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First I would like to say a big hello to all my adoring fan's, and secondly apoligise for my serious lack of blog action recently, but Vietnam has been a rather manic ride, with time a hard commodity to come by. However don't fret, for I am finally back and will try my upmost to tell you about my delightful trip to Vietnam, albeit in reverse chronological order, to help me with my memory.
I am currently in Saigon, preparing for my final night in Vietnam, before heading over to Cambodia in the morning, desperately trying to add some pictures to facebook, sadly the connection leaves much to be desired, but I will at least add a couple for all to see. I have to also report that I have managed to lose more pictures, as for some peculiar reason my hard drive deleted all my pictures of Hoi An, but at least it left with me with the rest, a growing slideshow of over 4000 pictures of my trip so far awaits a lucky few!!
I arived in Saigon Saturday evening, after a supposed 6 hour bus journey, turned into a 9 hour haul across the countryside. Being quite sick of Vietnamese food, there really is only a certain amount of rice and noodles and English-man can handle, I opted for a pizza, before hitting the Go-Bar, a popular haunt for backpackers. A few beer's later, with the aid of some vodka, elegantly mixed with 7-Up within our mouths, I made it to Lush. The nightclub was nicely stacked with a mixture of Asians, a pleasant change from many other bar's, yet our group of English lads managed to show off our dancing move's, even if the price of beer brought a slight tear to my eye, 75,000 is a lot in these parts, although it only works out to be around 3 pounds back home.
The next day I went for a tour of the city with Catherine, my room-mate, taking in the delights of the Cathedral, a rather large market, the re-unification palace, and the upmarket area of the city. We also checked out the War Museum, which was mildly disturbing, but immensely interesting, and offered some fantastic photo's from the war. (I currently want to strangle the hermit of a child sitting next to me, randomly blurting out Vietnamese tunes, he could at least learn to sing first!!) Feeling pretty tried from the night before, I chilled out in my hotel room, enjoying the pleasure's of a fantastic League Cup Final win for United, just three more trophies to go now...
Today I went to the Chu Chi Tunnels, something of a must for any visitor to Vietnam. The random hole's and bomb crater's were largely of little note, but the Viet Cong traps were intriguing if slightly scary, offering many new idea's for the use of bamboo. The tunnels themselves were considerably smaller than I expected, even after being widened for us tourists, leaving many feeling quite claustrophobic. This was followed by a short film, who continued our guide's favourite term in regard to the American enemy, adding to it by refering to our not so distant cousin's as crazy American devil's. Clearly the Vietnamese have not forgiven and forgotten as much as some Westerners appear to believe.
I met Lucie, along with her travel buddies, Charlie and Jess in Nha Trang, a party beach town, with an adequate if dangerous nightlife and a hugely disappointing beach. The first day was spent on the beach, which had a considerable lack of sand, and felt more like mini pebbles, still better than most of it's English counterparts mind. That night we tested nightlife, forewarned about the high level's of crime and theft in the area, it was a nervy beginning, but luckily we survived the night unscathed.
The following day began with a slow start, but after kicking off the day with a pizza for breakfast, we hit the beach again, opting for the luxury of a sun-lounger and pool for my second visit. That night we opted for the Sailing club, a huge let-down, seemingly lacking in a young audience, with an abundance of older white men on the hunt for some upmarket prostitute's, the surroundings were stunning, even if the tea was rather pricey.
The next day was an adventure into town, starting with a stroll down the rather lenthey beach, before a visit to the Cham Towers - impressive archithecture, and in much better condition than the ruins at My Son. The market was pretty overwhelming and much less touristy in comparison to other town's in Vietnam. That night I sampled Venison (with tiny little bone's, leaving me somewhat sceptical as to what part of a deer the meat actually came from), along with Scented Fix and Wild Boar. The food was interesting, but not exactly a taste sensation. It was also the first time in my travel's that I fell sick, forcing me to quickly escape th bar, before spending the rest of the night attached to my toilet.
In the morning I headed to Da Lat with the girls, the bus journey took vastly longer than expected after breaking down en route, conveniently beside a waterfall. Da Lat is a fantastic little town in the hills of Central Vietnam, and feels massively different from the rest of the country. The people are actually quite friendly, the air feels clean and there is an amazing bakery. Still recovering from my spout of illness, I spent my first day in bed watching a marathon of movies and randomly falling asleep, munching on twix's, which to my delight I had found in a nearby shop, however despite my craving's I have been unable to replicate such a find in Saigon.
The next day we went Canyoning, which was awesome, we started the day on a baby wall, before moving on to a 20m drop. Lunch was on a baby island in the river, and was followed by an 18m drop into water. We then slid down a waterfall before moving on to the real challenge of the day, an abseil down a 22m waterfall. The previous abseil's had been a lot of fun, but were fairly easy until the final one, which proved to be much more challenging. I still made it in good time, after realising my trainers had little grip, rather than walking down, as such, I chose to slide, and even made my second attempt without slipping over. The scariest part of the day came with a 7m jump into the river, which may not sound like much, but after spending much of the day wearing ropes heading in multiple directions, going solo on a jump proved to be much more daunting. That night I went for dinner in a a little restaurant called the "original" Peace Cafe, owned by a crazy lady, who I swear must have been on drugs permanently. The food was very average, but the experience itself was very amusing, if slightly creepy, few chef's ask their patrons to take photos of every dish. Despite all this we ordered the duck for the following night, perhaps something of a mistake retrospectively.
The next day, we all felt a little sore from the canyoning, so took a gentle stroll around town, with Charlie managing to get bitten by a horse in the process. We skipped the swan's/pedalo's opting for a ride on the chairlift instead, which offered some fantastic views of the surrounding countryside and of the city itself.
I am sadly losing my momentum for story-telling for now, so will leave you desperate to hear how the duck turned out, and to hear of all my adventures from Northern Vietnam, so until next time, farewell...
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