massages and mud baths

Dear travel journal,
Today was a relaxing one. I slept in until i couldnt sleep anymore. No alarm for me :) then i got myself sorted and dana and i headed out for a wander. We walked down to the beach front which was super pretty with the mountain views around two sides and spread out ocean in front. Beach umbrellas and couches set up everywhere. Along the way we passed two descent sized book exchanges which were awesome - nerd i know. And then we got smoothies and sat down and had some breaky. After breaky we walked around and checked out a couple of tattoo places for dana to get a lotus flower. We are going to look again once we get to saigon. Then we went and had 80 minute aromatherapy massages which was nice and relaxing for the most part - minus her standing on my back with her full weight. Then we checked out of the hotel, with a severly hung over bianca in toe, and had some lunch. Then back to the hotel to meet everyone and jump on the bus for our afternoon adventures. First we stopped at a catholic church and after hiding undercover while it bucketed down, the arhitecture was pretty cool. Then we stopped at the long son pagoda which had awesome city views from the top. It stretched out to mountain on one side and the sea on the other. Then we were off to the main event - thap ba hot springs centre. Were we mineral water showered, soaked for ages in a mud bath and then showered again, followed by a soak in a hot mineral water bath, then warm waterfalls, warm and then cold pools and then finisbed by chillaxing in the warm pool before showering. We were all together as a group the whole time. It was quite fun and we all have nice skin now lol. Then back into town and we went to a local 'bbq' place. Where they put a coal pot in front of you on the table and you cook your own. Dana and bianca went and had indian food as most of our meal was meat based. We had rice, vegis, chicken, beef, pork, squid and tiger prawns. I was sitting with the boys and bac - we ate soo much food and the smoke was blowing everywhere and it was sooo hot, but very tasty. Then back in the taxi and back to the hotel to wait for the bus to take us to the train. We had a bit of time so the boys and i ran down the road and got ice cream (not that i needed it....). But salted caramel is quite tasty lol. Then back to the hotel and on the bus. Once we got to the train station we found out the train was running nearly an hour late. So we sat and waited and then piled into our cabins when it arrived. Got our stuff sorted and settled in to try and get as much sleep as we could.Read more