Vietnam, The Return!

I worried a lot about the next part of the trip; the border crossing from Cambodia to Vietnam. Did I have the right visa? Would I get across the border? Would I get the right bus? Would the bus drop me in the right place? The bus was 11 hrs long from the Khmer capital to Ho Chi Minh. In that time I almost missed the bus because my transfer didn’t show, we got stuck in a 5km long queue for a ferry which we bypassed in 5mins by each paying an extra USD2! The bus then got stuck half-on-half-off that ferry with smoke billowing into the bus, I almost got left behind at a toilet stop; the bus had started moving when I got on and my seat wasn’t fixed to the ground properly so I had an extra bit of swivel and bounce and squeak for 11 hours! Thankfully it all went right in the end, the bus even stopped in the street that I was looking for, the heart of backpacker area. Now I will tell you why Vietnam is awesome; the hostel cost me £5, I got invited out for a few drinks with my two roommates, we had a greek meal for £1, went to the local pub (hundreds of asian sized chairs lining the streets with alcohol being served from peoples houses), drinks cost 30p per beer and 60p per spirit and mixer! The next day I met Libby concluding my solo adventures but starting the next part of the holiday as the 3 mat salleh from Outward Bound. We spent time catching up and going to the War Remnants Museum which was quite harrowing as it has exhibitions on Agent Orange and some graphic stories and photos from photographers in the Vietnam War. The lifestyle of the Vietnamese is something else, we passed a park at around 6pm and there were hundreds of people there playing football, aerobics, badminton, roller skating, jogging, outdoor gym and the Vietnamese game which is like playing volleys with a giant shuttlecock! We met Alistair later on and he was buzzing from his time in Thailand. 3 mat salleh reunited for a week in Vietnam! We caught an overnight bus from HCM city to Mui Ne which is famed for its beach, sand dunes and watersports. Generally the strip where all the hotels are is just tourists but once we hired motorbikes to go explore we found more of the real Vietnam. A couple of miles inland there are some spectacular sand dunes, one lot are red the other white. I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures on fb. Sadly all the watersports were very expensive so we were spectators only. We all managed to get sunburnt despite wearing suncream and being used to exposure to the sun. One night in our dorm Alistair must of sleepwalked because he went to sleep in the bottom bunk and got woken up in the top bunk by our roommate coming in and asking him to move back to his own bunk! Luckily for Alistair we made friends with the roommate, Kat, and spent the next few days with her as we headed up to the hill station Dalat. The bus ride to Dalat was unforgettable, the road was in such a state of disrepair, I think only about half of the road was tarred, the rest was potholes! I still managed to sleep! Dalat was a little bit of a disappointment, it had been described as the Alps of Vietnam however the hills weren’t very steep or imposing and the town was fairly big. We still found some impressive waterfalls, crashed a wedding photo shoot and got a little too drunk after not very much; quite embarrassing really! Waiting for our bus back to Ho Chi Minh City a 9year old girl came up to us and just started having a conversation, she was practising here English for school. Incredible confidence from a 9 year old to approach 3 foreigners. She was a pretty cool kid, especially because she was a Phineas and Ferb fan. We stayed a night in HCMC where just wandering around the busy streets you would get offered cannabis from old men on street corners! Don’t worry of course we didn’t buy any! Libby got herself a new tattoo which she thinks says “love” in Arabic, poor soul, it actually says “Scotland”! We checked out Chu Chi tunnels the next day before we flew home. They are where the Vietnamese lived for years to avoid the Americans. Most of the tunnels are too small for western people to fit in, specially designed so as only the small Vietnamese could go in. The camouflage is incredible too, we couldn’t recognise any of the trap doors. The Vietnamese were brutal too, they set bamboo traps in the ground which to the Americans were invisible but once they stood on one they would fall through in to a pit of bamboo spikes! All in Vietnam was awesome again!