Day 36: 14/7/13
The train was due to arrive around 4:30 this morning. I didn't really sleep much at all. I couldn't settle down to sleep until at least one a clock, so I may have gotten three hours of sleeping and waking! I woke around quarter past 4 and thought I may aswell stay awake as we'd be going soon, but there was no sign of movement. Around quarter to five this strange music with a woman screaming came on over the speakers. I thought someone had left on an iPod or something, but it was actually in our whole carriage. I think it was to wake us as the whole carriage were going to be getting off there. I popped my head out though and the guide was there saying to back to bed as we weren't there at all yet! Of course I didn't sleep any more anyway!
We got there around 6 in the morning and got a taxi to the hotel. We had been lucky with the cabin we had as there was another cabin that particularly stank as we just walked past it this morning- I wouldn't have been able to cope with a night there!!
We couldnt check in when we got there as it was so early, so we went for breakfast. There was supposed to be a choice of restaurants - western and local, but the western one was closed. A lot of people bawked at the local one and headed for a coffee shop instead but a few of us said we may aswell chance it. The breakfast was a choice of noodles or...... Noodles! It was supposed to be all beef but I got vegetable ones. It definitely wasn't a breakfast, but it tasted lovely! Perhaps because I hadn't really slept I was more in a dinner frame of mind!! I was asking the guide if they have noodles for a lot of meals and he was saying they'd only have it for breakfast and seemed to be horrified the thought of having it more than once!! But when I mentioned rice, that was okay to have with every meal!!
We went to a little coffee shop then that the guide was recommending but as none of us really drink coffee, it was wasted on us!! They give the coffee though in a little teapot thing on top of your cup and it drains into the cup, so you leave it sitting for ages before drinking. They often drink it cold anyway so it doesn't matter if its ages sitting there!
We had to get laundry done then- I literally had to wash most of my clothes or I'd have nothing to wear! The laundry was an interesting place too- it had stalls of alcohol at the front of the shop and a weighing scales at the back to weigh your clothes as you pay by kilo, but apart from that it just looked like someone's kitchen or something!
At 9am we left for a boat trip in the harbour- it felt like we'd been up for hours at that stage!! A tiny minibus came to bring us to the harbour and 17 of us were squished into it!! Luckily it was only a few minutes away. After doing the Whitsundays, when I heard we were doing a boat trip to the islands I was expecting a catamaran type yacht boat, but I had forgotten I was in Vietnam!! It was a wooden boat, just slightly bigger than the kind of one we had in the Mekong Delta. There was room for us all around the side and seats that could be turned into a table in the middle. We all had to put on our lifejackets when we were leaving the shore- they looked pretty ridiculous on us, whatever way they were made! The shoreline was really pretty as we were sailing out- islands ahead of us, marina behind us and some small little mountains and stuff. There was a cable car going from the mainland to one of the islands I think, over the sea, so that added to the scenery. When we were out a bit we could take off the life jackets and wander around the boat a bit to take photos. There was an upper deck aswell which had nice views but there was only a small little railing around it, up to your knees so I wasn't too long up there! We did see someone parasailing with a big colourful parachute while we were up there and we took photos of Hannah and Steff below us doing titanic!
There are many islands in the harbour and its actually a Unesco site. We stopped at Mun island first. We didn't actually go on any of the islands but we anchored for swimming and snorkelling. The snorkelling was okay- you could see a lot of coral but not an awful lot of fish. When you got used to looking through the mask you could start to spot some more of them in the bottom of the sea, but it took a while! There were some nice ones and some nice bright blue coral. We swam for a while and then came back to the boat. Some people went sunbathing on top of the boat, but that was too hot for me! So I stayed underneath in the shade. The guide on the boat was full of chat and was trying to convince us that if you were born in April or August you'd be a powerful person. His reasoning behind this was that Charlie Chaplin, Hitler and Napoleon were all born in April- I don't think his theory quite works!! We just let him talk on for a while!!
We sailed a little bit around the island then and had lunch. It was a load of little dishes where we could pick what we wanted- rice, noodles, prawn, tuna, vegetables, salad, pork, etc. There was mountains of food!
Hannah was asking us to talk Irish as she thinks it sounds really funny. Then she started copying us with her own version- floof dely floof floof!! She was like Joey in Friends speaking French, she even added a toot de la fruit!! It was hilarious- I was in convulsions! Ann-Marie was taking a video of her but as I was beside her it's basically just a video of me laughing! Hannah and Steff had a conversation then in pure rubbish language but they were adding all sort sorts of gestures and facial expressions- it was really funny! One half of the boat was talking about politics and we were talking rubbish! I obviously haven't matured much!!
We sailed to another place then for swimming. A few people wanted to jump of the roof of the boat, which the guide didn't reccommend, but they did it anyway! So, I was on camera duty trying to get a good photo, which was quite difficult when I couldn't be in front of them.
We came back to shore then with the boat guide doing magic tricks with cards- he was really trying to impress us! We had a little bit of free time then when we got back to shore. I Skyped home and was chatting to Mam and Dad. Then I attempted to go to sleep for a little while but it didn't happen!!
We went for dinner then to a lovely restaurant called Lantern. They had lots of lanterns lit up, making it really pretty. They gave me the wrong food though- I ordered a tofu curry and they gave me a tofu chilli- my mouth was burning a lot more than I had been expecting!
We went for some drinks afterwards. We had a game of pool- Ireland v England. None of us are that good so it took forever to play!! Hannah and Steff managed to beat us though when we were both on the black (or yellow in this case!!). There were buckets you could order with different drinks in them- they were just cocktails really. We didn't order any but somehow they kept being landed in front of us! Someone was buying them and not drinking them!! We had good fun though- plenty of chat. We were trying to figure out who might end up with who on this trip as we had one couple on our last trip. The guy is still on the trip so he was trying to suss out who else might get together! We went dancing a bit as well- one of the guys was bringing out lots of moves- dancing practically on the ground and then hopping up again! There was a local guy trying to outdo him then! We took plenty of photos. The poor guy dancing though ended up having a bucket too many and getting sick in a coconut!! At that stage it was time to go home! A few people were thinking of staying on but one guy had said not to let him pull an all-nighter again, so we convinced him to come back with us!
We thought we were locked out when we got back as the gate was locked, but there was a guy asleep in the lobby who hopped up to open it for us! I'd say it was around half two at this stage- a late night for us!!