From the first breath I took in the taxi as we left ho chi Minh airport, I knew I loved this country. It was truly breathtaking for me. Having never been to Asia ( apart from a 1 day in south Korea) I was very apprehensive but in that taxi with all the chaos and what felt like a million Vietnamese people on mopeds and bikes, it was just exhilarating. The first couple of days we wondered round the city in awe of the everyday hustle and bustle of the city. Street food, markets, museums, the Mekong delta and then to top it off a few drinks at the ' must do ' Saigon tower roof top. The next morning and the week that followed was however a horrendous nightmare of food poisoning which I hope to forget soon. We postponed our train trip to nha trang and instead I spent it lying on a hotel bathroom floor. We made it to nha trang just in time for Nathan's birthday, but although feeling slightly better I could only take short trips out side. Amazingly Nathan bumped into vymi- a lovely Vietnamese girl we gave a lift to in New Zealand! So he spent his birthday out drinking with her and friends :) finally on the road to recovery we hopped onto our next train - quite an experience, and found ourselves in hoi an. It was BEAUTIFUL! We spent 4 days here in a lovely hotel and walked the streets for a few hours at a time ( I was unfortunatly still being sick occasionally). The old town was wonderfully idyllic and Nathan chose a tailor out of the many hundreds and got 3 suits made, which turned out very impressive. We then decided on a flight from hoi an to Hanoi as a 12 hour train compared to a 1 hour flight for the same price seemed logical. We arrived in Hanoi and based ourselves in the old quarter of the city. Hanoi was hot and humid and walking the lane ways was definitely something I cannot accurately put into words. The people in Hanoi seemed to live at a faster pace and every space was packed with street food stalls , shops of all kinds and people just generally moving around. We booked onto a 3 day cruise of halong bay and just had the most amazing time. Kayaking, swimming, eating drinking, massages and just staring at the jaw dropping view, it was like heaven. Back in Hanoi and I felt so much better, so feeling adventorous we set off on a day of trying as much variety of veitnamese street food as possible in a day. It was brilliant. Finally we bid farewell to Hanoi and flew back to ho chi Minh ready for our japan trip. chao Vietnam, konnichwa Japan!
