Ok, unless you have travelled for any length of time you will not understand the next statement. We need a holiday! After over two and a half months we need some more time to relax, with no loud noises, no scooters, no touters and nothing to do. Just like another 4000 islands!
After the problems of the previous few weeks we were feeling the strain and starting to not enjoy our experience. We had planned to visit the Mekong Dalta but as we found that most of the deals available were rather structured and involved long periods of time sitting in a bus ( our most hated of all transportation options) with dozens of tanned and loud 20 something’s, it was not really what we were thinking of when we said relaxing.
We had a chat, or rather Sam had a chat with our lovely hotel manager, Van, and talked over our options. In the end after cancelling our Mekong Dalta trip we arranged to head to Vung Tau, a peninsula to the south of Ho Chi Minh City. The best parts of our plan were 1. It was where the locals went on the weekend, so no tourists and 2. We didn’t have to take a bus, we could walk to the ferry terminal and then take a hydrofoil for an hour and a half.
We arranged to leave our bags for two nights and set off with the bare essentials.
The boat trip was fast and smooth, and after spending so much time travelling in the past we barely got comfortable when we noticed we were slowing down and heading into port.
The port itself was full of small brightly coloured fishing boats and the small beached was framed with a tropical garden full of palm trees. We wandered around exploring the small town before stopping of for an amazing bowl of noodle soup for lunch. Once our stomachs were full we headed towards the other side of the peninsular, where the beach and most of the hotels were. After glancing at the wind swept beach we decided on a small guest house tucked out of the wind further back towards the town. To Sam’s great excitement the owners had not one but ten small fluffy dogs, one so friendly it wanted to stay in our room with us. I said it wanted to but we (we = Will) didn’t let it.
Once settled in we set off to explore the area finding a rather swanky coffee shop, so swanky once our beverages arrived we didn’t know what to do…the coffee was in a shot glass in a cup of water, with a drip infusion thingy above the shot glass dripping coffee into it. Too confusing!!!
Over the next two days we relaxed and enjoyed the peace and quiet if the town, eating delicious but inexpensive food from street venders and climbing millions of stairs to glimpse amazing panoramic view of the city. After three amazing nights (we decided to stay an extra night and take one off HCMC) we felt ready to begin travelling again.
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