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Published: December 30th 2007
Andrew and Maddy
This photo was taken outside one of the pagodas at marble mountain.30/12
Now I know I was only doing some blog work this morning, but decent computers and internet connections seem far and few between in these parts - so much so that I have even updated my travel mantra. Normally my mantra is "sleep when you can and pee when you can" when travelling - I am thinking of upgrading it to include "use halfway decent internet when you can".
Andrew persuaded me that posting our new clothing home was the most sensible option, so we headed down to the post office, which was thankfully open on a Sunday. The clothing weighed 5kgs and cost about US $60 to post home by air mail. Andrew and I got into a short-lived heated discussion over whether to send it by air mail or surface mail but I explained that there is no telling when the need for a medium length black dress will arrive, hehe.
Anyhow, because all my dongs were gone in making up US $60, I had withdraw about another million bank notes from the ATM (fellow and future Vietnam travellers - for your own sanity, deal in US dollars, not dong!) and due to that and
the fact it was raining and I was starving I decided I was cranky. Andrew found this very amusing.
At 11am we set off in a very nice (albeit freezing!) car with the same driver as yesterday. Our destination: Marble Mountain. Marble Mountain is very close to the beach and it is a steep but low “mountain” made of, as you might have guessed, a lot of marble. For many years the local village took marble from the mountain to make their ornate sculptures, but they now import the marble from China so as to preserve the mountain itself.
The main attraction on the “mountain” is a series of gorgeous pagodas and little caves with statues and other religious impedimenta inside. One of the caves was particularly lovely. It had an extremely high ceiling which, thanks to US bombing, now has holes which allow light to pass down into the cave. It looks extremely pretty, especially as the jungle has reclaimed the holes and little vines poke through from above, dripping water which you can watch drop by drop pass all the way to the paved floor.
Formerly this particular cave served as a Viet Cong hospital,
Floating Markets, Mekong Delta
As you might be able to see, the items for sale are attached to a pole. so from that perspective it was also very interesting.
We also stopped at China beach which was a bit of a non event considering it was bucketing with rain and blowing a gale! But it did seem to be a very beautiful beach.
After some lunch - Andrew still on the Western food due to his tummy bug - we took a quaint little ride down the river with a local lady in her rowboat. About halfway through, the lady let Andrew do some rowing - a nice idea in theory, until Andrew quite innocently whacked me in the face with the end of his oar!! It really hurt and I pretended to be angry for at least one minute.
At about 4pm we made it back to our resort, and it because it was wet and windy and somewhat cold we decided that the most appropriate course of action would be to watch cable TV in bed while eating chocolate chip biscuits. This was a very important order of business and also resulted in some good agreements on what we should do in Hue and Ninh Binh.
Now we are just on our way out
Floating Markets
Most boats seemed to sell one type of fresh produce only. This guy must have been diversifying! for tea and are sharing the internet shop with about a dozen twelve year old Vietnamese kids playing some kind of online dance game. Tomorrow at 8am we are catching a bus to Hue, which should take 4 or so hours. We are about ready for our next stop, and although we have had quite a relaxing time in Hoi An it is time for us to move on! I hope to put up another installment here before too long!
Oh and before I forget, sorry the photos are all over the place but we are using 2 different cameras. These ones are from our compact camera which we used when the other one's battery was flat.
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Lauren
non-member comment
Hello :)
Hey guys! Merry Christmas/Happy New Year! Sounds and looks like you guys are having a wonderful time! The photos are beautiful, making me wish i was there sooo much. btw, that train looks exactly the same as the indian ones!! Gee, i miss those- hehehe. See you soon. Lots of love, Lauren.