Sunrise Beach Nha Trang

We've just parted company with the last of the Imaginitive Traveller group, and now have our freedom back again. c... We started our journey in Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh city, after the founder and president of the new democratic Vietnam - Uncle Ho. I prefer the name Saigon though, gives a romantic impression of young beautiful Vietnamese girls in their long flowing dresses cycling around the city amongst the old restored buildings from the colonial days and women in conical hats on the ...

Greetings from 'the jewel of the central highlands', aka le Petit Paris, aka the City of Eternal Spring aka Dalat! We booked a jump-on/jump-off bus ticket from HCMC which is amazingly cheap, only $21 all the way to Hanoi, you can stay as long as you want at 5 locations on the way. Feel a little bit like a package tourist but it's definitely convenient. Of course the bus company try to get you to stay in their hotels and do their tours in each location, which is how they make their money I sup...

We thought we wouldn't need a sleeper compartment for our day trip from Hoi An to Nha Trang, so we chose regular seats instead and threw in our lot with the locals. Vietmanese trains aren't the quickest. It's possible the tardiness was due to restrictions enforced after the recent crash, but our 500km journey was somehow stretched out to 10 hours, with an average speed slightly slower than the go-karts in Lang Kawi. I don't know if you've spent much time in the presence of old people that hav...

We finally arrived at our hotel, after the bus trip from hell. We look at eachother and were actually strangely disappointed that we didn't have any live chickens on our bus trip, that would have topped it off nicely. So here we were, Sunrise Beach Resort in Nha Trang, the indulgent part of our holiday where no expense was spared. No expense could be spared it turned out, these sods charged for EVERYTHING. We were greeted at the enormous french doors by an army of staff wanting to help us, th...

We last left you on the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue. Hue is the ancient capital and we have been to the citadel, the huge palace complete with grand rooms and moat. Second day we toured the DMZ- demilitarized zone, very interesting day complete with ex- army guide who showed us around the old north south diving line- the river, original bridge, & new monument for re-unification. The scenery is stunning, beautiful mountains covered with tropical jungle, its hard to imagine the damage...

From lovely, cultural Hoi An we headed down the coast to the slightly less cultural Nha Trang. Pure beach bum paradise! Nha Trang is Vietnam's budding premier beach resort, with huge stretches of sandy beaches, palm trees, posh beach clubs etc. It gave us a good opportunity to do something active for once, and we took advantage of the watersports on offer and did some catamaran sailing and sea kayaking over to the nearby islands. Eifion also spent an afternoon perfecting his motorbike skills ...

After one more long night on a bus we arrived early in the morning in Nah Trang, the main beach resort of Vietnam. Since the bus gets a commission from hotels, it dropped us at a pretty nice place but a bit away from the main drag. We were too tired to look around and just crashed in a room there. After a long nap we set off for some food and went to the beach. Nah Trang has a really long and wide sandy beach but we were a bit spoiled by Thailand. The water is not as turquoise and warm as in ...

Hi All This was a quick 1hr flight to get a look at the Island and beach's before my time was up and flying back to Saigon to catch my flight to London via Hong Kong again. Got there early in the morning and organized boat trip around the Islands with my accommodation organised prior with a very competent travel agent in Saigon from a company called Hahn Cafe travel chain. The guest house was pretty ok and a cheap price of $20 which included breakfast. Made the mistake of booking the Island t...

The Saigon waterpark was a totally unexpected find, it seemed so out of place to have an Australian run waterpark in the middle of the city complete with wave pool and many hydroslides. The best thing was the total lack of crowds, there was only a handful of locals and about 20 other tourists which meant no queues anywhere. Unfortunately on one of the slides I (Kev) managed to pick up too much speed and melted a hole in my togs! For a more cultural experience we also visited Chinatown and che...

After our one off partying binge, the following day we then booked an open bus ticket which is priced from $21 which allows you to travel throughout the entire length of Vietnam, getting on and off wherever you like (as long a you've booked it ahead!!).We were warned that the buses would take you to hotels where the bus company would get a commission. Well if they did I was happy not to lug our bags about and the hotels were excellent and cost between $6 and $10 for a luxury beach side hotel ...