moving further south

 After Our adventures in Nha Trang we moved further south to another beach city caller Mui Neh. We didnt spend much time on the beach... but we did spend time in the sand.

  

 We rented a motorbike and went to some amazing sand dunes 20 km out of town. in the middle was an oasis.

 

 our favorite thing to do was to leap down them.

  

 lets just say sand got EVERYWHERE on the landing.

 

                            This was a little monkey we met along the way, he loved Tim Tams.

 This was something i never thought i would do... Yes thats me riding an Ostrich. it costed couple dollars to ride it around an arena, very well spent 2 dollars. maybe not as practical as a horse, but still fun.

 This was our bike ride to the dunes. i let jess drive for a bit, my cool goggles were fogging up.

 This was a the bay at Mui Neh. those are all fishing boats. wonder if there are still fish in the sea.

 

This was our tasty dish of fish we had for dinner, we picked it right out of the tank. 

 Our next stoop was Siagon, or Ho Chi Minh City. this was a painting made out of tiny pieces of cracked egg shell which were then painted.

 Cu Chi tunnels are a popular stop around Siagon. these tunnels were used during the vietnam war. they survived for years under ground fighting the war. Vietnamese men are very small jess fit in, but i sure didn't.  

 they were less then 3 feet high, we had to basically crawl. these tunnels stretch over 200 Km, one way to sneak into cambodia.

                                                       It was a very tight squeeze

 The War Museum in siagon was very eye opening. One of the many guns used.

 The Next morning we woke up at 5:30 to take a boat down the Mekong river to see the floating markets. they had lots of boats packed full of fruits and veggies

 To display what they were selling they would put a sample on a stick as a flag. this boat was selling a lot of different things.

 This was a stop we made to learn how they made rice paper and noodles.

 Our guide and boat driver made us some souvenirs out of leaves... and they were free! 

She had a few extra hats to keep the sun off our faces. jess is showing how the women wear them.

 it was a beautiful trip with a beautiful girl

 Our next destination is the island of Phu Quoc.

 there have been some amazing sunsets.

And some relaxing natural seating to watch them.

Hoi Ahn to Nha Trang

 So to get anywhere that takes 8 hours or more to get to, you have the option of taking a sleeper bus. This is what some of them look like. They are actually pretty nice! This was our 12 hr sleeper bus from Ninh Binh to Hoi Ahn. It was very comfortable with beds and even a bathroom. Unfortunately to get to the bathrooms, you had to step over the Vietnamese people sleeping on the floor. Anything to save a buck i guess.

 This is Mr Phong and his family. He invited us to his house for a tour and to tell us all about the Vietnam war. it was really cool! He fought for the South and his uncle Fought for the North. Afterwords, his wife fed us the most delicious lunch!

 Mr. Phong lived way out in the country so he hired a few bikes for us to get to his house. This was one of the drivers.

 We had been sick for 5 days before we decided to finally go to the hospital. I (jess) had to get hooked up to an IV because I was so low on fluids. I had to stay at the hospital that had geckos all over the place for 4 hours. Then we got sent home with lots of medication. I guess the doctors see these kind of parasites a lot!

 when people ride bikes here they like to double up and share the work.

 Horrible picture, but the only one of us on the boat going out for our open water scuba diving course. It was a three day course that allowed us to go scuba diving 6 times! Its very cheap here to!

 All suited up

 Traditional Vietnamese style food. We went out with a bunch of our scuba instructors and other people that went scuba diving with us.

 Emmond our scuba instructor.

 one of the View points on the way to Long Beach

 Super cool....

 Mr. Phong's Great Aunt. All of the older women are very small here!

Traditional hot pot food. It was AMAZING! and only $2.50 for this massive meal!


We have been in Nha Trang for the Past 6 days, the longest we have stayed in one place! We love it here, the beach is amazing, the people are great and we are staying at a super inexpensive but very nice hotel. We are off to another beach town tomorrow.

Veitnam So far

So we've left Laos! And finally they have decent transportation for us. We did have to spend 150$ for it, but it was amazing! look at the little gift they gave us!!

 We were so excited! We decided there was no more Laos buses for us, instead of taking a 27 hour bus to Hanoi, we took a 35 minute plane that feed us a little dinner! YUM! it was sooo good and fresh.

 We spent 2 whole days in Hanoi.... unfortunatly, we don't have much to report on it other that we had a sweet TV that nursed us during our food poising. I was much more sick then Ben, At least he could leave the room. We figured you didn't want to see any pictures of that mess... I really wanted my mom and her aloe juice

 After Hanoi, we took a bus south to Ninh Binh. Ben needed a hair cut and got a little surprise. wow thats short!

 Apparently his face needed a cut too. It got a little sketchy when it got dark.... he did well with what he had. I don't think they are used to so much facial hair here!

 Gambling on the side of the street... at first they wouldn't let us take a picture... we snuck off with one anyways.

 Today we went to Tam Coc. We heard it was pretty cool and we weren't disapointed! good thing Ben and I only equal Two foreigners.

 IT WAS AMAZING! They took us on a boat trip down the river through rice paddies and through a few caves. The guy who was rowing our boat was very talented. He rowed with his feet for the whole hour and a half!

 There were all sorts of boats trying to sell us stuff. We thought this guy was worth a picture.

 We rented scooters to get there. It was amazing driving through the rice paddies

 dinner

 Temple cave. Very cool. they had buildings and stairs all through the caves. It was just like a movie!

The climb up and down the mountains were a little steep for flipflops

 The back gate to the to the cave temple. Luckly Smaug was sleeping.

 Good thing Ben didn't bring his rugby kit

This is a house where real people live! they have clothes lines inthe caves! so funny! 

The view from the top! Its hard to capture the real beauty