Making a splash in Nha Trang

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Sarah: By the time we reached Nha Trang from Da Lat the heavy rain had stopped and despite it getting on for early evening it was still hot, hot, hot. We had been told our hostel was in walking distance from the bus and so got some walking directions and sweated our way through the streets. What should have been a five minute walk turned into ten after we missed the little alley that we were supposed to go down... Nevertheless, we made it to our hostel to be greeted by a gaggle of Vietnamese ladies who soon plied us with cold towels and water whilst introducing themselves and asking after us and our journey. We had picked this hostel after a couple of separate recommendations, both of them mentioning the loveliness of the ladies. They weren't wrong - all of them couldn't have done any more for us and did their best to learn all the guests' names. Within an hour of being there they had checked trains and buses for us and ultimately got us booked on a night bus to Hoi An on Tuesday night, the trains being fully booked already.

In Da Lat we had received mixed reviews of Nha Trang from both Vietnamese and other travellers. It's a lively beach resort in Vietnam that is, for some reason, massively popular with Russians; it is to the Russians what the Costa del Sol is to us Brits. Many of the signs are in Russian as well as Vietnamese and English and we were indeed surrounded by Russians! Regardless, it has a nice beach and a good atmosphere and we were looking forward to a couple of days there to chill out!

The evening began with a wander to the beach. The sky was turning lovely pastel shades of purple and pink, the water was still full of people having a dip in the sea and catching the last of the sun. We found a beach bar on the front and watched the world go by over a drink and samosa snacks, along with the much-needed cold towel! After our snacks we had kick-started our appetites again (lunch had been very early so it could be eaten before our bus). We moved on from the beach bar to a restaurant with bamboo decor and a very smiley waitress. We were soon tucking in to some BBQ squid (Nick) and some seafood fried rice for me. After din dins we headed up to the roof terrace back at our hostel to read, relax and pass the time until it was a reasonable enough time for bed!

After chowing down on a what was definitely not a classic brekkie in Da Lat for the last few days we were relieved to see a bit more of an extensive choice in Nha Trang the following morning. We both went for the poached eggs which were indeed perfectly poached and a nice change from the rubbery scrambled variety! This, and the ever delicious nutty Vietnamese coffee, set us up for our boat trip that we had booked on the previous evening, as recommended by the hostel girls. There are pretty much two kinds of boat trip run in Nha Trang: 18-30s booze cruises and more sedate snorkelling trips. I think that our 18-30s days are probably just about spent and so our trip involved 3 snorkelling locations, a good feed and home and sober by 15:30. There were about 20 of us on the boat which started with a 30 minute or so trip out to the islands surrounding Nha Trang for our first snorkel. Once the boat had anchored, we donned our fins and masks and were the first off the boat and into the water. Before we knew it, another boat rounded the corner and was bearing down on us and sounding its horn for us to get out the way! It was a good job we had some flippers on to help us out the way quick smart, as the boat didn't make any signs of slowing or changing course. Once we had paddled out of the murky depths to the nearby coral the snorkelling could begin in earnest. The fish were similar to those that we had seen in Bali and not nearly as abundant, but the coral was very pretty and there were still enough fish to be seen to make for an interesting snorkel. The best new slice of underwater life that we saw were the vicious looking sea urchins. There were scores of them all with long black spines that looked like they would be pretty painful if you were to get pricked by them.

The next snorkel site was a short boat trip away. Again we were off the back of the boat and swimming to some nearby coral to explore. I got a small fright when I saw something large moving quite far below me, until I realised it was a pair of divers and not a massive shark/Sarah-eating sea monster! Back on the boat an enormous lunch had been laid out of noodles, rice, spring rolls, squid, morning glory, unidentified meat and fish with a tomato sauce. It was all really yummy and there was sooo much of it! Despite our full bellies we were taken for one last snorkel. After a brief look at the fish, most of us decided that was enough snorkelling for one day and did some jumping in off the boat instead. Nick and I both made it off the top deck (once was enough though, it was a lot further down than we thought!), but mostly just bombed off the back of the boat. We were getting little stings from some little stinger whenever we were in the water, but nothing that seemed to make a mark or have a long-lasting sting! After another half an hour or so boat trip back to shore and a short bus back to our hostel we had both had a very good day out and were nicely worn out from the day's shenanigans.

We went with a recommendation for dinner, which was also a restaurant that supports local causes. It was packed, but we were ushered to the back to wait and peruse the menu until a table became available, which it soon did. There were lots of tasty things on the menu but we opted to share three items from the 'street food' section of the menu. For starter we shared some steamed prawn spring rolls (not the deep fried variety from your local chinese), which were subtly flavoured with thai basil. For main we shared a beef and papaya salad and a crispy seafood pancake, both of which were excellent. After our days exercise we also treated ourselves to a little shared pud pud of chocolate icecream with coffee poured on top - again, delish and we agreed that it had been our best meal since Bali.

The next day we had to fill time until our night bus at 18:30 that evening. Until check out at midday we spent time planning and trying to slot the next pieces of our journey together. We're trying to reduce the number of overnight buses and increase our train travel which apparently gets booked up very quickly and is not for people who are trying to organise things from one day to the next like us! Anyway, we are now a bit more organised for the coming week and a night bus has been avoided! It being too hot even for a sun worshipper such as myself we bucked the trend of the typical tourist (who would most likely be at the beach or temple/pagoda) and headed for the oceanographic museum! We got the local bus down there and had a very civilised stroll through the exhibits, some alive, some preserved in glass jars or stuffed. We got to see a lot of the fish that we had seen snorkelling both in Nha Trang and Bali and some other more sinister looking creatures such as the moray eel, that we're glad we didn't encounter in the wild! Back to town on the bus we headed for a popular Greek restaurant-come-snack-bar. After much deliberation, we went with some pita and dips along with a souvlaki kebab each. We had let ourselves get too hungry and perhaps over-ordered slightly, but there were clean plates at the end of it and two Adams's in a deep food coma! This was not helped by the free pudding of refrigerator cake with chocolate sauce - well...it would have been rude not to! We'd left ourselves in a bit of a pickle food-wise and there was no way that we would be hungry before our nightbus left. Anyway, we digested with our books at the Greek place until it was time to try and grab a slot in the communal shower back at the hostel, picking up some nuts and crackers for 'dinner' on the way. The bus was a bit later than planned but we were ultimately settled in to our top bunk seats. There was a lot more head room than our last night bus and a lot less engine noise / rattling. This, along with fully functioning AC, no snorers, no babies and a travel sick pill to help us sleep all made for a much better nights sleep than expected. Arriving in Hoi An 12.5 hours later we had some breakfast at our latest digs and our room was ready by the time we had finished - bonus! Now we are showered and preparing ourselves to face the heat of the day. It's proving to be a bit of a challenge but we can't stay in this hotel room forever, even if the AC is a blessing!

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