Goodbye Vietnam

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Well it's all change here. We've got fed up of the Vietnamese so we're leaving. We've got a flight to Saigon then we're getting a bus to
Cambodia.It's a shame as Vitenam itself is really nice and intersting. It just gets too much when six different people come and try to sell you things while you are tyring to eat breakfast. We're actually only cutting our time here by about 4 days but that gives us some time in Thailand before we fly to India. I will miss the food as it is really good here and apparently Cambodian food is worse than Laos so cabbage, cabbage and cabbage for me.

Anyway, appart form all the Hassle we have had a good few days. We left Hue and went by train to Danang. We did this becuase apparently it is one of the most beautiful trian rides in the world. It was good as the train goes right along the cliff edge and you can see the sea braking over rocks below. In the other directions you can see distant mountians. So it was worth it. On arrival in Danag we tried, and for a long time fialed, to fin dout where to get the bus to Hoi An. After several laps of town we went to a cafe to eat. Luckly the waitess was very helpful and we found out where to get the bus. The bus was a nightmare. There were 4 ticket collectors for some reason and they were all trying to out macho the other. This meant that they physically pulled people in and out of seats and pushed everyone around. They even tried to pull an old lady put of a seat so we could sit down. They then tried to charge us 3 times the actual price and succeded in charging us double. We got to Hoi An in about 40 mins but ended up out of town so got a motorbike taxi. They hadn't got a clue where the hotel we wantted was, nor had we. So we walked around for another half hour or so until a bloke told us he would take us to a cheap hotel. After some disscussion he agreed to take us for free. We were unsure about it but we actually ended up in a really good location really near the old town.

On our first day here we just did the old town area. Hoi An is lovely and the old town constists of tiny streets of old houses and shopfronts. You can get a ticket that gets you into a musical performance, one of a choice of museums, one old house and a chinese assebley hall. We started with the music which was nice but only lasted about 15mins and for some strange reason they finnished with 'Auld Lang Syne'. The old house and assembly hall were good and we alos saw a temple and two museums (no one checked our ticket so we went to 2 instead of 1). There is also a little Japanese covered bridge which is nice. It's all very charming.

What Hoi An is famous for is its tailors who will run you up just about anything in 24 hours. I was suduced. I ended up getting a full length winter coat made, seems as it's 30 degrees here. I reasoned that it only cast 16 pounds to have made and the postage (no i'm not going to wear it here) was about 10 pounds. So thats a tialor made, full length, pure wool winter coat for about 26 pounds. I will wait until we're in India to get a suit made.

Yesterday we hired bikes and cycled to the beach. The ride was plasent and the beach beautiful. If you eat in one of the resuruants you can sit in sun lougers under sun shades. The view from the beach is good as there are two Islands with mountians on them in the distance. However, Inever got through more than a few pages of my book beacuse every few mins someone would come and try to sell us things.

Later on we went to the post office whic was also a nightmare. We wantted to post vietnamses conical hat and other stuff. The hat is big and we discovered that they base the price on wait and size so it woul have cost a fortune to past. Ended up repaking boxes several times. then there is the paperwork. You can tell its a communist country when you have to fill in 5 forms just to post a parcel. But Anyway, hopefully my coat will be arrving home in a few weeks. Mum - you have permission to take it out and try it on.

OUr flight is tomorrow so we spent today lazing around mostly. The movie channel here is doing a James Bond week so sam has made me wach at least 4 James Bond films in the last two evenings. You get a tv in even the cheapest rooms here btw, we haven't gone all posh.

So take care all and updae me on how you are.

Jen

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