Wednesday 5th March 2008

We still had to set the alarm this morning - but only so we could go to the restaurant and take advantage of the free breakfast - so it wasn't too bad. Once we were up and about we all sat around the pool and spent the rest of our morning swimming and chatting. This afternoon we went for some food in one of the restaurants before going out on a trip around the local area.

Our guide picked us up for our excursion in an old American war jeep. I'm not sure if it dated back to the Vietnam war, or even earlier - but it was in amazing condition, and great fun to race around in! The first stop was just down the road from our resort and was a walk along the Fairy River (or Suoi Tien). The walk was really pretty - along the stream, which ran through the red canyons. At the end of the walk was a small waterfall. On the way back we walked alongside the rice fields, which were also very pretty.

Next, we jumped back into the jeep and were driven to some sand dunes outside of town. The drive was fantastic - driving through local villages. Seeing farmers hearding their animals or riding carts being drawn by huge cows. When we got to our destination, we climbed out and began our walk across the sand. After about 20 minutes we'd walked a really long way and it seemed like we were in the middle of the desert. On our way in, we were approached by a small boy who offered us a sheet of plastic to ride down - we took him up on his offer and Keith paid 30,000VD for two sheets. After climbing to the top of the highest dune, me and Nikki found that they were ABSOLUTELY USELESS. All we did was sink into the sand, covering ourselves from head to toe. To make things worse, when we got back we found that the going rate was 1,000VD per slide... we were well and truly stitched up! We headed back towards our hotel next and stopped on the way at some more sand dunes to watch the sun set - but it was a bit cloudy, so we came back early.

This evening, we went out to our favourite restaurant for some food. The place was absolutely packed and they only had one waitress working. We ate and drank loads and at the end of a nice evening, made sure we gave the poor girl a nice tip. Because we've got another early start tomorrow, we came back to pack our bags and then went to sleep.

Hey look here come some Westerners... lets inflate the prices by 300%. Good on you kid!