Hello!

Currently updating the blog at a stand up computer at Ho Chi Minh City Airport looking out onto the runway!

Anyway....the guide book was very accurate in the description of a sleeper bus as "hell", we had more than an uncomfortable nights sleep. Most of the 'beds' on the bus were actually nice with good leg room but we happen to find ourselves right at the back of the bus where they had managed to squeeze 5 'beds' (by bed it was basically a chair that didnt full recline into a bed, its how I would imagine business class to be on an Easyjet plane i.e s***). We had about one foot of space above our head with which to breathe although this was difficult. Some Vietnamese ladies next to Cheryl thought it would be a good idea to open the window on an air conditioned bus, so although she had a nice breeze the rest of us had to sweat in the humid air!

We finally managed to arrive in Hoi An at around 6.30am and were greeted with the usual touts trying to get us into their taxi or on their mortobike. Somehow we managed to get away from them and find a nice hotel, they let us check in early and we even managed to blag breakfast!

Hoi An is a really nice quaint town, it has an atomosphere which is similar to Siem Reap in Cambodia. There are lots of small streets leading off in all directions which house millions of tailor/shoe and souvinear shops. Hoi An has a reputation for being the tailoring capital of Vietnam, everyone comes here to get their clothes made which is why every other shop is a tailor shop! This means there is plenty of choice and lots of ladies shouting "you want a suit sir, very cheap for you' all the time. We didn't buck the trend and had quite a few things made, including suits/trainers for me and suits/dress/boots for Chez. My first suit only took about 5 hours to be made and fit like a glove, Cheryl on the other hand had about 4 fittings for hers. I think most shops are used to making clothes for men and not women (and not the fact that Cheryl is really fussy ;]).

Whilst in Hoi An we didnt just shop, we also signed up for a cookery class one evening to learn how to make some Vietnamese delights. We learnt to cook stuffed fish in banana leaf, squid stir fry, vegetable spring rolls and sweet and sour wontons. The course was great fun, the Vietnamese lady had lots of laughs at our attempts at rolling spring rolls, Cheryl even managed to make a square one...mine weren't any better!

Yesterday we went on a snorkelling trip of the Cham Islands, these are located about 90 minutes east of the Vietnamese coast. It was a great day out, we saw lots of reef fish as the visibility was much better than in Koh Tao. In fact, the visibility was so good we both wished we were diving instead! The last snorkelling site wasn't too great as there were loads of jellyfish that gave us little stings as we swam past, we quickly left the water!!

Today is a travelling day, we took a flight at 12.30 from Da Nang to HCMC. Da Nang was actually the place that the American's first landed at the start of the Amercian-Vietnam war in nineteen something. We are currently waiting to board our next flight to Bangkok which leaves in about an hour although I swear we just heard a tannoy annoucement saying the flight time has changed due to weather conditions......

Hope everyone back home is well and not dying in the heatwave,

Until next time,

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