dear avid followers,

we've kept up our busy pace and have crammed a load more into the last few days and as i've got nothing to do i thought i would let you know!

we arrived in dalat at 6am from ho chi minh and checked into our hotel. we decided to spend the day at a fairly leisurely pace. so first thing first we needed breakfast! unbeknown to us, despite there being a cafe every 10mtrs, they only served coffee! furthermore, they are generally just for men so when emily and i turned up in our pyjamas we got some very hostile and curious looks! oh well we eventually found somewhere that did an immatation off scrambled eggs!

later on we visited the 'crazyhouse' in the picture which is in the top 10 strangest buildings in the world! followed by a walk around the town. one highlight was their central market and despite having seen quite a few, this one was pretty special! huge cages of animals, tubs of an array of live fish and seafood as well as netted tubs holding leaping frogs and squirming snakes! lovely!

the next day we did a motorbike/ scooter tour of the mountains! we ate crickets at an actual cricket farm, saw a silk factory, a waterfall, coffee fields and had lunch with a village family in the highlands! it was an incredible day where we learnt so much about vietnamese culture to personally riding a scooter and riding a scooter with a million mad vietnamese drivers, cyclists and wierd vehicles criss crossing all around me! we discovered that when we cross our fingers for good luck it means the F word and bowing in vietnam unless to a holy person means 'i wish you were dead'! very confusing when everywhere else it is polite!

on saturday we got a bus to hoi an that went via nah trang for a few hours so we spent the day on the beach. later that night we caught our bus connection to hoi an and arrived at what is becoming our favourite arrival time of 6am!!! oh well! hoi an is beautiful and has a lovely old town. on top of that it specialises in tailoring so i decided it was only fair to immerse myself in local heritage and get two 3 piece suits and a tuxedo made! they're incredible! had my final fitting, out of 3, last night and am collecting them this morning!

yesterday we did a cooking course which was really good! i can now do fresh spring rolls, a fish clay pot, hoi an pancakes and many more! well at least i was good at eating it all if not tge making!

this afternoon we leave on a 16hour bus to hanoi to arrive at...yes you guessed it 6am tommorow morning!

speak to you soon!
barney xxx