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Hi guys. Hope you are all doing well and looking forward to Christmas which must be coming up fast for you. It doesn't really seem like it is approaching here, even though the shops have made an effort of writing happy christmas and putting tinsil in their shop windows. We have just met up with our tour group last night. They seem really cool and there are a few guys who are definite drinkers so it should be fun. The drinking games have already been refreshed in my memory.
We got back from Sapa yesterday morning. It's a little village right up in the mountains and we went trekking there which was fun. The scenery was amazing (would have been even better if the mist wasnt so thick) but never the less it was trully brilliant. We were right up the top of a mountain and a group of us had a local girl as our guide. It was really nice to walk down to the waterfall on our first day and there was an optional activity of swimming, I am sure that if i had not been so cold then it would have been so tempting. In some ways though I think the cold made it, you don't really want to be trekking in uncomfortable heat and you also appreciated how these people live in the conditions so well. They don't have electricity or anything like that, just a fire, and they do fine. Some people did home stay with the locals, but we are doing that later on our tour so we just decided to stay in a hotel for 2 nights.
The second day we had a slightly longer trek, so we thought anyway. We were all prepared for a nice long 6/7 hour trek and after lunch, about 4 hours, she said we were there. I was quite dissapointed to be honest, I just wanted to walk and explore more of the land. The locals were very friendly, but it was all very touristy, hence they were trying to sell us stuff all the time, a small reminder of what the tourist market has done to even the remotest parts of the world.
Today we have gone to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, where we saw his enbalmed(not sure of the spelling) body. It is so surreal to see a dead guy of 40 years lying there, he just looked like a wax figure. The museum that went with it was good, but all the letters, obviously enough, were in vietnamese so I couldn't gather much information. It has made me want to learn more about him and also what happened, we travelled to the military museum and it bigged him and what happened up even more, so i think a book when i get home is on the cards. maybe at uni i will learn about him.
last night was cool we sat on the street drinking local beer for 2000 dong a glass, thats about 6p. it puts a completely new light on 'getting pissed on a pound'. Other than that not much to say. The only thing i can think of is that in our group we have met someone from new zealand called debbie who lives 10 minutes away from auckland airport. She has offered to pick us up and get us somewhere to stay the first night so that it awesome.
If I don't write again have a great xmas and new year. Love Jon.
ps for xmas I will be in Hue and for new year.......... an overnight train.lol. sorry about the terrible grammar in my journal, i just write as it comes to me.
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