First things first, Mojzos Inn, Nha Trang has THE nicest staff in the world. If you’re visiting the city then just go there, they fully take care of you 24/7, I had man-flu whilst here and they practically blew my nose for me. Snow and Twin know every guest by name and what they’ve been up to etc. very impressive!

We had heard many interesting reviews of Nha Trang – its somehow turned into a massive Benidorm-esk seaside resort mostly populated by Russian tourists. Of course being Vietnam there is still spectacular scenery and delicious food, so maybe Benidorm is a little harsh but new sky risers do seem to crop up everyday and the pavements serve as scaffolding holding areas (bringing back traumatic toe ripping memories)… However the beach is gorgeous, the heat is dryer than the north and we found a sweet little spot called The Sailing Club. Expensive by Vietnamese standards but beautiful and chic so we chose to take full advantage of the affordable luxury as the next 4 months of our trip are going to be all about cheap wine cartons and dried pasta 😉 We spent most of our time in Nha Trang sunbathing and only popped out of the town briefly to a mud bath. They were as soothing as you can imagine but also hilarious because you really float in them so we were kind of awkwardly thrashing around trying not to crash into one another too much/swallow the mud… Looked like twats alongside the vietnamese pros didn’t we. Jade has added some photos of this to Facebook.

With man-flu sort of subsiding we hopped on yet another bus down toward Da Lat. Slightly inland, Da Lat is a large mountain town, surrounded by lakes, waterfalls, hill climbing coffee farms, minority villages and miles of fresh flower greenhouses. It is significantly cooler than the coast, so much so that we actually dug out our leggings and hoodies for the first time since Heathrow. This boded well as we finally caved on our avoidance of motorbikes, so at least we had some protective layering on? Its a well known fact that bikes and scooters dominate Vietnam, outranking even the human population and they are actually the ONLY way to see Da Lat. The town itself doesn’t have any real tourist attractions, its all about the incredible surroundings and while you could do a countryside bus tour, you would miss out on everything off the beaten track. We booked an easy rider tour, which basically means a friendly Vietnamese man turns up with his bike then drives you around all day and introduces you to all the best views of Paradise lake, coffee plantations, a minority village and a few local monuments. Well worthwhile and not too terrifying for two people who are absolutely not bike fans.

Our hotel was interesting… God knows what decade the decor crawled out of but we had seen pictures prior to booking and went ahead anyway based on reviews of the crazy owner, Binh. He was awesome, if not a little disturbing but nevertheless he made our stay that bit more special, looking out for us when some potentially fake easy riders followed us to the hotel and taking everyone staying there out each night to random vietnamese food spots, sitting us down on those tiny stools with the locals for Vietnamese pancakes, sticky rice desserts and a lot of free table tea. We like Binh and we liked our fellow hotel guests, win, win.

Bravely, we decided to go canyoning, a cute little word the Da Lat-ians use to describe abseiling into/through waterfalls, hurling yourselves off cliffs into churning pools and sliding down whitewater smoothed crevices into whirlpools… And an almighty 2km vertical height climb hike back to the minibus. We convinced an Irish couple from the hotel to join us and headed off with Passion Tours – slogan “you only live one”… Their typo not mine, also Im not sure whether this slogan was motivating or just terrifyingly apt. I’ve done a few abseils before and not always enjoyed them, but canyoning is the “must do” activity in Da Lat, nothing I’ve previously attempted was quite like this – one abseil in particular stands out. The gushing water had ridiculous power behind it and there was a choice of two ropes, one going down the stronger part of the cascade, and one slightly to the side, me and Jade were left until last and had both hoped to do the less insane rope, but I wanted even less to go down alone with everyone watching so opted to try out the less popular main flow rope in tandem with Jade on the other side. This was a mistake. As soon as I got to the most powerful part of the fall it took my legs from under me and I fell upside down, water smashing into my head, face, lungs and stomach and Im not being dramatic either – I couldn’t see the crowd at the bottom or Jade but somehow managed to twist my self the right way round and lower my self out of the flow a little, where I could see the guide instructing me to stand back up; if you’ve ever had to right yourself after slipping on an abseil you’ll know how much strength and energy this can consume, while keeping your hand on the all important rope suspending your own body weight above what ever likely-unpleasant situation is below you, add a powerful cascade of water on your shins and its nearly impossible not to just slip again, but yay I managed it, got a little cheer too and only had a few more metres to go before the delightful part of this abseil where you kick off the cliff face, let go of your rope and plummet to the pool below. I had been concerned about this part but actually letting go of that rope and getting off the cliff was such a relieving prospect I had no problem falling into the abyss in the end. Jade meanwhile had made this abseil look like a walk in the park and we were both pretty proud of our selves as the others complimented her on not falling and a few big tough guys admitted that they hadn’t been able to stand back up after falling exactly where I had. Win again for us then!

