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By Tess...
once again apologies for all the typing errors, the keyboards really are rubbish and i really cant be bothered to go back correcting it all, u get the gist.
NHA TRANG!
well, suprise suprise... we LOVED nha trang! it took us a while to realise we liked it as it wasnt really what we had imagned it to be. it was no vang vieng sadly, but, as we made our way around it and hung out at bars! lol, we realised it was a really great place to meet people and had enough there keep us entertained for what ended up being.... 5 or 6 days!
with the help of our lonely planet and some rare research on my part (complete with cirling and drawing on maps...its important to make notes!) we found our way successfully to a hotel reccommended in there, we checked ou the rooms, and were given 401, in hotel MAI HUY... just a shame it was on the top floor, up about 8 flights f stairs, again! the room was great though, we had 2 beds, one double one almost double, a fine bathroom, a bit of a balcony, a fridge and satellite tv! which shamefully, we watched A LOT of! lol. the room was just 4 pounds a night with a fan, 5 if we splashed out on air con, which we did one nightbut felt like crap after so didnt use again. lol. its obviously far healthier to sweat it all out! hehe.
we spent a lot of time in nha trang, and once again ate some good food! we found a jacket potato place, good food, very rude english man who owns it, caled shortys if your interested! we alsohad to indulge in pizza once because we were rather hungover! lol. sorry folks!
it was a lot of days there so i cant remember what we did when without getting my journal, and thats not going to happen. lol. so il just tell you the things we got up to and if you really want tokno...sam might remember when we did it! lol. so.. stuff we did...
crikey... ok, erm, we went to the beach one day.
we went to the mud bath mineral springs one day.
we went for an interesting bikini wax! lol.
we went on a boat trip to see the 4 islands one day.
and we went for a full on nite out with some new friends after the boat trip day!
and we didnt leave as planned because of the dreaded monsoon!
o and we watched a LOT of tv, in fact we spent a shameful amount of time in our room!
so, the mud pool and mineral springs thing was different! we spent about 3-4 hours there, got a minivan there and back and followed the instructions on the signposts when we got in. we got excited first by the big pool and both headed for it...to find it was hot, hot! pumped with hot water. dam it! lol. we went and sat in a little mud bath pouring thin smelly mud all over us, resulting in a very gross photo taken for us and bikini bottoms filled withmud! we sat as directed for abut 20 minutes or thereabouts, then moved onto sunbathe in the mud for 15 mins, which basically meant standing bored in thesun! lol. we managed about 5 minutes then moved onto the showers. next was the water jets to stand in for 5 minutes, we managed about 2, then sitting in warm mineral bath for 45 mins which we tried hard to do. next step was 45 mins in the hot swimmig pool we loved so much, we managed 5! lol. but its the thought that counts! lol. after that we didnt hang around a lot, we sat on sopme beach chairs in our allocated foreigner section then went for the bus back,. wefelt a bit sticky and smelly and our hair felt like dust, lol, but we figured we would reap the benefits soon. to be honest i do feel silky smooth, but that could be to do with the expensive dove exfoliator i just bought...hmmm, guess wel never kno.
our bikini wax was erm...intersting, i wont say much about it cuz im really sure you dont wanna kno...just that me n sa,m both walked in...to a room with 2 beds next to each other...no division...we looked at each other with another o dear look and the waxing commencedm, we tried hard to keep conversation looking at the celiing or each others faces! yet another bizarre situation weve found ourselves in!
