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Vietnam:-
After getting our visa finally checked and stamped, we went out of the office to find our bus had gone!!! We went inside and found other 5 people from our bus and told them that our bus had gone! So we all rallied together and walked about to find our bus - we were proper panicking as all of our bags and stuff was on the bus! We asked an official man and he just laughed at us and told us to walk further. It was REALLy foggy so you only see about 2 metres ahead of you which doesn't help at all! After walking about 2 kilometres, we finally found our bus ( and yes, Alysha gave the driver a proper telling off!)
We had to go through a proper security checks like at airports then finally set off to Hanoi!
We arrived at Hanoi then had to get another minibus with a friendly tour guide to our hostel, May De Ville. He had a few tips for us to make sure we don't get ripped off, informed us of things to do around the area. We were staying near the 'old quarters' and while we were driving to the hostel, we could see a LOT of shops and people dressed stylishly (which naturally pleases Mischa very much!)
When we got off the bus to walk to our hostel, we realised how VERY manic this town is! There are loads of motorbikes that passes by you SO fast, beeping and honking at everything and for no reasons! There are hardly any traffic lights so we had to walk onto the roads and just hope they swerve pass you! (The locals do it with such ease, walking slowly onto the roads, whereas we look scared with our heads jerking sideways to make sure nothing is going to crash into us and squealing!!!)
Our hostel was really lovely, it had a modern look to it, completed with a cinema and pool room, internet were free for residents and free breakfast too! (the breakfast had everything and it was like a buffet!)
We explored the city, went to ALOT of shops, visited the night market, met some deaf vietnamese, and went to some bars.
Halong Bay- we bought a package deal after a lot of advice from others to visit Halong Bay. We'd get a cruise that takes us to Halong Bay, with a LOT of activites for the 2 days we booked it for. We knew that it was a little too cold for a boat ride, but the itinerary sounded good so we took the risk and booked it anyway.
A bus came to pick us up, and once again we recognised some people from the last coach trip (group of 3 french men) As we approached Halong Bay it was foggy and cold! We got to the port, waiting to board the boat but we were stood there for ages (our boat had got lost in the fog so we were just waiting for it to come to shore! )
Finally after 2 hour delay and starving we boarded the boat - it was a cute pirate looking ship that made us all want to say "ahoy matey!" to everyone! We sat down for lunch and we tried everything they gave to us (grilled fish, pork with satay, clams) and it was quite enjoyable! But we still had not move from the port, the fog was SO thick! Our guide had informed us that we may have to get off and come back again the next day! Obviously we weren't too impressed since we had paid a lot of money. We all ganged up with the other travellers, voicing our opinions and we all were really not happy! It turned out that the company was going to pay for our hotel and offer free beer all night! (Alysha and Mischa demanded for free wine all night on the basis that we do not like beer so we would be losing out! Result - they agreed!) The group all agreed with the "deal" (except two boring russians who demanded their money back and go home!) Wedecided that we were going to get royally pissed, take total advantage of what was on offer so we got off the boat onto a bus that took a while to drive. At one point we stopped outside a shack and Gemma worriedly told Alysha that was where we were sleeping! Thankfully our driver was just lost, and we arrived at a really nice hotel! We had 45 mins to shower and change to go out to eat with the group. Our hotel was really nice, quite posh and naturally we took advantage of the minibar ;)
Everyone in our group were in good spirits, we walked to the local restaurant and there was beer and bottles of vodka waiting for us! Still determined to get what we wanted, Alysha reminded the man we didnt like beer and they produced 4 bottles of red! Whoooo! We had to have a few shots before dinner on order from our guide! Gemma could hear the chickens being slaughtered for our dinner!! For our starters - boiled chicken feet with claws intact! Coco bravely tried a bit and said it was rubber tasting! Our guides from the boat was sitting by Mischa and Alysha were happily devouring the feet and was laughing at our reactions! The main course wasn't too bad - 'boiled then fried' chicken but it was just a tad too chewy for our liking. We loved the rice with shredded pork and rice noodles but Coco thought the black bits were beef so she tried it, then we asked the man next to us.... it was chicken intestines! Then they served the chicken hot pot that we had to cook ourself on the table! Well.....we all had a shock! The chicken head with eyes and beak still intact, wings, thighs and every other bit of the chicken was in it! (they truly know the meaning of 'waste not, want not'!) We were all a bit tipsy at this point after having several shots of vodka that we became 'chefs', throwing everything we saw into the mix with the chicken (mushrooms, instant noodles and flavourings) The man was watching us bemused and urged Alysha to try it so she picked out the best looking bit of chicken and had a bite! Then everyone followed suit, taking most of the noodles ;)
We carried on drinking, talking to the locals and then the French men from our group were asking us about sign languages. Then Gemma told Alysha how to say 'cheers' in French then she tried it out on a man called Jeremy. He gave her a surprised look, yep, Gemma had told her to say 'move your ass' in French! Then Alysha and Mischa sang a French song to them and bless them, they played along because god knows what we sounded like!
