After arriving by train we took a short bus journey to our hotel. As it was so early the rooms were not ready for us and we waited around in reception, I felt so dirty and all I wanted was a shower and some sleep. While we were waiting for the rooms Dara took us to get breakfast, we found a little street kitchen where the lady cooked for us eggs, beef, onion and tomato on a griddle with lovely fresh bread, all for just under 1 pound!! We did have to sit at a minature table with chairs, it felt like being back at infant school. We headed back to the hotel where the rooms were ready so I could have a much awaited and needed shower and nap, before we were picked up to head to a local beach.

The beach was about a 30 minute drive away and there was some impressive scenery along the coast. We were advised that the beach we were heading to was normally quiet but because it was a holiday in Vietnam it was likely to be packed with locals and it really was busy. We had a table reserved and paid a set amount so all our food and drink was included for the day and we had somewhere to sit. We had a bbq and had clams, tofu, beef and chicken followed by noodles and rice. We started off on the soft drinks but soon progressed to beer, rum and coke and then rum and orange (a new favourite holiday drink). We were a bit of an attraction at the beach and had many photos taken and were stared at for most of the day, our guide explained a lot of the people would not have seen westerners before as they had just come in for the holiday and would normally live in villages where we would not visit. People were obsessed with taking photos of their children with us especially and wanting us to hold their children. All the women also cover themselves completely, so because we were wearing swimwear this also made us stand out more. The lads ended up having looads of photos and comparing muscles with a big local group of men who by the end of the day were very drunk and singing badly.

On the beach there was a mobile kareoke (never seen anything like it) a guy with a motorbike with a massive speaker, sound system and microphone attached to the back. He started off by positioning the bike in different places and singing songs (some he did not know the words to as he had to read them from his notebook), as the tide came in though he found it harder to move his moped so ended up positioning it right next to us, but the drunk local guys seemed to enjoy it in the end.

We headed back to the hotel and after a shower I headed out with Amy, Linn and Kate to a little French restaurant recomended in Lonely Planet, the food was lovely and after we headed out for cocktails with the rest of the group.

The following day Tina, Amy, Claire and I headed out for a motorbike tour. We visited the Long Son Pagoda and the Cham Towers. The Pagoda was so peacfull but we had to climb so many stairs. It was so hot and the sweat was pouring out of me, we had to find shade and a place to sit and recover at the top(in the shaddow of the Buddha), before I could even contemplate heading back down the stairs. We then headed to the Cham Towers, but as we were not deemed to be covered up enough we had to wear long robes which trainee monks normally wear, this attracted quite a bit of attention and a few looks. Because of the heat and the extra clothing it was unberable and so hot, so was just on the hunt for shade!!

In the afternoon we headed to the beach where it was quite windy and it felt so nice to actually feel cool for a little while, although I still had to sit in the shade as the sun is just too hot to sit out in.

In the evening we once again headed for the train station for our second overnight train to Denang, so that we could head to Hoi An from there. The train left the station at 10.20pm, again we had a lot of people stopping at the door to our cabin and staring but we soon shut it and headed off to sleep. We did not reach our next destination till 11am, so had spent such a long time on the train and could not wait to get off. For some reason the trains seem to stop in certain places, where there is not even a station for ages, which is what seemed to delay us, but at least we got to see some of the countryside on this journey as we travelled the last part in daylight.