315, 302, 201

Last night here in Vietnam.

Since we last posted we went to the mud baths which was pretty interesting... good, though hot. Daniel wore a pair of roxi's boxers and they didn't leave too much to the imagination.

Not too much else interesting happened in Nha Trang really, we went to an awesome indian restaurant at one stage though which was yum-o.

But then on to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh. Not quite as crazy as we thought it might be. First day we did a cyclo tour around the city and checked out the Ben Thanh market.

Next day we traipsed on down to the Mekong delta, went on another boat, got dragged on carts by ponies, ate coconut candy and did the hokey pokey and turned around. After that we went up to the Cu Chi tunnels, an interesting insight into how the vietnamese fought the war. We were oh so fortunate to crawl about through one, and I'll tell you what, it's rather cosy and dark down there.

This day was the conclusion of our intrepid tour so we went out to dinner at a local restaurant. We ate a crispy, black, scorpion. It tasted like soot and poo. if we actually got some meat such as leg it isnt that bad but the body literally tasted like arse and cigarettes. Roxi has eaten so much beef, and seafood, i think she's somewhat converted.

So last two days been doing all of not much, running around trying to find trinkets and lovelies for peeps. We've been going to a cafe that's been open for like 5 days, and has this tiny little puppy that has been our substitute ferret, we miss our babies! :( There's a japanese bartender there who is the asian version of Nick (kims boyfriend) Weird....

We leave you now to go watch night of the living dead and we'll be back in sunny melbourne in a day.

105

Our shoes are awesome!! They fit like gloves, except on our feet. They put funny soles on Daniels but his are great apart from that.

We're in Nha Trang now, after a train ride from Hoi An the other night. Our hotel is very nice looking, but the people are cold. And we keep being woken up by chinese tourists screaming around in the morning! Oh and the first night we were here we saw a chinese milf!

But other than that Nha Trang is pretty cool. Very touristy area. Pretty beaches. Yesterday we caught a boat and visited a fishing village, then went snorkelling, or in roxi's case discovered that the concept of breathing underwater didn't work for her. Then we went to a beach and went.. .. PARASAILING!!!!

Twas so much fun, took a lot of convincing for Rox to go up but Daniel managed to convince her. We also got a full body massage for less than $5 on the beachside. Score.

Anyway just a quick update. Off to see some historic things, then to mud baths today before we head down to Ho Chi Minh/Saigon.

THis keyboard keeps inserting random spaces. Curse you rotten keyboard.

See you soon.

503

Well chaps it's been a while between posts. Blame it on our laziness if you will, we prefer blaming bad internet on our end. Today we found our way to a internet cafe so, here we are.

So last you heard from us we had made it up to Halong Bay, after first thinking we wouldn't due to a typhoon a couple days earlier. But the weather was absolutely perfect by the time we got there, and allowed us to go explore some massive caves.

We also went for a swim in the water which was very, very warm, and extra salty. We played catch with a beer can and some kids tried to sell us shells..

After Halong Bay we caught a bus back to Hanoi, were we stayed a few short hours before boarding our train, in the oh-so-wonderful first class. Daniel got drunk with some locals and ended up covered in piss, mmm pisss. There were mice and probably all sorts of other nasties on the train and Mark passed out in the corridor.

When we finally got to Hue we made our way to the hotel where we found a geeko, and Roxi was incredibly excited, but since then there have been geekos EVERYWHERE.

We visited a buddhist Pagoda, and the a Kings Tomb, travelling by Dragonboat. We bumped into the water police, literally, which was a little amusing. Later that night we went toan italian restaurant where Roxi gave in and ate pizza, but Daniel stuck to Vietnamese (although he did have a hamburger for breakfast!) The next day we went to the beach and to this graveyard with massive, massive tombs, bigger than some houses. At the beach, the water was really warm once again, and the group made friends with some local fishermen.

We went to this bar called Brown Eyes both nights which was really nice, and drank heaps of cocktails and vietnamese vodka. Roxi got retardedly drunk and paid for it all the next day when we travelled again by bus down to our current location Hoi An, city of tailors! Which brings us to our next wonderful news.

We are getting boots made, HOORAY! Daniel's replacing his disintegrated lazy docs with some boots basically the same, but with red leather inside, and red stitching. They shall be HAWT. They also have a waaaaay better sole, like a trekking type sole thing. Roxi is finally getting some black knee high boots with buckles on them. Both are double leather, made to measure, and only costing us 2million dong. In US Daniel's are $65, Roxi's $60.

Speaking of which, EVERYTHING IS COUNTED IN US DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!! What the hell?

There arn't very many american tourists, something to do with some war or something a few years back, but half the things we've bought have been asked for in US dollars. Mark tried to buy something with Vietnamese dong but they wouldn't let him unless he had US.

Yesterday we decided to do our own thing and hired bikes. We rode down to an indian restaurant, where we had some yummy vietnamese style indian food and then on to the beach.
We were rapt cos we found "same, same, but different" shirts, which is very popular saying over here. Last night we had cooking lessons and know how to make spring rolls now! Amongst other things.

Anyway it's getting really hot, so we're going back to swim in the pool at the hotel. Have a squiz at the photos we've finally put up....


The cliffs at Halong Bay.





Another Halong Bay shot.




Rice women of the apocolypse.




Outer city living.




Typical powerpole.




Dusk at Halong Bay.




Sunset.




Old Vietnamese Building.




Elaborate Grave.




Vietnamese Family.



That's all for now folks.

