Nha Trang

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Our last day in Hoi An was spent walking around in old town and eating as much ice cream as humanly possible. Not because it was cheap either ($1USD for a little scoop), just because we felt like it. Haha. Binnson finally caved and purchased the prized conical hat despite my warnings that he is going to throw it in a river in 2 days after trying to carry it around with us.

We boarded a "sleeper bus" to Nha Trang in the evening. Don't let the term SLEEPER confuse you. There will be no sleeping on this bus. We were the last one's to get picked up so we were lucky to still be able to get seat/bed things that were beside each other however, we were seated right behind the bus driver on the bottom floor. A view of the road is enough to keep you awake, wondering if the next game of chicken the bus driver keeps playing will be the last, not to mention the constant laying on the ear-destroying-horn. The bus driver kept hawking lugies out the window which I feared would catch wind and land on my face. Yup... no sleeping on the sleeper bus. Just when I thought I was falling asleep one of the worker guys decided to lay on the floor between Binnson and my sleeper chairs (basically like sitting on the floor with your feet in a cubby and reclining the chair all the way back) - so his head was almost right between ours - and he snored louder than almost anyone I've heard. Binnson's beloved hat had already pissed me off about 20 times since boarding the bus - so much for the 2 day window I gave it, I ended up sleeping with it on my lap so that it wouldn't get crushed. All I can say is thank goodness for Angry Birds - an app on Binns Ipod - helps the time pass by quickly! Our arrival at 6am came all too soon but at the same time, not soon enough!

Determined to not let our extreme lack of sleep ruin the day, we found a hotel and headed out. We took a long walk down to Long Son Pagoda. Here they also have 2 Buddha's to check out, reclining Buddha and big seated Buddha. That evening rain clouds were coming in so we decided to call it an early night!

It took us until Nha Trang to start eating food from street vendors instead of restaurants. Sooo much cheaper, obviously. Binnson gets a couple Vietnamese subs a day at 10,000 vnd each (about 50 cents) and I get these banana leaf wrapped, sticky rice filled chickpeas, 2 for 6000 vnd (~25 cents). Going out the restaurants now seems like such a rip off! We thought we were being pretty cheap before... it just got like 1000 x worse. Or better!

This morning I really wanted to hit up the beach at sunrise to get some good pictures. I told Binnson to set the alarm for 4:55am as the sun supposedly rose at 5:25am. Nha Trang claims to have one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! After hitting snooze once and dragging Binns out of bed - I told him he had to come with me because I didn't want to get kidnapped or robbed as I thought I would be the only person outside and that it wouldn't be very safe to be by myself on the beach at 5 am - we still missed sunrise somehow. Little did I know, 5 am is the busiest time at the beach!! It was absolutely packed - with locals. Every person in Nha Trang is down on the strip exercising and swimming. Aerobic classes, Tai Chi, soccer, badminton, you name it - it's happening. People using trees for abs, doing push ups off the benches, running on the sidewalks and the beach. It was craziness! No foreigners tho... that much be there secret. Get up early and enjoy the beaches before the foreigners come and ruin everything! Haha...

After going for a nice long walk and taking lots of good pictures, we headed back to the hotel for a nap. Our hotel is super close to the beach, it takes about a minute to walk there. We started the day a couple of hours later, heading back to the beach. We grabbed some chairs (50,000 vnd for 2 - seems like robbery after our cheap eats) and relaxed in the sun and went swimming for most of the day.

Tomorrow morning we are leaving this beach paradise for the faster paced city of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). That will wrap up our adventures in Vietnam!

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