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I finally made it to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), what a city! its vibrant, noisy streets and 1000s of motorcycles all make a awesome hot-pot of craziness to enjoy and revel in... so on 1st night, with 2 hours sleep (the 2 hours were slept in business class of the BA flight... I sneaked in when no one was looking... only the best!!) I was off with a big group, including my friend Helen from Uni, who was also in HCMC for the night!!, for my first taster of vietnamese cuisine.... noodles!! yum! We all had a great time.
Due to my late arrival in HCMC, I was not able to enjoy the city to such a large extent. The next morning we left for Mui ne, a coastal town north of HCMC. Helen and Gary had decided to treat themselves for a night and stay in a nice place, i wasnt going to start complaining, I had got used to my business class level of travelling. We stayed in a beautiful resort, with swimming pool and beach views. We could hear the lapping waves from our room. This set us back a good 10 quid a night! (this is v.expensive when considering that our average hostel costs about 1.50 a night.) So after some R & R we continued our travels up towards Nha Trang, another coastal town. There, we volunteered to do some english teaching for some kids for an organisation that aims to help street kids. Was fun and met some sweet kids who made us all laugh loads.
Following from our stay there, we were eager to continue North in an overnight train towards Hoi an.
After watching some tiny kid nearly kill an even tinier kitten on the station (was totally shocking), I was dutifully sick on the train for a large proportion of the night. was not the most pleasent experience of my life! Its bad enough going to the loo on the trains, let alone throwing up on them! it was, however, a "character building" experience...
After extensive bartering with Taxi drivers we made it to Hoi An, the tailoring centre of Vietnam. EVERYONE is trying to tailor clothes for you... how could we resist? When Topshop petit jeans are too short for you, you would not give up this opportunity very easily.
However, the best thing about our stay in Hoi An was a random encounter with Beth and her Boyfriend Rich on the river bank in the old town! As you can imagine, there was alot of screaming from both me and Beth. We spent the next few days with them generally having so much fun, chilling in cafes for hours and looking around the beautiful French colonial old town of Hoi An.
Finally this brings me onto Hue, where we did a tour of the ironically names "demilitarized Zone", where the majority of the fighting happened. It was fascinating. The tour took us to the mountains, which were on one hand really spectacular, but on the other hand had a fiant sense of emptiness. Where the Jungle used to grow, now grew small sappling trees, in an effort to reforest the landscape. The Americans used Agent-Orange along with other chemicals which killed anything growing on the land. Was a real eye-opener.
Anyway, this brings me to the end of my journal entry, we are currently waiting for an overnight bus to Hanoi, where we are planning to do a boat trip for 2 days around the islands off the coast. And then a trek up North in Sapa. Watch this space... Thanks for all the messages, and keep them coming, is great to hear from everyone.
All my love
Naomi xxxx
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