Ninh Tịnh

In the morning I woke up with horrific cramps and stomach pains like when I was ill before... At the crack of dawn we went to get our bus to Tuy Hao. It seems all buses have weird lying down seats and once again we were in in the top back corner. If I'm honest the whole journey was horrible. The driver was driving very carefully for once but the roads were horrifically bumpy and windy and I was constantly being thrown out my seat. But we eventually got their safe and sound to our lovely hotel and had a bit of a rest before heading out. We hired a scooted for the evening and next day so that we could do all the must sees. That evening we went to the beach which had huge waves, watched some fishermen, saw the one "must do" in in the town (Thấp Nạn) and ate fresh grilled mackerel ở nướng (mackerel summer rolls). I could barely eat so just nibbled and the headed to get some water. We only went for water and came out with so many treats... Wups...

I had the best night sleep in a very long time! The stomach cramps were still bad but we only had the day to site see before our 10pm sleeper train so we jumped on the scooter in search of some breakfast. We did our daily "I don't know what your are saying in Vietnamese, but I would just like some food", which always seems to work and then we headed to Vietnamese Giant's Causeway. The weather was really lovely again and although sitting on a scooter for an hour and a half isn't the best it was lovely when we got there. We then took a few detours to see some other local shorelines and villages and it really was a lovely day. Only problem was my stomach was just going mental all day so Will had to do most of the exploring on his own while I just sat on the rocks practising Vietnamese. But hey I had a great day.

For dinner we wanted mackerel, rice and salad. So we headed to a different local restaurant. After about 2-3 mins they eventually understood what we wanted and we understood what they meant however they didn't have what we wanted. So we had mackerel ở nướng again. The locals were so lovely. They insisted on talking to us fully in Vietnamese even though we didn't have a clue sometimes but it was great. When we got back to the hotel they were absolutely lovely, we had a couple of hours till our train and they let us in one of the rooms to just chill out and shower until the taxi came. Honestly hospitality of the Vietnamese is so lovely. They treat everyone as family and its just so lovely. After resting and finalising our next two days accomodation we headed to to the train station for our first time on a Vietnamese Sleeper Train...

Well as we have been super under budget for the last couple of months we decided to go first class (4 births in a room instead of 6). The bed was long enough to fit Will and overall people were generally quiet. However the announcement is in Vietnamese and having read online the arrival time can be 1 and a half hour early or late... So I was terrified of sleeping through our stop. But I got some kịp and we arrived safe and sound to Danang.Read more