With the hope of escaping the torrential downpours and little sunshine of the south, we decided to head further north to Nha Trang; a super duper touristy wee beach town, but with nice sandy beaches and incredibly warm waters. We decided to take stock here for a couple of days to blob around the beach and indulge ourselves with the amaaaaazing seafood on offer! The first day of blobbing, a Vietnamese lady landed by our beach beds, completely ridden with buckets and buckets of fresh seafood, and lots of crabbies! You can imagine the excitement that swept over Hanna, and so we splashed out and bought a real nice seafood platter for lunch and nibbled on crab claws and shit whilst sunbathing. It was pretty cool.
The next day we wanted to be kinder to our skins, and so rented a scooter and headed out of Nha Trang to a nice spa. We spotted a super cool and old pagoda on the way and we even got professional photographs taken in different spots and positions around this pagoda which made it a highly memorable and worthwhile stop. And on we went to hunt down this spa. It was well worth the hunt: we soaked and soaked ourselves in the mudbath, before moving on to the hot springs were we happened to meet a super rich Vietnamese couple who happily agreed to show us where to get real nice Vietnamese fodder in this super touristy town. Little did we expect, they took us to this PHENOM seafood restaurant a little further out, and we ordered every kind of sea creature under the sun and ate and ate and ate until our tummies exploded. And the best bit: the super rich couple treated us to the whole meal! Woweee! What a nice couple.
The rest of the time spent here mainly consisted of sitting on our bums on the beach nibbling on rambutans (our new-found favourite fruit!) and rounded off with a failed Western-style night out: since we were here and struggled to find authentic Vietnamese restaurants, we took the opportunity to satisfy our pasta cravings and ate at an Italian restaurant (our pastas were gross and expensive and we left with rumbling tums - angry!) before heading to some bar and played Connect-4 and being perved on by Perve Deluxe Man where we had to lie and say we were 30 year old women to escape his sliminess. All-in-all, an interesting evening which resulted in us being back in bed with boxes and boxes of Laughing Cow cheese and crisps!
We are now back south again in another wee beach town called Mui Ne, the beaches are pretty much perfect, with very few people, but we've had to take shelter as it's windy-windy and raining. Tomorrow we're planning on heading further inland to a place called Dalat, where it's meant to be super cold and where we are hoping to satisfy Hanna's craving for aubergine (they grow lots of veg here apparently). So, until then little friends!
Friday, September 30, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Mekong Delta adventures
Yesterday we left Can Tho after three days in the Mekong Delta; our trip started with our first real banh mi, which converted Jess from banh mi-hater (from eating bad London ones) into lover of these incredible baguettes of Laughing Cow cheese + various pork parts + fish sauce and pickles. We quickly gobbled down our banh mis and settled for the bus journey, and after three hours and an unexpected and super fun ferry crossing we arrived in Tra Vinh.
In Tra Vinh we found an incredible market of squiggling weird fish, frog slaughter and millions of crabs. The rest of the day was spent walking around, drinking the verrrry nice iced coffee on offer here and eating the best summer rolls so far for 10p. The next day, after resisting persistent pagoda-tour offers from our hotel man, we left for the bus station, where we met Vietnam's most evil witch who began by extremely aggressively screaming and shouting at us for getting on the wrong bus, and finished by leaving scratch marks on Jess' arm after attacking us for not sitting in her preferred position on the bus.
Once we arrived in Can Tho, our next Mekong stop, we went to a fruit market to purchase obscene breast milk apples and other delights, and sat down by the river for a snack session. Afterwards, we felt forced to see at least one pagoda, and went on a walk to find one. We found not only the glorious pagoda but also bubble tea, yippie! Eating continued, because soon I sighted a lady on a street corner selling bo la lot. Consequently we rushed over the street, sat down at the little plastic chairs, and had the most incredible of snacks - bo la lot (grilled betel-leaf-wrapped beef) which we rolled in rice paper with pineapple, weird banana-looking fruit, noodz and millions of herbs and dipped in fish sauce, yes mmm mmm ahhh.
