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We took a sleeper bus from Hanoi to Da Nang - which was a 17 hour journey! The sleeper buses sound a lot better than they really are - they are basicaly a bus that has been decked out with purpose built bunkbeds (see the pics when we get round to putting them on). Which sounds ok apart from they are built for the average sized Vitenamese - sarah was fine in hers she fit quite snuggly in her little bed - I however ended up trying to fold myself up in order to fit my legs in! I'm sure you can imagine the joy I felt thinking that I was going to be stuck in a glorified dog basket for 16 hours!! However my luck was in. The bus wasn't full so the back seats/beds were not being used and they had more leg room so we made a dive for the beds before anyone else could. I was quite happy until we started going through the mountains - where they obviously couldn't be bothered to tarmac the roads - they were more like dirt tracks with craters the size of swimming pools! Which isn't that much fun when your lying on the back wheel arch trying to get to sleep, it got a bit tedious at 3am being ejected from the bed and landing on top of each other! But it was all good fun in the end.
We arravied in Da Nang at 6pm the following day. We took a taxi from Da Nang out of the city to China Beach - We arrived at Hoas Place. We got there about an hour before dinner was served, so just enough time to go get a shower then back down to dinner. All the guests eat together on one long table - they serve an all you can eat buffet for about 1.75p! The best thing about the place is that it's just so sociable when you all eat together. On the First night there I went to bed at about 8pm (light weight!) and Sarah stayed up to watch the Man U match with some of the guys we'de met at dinner.
The next day we walked down to the beach (about 2 mins from Hoa's), it was just breath taking.. White soft sand, clear blue sea and only about 12 people on the whole baech! So we hired a couple of chairs and went for a swim with some of the people we met at dinner the night before. The sea was like bath water, however whilst we were swimming I kept feeling these tiny little stings, but I said nothing cause I just thought it was me, then Dan, one of the guys, was saying that the little stings were from floating bits of jellyfish. Apparently the force of the waves break up the jellyfish into tiny pieces and although they are technicaly dead they are still alive (makes no sense to me). At this point I thought ok they don't hurt that, much no problem (can you see whats coming?). Then 5 minutes later, I get the most almight pain from my left boob! I look down and a long tenticle has convientally wrapped itself around the strap of my bikini and just to make it abit more painful inside the bikini top as well!! I didn't want to look like a complete weirdo to the people we had meet so I turned round to face the beach with my back to the guys and had to untangle the slimy mess that was everywhere! It stunk like hell, and even now 2 weeks after I still have the scar on my chest from that jelly sting!
We originally only wanted to stay at Hoa's for 2 nights, but the place and the people were so nice that we ended up staying there for almost a week! The highlights for me were the evenings where we just sat around drinking and chatting with the people we met - we had a big poker night - granted me and Sarah didn't really know what we were doing at first, but we got into the swing of things and even won a couple of hands! One night when there was a full moon we all took a create of beer down to the beach and had a bonfire on the beach (see pics). The days were spent on the beach swimming and sunbathing, Sarah loved playing in the waves with Dan, but I was a bit of a chicken because of the jellyfish!
We reluctently left on Friday 22/08/08 (Boo!) to go to Hoi An.
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