The rest of Vietnam

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Right, here goes. We got a bus down to Hoi An, world famous for tailors. We had a unexpected stop at Hue on the way down the coast for about 6 hours so we decided to explore a little. The only thing there seemed to be there was a Citadel (walled city) so we strolled around. Turned out to be very over rated and more of a vuilding site. Kept us occupied until the bus came.

Hoi An turned out to be a lovely little town, situated on the river with a couple of islands and the beach down the road. Turned out we didn't go to the beach in the end. The town was full of tailors or selling suits, shirts, dresses, coats, you name it they would make it for you. We had both decided we would get a suit made and this turned out to be quite a laugh. We had been told about this one tailor by some guys we had met and so we went there, how else were we supposed to pick from 200 odd tailors?! First thing the lady told me was that i needed a pin stripe suit as it would be more slimming, i agreed and that was that. Her hands worked their magic and measured me pretty much everywhere, a very enjoyable 5 minutes. I chose a lovely grey number with a pink lining, classy! Next for the shirts, I ended up getting a bit over excited and picked 5 different materials, but i am looking at this as an investment in my future. The lady took a bit more of a shine to me than Chesty, turned out blue eyes and blond hair go down well with vietnamese ladies. We returned 2 days later to check they fitted and for them to make any adjustments. trying them on in the heat wasn't great fun but we looked good and thats all that matters.

Alongside getting clothes tailored we went and visited some ancient ruined temples called 'My Son' which the Americans bombed during the war adding to there ruined looked. These temples were in the jungle and were very nice. On one of the islands on the river we found a nice bar where we spent a couple of afternoons chilling out playing pool, listening to good music, drinking beer and free shots of rum. Hoi An also offered 3 speciality dishes which we had to sample. one was a thick noodle soup with croutons and meat, very tasty. Another was wontons, they always work, and a steamed wonton dish called white rose. The market did great food and very cheap fresh beer!

Next stop Nah Trang. We had heard this was a beach resort and a good place to party, they were correct. We arrived at 4.45 in the morning and the two of us and a girl we met on the bus strolled along the beach to the back packer area. At 5 in the morning hundreds of vietnamese came out of no where for there morningexercise workouts. There were aerobics classes, badminton, football, jogging, you name it they did it, very crazy, and no wonder they spent the rest of the day sleeping! we found a hostel dumped our bags and went for breakfast before hitting the beach for the remainder of the morning. turned out that the sun gets very hot early in the morning and we all got pretty sun burnt. that was the last time we went to the beach in Nah Trang! Along with Gemma we met one of her friends, Nina and tweo lad sfrom Manchester, Mat and Mike. W eneded up travelling with these 4 for the remainder of Vietnam. The 3 or 4 days in Nah Trang consisted of visisitng a water park and theme park which turned out to be a great day out and a boat trip around the islands off Nah Trang (29th most beautiful islands in the world, apparently). the boat trip turned out to be full of vietnamese and they love kareoke! very amusing trip including snorkelling, swimming, a floating bar, kareoke and the like. The nights out were alcohol related.

Our final stop in Vietnam was Saigon. All 6 of us travelled down to the souths capital. We spent a few days here and ended up bumping into a number of people we had met at previous times. Saigon was a cool city, full of scooters and traffic like Hanoi but much wider roads and it had more of a cosmopolitan feel about it. We spent one day visiting the American War Remannts Museum, which was quite a weird museum that showed the US war crimes during the Vietnam War and didnt really explain about the war itself. There was some very good war journalism on show and some great war pictures. The next day we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels used by the Vietcong during the war. The tunnel network they used was amazing. it consisted of 3 levels of tunnels and the network was massive, each tunnel was tiny. They would use these to hide from the americans to great effect. We were shown sniper holes, no danger of myslef or Chesty squeezing down these. We also saw a number of traps the VC used, these were savage and it was eay to imagine the damge they could do if you stepped on one. We visited a shooting range there and i Fired an AK-47. Thsi was an interesting experience, firing the most widely used gun in the world had quite a kick to it and gave me quite a rush. Finally we got to go through a section of the tunnels, the further you wnet the narrower they became and deeper they went. There was about 150 metres of tunnels we could go through. I got about three quarters of the way before i got out, crawling on my hands and knees in the heat and dark wasn't a pleasurable experience.

Leaving Vietnam for Cambodia meant leaving Mat and Mike who had been great company for the time we were travelling together but we didnt have the time to go down to the Mekong Delta with them unfortunately.

Next stop Phnom Phen, Cambodia!

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