My trip to Vietnam. #Part One

This is my recollection of my adventures with World Challenge when we travelled to Vietnam for a month.

On the 23rd November 2013, at roughly 10:30am we boarded the plane to fly to Kulala Lumpur, our first stop over before we officially fly to Ho Chi Minh City, also formally known as Siagon.

Waiting at Melbourne airport was hell, for many reasons. Normally I wouldn't mind waiting for my plane to arrive. But there happened to be a bit of a lost and found game to be played... with my passport. The story is as follows:

Usually, I have everything on me at all times, but we had just passed customs and we followed Belinda, our teacher and Immy, our assistant guide to the gate that we had to board the plane on, that was all good. No hiccups there.
"Okay guys, make sure that you're back here by 15 past nine at the latest," Cool, we had time. The girls and I went to the bathroom. I think I was the last one out, I dried my hands and walked out.
When we were nearing Hungry Jacks, I realised I didn't have my passport on me at all, I flipped and I am pretty sure I had an anxiety attack while I was standing right in the middle of the walk way. Freaking out some more, my friend said that we will back track where we walked from. So we did. And you guessed it, it was sitting on the floor, face up in the bathroom near the hand dryer. What a great start!

So it was an all up 10 or 11 hour flight, that includes the stop over flight from Malaysia to Vietnam, which was 2 hours. I didn't sleep at all on the flight, but maybe that is just me.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh city at 8:30 their time. They are 4 hours behind Australia. So getting used to the time difference was difficult. I think all up I was up for about 2 days, acquiring for the time difference also.

For the next three days we just adjusted ourselves to the climate and it was fun. It kind of reminded me of  if Bali and China and a baby, Vietnam would be there.

Visiting markets, staying up late, watching the english music channel, were few of our favourite things that we did at every single place.

While we were in Vietnam we caught over night trains. They were most definitely not anything flash. We had 2, 10 hour trains and one 21 hour. But after we had finished at Ho Chi Minh City we caught the 10 hour train ride to Nha Trang. We didn't stay very long, I believe it was an hour all up.

The train ride to Nha Trang. - You can see me top left.

The bus ride however, took way longer than expected. I think it was about 5 hours. It was not the most pleasant bus ride. People got on and off the bus like it was public. But we had to make do with what we had.

Sleeping on the 5 hours bus ride.

We arrived at Buon Ma Thout at about 2:30pm and I wasn't particularly fond of this place, I called it creepy town. It was very weird. We retreated to find lunch after we all found some food!

Note: As part of World Challenge, all the students organised the transport, the accommodations, the food, everything. We even had to watch our own budget. I believe the total budget for the entire trip was $11,000 US.

We had one night at the hotel, before we set off to our first trek, the acclimatisation phase.

Getting ready to head off!

We stayed in a house that because I didn't bring my mosquito net, because you know, you gotta have those so you don't get malaria! So I shared a tent with my good friends Jade and Teagan. But we slept inside a room in tents... odd.


So we trekked for a while more, then that next night we stayed in a traditional long house. I stayed with Jess, Jade and Grace, and it couldn't be better. This was my favourite day, mainly because I got to see many, many elephants. I got to ride one too! I took a selfie or two with an elephant. It made me smile so much. So here are some photos for you to smile at too!

Our World Challenge Group!

Ah, my selfie!

Grace, with her head torch.

I loved the trek, but I don't think it fully prepared us for what was to come. We walked back to the bus that took us back to our hotel room. We had one more night into creepy town, then we would be off to Dalat!

After the trek, we were all VERY desperate for showers and things that made us feel clean, such as washing our clothes. Normal people would hire people to do that for them, like the boys did. But no, we though we would be cheap and wash it in the bath.

This is like an Eclair that we get back home. It has chocolate custard  inside and it is probably the most amazing thing I have ever eaten in my entire life! 

This is Me, Teagan and Jade washing our clothes after trek. Then me being smart, had either the hair dryer or I stood in front of the air conditioner to dry and dry my clothes. I think I did that most of the night.

Mind you, this is only the first half of the experience, more is to come.

I hope you enjoyed the first instalment of My trip to Vietnam!

S x