Hotals and facilities we have experienced

Our hotel in Nha Trang was very very nice.

The Light Hotel and Resort was a three and a half star hotel right on the main strip, across from the Louisiane Brewhouse (refer back to beach day).
It was a really good hotel, a bit dated, but the breakfasts were fabulous, coffee was to die for, and the staff was very helpful. We felt quite pampered.

Our hotel in Ho Chi Minh was not quite on the same level. I can say that it had very nice crown moldings, but we had to watch out for overflowing bathtubs and the odd little visitor.
We only stayed there one night when we arrived and the night before we left, so it worked. We were on a main street nicknamed "Backpackers Alley" and what it lacked in class, it made up in sights. And noise!

Along the way we encountered many facilities (aka toilets) in all shapes and forms. In the interests of your tender tummies, I won't include pictures, but you can use your imagination.

In Vietnam, their version of a bidet was a bendable squirt hose installed beside the toilet, easy access for those hard to reach places. Ladies, you know what I mean. One practice was essential. Unless you were in your own hotel room, you never contemplated even touching the toilet seat, if it even existed!  The little dirty imprints of ladies' shoes on the seat was a timely reminder for those of us with short term memory loss.

We all became experts at squatting and not peeing on our clothes or feet. Often times we didn't even have a toilet, sometimes a trough or just a hole, with the squirty hose or a bucket with a ladle made out of a coconut shell conveniently close by. It's amazing how your standards of acceptable hygiene can be adapted, depending on the urgency of the need!

Our funniest adventure in pee-pee land happened on our return trip from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City. We had made a pit stop and were pleasantly surprised to find the toilets freshly hosed down. Because we were alone, Mom didn't bother to close her door and Shannon had gone down to the far stall. After looking after Mom, Kathy and I each went into our own stall and the door locked behind us.

Our business completed we turned to unlock the door. It wouldn't open. The slide wouldn't move back. We tried to jimmy the slide with a coin but it wouldn't budge. Meanwhile Kathy and I are laughing and pushing and shoving at the door, but we were still locked in. I looked at the space between the the bottom of the door and the wet floor and refused to try and limbo under the door. Meanwhile Kathy had hit the door jamb and suddenly her door popped open!

With such success, I was inspired to implement my rusty martial arts moves and hacky-tacky banged my door jamb. The stalls all rattled and shook down to their bolts and nuts, but my stall door remained firmly shut. The men in the connecting men's toilet started to speak quite excitedly.

Finally Kathy fiddled with her door and discovered that if you pushed the button, the locking mechanism would disengage.

Still laughing hysterically, Kathy and I stumbled out towards the van, only to be met by Shannon who was returning to check on us. Mom and her had been discussing why we were taking so long and had reached the inevitable conclusion that we indeed had been locked in.

A humourous interlude to break the monotony of the drive with one side effect.  Kathy and I were no longer allowed to go to the bathroom alone.