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Published: March 13th 2010
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Saigon
The start of a very drunken night in a Saigon nightclub ! Hello all, Stu and I are still in Vietnam - story so far....
We got a gruelling 12 hour bus from Siem Reap, Cambodia, over to Ho Chi Minh City (formally, and still know to southern Vietnamese as Siagon).
Ho Chi Minh is absolutely hectic and sooo busy 24 hours none stop, I've never seen so many mopeds/motorbikes in one place at one time. It took us literally about 10 minutes to pluck up the courage to cross the road, which was an absolute nightmare but the locals there just stroll out into the road and all the mopeds seem to avoid them - organised chaos!
We had a lovely little apartment on a busy side street with all mod cons and a balcony for $10, this was one of our favourite rooms so far.
We visited the War Remnants Museum which displays memorabilia from the war in the 60's/70's, this was very sad and there were again more gruesome pictures/stories of mans inhumanity to man on display everywhere along with war planes, tanks and bombs.
We stumbled accross a little shop which had little plastic tables and chairs spilling out onto the street and people were drinking out of strange
Saigon
With our lovely friends Dan and Julie. plastic bottles, we found out this was Bai Hoi, Vietnames homebrewed draft beer which is sold in containers and works out about 10p a litre - brilliant !! There all over Vietnam and although the price varies there never much more than that and this is pretty much all we have drunk since which has helped our budgetting dramatically !!
We found out that our friends Dan and Julie, who we met in Cambodia and had kept in touch with, were passing through Ho Chi Minh on they're way to Siem Reap so we met up with them on our second night for a few drinks - I use the word "few" very lightly indeed as we ended up getting absolutely wasted in a nightclub in the city drinking Moet !! I cant remember much of that night but the pictures look like we had a fun time !! The rest of the stay in Ho Chi Minh was pretty much spent in bed recovering.
After Ho Chi Minh we made our way North to the beach resort of Mui Ne, this was very quiet but quite nice, we had a few well needed days relaxing on the beach before
Saigon
Julie and I with a random carrying on our journey North. Not much happened in Mui Ne really, the cute little dog at the apartment bit Stu (nothing serious), he tends to stay away from animals now!
After Mui Ne we went to the coastal city of Nha Trang, while here we visited Vinpearl Island, Vietnams answer to Disneyland, this was a great day, we got a cable car over to the island (VERY scary) which has a great waterpark, fair, sealife centre and arcades where all games are free !! We spent all day there and the whole thing including cable cars only cost us $11.
The rest of our days in Nha Trang were spent at Lousiane Brewhouse which is a bar on the beach with a pool that brews their own beer and adds strange ingredients such as passionfruit and chocolate but suprisingly this was really nice.
We then did a 12 hour night bus to Hoi An, where we are at the moment, the night bus wasn't a really nice experience as there was no toilet, the beds were very uncomfortable and I was eaten alive by mosquito's, on one of the many tiolet/drink/food stops on the way our driver, with the
Saigon
Cant remember this one ! help of a local, took one of the wheels off the bus for some reason unbeknown to anyone, he put it back on and we continued our journey, but this didn't instill us with much confidence and I had very broken sleep, awaking every 10 mins or so to check the bus still had 4 wheels (or do they have 6)?!!
We knew it would get colder as we got North, but didn't think we'd have to worry about that until we got to Hanoi, but after a quick sleep, I put my normal shorts/tshirt on and left the apartment thinking for such a cheap hotel it had very good air conditioning, as soon as I stepped outside I realised it wasn't the aircon and it was actually freezing !! Straight back into the room to get dressed into the only pair of jeans I have and my leather coat I travelled in! I started to worry as we are still only central Vietnam and I have 1 pair of jeans and a pair of cotton trousers, luckily after a couple of days bad weather, Hoi An is now lovely and warm again - so fingers crossed I wont have
Saigon
Again - cant remember! to spend any of our budget on hoodie's just yet.
Hoi An is a really old town on a river full of old building, its really scenic and very charming and quite romantic. Since the weather warmed up Stuart and I haven't moved from the beach as this is the last beach we'll see for about a month.
We've booked our ticket for a 20 hour journey to Hanoi leaving tomorrow, depending on the weather we may do Halong Bay, which is supposed to be beautiful but can be as cold as 10 degrees !!
Hope everyone at home is well, will update again shortly
Laura and Stu Xxx
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Eric
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Hey Laura, Your Vietnam adventure sounds awesome. Your pics reminded me of my time there. My blog is looking for photos to post. If you have time check us out at: www.dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your trip! Eric and Heather