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Published: September 9th 2007
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Hello, guess it's time to get started on the blog given we have been away for six weeks now!
First stop Bali for two weeks. We were initially a little worried about going as the government had issued a hightened terrorist alert two weeks before we left, and we had planned to get out of Kuta and head to Lombok, however Bali was buzzing with tourists and we didn't feel worried at all. We ended up staying right in the hart of Kuta in the end! Tourism is up approx 30% on the same time last year when we were there. More Europeans and Japanese than Australians however.
Not that much to report about our time there, it was pretty much what we wanted it to be - two weeks swimming, sleeping, eating and relaxing. Paddy's bar is now a brothel, took us a couple of visits to figure it out though. The men pay for 'drinks' over the bar and head to the toilets but never come back! Cass got the Bali belly for a few days after a meal at the most expensive restaurant in town!
Jon ticked over to gold frequent flyer on our way
to Bali which means we can use all the Oneworld partner lounges as we travel around. Huge bonus! They always have bacon😊
We flew out of Bali on the 10th August for a one night stop over in Hong Kong. Wondered why everything was closed at 6pm on a Friday until we found out we had just missed a cat 8 typhoon by about two hours and the whole town had shut up shop! We hadn't put a lot of research into Hong Kong, just assumed it would be cheap and worth a quick look around, however we soon discovered it is actually quite expensive - result of British rule until the late 90's. We ended up staying in a cheap guest house we booked on the net where 'Miss Pansy' was our host. The bed was so small Jon had to sleep in fetal poistion all night.. Needless to say the next day wasn't so much fun!
We hit crazy Ho Chi Minh city late morning on the 11th and headed straight to the backpacker area. Needed to treat ourselves to a nicer hotel after the Hong Kong experience so lashed out at $22 a night😊 Told
Burn baby burn
Boys and fire tricks... oursleves we would only stay one night, both knowing that we would stay there our whole time in HMC..only four nights in the end though. We visted the war remnants museum on our second day and both walked out in some what of a daze trying to get our head around who was who in the Vietnam war and horrified at some of the pictures and stories we read. The effects of agent orange and the napalm bombs are still everywhere in Vietnam. You can't walk a block without seeing someone missing an arm or a leg or horrifically burned. You quickly start appreciate that the war only finished 30 years ago and this is a country very much still in recovery mode.
We had a very interesting day with 'Mr Bean' our tour guide to the Cu Chi Tunnels (underground tunnel system the Vietnamese built to hide from the French originally then further developed to fight the Americans). Mr Bean is from South Vietnam and fought with the Americans against the north during the war. He tells the story of how he constantly has nightmares about stuffing dog tags down the throats of dead Americans so thier bodies
could be identified when found. He was studying to become a doctor in America before the war, however the communist government will only let him be a tour guide now. Punishment for supporting ther Americans.
Our boat was confiscated by the water police on our way back from the tunnels because they didn't have the Vietnam flag at full hoist. Typical! What started out as half day trip turned into a 10 hour experience but we didn't really mind. They served cold beer where we had to get off the boat and wait for bus so we just kicked back and learnt a bit more about Mr Bean.
Ho Chi Minh is such a vibrant city, we could have spent more time there but were missing the beach so took the bus 4 hours up the coast to Mui Ne. Very sleepy town with little traffic which was nice after the 10 million mopeds in HMC. We found a little bungalow right on the beach for about $12 a night and jumped straight back into bumming mode. Jon had a bad cold for a few days (let it be known that Cass walked 5kms to find medicine!) so
the days passed fairly uneventfully. The mornings were sunny and afternoons rainy so cards seemd like a good option.
Took a jeep tour to nearby red canyon which was pretty cool - our pictures don't do any justice. We then headed to some massive yellow sand dunes which were quite amazing but the hundred of kids who stalked you wanting you to hire a mat to slide down them pretty much ruined the experience. We both wanted to slide as it looked like so much fun but they bugged us so much we just had to leave.
From Mui Ne we took another bus approx 5 hours further up the coast to beautiful Nha Trang beach. It's more of a bay really with beuatiful blue water and very calm. Very hot and no rain. Everything pretty much happens at night as it's too hot to do much during the day. Jon tried his hand at being a cyclo rider one night. Just survived that one..
We decided to take a full day ferry tour to four of the nearby islands on our second day. The pictures made it look like a lot of fun. Not. We were
herded on to a rattly old ferry with approx 40 other sweaty tourists with bairly enough room to sit then dragged around four dodgy islands with not a lot to offer. One we couldn't even actually go on as it was protected. After a salmonella lunch served on board and the 'vietnamese boy band', we decided the only way to deal with the day was to start drinking beer! This turned into laybacks in the floating bar (floating in tyre tubes off the side of the boat and having local grape wine poured down our throats). As always things get a little more interesting with a few drinks and we ended up meeting a lovely couple from Australia who were also not coping with the situation very well, so they helped pass the time - 8 hours is a long time stuck on a boat you don't want to be on!
We ended up spending a week in Nha Trang soaking up the sun. Probably a bit too long in one place but it was a fun happening place.
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