the boat trip to the 4 islands was no scenic wonder, luckily thats not was we were holding out for too much. instead it was a laugh on a boat. disappointed at first with the folk on our boat, largely locals and couples, we had a pleasant suprise wen we got talking to some people. and ended up friends with two aussie couples, three english people, 2 swedish maybe girls, and an irish bloke! we didnt really get to see the islands and the trip basically consisted of the boat stopping while we floated in rubber rings and used stone age snorkel equipment that you couldnt see through, or just floating1 or using the floating bar at one stop, which was one of our insane crew in a cirlcle of floats, serving shots of rum, dishwater, coconut juie and god knows what else into our welcoming hands, it was vile, mine accidentily spilled into the sea and probably killed off an entire species of fish! lol. if yoiu said no he tipped far too much of it into your mouth, we did our best to remain unnoticed and floated discretely in a dfferent direction, yak. also on the boat, bizarre moment wjhen our crazy and potentially quie drunk crew rigged up a full on band, drum kit, guitar, bass, and mike, and started blasting out some unrecognisable noise, followed by karaoke encouragement, once again, we cowevered in the corner and got away with it. the food on board our mighty lil vessel; was better than expected, buffetstyley, noodles, egg, prawns, veges, bananas and of course masses of plain rice! lol. we managed to feast tho and came away full. then later came the fruit party... sittng down to a mini buffet of fruit, not sure where the party aspect came in but hey! we werent complaining, we feasted on mango and pineapple and turned our noses up at papaya vomit fruit! we did at one point get off the boat and pay to walk onto a teeny weeny bit of beach and patio chairs, lol, we got an ice cream, dipped in the water, chatted to some folk we recognised and got back on the boat. happy days. we said our farewells as we got dropped off in the mini van and said we would see people later in 2 bars! yay we had made contact with people again, we were no longer just tess and sam! lol
the nite out was great. we met up witrh everyone we intended to, plus a few more and sam bumped into yet more pepople she knew from home! insane! we got a wee bit tipsy, o got pickpocketed by some crazy local ladies on my way home but luckily they only took the money out of my wallet, and no i hadnt just spent it! lol. it wasnt lots but probably about a tenner which was a bit annoying. o well. we had a good dance around and i had very little voice left by the end of it when i arrived back at the hotel at about 5 am! o deary me! sam was as bad as me, tho still had her voice and her money! lol. but afun time was had by all, it felt great to be out and sociable again! yay! shame the next day didnt feel so great. lol. the next day we didnt wake up il 2 and could only bear to leave the room for food, jacket spud, and pizza. terrible. we watched tv and lazed in our hotel. it was our last day before we left on the supposed early bus the next morning and it was supposed to be our beach day, but we just couldnt face it. shame on us.
however, stroke of luck meant we actually booked a nite bus instead, as it existed! lol, and we thought 12 hours overnight again, would be more bearable than 12 hours in the day. so we booked on it and the next day became our beach day! everybody wins! the beach was lovely and though the clouds never moved we still managed to catch a glimpse of sun, watch locals setting up stall 5 metres in front of us cooking and dissecting lobsters, then fruit, and seling anything and everythin they could think of. sam got some fruit and i got a wristband. it was a sweet little beach, very commercial and we were sat in the sort of backyard of the bar we spent most of our time in the other nite! how odd!
due to leave, we got showered and headed out for tea with a couple hours to kill before pickup...then it started raining! and as we watched the rain, our umbrellas geniusly packed in the hotel reception, from our restaurant chairs we watched it rising and rising in the road, until it was up to peoples knees! we were slightly freaked out by this and envisaged all kinds of disasters involving us and our rucksacks, everything drenched, and being stranded on our bus somewhere due to floods. so... we waded our way to the hotel, luckily we stayed nearby, washed our legs off from the floaty garbage water lining the streets and rang the tour place to change our bus journey to tomorro morning. this was fine, so we booked yet another night, in the same room, at the same hotel, and prepared once again to leave. we were in the hotel by 7.30pm, and didnt leave because of the floods, how sad. we were not destined to ever leave! lol. but we did, the following morning, be it late of course, and we embarked on a lovely 12 hour bus journey, arriving in saigon/HCMC at about 6-7pm, shattered im sure.
as it happened the bus journey was bearable. we were sectioned, lol, on the backseat,5 seats all next to each other, on the second bunk. we played cards, read our books and dozed. sam remembered her ipod, i didnt! and had the luxury of being next to an ancient local woman with atowel on her face and head and an elbow in my face. o and she snored. sam meanwhile was listening to that ipod, lol, next to the bliss of the window. o well, the hundreds of biscuits we ate along the way made it more bearable, and we both finished our SEVENTH book of our trip so far... check us out parents...we can read! lol.
nha trang was now behind us and in front of us lay saigon, or ho chi mihn city as its now called, and then cambodia and south thailand! time was flying and i was still longing for vang vieng. lol. yes still! i didnt have high hopes for saigon but we attempted to go with an open mind. nha trang was good but we almost overstayed there so itr was time to leave for sure.
xxx
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