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Published: March 22nd 2012
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Hello all,
Hoi an was a beautiful place. We found a nice place to stay and the bonus being the cafe next door sold draught beer for 8 pence a glass! We were in Hoi an for 4 nights and we spent the days either hanging out with Jamie and Nat or hiring bicycles and peddling down to the beach. First beach we'd seen since the Phillipines so we took full advantage of it.
One of our days was spent taking a Vietnamise cooking course where we had the chance of preparing and cooking 5 dishes, our favourites being chicken with lemongrass and chilli and stuffed squid. I took on the Keith Flyod style of cooking and got stuck into the 8p beer the whole afternoon. We had a great day.
Hoi an is famous for getting clothes tailor made so we decided we'd treat ourselves and got a couple of things made. It's really cheap in comparison to things back home, even being tailor made they were still half the price!
It was a shame to move on from Hoi an but Nha Trang was calling. We arrived there after a not so pleasant 12 hour
night bus. The bus had already been on the road for most of the day before we got on and it was a mess. The toilet stank and the aircon was on it's way out. We made our first stop of the journey, the lights went on and that was when we saw the floor crawling with cockroaches. To top it off on the stop for food the driver sat drinking rice wine with fellow coach drivers. I only recognised what he was drinking because Jamie, Nat, Sarah and I shared a bottle and got pretty drunk! Anyhow we got there in one piece...
First day in Nha Trang we went exploring on bikes again and vistied the Buddhist Po Ngar Cham Towers. They were really impressive, situated on top of a hill overlooking the city. So sightseeing done we headed on to Thap Ba Hot Springs Centre for some well deserved R and R. Well perhaps not that well deserved... We spent the rest of the day chilling out in mud baths, spring pools, water massage jets and I had a lady shave my beard whilst Sarah had her talons clipped ;0). We didn't realise until we got
there it was national woman's day in Vietnam, so the centre was full of women, damn...
Feeling refreshed the following day we visited the Long Son Pagoda, where behind, on top of a hill sat a giant white Buddha. From here you could see great views of Nha Trang city and surrounding rural areas. There was also another massive Buddha lying down which was equally impressive. Later that day we watched some local people working on embroidery paintings which Sarah loved. The rest of the time in Nha Trang was spent eating lots of lovely sea food unfortunately we didn't get to try the fried pig's cartidge, urghh.
After four nights in Nha Trang we played it safe and took the day bus to Ho Chi Minh City. After another 12 hours on the road we arrived at just gone 6pm and the place was crazy! We thought Hanoi had a lot of motorbikes, nothing compared to HCMC; some even mounting the pavements dodging inbetween people to get through the traffic. After a bit of searching on backpacker lane we found a hostel, dumped our bags and went exploring. It was nice to see some friendly ladies of
the night and suspect looking women once again. "Spot the lady(boy)" was a game we had missed playing...
Armed with our Lonely Planet Guide we set off early the following morning on a walking tour. Sarah was confident that her orienteering skills had improved and was well up for being the guide for the day. Our first stop of the tour was to view a statue of a man on horseback in the middle of a busy roundabout. After half an hour of walking, Sarah got us to a roundabout but there was no statue. Her reason for it not being there was that they must have moved it. After another half hour of walking we ended up back where we started and Sarah, worn out, resigned as the guide. We had a right laugh when we reached the proper roundabout as the statue was huge, the mini roundabout we arrived at first was barely big enough for a plant pot!
During our walking tour we also visited a cathedral, an art gallery and the Vietnam War Museum. It's difficult to say it was really good as it was so sad. Some of the stories and images were
horrific but by far the most interesting and educating thing we had done in Vietnam. We ended the tour on the 27th floor of the Sheraton Saigon to watch the sunset through the smog. The view was amazing and great to see the city lights turing on one by one.
The following morning we travelled for 6 hours taking two buses across the Mekong Delta and settled in a town/city called Can Tho which is described as the epicentre of the Mekong Delta. We stayed in a place opposite the river and a tin statue of Ho Chi Minh. It was a lovely view, so I set up the camera to take a picture of us using the timer function and just as we were smilling, crash the camera fell to the floor. An hour later we were on to camera number 3. That won't come as a supprise to some of you, at least I didn't lose it!
The main reason for us visiting Can Tho was to go to the famous floating markets. We woke at 5.30am and along with our lovely guide set off for the day in a small boat on the Mekong Delta.
Two hours into our journey we arrived at our first floating market. The first boat we rowed over to was a lady selling iced coffee who had been working and selling cold drinks on the Mekong for 30 years. It was quite surreal ordering coffee in the middle of a river! We were surrounded by other, much larger boats, selling all different types of fruit and veg. They would advertise what they were selling by tying the fruit/veg to a bamboo stick and displaying it like a flag. Our guide told us, (inbetweeen making us bananna leaf origami presents) the sellers come from all over the Mekong and live on the river for the majority of the year, only getting off to re-stock.
As we were in a smaller boat we were able to visit some of the smaller canals where we saw people living directly on the river. It was great to be able to experience something off the tourist trail. I was quite keen on having a go at rowing so Luan and Sarah sat back, relaxed as I took over for half hour to much the amusement of local people. Luan said it would have taken
us 3 days to complete the tour at the pace I was going so we started the motor, thankfully :-).
That evening we headed out along the river front and saw a local man giving Vietmanise massages with a twist... Sarah goaded me into having a suction cup massage. It involved him using a flame to heat up small glass jars and place them all over my shoulders and back. He then stood all over me and clicked my ears and forehead, odd. It wasn't until he'd finished and Sarah saw the state of my back that her guilt kicked in worrying I was going to be scarred for life. None of it hurt, (in a weird way very relaxing) and neither did any of the black and purple bruises that appeared on my back. It was a good laugh all the same even though they lasted for a week!
We headed to Ha Tein the next day which is a small town which connects via ferry to the island of Phu Quoc. We spent 4 days on the island and didn't move from the beach. We struggled to find anywhere that sold a bat and ball so
we were forced to sleep, read and relax, gutted ;0).
Hope your all well.
Love Julian and Sarah xxx
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Brenda Britnell
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Wow..... you are really changing colour now. Looking good :)