This email update arrived yesterday from Judith:
Hey everyone,
So since our last email we've been in Hoi An, Nha Trang, and we just arrived in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon).
Hoi An was really nice. Because of the timing of the busses, we ended up staying there for 2.5 days. The old quarter is really nice, quaint, and partially blocked off to most traffic so it had a really nice atmosphere. The food was hit and miss but we found a really nice cafe that we spent a good amount of time at. After sundown they light up the main street with lanterns which was pretty. We went to a nearby beach the first morning that was nice and because we went in the morning we missed most of the tourists. Mark got custom made dress shoes and sandals that look really nice. They recommended waiting a couple days for the glue to set properly and he's very impatient to start wearing the sandals. I had a dress made that I'm excited to try out, but I'll wait until I'm home. This is definitely a place to get clothes made, although to do it properly you should probably go for a week or 2 with a bunch of ideas in mind. Mark thinks this has been his favourite city so far.
We then took a night bus to Nha Trang that was far from great. The beach there was a lot busier. All the menus were in Vietnamese, Russian, and English. We had what we both agree as our best meal so far.
It was a local restaurant, we were the only tourists there for a while. They brought a charcoal fire and grill and placed it on our table along with marinated beef and chicken that we then barbequed ourselves. We also had garlic fried rice that was surprisingly very sparsely fried so it still stuck together well, so using the chopsticks wasn't an issue (no knives or forks were provided). On our way back we stopped in a bakery and bought some small cakes including a very hipster (and yummy) 1000 layer matcha cake. We left the next morning which is today :-)
We got into Saigon and it took us a whole 1 minute to walk to our hostel. After settling in we went over to Burger King to eat some nostalgic American fast food. We've only seen 1 Starbucks and 1 KFC and that was in Hanoi so we indulged ourselves tonight.
Now it's off to bed! We have a full day here tomorrow then fly out to Kuala Lumpur the next day (with Vietnam Airlines not Malaysia).
Having fun but missing you all!
Judith and Mark
