27. Family holidays part one... Mui Ne

I flew from Nah Trang back to Saigon to meet my family arriving for a two week holiday for my birthday! Very excited!  I wanted to get the overnight train but all fully booked for the Tet holidays, and I wasn't going to do something like a 12 hour bus ride. 

I jumped onto the back of a moto.... A bike taxi, to the airport.  My daughter, son in law and little granddaughter arrived an hour late from a few days in Dubai, and it was so lovely to see them! We all had a meal in the backpacker district..... The time difference was great for Amber as she just stayed up later automatically and didn't need to alter her body clock!

Note the "high chair" that Amber is sitting on.... A stack of plastic chairs! Perfect! 

The next morning my son arrived from Perth, it was a big family reunion! We caught the afternoon train for a 5 hour journey to Binh Thuan, then an hour taxi ride to Mui Ne on the coast.

This is our train Grandma!

Finally.....

We had a few days chilling in a beautiful hotel on the beach and some wonderful family time. No more backpacker rooms for a while..... (Nor backpacker prices! ) This was our villa.....

And the hotel pool...

The beach at sunrise....

And playtime....

Mui Ne is the kite surfing capital of Vietnam.... Huge waves and very very windy. Too windy to sit on the beach which was a shame, but the boys went surfing.... 

Amber went playing too...

We visited the red sand dunes, a local tourist attraction. They are huge dunes..... Lots of sand but quite beautiful. Amber getting ready for her trip out to the dunes, in her new Vietnamese outfit from Grandma.....

This is much more fun than walking....

We caught the local bus and got off at the fishing village

And then went into town and watched the kite surfers and the sunset...

We had a fab meal followed by a game of pool with a twist....

And then time for bed....

26. Nha Trang

Nha Trang is a busy bustling noisy holiday resort with a fabulous beach. 

It attracts Vietnamese and foreign tourists, with Russians far outnumbering other nationalities. They do not need a visa to travel to Vietnam, and almost all the international flights into Nha Trang airport are direct from Russia. I stayed in a very Vietnamese hotel just opposite the Gorky Park leisure complex..... 

The view from my bedroom window.... Yes with another hotel in front, but hey, I have a window! Actually I had two and a balcony.....!

This is where I had my breakfast every morning...

And the local coffee shop...

I had a couple of days chilling on the beach.

Watching the locals playing in the water

 I walked to the far end where the ferry boats leave for Bamboo Island.... 

The main attraction is Vinpearl Land, the Vietnamese equivalent of Disneyland.... I didn't go. But did admire the cable car across the bay.

I saw these beautiful sea horses in a tank.... I don't know what they do with them.....

25. Two bike rides....

The next day I went out on a bike trip round the countryside. It is stunningly beautiful, and so different from the rest of Vietnam which is also beautiful but mostly flat. And it's cooler too being much higher and hillier....

I went with my guide to meet some of the local hill people...

We visited a cricket farm..... And ate a plateful! Lovely with chilli sauce! A real delicacy....! 

We visited a coffee plantation, where their speciality is weasel poo coffee..... Yes, the weasels eat the coffee beans, and when they excrete them, the beans are still whole..... So they are washed, and the result is a coffee with a different flavour! Very nice! 

 

The coffee trees bear buds, flowers and beans all at the same time....

We went to the local waterfalls which were fabulous, and have water in them all year round

We walked down past huge strangler fig roots

To get to the bottom of the falls, where I got very wet with the spray....! 

We then went to another river where they go canyoning and abseiling down the falls. We treked by the river, waded through the water where there were no bridges, and walked across fallen tree trunk bridges... Yes I did walk across this...

And I swam.... I love wild swimming in Britain, so here was no hardship at all...

But my big road trip was the next day, 140kms from Dalat all the way to the coast, to Nha Trang. This is the road that features on Top Gear, and although I don't like that programme, I did watch the Vietnam episode. There's not as much space on the back today with all my luggage.....

The road twists and turns for mile after mile downhill. Of course the mist set in.....

They are creating new national parks near Dalat to preserve the countryside and the wildlife. Much of the traditional natural landscape in Vietnam was obliterated by the Americans in the war, when they cleared vast areas of jungle in an attempt to flush out the Viet Cong from their hiding places. So now much of the forest areas are pine and they cut the bark and the trunk to collect the pine sap. It's a beautiful smell, but I can't help thinking of Scotland not Vietnam..... 

My Easy Rider bike guide took me to find a hotel near the seafront in Nha Trang. What a fabulous bike journey on a road with beautiful views....