Hello!

The weeks are flying by, can't beleive it was over a week ago since my last blog!

Since then we've been Canyoning in Da Lat - the pictures are already on here - it was the most scary thing I've ever done! And my muscles didn't recover for a good 3 days after - I was walking like in invalid!! Don't know how Emily and Beth managed to do a trek the next day after they did it!! The day consisted of an hour of abseiling training in the morning, followed by 4 abseils and 2 jumps. There was one dry steep cliff to abseil down, another landing in water, one down a huge waterfall - when you were 3 metres from the water there was no rope left so you just had to push with your feet again the wall with water pouring down on you and fly backwards into the water! The last was called the 'washing machine' - because there's only so far you can abseil down the wall because of the angle - you then have to lower yourself while hanging in the air into the waterfall coming from behind you - soon enough you get mushed down in the water, spun around under the surface and spat out to the side - just as you think you've drowned!! Abseiling down the waterfall had to have been the most scary - me and Tor both slipped in the same place as soon as we started going down - a slif about 1 or 2 metres down the waterfall and was just hanging in the balace (lying in the balance) in the gushing water!! The guys didn't have the means to pull you up or pull you down if anything like that happened, it was all up to you how you moved as you had to feed the rope through your right hand at your side and pass it through the left in order to to move downwards - soon enough we managed to get back up and make our way down, the whole day really tested my nerves - not sure I would do it again but glad I did it!! There were two jumps from cliff sides too - One was just to get to the next abseiling spot - they pointed out the massive rock slabs in the water and said we had to leap far enough to miss them - no pressure! For the second I opted for a 7 metre leap over an 11 metre run & leap - (Tor did it, but I had to draw the line there!). One of the guys sat with the bag of cameras in a good spot for each activity so we all got some really decent photos which was nice of them!

We stayed in Da Lat for 3 nights, the morning after the canyoning exercsie we got a 5 hours bus to Nha Trang - very beachy - just what we needed after that experience!! Probably the nicest guest house we've stayed in so far $5 each per night, a roof top terrace with sun lungers and hammocks, a sea view, AIR CON! free Internet and a nice restauarnt, and 60 seconds from the beach! There really wasn't that much to do there but there were some really nice swimming pools on the beach so we lounged around for a couple of days and did lots of reading and resting!

Next was Hoi An, where we stayed for 2 nights. Tailor-made heaven!! You can get whatever you want made, I'd read about it and heard about it but didn't realise the extent - the things i was most drawn to were leather boots and sandals made to the exact shape of your feet, and the number of winter coats!! (it's cooler in Hoi An at the moment too, but only like our summer evening, but the vietnamese are dressed in coats and hats!) - I got a grey wool winter coat made with red silk lining at the seams for just $35, I couldn't resist, had to send it home but it was worth it - something to look forward to when I get back to the freezing cold!! I resisted the boots and sandals but did buy a couple of $4 dresses!

Hoi An is such a lovely setting, lots of old buildings mostly painted yellow (you'll see in the pics), tiny little windy streets, lots of fishing boats, and lanterns everywhere! It was really gorgeous!! We hired bikes for the day yesterday 75cents for the day and explored the town and followed a 4k trail to the beach, quite windy there so we didn't stay long but it was nice to see!! I'd really like to come back to Hoi An with an empty suitcase and loads of $$$ for a whole new tailor-made wardrobe one day, the stuff was all so good!! Very retro / vintage, and so cheap!

We're currently in Hue but only for a 5 hour stop over in between our bus from Hoi An this morning and the bus to Hanoi at 5pm, we've just been wandering around the town, got some food, caught up with our blogs, and it's nearly time to get back on the bus we were on the bust for 4 hours this morning, and proabably another 11 or 12 now, looking forward to seeing the capital!!

Will be in Hanoi for a couple of days and weather permitting we will do a trip to Halan Bay - meant to be one of the most beautiful places in Vietnam - we're in the rainy / cool season for Northern Vietnam so we're unsure if we'll make it - following that, we're hoping to have crossed the border into Laos by the end of the weekend.

Will update again soon - pictures on the way too, facebook is banned in a lot of places in Vietnam and you can rarely get on, you have use a different link which gets you to a version from around 3 or 4 years ago - very minimalist and very confusing!

Lots of Love, Lucy xxxxxxxxxxxx