So this blog completes the 2nd half of Vietnam...

In total we were 3 and a half weeks in Vietnam which we've all agreed was a really good amount of time to cover everthing. I'll list the places that we covered during the second half of the country (southern part)

Hoi An

This was where my last blog entry was from. It was very pretty but in a quite contrived way. The local tourism board goes to great lengths to keep everything looking like it would have 150 years or so ago, as a result all the shops have the same wooden signs; my footprints book explained it well when it said it's a bit like disneyland Vietnam, beacuse everything abou the place is set up to make money. However it is very pretty. there is quite cafe culture along the river, with hundred of pretty paper lanterns. I eneded up getting 2 dresses and a suit made! s I don't own a suit it seemed like a fantastic idea, getting a shirt jacket and trousers made to measure for under 50 quid. It is, however, a little annoying carrying a suit bag from place to plca along with my backpack and smaller rucksack!

Nha Trang

This was the next place we visited: a beach town with quite a western backpacker feel. We were interested in doing diving courses to get PADI certified. In Nha Trang this tok 3 days with 1 instructor between 3, and cost 250 dollars, which is SO cheap compared to home or Oz and other places. IT was really good fun and strangely rewarding. You had quite a lot of reading to do which we did neglect a fair bit, but I managed to get 100% in the final test! A natural you might say, unlkie poor old Scott who had trouble equalising (basically popping your ears to adjust to the pressure- v dangerous if you don't do it properly), as a result he even got a nose bleed after one or two descents, much to his alarm! Luckily he still managed to complete the course though. On the final night we went out with our instructor (a 20yr old from North London) and got very drunk, guess we just weren't used to a) drinking a lot and b) drinking a lot when hugely dehydrated fropm being somewhere so hot! We eneded up at this beach party with a DJ and music and everyone dancing on the sand, with just sky abocve us and the bars set into the palm trees- very good vibe. Just a shame we had a 7am bus to get the next day and an 8hr journey!

Dalat

Dalat is a former French hill station, basically the French all escaped up there when it got too hot in other parts of the country. THe cooler climate was quite a blessing, and the city itself felt less touristy (you didn't really see many Westerners, and fewer people spoke English). We booked 2 amazing excursions with a tour company. The first was Canyoning, which involved abseiling, water sliding, swimming and jumping down a huge waterfall. It was GREAT fun. ALthough it definitely pushed my boundaries of comfort. Especially a 7 metre jump into water which I was determined to do but s*** scared of. I ended up crying and took about 15 mins to build myself up to actually jumping. Very glad I did. The main waterfall we abseiled down was huge. It is quite something, really slippery and water pounding down on you. They also conveniently end the ropes WAY above the bottom so you had to just jump and fall backwards into the pool. I would have struggled to do it had there been another option! The second day saw us going on a trek. The scenery was brilliant, and felt more like Canada than Vietnam! We also had a really cool guy called Tom also in our group who shared Scott's love of football and cricket, allowing him to have some much desired sports conversations. THe trek was supposed to be an 'ádventure thriller trek'. We had to cross the most dodgy looking bridge you've seen in your life. Something the others seemed fine with but I was far more cautious. The first bridge was really long, had a 20metre drop into water and was made of old wooden planks for your feet with a thin wire each side to hold onto. The planks werte not joined and had a gap every other plan, sometimes there was more than one gap. THe locals soometimes drive across this on motorbike! THe second bridge was much the same apart form it was sloped sideways at an angle reaching 45 degrees in most places, meaning you could only stand on the right side or you'd slip and fall! Another good little challenge for someone who isn't that comfortable woth heights!

Mui Ne

We just spent one day in this fishing viallage/beach resort, on the way to HCMC. The coolest thing about it was that it had sand dunes, which were realy different from other scenery we'd seen in Vietnam. You could sand board on them, although we dn't seem to og very fast. I think it was because the sand was quite loose due to the direction of the wind. THe unfortunate thing about Mui Ne is that it is famous for rotting fish sauce, so the whole place stinks!

Ho Chi Minh City

Our final stop in Vietnam involved just one full day. We visited the Cu Chi tunnels, which is where the Viet Cong hid from the Americans during the war. THe actual tunnels are tiny (VIetnamese are small remember), and I found them really clustrophobic so didn't stay in long. I was only in th ebit where you crouch overwith your back facing down, there are other part where they had to crawl or even lie. All of this to hide from the Americans. THe tour wasn't the best as we had a group of around 50! You did, however, get a feel for what it must have been like to fight in the forest, we also saw some examples of pretty gruesome death traps the ''çreative'' Vietnamese constructed, most involveing sharpened bamboo spikes! In the afternoon we went to the War Remnants museum. THis place was ascinating but very gruesome. It was hugely anti-AMerican with hundreds of photos of the Vietnamese war, which was the first war ever to really be covered by the media. The most gruesome part was the photos of vitims of Agent Orange (the most poisonous gas avasilable, which Americans dropped all over the country causing water sources to be ruined, awful burns and really rea;lly grotesque mutations, especailly for generations yet to be born. There were some horrible horriblw sights, even deforemed foetuses suspended in liquid were included in the display- nothing spared! We met with Tom again in Ho Chi Minh city one evening, before getting a bus the following day to Cambodia, which is where my next entry will be from.

Love to all

Beth xxx

Ho Chi Minh City