This wasn’t even the scariest abseil, there was one to follow called “The Washing Machine” I bailed on this one after getting over the edge, stupidly looked down, slipped, froze and then point blank refused to continue. A little disappointing but no one really gave it rave reviews, Jades exact word to describe it was “weird” and only half of our group of 11 did it. Obviously 11 doesn’t divide by two wholly, I’m not saying only half of someone made it although the guide did admit to Jade that he had undertaken rescue missions on this one before, so oh well, plenty of time to redeem myself in New Zealand with brave adventurous stuff, Jades one up for now ;).

We still ache from the canyoning craziness but would absolutely recommend it.

Da Lat was a short but sweet stay and soon enough we were on the FINAL bus ride in Nam to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). We took our selves on our own little city tour, Saigon is hottttt, and we only had to cover a few km to see all the things we wanted but it felt like a full days trek in the relentless heat. We saw the Old German Post Office, Ben Tanh market and The War Remnant Museum.

The museum is fairly hard hitting, in the UK we aren’t taught about the Vietnamese war at school so unless you’ve taken it upon yourself to read up about it then the only knowledge likely to be held on the subject is Americas joy in referencing its war heroes in various onscreen dramas. Well I’m not about to jump on an american bashing bandwagon by any means, I’m not that well politically informed to do so, but the atrocities inflicted upon innocent civilians and not the communistic radicals the army sought to remove, is hard not to ignore, and yet ignoring seems to be the solution of certain groups responsible for the impacts of the war still affecting multiple generations of Vietnamese people. In a humbling exhibition the museum actually has a section dedicated to some of the USA’s missing in action soldiers, a hugely kind gesture considering it lyes next door to an exhibition depicting the devastation caused by Agent Orange – please google that if you are not already familiar with it. Further more the museum changed its name, it was originally the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes – overall it does an incredible job of highlighting the heinous disgrace the war was without ever projecting hatred toward the countries who were a part of it. Half of the ground floor shows hundreds of articles from almost every country in the world begging for America to stand down, it was quite hard to understand how the USA, such a pinnacle force in the western world, took so long to respond to these campaigns, especially as this wasn’t so long ago, surely fellow countries as developed and “civilised” as the us in the UK, Germany, America etc wouldn’t behave that way now? Anyway, the Vietnamese have minimised or eradicated their bitterness so we will too. The museum is set out with a beginning-middle-end sort of walk through, eventually highlighting where the country is rebuilding itself, tackling long lasting damage and its aim to abandon some of the suffocating communistic agriculture in order to be a proper industrial hub by 2020. Woop Vietnam 🙂

As a final, final taste of the high life we ventured to Chill, sky bar for a solitary cocktail (all we could afford) and unbelievable views of Ho Chi Minh, which is absolutely enormous with a population of over 8million to match. It stretches beyond the horizon and looks awesome… Unfortunately we were too distracted to take photos. I got chatting to a couple of Aussie blokes, who questioned whether we were of legal drinking age, cheers. They were older and shared travelling stories from back when they were young backpackers and in return I introduced them to Tinder. This was highly amusing as they were two very genuine nice guys and explaining “danger tindering” as we’ve come to call it was a completely foreign concept to them. Danger Tindering is aptly named on account of the fact that anyone whose app profile says they are within 1km of you is highly likely to be in the same or very nearby backpacker accommodation, and will almost certainly be drinking in the same bars so the chance of you recognising someone you’ve “liked” or “matched” with is also pretty high. Remember our friend Nick from Hue… We bumped into him on a city tour and turned out he was our first danger tindering victim. We’ll keep you posted on more 😉 Meanwhile, Jade was taking part in slightly more ‘organised’ Tindering, if you will…(yes, it’s remaining that mysterious).

For our last day in Vietnam we wanted to go to the Cu Chi tunnels… However I spent most of the night awake fighting a losing battle with my insides, which rages on, so instead our final day before a 24hr journey to Australia is being spent in bed, watching HBO, and catching up with this thing! Wish me luck with this battle, Im choosing to abandon my arsenal of Imodium and fight it out alone… Not sure how well this will work out 😉

P.s. We are now in Suvarnabhumi airport, Bangkok, drinking Starbucks and keeping it inside my body, YAY.

UPDATE FROM JADE: she’s lying, she’s just gone to the toilet.

It was just a wee… This time.

Rose x