31 people, a baby and a bicycle

Oh this past week has been jammed packed full of adventures...I am so exhausted and have so so much to write, but this would turn into a very long book if i wrote them all. I figure i must be manifesting all the mishaps just so that I have stories to tell and write in my blog!! In Hoi An I met up with Nichola and we decided to take local transport further south...but to do this we had to go about 1 hour north to Danang to catch a train....we stayed in Danang for a couple nights before hopping on the very local, uber slow train to another place off the beaten track, Quy Nhon. Danang was cool, no tourists, and lovely beaches...we hung out on China beach which was so amazing and the colour of the water turquiose blue...ahhhh, lovely. We had some hassles but it was nice being in a city that for the most part charges foreigners local price...we found a little alley with amazing side of the road food..and this is where we had most of our meals!! We ended up walking to the train station at 2:30 in the morn and on the way we were hassled by some lovely large scary stray dogs...luckily we made it safely to the station...hopped on the train for our 8 hour journey amongst hundreds of boxes and vietnamese people on hard bench seats....the first thing I saw when i got on the train was a man sleeping in a hammock (he had strung it up over top of the wooden bench seats)so funny. Met an amazingly creepy guy who probably had never seen another foreigner and thinks that we are all a tad skanky like in the movies.....eventually he took the hint, we had met him outside the train station while we were talking to a really nice taxi driver who wanted to practice his english...this taxi driver translated our story to this creepy guy who then on the train told another man about us and once the creepy guy left this man told the other people on the train and these people were the ones that we met at the cafe (that I write about later) who then told their family about us...(Im not sure if that made any sense, but it was my life story played out like a game of telephone) We met some other non english speaking people and we played '13' the vietnamese card game for hours!! I was in my glory! ....the reason Nichola and I decided to go to Quy nhon was because we had the bright idea to rent bicycles for 3 or 4 days and ride down the coast....we heard of barbaras on the beach, who apparently could help us arrange anything, however barbara was on holidays and she had some very useless staff who simply tried to rip us off and could not help us with anything we wanted to do..so we decided to leave at 12 the next day to a place where people could speak english....but first we set out with our bicycles to go and visit the leper colony, we walked out of our hotel and there at the smoothie cafe next door was the lady and her daughter who we met on the train, neither of whom spoke english...she invited us for a smoothie, introduced us to her sister and her husband, and then motioned that they wanted to take us around the town....they were so adamant that they took our bicycles and put them back in the hotel...so we hopped on the back of the motorcycles...3 people per bike and headed to the leper colony right by the beach, but first they took us down to the rock beach where we had professional photos taken and then back to the colony, where we had more professional photos taken!! So funny....next they took us for an amazing meal and then back to the hotel in time to catch a bus...they were so lovely and asked nothing in return...it was so amazing and they were so lovely and giving that Nichola and I both had tears in our eyes as we were saying goodbye to this lovely family! We had been having such a crap time...really I have not fought with so many people in my life as I have in Vietnam and everytime something is stressy something lovely always happens...we grabbed our luggage and went to the highway to hail a bus to Nha trang, beach capital of Vietnam...very touristy but we didnt want anymore hassels...now this 16 seat mini bus that we caught, by the time it was full had 31 people, 1 baby, a bicycle and a lot of luggage...what an adventure...we made it safely to Nha Trang, found an amazing new hotel overlooking the ocean and i got stung by another jelly fish...and this one hurt!!!
Wow Ive just wrote so much and most of it doesnt make any sense...but thats okay, its late and im off to bed and I think Im heading to Cambodia really soon!!!! Im ready for a new set of adventures :)