Jess Jets Off...Again!: Vietnam Continues...

Got to much to catch up on..so will write write write then prob upload pics at another stage...

Danang Continued...

So the rest of our time in Danang was ok but certainly won't rush to go back there. We had a really cute old man tuk tukking us around for the night and who dropped us at this Chinese restaurant which was the most disgusting food ever!! I felt sick after and just HAD to go get chocolate cake to cheer myself and Amy up :) We browsed the city on the tuk tuk and headed home for an early one, getting up the next day to head down to the beach.

Before that we went to Marble Mountain hoping for a little trek but got there and found it was just a climb of some more stairs to get to the caves and more temples and statues..very pretty though and made us feel like we deserved a nice Burger King after all the awful food we had come across here and spent the afternoon laying on the beach for a few hours, basking like cats :) As we had time to spare so went for the best dinner costing us a whopping £10 each!! I had beef pie and mash and amy had pork and mash...followed by a yummy deep fried ice cream dessert! soooo good and amazing how much you can appreciate things like having gravy on your dinner!!
We then got a night train down to Na Trang which was about 10 hours and experienced a 6berth cabin this time, on the middle bunk which wasn't very spacious at all..infact we felt quite claustrophobic to begin with but soon fell asleep and had a pretty decent time on the train.

at the beach in Danang

ewww a massive live lobster!

lovely beach..sooo quiet

our tuk tuk ride round town in the evening

night out in danang

up marble mountain

marble mountain

lots and lots and lots of stairs to climb!

and we made it to the top of the mountain :)

the yummiest dinner!!

aims with her delicious dessert

about to embark on our over night train journey

another cosy night on the train for us

Na Trang:

Really liked this place!! A nice little town on the beach with bars, shops and hotels..the beach was beautiful and the sun was very very hot :) We spent our days on the beach and by the swimming pool there which cost us £1.25 for a bed and use of the lovely pool, along with great service from the waiters coming over with drinks and food all day :)

Our Swedish friends we had met in Laos were also in Na Trang so we spent the next couple of days with them.
We went to a nice little bar called Oasis on our first night and had a bucket or two for cheap!!! only about £2 for a pot of alcohol! very good..after a few drinks and games of pool and a long day after our early start from the train journey we headed to bed annd started the next day by the beach again!! lazy us :)
In the evening we had heard good things about a club on the beach front so after finding food (again, not great vietnamese food) at the Green Apple where alot of backpackers tend to go; we headed to The Sailing Club!
This place was awesome. Really swanky club on the beach, fountains as you walk in, lovely cushioned beds to lay, swings, bean bags on the beach with a bar with swings around it where you could watch the fireshow and good happy, drunk people everywhere! We had a brilliant night in here meeting random people everywhere and our mates Albin and Jonas met us later where we headed to the Why Not bar which is the only place open late here. Some more drinking and dancing, the night then had to end when a fight kicked off in outside (which I had to turn away from) and when a russian guy told us to leave as people were coming back with guns..that was it, I was outta there!! haha!! Had fun though and spent the next day dying with a hangover by the pool again..so nice to just sit and relax after so much travelling and seeing so many cities.

Our train was booked for a night train again to Ho Chi Minh City (used to be called Saigon) so we said bye to our friends and set off on our travels again...

Na trang beach

mmmm finally some proper hot sunshine!!

so happy to be back chilling on the beach

vietnamese woman selling fruit on beach

a ride into town

the squishiest tuk tuks ever

a few drinks on the beach

fireshow on the beach :)

bucket time!!

The Sailing Club - such a nice place!

chilling inside the bar at sailing club

out with the swedes

chillaxing

doing "the creep" as some guy kept creeping around us

me and jonas in Why Not Bar

haha Albins 3rd kfc in 2 days!! (they dont have it in sweden)

our last evening in na trang by the pool

Ho Chi Minh City:

Our hotel was smack bang in the middle of a market place selling smelly food, raw meat hanging up all day in the hot sun and other weird and wonderful things.

We only spent a day here which I think was enough time and going to a water park probably wasn't the touristy thing you should do here but we are sick of temples now and wanted to go have fun :) Dom Sen Waterpark was good but some of those flumes are scaaarrry! As we walked in we realised we were the only white people in the park so were getting starred at all over the shop...walking in to the girls changing rooms was an experience! about 50 school girls were all lining up outside each cubicle and all there eyes were on us! we were so embarrassed and find a quieter changing room to undress in.
Some of the rides where you sit on a rubber ring and go down, were really fun but then we went on a couple that were mortifiying!! The first one in fact was like a black hole which didnt look too bad on the outside but believe me it was, we were sliding about all over the shop, so fast and scraping our backs up at the same time.
Later after lunch and a nice lazy river ride me and amy went on seperate flumes next to each other and said we'd swap on the way back up..well I went down mine which literally was a straight angled drop (again, didnt look too steep) which led you in to a bowl where it spun u round until you eventually dropped out. Well as I was going down this thing I was moving faster and faster, my stomach went over board and I was desperately trying to slow myself down, next thing I knew water was gushed in my face, I couldnt breathe or see and was being flung about all over the shop in the bowl..Amys ride didnt sound nice either and we were both wounded and felt abused after that :( haha!!

We then spent the evening getting our make up done in Mac, on the posh side of town, which was very nice and then headed up to the Sky Tower to a nice bar over looking the city, 50 floors up! We had a lovely cocktail (as it was happy hour) and felt very special for a few hours! We then headed back down to the crazy manic streets of saigon and had our last Vietnamese dish in Pho which is meant to be a good place to eat...well it wasnt. If that is the best Vietnam can come up with, I'm done with there food. The Beef Pho noodle soup come up and all I could smell was cow blood! So gross! and there rice spring rolls were stuffed full of mint leaves which weren't very nice either..but at least we gave it a go.

So Ho Chi Minh is quite a strange city as one minute you're in a beautiful area surrounded by Louis Vuitton, Prada, huge buildings lit up, posh restaurants..and then you turn a corner and are back in the slum with shacks and people eating on the streets, cheap electronic shops and stinky food. Glad we see it but again, one night was enough.