Good evening blog followers:) The BAM train is currently in Hoi An, a town (or clothes shop) about halfway up the Vietnam coast. There are tailors everywhere here and you can have anything made....ANYTHING. Shoes, coats, dresses, shirts...whatever you fancy. Its pretty fun, but also overwhelming looking through catalogues and choosing fabrics....but its super cheap so we shouldn't complain too much.
Our day tour in Dalat (about a week ago) with Easyriders was great. We got to see a different side of Vietnam, meet some local people who weren't trying to sell you anything and have some really delicious food. Breanna enjoyed it so much she decided to head off on a three day tour with her guide Mui through the Vietnamese jungles (the details of her trip will be in a separate blog). So for a few days BAM was separated but we all met up again in Nha Trang with everybody safe and sound. Not to be out done Megan and Arainn rented a moto, grabbed a map and spent a day exploring the hills of Dalat. The best spot was definitely Datanla Waterfall which had a sweet little roller coaster that went from the parking lot to the falls. Pretty random but tons of fun. We also rode the new cable car that overlooks the city (finding that was an adventure in itself), rode a relic of a train out to a local pagoda and peddled the loudest, rustiest swan we could find on the lake. The bus to Nha Trang was also an adventure since we are pretty sure our driver was an aspiring nascar driver. Not exactly the best method of getting a full size bus down a twisting-one lane wide mountain road, but we made it to Nha Trang in one piece.
Nha Trang is a beach town with more bars and restaurants than you can imagine and on our first night there we (Arainn and Megan...Breanna hadn't arrived yet) visited a few of the local favorites. Why Not? Bar and the Sailing Club. Both had really great music and we met loads of fun fellow travellers to hang out with for the night. The next day consisted of a lot of sleeping and moving hotels (because we suspected ours was stealing from people) and miraculously Breanna was able to locate Arainn and Megan on the beach when she finally made it into town. We spent two more days in Nha Trang both of which were pretty rainy and grey (so we didnt get our much hoped for beach time) but they were still fun. We went on a boat tour around a few of the local islands on which we were granted an unexpected rock show by the boats crew after a fantastic lunch. To make things even more involved they forced someone from every country to get up and sing a song by an artist from their country. Of the Canadians Arainn was the lucky one forced up to stand and listen as the singer sang a song by the Bangles....are they even Canadian?? Needless to say she had no idea what the lyrics were so the crowd had to settle for a little jig reminiscent of Ashley Simpsons appearance on SNL rather than any vocals. On our last day in Nha Trang we visited the local mud baths and mineral hot springs which was extremely relaxing and really hot:)
We took a 12 hour night bus to Hoi An from Nha Trang (not the most enjoyable of rides) arriving at 6 in the morning we stumbled into the hotel they dropped us at, accepted the room and went to sleep. Turns out it is a really nice hotel and there's a POOL!!! it tastes a bit funky but its still nice to take a dip. As explained above Hoi An is the land of tailors and we spent our first two days picking out clothes from magazines, being measured and refitted...they are super quick at making stuff and the quality is pretty decent. Today we finally were able to explore the town and local market during the day. We walked in and shortly there after were harrassed by some women into having mani's and pedi's and then massages and hair threading....ahhhh run we must escape. They can talk you into anything. In general tho the people here have been extremely nice. We also fit in a short boat tour up the river in a boat driven by the most ancient woman in the world.
Tomorrow we are taking a tour to My Son (the local ruins) before we grab an afternoon bus to our next destination Hue.
Ta Ta for now.
BAM
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