Not that we have many photos from Nha Trang anyway - the weather was pretty wet so we contented ourselves with wandering around and getting drunk. Sometimes the other way around. We tried the hotel swimming pool in torrential rain, much to the amusement of the pool attendents. And generally spent quite a lot of time being thankful that we weren't still in Hoi An, which got the full brunt of Typhoon Ketsana a couple of days after we left.
Getting the train out of Nha Trang was quite interesting. Due to the typhoon, the train we were supposed to get at about 12.30 still hadn't left Hanoi by 9am that morning (Hanoi is about 36 hours away from Nha Trang by train). So we dashed down to the station to change our tickets to a different train, which should have arrived at 8pm the previous evening but had been delayed and was expected to arrive at about the same time as our original train. Went back to the hotel, had breakfast, checked out and went to the train station, where we found out that the second train now wasn't expected until 6pm, possibly later. The only other option was a more basic train, leaving in about 15 minutes, which we got hard-sleeper tickets for. It was either that or hard seats, and at least the sleepers have air-conditioning!
In the end I think we got on the first train through, and it was almost completely empty. We somehow ended up playing chess with one of the guards. It was great fun, loads of the other guards crowded in to our otherwise empty cabin to watch and smoke, and the journey went by in a flash. Hard sleeper was a lot more comfortable than we were expecting as well - it was nice to have some space to spread out in, even if Josh couldn't quite sit up straight on the bottom bunk.
A very brief evening in HCMC and then off to the airport. HCMC looked like fun and it was a shame we didn't have more time to explore, but maybe next time...
So far, Hong Kong has been crazy fun. We arrived with just enough time to check in and make our way down to the waterfront to see the 60 years of Chinese Communism fireworks, which were a fair sight better than the ones on Clapham Common. So us and about 50 billion Chinese people were there, and we end up bumping into Tom (Jo's colleague from work). We headed back up into Kowloon from the fireworks and end up in a bar that looked seriously seedy from the outside (and to be frank was pretty seedy on the inside). Not quite sure how the next bit happened, but we ended up playing dice drinking games and singing karaoke with a group of random Chinese people. It was fantastic fun!
Now we're back to paying 3 quid upwards for a pint and having to use the tube to get everywhere, we're starting to look forward to the full package in London.
