Vietnam part 2: Trekking (Buon Ma Thuot + Dalat)

Howdy!!!

I am back this week with the second part of my Vietnam series, this one will be all about the joys (not) of trekking!

Sooooo first off we took a train to a small town called Buon Ma Thuot where we settled into our new hotel. We had our acclimatisation and then our big trek. The next day we took a bus to begin our first trek, this was honestly the most nervous I have ever been. Think of a fit teenager? Yeah dat aint me. The first day was actually not that bad and we had these cute little packed lunches that included some fruit, a juice box, a sandwich, muesli bars. My typical school lunch but after a few hours of trekking I would have eaten anything to be honest hehe. The weather was pretty hot so getting to the place we would be staying for the night was a huge relief. About ten minutes before we arrived at camp we passed a very appealing river (????) that would be perfect for swimming and cooling off in. We got back to camp and set our tents up and got changed into our swimming gear and made our way down for a PERFECT swim. That night we had a mean dinner and sat around the camp fire. During the campfire a friend of mine Lilly and I were chilling out and she just stopped and gave me a look of shock and burst into tears, no one knew what was going on. She stuttered out that she thinks there is a snake up her pant leg - we had just had a talk on snakes. We ran and grabbed our leader to ask him what to do and he had to reach up her pant leg but it just turns out it was just a frog!!! This was so eye opening to what could really happen!!!! The next day we left this camp site and walked again for not that long to where we hung out with some elephants - oh my god!!! I was really keen for the whole trip to ride an elephant but when we arrived and I saw them and the people looking after them, me (and like half of my group) decided that we did not want to participate. We did not like the look of the way we were treated and just felt uneasy about the whole situation so we just sat and chatted while the rest of my group ride the elephants. No judging towards challengers that did ride the elephants - it was just personal choice. I really thought that when I arrived back to New Zealand I would have regretted my decision but something that someone had said stuck with me throughout the remainder of the trip - "Now I know how those elephants felt carrying everyone, my tramping bag is so heavy." Although I did get some ca-ute photographs with the elephants, so I am happy!

That night we stayed at one of the coolest places I have ever been to - and may ever go to!! They were called stilt houses and they were made out of wood and are held up on stilts. Around the area the stilt houses were on there was a giant bridge, a playground and all these amazing statues. I honestly can not string together the words of what they were like so I will just chuck some photos in! All the girls of my group stayed in a big long one for the night, and after we had dinner and a exploring pretty much my whole group piled in there and played a game of 21 (truth or dare) for a solid three hours. At the stilt houses there was a cafe area and a little gift shop where a lot of shopping was done, we found it was better prices than stuff in the big cities. The next day was Christmas and I think some of my group was feeling very homesick as it was the first time they had been away from home at Christmas time. Thankfully we had Mark, a fellow world challenger who had bought a santa hat and beard on the trek with him to make sure no one felt any kind of sadness on this happy day, bless him. :') Also, the people living at the stilt houses had been given a mix tape of a whole bunch of modern songs so, as weird as this sounds: we had a bit of a dance party in a big stilt house with all of the locals, but it is one of my fondest memories! We took a bus ride back to the hotel we were staying at and then had an AMAZING christmas lunch and did a cute secret santa!! Although I did feel a little homesick, spending it with my gorgeous World Challenge family made it all worth while. <3

Sooooo after that we made our way to the GORGEOUS city of Dalat and settled into our new hotel that we had organized a few days before. As we were unpacking Mark ran into our room telling us to evacuate the hotel, the manager was snooping through one of the boys bags and we were going to be staying in Dalat for a while so it was not worth the risk! We found another hotel about five minutes down the road and it was best decision we could have ever made, the owner of the new hotel, Le An was such a cool guy!!! So the next day we made our way to Phat Tire Ventures (who we trekked with) and picked up all our gear that we would be carrying in our bags - food, tents, bottled water and then we boarded the bus and rode to where we would begin our trek (how about no)??? I am going to be honest, the trek was such a mess with people going back early due to injury and illness I can not really remember what is what!!!!! But the first day we did 12k second day we did 6k and the last day we did around 3k. Trekking was HARD, easily some of the hardest physical work I have ever done. Although some awesome memories were made whilst trekking!!!! I got to tent with Lilly and we stayed up for hours just talking about life in our little two man tent!!! We played campfire games around the fire on chilly nights and washed our teeth and dishes in random streams!!! BUT, we had to leave the trek early due to too many people getting sick and injured. One challenger left on the first day, one left on the second day and on the third morning one of our teachers woke up really sick and was planning on going back. But, one of our teachers was already not on the trek and people were just getting more and more sick so if people got to the point where they couldn't go anymore it would be too difficult to get back to civilization. So that morning (to my lowkey happiness) we left the trek. I did make really nice memories and the end of our (only) 12k day getting to our site and setting up our tents and getting out of our drenched in sweat clothes, it was the bestest, most rewarding feeling ever!!! I just need to say that my hatred for tramping was in no way World Challenge's fault, I am just lazy and would rather just not. Our guides were awesome - despite their lack of English!! They fed us well and stopped to take breaks when we needed to - love you Phat Tires Ventures!

