Have been in lovely Vietnam for the last week and a half. Arrived in humid and hectic Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC, Saigon) where we soaked up some culture, ate lots of baguettes and met a really strange local Vietnamese, German speaking woman who ended up inviting us for watermelons and then breakfast in her dilapidated home. Very sweet but a tad off kilter. She gave Jan a flute when we left. But shows how much loneliness can affect someone's mind. But after hearing lots of negative reports of the Vietnamese from other travellers, I cannot say the same. I really like the people here, they are by far (so far) the nicest people I've met, and they don't seem to scam you as much if you just don't question the prices from the start. It seems to work a lot better.
Caught an awful minibus to Rach Gia to get to Phu Quoc Island from HCMC, and ended up too early and had to sleep on a park bench. That's twice I've been a bench bum. Ended up staying Phu Quoc for about a week. Lots of relaxing, didn't get to see that many beaches as we kept on getting lost on the dirt roads. Only successfully found one other beach than ours. Really rough waves
and rainy weather in part due to the season and also the horrible cyclone that ravaged Burma affected out weather. Finally parted with Phu Quoc and then decided at the spur of the moment to bypass HCMC quickly and move onto Nha Trang
via sleeper bus. Arrived here and did a full day of biking and Jan spotted many boulders he wants to climb tomorrow. Off to Hue soon!
