Sam's Vietnam highlights

Two months into our travels and i am still loving rice, my backpack seems to be getting heavier and I have my first ever tan line. 

We have now visited all of our planned destinations in Vietnam and my favourite place is Hanoi. This is because its so cultured and has such a buzzing vibe. Closely behind is Nah Trang because the beach is the best we have seen so far and this place was really fun. Ho Chi Minh city is also a favourite as there is a lot of cool stuff to do here. 

Hue is an interesting place, somewhere i would reccomend to visit on holiday but not to stay for long. I found a stall here where the owner was selling medals found in the jungle from the war. I felt very educated as he told me all about the Vietnam war. 

Hoi An is a really pretty french town but there wasnt much to do here. The tradition here is tailor made clothes and suits so i got a maxi dress made for me. I chose the style and colour of my fabric then the woman measured me. The dress cost me 580,000 dong which is a about £13. 

Mui Ne was really relaxing and our hostel was such good value. I would say it was here where we stayed in one of our best hostels. It was right on the beach and we had a balcony. The tour we did in a jeep to the fairy stream and sand dunes was also really fun and a good day out.

My highlights of Vietnam so far are:

- jet skiing in Nah trang. 

Me and Cj, each have a £200 kitty to organise activities for each other with over the next 9 months. Its a little competition for us to see who can be the most creative with our surprises. Plus it gets us doing lots of new things. This was my first activity for Cj. 

- hanoi night life

Its the only destination where there are been a proper club and we met loads of cool people here.

- moped ride in Hoi An

Every one leaves the sunflower hotel at 1:30am to go to the club (thats really just a bar) and we get on the back of the local mopeds to get there. This was so fun and also slightly worrying as the mopeds all separate from each other and steer down very dark lanes away from the club. Turned out this was just because of the curfue.  

- Vinepearl water park in Nah Trang

- perfume river dragon boat in Hue and the grandma that lived on the boat. She loves banter.

- the selfie stick in the sand dunes in Mui ne. See the pics on Cj's blog post.

- Morning  glory (its a vegetable)

I am definitely going to find out where     to buy this at home. 

- Mekong Delta tour in Ho Chi Minh city.

Cj and i have decided that we are not big fans of these tours for tourists. They just don't feel like the best way to see a place of wonder as they are always very structured and forced. But unfortunately, unless you want to pay hundreds of pounds for someone to show you these places, its the cheapest way to see them. This tour was good as there was a lot of activities involved but we just wanted to see more of the mekong delta. We boarded a long boat and sailed to the islands surrounding the delta. We learnt how to make proper honey tea, ate some Vietnamese tropical fruits, rowed in a long boat through the small delta rivers and cycled around the coconut island where we had lunch. 

-Ho Chi Minh city walking tour

There is a city tour here that costs 200dong, we decided to use the tour route but do it ourselves for free. It was a good day and we saw some amazing things but what we didn't realise was that the tour has a coach. So we ended up walking about 10 miles around the city this day. I didn't actually mind as we saw so much more walking around but Cj wore flop flops which meant he was in pain by the end. 

This was the route

-China town and market

- war museum (this was really fascinating)

-the palace

-Notre dam cathedral

- post office (it is huge)

Tomorrow we are heading to Cambodia on a 6 hour bus journey.