Merida to Caceres - unfinished business

Tuesday: We took the bus from Madrid to Merida, 4 hour trip. Arrived in the rain, glad we had booked a hotel, everything was full for semana santa. Jose Marie at Hotel Serano welcomed us, remembered my attempt at an email in Spanish. We had a great lunch in the Plaza de Espana, then walked across the 2000 year old Roman bridge where I finished the camino last year. We wandered around the town, past the Temple of Diana, the colusseum, the circus maximus, the aqueduct in the pouring rain. In the evening we had some tapas, and on the way back to the hotel, encountered the semana santa procession.

Madrid April 16 to April 19

Arrived in Madrid on Saturday afternoon. Got the airport express bus to Plaza Cibeles and walked to Sol and Plaza Santa Cruz where we are staying. Hotel is on the second floor, another hotel on the third. Real Madrid is playing Barcelona FC in the first of four `el clasicos´ in the next 17 days. Lots of football fans on the streets, great sense of anticipation. We catch the end of the United / City FA Cup semi final in a tiny bar, get some dinner at a Tapas bar, order the tripe and it actually tastes good. Very rich sauce, and I eat at least 3 mouthfuls. Mum would have been proud. The game is kicking off at 10pm, we decide to stay in and watch it on tv, but I am asleep in about 2 minutes. Get a text in the morning from Mike in Australia. Apparently it was a gruesome 1 all draw. Bring on Wednesday, might be awake for that one. We visit the el Rastro market on Sunday morning, blocks and blocks of streets south of Calle Toledo, with market stalls selling everything from plumbing equipment, antiques, clothes, knives, anything you could want. Great excuse for a walk. In the afternoon we go to the Thyssen art gallery and see some great paintings, little break in the Retiro, then queue up for the free session at the Prado at 5pm and see more great paintings. Big paintings.

Where are all the bikes

Home now and watched this again. All looks very familiar

http://www.streetfire.net/video/top-gear-vietnam-special-part-1_208329.htm#

Welcome to Melbourne was a 2 hour wait to get through customs.

Back to Saigon and coming home

It is hot here, damn hot. I wandered down to the market and Mike went off and got a haircut. Came back an hour late with blood on his face. Good hair cut, but bad shave. Took an hour to wash his hair, I was beginning to think he had gone through on his comment to stay here. It was harder than we thought to find someone to print our boarding passes, there are hundreds of computer shops, but finally we found an internet do it all shop. Wandered past all the brand shops, they are not so cheap, but there is a little place in between with chickens in a cage. I think we have got used to all the noise and congestion and crazy traffic coming straight at you on the pavement. Melbourne will be quiet after this.

Mui Ne

It took us about 2 hours to get out of the Saigon conurbation. We passed lots of weddings that are held in tents in the dirt by the side of the road. We were dropped off at our hotel a few km out of Mui Ne. Beautiful spot by the beach. Seems to be lots of Russians here.

Saigon

We spent the day in Saigon.
We walked up to the intersection where the Buddhist monk set himself on fire in 1963.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c
We said goodbye to Nicole, then went to the street where all the travel agencies are and booked our bus to Mui Ne. $5 for a 250km 4 hour trip.
I went to Saigon Tax, the department store, and bought some supplies for our trip in the Supermarket department.
We all met at 1pm and went to the massage place for a fish treatment. The fish eat your dead skin and is great fun for the ticklish.
We had some pho for lunch and said goodbye to Alyce, Mike, Phoebe and Caroline.
Only us left in Saigon, we went for dinner at the Pub and got chatting to a bloke from Manchester who has lived in Saigon for 2 years. His mate from Glasgow, also living in Saigon, joined him later and they went off to watch United play Blackpool at the very civilised hour of 8pm in Saigon. Mike is coming down with the flu.

Mekong Delta

We spent the day south of Saigon, visiting the Mekong Delta. The road south seemed to be better than the roads around Hanoi. It took us a while to get out of Saigon through the traffic then went through countryside to a large town where we got a boat on the Mekong River.