I decided to only spend one night in Mui Ne so that I can have more time in the Mekong Delta. I'm back in Saigon for one night before leaving on the Mekong tour tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, here are some pictures from Mui Ne.

Made it to Mui Ne. Not much to report and this internet cafe charges way too much for me to spend time uploading pictures. Nice beach though.

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I successfully found the local Pasteur clinic in Saigon and had my final shot today. I'm glad that's over with. Not only am I finally done having people poke me with needles but now I can finally stop scheduling things around the shots.

No pictures today. I took a couple this afternoon while I was wandering around the city but nothing worth posting.

I think I'm going to cut the Saigon visit short and head up to Mui Ne beach tomorrow. I didn't think I was going to have the chance but if I cut out a day in Saigon and a day from the Mekong delta trip it seems like it will work out. I'll have to take an organized tour of the Mekong rather than doing it on my own but that won't be too bad. With only a week left in Vietnam it probably makes sense to cram in as much as I possibly can and the organized tours do help to fit in more in a shorter time at least.

Today I hired a motorcycle and guide to see some of the surrounding area. The independent motorcycle guides in Dalat call themselves EZ Riders. Luckily the tour didn't end the same way the movie did. These guides are supposed to be much better than what you'd get booking through a travel agency or your hotel. I was certainly pleased - my guide knew a lot about the surrounding area and spoke English extremely well.



In a couple hours I catch an overnight bus to Ho Chi Minh City (i.e. Saigon). I'm saving just enough time for dinner at my favorite restaurant in Dalat before I leave. I've eaten there a couple times in the two days I've been here and I think it's about the best food I've had in Vietnam.

I spent most of the afternoon walking around Dalat. Unfortunately, while it didn't rain, it was mostly overcast. Too bad I didn't head out earlier since it was gorgeous all morning.

The first picture is actually from a stop the bus made on the trip from Nha Trang. The rest are from Dalat itself.

Made it to Dalat. Nothing much to report - I'll see more of the area tomorrow. The bus trip took most of the day and in the afternoon I didn't do much other than find the clinic for my fifth shot and relax in my hotel room (i.e. nap). There's another Pasteur clinic here so the shot was another cheapie which was nice. Hopefully I'll have some pictures to post tomorrow.

I decided to stay in Nha Trang and take the boat trip after all. Good move on my part! The trip ended up being as much a mobile party as sight-seeing tour. At one point they set up a floating bar off the side of the boat and served this awful sweat wine-ish drink. On the plus side there was a nearly unlimited quantity and it was free. And of course it was consumed while floating in life-preserver "seats which was a fun twist.

The boat had a surprisingly good sound system and a nice collection of tunes. Thankfully someone on the tour group took control early on and put a stop to the top 40 they started off with. We ended up with a mixture of classic rock and Latin jazz all day. Nice. At one point the captain and some of the deck hands plugged in some mics and an electric guitar and entertained us for a while.

For the serious part of the trip we stopped at a couple of the islands, visited a floating fishing village, and got some swimming and snorkeling in. The weather was great, if not quite as perfect as in Hoi An.

No pictures today though. Mostly because I didn't feel like dragging myself all the way down to the one cyber cafe I found which would allow me to plug in my camera. There seems to be some superstition about them in Nha Trang. Yesterday I went to at least a half dozen that wouldn't let me hook up the camera even though they all had USB ports. Weird.

Made it to Nha Trang and spent most of the day walking around. Compared to Hoi An there's not too much to see in Nha Trang itself - the beach is the main reason to come here.



I had my rabies fourth shot this morning at the Nha Trang branch of the Pasteur institute. They coordinate the vaccinations for all of the southern coastal region of Vietnam and actually manufacture the rabies vaccine. So it was a very professional setup and I was expecting it to be correspondingly expensive. Instead of the 150,000 Dong (about $10) I was paying in Hué it only cost 6000 Dong!

Tomorrow I will probably take a boat tour of the nearby islands, but I haven't decided yet. If the weather isn't great I may decide to head up to Dalat a day early instead.

The My Son ruins were nice, but the really interesting parts of today's tour happened on the bus trips there and back.

On the way to My Son I had my first experience with official corruption. Thankfully the tour guide and bus driver were the ones that had to deal with it though. Our bus was stopped for an "inspection" by some police. Apparently it failed and the driver had to pay a "fine" before we could continue on our way. Altogether we were held up for about 10 minutes and there was much frowning and huddled conversation to be seen out the window. The most amusing part was watching the guys from the bus show their empty wallets - pretending not to have any money seemed to be their primary negotiating tactic.

The longer delay (see the second picture) happened on the way back. A truck got stuck in the mud right in the middle of the road and held up traffic for almost 2 hours before we could get past. After standing around doing exactly nothing for over an hour the locals finally decided to lay down some wooden beams from the adjacent construction site. A couple trucks and one bus made it through and so our bus driver got optimistic about his chances. Oops! He missed the boards and got stuck - that's our bus in the picture. It didn't help that there was a crowd lining the side of the mud puddle leaving him only inches of room in which to maneuver. Anyway, after another 15 minutes or so they got a truck to help pull our bus out and we were on our way.



