Beaches, burns and buckets

We made it to our next destination in Vietnam after a 17 hour car ride. It took around 14 hours of actual driving time to go 700km. Such a long day! We got to Nha Trang after midnight and hit the beach the next day.

Nha Trang makes you feel like you are somewhere in California. Huge high rise 5 star hotels over looking the beach, boutique shops and dozens of restaurants serving everything you can think of. We paid a hefty $17 for a large room with a balcony. Two of our days here, Dustin and Mark rented motor bikes for $4 for the day. Mark took me on a ride along the coast and it was maaaagnificent! The beautiful scenery couldn't be captured to do it justice.

The night life in Nha Trang is fairly chill, but we did manage to find buckets for $1.75. 3 shots of vodka and a red bull in one bucket. So we had a few nights of those! The boys played pool while Mary and I had girl talk. Much needed after hanging with two men for almost a month straight! It was lovely to have Mary join us in Vietnam, I hope she enjoyed her vacation as much as we enjoyed having her with us! The day she left, Dustin, Mark and I took a 25 minute scooter ride to a more private beach. We spent the day there eating fish tacos and drinking some beer. It was a great day and we all got a little too much colour!

Next stop was Mui Ne, another beach spot but a lot more chill than Nha Trang. We explored some sand dunes which was a major attraction to see there. They were sandy! Mui Ne was nice but we felt like we were in Russia as 95% of the tourists were Russian and there were many bartenders and servers who could barely speak English because they didn't really have to since most customers were from their own country! Even some Vietnamese locals spoke Russian. I guess you have to cater to your clientele. Vietnam must be Russia's Mexico.

Today, we bused back 6 hours from Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh. We went to the War Remnants Museum this afternoon. I definitely had a bit of a history lesson as I didn't have a huge understanding of the Vietnam war. I was holding back tears at some points learning about the horrendous brutality by the Americans against so many innocent civilians, babies, women, and children. It was also interesting to see that SO many people from all over the world were protesting the brutality. Now I understand why. Citizens are still reeling from the after effects from the war in Vietnam. Agent orange (a chemical sprayed in large quantities over cities, villages and farmland) still shows itself in the thousands of people who were born mentally disabled or deformed. It even said that some U.S. soldiers were affected years later. They're wives having constant miscarriages, or their babies born deformed or disabled due to the poisoning in their own bodies. Super sad stuff.

Tonight, we shall go back to the amazing Pho restaurant that we went to when we were here two weeks ago. Tomorrow, we are off to Phnom Penh, Cambodia!

Here are some pictures from the last week or so. Unfortunately, since I'm blogging from my iPhone, I can't put captions on the pictures. Hopefully they are all straight forward after reading this!

Việt Nam - Week 1

Our travels through Vietnam have begun. This week has been a whirlwind of tours, site seeing and long distance travel. On our day in Ho Chi Minh city, also known as Saigon, we set out to see the Cu Chi tunnels. There is 250km of tunnels running underneath the ground where the citizens of Cu Chi lived when the Americans were attacking during the Vietnam war. The tunnels had a hospital room, kitchen, bedrooms and even a theatre. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to see much of the interior as the tunnels are literally the size of a tiny Vietnamese person. There was a stretch of a few meters where you could crouch down and waddle through a section of tunnel. Dustin, Mark and Mary went down, but I opted to stay above ground where claustrophobia couldn't trap me!

The Vietnamese are currently celebrating their new year holiday called "Tet". The cities have been dead but are slowly coming back to life as the holiday is ending. Ho Chi Minh was much more modern and clean than I had expected. I thought Vietnam would look and feel more like Manila but it has definitely surprised me with its modernity, friendliness and cleanliness. On our one night in Ho Chi Minh we went out for Pho, a traditional noodle soup with beef, chicken or pork. After we devoured this DElicious meal, we walked around for awhile before being invited to a rooftop restaurant serving $0.50 beers. The view was fantastic and the beers were cheap!

The next day we flew to Hanoi, the biggest city in the northern part of Vietnam. Once again, the city was fairly dead but we made the most of it. The following morning, we set out on our bus ride to Halong Bay where we set sail on an overnight cruise around the bay. We got to stop and explore a magnificent cave before beginning our food, beer and karaoke filled evening on the boat. Once we docked and made the journey back to Hanoi, we had 30 minutes to get food and hop on our overnight sleeper bus to Hue, a city on the centre coast of Vietnam. The journey took around 12 hours and fortunately you are given a chair that reclines, so I was able to sleep decently. We are now in Hue (pronounced Hoo-way). Today we rented motorbikes and toured the city. Tomorrow we leave to Nha Trang, a beach town farther south of here. It will take us around 12 hours or more. We had no choice but to hire a private driver for $120 each as all the trains, buses and even flights were sold out due to the holiday. So the driver will stop along the way at some scenic places and we should be on the beach by bed time tomorrow! Vietnam has cost a pretty penny in travel. Luckily the food and rooms have been cheap! Vietnam has been great so far, the food is amazing, the beer is cheap and the people are amazingly helpful and friendly. Looking forward to hitting Vietnams beautiful beaches next week!

Boracay, Philippines

Our 6 nights on the picturesque island of Boracay is almost finished! This week has been filled with a TON of relaxation. We chose not to do any island hopping or activities as it is super expensive, and we felt we did enough activities in El Nido. This week was dedicated to sleeping, eating, drinking, beaching and massages. Rough life we live! We knew that our next two weeks in Vietnam would be go, go, go, so we took full advantage of beach laziness this week! Tomorrow we fly back to Manila where we stay for one night and then we will be flying to Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam on Sunday. There, we will meet up with our friend Mary and begin our journey through the country. I have read nothing but amazing things about Vietnam, so I am looking forward to exploring it's beauty and culture (and food... Pho!)

Here are some pics of our week in Boracay! Next stop - Nam!