Xin chao
16/12/09 we flew to Danang our gateway to central Vietnam, In the airport Oonagh ate Pho ba a noodle & beef dish with chop sticks and did decidedly well considering she had the chop sticks round the wrong way. Our first stop is Hoi An a small town on the coast ( untouched by various wars), we have a great room on the edge of town next to the river and hundreds of paddy fields, This could be why it does smell of damp, The beach is only 300m away, but due to the late finish of the monsoon season ,its 25 degree's outside, windy and the heavens open every other hour, there's no one on the vast white sandy beach,(monsoon season was meant to end in October) we have bikes and explored the surrounding area, It was nice to see the locals in their rural hamlets, The pace is so slow and relaxing and there are no touts to hassle us, it's really nice, Shops in town will make a suit or dress for $15 or a pair of shoes in a morning.
Then it rained and didn't stop, it poured and poured, a day spent looking out the window and planning and researching for new years eve location ( its Phuket in Thailand)
20/12/09 on a 8 1/2 hr train journey south to Nha Trang, its meant to be 1st class $6 US, But its more like cattle class with bugs everywhere, Every 2 hrs a trolley dolly offers chicken feet soup (not one of our most enjoyable journey's).
Nha Trang our stop for Christmas is a Vietnamese beach resort, travellers, locals, and as Mr Putin says "if there is a sun bed it must have a Russian arse on it "( It seems they are after world domination of sun beds). The sun came out and we had 30 degree's all week, We bump into Alan and Angela again, whom we had met earlier in Singapore, and had our turkey xmas dinner with them (wasn't the best), followed by a full on rave on the beach (all a bit of a surreal Christmas feel). On Christmas day business as usual ,all the shops are open, apart from a few strange people in Santa hats you wouldn't know it had happened

Tam biet the Chaffer's