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Kate on Tour
Good Morning from Vietnam! Saigon to be precise! and just updating the journal with all the news from the past couple of weeks before heading in to Cambodia this afternoon! Can't belive how much I've seen since we were back in Hué... 12 Sept Another very early start to do a tour of the DMZ Zone -visiting the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Kah Sahn, the Vinh Moc Tunnels, the Ben Hai River and Reunification monument which was interesting before heading back to Hué and getting an early night for another early start! 13 Sept Caught the 8am bus from Hué to Hoi An passing some lovely scenery on route...the water along the stretch of coast was pretty brown due to the run off from the rice terraces which happens each rainy season...fortuntately this doesn't happen in Nah Trang until November!! Briefly stopped in Danang (luckily it was a brief stop as not the loveliest town!) before continuing to Hoi An...alot of new building work going on along this stretch of the coast...looks like they're keen to make the most of the tourist route between Hué and Hoi An. Arrived in sunny Hoi An bus station, barely off the bus before the hotel touts were on our case (there are some major commission deals amongst the Vietnamese attached to the Vietnam open bus ticket it seems!) After heading to a hotel recommended to us in Hué which was full a few of us (who had met on the bus that morning/ at the DMZ tour) got convinced by some moto drivers to try another hotel round the corner so booked in to the Phuc An Hotel on Tran Cao Van in the Old Town...which was actually really nice...and had a pool! After a quick swim Natalie, Gemma (travelling after teaching English in China), Joel (from Leeds and travelling round SE Asia for a couple of months), Ana (traveller from Germany) and I headed off on a walking tour of Hoi An from the Lonely Planet Guide (bumping in to a friend from Devon along the way - random!)...unfortunately I took over the directions for a while...and so it wasn't long before we ended up off course down a back street which should have been calles 'rabid dog/ bird flu street'!! Once back on track we headed along the river front and through the market to the Japanese Bridge. Hoi An is the clothing capital of Vietnam...the streets are full of silk shops and tailors who can whip up custom made clothes in less tahn 24 hours for a fraction of the high street price! you can even design your own trainers! (although be sure to allow enough time for a re-fitting as it can take a couple of goes to get a really good fit!) Later on that evening the 5 of us we hooked up with some more travellers staying at (or near) the Phoc An (Ryan, Rav, Andrew & Helen, Andrew, Paul) and all headed to the water front for dinner. (not before an unsuccessful nightmare wild goose chase by myself and natalie trying to find the booking office to confirm our onward bus journey for Nah Trang!) ANOTHER early start the next day (14 Sept) and Natalie and I headed to the My Son Cham ruins before heading back to the hotel around lunchtime and then cycling to Hoi An beach to meet the guys from Phoc An (who'd left a message at the hotel to say the bus for that evening was full). It was actually really nice to spend some extra time in Hoi An and know we could just chill out on the beach for a couple of days. After some swimming and frisbee we all cycled back to the hotel and then headed out for dinner and drinks at Cargo (awesome place just off Le Loi street) and on to a late bar...very cultural! 15 Sept - a lazy start and another day spent on the beach (and picking up a couple of custom made skirts!) before heading back to Cargo for a v late lunch in preparation for the 12 hour overnight bus journey to Nah Trang to check out the islands. A few more of the guys we met in Hoi An also decided to head to Nah Trang with us which was really cool...more the merrier! So we jumped aboard the overnight bus and headed to Nah Trang...
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