool. I swear i must have a friendly face because i seem to have people talk to me every where. But its cool no complaints. I thought i was getting sick again but it felt more like allergies so i threw away my shirt seeing as that was the same shirt i felt sick in last time. haha I hit the sack early to catch up on some rest.

March 6th
Today i had a boat tour of some local islands. The first island we went to we were went snorkeling. But it was crap the coral wasn't colorful, there werent many fish and the goggles and mask they gave us were crap. the coolest thing was when i swam down to where the scuba divers were and tried waving to them but i don't think they saw me. haha Then the next island we went to was just a restaurant and we had to pay to get on it. It was ridiculous. We (some other travelers and i) wound up just sitting down talking over some drinks,not really what i had in mind. The best thing probably was the tour guides band. He sang, he had a back up singer, a guitarist and a drummer. The drums were made from pots and buckets. They were really good though and they would sing a song from where everyone was from. So he got a German up there and sang some German song then an ozzy a Korean ect. It was really impressive he knew songs from all over. They must have practiced that alot. After the show we were meant to have a floating bar party. Where we all thought it would be some sort of barge where we would swim up to or tube up to and order stuff. But it was far from that it turned out to be our tour guide in a inner tuber with a few bottles of wine. It was hilarious. On the way back we stopped at Aquarium which again we had to pay for. It was ehh they had some really massive fish but nothing spectacular.
When we got back i called mom and dad and caught up on some mail and went to bed.

March 7th
Today i rented a bike and toured the city. I hit the cathedral and some old pagodas and i meant to hit some museums too but didnt realize it was Saturday and everything was closed. I did however make it to the mud baths, which were pretty cool. We sat in the mud for 15 mins or so then bake in the sun then went through some other mineral water washing and soaking stages. It was pretty fun but i must have got some mud or the water in my eyes because they were blurry and sticky the rest of the day. When i got back to town i stopped off at the market where i got some BBQ crab. Which was pretty good and since i dont eat crab much the lady basically fed me. She cracked open the claws and the stomach and showed me what to eat.
That night i caught the bus from Nha Trang to Ho An. This bus was on time but different company so the seats this time were terribly uncomfortable and the road was so unbelievably bumpy. It was terribly hard to sleep.

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