Danang

Danang was a bit of a disappointment for us. We had booked our flight to Hanoi from Danang so decided to go and spend a day there before we flew. The hotel we booked was one of the worst on the trip. It was only 4 years old, but was very dated and needed some serious repairs (like to the leaking ceiling in the hall way). We checked in then headed to the beach. It was much nicer than the beach in Hoi An, very quiet, no one trying to get you to buy things and a nice place to swim, although the waves were quite big. So we spent a couple of hours chilling on the beach then headed off in search of lunch. Due to it being low season most of the restaurants by the beach were closed. 

We had heard of a chicken place a bit like KFC and had the address on a pamphlet we were given at the airport so thought we'd give that a try. Unfortunately after a long time driving round the city we could find it. We ended up getting lunch in a mall. 

After lunch we headed back to the hotel and chilled out for a bit. We had seen an ad for a restaurant "the big boss-eat like a boss, pay like a student" we thought it sounded good and was on the same street as our hotel so we wondered down. It was a very much a restaurant for locals, it was really hard to pick anything to eat and our waiter spoke almost no English. I got a noodle dish that was so spicy I couldn't eat it and Shaun got a chicken hot pot which was not at all what we were expecting. We headed back to the hotel feeling we hadn't really eaten like a boss. 

Hoi An

After two days in Nha Trang we flew to Danang and got a car to Hoi An. For the 30min drive it cost us 450,000VND. We checked into our hotel and headed into town to get started on the clothes we wanted to get made. Our hotel had recommended a shop called BeBe and they had good reviews on trip advisor so that's where we went. We were very well looked after by Moon and Li-en and our fittings were done by Thao. We each got a few things made and got the whole lot shipped back to NZ so we didn't have to carry it on the rest of our trip. 

We really enjoyed Hoi An, it is a smaller place so quieter and quite chilled out. Was nice to wander round the old town. We went to a tea house called the resting place. It is staffed by people who are deaf, so there is no talking. You just sit and enjoy your tea in silence. It was a lovely place to visit and just sit for a bit, they also had really yummy baking to go with the tea :) 

We went out to the beach one afternoon. It was quite windy so not that enjoyable. But it was nice to get out in the fresh air. 

Nha Trang- Vin Pearl Island and Lanterns Cooking class

I've been so slack at posting on here. It's not the easiest to type on the iPad and there are other things I'd rather be doing! 

Straight across from our hotel room was an island called vin pearl island. It is a theme park and water park all in one. To get there you take a cable car across from the mainland. The cable car has amazing views. Once you arrive you can go on as many rides as you want your entry fee covers the cable car, and everything on the island. We spent a few hours on rides, then headed over to the pools. They have a lot of water slides, some of which are way too scary for me! We played in the water for a while, Shaun had the camera in his pocket when we went into the wave pool. Then we got out and went to one of the slides, Shaun was going to wait at the bottom and take a photo of me. When I got off the slide he said "don't panic but I don't have the camera". It had fallen out of his pocket in the wave pool. We started to walk back towards the pool when a lovely Australian woman came up to us and said "is this your camera? A little kid found it, I looked in the photos and recognised you." We were so stoked to have it back! 

We then went and had some lunch and watched the clouds roll in.. It started to pour. We wandered back to the arcade games, had another go on the dodgems, got soaked wandering round and decided that maybe it was time to head back to the hotel. 

We headed out for dinner that night to a restaurant called Lanterns, it had been recommended to us by someone we met earlier. The restaurant was packed, easily the busiest place we've eaten since we've been away. But the food was amazing. They had an ad on the table for cooking classes, so we decided to do that the next day. 

9am the next morning we were back at Lanterns for our cooking class. First thing we did was take a cyclo to the markets to buy some of the ingredients we would be using.  We started with fruit and vegetables and wandered through to the herbs and spices and all othe other things we would be needing. The last bit we went through was the meat section. It's not for the faint hearted. There were three Aussies with us, one was vegetarian and the other two quite squeamish. They didn't appreciate the frogs being picked up and whacked against the concrete step. After the market visit it was back to the resturant to begin cooking.  We made fresh spring rolls, caramelised onion and your choice of pork, chicken or fish in a hot pot and flambé fruit for desert. We both really enjoyed the class, Nam our teacher was lovely and explained anything we wanted to know about. 

Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang

We decided to take the day train to Nha Trang. It left Ho Chi Minh city at 9am and was supposed to be 7hours. We figured we'd done six hours on bus we could do seven on a train.  It took a bit over seven hours, we got in at around 5.30pm. It was a longer day than we had planned, but it was fine. We were able to buy food and drinks on the train. (From a very limited range of snack foods)  

There was a young girl and her grandmother travelling on the same carriage as us. She provided me with a great deal of entertainment :)  we played for a long time on the iPad taking photos. The grandmother bought some fruit from a seller on the train. She insisted we took some. We were wary as we didn't know what they were. They tasted like apples but didn't have a core, instead had a pip in the middle. Apart from the train trip taking longer than we thought it went well. We asked one of the train guards how long until our stop, then he came back to make sure we got off at the right place which was great as it was dark and we would have had no idea otherwise. 

When we arrived in Nha Trang it raining again so we got a taxi straight to our hotel. After checking in we wanted to find some dinner, it had been a long day on the train eating junk food and we both wanted some proper food.  We went to a place just across the road from our hotel. We had been told was that Nha Trang is full of Russians, they were right, so much so that all the menus etc are in Vietnamese, Russian and English. We often got mistaken as Russians until people spoke Russian to us and It was plain we had no idea what was being said! 

Ho Chi Minh City - the Cu Chi tunnels

We decided to head out to the Cu Chi tunnels with a half day tour. We were picked up at 8.30 and driven out towards to tunnels, about an hour into our journey we stopped at a factory where disabled people make art work. Some of it was hand painted, and some like mosaic but made with egg shells. The work was beautiful. We found a chest do drawers we were really keen on. But the price and cost of shipping was somewhat prohibitive. 

Nest stop was the tunnels, it was just like I remembered. It was good for Shaun to be able to see it, although at times it was difficult to hear our guide as we were in a group of around 40. Just as we were finishing our tour it poured with rain.  We got soaked getting back onto the bus. But spent the bus journey back into the city chatting with an Irish couple. They had asked to be dropped at the war museum and we thought that sounded like a good idea so were going to tag along. But the bus took us back to our hotel. It was after 3 when we got back and we hadn't had lunch so decided to skip the museum and go find some food instead.  A few hours later we left the Irish couple to head back to our hotel. 

We were both pretty tired so just had a baguette for dinner then headed off to bed.  

Getting from Phenom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City

We decided to take the bus into Vietnam, and went with a company called Mekong Express Limousine. I'm not sure where the 'limousine' part comes in but it was a good company to travel with. We were picked up in a van that I was sure wouldn't last the trip to the bus stop  . Before we boarded the bus we were given luggage tags which had to be handed back when we picked up our bags at the other end. Our visas for Vietnam were checked to ensure they were valid before we got on the bus.  Once on the bus it was allocated seating and we were quite near the back. It wasn't ideal but it was fine. There was a toilet on board which was useful as we only had one stop other than at the border. 

 Our lunch stop was wired, there were no menus you just went up, said what you wanted and they cooked it for you. I had some noodles and veggies, Shaun didn't eat as he wasn't feeling too good. 

Just after lunch we reached the border and had to get off the bus. We lined up to leave Cambodia. I was the first westerner to go through at our booth, I had to get my photo taken and be finger printed. No one else did! Then we got back on the bus (handing our passports to one of the bus company people) and drove a few meters to the Vietnamese border.  We had to take all our belongings off the bus and through immigration. We got inside and the lady from Mekong Express went up and got all our passports sorted then called our names and we could go through. We were waiting quite a while,then Shaun's name was called. I thought I had to be soon, we had handed our passports in together. I waited and waited. I couldn't see Shaun anymore and was starting to get a little concerned. Did the fact that I got fingerprinted have anything to do with why mine was taking so long?!? Finally she called my name and I was through and back into Vietnam :)  

The rest of our bus journey was fairly uneventful. 

When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City we didn't know where we were in regards to where we were staying. Vietnam doesn't seem to have tuk tuks like other places, just taxis.  We decided to get a taxi. BAD IDEA! The guy pretty much grabbed us as we got off the bus. Just after we got into the car and had driven off he asked if we had VND with us. We didn't and has thought we could pay in USD. He insisted that we had to pay in dong so would take us to a money changer. We didn't think that would be a good idea so said ATM. He agreed and took us a very long way to get to an ATM. When we finally got to our street he didn't actually know which one was our hotel and drove past it. I had to point it out to him. When we stopped the meter read 798,000VND which is about $40NZD! We had been driving for maybe 20mins. I said too expensive. He then locked the doors and wouldn't let us out until we paid.  I was furious! 

But what really really annoyed me was when we went out to find dinner and literally around the block was the friggen bus stop! It would have taken us 5mins to walk even with all our stuff! 

Be very careful when using taxis in Ho Chi Minh City, there are a couple of companies our hotel recommended. They are VINASUN or MAI LINN. In contrast our taxi to the train station which took a good 30 mins and we actually went somewhere cost 78,000 VND with a very helpful driver.