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Published: March 24th 2009
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Saturday, March 21st
We went for our morning exercise even though it's weekend because we went diving the previous day and on diving days we don't have enough time.
Jogging next to the ocean and taking a swim before heading home is awesome. Life's great!
We walked around all morning looking for a beach skirt for Talita and also seeing a different part of Nha Trang. We didn't find anything but in the process we joined a bunch of locals for a soda in a cool looking café, we had ice-cream from New Zealand and fruit shakes in a Aussie bar, and Texas burgers in a small Vietnamese shop.
It was crazy hot and humid and after lunch we headed home to hide from the heat. We took a nap and then looked at our budget. At the rate we're going (excluding onward travel expenses) we could dive twice a week (four dives) and not go over our weekly budget! This place is perfect for a diving holiday (nudge nudge wink wink all you divers in SA)!
We've been discussing whether or not to visit Cambodia for a while now. We've heard some negative things, such as
violence and needing to be escorted everywhere in Phnom Penh (the capital). We've also had enough of temples, pagodas, chedis, buddhas and the like. Our main reason for visiting Cambodia was to see Angkor Wat, the largest religious building ever built and the 8th Wonder of the World, but since we're not excited about seeing any more temples we've decided to skip Cambodia altogether. Instead we'll spend more time in Vietnam and then hopefully fly straight to Phuket, Thailand, from Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City).
We had a lovely dinner at a Spanish restaurant and enjoyed a few beer-shandies. Very nice!
Today's highlights:
1. Realizing just how much we can afford to dive here.
2. Deciding to skip Cambodia.
3. Receiving a lot of messages from friends and family.
Sunday, March 22nd
After breakfast we booked another dive trip, then continued the search for a beach skirt for Talita. In the end, because of price and fit issues, we decided to have one made. It's muuuuch cheaper and fits perfectly.
Walking to lunch we passed the dive shop and our friend Tu, the friendly lady Talita had in stitches earlier, beckoned us in. She had
Our new room with a view
Talita glued to the tube a suggestion for us. Instead of paying for more fun dives we should rather do our Advanced Open Water (Adventure) course which consists of six dives. Upon completion we'll be certified to go 30m deep and we can choose two specialties. We're looking at learning to dive with enriched air (nitrox - so you can dive deeper for longer) and learning under water photography. She suggested that we not do the PADI course because it's expensive. Instead we signed up to do the SSI course which is exactly the same but cheaper, because you don't get the manual.
We also decided to stay for another ten days and Talita negotiated to get a room with a view at the same price. We moved in at 4pm.
In the evening we spoke to Simon, the dive shop manager, and he confirmed our decision to do the SSI course. He told us that SSI is the second biggest scuba course in the world and that it really is just like the PADI course.
After dinner we went walking on the beach then went home to watch a movie.
Today's highlights:
1. Booking our AOW course.
2. Moving to a room with a view.
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