Don't eat the yellow sand

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Well, I guess sand of any description is inadvisable for digestion .. I recommend the shrimp.

Backtracking a little. After the lack of Scuba in Nha Trang (or however you spell it, Vietnamese is a little tricky - even compared to mandarin!), we decided that we should get in a bit of travelling and the decision was made to visit Dalat - basically the least hot place in Vietnam.

It becomes less hot due to being up in the mountains of Vietnam (which also happen to be the same mountain range in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia ... and where the US merciless bombed upon many occasions). However, far from being a little hick town, Dalat is an island of peace and has a lot of strong french influences from all the settlers deciding it was so much like the french alps in springtime that they would holiday here. We'd heard good things so we jumped on a 2.5 hour bus to get there.

7 hours late, we arrived. No, nothing untoward happened, its always a 7 hour ride and everyone on the bus had a different story of how long they were told it would take. Welcome to Vietnam, where a half truth is apparently better than disappointing someone ... Anyway, after being harassed by the local easy rider crew at every turn (pretty much just guys with pre-2000 motorcycles), visiting the local version of the eiffel tower, seeing the crazy house (it was ca-raazy), visiting an over hyped waterfall and generally feeling a little let down by Dalat, we cut our trip short and headed to the beach again. Although the breakfast spread at the hotel had to be seen to be believed (photos are forthcoming once we find a good internet cafe - ha!). Oh, and somewhere in there it was the most important day of the year - Kelly's birthday.

The beach was called Mui Ne and it was awesome. It is kite-surfing central (Corne, you should move there) and we wrangled a resort with a pool on the white sand beach for $20 a night. With breakfast. I love this place. Anyway, long story short is we lazed around, almost kitesurfed, almost windsurfed, met some more nice Irish folk, ate lots of cheap seafood, visited some sand dunes in a jeep(some were yellow sand, hence the blog title) and swam in the pool. It was very very nice.

But, such is life, we must move on, and move on we did, to the big metropolis (again with the lofty ambitions and poor spelling!) in this part of the world - Ho Chi Minh City. known as Saigon before the end of the American war (note: it would be kind of daft it they called it the Vietnam war), this is motorbike central. Apparently some 3 million of the things are buzzing around which is actually easy to believe when you try to cross the street. The key is - they will move for you. This requires some faith and a good dollop of stupidity. We've done alright so far.

Highlights have been visiting some of the musuems and sights remembering and educating people on the war. We've seen some unbelievable atrocities, incredible images and a tragic legacy that will impact for generations. It really is unfair when you see kids with birth defects

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Photos

One woman, so much breakfast
This fresh fruit fiesta (and eggs any way you want them) was one of the highlights of Dalat... Mangoes!

Thatsa nice beach
white sand, blue sky, hot babes, what more could you ask for?

More motorbikes than you can shake a car at
A few hundred of the millions on display around here - the noise is something else!!