Happy New Year!

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We arrived in Nha Trang after a fairly pleasant trip on the night bus. Having been told that all the guesthouses are full, we manage to check into one for $8 a night.

Early afternoon we head back for a snooze to recharge for what may lie ahead. When we arrive at the hotel, the receptionist informs us that we're invited to a party that evening. In the evening we arrived downstairs to find tables laden with home-cooked food and free beer & wine. We met Matt & Carla, two Aussies, and Gordon & Vina, an Englishman & his Philipino girlfriend. After a great meal, we head out with our new friends to celebrate the New Year (Matty's birthday aswell incidentally). All the bars are mobbed with revellers and Nha Trang serves us well for bringing in 2009. Chuc Mung Nam Moi! (Happy New Year)

After a fairly sensible hogmany (ending around 0330) we awake in time to go for breadfast with Gordon, Vina, Carla and Matty. Starting with a full-english, the day seems to pass us by in the Banana Cafe with the assistance of a few bottles of Dalat wine.

The final highlight of Nha Trang turns out to be the Hot spring centre, where we bathe in a mud bath and mineral spas for our last afternoon. Fully relaxed and replenished, we catch the night bus to Saigon or Ho Chi Min City, so named to honour the Vietnamese Heid-Yin during and following the war in the 1960-1970's.

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