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Published: June 11th 2006
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Thursday 8th June Laura - Today we rented a couple of bikes and headed to the beach, 5km from the centre of Hoi An. It was incredibly hot, so the biking was a bit of an effort. Especially in the midday sun! It was well worth it though because the beach is probably the nicest beach either of us have ever been to. It was all palm trees, clear blue sea, and golden sands. A bit like Cleethorpes really...
Anyway, we shade-bathed for a while under the palm trees and read our books. We were approached by about 50 local women selling a variety of things, from pineapples to manicures. When we turned them away they would all tell us their names in the hope that we'd remember them and buy stuff from them later (our favourite was a toothless woman called 'LuLu').
We got some lunch in a little beach side cafe and the food was fresh and delicious. Then we went for a dip in the sea, which was lovely and warm but very refreshing. Paul got out to take some photos and I was approached by lots of local men in the sea who were
trying to persuade me to get on their rubber ring! (Paul - insert sexual joke here) Very random. We eventually bought a pineapple from a local woman (she was called Sunsun, in case your interested) and she carved it up in front of us. It was very tasty.
We got back to town around 5 and went to try on our clothes (yes that's right, our TAILOR MADE clothes). Paul's jacket was a bit tight (well he couldn't lift his arms more than 5 inches!) but they couldn't see what the problem was - "why would you want to be moving your arms around in a suit? You won't be flying" (?!). But we eventually managed to persuade them to adjust it. Then I realised they'd made one of tops in a completely different design to what I'd asked for, but were happy to adjust it (considering we hadn't paid them yet they couldn't really argue!).
It was ridiculously hot in the clothes market, I don't know how we didn't pass out. It took Paul about 5 minutes to get the jacket on because it was sticking to his sweaty skin so much! When we finally got out
of their we were drenched in sweat. It was pretty gross. So we went back to the hotel and got cold showers.
We met up with Lauren and Peter for dinner, and ate on a balcony in a riverside restaurant. It was very nice and the 'fresh' local beer was only 10 p for half a pint - bonus! After that we went to a bar to play doubles at pool and we were victorious 3 times in a row. Hurrah!
Friday 9th June Paul - The World Cup is fast approaching and I'm pretty excited (just about the whole population of Vietnam is pretty excited and we learnt today that there will be a massive screen on Nha Trang beach to watch the game on. Brilliant!). My Real Madrid shirt seems to be loved in Hoi An and everyone always shouts "Ronaldo" after I walk past! A couple of older woman with a few teeth missing even tried to serenade me...ahhh... if only I were a few decades older...
So we got up and checked out and went to try on our clothes. After a bit of readjusting here and there we finally
got what we wanted and will send them home from Ho Chi Minh city hopefully. Didn't do much else today really, just lounged about drinking fresh milkshakes and admiring the gorgeous views. It was far too hot to go to the beach, a rough estimate put the temperature at about 45 degrees with about 100% humidity.
Will be getting on the overnight bus to Nha Trang soon so will be arriving tomorrow morning and meeting up with a whole host of people for the England game on the beach! Sounds fantastic!
Really enjoyed Hoi An this past few days. A very laid back little town with some lovely riverside restaurants. The nearby Cua Dai beach is paradise, pristine white sands and gorgeous waters. Lovely ladies walk by trying to give you a pedicure
"would you like a pedicure sir?"
"I'm not even sure what one of those is..."
"It would look lovely on you sir."
"You think so? Hold on let me just ask my girlfriend when she gets back... hold on... what do you mean never mind? Hey come back! My girlfriend will be back in a second... I might like a pedicure!"
You could
easily linger here for a lot longer if you wanted too. And I'm still waiting for that pedicure.
Saturday 10th June Paul - What a fantastic bus journey! If Basil Faulty wasn't in charge of the company running that bus then he was at least on the board of directors. Brilliant!
Hopped on board at about 7pm to be greeted by our cheerful Vietnamese bus driver. Settled down to read our books but not before the air conditioning turned itself off. Not to worry though, the bus driver pulled over and fixed it quickly. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
20 minutes later and the air condition had not only broke, the lights on the bus seemed to be suspiciously absent and there was a faint suggestion of trouble on the horizon. Surely not!? Not with the Vietnamese bus system being run by Richard Branson a man with such dedication to customer satisfaction?! What do you mean it's not run by Sir Rich? Oh shit!
One hour and a half down the road and we had barely moved more than 30km. To make matters worse (or more interesting if you're reading the blog
and you're not one of those lucky lucky people that were on the bus) the air conditioning had now completely packed in. Did I forget to say there were no windows too? 40 of us packed on this bus, sizzling like sardines, while the bus driver takes his tool kit to the underside of the bus. Let's hope he knows what he's doing. A few quick whacks here and there, a couple of grunts and.... apparently not!
Not to worry though, he assured us, we pulled into a service station a few minutes up the road and that got the lights working. Now we weren't going to die by crashing into anything! Hurray! Only one minor problem and that was that we were all going to sizzle to a slow and painful death...
After about another hour of god awful driving we pulled into another service station where we would spend the next 2 hours! The reason? Well it was the World Cup opening game (not that I was complaining of course! Great game!) and bus drivers don't need to stick to their schedules. So a whole host of Western backpackers crammed into this tiny cafe in the
middle of Vietnam at midnight much to the delight of the locals.
Good game as well but wasn't to everyone's liking... a Oz girl was getting very irritated that we haven't left yet and shouted into the cafe "Are we GOING to be LEAVING soon?" to which the coach driver just pointed at the television and laughed. She stormed off in a big stress and as Germany opened the scoring with a cracker no one was slightly interested in what she had to say!
Finally arrived in Nha Trang and booked quickly into a hotel room. Slept for most of the day in preperation for the England game of course. Laura somehow managed to find "Big" on the television and apparently it's one of her's and Katies "favs" so we HAD to watch it. Fantastic... actually it wasn't too bad!
So round came the England game and we crammed into Krazy Kims pub to watch it with Anna and Andy and Brian and Caitriona. What a crap game. Honestly, England were appalling. I've seen Grimsby play better football this season. But we had a great time in the bar and got totally hammered, well me and Andy
A bunch of jokers pleased with the England win!
From left to right : Anna, Brian, Caotriona, and the two mexicans Laura and Andy did anyway.
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Tired Mum - just run Race for Life
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I need a rest
Wow the beach sounds fantastic I could easily lay and be annoyed by people asking me if I wanted a pedicure(toe nails cut to you) or just letting them cut up a pineapple for me - what a life - Dad says you want to think yourselves lucky being out of the country at this mad time - flags flying everywhere - dad is going to get an anything but England T shirt from JJB's - quite agree in town on sat morning there were even old foggies in their England T shirts - whats the world coming to. Will send Mike out to you he needs a pedicure.