The Vietnam Stretch

Our next port of call down the Vietnam stretch was Hoi An, it isn't a particularly big town but nice enough with a few bridges over a river and restaurants running parallel. What Hoi An does offer is excellent food of all types and markets that you can get your haggle on. We stayed at a pretty posh hotel but in the basement so the rooms were cheap. They had a Karaoke room (Vietnam loves drunk amateur singing) Swimming Pool, pool table and a viewing point like a birds nest on top of the lift shaft. They even make you sandwiches at whatever time you want. Unfortunately the skies stayed grey and wet for the duration of our stay so we trudged around in plastic ponchos, our flipflips flicking water up with every step. Hoi An did give us a couple of good nights out though, mainly down to its ridiculously cheap Mekong Whisky and beer. The four of us tended to pre-drink in our hotel room, and I got screwed over in a game called ''ride' the bus'' after that blurry night we woke up to discover we had acquired full size manikin, complete with wig and dress.

Nha Trang is built up along a beachfront that I can imagine on a good day would be beautiful, but right now the palm trees were swinging and the wind was kicking up sand. I think this moody weather is the remainders of the storm that pelted the Philippines. We decided to rent motorbikes to explore a few temples nestled within the city's outskirts and just when we got onto the main road we were hit by torrential rain. We could barely see because of the the water splashing your eyes and the skies were too dark for sunglasses. This being Vietnam the roads were swarming with bikes and there were a few times where we lost each other. I saw a couple of accidents, one where a woman's scooter was clipped and she hurtled over the handlebars, another where a man had weighed his bike too full with supplies to handle the slippery roads and toppled over. By the time we had got back to our hostel it we night and we were all shattered. Originally Andy and I had seriously considered buying bikes and riding them from North to South, we have now decided its probably not for the best, especially when you consider that 30 people a day are killed on Vietnam's main road (the A1).

Looking out from the mainland, past the oil tankers and cargo ships there is an island a fair distance out to sea, it has the name Vinpearl gleaming through the mist like the Hollywood sign, this is Vietnam's Disneyland. We had to give it a go, but to get there you had to cross the water by Gondola, we swayed about suspended above the choppy seas just hoping there wasn't going to be a lightning storm anytime soon. Vinpearl is split into four main sections, the theme park rides, the arcades, the hotel and the waterpark. The theme park included one ride that spins you upside down and side to side for a couple of minutes as your legs fall free of the harness, this fear gives you a whole level of éxcitement' Most of Vinpearl was pretty empty and most of the ride conductors had trainee pinned to their chests, the arcades had hundreds of free oldschool games like 'time crisis' but my favourite was the mechanical bull. The highlight section of Vinpearl was the waterpark though, lots of rides, some of which burned your back as you flew down them and unlike in England the safety guys at the top of the flumes actively encourage as many people to go down at once and on the flumes that require a ring the safety guys will try and kick it round at the last second so your travelling down a deathslide backwards (see you just don't get this type of fear in western parks). We saved the best flume till last; you have a massive inflatable raft the size of a car that is hoisted by crane to the highest open top flume. we all pushed it along like a bobsleigh and jumped in, we almost lost Andy who slipped on the first go but managed to get through the laughter and haul him back in. Once you get going and pick up speed the raft goes almost vertical in the corners and whoever is on the outside gets launched higher than the lip of the flume then landing on whoever was below. In the evenings in Nha Trang we went to 'why not bar' had some meaningful conversations and met some friendly Aussie girls. This is also the point where we had to sadly bid adieu to Aaron and Alex but it did allow us a much needed detox.