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Published: March 26th 2009
Wednesday, March 25th
On the way to the dock this morning we discovered that our instructor, Tri, is a legend in the Vietnam diving community. He has logged more than 10,000 dives, has a reef named after him (Tri Minh's Treat) and is even mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook. We're getting taught by the best Vietnam has to offer. It's amazing how humble he is. We've seen so many divers come swaggering onto the boat thinking and behaving like they know everything because they have logged a hundred dives :-). It just goes to show that you never know who's sitting next to you (or who you're bragging to for that matter).
The first dive was at Octopus Rock and we went down to 25.9m, our personal best. We swam through a few tunnels formed by huge boulders and in one we saw a school of gorgeous silver fish up close. Because we were deep for a while and we still had to do another dive we were only under for 38mins. That concluded our Advance course with Tri. We did a bit of snorkeling and skin-diving while we waited for the rest of the divers to finish.
1 VERY good diver
and 2 Advanced Adventure diversOur second dive was at Coral Garden. We saw, amongst other things, a Cuttle fish, two eels, a Puffer fish, a big Lion fish, a Stone fish and two Angler fish. It was great! We wish we had a camera down there!
Anyway... now we are certified Advanced Adventure divers!
At home Ferdi got reading about the Dive Master internship that Octopus Diving offers here in Nha Trang as well as the instructor program. Sounds awesome! Maybe we'll return one day soon to do that. Who knows?
After an afternoon nap we looked at what would likely be our route for the next few months. It's sooo much fun to just be able to go where you want, when you please. While looking at the flights mom Sonja video called us on Skype, all by herself! Good job moemie! We couldn't chat too long because she had to get back to work, but it was great to see and talk to her!
While looking at flights Malaysia suddenly jumped onto our radar. For cost and logistical reasons it makes sense to go through Malaysia on our way to Indonesia. Otherwise we have to backtrack to Bangkok
when we leave Phuket to fly to Jakarta. Now it looks like we'll just move through Malaysia, visit Mersing (maybe Ferdi can show Talita the island he lived on while working on Survivor SA), dive in the area then fly to Jakarta and work our way to Bali, dive some more then fly to New Zealand. That's the broad strokes so far. We're very excited!
We went out for some great sushi and ended up chatting with a Japanese guy named Jo who was also on the dive boat with us over the last two days. He used to be a GM for a big international company and has lived in Paris, Belgium and the UK. He quit his job to study Social Work and then work with the old and disabled in Japan. It was great and inspiring to meet someone like him!
Today's highlights:
1. Diving to 25.9m.
2. Swimming through the tunnel filled with silver fish.
3. Spotting two eels.
4. Getting Advanced Adventure Certificate.
5. Sushi and shandies for dinner followed by a good chat.
Thursday, March 26th
We've become rather popular at our hotel because we've stayed for such a long time.
A few nights ago when returning from dinner Mr. Khuoc, who does part-time security for the hotel and is always very happy to see us, invited us to his home, 11km outside of Nha Trang. Today we rented a scooter and followed, as best we could, the directions to his home.
He met us at the high-school and escorted us to his house. He served us fresh coconut milk then showed us around a bit. We didn't understand everything he said but we tried our best.
We left his home on our scooters and he took us on a ride through the countryside, over a rickety wooden bridge and past some beautiful yellow rice paddies. It was unbelievably hot and we stopped at Memento Country Home for a juice. It's a boutique guest house and restaurant hidden between the rice paddies. It was nice but the fact that it was hard to communicate with each other made it a little uncomfortable after a while (and for some reason he couldn't understand that we're not from America).
We think that he wanted us to have lunch there but it was too early and neither of us were hungry
Sushi
Check out the cool veggie sushi! yet so we left and headed back in the direction of Nha Trang. Near his home Mr. Khuoc said goodbye to us and we were relieved that we could go home.
We tried to scout the mud baths (for future reference) to the north of Nha Trang but got lost and ended up driving up and down and all around before we finally made it to the right road. Then we couldn't find the turnoff to the mud baths on our first try but found it on the second. By that time we'd been in the blistering heat for hours and our bums were totally numb from sitting on the scooter's hard seat, so we headed in the direction of our hotel. We stopped for some pictures, grabbed lunch, bought some snacks at the A-Mart then took a nice nap. If we ever get jobs again it's gonna be tough to get through the day without a nap!
Today's highlights:
1. Riding around the countryside on our scooter.
2. Coconut milk at Mr. Khuoc's house.
3. Chilling at Memento House.
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