Relaxing at last

Asia » Vietnam » South Central Coast » Khanh Hoa » Nha Trang
February 18th 2000

Published: June 22nd 2017

Geo: 12.2453, 109.199

We haven't been doing much lately. We arrived in Nha Trang on Tuesday (I think) and have been relaxing for a few days. Taking time out from our busy schedule. Nha Trang is a city of about 200,000 people so its not exactly remote like the small islands in Thailand. Its not quite the atmosphere we were hoping for. At least its winter and the low season so its not teeming with tourists. From what we had heard before we got here we were half expecting it to be raining. I think it has been raining at night. It has been mainly muggy and overcast during the day. The first day we were here it was sunny for a few hours. I went for a dip in the sea and it was quite pleasant. Andrew didn't even take his shirt off. I got quite sunburnt after being in the sun for only an hour. I think the sun must be very strong here. The locals wear long sleeves and long pants even when its hot. The ladies wear long gloves. We are assuming its to protect them from the sun. The outlook from the shore out to the islands is quite reminiscent of Cairns. There are alot of diving outfits here so I presume there must be some reef. I doubt its as good as Cairns and for us definitely not as cheap so we are not going to bother with any boat trips. We were thinking about it yesterday. There is an awful lot of rubbish washing up on the beach so if we went snorkelling we would proabably see more plastic bags, human fesces and toilet paper than we would coral and fish. Its seems such a shame that there is so much litter on the beach. We think that it comes mainly from the ladies selling fruit and the Vietnamese tourists. We saw a mother help her small child have a shit on the beach and then wipe the child's bum and throw the paper on the sand. How disgusting!! A guy that we met who lives in Macau made the comment that they don't care how much they litter where they don't live. All that aside we have found a nice spot on the beach that rents out nice comfy lounge chairs for the day and all you have to do is buy a beer. They rake the beach every day so its nice and clean. There is a beautifully clean swimming pool and nice bar area and even clean toilets. So we have been spending most of our time there just reading and soaking up the atmosphere which has been really nice. We are starting to tire of the constant hawking from souvenier sellers, fruit sellers, cyclo drivers and motor bike taxis. We must have to say no at least fifty times a day. I just ignore them now. If you say no or even smile it seems to indicate that you are interested. We have also realised that foreigners are getting ripped off. We pay 10 times more to get into sights or for a bagutte (bread). The cyclo drivers will wait for hours to get a fare from a foreigner. Its obviously much more profitable than spending that time taking small fares from locals. We have figured out that we can ascertain their bottom price by walking away, but its still much more than a local would pay. The cyclo drivers sleep in their cyclos waiting for a fare. Andrew wants to sneak up on one and yell "CYCLO" in his ear just for a laugh. We are also tiring of being ripped off all the time. It quite often not more than 20c, 50c or $1 but we just hate the way they think they can do it because apparenty we have money to spare. We realised that we went a whole day yestereday without getting ripped off once so we are trying to make it two days in a row! In actual fact we found a fruit seller yesterday who had claimed she had no change the day before and would give us our change later that day but never came back. When we saw her yesterday she actually acknowledged the fact that she owed us money and gave us some bananas (we refused to buy more fruit). We decided that the scam was to owe the money so we would make another purchase later. Tomorrow we go to Ho Chi Minh City for a few days. We are thinking of taking a Hydrofoil to Can Tho on the Mekong Delta and staying there for a couple of days. I may not email you again but will be in contact when we get home. We are looking forward to drinking real coffee (they make it with condensed milk here and its super strong) and to eating salads and fresh fruit. Andrew is looking forward to a giant T-bone steak.

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