The one with a dragon, a scooter, and a cocktail as 'big' as a shooter

After a lazy morning of making sure that our CVs were up to date and writing cover letters, we set off in search of some schools to drop everything off with. We spent our first half an hour at a copy shop trying to get our newly updated CVs printed and then proceeded to walk to where we thought we should go. We soon realised that the night before we were right by our hotel and instead of turning right we turned left! Two hours of walking could have been avoided but as Ross kept saying, "it's all part of the experience".

We met a lovely man along our walk who placed his heavy load of coconuts onto Ross's shoulder and told me to take a photo. He then quickly opened two coconuts, placed straws in them and gave them to us. Before we knew it we were being charged a rather large amount for coconuts that we didn't want! We were scammed yet again! Next time we'll definitely be more street smart (haha).

Sneaky coconut seller

We found were we thought we needed to be but saw a man dressed very smartly and decided that we definitely weren't dressed appropriately to go and hand out our CVs. So we went to the nearest supermarket to explore and decided that it was a walk worth taking as now we knew where we needed to go the next day. We managed to find water in the supermarket for a third of the price that we were paying in our hotel and on the streets, score! Now we know where to buy our water.

On our way back to the hotel we walked through a park which was full of men and children all playing a version of hacky sack that uses a shuttlecock-type-of-thing. There were also a bunch of random sculptures but no explanation to be found on what they were about or why they were there. This seems to be a trend in Vietnam, beautiful / random things scattered around for no apparent reason.

Random statue

A dragon bush guarding the temple in the park

A temple in the public park

Now, knowing our way home, we decided to venture back to the market for lunch. We had a delicious (and cheap) meal of shrimp (prawns) and vermicelli (noodles).

The 'restaurant' in the market

Deeeelish! We'll definitely go back to this place

That evening, we were met by one of Ross's friends from Howick, Craig Sharratt. We went and had some drinks with him around the corner and he definitely made us feel at ease in this crazy city by answering our questions and reassuring us that we were definitely in the right place.

On Thursday morning (happy birthday Mel!), we decided to try our hand at scooting through the streets. It's way cheaper to hire a scooter for a month than day-by-day and we figured we'd get the hang of it sooner or later, so sooner it was. After giving over copies of our passports and drivers licences we zoomed away on our black and lime green scooter. Ross manoeuvred through the streets like a boss, remembering to stick to the right-hand side of the road, not the left like back home! Mel navigated, map in one hand and clinging on tightly with the other as we wound our way into the ends of District 1 to look at an apartment. We aren't sure where we want to live as it will all depend on where we get jobs and we are quite happy in our hotel for the moment (we moved into a new one this morning, we negotiated a nice price), but we decided to start looking just to be able to compare and know what is out there.

Fulling up our scooter with fuel

After our adventure in town, we thought that massages were definitely in order! We both went for a 40 minute full body massage, bliss, well most of the time. There were a few techniques (such as punching our arms and legs) that we weren't familiar with and aren't such huge fans of, but never the less they were extremely reasonable (even with the large tip they demanded) and very relaxing. A wonderful birthday treat that will definitely have to be repeated!

The evening saw us seeking out some beverages and good food. We managed to find beer for 10,000 Dong (about R5!!), very nice price. We also decided to try out the Beef Pho. Ross enjoyed it, Mel on the other hand wasn't a fan! The meat is boiled which just isn't great, it also lacked the layers of flavour that our previous meals had.

Cheeeeeap beer

Beef Pho. Definitely sticking to chicken next time

Busy, busy street

We walked back down the busy street to the cocktail bar that we had seen earlier. Two for one after 9pm! We soon discovered that it's way better to stick to the streets than fancy cocktail lounges as the drinks were teeny tiny and super expensive! So our cocktails were quickly downed (well sipped since they were so small) and we made our way across the road to the supermarket in search of a snack. We found some chips and cold milo... R6 for a cup! This could be the end of our savings.

All in all it was a wonderful day and a great way to spend a birthday abroad.