Another day in paradise

Tuesday was our last day in Ho Chi and we went out to the Cu Chi tunnels on a musical bus! The tunnels were really interesting and we learnt about their uses during the Vietnam war. Went down in some of the tiny tunnels and Charlotte D fired an AK47!

In the evening we boarded our first ever sleeper train to Nha Trang, a lovely seaside town that is apparently popular with Vietnamese honeymooners. Charlotte E was ridiculously excited about the train journey [although prepared to be very disappointed]. However we were all pleasantly surprised: it was a new train so it was super clean and even had air conditioning! Got a good nights sleep but unfortunately the arrival alarm gave us less than 5 minutes warning to get off the train! So at 5am we were rushing around grabbing all our stuff and jumping off the train still in pyjamas and very bleary eyed...

Nha Trang soon woke us up as we were greeted with the most gorgeous sunrise over the sea and since our hotel was right on the front we had a quick shower before boarding the 'funky monkey' boat! By 9am we were cruising the sparkling South China Sea :)

It was brilliant fun on the boat, Charlotte E did lots of swimming in the clear blue, warm sea and Dunkley sang 'Eternal Flame' with the on-board band!! We stopped off at a beach, played games on the roof of the boat and indulged ourselves in the huge feast of traditional Vietnamese cusine that the crew put on for us. Unfortunatley Evans got rather burnt but Dunkley was the only one of the group who escaped without any signs of the sun (to the bemusement of everyone in our group!)

The following day Evans recovered from the sunburn by spending the day on the beach under a huge parasol and catching up with some much-needed journal writing (the days go by far too quickly and we always seem to be behind). Meanwhile Dunkley went to the local mudbaths and had a great time smothering herself with the nourishing mud, natural spring water and getting some swimming lessons!

Today (Friday) we arrived in the very quaint town of Hoi An. We arrived very early again by sleeper train, this time we were far more prepared to get off! But the journey itself was by no means as luxurious as our first experience! All I will say is, we had a mouse in our sleeper cabin and saw cockroaches in the toilets!! - certainly an experience...
Hoi An is exactly the Vietnam we expected to see and we are lapping up the traditional culture, squeezing in a bit of (tailor-made) shopping and tomorrow we are going to do a cooking course - hopefully we can share our skills when we return home!

The weather is beautiful, it has obviously been really hot but being by the sea has meant that there's a really nice breeze so it's very pleasant, and I think it is getting slightly cooler as we travel north?