Nha Trang Day 1

i had my very first experience on the back of a motorbike (since i was 8 and mitch had a peewee50) last night. we brought our bus tickets from a little cafe and they had told us the bus would pick us up out the front. we got there about an hour early to have a drink and people watch and the more bikes and less cars around the less likely it seemed a large bus would be able to negotiate the narrow busy streets of Hoi An central. At about 5.55pm a guy on a motorbike pulled up and told us he would be transferring us to the bus stop one at a time. as the bus was leaving any minute i got on (with my backpack on and shoulder bag in front of me) without really thinking, it wasnt until the driver started telling me that he was the safest driver in all of Vietnam that i realsied how tightly i was holding onto his waist. i relaxed a bit and actually enjoyed the ride, despite neither of us having helmets on and me only wearing shorts and a tshirt (not ideal clothes in case of an accident!), also the driver was holding an umbrella with one hand the whole time, using only one hand to steer the bike so to give him credit he was quite talented.
he dropped me off out the front of a hotel and as he drove off to get ewen the bus pulled up and the driver took my bag off me and made me get on the bus despite my protests that i was still waiting for someone, luckily the bus waited for ewen but it was a scary few minutes as i sat on the bus willing it not to leave yet!

the bus was very interesting, their were dozens of bunk beds with canoe like holes for your feet to go in, sadly even i could not fit properly in these beds so poor ewen didnt have a very good night (the bus trip went from 6pm to 5.30am) after a few hours i asked ewen the time and he told me it was 1am quite happy with how fast the trip was going i went back to sleep, about an hour later the bus stopped so the drivers could have somehting to eat (and a beer!!!) and i asked the time again, this was when ewen realised his ipod was still set to australian time and it was actually only 3 hours earlier than we had though! but never mind the trip went suprisingly quickly despite the disgusting toilet which stopped working prettymuch from the start of the trip so just kept getting fuller and fuller.
we arrived in nha trang at 5.30am and walked to the hostel we had booked yesterday. there were already a few groups of people from our bus here waiting to check in, sadly our room isnt ready until 12pm so we had 6 and a half hours to kill. i was able to put on deoderant and change my top but apart from that could have no shower or brush teeth so feeling a tad gross. we left our bags at the hotel and walked down to the beach, we ended up getting a taxi to the cham towers which is a religious site that was built between the 7th and 12th centuries.

the view over the ocean from the cham towers

it was very interesting but neither of us could go into the actual buildings because we had shorts on, we looked in the doorways though and took lots of photos. the plus side of getting there at 6.15am was that we basically had the place to ourselves which was nice and relaxing.





we left there and had breakfast in a restaurant opposite the beach (our cheapest meal yet, ($6AUS for a meal each and two drinks each). we then went to the sailing club because they had free wifi and our two orange juices cost more than our entire breakfast. when ewen started falling asleep in his chair we decided to come back to the hostel and wait in the common room until our room is ready which is where i am now. on the walk back to the hostel we enquired into some snorkelling tours so hopefully we will do that tomorrow.
keep up the emails and comments i love to know whats happening back home!