Sunday 4th November

Hello once again! So after the most comfortable journey yet on the back of a luxury sleeper bus, we arrived in Nha Trang, South East coast of Vietnam. It was dark when we arrived & we were being hassled by accommodation touts as soon as we stepped off the bus. We followed one just to shut him up & he took us to a newly built 12 storey hotel one street back from the beach, called Nice Swan.

It's $15 per night per room & it's by far our nicest digs yet. To be fair it's our first actual hotel too so you would expect that. Fresh towels & bedding everyday is easy to get used to!

We went for dinner as a 4 then headed to a bar to meet Brett's mate Brett (he lives here, working as a dive instructor). We drank 'til 2am & discussed taking a boat out & doing some diving & agreed we'd do that on Wednesday which is a perfect excuse to get a refresher lesson! On the way home we mingled with some locals on the streetside while Suzanne ordered squid jerky (uurrgghhh). They fed us random shots & tried talking English but after a while a crowd of locals were around us so we decided that was a good time to make a sharp exit home!

Monday 5th November

Today was a chill out day, Brett & Suzanne headed off on motorbikes to a place called Long Beach with other Brett & we did a bit of walking around town, eating, checked out the swimming pool on the hotel roof terrace for an hour, watched a film & that was basically it! We caught up with the guys briefly but we had already eaten & wanted an early night. Doing nothing is tiring, believe me!

Tuesday 6th November

Melbourne Cup day!!!! Everyone agreed that it would be plain rude not to have a flutter on the geegees so we got some bets on in the morning at breakfast & wandered up to the same bar as we went on Sunday to meet Brett. We picked horses purely on name & odds, which worked out well. I picked the winner & Carly picked 3rd. If it came 2nd we would have won something worth writing about!

Berg & I went to the beach for 4 hours & sat under a palm tree reading our lifesavers (Kindles) & enjoying a rare breeze. On the promenade at sunset there was a 'Vietnamese photograph of the year' display so we took a look at that, some pretty impressive work, then met Suzanne for dinner.

When we left Suzanne & both Brett's this morning, the guys were talking about playing poker. It started at 1pm & they were still playing when we got back to the bar after dinner. Eventually Brett walked away around 9pm, £8 million Dong in profit! That's about £270!

Unfortunately for me, I had sunstroke/heat stroke/heat exhaustion possibly from our day at the beach. I went to the toilet feeling as though I might pass out. I spent about 15 minutes in there sat with my head between my legs trying to get the blood flowing but I just started sweating profusely & feeling more & more ill. I suddenly projectile vomited 180 degrees ending up in the toilet & it started to ease slightly. I spent 10 minutes wiping puke off the walls & floors, a considerate ill person! Everyone said I looked dreadful & it was the first time I've ever considered going to hospital in my entire life, I felt horrendous.

It did ease though on the stagger home & after my peanut M&M treat from my wonderful wife. By the morning I felt right as rain, quite bizarre really.

Wednesday 7th November

Today was dive day! It's been at least 4 years since our last scuba dive but we were excited to get back into it. I was feeling much better this morning too which helped!

We walked to the dive shop, sorted our equipment, met with Brett, who was also our instructor for the day & headed to the dock to the get on the boat.

We hit our first dive site after 45 minutes, passing under the World's longest cable car journey over water, we passed Vinpearl, which is a theme park style island, several other tiny resort owned islands & a floating fishing village on the way. We geared up & dived straight into the water, it as a shallow dive in scuba terms, never passing 10m depth but we enjoyed the experience, picked up a starfish, a sea cucumber & touched some slippy soft coral. We saw plenty of fish, lots of variety & the visibility was fair so all in all a good dive. We quickly moved to our second dive site but none of us fancied a 2nd scuba dive so soon after, so we cracked open a crate of beer & sat on the deck sunning ourselves. The girls went snorkelling briefly while us guys did 'Egg diving', 'Bombing' & 'Monster Diving' of the top deck. It was good fun, we all got on well & we got some good photos to maintain the memories.

After the dive day we all went for lunch, mainly liquid, at a yocal local restaurant that serves homebrew beer. 1.5 litres was costing a dollar so we couldn't complain. The dive school owner, Mark from Northern Ireland & a dive instructor, Marcus from Germany joined us all. We spent a few hours trading stories & shooing away the constant street vendors trying to sell all kinds of stuff.

On the evening it was dinner & then bed for us all, a long but enjoyable day.

Thursday 8th November

We met at breakfast & agreed that checking out the Long Son Pagoda & Seated Buddha would bring a bit of culture into our stay in Vietnam! It was a hell of a walk in the scorching sunshine but we trooped on, saving the taxi fare. The Pagoda was fairly similar to most of what we have seen during our travels so far, very attractive building, some impressive sculptures & decorations & the shrine to Buddha inside. 150 steep steps beyond this is the 'Seated Buddha'. It stands 24m tall & took a year in the 1960's to erect. The views from the summit were pretty cool, you could see a divide between the local residences & the travellers skyscraper accommodation all along the seafront. We're pretty sure that a huge chunk of the tourism industry has been jumped on by Russian hoteliers & businessowners. The Russian 'holidaymakers' outnumber the 'backpackers' massively here & for a fairly small city there are some massively extravagant places to stay & eat. Prices are driven higher also so it's not overly cheap. The same thing was apparent in Mui Ne last week.

Anyway, we took a taxi back to the hotel, defeated by the sun once again! We needn't have worried about the cost beforehand, it was less than $2 for the 4 of us! Once back at the hotel we took a dip in the pool & met a couple of British guys, chatted for a bit then Carly headed to the beach with Suzanne, Brett went to play poker & I'm here in my room writing the blog!

So I pick up the blog writing a few days on from there & a lot & not a lot has happened! After Carly & Suzanne were done at the beach we headed up to the bar to meet Brett, who won another 1.3million Dong for his efforts. We had a few beers & a cheeky fish & chips supper & then some more beers! We moved on to a bar called Oasis, necked the complimentary shot, shot some pool, slapped a Russian, befriended a pair of Dutch guys, danced with the Russians, danced with some Brits, drank way too many vodkas, rums & beers & headed home the long route 900,000 Dong lighter than we went out with. Beers & mixers were 20,000 so the 4 of us put in a good effort!

Friday 9th November

Guess what we did today!!! Sod all. Sooo hungover, all we managed was breakfast & some Pringles in bed. Managed to watch a few movies & drag ourselves out for our 7pm, 12 hour sleeper bus journey to Hoi An.

We loaded the luggage, got on the bus & off we went - not realising that Brett was back in the hotel grabbing a can of coke! It took 40 minutes to loop back to pick him up because the staff spoke almost no English but he was there where we left him! The journey was ok, lots of bouncing around on their 'sealed' roads but that was to be expected. Getting ahead of myself, Hoi An is simply stunning but we will get to that next time.

Overall, a great 5 days in Nha Trang, worth a visit if you don't mind the constant hassle of street sellers & moto drivers; some kind of boat trip - either island hopping or scuba is advised.

Loads of love to all y'all back home in the snow/sleet/s***, I hope we bring light to your winter!! xx

Modes of Transport so far - 2 planes, 1 Taxi, 9 Tuk Tuks, 3 VIP Bus, 2 shared taxis, 5 minivans, 2 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 3 ferries, 2 pickup trucks, 3 sleeper bus, 1 kayak, 1 moto

Countries Visited - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam

Beers Sampled - Chang, Tiger, Leo, BeerLao, Namkhong, Angkor, Anchor, Klang, Green Saigon, Red Saigon, 333 & Larue

Miles Travelled - 9,210