Vietnam

Good Morning (from) Vietnam,

After 5 crazy days in Ho Chi Minh City it was time to cool off and dry out so we began our journey north up Vietnam to Dalat.

We had booked an open bus ticket (with our Canadian mates) so we all hopped on the bus and nothing exciting really happened, we just sat there for 5hrs and then we were there - abit unusual for us but a refreshing change all the same.

We found ourselves a guesthouse that had been recommended but they were full booked apart from the attic rooms. By mistake we let Mark check out the room, I have come to find we have pretty different ideals of comfort. The room was really creepy, it was a big attic with two solitory beds and a TV which showed only one channel of Vietnamese cartoons. There was a shared bathroom down the hall. It was late, the room was cheap so we agreed to take it as a last resort but only for one night!

We spent the evening drinking beer Saigon in the cafe next door and I learnt how to play Poker, we figured if we had a few drinks we would be happy to crash anywhere.

The next morning we had arranged to do an "Easy Rider Tour". The Easy Riders are a group of blokes all about 40ish who do tours around Dalat and Vietnam. It was possibly one of the best decisions we had made so far. We headed out at 8:30am and got back at 4:30pm covering 80kms in the day. They take you well off the beaten Lonely PLanet track and show you as they call the "real Vietnam".

We covered amazing waterfalls, mushroom production, a flower farm, this crazy house, pagoda's, rice wine production and I now know that silk worms actually make silk! They take you into the homes of locals so it was a fantastic experience. Some of the scenery you see when your driving through the mountains was absolutley breathtaking. We took loads of photo's but haven't as of yet worked out how to get them onto my blog.

We did some exploring on foot today, Dalat as a place has some real charm - I really like it. As we have only got short of 3 weeks left on our Visa's we are heading off tomorrow to Nah Trang on the coast. It is Vietnam's premiere diving site so it will be a good opportunity to make by debut dive since graduating Scuba-School back in Dec-05. Hopefully I can remember how you do it....

Next stop Nah Trang