Chaper 4 Southern Vietnam

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Southern Vietnam what can i say, we certainly had some ups and downs.

We left Bach Ma national park, via a bus that we hailed from the side of the road, (hoping it was going the right way) and headed to the clothing capital of the world, Hoi Anne. This town is a must see for all you females out there, every second shop is a tailor shop! and cheap! Both Tom and I got a full suit and shirt tailor made, which after some adjustments, fits great. I also got my 4Th pair of sunglasses for the trip, (sorry Janelle the ones you gave me went before i left Australia).

On the overall Hoi Anne was great with the fantastic food, beaches & people, and it certainly was a welcome relief to not only get a bit of sun but to see a few more tourists out and about. This is where i get to the first mug nomination of this trip. After once again going out on the town, we were all pretty excited to see a wider variety of westerns that we could chat too, and Tom being Tom needed all the dutch courage he could get so once again Bailey wrote himself off, (sort of reminded me of Lachy ;-) good on ya mate). So after escorting the big fella home, stopping for pit stops on the way. Popey you would be proud of the vocals on Tom's spew, they were great!

But this was not the nomination, no the nomination goes to Wesley. After Tom's dampener on the night Wesley persuaded me to go for a feed, (my rubber arms and all) . So here it was 3 in the morning in the search for chicken wings, like the ones in "Loven Oven". After asking a few locals where to find the chicks with no real progress, we stumbled on a group of locals playing drinking games on the street who knew of a place. After bartering the price of the trip down we headed over to their motorbikes (motos) for a ride. Well this is when i realised my driver was off his head as he said to me you drive! But not one to upset the locals I said "OK" and climbed on.

I then followed Wes and his moto for what seemed to be ages, to somewhere out in the local shanti town. Here i hailed Wes over and asked, "Mate he said this place is only 2k's down the road, didn't he?" We had gone 5k's by now. He agreed so after some more talking with the moto drivers we got the response, "not far, not far, 500 meters." Well I then turned to Wes and said, "mate, it's alright as long as we stick together and the street lights don't run out, if they do stop your driver, OK?" "OK mate" Wesley agreed. Well as you can guess not far down the road the street lights turned into candles dotting shanti's here and there down the street. We had to turn back!

This is where it turned a bit ugly. After we stopped the drivers, (or so called drivers, who we now thought were robbers) the scene turned aggressive with us wanting to go back to the hotel and they wanting to go further. It took some quick wits by Wes and myself to persuade the drivers to take us back, this was partly because I removed the keys from my bike and said, "No Hotel, No Bike!" I think he got the picture and told his friend to take us back.

Well that was not the end of it. Next thing Wes and his bike took off back down the road we came at phenomenal speeds and luckily Wes managed to get his driver to stop, i think that is partly due to the fact that when i caught up too the two of them, Wes had his hand on the man, you can ask him where, but a look of fright was evident on the mans face. The rest of the trip back to the hotel was relatively uneventful, other than my running up the back of Wes's moto that had stopped suddenly, oh and my bike running out of fuel!

Back at home safe and sound we spent the next couple of days relaxing, while we waited for our suits to be fitted. After which we hopped on a night bus to Nah Trang, another coastal town 12hrs away approximately 2/3rds of the way further down Vietnam's coast. Being our first long haul bus ride of the trip and as I had the flu, I bought some cold and flu night tablets from a local chemist to help with sleeping. Well Tom and Wes thought this was a great idea and after boarding the bus asked me for a couple of tablets. Little did I know that the tablets had Psuedoephadrine in them. All I can say the night was very restless and I deserve that mug nomination.

After we arrived in Nah Trang we drowsily booked into our hotel and spent to rest of the day catching up on some much needed sleep. The following day however was quite fun with Tom and myself going on a boat tour of the local islands while Wes scuba dived the reef. On this tour we meet some people from the UK, 5 girls and 2 guys, and spent the day snorkeling, eating, drinking and singing (well Tom was the one singing). The tour even had a floating bar where the local wine was free!. This brings me to an opposite mug nomination, or something that was done well!

After this floating bar was put in the water, which was a local man in a rubber tube with a milk crate full of rice wine and plastic glasses, every one grabbed a life ring and jumped in the ocean to sample the drop of red. Well when i jumped, I noticed straight away a huge rip or current in the ocean, so not wanting to stray from the grog I held onto the bar. Well not all of the people thought of that and after their first drink, off they floated. For some that was their last drink of the hour that we were in the water as they spent the rest of the time trying to swim back to the bar. This is where Tom and I and one of the British blokes "Jamie", thought we would help out and dived in to rescue to girls that were struggling. With Tom going to the closest one and Jamie and I going to the furthest we spent the next 20minutes swimming the girls into the boat and I tell you that 100meters felt like 1 kilometre, the current was that strong! But all were rescued and OK, apart from some wayward emotions. (there you go fokes not all stories involve our stupidity some time there are heroic ones as well).

