From Mui Ne, Nha Trang, to Hoi An, to Hue!

The peaceful one road town of Mui Ne was really relaxed and allowed for my friend Matt and I to give these Motorbikes a try. They were a blast and were much better than having to haggle with the local xe om drivers for rides. Many days of sunning, eating amazing sea food, and struggling to find some nightlife in the evenings as the town shuts down around 10pm. The skies were riddled with kite surfers. Realizing that Kitesurfing was a bit too daunting of an undertaking giving the extreme wind conditions, i decided to try to learn windsurfing from an instructor who little to no english. This was a riot, especially since they had wanted to charge me the full price for an english lesson! It was awesome! I got up only after a few tries and even learned how to turn. Interestingly enough, one of the more memorably parts of that experience was leaving the windsurfing place and looking into the cage of a monkey....Said monkey had clearly seen some other tourists before, because as soon as I sat down about 15 inches from the cage, he ran and jumped up on the cage, and grabbed my sunglasses hanging from my mouth and took them into his cage and began eating them!!!! He immediately ate the middle rubber part over the nose, i was soooo pissed and I couldnt get them back! I grabbed my windsurfing teach and he scared the monkeys away from them and kicked them over to me and fortunately they aren't too banged up :)

After Mui Ne, I met Adam Hill from Canada. We headed up on a sleeper bus to Nha Trang...As of that trip, i officially decided that long bus trips on sleeper buses that are made for people around 5'2'' kinda suck. It was really hard to leave Mui Ne, but it was time to go.

We arrived in Nha Trang tired and exhausted and wandered for a while and found a decent hotel on the beach. We met up with a ton of people at the Sailing Club and had several fun days and nights on the beach, but not nearly as nice as Mui Ne. We werent too thrilled with Nha Trang overall and thought that LP over sells it a bit.

After Nha Trang we headed off to Hoi An. Hoi An was amazing and very peaceful. The town's primary focus is tailored clothes. Every hotel has their own tailor, every store seems to be a tailor shop, and just about everything possible could be custom made for you. Once again, though, i controlled myself and have still yet to purchase just about anything. I just havent felt any urge to purchase things. I like the feeling of not having anything other than the few things in my backpack...it is liberating.

We rented motorbikes and headed to the beach quite a bit here. The restaurants were phenomenal and i have an addiction to pineapple shakes - you know the kind where they take a pineapple and shove it into a blender and serve it up - perfection!! The beaches all over Vietnam are riddled with ladies selling fresh fruit, hand bags, bracelets and everything. They love the term happy hour, and more or less apply it to everything that can be sold. We ate at the number 9 restaurant one day then changed it up and went to the number 5 restaurant the next day. The beach restaurants serve up delicious seafood and everything else you could think of - as well as, Pineapple shakes of course! The restaurant names are quite unique ranging from The Number 1 restaurant, all the way up to number 9 restaurant. Fortunately they are strategically lined up along the beach as well for easy finding.

We celebrated Christmas eve drinking and Christmas Day on the beach sobering up with - pineapple shakes and christmas hats. THe weather was perfect and about 78ish.

Check out the pics of Hoi An below.
http://picasaweb.google.com/spencerlane/HoiAn?feat=directlink

After some great days in Hoi An meeting up with Matt, Jenni, Kathryn, Manoj, Katie and Katie, Cat, Steve, Paul, and several other Aussi's and Kiwis, Adam and I decided to bail on Hoi An and head to Hue.

The bus ride was tolerable, but once i got to Hue I started getting a bit sick. I camped out in my hotel for the day and let is all come out if you know what I mean. Also, i have found that many hotels like to promise wifi - but in reality not actually have wifi. Lots of empty promises I have found. But every once in a while they do have it when they dont promise it like today! Hence the reason i have been so remiss in writing more often.

Hue was a bit boring, I went to the citadel and took a cyclo around the city, but was a little bored. So i grabbed a flight to Hanoi and Adam took the 14 hr bus ride.