Quick stop in Nha Trang

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Hi all, went from Muie Ne to Nha Trang, one of Vietnam's busiest beach resorts but wasn't the case while we were there. The bus journey was one from hell as the driver was a maniac and didn't know what the brake pedal was for. We thought we were gonners for sure as he played chicken with oncoming buses/trucks and took corners faster than I'd dare to do so in my sporty audi!

Suffice to say we were glad to get to Nha Trang in one piece and alive. We got dropped off almost on the doorstep of our hotel which was a bonus so managed to pretty much evade the hoard of touts on our arrival. The constant touting and selling is starting to wear a little thin as this point but there's nothing you can do but try and stay polite. You'd go mad if you reacted.

We stayed at the Perfume Grass Inn which was a nice little hotel in the centre of town and served our needs. Would recommend. After a few drinks to calm the nerves we headed down to Rainbow divers, a british run diving setup to book a couple of refresher dives the following morning. Kate was suitably nervous following her last few "chunder" dives in Malaysia last year. She dosed up on anti-seasickness tablets and luckily had no problems throughout the morning. She still confessed to be "bricking it" prior to the first dive and didn't really enjoy it as was scared and cold. Our instructor (Clara) remained very patient with her and by the second she was cooking on gas, albight now encased in 2 wetsuits for comfort. (wimp) The coral was not as good as Perhentian Island and there wasn't as much sealife but we enjoyed it all the same.

We spent the afternoon browsing the shops and I finally purchased a new pair of sunglasses. (after nearly 3 weeks of borrowing Kate's second pair) Wether they're Fake or not is still to be decided!

After the last bus journey we decided that flying to Danang and getting a taxi to Hoi An was the order of the day despite it being more expensive. 12 hours on a bus with the same maniac would have seen us walking.

The next morning we bumped into an aussie couple who we'd met in Mui Ne then left for the airport. We were a little surprised to see someone else sat in our taxi as was he when we climbed in. From the ensuing commotion we could only deduce that he was not happy to pay as we had already covered the fare (which we'd paid the day before) to the airport so he probably got there for free at our expense! Well cest la vie.

The flight in our russian made turboprop "helicopter" as Kate nervously calls them went without incident and it was nice to watch the jungle-clad terrain zoom by in just one hour.

We arrived in Danang, ran the taxi-touting gauntlet (25 taxi drivers running at you shouting various prices) and almost got ripped off by the cheeky driver but got to Hoi An in one piece and with money still in the pocket!

So now we're in Hoi An, but thats a seperate story.

To be continued. Mark and Kate

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