Nha Trang was our next stop, and another overnight bus journey. It was better than previous ones, but I still had to put with the driver smoking right in front of me. He'd symbolically opened his window but all it did was to blow the smoke back in. I think I managed all of about 3 hours sleep on the 12 hour journey. We'd learnt from last time and taken food with us, as well as having dinner just before we left Hoi An. We had Pringles, plain biscuits and dried ginger. Random selection, but it got us through the night.

This bus had a TV which we thought would be good...oh no!! It showed really bad dance music videos with footage of an Asian beauty contest, scary men and women pole dancing, and others along the same lines! Then once that was finished he put on some films, but they were all dubbed into Vietnamese. So these bad films, Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, and another terrible car film set in a Germany where everyone sounds American, were made worse!! I just read my book and tried to block it out. It was nice in the morning though because I woke up for sunrise just as we were passing rice fields, mountains and then the coast.

We got to Nha Trang at about 7am and got a taxi straight to our hotel, the comically named My Dung! We went up to our room via a very dodgy, small lift to the 6th and top floor, and I proceeded to fall asleep for 3 hours leaving Emma very bored watching bad films on TV. Eventually we made it out for some lunch in another Cafe Des Amis before heading to the beach.

Nha Trang is effectively a beach holiday resort for Vietnamese from the cities, and tourists have got in on the action too. It does feel like a beach resort anywhere in the world, but it is a good place to relax. The only downside to the beach is the constant stream of hawkers. "No thanks" becomes your most used phrase very quickly, as you have to repeat it 5 times to each seller before they give up. A tough afternoon on a deck chair in 35C heat takes it out of you, so after a while we headed back to the room and flopped on the bed to watch films again, the only films on were Babe and Ice Age!!, we watched both, before heading out for dinner.

Being a resort town there are plenty of bars and restaurants serving good quality, inexpensive food, this time we opted for Mexican as a change. When we first arrived in Asia I saw people eating hamburgers, KFC and pizza's and said to Emma that I couldn't believe people come all this way and eat what they can get at home...I take that back, because every now and again you really need a change, and a burger or fajitas can sometimes be irresistible!

Our 2nd day there we decided to do a tour of some of the islands off the coast. We had been told these tours could be "funny", and it was definitely that! It started off fine; we were put on a boat of about 40 people, 6 westerners and the rest holidaying Vietnamese families. We went to the 1st Island where we snorkeled, which was fun. Nice clear blue waters and perfect sun. We saw a fair few fish and made each other laugh in our bright pink masks we were given. The 2nd Island we never actually touched. We anchored off the beach and were served with lunch. The benches in the middle of the boat folded down to make the table and food was brought out to share between 4 people. Some of the Vietnamese women were straight in there stuffing their faces and bowls full, while others seemed to find how we Westerners use chopsticks to be very comical!

Once lunch had been cleared away we were horrified to see a microphone being set up right in front of us. Thinking it was going to turn into Karaoke we hot footed it to the other end of the boat. "Luckily" it turned out that 4 of the guides were going to entertain us! During lunch 2 other boat had pulled up along side us, so there were 3 boats of 40 or so people. Our guide had a guitar and claimed he could play songs from all over the world in almost every language...this proved true as he and some other guides played and sang songs in English, French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian...I think that was it, we kind of lost track. It was very entertaining actually...although very surreal. He even sang a song about Ho Chi Minh and taught us the chorus which we had to sing in turn into the microphone! It felt like we were infiltrating a Vietnamese holiday, which we were but they welcomed us in, although laughing at our "weird" ways at the same time! There were quite a lot of kids around so they sang Brother John in Vietnamese, French and English. Everyone was clapping along all the time and got very into it. Our guide then let us in for our "surprise" that he'd told everyone we'd get after lunch!!

This "surprise" was a magic trick where he asked someone to strike a can with his magic chopstick while he had his back turned, and he would be able to tell which one it was. The way he could tell was interesting to say the least!! The 1st time he listened to each can in turn then picked the right one! The 2nd he rubbed each can and got it right! The 3rd time he smelt them and got it right! Then the final time he stared into the man's eyes that had hit the can and got it right! It was very odd but made everyone laugh.

Then they put on loud, clubbing music and the floating bar was launched!! One guide from the other boat was standing on it about 20 meters from the boat and was dancing on the bar in Speedos!! Somewhat disturbing but he was so into it was hilarious! Unfortunately Emma had spotted a floater from one of the boat's toilets go by...so the idea of diving in was not one we were too keen on. The guide shouted at us until we did, so after a quick check that the offending item was not around, we dived in from the side of the boat, where we were thrown a rubber ring and we had to swim over to the bar to be given a shot glass of red wine with a lump of pineapple in! It was bizarre...talking to some of the Vietnamese this is what they do nearly every holiday, when they are in Nha Trang!

The 3rd island was pretty horrible so we just sat on the beach and read until it was time to go. Then the 4th and final island had an aquarium on. It was housed in what seemed to be a mock up of a Pirate ship! It was though quite interesting, although some of the fish seemed much too big for their tanks. There was a good collection, and outside was a fish farm, as well as some really old looking turtles. The tour only cost $7 each and it was a funny day and quite fun so we were glad we did it. I did get pretty badly burnt though on the top of my back and my shoulders.

That night we found happy hour again! Maybe not a good idea as Emma fell over quite spectacularly in front of a restaurant before drinking anything! Oops...a few very strong vodka/oranges later and we talked ourselves into going for a posh ish dinner, which led to almost blowing our budget for the day. It was the same restaurant Emma fell over outside earlier, and the guy showing us to our table said "Hello again!" with a smirk on his face, much to Emma's embarrassment. A sign that the vodkas may have been 1 too many, was that we ordered 3 main courses, just so we could try crocodile. Neither of us needed it at all after huge mains, and Emma didn't really like it, so it was a bit of a waste. It was like chewy chicken with a hint of pork and fish!! Don't think we'll have that again in a hurry.

The next morning, as we'd done so much hard work recently!!...we headed to a spa. For less than GBP3 each we had a mud bath, where we got to wallow around like hippos, (speak for yourself Craig!!!) covering each other from head to toe in cool, slimy mud...hot mineral showers that they called hydrotherapy, and a bath in thermal hot springs. We felt very relaxed afterwards! The rest of the day was as very relaxing, with a leisurely lunch, before reading our books in a bar, a short internet session, dinner and then back to the hotel for more bad films! A good day all round!

The next morning was an early start to catch the bus to our next stop, Dalat, where we are now. It is up in the mountains and is much cooler...it's springtime all year round apparently with temperatures never going lower than 15C or higher than 24C. The bus journey was fine up until the mountain roads started. The driver flew up them and round every bend, sounding his horn frantically to warn oncoming traffic, leaving us praying nothing was coming because there was no way he'd be able to stop! Emma didn't really notice this manic driving as she was having really bad stomach pains! This was a curse and a blessing. Had she have been with it, the driving would have terrified her, but as it was she was in a lot of pain and kept going cold with goose bumps! In the end I had to ask the driver if we could stop at the next toilet which he did and Emma rushed off...returning much better but a slight shade of green!(partly to do with the state of the squat toilets! yuk!)....Too much information!!!!

Anyway, tomorrow we are off again so we'll update you from Ho Chi Minh(Saigon) when we arrive. Should be in 4 days. Lots of Love, Craig and Emma xxxxxxx