Another group of local men sitting on another table gestured Mischa to join them who then roped Alysha with her....boy they were lethal! They kept making us down shots with them and were ruthless when we said we couldn't do anymore, demanding "one more!" So Alysha decided to rope Gemma in, asking her to help with communication but when Gemma got to the table, she was hounded and forced to drink several shots too!
The atmosphere was buzzing, everyone was slightly merry and when the restaurant had to close we were not ready to go to bed so we grabbed a few more bottles in our hands and walked with our guide to a place on the street near the coast, sat in a circle and played drinking games on the floor.
The next morning , boy, we all felt rough! They took us to another place for breakfast but we declined to eat as we felt dodgy and the thought of chicken intestine with noodle soup was a bit too much to bear!
We got back on a different boat later, and thankfully the weather had improved so we were able to do some activities. We saw a pretty cave that we walked around, did some kayaking around the island, went to the floating fish market and saw the famous fighting c*** (two identical boulders shaped like chicken not something rude....) then we headed back to shore for the bus ride back to Hanoi.
We got to our hostel and trying our luck, we explained that we didn't get to do everything we wanted in Halong Bay due the fog and that we had paid a lot of money for something that didn't match our expectations. They agreed to give us a free night accommodation as we booked it through their company, we gladly took that offer so we could have a chill-out day before leaving to go to the south of Vietnam!
We took a plane from Hanoi to Ho Chi Ming city. We loved the whole journey as every procedure was so quick and effortless! We arrived at the airport and within 20 mins we were on the plane after wolfing down boiling hot noodles to ensure we don't miss the gates closing! Then the plane itself was rather lush - moveable head rest, blankets on offer, food that was actually yummy for a plane, free drinks (it's the simple things that please us!) Then once we landed it was quick to get off and collected our bags within 15 minutes then got a taxi to take us to a guesthouse!
We had a few drinks in the evening in city then the next morning sorted out our plans for the next few days in the south of Vietnam!
Mui Ne- we took a bus from Ho Chi Ming City in the morning to go and explore the coastline of Vietnam. The bus ride only took around 4 hours and we arrived to the welcoming sight of the sea! Whooooo, finally - bikinis time!
We found beautiful accommodation so cheap and straight away we headed to the beach! It was bliss to feel the sand between our toes as we walked to find a spot to dump our towels and dived into the sea! We did some well awaited sunbathing, and chased some waves in the sea.
We also arranged a jeep tour to take us around the area. The whole day was just fantastic! Our driver took us to the 'fairy stream' where we had to walk through a place that stank to high heaven of what seemed like rotting fish! Eeeew!
But it lead us to what looked like a sandy river and we were told that we could walk through it. Alysha scowled her face up in disgust, she doesn't like to walk in something barefooted where you can't see what is under the water "I am not walking through that! " she declared! But then Coco went in and said "oh it's ok, it's shallow and it's just sand" the others followed and said it was weirdly cool! It looks deep, but the red sand is nice to walk through and so was the scenery around us as we walked up the stream. It looked like a mini version of the Grand Canyons!
After the stream we met up with the driver again and he took us to a fishing village, then onto what we had been waiting for all day! The sand dunes that we could slide down with a board!
The ride on the jeep to the sand dunes was cool, bumpy with our driver going a bit fast over the bumps and making us squeal! He told us what direction to go in and he would wait for us.
