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Hey guys!! Soooo sorry its been so long since I’ve done this! Am currently on a bus from KL to Singapore, workin on a poorly, smashed up laptop - cant see half the screen! So forgive any random spelling or grammatical errors…
Right, so, Vietnam….I fell in love with Vietnam as soon as we got there, it just has such character (whereas Thailand felt like one big tourist trap and Laos felt a bit empty.)
We started in Hanoi which is a great little city, proper ‘backstreet’ place where we were, then just a ten minute taxi to the posh end (I was ill for a bit so we took a week out and practically lived at the cinema - it was great! Although Mike did make me see transformers…TWICE!)
We explored the city then went on a 3 day Halong Bay tour, which was amazing, its so stunning!! We did sea kayaking, and got taken for a tour by locals on little row boats - the water sparkled - it was just breathtaking! Jumping off the boat I got stung by a jellyfish, but some lime and ice later and it was all good.
We stayed on Cat ba island, the second night in the poshest hotel I’ve ever stayed in, and drove round the island on bikes, up to the national park look out.
Back to Hanoi and then we headed up to the far north, not far from the Chinese border, and did some LIGHT trekking, lol. Again the scenery was amazing; green, green rice terraces as far as the eye could see. I thought it wouldn’t live up to the postcard image I had - but it really surpassed it!! Our trek guides were two lovely locals, May Nhi was of the red dou tribe, and knew all about the area. They were so friendly, and even bought some local fruit, ‘dau de’, for us to try, which was like cross between cherries and gooseberries!
After a while in the north we started our way down, stopping first at Hue, where we did a local m’bike tour and a DMZ tour. The dmz tour was pretty rubbish, and we didn’t think much of this town, but think we made a schoolboy error and should have gone to the citadel! Ah well, next time.
Then we went to Hoi an, which is one of the loveliest towns, ever!! Its just so pretty with old French looking buildings, flowers and lanterns everywhere. Also a girls haven - the streets are literally lined with tailors willing to make you anything to fit you - and still for cheaper that you’d get in topshop or wherever! We went to the legendary Mr Xe, where mike got a suit & coat made and I got 3 tops, a coat…and then he made me a surprise dress for free!
After Hoi an we continued south with our newly aquired friends, Eileen and Brian. We all headed down to Nha Trang, which we didn’t really like but went too the mud baths which was fun! (Not really my thing, sat around in a bowl of warm mud, but an experience non the least!) So we stayed 24hrs n then headed off inland to Da Lat which a nice n cool hill town (got to wear my jeans! Very exciting) where we spent a day abseiling down waterfalls and canyons!
From Da Lat we headed to the beach, Mui ne, where we were whisked away by scooters!! (Quite comical as I had a little guy with my backpack wedged in the front bit - and he could barely see over the top!!) We spent several days here and loved it, just chilled - and I attempted to learn to kite surf, and failed somewhat! (I was very lucky nothing went wrong cos I thought the guy was from a reputable company listed in the rough guide - turned out they were closed for the low season and he was just a random 17yr old on school hols!!!) Ha ha.
Finishing up in Ho Chi Minh, and then the Mekong delta which was nice but grey skies dampened it somewhat, which was a shame. Did discover some amazing coconut sweets that we watched being made tho, and got to hold a pretty big snake. HCMC was fun, took us hours to find somewhere to stay, its not as quaint as Hanoi, but it was nice enough. So we took a 3 day Mekong tour on which we learnt all about the life cycle of rice (they’re so resourceful here, no part is wasted!) and various things, and ended up in Phnom Penn……
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