Once we got here I spent the next 3 hours fast asleep as the flu / nasty cold set in. I got up in time to watch sunset, which is at about 6pm here. So that wrote the day off!
Day 2 was a little better, the difference being that I got my sleep outside on the beach. It was a calm, tranquil, magical morning. It is a very nice beach although the water is very murky and salty. The weather has been good, a little windy but not uncomfortable. The water is refreshing, not hot or cold but just spot on, and very very calm. If I was a surfer I would have had to move on.
The place is full of Russian tourists. This must be a popular destination for them (Aeroflot flies into Vietnam) and I know where I would rather be if I had the choice of a Russian winter or a Vietnamese one.
We went into town here. Not a lot to report, it is miles and miles of hotels. The town itself has a number of tourist shops and for the first time on this trip no one has come straight up to us to buy their wares. They left us alone and were almost disinterested even to take our money!
For the record I think the sleep, sun, and sea is paying off. I am starting to feel like the worst of my nasty cold is over and hopefully I am now on the mend.
Tomorrow we will be visiting some sand dunes early in the morning. We need to get back in time to check out of the hotel and, more importantly, to catch the bus for the long trip back to Saigon. I have my fingers crossed that the bus shows up. In Saigon we were charged 200,000vnd for the trip back but the local operator (for the same agency) wants to add a 60,000vnd surcharge. This is a "happy new year" surcharge and applies from 1-Jan to 10-Jan. Given that we bought the tickets in Saigon on 2-Jan and there was no mention of this I told him I wasn't prepared to do that. He eventually rang back and said not to worry about it but in retrospect I would worry less if I had paid the surcharge. The $3 is actually irrelevant in the scheme of things but the disruption (the next bus isn't until 1am) would be awful. We are due to fly out of Saigon at 4:30pm on the following day so we at least do have time up our sleeve if the operator decides to have the last laugh.
Stay tuned....
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