I drove a motorbike in Vietnam!!! That might sound like nothing (and at first I thought it would be) but it was absolutely the most terrifying thing I have ever done - and sooo incredible. There are barely any trafic lights or any recognizable rules (other than honk if you are not going to stop) and it was such chaos. I was so confident about driving one until I actually saw it, and then completely freaked out. I think my hands were shaking the entire time and my heart racing. We spent a lot of time with some Austraian guys in Nha Trang and rented the bikes with them. Willy and Ashley sat on the back (and still had terrifying experiences) but I was determined to drive one. Glad that is out of my system.... but might do it again. The idea was to rent the bikes and go to some waterfalls 20k outside the city, however we lost eachother almost instantly and just drove around for an hour or two. I wish I could explain it better - my stomach was still in knots for an hour after, even though I was talking about how awesome it was. That is definitely an experience I will never forget.

We spent a week in Nha Trang, which was a few days more than we originally planned. It is a pretty touristy town, but we had a great time. We did an all day boat tour called "The Funky Monkey" (highly recomended to us by some other travelers) and met some fun friends. The trip takes you to four islands and includes snorkling, swimming, jumping off the boat, happy hour from a floating "bar" (gross orange drink from a bucket), some beach time, lunch and a music performance. It was actually so fun that we did it twice - great both times. Did some parasailing, went to lots of good restaurants - everything is still amazingly cheap. OH, our new favorite food is these sandwhichs we get on the street with laughing cow cheese, veggies, soy and chilli sauce on a baguette, they are sooo good. I was missing my favorite food from Japan (hot cabbage and hot dog soup) so its nice to have another good staple.

From Nha Trang we took a 12 hour overnight bus north to Hoi An - we had our own little bunkbeds which was neat, but still rather uncomfortable. Hoi An is the tailoring capital of the country, and everyone who comes here gets tonnnnss of clothes made and shipped home. So I have a few dresses in the works - you have to go in for multiple fittings to get them right. Today we rented bicycles and went to the beach, which is about 5k from our hotel. On the way back we stopped for lunch at a restaurant over the river, which was beautifel and looked like it might collasp at any minute. I am in constant awe of this country and its various beauties.