How fast can you run in flip flops?!

We set off from Hoi An on a sitting bus this time! It was an overnight bus leaving Hoi An at 6pm and arriving in Nha Trang at 7am the next morning. After about 2 hours of travelling on the bus we pulled into a service station for a 'comfort break' (I would like to point out that there is absoultly nothing comfortable about going to the toilet over a hole in the ground, with cockroaches dropping on your head!). So we get off the bus to stretch our legs and use the loo. We didn't have a lot of time so we both went to the loo together, I then heard Sarah shouting from outside "BUS....JO THE BUS...JO!" I dived out of the toilet still doing up my shorts, to see Sarah holding both our small bags in the air waving them frantically still shouting "BUS....NO.....BUS...!" (it made sense to her I guess). At this point the alarm bells were ringing in my head! I ran out on to the forcourt to see our bus (with our back packs in the hold) driving off on to the highway with absolutely no idea that we were trying to get their attention by shouting "BUS....NO.... THAT'S OUR BUS" and waving our little bags in the air! (Of course they were going to see us.....NOT!) So only one thing for it....... Run like hell in a pair of flip flops down a pitch black highway! What else would you do?! I left Sarah bumbling along behind me as she was desperatly trying to put the loo roll back into the bags and do them up so she didn't drop anything, whilst still running to catch up! I, however, was trying for the new olympic record of flip flop racing! Thankfully, the bus seemed to be slowing down and then came to a stop!!! Oh thank the lord! One of the ever so proffessional bus drivers (not) suddenly appeared from the bus walking back towards us... (I was still running at full pelt and I wasn't going to stop until I was on the bus again). He kept saying sorry to me and to "carm down" and then sorry again (I will resist the temptation to tell you what words I wanted to say to him at this point; I mean what kind of man says calm down to a woman who's angery... Do you want to die?)! We got back on to the bus only to find out that it wasn't the bus driver or the tour guide bloke that had noticed that we were missing..Oh no no no... It was a little old lady who was sat opposite us that had seen we weren't in our seats and told them to stop! How I love that lady! We sat down in our seats with our heats beating 10 to a dozen in our mouths and sweat pouring from us, at this point we were laughing... a lot! Out of shear panic I guess and even now we laugh about it. I have no idea what we would of done if that lady hadn't of noticed us missing! I didn't sleep a wink for the whole journey - not that it would have been that easy anyway as the journey was a very bumpy ride with the roads so poor in places that the driver was stalling the bus trying to get out of the potholes. We also hit an animal of some description but luckily it was dark so we didn't see.

We arrived in Nha Trang at about 6 in the morning. As we drove through Nha Trang we saw loads of people all doing exersie on the beach, everyone tends to go to bed really early here and get up very early in the morning.. After about an hour or so we finally chose a hotel to stay in. (we have now got into the habit of not booking anywhere and just turning up. I look after the bags and Sarah goes into all the hotels to look at the rooms first and barter the price - we've found that this is the cheapest way of doing it - otherwise the websites tend to charge you double!). Yet again she came up trumps! We had a big room with A/C, fan, cable TV, fridge and the biggest terrace I've ever seen, that had a view over the city which was great for the sunset.... And all this for 7 GBP a night!

We didn't really get up to much in Nha Trang, apart from a boat trip. We didn't really know what to expect from the trip as it only cost us 4 GBP each (which included food for the day too). It turned out to be a bit of a booze cruise, and although we don't really like things like that normally, it was actually a really fun day. We went to 4 different islands, although we didn't actually go on the islands but we did go off the boat for swimming and snorkling.. Again the jelly fish stings were out in force, this time I was lucky! However, the best thing about the trip was when the tour guide announced that we were going to have karoke after lunch! Lunch was over and the tour guide (who called himself "funky monkey" say no more..) got up with his boy band (3 blokes that worked on the boat that had an average age of 40) set up their make shift drum kit and real guitars, and started off by doing a version of a Vietnamees song. After that he said now it's your turn.... Everyone shifted awkwardly in their seats... Then he shouts over the mic "Miss England get up here!" looking directly at Sarah (Yay not me!! Ha ha ha!) She looked at me with panic at first then bold as anything got up and did the best version of Eternal Flame by the Bangels I've ever heard! Dogs howling would of been easier on the ears! But I can't talk I wouldn't have had the guts to do what she did. At the moment she's living on the policy of 'do one thing that scares you everyday' and good on her she did it that day! After all the singing (which I managed to escape..by moving around the boat alot) we did more swimming off the boat this time with a floating bar which was attached to the front of the boat by some rope, all you had to do was swim upto it and a guy would fill up your beaker with some free rice wine. It tasted s*** so I fed my to the fishes... Sarah had a couple of cups though.

We left Nha Trang the next day (Thursday 28/08/08) by sleeper bus (Oh joy, back to the dog basket we go)....