We got up early this morning to go birding in the forest. It was hot and sticky already outside at 6.45am. We walked along the road half a mile and were rewarded with a sight of two hoopoes flying across our path, but most of the birds hadn't woken up yet. We found a side track away from the road (which was quite busy with motorbikes for the hour of morning), and it lead us to a rather grim looking dam that held back a black and stagnant pond. It had been built recently and the ground was all churned up, but we sat on the dam for an hour staring at the forest edge, and despite appearances it proved to be an excellent birding spot. OK, the vast majority of what we saw was small, green or brown, and fluttering indistinctly deep in the leaves, but we did manage to sort out crimson sunbird and ruby cheeked sunbird, both dazzlingly colourful little things and new for us.

We came back for breakfast when the heat became too much to bear. Another bridal couple were getting their photos taken around the hotel garden, and we saw a beautiful black-rumped flameback woodpecker in a tree next to the restaurant while we were munching our omelettes. They had some fresh bread this morning. We did a protracted negotiation with the proprietoress for a car back to Saigon tomorrow, then sat at the table in the forest for a while, but the birds had all gone back to sleep by then.

So we packed our towels and cozzis and went to the posh resort and bought a ticket to use the salt water swimming pool for the day. It was so hot to start with that I was even too hot in the water, but in the afternoon it clouded over and there were a few half-hearted drops of rain. I much preferred that. We had the whole huge pool to ourselves for a few hours, but then a few other guests arrived. I don't know how the place keeps going. There's staff hanging about waiting in all the resort's facilities, (4 restaurants, 300 rooms...) but no guests staying. I lounged on a lounger for an hour or so reading DH Lawrence on my kindle (The White Peacock - it's beautifully written but not much has happened yet, 7 chapters in). To be honest, Tim and Robbie are not much good at resorts, swimming pools and beach bumming, so when we'd got thoroughly bored we dressed again and wandered off along the coast with our binoculars.

We walked the grotty beach the length of the long scummy watered lagoon that stretches along behind the beach. So much rubbish washed up out of the poor abused sea. As well as the plastic crap, there were quite a few big glass lightbulbs, no doubt thrown overboard from boats, and even some neon strip light tubes. We saw a few terns over the lagoon and got very confused about pesky small plovers; there was definitely Kentish with their chestnut caps, but might've been a couple of similar species there as well - such a difficult group to sort out.

We reached some prominent rocks at the limit of our view, and on the other side there was yet another bridal couple getting their photos taken, posing on rocks with sea spray erupting behind them. It was raining a bit now as well as windy.

There were a couple of men floating out in the sea with polystyrene floats strapped to themselves, trawling the water with hand-held fishing nets and catching a surprising number of small fish.

We retraced our steps in the dusky light and ate once again at the cavernous resort restaurant. The pillars supporting it are all about 40cm thick, at least 30 foot high and perfectly cylindrical, each one obviously turned from a single trunk of a forest giant. The place calls itself an Eco-resort. They must've destroyed many acres of rainforest to get all that timber. Robbie's steamed veg plate was not a patch on yesterday's - wilted leaves and uncooked okra, much the same as what she would've got here at Hotel Ven Ven. And my fish in clay pot was dried out and stuck to the bottom. Moan moan.

I hesitate to say it, but think the mouth is not quite as excruciating as yesterday. I was reading the long list of possible side-effects on our Malarone anti-malaria tablets today, and one of them is mouth ulcers. I have found a likely suspect!

We walked back through the long dark and deserted promenades of the spooky resort. There's 2 other guests staying here tonight, and one of them is yawning extremely loudly in the next room now.