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Published: November 9th 2006
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Mineral Mud bath advert
What they don't mention is that it's really smelly! Bit of a lie in this morning after all the earlies in Hoi An. Breakfast was some great bread and jam - you can tell the french were here for a while! A mini bus then picked us up for the boat trip. On the bus was sat Rick (an old colleague of Pauls from Logica) and his girlfriend Lesley - very random! Most of the others in the group were a similar age and it started the day off with a good vibe! We transferred onto the boat and picked up some more people along the way. The captain come compare was an entertaining guy and was making jokes from the off. They started the cruise off with some 60's rock and roll (California Dreaming). Paul kept expecting to see a green gun ship with some squaddies smoking, holding guns going past - it was really evocative! The first stop was for some swimming and snorkelling on an island. There was a fair bit of trash and rubbish in the water but there were some cute fish to see. Vietnam seems to care a bit more about the tourist dollars than natural heritage, but I guess they're still struggling a
Jumping off the boat
In search of the red wine bar... little with the past....
Rick was on top form and started the drinking about 10am and the rest of us followed about 30mins later! The boys discovered the top of the boat and it was a lot of fun to keep jumping and diving off. It was then off to the lunch stop where the on board chef knocked up some great salad, rice, meat and seafood. After this the host then entertained us with a selection of his favourite tunes accompanied by some of the ships crew on drums and guitar. He kept asking for volunteers to get up and sing, but he did not try very hard and did not really want to seem to want to relinquish the microphone! The songs all sounded the same and had exactly the same backing- not sure what they would have done if we had a karaoke party on board! It was a lot of fun though!
After this the host then set up the free floating red wine bar - which turned out to be a bit of polystyrene attached to the boat by some rope - with some plastic flowers for decoration! He then set up some dalat
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Having fun, leaping off the top of the boat wine (local vinegary brew) grabbed a rubber ring and jumped in the water. He kept on saying 'come and get some fucking minging wine' and laughing to himself and then glugging the wine himself! Needless to say this was too good to be missed so we all grabbed some rings and jumped in. The current was fairly strong so we all got pulled along and had to swim back to the boat. After all this frivolity we headed to the aquarium which had some fairly big fish but it was fairly tawdry. There were some turtles outside in a pen, but they were a bit poorly and kept eating the plastic blowing in the water. Not a real conservation effort! Then just headed back to Nha Trang - a really great relaxing day. Rick and Lesley then joined us for some dinner at a local Thai restraunt - was a really great end to a good day. Ended about 8:30 before we all went home - party people!
Bit of a lie in this morning as the flight is not until this afternoon. Had a leisurely breakfast and caught up with some e-mails before checking out from the hotel.
We hired a motorbike for a few hours to go and check out the local town and head up to the hot springs. Paul had not ridden for a while, but soon got the hang of it again - just had to learn to cope with a pillion. The streets here are absolute madness - people joining in vast numbers from the left, right and some on the wrong side just coming straight at you. And that's just the bikes and motor cycles! There are also buses, trucks, cars, pedestrians and animals to cope with and nobody looks before they pull out - just trust that everyone else will get out of the way!
We found the Hot Springs after a few missed turns and selected the package we were after - this was 1/2 hour in a communal mud baths, a hydro therapy shower, a soak in mineral bath and then a swim in the pool. All this for $4. We spent a good few hours relaxing and chilling out. You could float in the mineral muds really easily which was a bit strange. Dashed back to the hotel for a bit of lunch, dropped the bike off
and then got a taxi over to the local airport. We did not spend as much time in Nha Trang as expected and we did not do too much except relax - but it was a great stop off!
The flight to Ho Chi Min City was nice and easy and it only took an hour - much better than an all day train ride which we did plan initially, but the flight was only $45 so it was hard to resist!
Arranged for a taxi at the airport (75,000 dong about 2GBP ) which took about 30 minutes to get into town. Out on the streets of Saigon, everyone was competing for the same space lots of bikes, cars and buses. The hotel was easy to find - it was in the middle of the backpacker district, which is buzzing with life. We checked in and then wandered to a restaurant on a local street, made the school boy error of sitting outside and had to put up with loads of touts selling knocked off books, jewellery and lighters - which ended up being a front for attempting to peddle cannabis. Lots of people selling it - lost
Free red wine bar
'Come and get your F#@$ing minging wine!' count of the number of times in the end. Lots of women with babies and kids selling chewing gum - bit odd but they were friendly enough. Ended up having a load of beer as we have a room in the front of the hostel - we will be needing a beer overcoat to get any sleep at all!
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