Forget culture... VinPearl rocks!

I should be embarrassed, but I'm not.

I've watched the sun rise at the Taj Mahal (you know the story), I've sat down with thousands of Sikhs eating dinner at their holiest site, I've climbed a Himalayan peak and got lost in a bay of two thousand Limestone Karsts. It's been quite the trip so far.

But the best day?  Vinpearl. Vietnam's premier amusement/water/entertainment park. I barely slept the night before in anticipation, dragging Sarah out of bed at 7am, flagging down a taxi and into the cable car queue to the Island all for 8am. Opening time!

100% unexcited. Miserable. Want to go home.

The cable car over to the island was great fun - 3.3km long with beautiful views. I also got into a very animated chat with the granny in our carriage who was complaining in Vietnamese about having her peanuts confiscated by the guards (I think that's what she said). I animatedly got angry about losing my Oreo's to the guards. Hilarity ensued. Then she wanted to know my weight in case the big Western giant made the cable snap. Cheeky mare.

Heading out to VinPearl island

A little bit nervous about spending the day with me
(and maybe going on slides and rollercoasters!)

We make it to the other side, I grab Sarah's hand and we run through the shops, boulevards, empty fairground and into the epic waterpark. It's got big slides, steep slides, bumpy slides, racing slides, ring slides, dark slides and big, massive ring slides. Brilliant. 

Then we noticed how quiet it was.

Very quiet!

The waterpark didn't open until 10am... Sarah was less than impressed by this! We went back to the park gates and couldn't get out! Somehow we'd managed to sneak in and the gates had been locked again behind us! SO, we enjoyed the beach and I ran around the slides plotting my route for what to go on first. I felt like Michael Jackson with his own personal themepark. Similarities stop there.

How much fun?!

Loads of fun!

Big slide into this, then you spin round and round before
you fall out the bottom

The Tsunami - Sarah chickened out when we did this
So I went down on a big two seater on my own. A bit flappy.

So we had to sit and wait here until 10am... hard life!

Tick tock tick tock... eventually my watch shows 10am, so I run to the locker room and chuck my bags in. I keep the ice cream money my Mum gave me in my neck purse.

Or is it from the locker lady?

I found an inner tube (and Sarah) and we choose the biggest slide to go on first. Sarah's terrified, but I convince her to get involved. 

The park staff aren't quite as excited as me... but after 15 minutes they start showing up, then the next FOUR hours are filled with us going up and down and up and down. Loved it. Sarah's normally scared of stuff like this, but she did most of them. Not all, but most. I did all of them. Too many times. 

This is as busy as it got!

Evidence that Sarah's now a tough guy!

A very happy me

Sarah looking very proud of herself!

Somehow I managed to get tired of the water park by about 3pm (yep - we spent 7 hours in there). So we moved on to the funfair... Rollercoasters, waltzers, swinging chairs. Then on to the amusement arcade for an hour or 2, with far too many ski runs, car races, air hockey, rodeo bull riding and me peeling Sarah away from her new addiction to a shooting game, Time Crisis 4. Scary stuff watching her play that...

Then on to the huge bobsleigh run that they've built up the mountain side (no photos, sorry!) Before heading back out to catch a cable car back at about 7pm.

But not before one more time on the rollercoaster though. With no-one else on it, I sat in the front seat and was allowed to keep going round and round until someone else queued up!

A really great day (Sarah loved it a lot too, but I've written this blog!) A huge thanks to Sarah's workfriends  and Alex & Suz for this present - a very different day to anything else we've done this trip and really enjoyable.