Life on the Ocean Wave

We very foolishly decided it was time to be tourists and booked a trip to the Cham Islands. The weather was a bit iffy (God awful) and the crossing was worse. We nearly capsized twice and sank so far  nose down into a trough that water cleared the top of the boat. It also decided to join us in the boat too. Much to the amusement of those of us who chose to sit in the back.

We then broke down and had to drop anchor and wait for rescue. Fortunately it was in relatively calm water so not so bad. Didn't stop a Viet hurling though. Just as well he did it then, would not have been pleasant on the rough water.

After a lovely seafood lunch we chilled on the beach and Cade went swimming - fully dressed.

Coming back we hopped a ride with a boat of drunken Viets who insisted on singing. Until we got to open (and very choppy) water, when they stopped and turned a bit green. That's when we broke out with our version of 'What shall we do with the drunken Viets' which lasted until the rains of biblical proportions came. It's hard to sing with a lifejacket on your head.

Jolly good fun was had by all.

Till next time

Time for an Update, Methinks

Kinda lost track of time and didn't realise how long since our last post. What have we done?

We went up the Monkey Mountain to see the Buddhas including the Big Buddha himself at Linh Ung – Bai But Pagoda (now that's a mouthful) after a morning at the beach in Da Nang. I should point out that I feel there has been a bit of mis-selling going on here, plenty buddhas but not a monkey in sight. Feel a little robbed.

today we went the cham islands where there was a small town built along the beach and up the hillside there was allot of waves as we traveled there and near the island our boat broke down and also a few minuets after we left a huge wave soaked all the people at the front but i was at the back of the boat at the time and once we got there we went to a small museum that had a few pieces of pottery and recent pictures of the island then we went to a beach and i found 2 star fish that where blue to green to yellow   in color then on our way back we were in a speed boat and it started to rain heavily and we where with a bunch of drunk people who where singing on the way back to the port in da nang

Hi everyone, how are you?
Nothing much has happened here, except for banana-chocolate pancakecide. I have had about 3 today. It has also rained a lot. Begun to buy the prezzies! I have acquired a carved wooden dagger, much to the trepidation of everyone present.
Having a great time anyway, hope you are all having great Easter holidays!

previously in VIETNAM
we went to HUE in Northern Vietnam and while we were here we went to the local market to buy some things and i bought a BUTTER (gold) TEMPLE AND A TIN TIN T-shirt then a few mins (30 mins waiting for mum to choose a necklace) Caitlin bought a shiny hair witch i soon after said "mum ya no Caitlin aint gunna where that thing right". and after all the shopping we went to a kids play thingy place and i thought it would bore me boring but it wasnt and in the end i became an awesome table football player and Caitlin had fun getting math cubes thrown in her face and also yesterday evening i got a photo of all our crew in the back of our drivers car

  

Driving Miss Daisy.......

all the way to Dong Ha (well, Hue anyway) If we made it over 20mph I'll be amazed. It's only actually 189km from Da Nang to Dong Ha, we left at 9:30, stopped at Hue for lunch and eventually arrived in Dong Ha at about teatime. That was a very looooooong day. The only time we broke the 30mph barrier was if we were overtaking a large, slow moving vehicle, generally right into the path of another large, thankfully slow moving vehicle. I think the Vietnamese just like bumpy, crappy rides, certainly Duc and the pilots on both our flights all seem to have signed up to that philosophy. White knuckles all the wasy (even at 20mph)

BB has had a chill out time, the weather has been either blistering, bake a bunny, melt your chocolate into a squidgy puddle hot (speaking from experience here,) or wet and cold.

The highlight of Dong Ha was brekkie at the massive new SaigonTourist Hotel, in the rooftop lounge (sounds better than it tasted, Vietnam simply hasn't cracked bacon yet.) It afforded an awesome view of Dong Ha's lack of skyline, but a nice view of the river and surrounding countryside (lotta countryside.)

You can imagine how excited we were to make it back to a big City and the bright lights of er Hue, (and the tintaweb)

Pity it hasn't stopped raining since we got here.

Dong Ha

Hello from Dong Ha!
And the winner of this weeks popularity contest is ... ME!
Throughout the entire time we spent shopping at the supermarket, I was stared at curiously be other shoppers. This made me increasingly nervous, although it turned out that they simply didn't get many white tourists there. The way they were looking at me though, I thought they were expecting me to start dancing or something.
Later on, after finding out that the swimming pool was (unfortunately) closed, we were sitting in front of the store waiting for Yen when the schools closed. I was watched from wide eyes as a stream of primary school children passed, gathering in groups to say hello and wave nervously at me, rewarding any response with huge grins.
Apart from the attention, nothing much else has happened.

Well, we got that one wrong. Yesterday was warm, windy and overcast, and we went to the beach and swimming.

Today it was blistering, and we went to Hoi An and spent hours traipsing up and down the Marble Mountain.

After a morning behaving like tourists in Hoi An we stopped for lunch before heading for the Marble Mountain

 The highlight of the trip was as we were heading back down the mountain and bumped into a group of British tourists staggering up the incredibly steep stairs.

 I said 'we did it the sensible way, we took the lift up the mountain and the steps back down.'
'There's a lift? Where's the lift?'
Their tour guide said, 'don't tell them that, I was saving it as a surprise.'
Suffice to say, they didn't look happy.

Hoi An

Today we headed out to Hoi An. It is a very old town that attracts a lot of tourists. The place is full of small shops and cafes. A lot of these are clothes stores and souvenir shops. I even managed to find a dress that I liked, though I did look strange wearing a dress with Boshi. After walking around for a while we drove to Ngu Nanh Son, beautiful mountains with temples and pagodas.

While Yen, Devene, Mum and I were waiting for Cade to finish taking photos, a group of Chinese tourists wondered past. To my eternal embarrassment, a couple of tourists asked if they could get a picture taken with me. No time for autographs though.
We were actually quite lucky. The Mountain is at least five stories high, and that was as far as you could go in the lift. We opted for the stairs on the way back down and ran into  some British tourists whose tour guide thought it would be funnier to watch them struggle up before telling them about the lift. We laughed along with him.