That night we meet our new found friends a local bar, where the drinks ran freely, (the cheapest found on the trip). Once again Tommy was in fine form and managed to get kicked out of the night club, (IN VIETNAM!!) this is where his night went down hill. Throughout the next few hours there were a couple of spectacular nominations, but due to sensory laws laid down by the trip coordinators some of the information is not for public disclosure. Oh and Tom won the mug of the week for the following:

After Tom made his hastily exit from the "Y Not Bar", Tom to his surprise and delight was mobbed by 3 young local ladies. Somehow Tom in his drunken stupor suspected foul play occurring and checks his pockets. Sure enough his wallet and phone are missing. After pushing the decoy girl out of the way Tom gave chase to the closest robber and after a few blocks the girl ran into a house. A bit worried at entering himself, Tom hails a local moto driver to go into the house for him. After some anxious moments the moto drive returns with a smile on his face and hands Tom his wallet with no money and no phone! Aggravated Tom employs the moto driver to help him find his phone. After over two hours of driving around Tom realises that he is now in the bad district of the harbour and that the sun is rising. At about the same time the moto driver stops the bike and says, "you pay me now." Tom realises that his efforts to find his phone are now fruitless and says to the man , take me back to my hotel and I will pay you. The moto driver now gets angry and demands payment and will not take Tom home. For the second time that night Tom is again worried, but again Tom's quick wits prevailed and he thought of how Wes had escaped his debacle in Hoi Anne and returned the aggression. After the heated argument Tom persuaded the man to take him back to the hotel for an exorbitant price, So not only did tom loose all his money and phone but he had to get money out and pay an outrageous cost to get back home again. Well done big man.

As for my night, I was firstly disappointed that the girl that I spent so long saving went home early, dammit! oh well. The night progressed much like Tom's did and I eventually meet some nice ladies who i talked too for a while. And ended up walking one of them home. When I got home however I also think i had been pick pocketed as i had only 50 Australian dollars of the 200 i took out which is a lot in Vietnam but maybe e i just had a big night. Probably the latter.

After that eventful night, the next couple of days were spent seeing the sites of Nah Trang and lounging on the beach. I nice place except the beach was quite dirty. Oh and i also bought my 5th pair of glasses as the ones i had from Hoi Anne only lasted 2 days, when you buy cheap they don't last. On our last day in Nah Trang I was now over my flu so Wes and I went scuba diving which was great we saw an octopus, lion fish, scorpion fish and a Morae eel, Wes and I also got one of our tickets that we can dive to 12m supervised which is better than the supervisor controlling your level etc.

That night we were back on the night bus and off we went to Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City, no Psuedoephadrine this time 😊 Ho Chi Minh was another big city like Hanoi in Northern Vietnam, with the same hustle and bustle, but we did manage to see some sites, including the war museum, which was very inter sting, slightly one sided though. We also went to a public pool as the place was like a sauna. Not much was done in Saigon and it would have been great to go and see the Meekong delta region of south Vietnam but we had run out of time and had a flight to catch too Bangkok. This brings me to the final nomination of this chapter where the morning of the flight I warned both Wes and Tom, " Boys make sure you take your pocket knife out of your daypack and put it in your undercarriage luggage for the flight." Tom in mindset thought his knife was already there and didn't check. So when going through customs the official asked to search Tom's bag. Tom smiled and thought it was the cigar case he had bought so he pulls that out. Well the well versed official then said, " no sir the leatherman in your bag.' Toms heart sank as this was a gift from his parents. The result was that the knife did not board the plane in Tom's Personnel Luggage.


Here ends Vietnam be sure to stay tuned for the "Thailand and Malaysia Chapter"

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Photos

Moto Drivers
We thought we would give it a go!

Nah Trang
View Looking at the Harbour

Boat Trip
Here is the floating Bar, be sure to notice how far the people at the top are and this is 5 minutes after jumping in

Seafood Feast
The cheapest seafood ever!

Seafood Feast 2
We certianly got into it

Scuba Diving
Very estatic after a great dive!

Nah Trang Temple
I didn't make this was a bit crook :(