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 River tour; 2 Day 1 Night Homestay

Been out of crazy city civilisation for a few days, touring the incredible Mekong Delta river through Kim Travels tours, I would 100% recommend visiting Mekong Delta and it's floating markets, I would also massively recommend if you have the homestay option to do this instead of a hotel, not only is it much more authentic you are literally fully immersed in river life staying in a kind of shack made out of leaves right on the riverside in the middle of the Vietnamese wilderness. So through the tour we booked we got picked up by a bus around 7:30 AM at the hostel to part of Mekong Delta river, once there we boarded a longboat and cruised down the river, our first stop was one of the on land markets where the locals sold anything from sarongs to skinned alive frogs (I kid you not I watched it happen by accident it was gross), the market was really interesting to walk around as the produce was so diverse but be warned it is pretty graphic in terms of animal parts and doesn't smell particularly wonderful. After we then went to see how the locals made rice paper for spring rolls, how they made coconut candy and honey tea, i'll break this up with some portraits I took at the market and the local cuisine introduction.

lady selling seafood- on land market

little boy sizing up the tourists 

lady selling various meats - on land market

Local Cuisine- How they make Rice Paper

a stall holding relaxing after the market rush

two of the trader market boats on the river 

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)

Dam Sen water park

last night we hit the rooftop bar of our hostel during a crazy thunderstorm, depressed by the unknown whereabouts of my luggage I decided the only solution was to get fairly drunk and forget about it, we went to some bars around Ho Chi Mi downtown, all had live singers or karaoke or a mix of both from what I do remember of the night. Stumbling home to the hostel at 4am I was greeted by the beautiful sight of my backpack at reception, safe to say my drunken screeching of happiness scared the bejeezus out of the poor Vienamese guy at reception. Today with our new friends from last nights diy bar crawl and a killer hangover we decided to celebrate my luggage arriving by going to the local waterpark. We were quite literally the only westerners in the park, people were filming us, following us around and actually cheering for us when we went down a slide it was so surreal. The kids at the waterpark were pretty adorable coming to say hello and waving because to them we must of looked out of place. if your in Ho Chi Mi City with a hangover hit Dam Sen water park.

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. 

1. Ho Chi Mi City ft missing luggage

safely arrived after two flights and two days in airports (with the time differences) in Ho Chi Mi City, not off to a good start as unfortunately the airline I flew with didn't think it was important to put my luggage (my bag containing the next year of my life) on the plane I was flying on, so waiting for that to turn up in the next few days. Today we're off to explore what Saigon has to offer and probably get ripped off a lot, i'll be uploading some pictures later providing nothing else goes wrong! on the plus side we have a ridiculous view from our cheap hotel room of the whole city so things could be a lot worse...