Mui Ne

5 hour sleeper bus to Mui Ne from Ho Chi Mi City which was pretty dire with this weird reclining top bunk seats literally cm's from the ceiling but it was only £5, we're now staying at Mui Ne Backpacker Village a beautiful hostel minutes away from the beach with a pool for (wait for it) £4.50 and we have air con and the bar do spaghetti (although i am trying new food mum i promise)

The monsoon hit again around mid day and like sensible people we decided to go swim in the sea because it seemed it would be fun, to be fair it was but to the locals we probably looked like complete nutcases. Tomorrow we're doing a tour of the Sand Dunes before we head to Dalat in the evening!

pretty much a drowned rat

Mekong Delta continued - ft pictures of me a sweaty mess

Next up we drove the boat to a nearby restaurant and had lunch (included in tour) a simple meal, local cuisine (fish, rice, salad etc) after this we were then taken out in a one of the long canoe boats and rowed through a quite jungle river it was very idyllic and we got to wear the traditional sun hats. This marked the end of our first day and we then journeyed back in the boat to the meeting spot in the town, this is where my friend and I were meeting our homestay hosts who preceded to turn up on motorbikes and signalled for us to hop on to get to our final destination. If you've never been on a motorbike in SE Asia be assured its absolute chaos and you spend the whole ride fearing for your life (its also really fun). The homestay itself (Hung's Homestay) was a group of stick and leaf shacks right on the river in the middle of the local village, it was so ridiculously simple and beautiful literally being right in the middle of nature, pictures do not do it justice.

our jungle shack - Hungs homestay

After a meal cooked by our hosts (with us helping) we went to bed in our mosquito netted cabin (bring a ridiculous amount of mosquito spray you'll need it) . The next day was visiting the floating markets where traders and farmers brought all their produce to sell and exchange, it was pretty cool to look at but we weren't able to get too close to the boats unless we were buying. After this we stopped at the garden nearby (basically a jungle) and went for a wander around and played with puppies and that concluded our trip. I'd hands down recommend it (roughly $45 which is 1 million and 50 VND)

Ho Chi Mi City - Downtown

Today we spent the day getting lost quite literally in downtown Ho Chi Min City, after Emirates still have not heard where my luggage is, I decided to hit the local market and buy some basics to last till my bag rejoins me (if ever). So after getting fairly ripped off for some backpacker basic elephant print trousers, we decided to check out Ben Thanh main market, this market was packed with stalls selling anything from jade Buddha charms to taxidermy tarantulas and bats, this particular market was aimed more at foreigners like myself and it was hard to try and barter items to a lower price as most stalls had a gang of people to back up their original price. If your in Ho Chi Mi its still worth a visit especially if you've lost your luggage.