We spent the night in what looked like a gas chamber, with a bathroom where multiple murders must have occured before our arrival; we tried our best avoiding having showers/brushing teeth/going to the loo. The next morning, we went in a little boat together with a very cute young Vietnamese boy who took us around the Mekong to look at a couple floating markets; interesting at first but when we on our way back got stuck for hours in the completely overgrown backwaters with our young boy unable to get us out, we were less amused. Nevertheless, he did buy and artfully carved us a pineapple and gave us a mountain of rambutans to nibble on.
After the little boat trip, we rushed back to our hotel, picked up our bags and hopped on a bus back to Saigon, where we changed to a sleeper bus taking us to the coast, where we are now resting with very red and sore bums and backs after a day of intense beaching.
Goodbye for now friends!
In Tra Vinh we found an incredible market of squiggling weird fish, frog slaughter and millions of crabs. The rest of the day was spent walking around, drinking the verrrry nice iced coffee on offer here and eating the best summer rolls so far for 10p. The next day, after resisting persistent pagoda-tour offers from our hotel man, we left for the bus station, where we met Vietnam's most evil witch who began by extremely aggressively screaming and shouting at us for getting on the wrong bus, and finished by leaving scratch marks on Jess' arm after attacking us for not sitting in her preferred position on the bus.
Once we arrived in Can Tho, our next Mekong stop, we went to a fruit market to purchase obscene breast milk apples and other delights, and sat down by the river for a snack session. Afterwards, we felt forced to see at least one pagoda, and went on a walk to find one. We found not only the glorious pagoda but also bubble tea, yippie! Eating continued, because soon I sighted a lady on a street corner selling bo la lot. Consequently we rushed over the street, sat down at the little plastic chairs, and had the most incredible of snacks - bo la lot (grilled betel-leaf-wrapped beef) which we rolled in rice paper with pineapple, weird banana-looking fruit, noodz and millions of herbs and dipped in fish sauce, yes mmm mmm ahhh.
We spent the night in what looked like a gas chamber, with a bathroom where multiple murders must have occured before our arrival; we tried our best avoiding having showers/brushing teeth/going to the loo. The next morning, we went in a little boat together with a very cute young Vietnamese boy who took us around the Mekong to look at a couple floating markets; interesting at first but when we on our way back got stuck for hours in the completely overgrown backwaters with our young boy unable to get us out, we were less amused. Nevertheless, he did buy and artfully carved us a pineapple and gave us a mountain of rambutans to nibble on.
After the little boat trip, we rushed back to our hotel, picked up our bags and hopped on a bus back to Saigon, where we changed to a sleeper bus taking us to the coast, where we are now resting with very red and sore bums and backs after a day of intense beaching.
Goodbye for now friends!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Welcome to Vietnam!
After the endless months of anticipation and excitement, we finally landed in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! It hasn't stopped raining since we've arrived, but that hasn't stopped us venturing out and seeking our first real bowl of steaming Vietnamese pho mmmm... !
We awoke with rumbling stomachs this morning, longing for more bowls of noodlies, so we headed to Ben Thanh Market, where we found a cluster of food stalls in the heart of the market. Folk were luring us in to their stalls with their displays of summer rolls, really fat prawns and mounds and mounds of noodles. We finally settled for a busy wee stall that many Vietnamese people were huddled around, and indulged in bowls of noodles with, what Hanna refers to as 'floating mystery bits.' Yummy, nevertheless!!
We're heading south tomorrow to Tra Vinh, Mekong Delta, where we are excited to explore the floating markets, pretty pagodas and even more thunder storms! See ya there!
We awoke with rumbling stomachs this morning, longing for more bowls of noodlies, so we headed to Ben Thanh Market, where we found a cluster of food stalls in the heart of the market. Folk were luring us in to their stalls with their displays of summer rolls, really fat prawns and mounds and mounds of noodles. We finally settled for a busy wee stall that many Vietnamese people were huddled around, and indulged in bowls of noodles with, what Hanna refers to as 'floating mystery bits.' Yummy, nevertheless!!
We're heading south tomorrow to Tra Vinh, Mekong Delta, where we are excited to explore the floating markets, pretty pagodas and even more thunder storms! See ya there!
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