Getting out of bustling Ho Chi Minh city and bussing to beautiful Mui
Ne to stay at the Canary Resort. Our stay was positively opulent in Ho
Chi Minh Arther Saigon Mini Hotel (102/1A Cong Quynh St., District 1,
HCMC, VN. Telephone 848 3836 1008). For only 33 USD a night for all
three of us we had a great clean room just like back home and a
wonderful breakfast of omelettes or noodles plus wonderful hotel staff
and service. They have very reasonably priced tours and bus travel.
We booked our bus to Mui Ne through them - you pay $6 USD each through
the hotel, but since we paid on the bus it turned outto be only $5 per
person.
This trip to the city was busy and fortunately uneventful - crossing
the road was once again treacherous. The main post office was
interesting - had to express something bak to Canada and I balked at
the 700,000 price tag - till I realized that was only about $35.
Phew! We had some fun streetside food with the locals, including some
deer. I had about five fruit smoothies...mmm...which I now realize may
be contributing to some traveller diarrhea - whoops! Good ol
immodium ;-)
Finally went out for a haircut with Jessica - I wanted to cut and
highlight -honger style some might say - but they didn't have funky
colours like red or blue and they didn't have the time. Somehow we
ended up getting cuts and shampoos and massages that lasted two hours.
Crazy painful massage - she was literally jumping on my back and
Jessica thought it was very amusing - unfortunately her lady didn't
have a clue what she was doing. It does feel great to have short hair
again. Mmm.
We're currently debating our future intentions. After a couple days in
mui ne we'll likely head north towarda Hoi An - it will take a couple
days via bus. After that we'll head west towarda Laos - we're not
completely sure where to go there yet. Finally we're debating whether
to head east back to Vietnam or west towards Thailand from there.
Although I started off quite distrustful of the local Vietnamese -
aided by our "friendly" host at our first hotel Xavier, I'm much
happier with the people now. I generally felt like he was overpricing
everything - which he was - his $100 dollar one day tours of the city
were ridiculous, as were his mandatory $5 booking fee regardless of
the cost of the service (for example, our bus ride now would have cost
us $10 instead of $5, a 100% increase). Since then we've met wonderful
smiling friendly people who aren't all trying to take advantage of us.
This is definitely easier to appreciate outside f the city.
The good news is that the monsoon rains means less crowds. The bad
news is tha they do happen anytime and they are massive. We were
almost caught in one yesterday, and I have never ears lightning like
that. The rain was massive. Very cool when you've got a roof over your
head and food in front of you but it could be bad if we get caught off
guard.
Before we left Vung Tao we had another feast - our first pacific
lobster - definitely pauls first - he was thoroughly impressed. I
dissected the beast - there's lots of meat in the head and those two
big legs/claws of theirs. I did get a couple pokes before the wait
staff brought me a nutcracker. We also fried some big snails -
delicious. Finally, I have never had their veggies here, but they are
delicious, especially with garlic.
Sad news - I lost my mahna mahna ultimate frisbee tank top on the hill
in Vung Tau that we hiked up to see the cross - it just wasn't worth
trying seeing as there were monsoon rains, but I do mourn it's loss. I
need another tank top.
So far our weight challenge shows Paul with a lead of -1.5 kg at 91
kg, Jessica in second with -.75 kg at 65 kg, and me in dead last at
+1.1 kg at 68 kg. Whoopsiedaisy!
All right - have a wonderful day and we'll hopefully have more to say
tomorrow! I do realize I still need to introduce my compadres, and
hope to soon. Peace.
DOCNIC on the go...
No comments:
Post a Comment