Day 28 - Hoi An to Hanoi

I woke up feeling quite ill and not really able to eat much. At 2pm we left from Hoi An, arriving first in Hue at 5.30pm. After that we moved on to a sleeper bus that lasted 12 hours, having small and thin beds so that you could stretch your legs. Unfortunately I didn't get much sleep as I had to continually get up during the night, but we eventually got to Hanoi this morning (Thursday 23rd). Sorry for not keeping up to date with these, I've been feeling a bit under the weather :( But the guesthouse we're in has a good internet connection so I should be able to stay in touch.

Day 27 - Hoi An

Will keep these brief as I've got out of sync being a bit ill. We did the cooking course and learnt some Vietnamese dishes: beef with lemongrass and chili, fresh spring rolls, and 'pho bo' (beef noodle soup) which is pretty much the national dish. We should be able to get all the ingredients in London so maybe we'll put the effort in when we get back. Picked up our clothes and generally just tried to escape the 40 degree heat by resting in the guesthouse or in cafes by the river.

Day 26 - Hoi An

Last night I woke up a few times. I won't go into detail, but it appears I have an acute bout of food poisoning. I managed to get out of bed to get measured for a suit and some shirts. All for 100 dollars - thought I might as well. Then spent the day out of the sun in a cafe reading a book. I felt like shit, and it didnt help that it was about 40 degrees today. We paid a small deposit for a cooking course which we're doing tomorrow, so that'll take up much of the day, which we're both looking forward to. We're also trying our hardest to find a sleeper coach to Hanoi, but at the moment it looks like we're gonna have a 17 hour trip in a cramped bus istting up right al the way. Fantastic.

Day 25 - Hoi An

After the horrible bus journey, we slept for a while before having a lazy walk around Hoi An. There's loads of French colonial architecture, and the town is a world heritage site, although it's been taken over by tourism and notably the textiles/tayloring industry. But still, chance for a cheap suit. We spent the day drinking cheap beer (draught beer for 10p) and chilling out. In the evening we even managed to catch the end of the Chelsea - Liverpool game.

Day 24 - Nha Trang

We left at 8.30am on a bus which spent an hour driving around Nha Trang centre ikn the blistering heat picking people up for the day trip on the boat. When we eventually got there, it was rammed full, but still we met some nice people and had a good time. We stopped off for some rather uninspiring snorkelling, and were glad that we hadn't spent 80 dollars to go scuba diving and see no fish. We saw 4 islands in total, messed about on a jet ski, did plenty of swimming, and had an amazing lunch on the boat. Some of the local guys working on the boat did some hilarious covers of western songs using a guitar and some barrels, getting everyone in the party spirit, after which one of them jumped into the water with a 'floating bar', which we swam out to for plenty of free Dalat wine, which turned out to be stronger than we at first realised. We made a few friends on the trip who'll hopefully be travelling up to Hoi An in the next few days, so it's likely we'll be able to have a few nights out here.

At 6pm we got on the bus to Hoi An, the worst journey of my life. In the end it was 13 hours on a bus with dodgy air conditioning, tight seating, and a Vietnamese man behind us with chronic bronchitis. The bus got in at 7am this morning (sunday), and after having got no sleep at all we went for a lie down to recover. It was a nightmare journey but I'm so glad it's over. Only here would it take 13 hours to travel 400km...

Day 23 - Nha Trang

Have to do 3 entries today as I've struggled to get a decent connection. On Friday we spent the day in Nha Trang, a large town on the coast north of Mui Ne. We walked to Long Tranh's gallery, he's a Vietnamese photographer who takes all his shots in black and white using old equipment. Over the years he's taken some great shots and it was great to see some beautiful images of Vietnamese life. We also spent some time at a gallery with some incredible embroideries, which clearly took a long time to make but were ridiculously cheap. In the evening we went to an non air-conditioned gym, where we both almost died of heat stroke, but had a good workout anyway. The beaches aren't that impressive in Nha Trang but it's lively and there's plenty to do. In the evening we booked a boat 'cruise' which does some island hopping for the next day.

Day 22 - Mui Ne

The longest day ever. We got up at 4.30am to get to the white sand dunes near Mui Ne for sunrise. We hired a jeep for $20 with Tim, and head out with a driver who looked uncanningly like Gollum from Lord of the Rings... The dunes were incredible, we were the only peple there when we arrived, and did some sand sledding which was a laugh. But the kid who lent us the sleds and walked there with us then tried to charge us over a dollar each, and to cut a long story short, the 10-year-old tried to start a fight with each of us in turn, before finally accepting a dollar in total and walkig off in a sulk... From there we saw loads of stuff - the 'red canyon' calved out of red sandstone, the red sand dunes, Mui Ne fishing village, and some rather mediocre waterfalls. All this before 9.30am, and when we returned we grabbed a second breakfast, after which Ali and Tim fell asleep together 0n Ali's bed, which was very cute.

At 1.30 we got the bus to Nha Trang, a large port city further up the coast. We arrived in the dark after a rather uncomfortable 5 hour journey, and so aren't really sure what to expect. We went out for a meal in a 'posh' restaurant and had a disgusting 'fish jelly' and then a crab noodle dish. I felt really sick and so washed it down with as much alcohol as I could stomach to try and kill anything dodgy. Tomorrow we're heading to a Vietnamese photographer's gallery, who Ali's been in touch with by e-mail. Looking forward to that, and also potentially doing a bit of scuba diving or fishing, whatever takes our fancy.