So we walked with local Vietnamese people asking us to buy this and that, wanting to show us stuff, then one thing caught Alysha's eye a huge sign being carried by a boy with a picture of an ostrich! Thinking it was a zoo we walked towards it until we realised you could ride them! "How much to ride one?!" Alysha asked excitedly with Mischa giving her a bemused look, "You serious? You actually want to go on it?" (In fairness, Alysha likes to go to market stall and asking how much is it for ALL the stuff on the stall, pretending she got a business back home!!!) In the end they both bad a ride each with Alysha going on first, getting a bit scared to come off after seeing the other ostrich try to bite a man! The ride was recorded by Coco and it was funny to ride one, the whole thing felt like you could slip off the ostrich and they seemed to run quite fast! After that random moment we carried on walking to the sand dunes.
We got a quad bike to take us up and Coco hired a "snowboard" so she could slide down in style!
Coco and Gemma shared a quad bike, Mischa and Alysha shared another with Mischa driving. We all rode up with our boards intact, got to the sand dunes getting excited we went up and down them in the quad bikes until we got stuck going up one of the dunes. Thankfully a man and a boy came to help, telling us they would drive up for us, they took us to the top and showed us the right way of going down. Mischa went first and didn't seem to be too impressed with the speed! Followed by Coco on her snowboard, her first time was effortless and professional looking not like the next few ones which consisted of her falling down half way, trying to get up again only to fall again leaving Gemma and Alysha laughing at the top! Finally Gemma and Alysha had a go, and got sand literally everywhere on our bodies! Mischa also had a go on the snowboard and glided down professionally! Gemma went with the boy down the sand dune on the quad bike, scary alp!
We had to return our quad bikes, so we thanked the man and boy who helped us and said we were going, but they stood in front of our bikes and demanded money! Cheeky sods! The boy even asked Mischa and Alysha for more, claiming that Coco and Gemma had given a lot more but we had already agreed on how much they gave, so we laughed at him for trying to push his luck!
We met our driver again, who took us to another sand dune, it was more orange sand compared to the last one that had white sand. We chilled there, enjoying the late afternoon sun before returning to our guesthouse to get ready and explore the nightlife at a few bars.
Nha Trang
Another beach area that's about 2 hours away from Mui Ne, we arrived late afternoon-ish. After checking in we went to have dinner at a noodle place we all enjoyed a noodle dish that had meatballs in it with bacon (sound random but was delish) then we went to have a look at the night market (very disappointing compared to the others that we seen!)
We went to VinPearl Land! It's another island very close by, thats been converted into a theme park with a water park too and it has it's own manmade beach! The only way to get to the island is by cable cars over the sea!!! Gemma and Coco didn't like the cable ride that went over the sea, even more so when Mischa and Alysha were teasing them by asking " what would you do if we got stuck like this for ages?" and rocking the car a bit!!
We got there safely in the end! We looked for lockers to put our bags in and headed straight to the waterpark! It was not that packed with people, so we were able to do every single slide (except the one that was typically one of the best one that was under repair!!) we went to the wave pool that "waved" for ages, and we all felt like little kids again!
We relaxed by the pretty manmade beach too, before getting our bags to go to the funfair side of VinPearl Land! Again we were able to do most rides, sometimes twice or more!! The most scary one was the a ride that spun you upside down, and held you suspended mid air upside down for ages and we could hear creaking from the seats (also our supportive gear felt too loose, Coco and Alysha were grabbing onto the metal to stop us from falling through the gaps!) We were more than happy to get off that ride....!!
We went to the aquarium, an arcade that had dodgems, free games that you would have to pay a fortune back at home, watched 4D movies. We kept taking advantage of what was there because it was mental that we paid one price to do unlimited stuff! We left VinPearl Land around 8pmish and had an early night ready for the next day.
3 Islands boat trip-
We booked a boat to take us to some surrounding islands. The 1st one we went to had a pirate like ship and inside was an aquarium! It was really daunting to be looking at big and ugly fish knowing that later we would have to snorkel in the sea!
Mischa ad Alysha also had the opportunity to dress up in traditional Vietnamese clothes, down to the shoes as well! Was a lot of layers to put on, and felt a bit stuffy towards the end but it was funny and that's another thing ticked off our list! Whoooop!
We got back on the boat, to another island where we could go snorkelling. Coco, Alysha and Mischa went to the top deck to jump off into the sea, and Gemma jumped in fom the bottom deck. The water was sooooo clear. We saw the corals, little brightly coloured fish, water snakes and starfish!
