Sledding, Sailing and Flying High!

Red Canyon, Munei, Vietnam
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know I told you that I would write yesterday, but it was a very very long day and the last thing I wanted to do was sit down at a computer, so I am sorry i am a day late, but here it is... the past week in Vietnam!

Traveling through Vietnam has been extremely easy. We got this thing called an "Open Ticket" and what it is, is we have a bus ticket booked from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi and we get on and off where we please. It is a very convenient way to travel, and the entire trip cost us less than $20US. So far Vietnam has been the easiest country to get around, and it is absolutely stunning.

Erin Sledding
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On to the good stuff...

Munei

Koren Sledding
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We left early in the morning from Ho Chi Minh City on the Open Bus to Munei. We got dropped off at this quaint little hotel with very plain bungalow, but it was right on the beach. The water wasn't nearly as clean as it was in Thailand, but due to the sweltering heat, the water was a necessity. We decided that since we were only spending 2 days in Munei, we should get the sightseeing out of the way and have the second day to relax since we were pretty busy during our first week in Vietnam.

The most incredible jump! (Koren, Erin, Jason, James and Ryan)
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We bargained with the hotel and finally convinced them to get us a Jeep and take us to take us to a beautiful canyon and then to the Red Sand Dunes. After stopping off to grab some beer (a necessity in the sun) we headed to a gorgeous canyon. We walked around a bit and headed back to the Jeep to continue onto the Red Sand Dunes for sunset. The sand dunes looked like they do in pictures, and the sand was so soft. As soon as we got there, there were a bunch of little 'Sand children'. These kids were really cute, but kinda annoying. They ran and pushed us all the up to the top of one of the dunes. They all had crazy carpets and helped us toboggan down the dunes. This was pretty cool, but not overly exciting since you do not go overly fast. We decided it would be a good idea to run and then jump off the dunes, this turned out to be so much fun, and we continued to do it over and over without it ever becoming dull. The sunset over the red sand was beautiful. We decided it was time to go, and as we were leaving, the kids started to get annoying and started asking for money. We knew it was coming, but stupid James gave them way too much, and when we refused to give them as much as he did, the 'sand children' started to cry. After about 5 minutes we got frustrated and just ended up leaving a bunch of pouty 'sand children' and we were off to the hotel.

Lovin' the boat trip
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The night turned out to be great. We met a couple of other guys from Canmore (there are so many Canadians here it is unheard of), and played some cards and a very fun game of musical instruments before heading to the PoGo bar. The bar was completely empty, but 7 rowdy Canadians can turn anything fun. We played some pool and laid on the bean bag chairs watching Koren and Ryan have the ultimate dance off (think Zoolander), which was followed by Ryan thinking he was still part of the movie and battled with his Jockeys. The underwear definitely won. If you have seen the movie you will know what I am talking about and if you haven't, you should watch the movie because it is steller!

We spent the next day maxin' and relaxin' between the beach and the air con room. It seems a lot hotter in Vietnam than it was in Thailand, but it cools down a lot in the evening. We spent the day reading and just hanging out knowing that we were moving once again the next day.

The bus ride from Munei to Nha-Trang was one of the best we have taken (it was only 6 hours). We then went in search of a hotel that could accommodate 7 people and found one right on the beach. It is a great little place right by the beach and some really good restaurants.

Nha-Trang

After our first night in Nha-Trang we didn't get to see much, so today was a day to explore. We headed out bright and early to scope out the town, before deciding that we wanted to go to the mud baths for the day. We put our bathing suits on and went and soaked in this oversized bath tub full of mud. It was really fun. The mud felt really nice and left our skin feeling oh so smooth. We then went into another oversized bath tub that was full of hot mineral water (this felt like a hot tub, and was so nice and relaxing). We figured we couldn't end the day here, since it was only 3pm and it is only $4 for a massage. We all got showered and changed into funny little shorts and got ready for the best massage in the world. Koren and I for some odd reason ended up in a room with two massage beds for a couples massage, everyone seemed to find this quite humorous, but it was great to be able to talk and laugh when each others bodies cracked from the little Vietnamese women walking all over us. All in all, it was one of the best massages in the entire world. It was so relaxing, and between that the mud baths we were very relaxed. Fortunately for Koren and I (not so much for the guys) there were stands set up all over the place with really nice jewelry. I ended up walking out with a black pearl necklace and matching earings for $10. They claim that they are real, but you know as well as I do that it is impossible to buy real pearls for $10, but they are still very very pretty! We then headed to the travel agent to book our boat trip for the next day, which we got for half price when we booked our open bus tickets.

Extremely unhappy that we had to wake up early, we managed to get ourselves organized and down stairs in time for us to catch the bus that took us to the boat for the boat trip. We were all cursing that we had booked this, because we were all a little tired (due to a late night of card playing) and we didn't particularly feel like sitting on an uncomfortable boat for the entire day. Maybe starting the day off in a crappy mood was the way to do it, because it turned out to be one of the best days we have had since the beginning of the trip. We got on the boat and they started by playing really good music. They squished about 50 into this boat and we took off on a 45 minute ride to the first Island we were visiting. We didn't go onto the Island, because there wasn't much to see, but jumping off the boat into the South China Sea was an absolute blast, especially when you jumped from the roof of the boat. We then continued on (while laying on the roof in the sun) to the next Island where we had lunch. They cooked right on the boat and made us this incredible meal of spring rolls, rice, shrimp, tofu, squid, vegetables, noodles and more. We were then told we had to wait a couple of minutes because of the ongoing rule of waiting 30 minutes after eating before going swimming. We headed down stairs and were surprised by the men who work on the boat getting set up, they were going to put on a show. They had a guitar, a tamborine, and a make shift drum. They were actually quite good, and even got us up dancing to La Bamba and the Twist. It was then 'Happy Hour', but happy hour on the boat is a little bit different, the bar tender gets in the water on this little raft and a bunch of bottles of rice wine, and we were given inner-tubes and told to hook our feet onto the bar. This was pretty cool, and very refreshing and a lot of fun. We got back onto the boat and headed to Island Number 3. We actually got off the boat at this one. We started a volleyball game called Canada against the world. I am not exactly sure who won, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. I was getting a little bored of the volleyball player, and really really wanted to go Parasailing. It was a little pricey (not really, only $15) and it only last about 5 minutes, but i really wanted to try it. I convinced Koren, and within minutes we had thrown our cameras (not literally) at the guys and we were way up in the air. This was one of the coolest things I have ever done. You go up so quickly and you just glide along. We watched the volleyball game from well over 100 feet in the air which was pretty cool. I wish it would have lasted longer, but it was still absolutely incredible! We were back on the boat with some new friends (2 girls from England) and we had one more stop before heading back to Nha-Trang. Again, we opted not to get off the boat on the Island, because we were having way too much fun. We headed back to Nha-Trang after a very long, but very fun day.

Well, I have now caught up... finally. We are leaving Nha-Trang tonight and heading to Hoi An, where I plan to do a "little" bit of shopping and a lot of sight seeing.

As usual, we miss you incredibly and I promise we will be better at keeping this blog updated in the future.

Count down to China- 11 days (can you tell we are excited??)