The Swamp Thing

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I'm facing up to the fact that I'm not going to do justice to Vietnam in this single visit. As I write I've got 11 days left in which I will attempt to try to fit in Hoi An, Hue, Ha Long Bay and Hanoi. This is my folly. Still, to prepare myself for this onslaught as well as relax after my encounter with canyoning I travelled to the coastal resort of Nha Trang with the sole purpose of having a mud bath.

I spotted the Thap Ba Hot Springs in my guidebook while I was wondering what to do in Nha Trang which is very modern and has a stunning beachfront but does feel a bit soulless. The hot springs are a natural phenomena that have been turned into a health spa. They're like a modern equivalent of ancient Roman baths, at least in their complexity if nothing else.

To enable myself to feel younger and more confident I paid the equivalent of ₤5 to gain access to a wooden bath tub full of mud. It wasn't as thick as I was hoping it would be. I really wanted a loud squelching noise as I sat down in it. It was also really smooth, you could only feel grit at the bottom of the tub. The supervisors, for want of a better word, told me to sit in the mud but not for how long. And I didn't have my iPod or a book to keep me occupied, which is not a naturally tenable state for me. So I sort of reverted to being 3 years old. After taking 10 minutes to exhaust all the possibilities presented by B-movie mud creatures I turned my attention to seeing how long I could float in the mud without touching the bottom (3 minutes and 5 seconds). Another game I invented was trying to keep as much of me covered in mud as possible, more difficult than it sounds as it keep running off my arms and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to get mud in my hair to make it silky and strong. Also farting in the mud is not nearly as satisfying as I'd hoped.

Having cleared my pores of unsightly blackheads I then was told to lie on a sunbed and wait for the mud to dry before washing it all off. Then to fight the seven signs of aging I had a water massage which sound relaxing but actually consists of lots of tiny high pressure water jets being fired at my torso. It feels like being hit with gravel. Because I'm worth it I also indulged in a mineral bath. This is slightly cloudy, but very hot water that I imagine does something amazing for your skin but it also becomes very uncomfortable very very quickly. Once again no one told me how long I was supposed to stay in for and I suspect I overdid it. However the ache in my leg from canyoning had gone by the end of the treatment so I pronounce mud baths an unqualified success. Slightly odd, was that after I had the treatment I was then invited to have a swim in a chlorine treated swimming pool which seems a bit self defeating to me.

Sidenote: While I'm sure everyone would appreciate a picture of me looking like I'm melting, sadly such a picture does not exist as I didn't want to risk getting mud in the camera. So I've resorted to using pictures of random Vietnamese people who were at the baths, all of whom were extremely good humoured about a silly westerner taking pictures of them in their swimming costumes.

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