Final Vietnam Post (Finally!)

December was extremely busy with preparing the students for their exams as well as finishing up my final two courses (ever!)

So I am just now finally getting around to updating about the last few days of our trip to Vietnam!

Not going to do a lot of writing as I am sure that Tim and I have talked a lot about our trip to those we know, but here are some of my favourite pictures from the time we spent in Ho Chi Minh City:

Tim beside a huge helicopter, and later getting down and dirty in the tunnels

Me popping out of a tiny tunnel entrance (or rather, false entrance)

A beautiful flower.... a Vietnamese woman preparing some traditional pollen tea for us

We lived dangerously in Vietnam

But still had time to enjoy the ride

One last thing - watch as this monkey tries to drink from an orange pop bottle.  Heehee, stupid monkey:

Nha Trang - Aquarium

Nha Trang wasn't a total loss to food poisoning - Tim and I managed to get out one day and see the world-renown aquarium this city boasts.

I am back to pulling 12 hour days (I am at the school from 8 until 8 everyday now that our university courses have started back up again) - so rather than going into a lot of details about the aquarium I am just going to leave you with a bunch of pretty pictures and let them do the talking:

Nha Trang - Food Poisoning

Brief update about Vietnam (and Tim's not so fun adventure)

After a relatively nice overnight train ride, Tim and I found ourselves in Nha Trang.  Unlike Da Nang, Nha Trang is a very touristy city.  It also has lovely beaches, and is well known for its diving.  Most of the people I spoke to, in fact, were there for the scuba diving.

Unfortunately, it is also the place where poor Tim got so sick.

We still don't know what it was - food poisoning would be my guess.  I won't go into details, but it was baaaad.

Eventually in the morning I was able to get Tim to the hospital so that he can see a doctor.  He was so bad during the night, that she ended up giving him an IV drip.  Also, I learned that day that the hospitals in Thailand are much nicer than the ones in Vietnam.  From my frequent visits to Thai hospitals, I have never once seen a cockroach, and all the bathrooms I have visited have been well stocked with soap.  I guess that's the price of communism...

The day after Tim saw the doctor, he still wasn't feeling quite himself, so I went snorkeling by myself.  It was pretty neat, and I saw some pretty cool fish (though I did once find myself surrounded by small jellyfish, which also managed to sting me on my feet and face.  They were small ones though, so no real damage.)

The next day Tim was feeling a bit better so we went to the world-renown aquarium, of which I will talk more about and share pictures of later.  :)

Da Nang - Hoi An and My Son

While in Da Nang, Tim and I also took a day trip to two world heritage sites, My Son and Hoi An.

My Son

My Son is a site with beautiful Hindu ruins, originally built to worship the god Shiva.  Aside from being very, very hot, we had a really nice time learning about the temples from our guide and strolling around.

Gotta stay hydrated!

Hoi An

Hoi An, an old trading port, was also beautiful in it's own right.  Tim and I spent out time there walking up and down the streets, stopping for a beer or fruit shake here or some shopping there.  It was a very relaxing visit to a beautiful old Vietnamese town.

Enjoying a cup of Vietnamese coffee

Da Nang - Marble Mountain, Monkey Mountain

After spending a day in Ho Chi Minh City, which I will talk more about later, we were off to Da Nang, the third largest city in Vietnam, and one of their lest touristy.

We were originally supposed to spend 5 days there, but we couldn't get a train out when we wanted so we ended up staying there for 6 days.  This suited us just fine though.  We had an absolutely wonderful time relaxing on the beach and playing in the ocean waves.

On the third day of our trip while playing in the waves later in the day I got stung by a jellyfish.  It got me from my hand down to a few inches above my elbow.  Luckily it didn't hurt tooo bad, and after a day the pain subsided.  It did end up flaring up again later in the trip, getting quite itchy, and I may end up having a scar (on my hand in particular), but it could have been a lot worse!  I'm lucky it didn't sting my face.

Out in Da Nang we saw the Marble Mountains as well as Monkey Mountain.  Marble Mountain is a beautiful mountain where they "mine" for marble (it's easy mining, seeing as how the mountains are made out of marble.)  We took a tall and hot elevator to the top and slowly made our way down while enjoying the view and occasional cave.  Monkey Mountain was also beautiful.  On the top there sits a seven story high statue of a lady buddha, the Bodhisattva of Mercy.

Marble Mountain

Tall elevator

Beautiful pagoda on the mountain

Monkey Mountain

Vietnam, aka. Motorbike Country

Tim and I got back from our vacation in Vietnam a few days ago.  We had a very fun and relaxing time, and saw a lot of really neat things.  Vietnam is an absolutely beautiful country.  The cities we went to had a lot of trees and beautiful beaches, and the countryside was wonderful.

The other thing the cities also had a lot of was motorbikes.  They are absolutely everywhere, probably 30 motorbikes for every one car, and then that car is probably a taxi.  It made crossing the street interesting to say the least. We found out that what Vietnamese people do is just walk really slowly and let the bikes dodge them.  In fact we were told a few times to NOT run across the street.  Another trick for crossing the street we picked up was to slowly shuffle beside a local who was also crossing.  I am not ashamed to admit that once a local who we followed across the street was a little boy around the age of eight or nine.

Other things in Vietnam did not surprise us.  There were still a lot of soi vendors, er, street vendors, and some people were still very pushy with selling their wares.  People still crowded the sidewalks, transportation vehicles, and even bunk beds on the night trains. 

It was nice and warm in Vietnam, but it did cool off at night a bit, more so than in Thailand.  The water in the ocean was very, very warm, and Tim and I spent a lot of time in the waves of the ocean.

The prices were a touch more expensive than in Thailand, but still very reasonable and it was easy to stick close to a budget.

All in all we had a very good vacation, and over the next few days were are going to be putting up pictures and updates of our trip.

Love you all lots!
Kelsey and TIm