Nha Trang 29/03/2012
We arrived in the early morning at Nha Trang station and transferred straight to the hotel. Nha Trang is a town on the coast and it has a nice beach. We found a cafe on the beach and had some Vietnamese iced coffee. Whilst we were sitting there we witnessed a bike crash, she was ok though and just drove off. It rained quite a bit in the afternoon so we couldn't do a lot but look in the nearby shops. At some point in the afternoon I got a mosquito bite on my eye? It blew up and i couldnt see out of that eye for a bit. Scott found it hilarious. In the evening we only went accross the road to get dinner. Both Scott and I ordered Vietnamese chicken curry, best curry since Cambodia. After dinner we went down the road to a bar called "Booze Cruise", the name says it all. The drinking games began..
Nha Trang 30/03/2012
Everyone was a bit worse for wear in the morning. One of the guys who stayed out later than us was carried home by locals. At 10am us and 5 other girls went to visit the mud baths. It wasn't that great and the mud wasn't very thick. We were there a couple of hours and had lunch there. We to back to the hotel and witnessed another bike crash as a taxi had pulled out on him, he was ok too. We had an early dinner as we needed to get to the station in time for our 10pm train. The train was slightly delayed and we nearly got on the wrong one but we found it in the end. People had just come off it so the sheets were dirty, we got rid of these and I just slept on the mattress with my sleep liner. Didn't see any rats or cockroach this time!
Hoi An 31/03/2012
We arrived in Hoi An late morning and went to the hotel. We went straight out for lunch at a restaurant along the river and our guide gave us a tour of the city. Every other shop here is a tailors. After checking into our hotel we went out again and our guide took us to a tailors he recommended, it was called Yaly Couture. Here Scott picked out materials and styles for two 3-piece-suits he wanted. They took his measurements and gave him a time to come back the next day for a fitting, it was very professional. After the suits which took a while we went to the local market. For dinner that night we went to the river, there were lots of colourful lanterns floating down the river that people had brought and put in the river (also shown on Top Gear Vietnam). It was very pretty. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner, during dinner at 8pm they had Earth Hour where all the lights our turned off and there is just candle light. At this point Scott was outside at the cashpoint and didn't know what was happening. Later we went to a sports bar.
Hoi An 01/04/2012
Today we had our cooking class and Scott had his suit fitting. Four of us chose to do the cooking class whilst the others biked to the beach (not in this heat!) Before the cooking class we were given a tour around the local food market and got to try a few of the local delicacies. Thankfully there weren't any unhatched duck eggs on sale. The lady doing our tour told us she wouldn't eat them as sometimes the become alive as they are cooked. Before our cooking class began we had to go back to the tailors for Scott's suit fitting. Quite a lot needed to be adjusted so he needed to go back at 5pm after the work had been done. We went to the class and put on our aprons. First we were cooking fish in banana leaf. Scott had to slice open the fish whilst I chopped the veg and herbs to put inside the fish. The fish was then wrapped in banana leaf and left to cook on the barbeque. We then made a calamari dish and then made spring rolls from scratch. After cooking everything we got to eat it and it was pretty good. Scott went back to the tailors at 5, the suits were nearly perfect, just needed a slight adjustment on the jackets which they did there and then. The suits were being sent for a quality check and then they were being delivered to out hotel. Scott paid for them, it cost less for a tailor made suit than it would be to buy a suit from a shop at home!
Hue 02/04/2012
In the morning we had a 4 hour drive from Hoi An to Hue, we went on the route of the Hai Van Pas which is a road in the mountains. It's known for being dangerous, as we were driving it got extremely foggy to the point you could only see about 3 metres in front. We arrived safely in Hue, we only had one day here so we were advised if we wanted to see a lot of the city and temples we would need to do a four hour motorbike tour this afternoon. After seeing a guys leg who had been in a motorbike accident I refused to do the last motorbike tour in Chau Doc but I didn't want to miss out on all the sights in Hue so I said I would go. My driver was called Ton and he looked like the oldest of the group, he was also the leader. Once everyone was on th bikes he shouted 1,2,3 let's go and off we went. The first junction we came to was scary as he didn't seem to slow down and went straight through. We went along winding country roads to visit first temple which was a tomb for a king. After that we went to a rice museum which would have been boring if it weren't for the old Vietnamese lady who was high as a kite on beetle nuts. She addicted to them so is liie that everyday, worth a visit just to see her. We then went on the main motorway and felt like we were going 60mph. We then visited the Citadel and the Forbidden Purple City. On the way back to the hotel the city roads were busy and we got very close to other bikes and cars. I trusted my driver as he had been doing motorbike tours for 16 years. We got back to the hotel and paid up, I gave him a bit of a tip for getting me back safely. I loved my first motorbike experience even though it was scary.