We boarded the boat again ready for some lunch. It was a mixture of noodles, rice, omelettes, fish, prawns, tofu etc we all tried a bit of everything and some bits were very yummy!
Then we went to the top deck to sunbathe then after a while we heard loud music, it was coming from a boat next to us. So we climbed over to see the crew playing live music. One was dressed as lady playing the tambourine kept pouting and shimmying OTT, being rather comical in his dance routines! One man was playing the bass guitar and a boy was playing the drums that were made from saucepans put into a set and it sounded wicked! They got people from the audience to go and sing, it was a nice friendly atmosphere! Then one of the staff told us all to jump into the water. He had a "bar" made out of rubber rings in the middle and we had to swim to him for free shots! Obviously we didn't need that much convincing so we jumped into the sea and had a drink. (or 2...3....4!!!)
We returned to the boat to go onto another island, where we could relax on the beach, swim in the water for a while. We kept saying to each other it's hard to believe we are actually here! This is the life!!! :)
Then we returned back to our hotel to get glammed up and went to a beach party at the sailor club. We had free drinks upon arrival, the bar was nice so naturally we did some posing for photos before going to dance on the beach. They did it really well, good music and lightings! We were dancing away, until a group of gay Chinese men saw us, joined us for a dance then offered us all free drinks, yes please! (They were a funny group!!!)
We also went to Thap Ba Spring centre - a natural mineral mud spa! We were excited about giving our skins a treat! (Our feet look like proper travelling feet - peeling skin, roughness etc!) A taxi took us there and we couldn't believe a lots of local people where in the mud baths fully clothed and there we were, clad in our bikinis!
We had a private bath full of mud - hard to describe, it was a bit watery and warm. We rubbed it over our faces, elbows, everywhere! We had to stay in for 15 mins, then sunbathed with the mud before washing it off with mineral water before going into a mineral bath!!! We all had slight sunburn on our backs, so we jumped in the bath thinking it would be refreshing. Hell no! It was hot, hot, hot water that made our burns sizzle! We waited a bit before getting in, but the water was too hot especially with the sun, so we walked round having different types of showers, going under the waterfall but even that was hot! We found a pool and jumped right in! Aghhhhh too hot again! (Now we know what a massive bath would feel like!!) We were never going to cool down! So we found some sunbeds and chilled in the shade with our soft skin until it was time for our taxi to pick us up again.
We got to our hotel, waited for our bus to arrive to take us to Ho Chi Ming City the same afternoon. We were hoping for a sleeping bus, instead we had a coach with upright chairs! We didn't complain as much as we would normally, think we are getting used to the bloody coaches/buses stuffed with people by now...!!
We arrived back to the city next early morning at 6am, Gemma and Mischa had swollen feet from the bus ride and we were all knackered from not sleeping much. We went back to the guesthouse that we last stayed in and they cheekily tried to make us pay more for an early check in. Alysha and Coco persuaded them to stick with the room rates, saying we didn't have to come back here, but we liked the place and people and really they should give us a deal for returning! They accepted our waffle, result! So we climbed to the top of the building to our old room for a couple of hours sleep before going out to Vietnam Rembrant Museum later that day.
We went to the Vietnam Rembrant Museum. It was a very very emotional afternoon, reading the stories of victims, seeing the pictures of children, women and men being tortured. (And uncovering the truths of the war that we didn't really know much about). We all got choked up! We had to take a break outside at one point to calm ourselves before finishing off the museum and looking at the tiger cages (torture cages for the captured). We came out of the museum in a very reflective mood, feeling bad for the past but also grateful for what we have and how we have never had to fear for our lives.
It was our lat night in Vietnam before going to Cambodia and boy, didn't we party it in style ;)
- comments
Auntie Laura Big WHOOP WHOOP to the Amazing Alysha and Gorgeous Girlies... What an adventure you are all having. Alysha you and the girls all look splendid in your pictures, happy and care-free livin the dream, beautiful... Am recieving the postcards, thankyou, big LOVES back to Mischa... Please check your e-mail when you have a moment, as I am in the world of Skype for the next few days and would love to try and get through to you if possible. Enjoy it all Alysha, love you millions, then loving you somemore. Big LOVES to you all... Xxxx's