Vietnam

For the last of our Asia adventure, we were heading to Vietnam, first stop Ho Chi Mihn city. We had been warned that it was crazily busy but sweet mother of Jesus it was another level. There are mopeds motherfudging everywhere, something like 3 million in the city. Crossing the roads as you can imagine is an experience, especially as there are no proper pedestrian crossing with flashing green men, just white stripes on the road where it's suggested you cross! The idea is that you walk slowly across the road and the mopeds will weave in and around you. And most importantly whatever you do you DO NOT RUN. Eh so kind of going against every instinct you have when faced with an on coming barrage of mopeds! We adapted the eyes shut technique, where at the crossings you shut your eyes, walk and pray you reach the other side! Not for the faint hearted.

We got a break from the city on our second day when we went on a tour to the cuchi tunnels, an hour outside the city. These tunnels were built by guerrilla fighters during the war and were used for protection from bombs and also to move underground from place to place. The tour was one of the oddest things we've been on. We were expecting a moving, emotional explanation of the tunnels and the war but instead it was like an anti-American celebration, with our tour guide jumping around the place describing how the courageous Vietnamese killed Americans. Slightly awkward for the Americans on board! We should have known from the start it wasn't going to be a normal tour, when our tour guide told us to call him John Wayne and then put colored stickers on all of us to recognize us because he thought all white people looked alike- same same but different!

　

The tunnels are split into levels 1,2 and 3 depending on the size of the tunnels. The first one we got to was a level 1 and man it was tiny, the opening was no bigger than an A4 sheet. After a few incidences where people had underestimated their size and got stuck in tunnels 1 and 2, tours can now only go into level 3. Apparently these were serious events but honestly they just sounds hilarious, flashbacks to that scene from In Bruges where the American tourist tries to go up the tower! For a demonstartion of tunnel 1 Annie was picked to go down, definitely Karma for laughing at the people getting stuck! Getting down into it was a tight squeeze, there wasn't room to budge, how anyone could stay in them for hours is beyond us, not for anyone with any sort of claustrophobia. John Wayne ever the joker, then shut the entrance of the tunnel so now not only was in suffocatingly small but now also pitch black. So that's what it's like being buried alive! Compared to level 1, the level 3 tunnel was a breeze. Well not really actually, they were about 10 times the size of level 1 but you were still crawling a few hundred meters in pitch blackness with insects at your feet and bats above you, an improvement but hardly what you'd call comfortable. While Annie recovered from the tunnels, Sherry was in her element when she got the chance to shoot the Ak47. Major stress relief. It was a little worrying how well she took to it. Note- don't ever mess with young Mannion!

After the mayhem of the previous few days we decided to have a quiet night and head to bed early. We literally had turned off the light when our door burst open..' Hey Irish, get up, get outta bed, session on!'. Elton who had split with us a few days before to go diving had evidently arrived!! Aw well we wouldn't want to disappoint him! So we threw on whatever clothes were nearest to us, ran a brush through the hair and off we went. Oh how we changed from Ireland, where it took us a few hours to get ready! Not only had Elton arrived but there was actually a mini reunion of people who had been in the bus crash, which can only lead to one thing SHOTS!!! Uggh cheap Vietnamese rum does not go down well.

　

We had great night, singing, catching up etc when what we feared most happened, Annie's phone was stolen! Disaster, we used the phone as our main camera and it had been glued to her wrist since we left Ireland. As we were walking down the street some jerk on a moped drove by and ripped it off her wrist WAH!! Of the 15 of us that were out that night 10 of us got robbed. As you can imagine, the local police were straight on the case..ahem NO. They sat around in the office saying to come back at nine in the morn, which we would have done except we were leaving at 8!! While very frustrating at the time, we have to look back and laugh at the state of the two us (drunk as skunks) trying to reason with them to get a report for the insurance and Sherry pretending to ring the Irish consulate and having a full blown conversation on a phone that didn't work, taking notes etc, But alas they weren't fooled and so we had to leave Ho Chi Mihn phoneless.

