thurs day 153

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Waking with not having too high an expectation of where i was I didn't exactly rush out the door! So after having a pretty chilled morning of packing and writing up my blog I headed out the door at 1pm for some lunch. Arriving at Lanterns restaurant I had a nice Vietnamese curry before chatting to some staff and signing up for a walking food tour this afternoon. Having a couple of hours to spare I headed out for a wander to find the beach. Walking through the pleasant little town and finding the beach I didn't think it was too bad a place that it had been painted out to be after all. The beach was clean ( which is more than you can say for the beaches on Bali!) and surrounded by new manicured gardens - a busy road was close by but generally quite pleasant. I headed back to the restaurant to meet the others for the tour. The other 7 people were all from the UK, so that was nice. Heading off with 2 of the waitresses - who spoke perfect English we would stop off at street food stalls. These are dotted throughout South East Asia with makeshift burners, pots, pans lots of ingredients and plastic tables and stalls along the pavements - where locals will cook up some of the best food you'll eat while out here. Stopping off we tried seafood pancakes, chicken and quails eggs, a jelly with a bean or shrimp in the middle, a stir fry with rice noodles and beef blood, a mango soup, intestine ( not nice!), fish cake soup ( nicer than it sounds) and banana with coconut and sticky rice to finish with! We walked through a street market and past a Buddhist funeral procession before heading back to the restaurant. It was a really interesting little 3hr tour, with everything being explained to us and trying all the different foods which were on the whole delicious. Hopefully making me more confident to try street food in the future. Back at the restaurant we stopped for a drink before going our separate ways. Relaxing at the hostel for an hour or two was nice before getting a motorbike taxi to the train station which was about 3km away. Waiting on the platform and chatting to a nice Vietnamese girl - I was the only westerner - the train arrived at 22.00 and after a bit of a scramble of people getting off and on I got on to find my room. Stepping over people in the corridor and boxes and bags I found my room. Being already full of local men and women with my bed being the only empty one I squeezed myself in. The floor space was full of sandals, boxes ( what do they carry in these boxes!?) and general dirt I made myself comfortable on my bed. Reading for a bit until I felt pretty tired I put my valuables under my pillow and settled down for the night.

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