We left Saigon for Nha Trang on 31 May. Basically the whole day was spent travelling. We left at 8am and didn't arrive until about 6.30pm. The actual distance between the two is not that far, but the roads in Vietnam are quite bad and it was slow going. Luckily, we had booked a sleeper bus, despite travelling in the day, as we decided it would be more comfortable for the long journey: good decision. The bus had three rows of bunk bed, we were small, but allowed you to strech out. Alan slept until we stopped for lucnh at about one, and the journey as a whole was pretty easy.

The bus dropped us outside a hotel which the basically tried to force everyone to stay in. However we avoided the sales pitch and found one a few doors down that was much cheaper. Standards in Vietnam seem higher than we are used to, and for about 4 quid a night we had a room with ensuite, tv and fridge (luxury). We went out for tea and decided to treat ourselves to a relatively expensive INdian as we had been on the bus all day. It was lush.

We bought some books from a really goofy looking guy on a bike. He was really smiley and had massive glasses. The books were photocopies, half way through mine I realised the pages were in the wrong order/missing. Lesson learnt. We watched some of the French Open before bed, strangely tired from a day which mostly consisted of lying down on a bus.

We had a relaxing day the next day walking around the town and down to the beach. Alan found out about a beach football game, and went down there and played for a few hours with the locals. He enjoyed it. We booked a boat trip for the next day.

In the evening we went out for drinks in a cocktail bar offering free mojitos, which was nice. We played pool and connect 4, and drank white russians. On the way home we decided to go for one more drink as we passed a fun looking bar. We ended up staying for ages drinking long island iced tea, chatting to a British couple on the honeymoon and playing pool with some aussies. It was fun but we got to bed far too late. Oh well.

When the alarm went off at 8am there was no way we were going on a boat trip, so I went downstairs and persuaded the reception staff to postpone the trip until the next day, explaining that my boyfriend was "ill". They were nice and sorted it out for us. It ended up being a bit of a write off day. We eventually ventured out for food in the early afternoon, to the restuarent next door to the hotel. We ordered food and Alan decided to pop back to our room to the toilet. Half an hour later he hadn't returned, and as he had the money I couldn't pay the bill.I ran up to our room to find him being violently sick. Bless. I went back and settled the bill and we stayed in for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening we went out for pasta which was surprising good and we then got an early night after watching a bit more tennis. It was our last day the next morning and we definately needed to be well rested to do the boat trip.

Bright and early the next day a bus pciked us up and took us down to the port. The boat was pretty crowded and the water was quite choppy and we felt a bit seasick. First stop was an aquarium, which was ok, but very crowded so you couldn't really see any of the fish. Next we sailed next to an island where we did some snorkelling, which was good. We saw loads of multicoloured little fish. It was a sunny day. We were served a lunch of seafood and rice and then we sunbathed on the top of the boat listening to the live music show going on below. There was also a "floating bar": a blcok of polysterene with some plastic flowers taped on and a trap full of wine bottles and plastic cups. It was a novelty and everyone went in in rubber rings for a quick drink. Our last stop was at a fancy beach where we stayed for about an hour. The guy who worked there came over and we helped him with him english homework.

When we got back to the town we quickly booked a night bus leaving that evening to Hoi An. We had time to grab a quick Italian before the bus left at 7pm.