Hi, I'm in Nah Trang now which is basically lots of tourists, beach and bars. Very fun but I've been lazy and been here too long. Think I'll leave tomorrow. Yesterday I went on a boat trip round some of the islands you see in the photo. Now this was one weird experience. I knew I was in trouble when the guide had to lift his hand so we could follow him through the throngs of tourists. Tonnes of boats all fully laden with westerners and Vietnamese. First stop was for snorkelling which was ok but I think most of the coral had been destroyed many years earlier. Hundreds of orange lifejackets bobbed behing the boats as the Vietnamese who couldn't swim (most - all) splash about. Still the scenery was beautiful. Then it was another place with much the same and a gorgeous lunch. It all got too much when we pulled up in a really nice area along with all the other boats and the driver announced it was Kareoke time. The Vietnamese love this as does almost all of SE Asia. And with reckless abandon, the drumset, electric guitar and tamberine plays to an adoring dancing crowd. I am fairly confident none of them looked outside of the boat. Well, not until the guide jumped in the water and strapped himself to a floating bar giving out free wine. So, with floats and wine there was much antics and the same you could hear happening all along the string of boats. All the time the very drunken Vietnamese guide screamed out 'happy birthday, happy new year, happy christmas, happy effing day.... yeah' to the continued cheering of the vietnamese. And then more swearing and more cheers and more pulls from the wine bottle. Of course I was disgusted up until the free booze came out and then I put my morals on hold for a while. Overall, the day trip cost 5 dollars with all food and wine included which was pretty incredible. But so far the Vietnamese have demoonstrated their incredible ability to destroy and over tourise all their attractions while still keeping the tourists under their belt...after all it is a communist country. This is done through cheap tour prices to the top destinations, individual travel given little information and tourist prices on local busses incredibly high. Getting from Saigon to here was twice as much on local busses for tourists than on the nice, comfortable mega tourist monster that roars along the road. But I will not be put off. Tomorrow I'm going to try and head inland to get away from it all but I still am expecting to have to pay a lot more to do so which sucks. Having said all this, it is a beautiful country and the people very very friendly and prices are ok so I can't complain too much. Chris