Guro and Caroline Blog

holiday from our holiday :)

So, we arrive in mui ne after travelling through some amazing thunderstorms just before nha trang. after 18 hours of the past 24 being on a bus we were tempted to just stay where we were dropped, but after the last place m+m offer to walk up the road in the blistering heat to check out some other places. so glad they did as they found kim :) he's a guide with a different travel company (an phu) and probably the nicest person we've met so far. he picked up guro and i with all the bags and took us to his lovely resort with a great beach front and most importantly some shade for me! we basically hang out on the beach for 2 days before kim recommends a sunrise sand dune tour followed by market shopping and a bbq on the beach just for us! amazing day, sand sliding on the white dunes after sunrise, saw the red gorge and dunes before breakfast then shopping for 2.5kgs of prawns and some local veg and wine. walked to the waterfall as kim took our food and shoes back (had to take our shoes as the walk was up the river). perfect bbq on the beach later, we gathered 3 norgies (alex had been with us in the morning), 2 swedes, an english couple (maggie and ian), one of the guides ty and his girlfriend. and there was still a lot of prawns, forcing ourselves to eat them all. we repeated the bbq our last night, kim helping us to shop again. otherwise only left the hotel twice for food, only once stopping on a bean bag on the beach for a g+t on the way home:) the friday was a bit of a sad day as it was michelles great grandmother, irenes funeral, so we remembered her on the beach in the morning. we left on the saturday for saigon, sad to be leaving kim and the beach behind but excited at the prospect of the city... and it lived up to our expectation. a shame to only have 3 nights here (we've booked our flights to oz for jan 3rd so need to get moving) very different to hanoi but still very cool. we toured the cu chi tunnels and the cau dai temple on another bus tour. you'd think we'd learn by now. again huge group only detraction from a great tourist site. however we didn't fancy 110km on the back of a bike on these roads...
out for drinks we met drew, travelling as a responsible adult for 14 15-18 year olds - good luck by the way. next day we visited the war remnants museum. hugely moving and the best/worst museum i've ever visited. extremely interesting but also disturbing. heart renching stories combined with childrens hope for the future.
good fortune led us to meet ian and maggie again that night! we stopped them heading out for dinner by sampling the local rum, again and again and again... great night but didn't appreciate it as packing hung over next morning at 6.30am to head to cambodia....

posted by Caroline @ 10:47