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On Saturday we started the day with a magnificent buffet breakfast at our hotel. The spread was incredible if a little bizarre- there was everything from the western favourites of a full fry up and pancakes, to Vietnamese noodles rice, battered prawns, and exotic fruits, and they even had spaghetti bolognese!
In the morning we took a guided tour of My Son, a site of Cham ruins set in a lush jungle valley- think Angkor Wat on a smaller scale! The site is very impressive, despite the structures being very much ruined (it was a VC base in the American War and therefore heavily bombed). Our tour guide was a really funny, highly enthusiastic, bouncy man, who called us his 'tiger team'! He showed us that the heads of many of the statutes were missing because they had been removed by the French when they rediscovered the site in the 19th century. The heads are still displayed in the Louvre in Paris, so he asked us all to write a letter to request them back! Interestingly, archaeologists have yet to work out how the clay bricks of the structures are stuck together- there is no visible cement of any kind.
In the afternoon we did some more shopping in Old Town, before heading back to the hotel to take a dip in the pool. Although the pool was lovely and it should have great relaxing on the sun loungers, I was horrified to keep seeing a rat running around the perimeter of the pool area!! I couldn't relax with a rat on the loose, and it kept running in and out of the kitchen- urrrgh!! No one else seemed the least bit bothered about it , so I just had to keep quiet and ignore it.
In the evening we splashed out with dinner at an italian restaurant called Good Morning Vietnam (I loved the film so we had to go!) The food was really great authentic italian, and although it was little more expensive than we had been paying in Vietnam, it was still cheap by Western standards,and therefore it was a great chance to experience a posh restaurant.
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