Tonight (in fact less that 30 minutes from now) I catch a bus to Nha Trang. I'm bummed about having to leave Hoi An tonight. I could easily spend another 2 or 3 nights here.

In a totally expected move, the sun decided to show itself today - blue skys all day and not a drop of rain. To top it off, it wasn't too hot and the humidity was under control. All-in-all, an absolutely perfect day for wandering around Hoi An. I'm posting way more pictures than I should, especially considering the lousy quality of the connection here.



Tomorrow morning I'm taking a tour of the My Son ruins in the morning then I catch an overnight bus to Nha Trang in the evening. I'm not really ready to leave Hoi An, but I need to get out of here tomorrow if I'm going to fit in everything I want to do before November 2'nd when my visa expires.

OK, Hoi An rocks. The town has a great, relaxed feel. I can't wait to get out tomorrow and explore the old city in depth.

No pictures tonight. I haven't found an computer with a USB port yet, and in any case the connection speeds here are a long way from what I learned to expect in Hué.

The weather cooperated so I was able to take the boat trip after all. We visited several tombs and some pagodas.



This place is shutting down any second so I've got to run. Tomorrow morning I catch a bus for Hoi An.

This afternoon I visited the old imperial citadel, the major site in Hué itself.



Weather permitting, I'm hoping to take a boat trip on the perfume river tomorrow. Failing that it looks like another motorcycle tour.

Went back to the clinic for my second rabies shot this morning. Here's a picture of the clinic. The door in the center leads to the examination/consultation room where and off to the right you can just see the entrance to the actual vaccination room.



After that I wandered around the south bank for a bit and took some pictures.



Starting with this post you should now see descriptions of the individual pictures when you move your mouse over them. Of course clicking still opens the full-size version.

Some pictures of my tour to the DMZ. They show: a bombed-out church, the DMZ memorial at the main highway bridge over the Ben Hai river, and a captured Chinook on display at the remains of the Kae Sahn marine base.



These are pretty much the best of the bunch. While the tour was interesting, there isn't much worth photographing. Much of the tour involved visiting sites of historical interest with nothing much to see anymore.

The most interesting part of the tour was probably the visit to the Vien Boc tunnel system north of the DMZ. It was interesting walking through the tunnels, if a little cramped for someone of my height.

Tomorrow morning I have to get poked in the arm again, and after that I plan to see more of the sites in Hué itself.

Didn't get to see much in Hué yesterday, but I did walk around and look at some pagodas in the afternoon. The weather wasn't so great for taking pictures, but I thought this one was kind of cool. I wanted to post it last night, but the computer I was using didn't want to talk to my camera.



Spent all day today on a tour of the DMZ. Miserable weather, but I'll post some pictures later.

Warning - Do not read this post if you are my mother!

I didn't mention this in last night's post, but yesterday morning at Hoa Lu I had an encounter with a rather upset dog, and ended up getting bitten on the leg. D'Oh! Although the bite did break the skin on my leg, my jeans were not ripped so I figured I was probably OK even if the dog had rabies. I'm pretty sure it was pregnant and thus nervous rather than rabid though.

However, rabies is not something you want to mess around with. So, today in Hué I had my first encounter with the Vietnamese medical services to start a course of vaccinations. It wasn't too bad overall and I was rather comforted by the whole experience, even if the clinic wasn't quite up to the standards I'd expect at home. The doctor was professional, spoke English well (if not quite fluently), and obviously had quite a bit of experience with rabies. The syringe was the single-use disposable type and I watched them unseal the package and then break off the needle when done. Now I just have to do the same thing 5 more times over the next 10 days.

Interesting couple of days.

The motorcyle trip today was a blast. I ended up travelling with the guide and a French couple (who were very pleasant and din't hassle me at all, unlike the Belgians I met the other day on the Perfume Pagoda trip). We visited Hoa Lu in the morning. This was a former capital of Vietnam, although very little remains from that era. The scenery was nice though.






The afternoon involved a boat trip around the Kenh Ga floating village and a hike to a nearby cave. Unfortunately the cave shots didn't come out this time but I'm posting some pictures from the river trip.



That's it for now. I'm catching an overnight bus to Hué in a couple hours.

I'm in Ninh Binh now, and have seen a couple of the sites in the area. This morning I visited a couple pagodas near Tam Coc. These first couple pictures show some scenes from the area.



After lunch I took a boat trip through Tam Coc, which means "Three Coves" or "Three Caves". The trip ran through some scenery similar to my earlier trip to the perfume pagoda, although this river runs through several caves (thus the name of the area).



Tomorrow I'm taking another motorcycle tour to see some more sights in the area.