Kevin was off on his bike at 5.30 to do the same ride as yesterday to Hwy 1. Today he rode 39.5km and rode for 2 hours. I decided not to go to the beach or pool today and instead went exploring a little more on the bike. Kevin went off to Russian Family Park which is a Russian pool development with banana lounges around the pool and also on the beach. It is just down the beach a little way form LBH. He had to pay VND $100k for a lounge. He said it was noisy, there were no toilets, and lots of foreigners who didn't speak English. He hated it and only stayed til 12 noon. I meandered along the coast stopping and looking at various Sea Festival exhibitions along the way. I stopped at The Havana Hotel, a posh number and sat in the foyer to cool off and read my book for a bit. I continued on to the bridge and went past and on the road that Kevin rides every morning. I only went about 1km past the bridge as a down hill was coming up and I didn't want to have to ride back up it. Good logic hey! On the way back I stopped on top of the bridge to take some photos. I then decided to go to Dam Market to get some rice crackers and limes for my G&T. I took to the back streets to get back and just rode totally lost in the general direction. Finally found our street Nguyen Thien Thuat and got back just before Kevin. After lunch we decided to walk to Kevin's favourite pastry shop. Only after we started did he tell me it was at a ha Trang Centre which is 2km away. We had to battle the traffic and the construction work that was happening for the festival. Kevin had a cream puff and coffee and I got a soft serve next door. I wondered around the shopping centre until Kevin was ready to leave. On the way back I stopped to get another bottle of Gin at Ah Mart on our street. Kevin decided not to go tend watch the first session of Cricket and so we went for dinner to Veranda Restaurant on the foreshore. We both ordered chicken rolled in ham and cheese which was sort of like a cordon blu. I headed back to the hotel while Kevin went to Cheers Bar. The number of people on the streets and just waiting for the Sea Festival Opening to occur was phenomenal. The car traffic was virtually at a stand still and you had to push and weave your way around people and traffic to get back. Kevin sat with Darryl an ex Pom who lived in Geelong and worked for Ford until he was made redundant and had an interesting conversation with him. Darryl, 71 yo, now lives in NT and has married a Vietnamese and built a house over the Bridge. He has been here 6 years and lives comfortably on the Age Pension. Kevin came home at 10pm smelling of smoke from the bar. He took a shower to try and get the smoke out of his pores.
