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Typically its Heather that's up for sunrise and I'm sleeping in, not so on this trip, she hasn't gotten up before me or even with me yet. This morning is no different, I'm awake at sunrise, and this sunrise is especially important because its the first day at the beach and Heather is not feeling good, so I'm going to capture the sunrise on photo so she can at least enjoy that. She's showing symptoms of the flu so I've quarantined her away from MD and I as best we can...a row of pillows down the middle of the bed. I slip out of the room quietly at 5:30am and head to the beach for sunrise photos. Much to my dismay, there are 15 Chinese tourists already on the beach playing badminton! So I wander down a ways and find a man on a water buffalo plowing the beach with a flat blade; apparently the hotel thinks flat sand is more attractive so they remove the foot prints every morning.
After a peaceful iced coffee in the breakfast restaurant I head back to the room to catch up on some blogging, but its not long before MD wakes up and then Heather right behind her. Heather is feeling much worse than the night before but is bound and determined to make it to the beach...she's endured 6 days of airplanes, cities, jungles, and temples, not even the flu is going to keep her away. So she drags herself out of bed and down to the restaurant for breakfast, which is nothing special, just mass food service.
Out on the beach we find a pair of loungers under an umbrella, where Heather proceeds to go directly back to sleep and leaves me to deal with the wild child on the beach solo. For the next 2 hours I chase MD from beach and waves, to the pool, down the beach, off other people's loungers, back into the pool, back to the waves, etc. Meanwhile the heat isn't doing anything to make Heather feel any better, so after a dip in the pool to try to cool down I have to practically drag her away from the sand to go back to the room and take a nap in the AC. We switch back to the medicine we bought in Cambodia and ditch the Vietnamese medicine, and after putting Heather and MD down for a nap, I slip back out of the room to find a store to buy some beer, water, and snacks. Anyone who pays for the minibar at the hotel doesn't value their money; where the hotel charges you $3 for a soda, you can buy it from a street vendor for $.75, and from a store for $.50.
A taxi into town costs $2.50 and after making a quick price check at the grocery store he dropped me off at, I proceed down the road to find a better deal...never trust the place that the taxi driver drops you off at for the best prices. A couple grocery stores later, I've come to the conclusion that Vietnam is expensive in comparison to surrounding countries and they are not very willing to come off their prices. Whereas in Cambodia the starting price is approximately double the best price that you can get, and the same for Thailand, here you're good if you can get them down by 20-25%. So after thoroughly establishing the base price through 4 stores, I settle on the 5th one and go to town dealing. A lot of people don't negotiate, and when they do, they certainly don't do it for fun...to me, this is some of the best entertainment on our trip. The best method for getting the best price at a grocery store like this is to negotiate each item as you go, pick up items you're not interested in and price them, go back to items you like and try for a "same same", laugh a lot, and ask for "special for me". The challenge with this approach is when you get to the counter, you may have to renegotiate several items because the shop keeper will pretend like you don't remember your agreed upon price. So after 15 minutes of bargaining, I ended up with 6 beers, a can of Pringles, a bag of chips, a snickers bar, a 12 count roll of oreos, a bag of Vietnamese chocolate chip cookies, 2 suckers, a big bottle of Aquafina water, and a big bottle of Sprite...all for $12...pretty good deal in my opinion.
So I start the walk back towards the hotel, hoping for a taxi to drive by soon...its about 2:30pm and its feels like a steam sauna. The Vietnamese park their scooters on the sidewalks, set up shop, lounge, eat lunch, store material, and just about anything and everything else you could possibly do on a sidewalk, so they are basically pointless as a sidewalk, which means more often than not you have to walk on the road with the scooters, bicycles, taxis, trucks, cars, and the occasional water buffalo drawn cart. After a mile or so, and 10 taxies full of people, I've just about resigned myself to having to walk the whole way back to the hotel, when an old Vietnamese man pulls up on a scooter and asks if I need a ride...well hell yea, so after a quick negotiation on fare, I jump on the back of his scooter and cruise down the street. He's a little bitty old man, so I'm sure we're a sight to see riding down the road... big ole white boy with this little old Vietnamese man between my legs. He's so little, I easily see straight over his head and could have driven the motorbike from the back. The taxi to town was $5, and my motorbike back was $3...and quite a bit more enjoyable, I think this is the way Vietnam is meant to be seen.
Back at the hotel, the girls wake up just after I arrive. Heather is feeling quite a bit better, the Cambodian drugs are working wonders, but she's not ready to jump out of bed, so another hour of fooling about in the room and resting in the bed and she's decided she's not going to miss happy hour. So we head down to the beach bar and order a couple drinks. There is a bbq seafood buffet tonight with traditional Cham dancing, along with a small night market (pottery, wood carving, and silk making process). We skip the buffet mostly due to the fact that its $28/pp and opt to go to town and try something more authentic. We end up at Bao Han restaurant, where the food is excellent and the service even better. However, Maclaren has about had her fill of un-air-conditioned restaurants and we make it about 3/4 of the way through dinner before she's had enough and lets us know she's ready to go back to the hotel and go to sleep.
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