Bye bye Vietnam

Back in France after a fabulous trip! It's good to be home again, although I hope it won't be too long before I take my back-pack and leave to discover new places ;-)))

Life is tough

Past weeks' photo summary

Getting fastfood in HCMC... on your "motobike"!

Cu Chi tunnels (HCMC)

Here I come...

... you can tell that these tunnels were built for Vietnamese and not us other giants ;-)))

Mui Ne

Sunset over the red sand-dunes in Mui Ne.

Christmas has come to Mui Ne

Ok, ok, I know that we are on the beach... but still - coconuts under the Christmas tree!!!

Rainy days

Hoi An

View of the market from my hotel... in the afternoon water was knee high where this photo was taken from.







Flooding does not seem to bother locals in Hoi An - you just take your boat instead of the "moto".





Hue

Rainy day for cyclo drivers in Hue...

Sunshine - finally!!

The sun is back!! I've been relaxing on the beach in Mui Ne after my 20 hour bus drive to this Southern part of Vietnam. However, since there doesn't seem to be any good surf here 1 day at the beach is enough...
Tomorrow I'll go back to HCMC to catch a bus to the Mekong Delta instead - and then my trip has almost come to an end...

Flooding...

New weather update: the rain has finally stopped, but now most places on the coast are flooded.
In Hoi An the water has come up a couple of blocks from the river - I have to walk through knee-high water to get to my hotel, and there is now water in the room I slept in last night... I will leave with the nightbus (20 hrs!!) in a couple of hours, hoping that the roads are not in too bad shape.
Apparently my next planned stop has been severily touched by the typhoon, with many houses & all beach bungalows gone. Don't really know where to go next, as the typhoon has chosen more or less the same itinerary as I have :-(
Will keep you updated on my next stops - if I actually manage to get somewhere...

Rain, rain, rain...

Ok, I should have known that my luck with the weather wouldn't last... It has been raining ever since I came to Central Vietnam - 4 days of heavy rain in both Hue and Hoi An.
I have adopted a new fashion - rubber pants and a rain coat that covers everything from my head to the knees (including all my bags etc). Wouldn't even imagine leaving my room without these essential pieces of clothing ;-)

Some locals told me that normally the rain period should have been over already, but the typhoon that came in from the Philippines brought some very bad weather... I was a bit worried that the typhoon would hit Hoi An again (as it did on Oct. 3rd), but it seems like the worst of it was a bit South from here, although we've had a few restless nights with hard winds and heavy rain. The streets closest to the river are all flooded - but this does not seem to worry the locals at all, so I guess it's just normal...

I'll stay one day longer in Hoi An, in order to avoid problems on the road. I have to wait and see if I need to cancel my surfing plans - if it looks very bad down on the South-east coast I'll probably go towards the Mekong Delta and then the West coast instead of Mui Ne.

More to follow from (I hope) a sunnier place...