Thanks so much for reading!!! I hope this is enjoyable for you all!!! Love you long time!! Shan xx

P.S Look at my shweet as swimsuit!!! <3 

I YouTube now???

Sort of!!!! Instead of doing another blog post doing a haul I decided to make my very first YouTube video woo hoo!!!! I hope that YouTube will become a regular thing for me, so any video requests would be very appreciated!!!

SO WITHOUT FURTHER A DUE (Spelling????)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcY9H2Ml6_s

Love ya!
Shan x

Vietnam part 1: Acclimatisation

Howdy readers. <3

This is the first part of my four part series about my life changing trip to Vietnam. First, I will give you a rundown on the company I went with:

What is World Challenge?
In my own words, World Challenge is an company that allows teens (and beyond) to see the world in a new way. You get to head over to another country for a month and experience their way of living. There are four parts to each trip, acclimatisation, trekking, community project and rest and recreation.

This blog post will be about the acclimatisation sector of my trip. This is the first first few days of my trip, it allowed us to all adapt to our new surroundings. Get used to the climate, food, currency, people etc.

Stepping off the plane into Ho Chi Minh city airport was not gonna lie, scary as hell. Something that made everything a little bit comforting was the amazing Vietnamese woman I had met on the plane. We had talked about Vietnam and the weather and all that stuff. After the flight she asked for a photo and it made the start of my whole trip. And going outside the airport was even even scarier. I had never seen so many people and vehicles in one place ever. It was beyond anything I had ever seen! We found a bus and as soon as we got on the driver was trying to rip us off - welcome to Vietnam!! The bus ride to our first (of many) hotels was hectic. I had never been on  road so busy in my entire life!! We all took so many photos and videos only to find out that pretty much ALL of Vietnam was like that. There are no road rules and people just drive any direction they please. There is also no proper way to cross the road. You walk out in front of the mopeds and they stop for you, that is the way it goes - they will never hit you!!

One of the first proper memories I have from Ho Chi Minh City is going out for our first lunch!!! I was with the people I spent the majority of the trip with. We went to a place that sold proper Vietnamese food and I had Pho (beef noodle soup) and a coke. We were only out of the hotel for about two hours but I was freaking out so much!!! I do not do well in crowded places (so, Vietnam in a nutshell) and even in New Zealand I freaking SUCK at crossing the road and to top it off, what the hell is up with the currency???? But I made it through that stressful first day and had an awesome nights sleep and gossip with my beyond perfect room mate Kate.

The next few days were pretty much just exploring, which I love more than anything!!!! Discovering new stores and cafes. Pretty much in every city we went to, we had our "usual". The food or drink store we went to pretty much daily. Our usual in Ho Chi Minh was a perfect cafe called ABC Bakery. Loooooove it.

We visited the War Remnants Museum and I would say it is one of the highlights of my entire trip. It was filled with actual things found from the Vietnam/American War. There was a whole room dedicated to beautiful black and white photographs taken during the war. We also learned about "Agent Orange" and looked at a bunch of photographs of people effected. Agent Orange is a chemical that was dropped during the war to destroy forests and trees. But as well as killing nature, it also ended up killing a lot of people in the area. Those who didn't die that went on to have children gave birth to deformed babies. As much as learning all these things made me feel a little uneasy it made me really think about a lot of things and (don't call the cliche police on me) made me so thankful for all my working limbs. As you walked into the museum there was five or six seven Agent Orange suffers sitting at the door and they were selling little bits of jewelry but one young man that caught my eye was playing piano AMAZINGLY. As I stood by and watched for a while I noticed that he had no eyes. There was just skin where ones eyes should be. I was both so shocked and inspired at the same time.

Thank you so much for reading!! I hope to me be publishing blogs every Monday but we shall see!!! Stay golden xoxo