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Today is our second day with our tour, which has been great so far! We met everyone on Thursday night and we all had dinner and drinks together which was a great way of getting to know a bit about everyone. There are 18 of us all together with people from various different places, such as Switzerland, Mexico, America (all over), Ireland, UK (London, Oxford, Worcester, Manchester), Israel, and our tour guide is from Thailand!
On the first day of the tour (5th June) we actually all split up and Matt and I wandered through a lovely park which had water fountains and dragon hedges and other garden ornaments, as well as a free exercise area with all sorts of equipment to use! We made our way to the Independence (or reunification) palace which was the presidential palace during the Vietnam war. We were able to enter the grounds and go into the palace to view all the different rooms used by the president and the First Lady. It was very interesting seeing the different architecture styles of Vietnam in The 1950s and how it was incorporated into the governmental building. We really enjoyed seeing the palace and finding out
about the history of the war and government but unfortunately we were shattered on this day so we didn't stay too long and slowly made our way back to the hotel to nap, shower and get ready for the over night train!
We all got on a bus to head to the train station which was only a 15 minute drive, and boarded the train at 8.30 to head to Nha Trang. The overnight rooms were much nicer than I was expecting although the beds were about the size of half a single, but there were pillows and blankets and even wifi!!
There were four people per room and our room ended up exploring the whole train and travelling 7 whole carriages down to where the bar was and where a big group of Saigon locals were drinking! They were on a business holiday and were making the most of the company credit card from what it seemed! They were so much fun and really loved us- especially Matt! They all spoke English relatively well so we were able to chat with them too- as well as drinking! We didn't stay very long like they were hoping and we
got into our little train hotel at 12.30am and were woken at 5am to see the sunrise! It was beautiful seeing it rising over the mountains and rural areas of Nha Trang - quite different to Ho Chi Minh!
We dropped our bags at the hotel where we are staying in Nha Trang at 6am and wandered down to the beach to find somewhere to have breakfast. We went to a place called the Sailing Club which was really nice and tropical! Right outside the club were beach chairs and umbrellas where we parked ourselves for a few hours so we could swim in the cool - but still warm - water. From where we were lying on the beach we could see this very long, over-water gondola which went to Vinpearl island and we decide we wanted to go there for the afternoon! The gondola is 3.5km long and is the longest overwater gondola in the world! So we jumped in a taxi and made our way to the gondola.
The gondola ride was amazing as we had 360 degree views of Nha Trang and Vinpearl Island and all the other surrounding islands, which was just beautiful!
When we arrived in the island you enter straight into the theme park which our tickets did include but it was too hot to wait for the rides so we went straight to the waterpark. We went through an underwater aquarium which was really cool to see all the different fish that we never see in NZ. Some of the fish were really pretty and some were gigantic and scary. To be honest it was actually quite sad to see these massive fish in such small enclosures..
The water park itself was great overall.. Nice just to relax in cool water but also really fun going on the slides apart from the fact you have to pretty much fight for the rings which you need to use for the slides. They had no system where people wait in line for the rings - people just grab them, so we waited a while until we could finally get one and kind of stole it off these children who jumped in front of us, but it was worth it - some of the rides were really scary!
We had to get back for dinner with the group for around 7pm
where we all went to a local Vietnamese place which also does western food.. A lot of people on our tour have only had western food so far and won't try the local Vietnamese food which is just bizarre to me! After dinner we had planned on going to this beach party at The Sailing Club but we could hardly keep our eyes open at 8pm from our long day so we just went to bed instead- especially because we have another overnight train tonight!
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