06

Hi all,
We took a bus to Ha Long bay and went aboard a Hotel boat for the night,
we drank lots of beer and Mark challenged Son our guide to a drinking contest..

it was pretty cool..

i will post with details on our boating adventure later on with Roxi by my side..

before we left..
Elle, Mark, Rox and myself went to the Czech Beer restaurant and had dinner where we met some Wealthy Vietnamese business men.. they were crazy drunk and the woman could drink heaps....
They drank 2 bottles of Rice Vodka and they were mixing it with some stout and shotting it..

We ended up staying there with them drinking beer(or bia) and there wierd drink till about 12 or so..

they got photos with us aswell i will post them soon when i get my usb cable back from elle and paul.

There was a chance we werent going to Ha Long Bay because of typhoon and the Drunkards King(company director)was trying to convince mark to stay and visit his office and drink beer with them.

my food just got delivered.. I will return with roxi and boat stories...

Roxi and I just bought 2 silk sheets for $3.5 each.. horay..

Uncle Ho has really good air con..

seriously the air conditioning in his tomb is icy...

going from almost 40 degrees to a shaded tomb with aircon in the low teens is freaky.. im suprised the sweat didnt freeze.. ok so maybe not so much..

we ate at a place called Koto which is like that 15 or 13 restaurant..

basically they get street kids and people with not much and teach them hospitality stuff and charge lots.. it was the most expensive meal iv had.. it cost 65,000 for my meal and 35,000 for a lassie.. thats just crazy!!

but hey.. im bored now i should go back up stairs.. i will definately probably maybe write a proper post that actually states what we have done.... anyway.. at 5:30 or so we are going to a water puppet show which will be different.. dunno how much i will enjoy it but i cant wait till dinner.....


mmmm.. dinner..


oh yeah...the local beer here is really good.. ho hoi an or something .. or maybe its ho hanoi .. i cant remmeber but that Tye guy who thought my name was funny coz he thinks its girllie said that its really good in that its all preservative free and such...

time to leave you..


one more thing.. just so that Dandy and Kris are jealous.. the beer is really cheap..

for a longneck size thingy of either Tiger(another locallish brew) or the hoi an hanoi(i cant remember)
it costs around 15000+ depending on where.. which is like $1.15 or so.. and if you barter you could probably get it for like 12000 if you tried.. but beer is pretty much set unless you buy it on the street..
-jd

303

today we woke up at like 5am with my mum(linda) knocking on our then door at the amazing ** star hotel fortuan hotel telling us breakfast was at 7:00 and i went back to sleep anyway breakfast was prety good, i had the pho soup which is exactly the same as what you get at vietnamese soup restauranty places in melbourne.. but still really good.. we then sat around till 11:30 for our taxi to our next hotel which is bliss compared to our previous one.. we have air con that works and a bathroom that doesnt smell like the street urine ...

roxi and i went on an exciting taxi ride tonight we went to a restaurant and when we had our amazing sesame pork we must have tripped out or something coz it was fucking awesome.. but we didnt pay attention to where the taxi was going and he went the wrong way twice and i kept telling him.. "you go wrong way we don't pay" and hes like yeah that tyhe right way.. anyway we ended paying stupidly low price for the screw up for a trip that in melbourne would have cost us $20 and we paid 15000 dong or 1.10c.. it was good.. he was small..!!

thats all as roxi has dominion


--Jd

it's very pleasant here in this new hotel, much better than our windowless stinky box from last night. yesterday we stayed in the old quarter, which was good for buying whatever crap you feel like, but its also good here, bit quieter.

FOOD IS SO GOOD!
we're living off lychees as snacks.
ima gonna eat one now.
we get a kilo for about 80c, and that's without bartering.

last night we ate at a pretty cool place, met a local named Tye who worked there, Mark, Elle's fiance smoked a traditional tobacco bong thing that whistled and was pretty amusing.

met our group and guide tonight, we start our tour in the wee hours tomorrow morning.

they're turning off lights aroudn us so we should probably go to bed.
computer won't post photos but soon soon!

112

Well we made it. Sitting now at our uh fantastic...? hotel in Hanoi. IT'S SO EFFING HOT! And everything on this computer is in Vietnamese :S

But yes, the plane trips where mundane, no real turbulence or anything. I think the most exciting part was seeing the officers at Singapore airport with machine guns. And they had travellators everywhere for the lazy amongst us, very jetsons style. Daniel's had about 20 mins sleep since we left.

It's very different over here. Who would've thought? Everyone is trying to sell you something, and they're incredibly persistent about it! But it's cheap if you barter well. Anyway, just a quick update, cos we're about to go and get dinner. You'll get some photos soon.

Destination Vietnam

So it's about 6 weeks to go, which is a while off, but I'm starting to get excited and decided to start our travel blog!
Thought I'd let you all know where we were off to and when...



We depart Melbourne Town on Tuesday 3rd July at some ungodly hour of the morning I believe, stopping over in Singapore (we're flying Singapore Air btw) and then catching another flight to Hanoi.

As we are going with Daniels mums side of the family (9 of us total!), we are doing a tour through Intrepid. If you're really that obsessed with our wonderful selves and want to plot our every movement head on over to the Intrepid website and look up The Reunification Express.

But basically we start in Hanoi, the capital then we move on up to Halong Bay which is apparently very beautiful, and we'll be boating it for a couple days thar.

Then we head down the east of the country, stopping in Hue a couple days and then the next stop on our trip is Hoi An, which I'm very looking forward to visiting and having some clothes tailored for me. I can finally get some BOOTS!!!

Then after Hoi An it's off to Nha Trang, which is the most touristy place in Vietnam and after a couple of days there, it's off to Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City, where we conclude our tour and will be there several days.

But all good things must come to an end and we will have to return to our normal lives on Saturday 21st July.

If you wanna check out what we're up to just scribble this link down somewhere, stick it on your fridge, build a shrine...
http://www.wrong-dong.blogspot.com



Until then..
Don't get hit by a bus.