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This is our attempt at blogging more regularly so its not such an essay to read, although three weeks have still managed to fly by! After a very early (5am) and muddy border crossing by moto we reached Ha Tien in Vietnam just in time to catch the ferry to the tropical island of Phu Quoc. We decided to stay there for the week for Simon’s birthday and as luck would have it, the rain stopped and the sun shone all week! It was like a little holiday within a holiday, with a bungalow on the beach, fresh seafood at the night market (including giant sea snails, urchins and dried lizards), gorgeous sunsets, and relatively unspoilt beaches.
It was pretty quiet on the island but we managed to rustle up a bit of a party in an Aussie bar and celebrated with a few too many lemon rums and local beer, then treated ourselves to a posh French meal the next day. After a checking out the pearl farm, a virtually untouched beach, and a spot of tennis, we left paradise with a topped up tan to return to the mainland.
First stop was Can Tho in the Mekhong delta, we’ve followed the river since Thailand so we had to see it off where it ended. We took a 7 hour boat trip down one of the ‘nine dragons’ to see an early morning floating market in action, grabbing a pineapple and a coffee as they floated by, and explored the backwaters. The town itself had some great street food (it’s a big culinary step up from Cambodia) and cheap cheap beer at around 25 pence! From here we were catapulted into the motorbike madness of Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City.
As long as your not expecting any peace and quiet its an awesome city. Its so vast I feel we only explored a small part of it. We stayed in a little house with a lovely family down the winding back alleys in the centre. THE FOOD! People who eat in the tourist restaurants just don’t know what theyre missing with the street stalls- amazing bites, and its so cheap its crazy. There was a great little drinking spot and a good place to meet other travellers, just plastic chairs and cheap beer but a great atmosphere and you could just flag down the passing stalls for a bite.
Exploring the markets, Simon treated himself to a nice classical guitar to scratch his musical itch (and annoy me with). We also of course visited the war museum which had some shocking but powerful photography, especially on the lasting effects of ‘agent orange’, and took a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, which was a bit more like an amusement park than a historical war site.
After frolicking in the fun but slightly terrifying water park we headed onto the next stop, Mui Ne. Another beautiful beach, popular with kite surfers, we enjoyed some more relaxing beach time (despite being hussled off the sun loungers by the mean resort managers) and took a moto to try our hand at sand sledging on the huge red sand dunes. Little 8 year old Beepa took us up to the steep sides and showed us how its done, good fun apart from the sand in your eyes, mouth and everywhere else!
A hair raising bus journey has now brought us to the start of the central mountains and the city of Dalat. It’s a quaint little place and its cooler climate and French hill station history provides the area with stawberries, peaches and wine. Yesterday we took a swan shaped paddle boat around the lake among the other ‘kitsch’ attractions like pony rides, alice in wonderland themed hotels and cable cars. Its apparently the ‘honeymoon capital’ of Vietnam. In an attempt to get ‘off the beaten track’ tomorrow we depart on a motorbike adventure with the ‘Easy Riders’ through the central highlands, stopping in villages and National Parks. Everyone seems to stop at the same places through Vietnam, which have great attractions but we find ourselves yearning for the farmlands of Laos, so we’ll see how it goes…wish us luck!!
Off to warm up with Rum coffee (coffee is a main past time here, morning noon and night!) Photos to follow soon…xx
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