Good Morning (from) Vietnam!

Alex here today seeing as Heather wrote the last one. We are currently sitting in an internet cafe waiting for our bus to arrive which will take us up to Nha Trang and then onto Hoi An. We rushed to the pick-up point, but Vietnam being Vietnam, we were told that the bus is running an hour late!

Since we were last on we have had a more relaxing time. On the 15th we took a trip down to the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam where we relaxed on board numerous boats in glorious sunshine. We visited three different islands where we ate coconut candy, drank honey tea and tried a very scary looking Elephant Ear fish. We also took a trip down a tiny river on board a row boat wearing the traditional Vietnamese hats (which most women wear around, even in the cities). At the end of this trip we enjoyed some tropical fruits and listened to some local folk music. We ended our day in the night market where I picked up a few bargains on Lacoste polo shirts - $4 each.

The following day we said goodbye to our Intrepid Tour group and set off for the Cu Chi tunnels. Our guide for the day was an eccentric old fellow with a great Vietnamese/American accent. He showed us around all of the tunnels and craters left by B-52 bombers - we even crawled through one tunnel for 30m in the pitch black. This felt tiny despite it being enlargened for Western tourists and after a few minutes we were both pouring with sweat. In the afternoon we made our way to the War Remnant Museum where we saw a number of disturbing images and found out a few more truths about the war.

Yesterday we left for the coastal town of Mui Ne. After leaving the bustling city of Ho Chi Minh and the endless number of motorbikes(6 million people and 4 million bikes) and shiny helmets behind (this law was brought in during the winter of 2007) we entered rolling fields and hills. Looking out of the window of the bus we saw a marked contrast between the living conditions of Vietnam and Cambodia with the Vietnamese poeple living mainly in brick houses compared to the thousands of wood huts that lined the roads in Cambodia. After a five hour journey with no break we pulled up in the windy resort of Mui Ne. We then proceeded to the beach where we watched a few kite surfers fly across the waves. In the evening we found a quaint little restaurant single-handedly run by a little Vietnamese woman. My food was excellent, however I cannot say the same for Heather as she received a raw fish salad despite asking for grilled fish! Saying that, my dish was also wrong and we did not even get another of our dishes!

This brings us up to today where we spent the morning writing postcards on the beach in the shade of a palm tree whilst watching hundreds of wind and kite surfers.

Got to run.....see you in Hoi An!