Hue - Hoi An - Nha Trang - DaLat - Ho Chi Minh City / Saigon

How to update on two weeks in all those places?

Hue has been mentioned. Hoi An was very touristy but I also really liked it. It is a small town that was undestroyed by the wars and still retains original small streets with some wooden houses and others with lovely textured old yellow painted walls and French influenced shutters and doorways. There were some local eateries by the sides of the road as well as many tourist places, a couple that were very nice places to have fruit shakes, sit in a bamboo chair on the front verandah, listen to chilled out music and read my book. We (still travelling with Marte) hired bikes two days and cycled the 4km to the beach. Very nice - moved around following the shade under a palm tree and enjoyed the breakers. We also walked across to a island / other part of the main land (we weren't quite sure which) where there were mainly eating places full of Vietnamese. A drink and a snack by a river and overlooking fields of tall crops. We then walked back through a residential area of one story houses set in gardens with the open doors that so characterise homes here. People living life inside and outside and open to the neighbours.

Hoi An is also full of shops selling and making clothes. It has come to be known for it and you see many people browsing and ordering clothes. Backpackers in t-shirts and sandals trying on their smart new suits hoping it will get them a job back home; large girls trying on their small black shorts and wamting them adjusted so they are smaller and "more sexy"; some people walking away with new wardrobes full of clothes...and then others like me who considered getting something for my brothers wedding but couldn't decide what I wanted so ordered nothing and then the night before leaving decided that I really liked the wee yellow/orange skirt and so ordered it (it was only$7). Marte and I both liked it, so we both have one!!

On to Nha Trang on the night bus, or so we thought. The bus was full as were all the other buses they triewd for us. So we were asked to stay another night for which they would pay. Their hotel was full and so we ended up back in the same room we had started in! Had a good fun night - a few drinks, met some people.... The next morning we got the bus to Nha Trang.

Nha Trang is also very touristy but in a different way. It has lots of high rise hotels along a very developed seafront where its beach stretches for a few km. Some of this has hotels on it, some restaurants and some of it just slopes down from the paved walkway to the sea. We didn't swim here but sat and watched the breakers and a group of men from a hotel put in a lot of effort to move an old boat from the sea up onto the shore. We read our books and Marte took a photo - very helpful, but I doubt if we would have been much help!! In the afternon we hired bikes with Amir (Israeli guy we had met and hung out with in Hanoi, CatBa, Hue and the first night in Hoi An) and cycled to a temple, a 24 metre white Buddha on a hill and then out to the countryside through flat lands of verdant rice fields where the stems were bending in the wind. Amongst them were white plastic bags tied on sticks that were swollen with air and dancing in the wind to scare away the white birds who rested in the fields a little further along, apparently not too perturbed!!

Our other day there we went on a boat trip to four islands. It wasn't quite how I imagined it would be when I heard that - we were full and with two other boats, snorkelling at the first one with a crap mask and not a lot to see but fun swimming and jumping off the top of the boat; volleyball on the beach; big lunch; floating bar (violent 'red wine' that is a kind of rice wine thing - served with pineapple!!) where we floated in life belts to get our free drinks; big speakers with a range from U2s "Beautiful Day" to Britney Spears (I think it was) and Ricky Martin; a ride in a round basket boat; and when you could appreciate it some lovely views!! Our loud and funny guide was called 'Funky Monkey'!! A fun day but a once off.

I had planned the whole trip not to go to DaLat but the night before we were leaving I decided to go there with Marte. A 6/7 hr bus journey up into the Central Highlands past some very beautiful scenery. Lots of vegetable fields and some fields full of flowers. Apparently DaLat grows the vegeteables that supply a lot of southern Vietnam, so we had some lovely meals full of very fresh vegetables. We hired mountain bikes one day and went to a couple waterfalls. A bit spoilt by the overtouristed-ness of it - but that was interesting too. Lots of Vietnamese tourists (apparently it is the no.1 honeymoon destination in Vietnam). Some of them dressing up in the hilltribes costumes you could hire to have their photo taken in. There were also 'cowboys' with their horses for photo opportunities and at one of the falls we saw a 'bear' and a 'monkey' sheltering from the sweltering sun in the shade!! The coast down the 13km to the falls was slightly marred by the knowldege we had to cycle all the way back up, but it ended up being a fine ride, apart from the fumes and piercing horns when a bus or truck passed. The next day we hired a motorbike and rode around the area exploring. We passed by many vegetable fields where people were working in the fields and loading vegetables onto trucks. The road turned bumpy and then smaller and we ended up almost off road really, a walking path with tyre marks on it. Huge gulleys made by running water left narrow ridges to ride along. I couldn't take Marte on the back in quite a few places!! We finally joined onto a main road again! It felt like real exploring. We passed a river and dust creating trucks passed us so we turned off into a village where we passed a wedding at a church and saw the bride in her white dress and the groom in a suit greeting all the guests before they passed along the road to a marquee for the wedding reception. The people we passed in the village were very dark and completely un-Vietnamese looking. They looked more Peruvian/Indian. We passed two lovely young girls walking arm-in-arm along the road.

I continued on to Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The bus driver was more than a little manic on some of his hair-raising overtakings!! I read and listened to my music and ignored the swerves and "Oh my God's" from the Canadians in the raised back seat where they had a full view of the drama on the road! It is hot here!! Almost a little too hot. Kind of energy sapping. The first afternoon I got here I went with a cyclo rider to Cholon Market in Cholon/China town and then to a pagoda on the way back. A nice way to see a bit of the city.

People; hats; cyclos; motorbikes; traffic merging, converging, diverging, just missing each other; shops and stalls and shops on wheels; tall narrow fronted buildings one room wide stretching back from the road and up towards the sky; buildings with old shutters and dirtied walls with collections of TV ariels crowding on the roof. A market place full of people and stalls selling - fabrics, clothes, bags, stacks of china bowls, dried prawns, sugar, blocks of coconut sugar, herbal medicines, bottles with snakes in yellow liquid, noodles, shampoo, paper, snacks, Chinese blankets, chopsticks, bundles of incense sticks by the hundred, silk, and probably whatever it was you were looking for.

I visited The War Remnants Museum. A worthwhile though sad and at times nauseating and angering place. Many photos, some reconstructions. A thought provoking place. Certainly strengthens any argument against war. It is not glorious.

Also visited the Reunification Palace. Interesting and very caught in 60s architecture and decor. Had my photo taken by the tank that broke through the front gates at the 'liberation of Saigon' in 1975. We then spent the rest of the day at Saigon Water Park. Fun was had by all as we went on all the different water slides and chilled around the 'river' and in the pool where the waves machine sent out waves for 10 minutes every half an hour. It was all outdoor and made me think of Ireland - yes cause it could never work there!

I am now having a very chilled and sticky day in Saigon. No real plans other than to updat my journal, my blog, to read a little and to book my trip through the Mekhong Delta to Pnomh Penh (which I have done). Three day trip - I will leave the 17th, one day before my visa runs out. I was going to go myself and use public transport, but because my time is limited I think I could spend all the time just travelling and not see much. It would also depend on who I met, but I could be charged loads to get places without the time to get a decent deal, so while I feel a bit of a failure - I have succumbed to the ease of booking a tour!!

It has been a good month, and though slightly frustrated with the country at times it has been great and I have stayed longer than I planned!!