Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City

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After leaving Hanoi Claire and I decided to get a flight to Hoi An to save ourselves a 20 hour bus journey.. We checked into a nice little hotel that had a small swimming pool and included breakfast, all for about 7 quid a night (this is why i love SE Asia!) On our first day in Hoi An we decided to check out all the tailoring shops as this is what Hoi An is famous for! You can get any clothes or shoes made for you after one fitting. Claire not being on a budget like me was in heaven and got herself 3 gorgeous dresses and a pair of wedges, but I still treated myself to one dress which luckily we got a good deal on..

Hoi An is such a cute little town, all the buildings are very old and it's very quaint. It also has 2 gorgeous beaches, the one a little further away being the nicer one. After visiting numerous clothes shops we had lunch at a recommended restaurant where we got talking to 2 older Australian women who were also travelling Vietnam. They were lovely, and I hope when I'm their age I'm still travelling the world!

That evening we decided to check out the nightlife.. it was definitely no Hanoi! But there are a few small backpacker bars scattered across the town. We had been advised to check out Cafe 43 first which is a restaurant where backpackers tend to go and drink, and then all go out afterwards. We had a lovely set menu asian dinner at Cafe 43 which is obviously extremely popular as it was packed, and after finishing our meal a friendly Canadian guy came up and invited us over to their table to drink with their group. Funnily enough we recognised them from the Halong Bay boat tour, we'd seen them at the caves but they'd been on another boat. You find this a lot travelling.. you're always bumping into people you've met previously!

There were 4 of them, and 2 canadian french girls too.. we were all soon joking around about various antics that had happened on Halong Bay! The boys all had motorbikes, I asked if we could get a ride with them to the next bar and before we knew it we were zooming around Hoi An on the back of a motorbikes - so much fun!! We went to a bar called 'The old and new bar' which was basically just a small bar with a pool table, music and outdoor tables but it was fun to hang out and drink in a chilled place, definitely a contrast to the nightlife in Hanoi! We also went to 'Why Not' bar and an aussie bar..but they were all pretty much the same!

The next day we picked up our clothes and had a few hours chilling on the beach which was nice, although the heat is unbearable at times, the sand burnt our feet! And then we got a overnight bus to Ho Chi Minh city which was horrific! For one we were the last to get on the bus and all the sleeper chairs had been taken but one which Claire got so I had a space on the floor with a thin red mattress basically in the bus aisle. I had to climb over chairs to get to it whilst the bus was moving and almost fell at one point, causing much amusement to the other passengers! The whole thing was a joke but it was pretty funny. Luckily just behind me the Canadian guys had the back of the bus and all there beds were together so I went and sat with them for a bit, and one of them gave me a sleeping pill after the service stop which knocked me out so I slept comfortably on the floor!

We were told the bus journey would be 12 hours but it was 12 hours to the first stop which was Na Trang.. we remained on the bus for a further 10 hours with a bus driver who did not speak a world of English! And at each service stop would just shout to us 'Get off, Get off.' The Vietnamese are definitely not the most charming of people..in fact a lot of them have no time for tourists and come across really rude but maybe it's just the language barrier.

EVENTUALLY the following afternoon we arrived in Ho Chi Minh city and checked in to a backpackers hostel were we had a much needed shower before going out for dinner. There's not much of a nightlife in Ho Chi Minh city (much to my dismay!), it's more drinking on the street on little plastic tables where you can buy cheap alcohol! There's a few bars but we found that none of them were very busy but we still had a good night.

The following morning was hellish.. I woke up with a banging headache (the cheap vodka must have done it.) I switched off my alarm because I was in agony then woke up again at 8am..the time we were supposed to leave for our Cu Chi tunnel tour. I woke Claire up and she was rushing around to get ready whilst I was throwing up in the toilet, so she then did my packing too, what would I do without my her! We somehow made it on the bus ready for our tour! First of all we went to the tunnels and watched a video about the war giving some basic background on what happened, how America were constantly bombing the area, and how the soldiers would live underground. It was very one sided though and at one point they refered to the Americans as 'devils.' We were shown the traps they laid out for the Americans and got to crawl down into the tunnels which was very claustrophobic. How the soldiers stayed under there for long periods of time I have no idea! At the end of the tour we were given the chance to fire a gun for a few dollars each so we went ahead and fired 5 shots each, the force when you pull the trigger rattles through you! It was so strange.

Afterwards we went to visit the war remnants museum which traumatised me a bit, they really don't hold back in terms of what they show you at all! We were faced with hundreds of pictures of American soldiers torturing or killing vietnamese peasants etc, and read accounts of how countless innocent civilians were killed. We were shown all the paperwork at the time, and all the protests that went on against the war. Much of American society were against the war, and a couple even set themselves on fire in front of the White House in protest. We were also informed about the chemical 'agent orange' that Americans used and how it left many Vietnamese people deformed, and were again showed various pictures of deformed children. They even had a deformed foetus's in a glass box. It was all a bit much really, and I left with tears in my eyes. In the courtyard outside there is a collection of bombs, planes and tanks that were used during the war. It was very interesting day, but also incredibly sad.

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