I got up earlier than Liam today to go have an hour on the beach before check out. It was a really nice hour laying by myself on the sand and it was early enough for the beach to be emptier and late enough for the sun to be nice. We packed up, checked out and headed out for breakfast which happened to be the very first 'English breakfast' that could pass as an actual English breakfast. Even the cup of tea tasted like a proper cup of tea save for the full fat milk!
We caught our bus to the bus station then changed onto the bigger one. It was a good bus with a decent amount of leg room and reclining seats. It had a tv but it played Vietnamese stuff the whole way with no subtitles or anything. Lots of people were laughing so we know part of it was a comedy and then there was some kind of factor thing. The journey took about 4 hours and we both napped on and off the whole time.
About 3 hours in one of the girls next to us started being sick, she must have been sick about 5 times, luckily the bus had a load of sick bags in it. About half an hour before the end the woman in the seat in front of us also started being sick. We're pretty sure we heard a man being sick at the back too, so we're hoping it was the food at the lunch stop and not something we could potentially have caught!
I really enjoyed looking out the window at the scenery on the way, we went from being in a typical beach setting to going higher and higher up winding roads and it getting more and more green. The views were great, all the green rolling hills, the silhouettes of the trees lining the hills in the far distance and the different coloured clouds spread across the sky, it was like a postcard. We began seeing a lot of really tall pines and the houses began to look more French. There were a lot of bigger houses painted in blues and greens with wooden shutters and creeper plants over them. A lot of them looked like fairy tale houses to me because they were surrounded by really tall pines and woodland. We then started to see lots of allotments and greenhouses for as far as they eye could see, with all sorts of things from fruit, vegetables and flowers. I saw a big centre that said 'potato, fruit, vegetable and flower research facility' which just shows what kind of place it was! After a while of this we entered the main town where it was very busy and bustling with lots and lots of bikes as is the norm here. We stopped at the bus station then changed into another minibus and did the drop of rounds before being dropped off at hour hotel last.
The hotel is nice, breakfast is included in the price, there's a jacuzzi on the top floor overlooking the streets in our area of the town which is pretty cool and a sauna and steam room which is all included in the price of the room too. Our room is s good size again with a decent en suite so again, we're happy. We went downstairs to ask for maps and advice on any tours etc, and ended up being down there for half an hour or so because the owner of the hotel had her grandchildren over. The little boy, Barry apparently, is 21 months old and is such a little cutie. The girl, cherry, is just coming up to 4 years old and is some kind of child prodigy! She speaks more or less perfect English and isn't even at school yet. She goes to preschool but they're entirely Vietnamese, apparently she sometimes speaks in English there and the staff don't understand her. She speaks better English than a lot of the 3 year olds I've met with English as their primary language. Her gran insists she hasn't taught her anything, we find that hard to believe though because her English is also very good and we heard her speaking French too. However that said, even if she is teaching her this girl is amazing. She has full on conversations with you, she's apparently learned most of it just from growing up in the hotel which I can believe, and she also spends a lot of time on YouTube...she has a full on American accent it's so weird.
Anyway after a long time talking and listening we finally got what we went down for the headed out for some food. After searching a while we found a vegetarian restaurant which was the worst mistake in restaurants since arriving here, we won't be going again! I cant believe the amount of bakeries here, there's even a 24 hour one. There's also about 5 karaoke bars on every street, we know the Asians like karaoke because you see it in every place, but there's just karaoke overload here! I like the feel of the place, it's a bit cooler (about 19 degrees) and is a bit more gritty and more like an actual vietnamese city rather than an all frills tourist destination. We'll see what it has in store for us tomorrow.