Our next stop was Mui Ne, a beach side town up the coast. Miriam Kerins email again was pivotal to our planning of our days here (seriously we'd still be floating around terminal 2 of Dublin airport without it!) The main attraction of the town is the sand dunes along the coast. Miriam had recommended seeing them at sunrise but as we all slept in we went on the evening tour instead. But lucky we did or we wouldn't have met Kam who was on the evening tour too. Kam, how to describe her, basically she had gone from 1000 euro bottles of champagne to 50c beers within the space of a few weeks, quitting her job, ditching the Louis Vuittons and going backpacking. The dream! Except for the minor blip where she had ten dresses tailor made the week before you'd never know it. Some people actually thought we were the Kardashian sisters when were standing together :) . At the dunes we got the chance to ride ostriches, which Sherry had a natural flare for, you swear she was doing it all her life! While the rest of us were holding on for dear life, Sherry was shouting at it to go faster, in her element. In a very eventful day we then got to ride quads on the dunes, had the dune jumping Olympics ( gold medal to Peter!), went dune sledging and even swan boating. In all the excitement we actually ended up missing sunset on the red dunes, the whole point of the tour, but what can you do. A fantastic day with the only downside to the sand dunes being the actual sand, it got everywhere! Even in the center of erotic according to Peter, in one of his classic German to English literal translations!

After Mui Ne we ventured up the coast to another beach side city Nha Trang. Unlike Mui Ne which was a sleepy resort, Nha Trang had a lot more going on with beautiful beaches, great night life, restaurants and even a mini Disneyland! What a combination! Even better we somehow ended up staying in a really fancy hotel for only five dollars a night- sweet you got to love Asia! It was only in the hotel, when we saw Christmas decorations, we realized not only was it December but just over a week till Christmas! We went into Christmas overdrive when we went to Disneyland, it was very strange listening to Christmas music when the sun was splitting the stones, but a very welcomed change! The rides at the park were terrifying, not because they were particularly big or anything but just because health and safety standards don't really translate to Asia! Roller coaster and Vietnam probably shouldn't be mixed. But we survived, albeit with a few new bruises from getting thrown around the place, and made it to the water park section, where we even got to go tubing again!

Peter was leaving us that day to go inland while we stayed on the coast, and my God did he go out with a bang. During the day we was hilarious, screaming 'save me hello kitty' on the rollar coasters, getting stuck with children on the merri-go-round, picking up a new Russian lady and sulking when we ignored him in retaliation for leaving us. But he took the biscuit that night- donning the ridiculously tacky hello kitty bracelet we gave him, letting us straighten his hair and walking around with a strut that would make any camp man proud.

Unfortunately the next day after saying goodbye to Peter we also had to say goodbye to Elton. He was hanging on to go diving again and by the time he would be finished we would be out of Vietnam. Wah leaving people is probably the only downside to traveling, but as Peter put it very blunty- 'the whole point of traveling is to meet new people!' Harsh!

So with two men down, we and Jarred headed to Hoi An our final stop in Vietnam. If you ever need a dress, shoes etc made this is the place to go. Its literally streets and street full of tailoring shops that will make anything you want for pennies. Now we know how Kam got so carried away. It a girls dream. Unfortunately our backpacks are so jammed backed that dresses were out of the question and we had to settle for a pair of sandles each. Which we desperately needed; for some reason were having awful luck with shoes, in five weeks between losing them, bus crashes, breakages, drunken messing we were down twelve pairs of shoes. Annie had resorted to wearing a pair of flip flops we got complementary at our last hotel! They were awful! With our new shoes being made we decided to cough up the two dollars and get a manicure and pedicure. We were like new women after it.

Our final night in Hoi An, was one of our best yet. As has become standard we started the night with Kings and headed to the 'night club'. Things got out of control here, especially when out of nowhere Peter showed up. The prodigal son returns! The next few hours a blur a buckets, shots and pool table dancing. By the time we were leaving the club Sherry had fallen off the pool table, giving herself a dead leg, ripped her shorts and broken her shoes (another pair lost!). An amazing send off from an amazing country!

So were leaving Vietnam having only made it half way up the coast. Unfortunately time got the better of us and before we knew it we were boarding a plane to Bangkok without seeing Halong Bay and Hanoi up North. Thats what happens when your having too much fun. The plan is though to hopefully finish the trip off when were back in Asia in Spring. Now we were meeting up with are tubing ladies, Jordan and Alexis. We went wild in Laos, we can only imagine whats going to happen when we hit Koh Sahn Road together :)