I made it to the bird sanctuary today, and got some nice views of the mountain on the way. The set up at the place is a bunch of boardwalks through mangrove swamps and over small ponds. Sadly I didn't have and insect repellent to ward off all the mozzies that lived in the swamps and ponds. Thankfully I had my coat to cover up my arms and apparently mozzies aren't such big fans of after sun lotion so I didn't get too bitten in the end. It could have been a lot worse. I saw a few birds, including a kingfisher and then when I was done sweating away and swatting off the mozzies I got a taxi back into town. I went to a random street restaurant to get some chicken and rice.

(cool thing number one about Asia - when you get hungry just find a ransom street cafe and they will serve you a rice or noodle dish pretty quickly. In Vietnam its often Pho or Bun Cha but here you can get chicken rice, or various sorts of curries. It's all there for you to choose from and then they just whack it on a plate and serve it to you. It's cheap and tasty, and usually quick, and it's fresh as despite being ready when you get there its only recently been cooked and so is still fresh. I guess its the noodle/rice-based version of McDonalds!)

Next up I headed out to the museums. It was a grim walk in the heat but once I was there it was amazingly air conditioned. I had a look around the main part of the museum then I went to the Islamic civilization part before walking around the heritage village. Like the museum of ethnology in Hanoi its a selection of traditional reed houses, usually on stilts. Unlike Hanoi, its surrounded by jungle and water and therefore more mozzies!

The museums were near a Sikh temple and the state mosque so I went to check them out - I went into Sikh temple as some guy there showed me and and told me all about the place, but I just passed by the mosque as there was no-one about and I didn't want to do something wrong or end up somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Instead I jumped in a taxi and headed to the shopping centre

(cool thing number two about Asia - taxi's are air conditioned and cheap. Sweet!)

I had a look around some of the shops and picked up a few things to decorate my room with as well as some shoes and a pretty top. I also went to Starbucks and indulged in a caramel hot chocolate. Vietnamese places don't really know how to make a decent hot chocolate so I enjoyed the decent Starbucks version very much!

When I was done with the centre I went over to the market for a look around and then I grabbed some random chicken on a stick thing from a street stall and then saw that the sun was starting to set over the ocean. I went to a cafe on the waterfront and got a drink whilst watching the sun set. It was pretty clear today so the view from the top of the hill would probably have been better than it was when I went up there a couple of days ago but I really couldn't be bothered to go up there and then come back down and head back to that part of town again. I guess I've seen the sun set into the ocean plenty of times in Brighton to not feel like I missed out on anything. Once the sun had disappeared I went along the sea front a bit to the place that offered massages and reflexology. I'd got a few leaflets about other places throughout the day but this place had beds facing the sea front and looked really nice so I went there and got a shoulder massage and some reflexology on my bright red feet (my amazing rainbow flip flops don't like getting wet and have now dyed the soles of my feet bright red!) and it was so good and so cheap!

I headed back to the hostel past the supermarket and discovered marmite which was possibly the shopping highlight of my day! They only way to get it in Hanoi is to pay a gazillion pounds for a tiny jar imported from the UK but bigger jars are available here and are pretty much the same price as back home!


I've now gotta pack my marmite and all my other crap as I'm heading to Brunei tomorrow. The boat goes at 8am so I'm not gonna be up for packing in the morning!