Saigon to Nha Trang marked the first night on a sleeper train for a while, and the beggining of another country long journey. Determined to 'Russian' it up a bit, the way all long train trips should be, I stopped messing about with the whisky and turned back to the vodka for this leg of my route. It has to be said, the Vietnamese people seemed to live up to the Russian stereotype more and a visit to restaurant cart had us welcomed open arms for a change whilst a very merry crowd of locals drank the night away. We didn't stop with them but did the same in our own cabin, and got to bed in time to grab ourselves 20 mins sleep. It's shame the first thing we had to do after getting off was get on a boat! It was ok, I soon adjusted and it turned out to be the perfect place to recover. But I've learnt that not only does South East Asia have Jungle Bugs, it also has Sea Fleas. Don't know what they were, but everytime we jumped into the water we came under attack from some sort of tiny, biting mite!
Fully recovered and rested, the next day was excellent. Before some group bonding at a near by mud bath, we took a motorcycle tour to a local orphanage and had a great time with the kids. To pose for the picture and the see the results was like the most fun they'd ever had. And despite them all looking as happy as can be, we all couldn't help but feel really sad for them. It was a great place though, and once everyone had managed to shake the kids off their backs and retrieve their cameras back off them, some followed us out to say good-bye. It seemed very Long Way Down for a moment, except Charley Boorman and Ewan McGregor never rode away on the back of a mopeds!
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