PJs, Mr. King Kong and the slaughter street: you gotta love Vietnam!

We arrived in Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City in the middle of the night and noticed right away the language barrier as our taxi driver didn't speak any English! We still managed to find our hotel and bargain about the taxi price, even though the driver almost started crying when we didn't want to pay him enough. Our hotel receptionist (who ironically also was the security guy according to his shirt) was sleeping when we arrived. It took us a long time to wake him up. We were shouting, giggling and poking him and still he was fast asleep. Finally when Katja removed his pillow he woke up :) Our hotel was the nicest hotel we have had so far with bathrobes and real blankets (apart from our hotel in LA) and it only cost 25 USD! Everything is really cheap in Vietnam, we have paid around 10-15 USD a night for nice hotel rooms and food rarely costs over 3 USD.

Vietnamese woman selling fruits

Walking around in Vietnam is really interesting and really an experience itself. The people here wear their PJs everywhere (we don't know if they actually use them as PJs or only as normal clothes but they look like PJs to us). Crossing the street here is a suicide mission! The motorcycles are everywhere and they don't stop even when they see you are crossing the road. We have a special technique when we cross the roads, we walk reaaally slowly and try not to get hit by anything.

Pyjama party in the middle of the day

We spent one day in Ho Chi Minh City just walking around and shopping and took a bus to Mui Ne in the afternoon. Mui Ne is a little beach town, famous for its sanddunes and kitesurfing. We visited the white (which we thought were actually yellow) and red sanddunes on a daytrip. In the evening we decided to pamper ourselves and took a massage that only cost us 5 USD.

Red sand in Mui Ne

Fairy stream

Walking in the Fairy Stream, the sand felt really nice under your feet

The sand was really soft so it was hard to not fall

Cute puppy

Fishing boats

Lili trying to slide down the dunes

Nha Trang was supposed to the beach capital of Vietnam, but it was raining there when we arrived there. :( That's why we decided to spend only one night there and catch a bus to Hanoi the next day.

Cute boats in Nha Trang

When we arrived in Hanoi we were dropped off in a really small and crowded street where we decided to stay. Our hotel is in a street where people sell everything from raw meat to yammy fruits. The smell is kind of disgusting but you get used to it. The people actually slaughter some of the animals (mostly chicken and fish) right in the street! That's why we named our street The Slaughter Street!

Cutting meat

Hanoi

From Hanoi we did a two day trip to Halong Bay. We spent two days sailing around the bay in our cute boat and visited a huge cave. The cave was really big, 10 000 square meters in total. It was discovered in 1962 by the French. We don't really know what our guide's real name was but assuming the pronounciation would be too hard for tourists he asked us to call him Mr. King Kong! :)

Our cabin in the boat

Halong Bay

The cave

Inside the cave

Inside the cave

Tonight we are taking a night bus to Laos. We don't know if we are able to get into the country because we didn't apply for visas beforehand but we'll see and hope for the best. In the worst case scenario we'll just have to bribe the immigration officers to grant visas for us.