Friday, January 15, 2010

Our Trip ...Days 13,14 & 15


Day 13 - Ho Chi Minh City what an eye opener this city was, we could not believe the scooters/motorbikes there were hundreds and the traffic was chaos basically you just toot your horn and go where ever you want and everyone else will get out of your way! When we were crossing the roads we just went, you can't stop once you make the comitment as you will get run over, so as soon as you step of the footpath you just go. We visited the Reunification Palace this was the home and headquaters of the president during the Vietnam War, so it was very interesting expecially down in the basement were all the communications were sent. While we were at the palace our taxi driver let Lachlan drive the taxi around the palace, so that was funny all of us in the taxi and Lachlan driving, we kept telling him to blow the horn!
We also went to the Ben Thanh markets, that too was an eye opener, i have never been grabbed so much by strangers in my life. We all grabbed some bargains, i highly recommend visiting this market.

Day 13 was also Taylah's 10th birthday, so we had a lovely dinner and our waiter Rigaberto organised a cake for Miss T and and our waiters and some of the others all sung Happy Birthday to her, she was in her element with all of this attention. When we got back to the cabing out Cabin steward Jai had left her a little birthday message along with this dog made out of towels a great end to a great day.

Day 14 - at sea, so more drugs and no photos, i know i am very slack

Day 15 - Da Nang how different Da Nang is to Ho Chi Minh, it is alot quieter and cleaner, with a lot of construction going on, so over the next couple of years there will be loads of huge hotel resorts going up.
Our first stop was the Ho Chi Minh Museum but it was closed for the day, our next stop was the Cham Sculpture Museum, this museum houses the most extensive collection of Cham art worldwide. There were some amazing pieces. Next stop was the Han markets, the whole bottom floor was food and the smell was just awful we all nearly vomitted, so we bolted upstairs to the non smelly goods and had a looksee, then headed to the Con markets, these i think are mainly wholesale markets as no one was really interested in selling us anything, but across the road was a fantastic coffee shop where i purchased 2 cups of coffee for $104 000VD  mind blowing amount when said to you but works out to around $7 AUD
I don't think I have mentioned yet how bad the coffee on the ship was - and for a person that normally scoffs 10 cups a day to go cold turkey is not good, so whenever we were on land if there was a good coffee shop I was there.
Day 15  - continued New Years Eve - time to get all dressed up again and what a night it was great. Rigaberto & Wei (our waiters) got into the spirit and expecially Rigaberto he was giving the kids champange, the girls didn't like it but Brayden did so he had his and theirs and then Rigaberto kept filling his glass, then Wayne got Gage, Dylan & Brayden a shot of sambucca each and then Brayden also had a shot of Bailys so you can imagine the state of Brayden by the end of dinner, Rigaberto wasn't much better as he was having a glass of champers everytime he filled someones glass. After dinner we all headed to the lounge for more drinking (only water for Brayden, I had to get him sober) and dancing, Miss T had had enough by 11pm so I took her down to bed (we figured it was midnight in Australia at 9pm so we had seen the new year in) while the rest of the gang partied to the wee hours.

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