Friday, July 24th

Please see previous post for details on Thursday.

This morning we got up bright and early. We requested a wake-up call but don't even know why when we still have that stinkin bird still outside that remains ever so determined in waking everyone up at 6am. At 7:05 am we were off. We hired a driver to take us to Mui Ne, a beach town that was three hours away. Three. After the 3 hour mark, the theme song to Gilligan's Island started streaming through my mind, especially when the driver didn't appear to know where he was going. "Oh, sit right back and I'll tell you a tale. A tale of a tiny ship (in our case it was a Mercedes Van)...A Three Hour Tour...A Three Hour Tour." Yeah, so 5.5 hours later, with hair pulled out from my head in one hand and with an empty tube of Preparation H in the other, we arrived at our destination. Oh yeah, get this. Our destination was only 140 km away from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) but with traffic and speed being a factor, we decided to go for the world record. Unfortunately we came in second but only to an elderly man riding a three-legged blind donkey. Anyways, on a good note, our hotel is catalogue worthy (and no, I'm not talking about the Transat catalogue). Check us out....

http://www.cocobeach.net/

Yes, we are staying in one of those lovely huts by the beach for a mere $96.00/night including breakfast. Oh yeah, did I mention that I got a massage, manicure and pedicure for $18. Oh. Woe is me. I know. But hey, someone has to take one for the team. As I sat there in a comfortable cushioned lounge chair, sipping on my fresh coconut milk, straight from the source and gazing at the bananas hanging in a nearby tree that lazily swung through my view of the ocean blue, I sat there and started thinking "What the he!! was up with the driver burping all the way here?? Did he think we didn't understand burp in Vietnamese?" You know there is a saying here in Vietnam "It is not the north, it is not the south; nobody trusts the center." We aren't sure what it means, but it must mean something to someone and we think the driver is in on it. 3 hours. You just wait. If he ever comes to visit us in Ontario, I'm going to fix his wagon. I'm going to take him on a day-trip to Vancouver. Yeah, it's only a 3 hour car ride and I'm going to drive over EVERY speed bump across Canada with 2 hollering children asking every 5 minutes, "are we there yet?"