Sup fools! Its been a while since we have updated this badboy so we have decided to take some time out of our busy lives to regale you with tales of the Vietnam Coast. Nha Trang
has a fantastic beach with wonderful clear waters. It also has a disgusting array of naff bars and shops to rival Blackpool and managed to rain pretty much the entire time we were there. Our hotel room had a balcony, which overlooked a building site, and the additional bonus of geckos and damp walls. Apart from playing football on the beach until phil cried, eating the worlds best seafood dinner and whinging about the rain little else happened. So we moved onto...
jealous?
Hoi An
Having been shown the back 3 sleeper bunks on the bus we were pretty pleased with ourselves, as they seemed spacious in comparison to some of the others. However there was a distinct lack of working air conditioning and we were sat above the engine. Arriving sweaty and irritable Phil managed to shout at a man trying to get us to stay at his hostel. He failed to understand our mantra for the trip, that is basing our accomodation decisions on the rough guide book "if its not in the good book, its not good" (Luke 5:2).
Lanterns
My Son (Dont worry mum its a temple)
Hue
Half an hour from leaving Hoi An, our bus ground to a stop as the axel snapped whilst manoeuvring a crazy roundabout. The driver attempted to rejoin the broken steel with....... a hammer but worked to no avail! A replacement bus quickly came and we were surrounded by smelly tourists again.
broken bus
1 of 100 temples
2 of 100 temples
3 of 100 temples
On arrival in Hue we were instantly disppointed by the souless atmosphere that greeted us in the form of incessant hostel representatives and taxi drivers following us down the street. Thankfully, the following day redeemed our warped view of the city after we visited the Citadel and old city where we managed to get our daily quota of 10 temples and 10 pagodas in. The highlight of our day was going to the Co-Op to get Infadel supplies for the 16 hour bus journey that awaited us for Hanoi. Safe.
Hanoi
After a beautiful sleep on the night bus (apart from lanky coops) we were ready to hit Hanoi. We thought it would be much cooler up here but funnily enough...... I'm pretty sure we are even sweating through our eyeballs. We're in a decent hostel but they keep trying to sell us unusually cheap tickets for tours, can't imagine how they get them that cheap?!?! Safe to say we're staying well clear. We've had a good few days here though, had some awesome food and been productive on the sight-seeing front, yes more temples. The most interesting thing we've seen may have been Uncle Ho's mausoleum, we didn't go inside though because you need to be in trousers and me and Coops may have passed out (Nick was up for it though, got a thing for dead bodies apparently.) We also saw the President of Vietnam drive past in his sweet Mercedes just before going into his massive palace. All the things that socialism brings.
Sweet bridge
Cross legged meal
We're booked up for Halong bay tomorrow for a two day trip, then we fly to Chiang Mai on Saturday to partake in massages, mini treks and cooking schools. All with happy endings. We therefore will be off the radar for a few days but we'll update again once we've more fun tales to tell
Hope all family and friends are ok and coping without us, it must be tough.
Nick, Coops and Phil
xxx
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