Nha Trang is a beach resort which was a 12-hour ‘sleeper’ bus journey from Saigon (the term is used loosely as nobody does much sleeping, thanks in no small part to the sadistic honking of the driver). It has a spotless sandy beach which runs alongside a wide promenade. On the first day the waves were about 7 or 8 foot high! They would pick you up and toss you around like a rag doll before dumping you into the sand. Great fun, and we laughed hysterically through mouthfuls of sand!

The next day we went on a Booze Cruise, which has been a life-long ambition of Tom, one of our travelling companions for about 5 weeks now, and he wasn’t disappointed! We went snorkelling and diving in the South China Sea, sunbathed on a secluded island (obviously boozing all the time); they laid on a huge lunch before we swam to a floating bar (Amy even got in the sea for that!). But the best part of the day was the – unexpected – live music. We groaned when they wheeled out a makeshift drum kit of watering cans and old buckets, and two microphones, but they furnished an electric guitar from somewhere and turned out to be really good! Amy got dragged up on stage to sing ‘Yellow Submarine’. She looked mortified.

In order to recover, the next day we went to a nearby health spa for a mud bath and mineral soak. Just what we needed and we ended up staying the whole day.

We then booked a sleeper train to Hoi An to continue on our journey to the far North of Vietnam. Hopefully it is not as ambitiously titled as the bus.