Hello again!
Well, we finally made it into our hotel. Arrived at 9am, check in wasn't until 12. We had both breakfast and lunch in the hotel bar, and explored a little but it was pretty hard with all our luggage etc. Our room is beautiful! Something we have noticed here is that a lot of the rooms have two beds... I think it must be unconventional for non-married couples to sleep together here! It is pretty warm at night (even though it is winter here, 27 degrees, brrrrr!) so its nice to have a bed each to spread out in. The accommodation here is beautiful, probably best so far. The location is great, about ten metres to the beach, and the room is lovely. We got the accomm on Agoda.com and got a free upgrade to a deluxe room- this is only costing us $28 a night!
This afternoon it was rainy so we decided to make our way to the Thap Ba Hot Springs. When we got there, we were talked into the very best package ($24 each for 3 hours) which included a 15 minute private mud bath, a 45 minute mineral springs bath, a foot massage and free entry to the public mineral springs etc. The mud bath was very weird! It felt disgusting and nice at the same time. We obviously couldn't take photos in there as we were covered in mud but they had a photographer taking photos that only cost $4 to buy (A4ish size) so you will be able to see how funny we look covered in mud. After that we rinsed off then made our way up to the mineral springs where we got a private bath and a plate of fresh pineapple. They even put cinnamon in the bath which made it smell amazing! After 45 mins two Vietnamese girls came to do the massage. The feet massages were amazing, they found all the pressure points in your feet and you could just feel yourself relaxing. They then whispered to us that they would give us a full body massage if we wanted to pay them "whatever we want" in cash. This is Vietnamese for "you name the price, and I will probably rip you off". The massage was so good that I said yes though, and we gave them 50, 000 dong each which is about $2.50- the daily wage in Vietnam is about five bucks, so pretty good, and our massages were divine!
We then went swimming etc, went in the mineral waterfall, picked up our photo and headed back to the hotel where I fell asleep immediately because I was so relaxed and am feeling pretty run down! After an hours siesta, we headed across the road to probably the coolest restaurant I have ever been too. Picture this: a microbrewery surrounded by pools of fresh, live seafood, thatched huts with tables underneath them with flowers, candles etc, a pool, and beach huts where you could see the waves crashing. It was just awesome. It is called Louisiane Brewhouse- just amazing! I had a fruit juice and Craig had a freshly brewed beer (which he spouted as being one of the best he has had) and we started with a mixed sharing plate that had rice paper rolls, spring rolls, tempura prawns and sate prawns- the yummiest prawns I have ever had! For main we had this sesame crusted pork which was just divine and steamed fresh snapper with soy beans and herbs. Very nice. Along with this we had another drink each and all this set us back $24! That's expensive for Vietnam too.
Tomorrow we had planned to take one of Mama Linh's crazy boat tours, where you pretty much float around a bar all day drinking wine and island hopping (only $6!) but we are going to see a) how the weather is, as it is rainy season and b) how I feel as I have a feeling I am getting a flu or cold. May have to find a chemist tomorrow to fix me up. I think I am just run down because of too many long days, early mornings and not enough down time. It has been an amazing week so far however.
We are thinking perhaps lounging around the pool at Louisiane might be more tempting tomorrow, drinking freshly brewed beer.... Hmmmm...
Going up to our room now to watch Miss Earth 2010- its being held on the next island over 'Vinpearl Land' and there is advertising for it EVERYWHERE. I think everyone in Vietnam will be watching it, may as well join in. We wished we had have known as it was only about $25 a head to attend!
Anyways, will update again soon. Hopefully I can fight this sickness (just like me to get the flu in a tropical climate, grrrr). After tomorrow night we are off to Saigon for four nights (four nights in one place will be amazing) then onto our tropical island escape for another four nights! So much to come! :) x
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