Nha Trang and Mui Ne, Vietnam: July 19 - 25, 2013


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Asia » Vietnam » South Central Coast
October 8th 2013
Published: November 8th 2013
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We took the train from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang on Friday, July 19, having bought the tickets a couple days prior from one of the travel agents on De Tham. The trip took about 8 hours, but it was a nice way to see some of the countryside. Initially there were some soldiers sitting in our assigned seats, so we sat in some other empty seats. I was waiting to get kicked out of the seats we were in, a little nervous about trying to get the army guys out of our proper ones because soldiers and cops terrify me. I try to avoid them at all cost, because too often they abuse their power and hurt people rather than help them. But this was Vietnam, and I needn't be so wary. Eventually, another Vietnamese person asked one of the soldiers to move - there were three of them. Seeing that he did so without protest, I wasn't quite so afraid when we were forced to also indicate they were sitting in our seats once the passengers whose seats we were in boarded the train. There weren't any other seats in our car for the soldiers to move to, so I'm not really sure where they went. I'm guessing maybe they get to ride the trains for free provided there's seats available. This train was packed.

Two friendly Vietnamese girls sat across from us, and attempted to have a conversation with us using the little bit of english they knew. They shared some rambutans with us, a very delicious fruit common in that region of the world. The food being served on the carts that passed through the train was also pretty good, and as always the cheap beer on offer was much appreciated.

Once in Nha Trang, we took a taxi to our hotel, the Michelia. The Michelia is really nice, just a 2 minute walk from the beach. There were a lot of Russians vacationing there. Wonderful buffet breakfast, comfy rooms, nice pool, incredible view. We really couldn't have asked for a better experience.

Once we had settled in, we walked along Trần Phú, which is a long street stretching alongside the beach, until we got to Veranda Restaurant at 66 Trần Phú. They have a nice patio that I initially thought would be nice to eat out on. We sat down and soon realized the heat, noise and noxious fumes from the busy street would not make eating on the patio very pleasant, so moved back inside. We ordered a bottle of Vietnamese white wine called Dalat, which exceeded our expectations. You never hear about Vietnamese wine, so I didn't think it would be that great, but it wasn't bad at all. It was good enough that we ordered it again at a seafood restaurant later in Mui Ne.

We had some nice relaxing time on the beach in Nha Trang, but there's a lot more to do than just lay on the beach. Nha Trang is a pretty decent sized city, so there's lots of bars, markets, restaurants. We actually didn't have enough time to do everything we could have, such as the mud baths at Thap Ba Hot Springs or Ba Ho Falls. We only had time to do one tour, and we chose snorkling with Nha Trang Tourist/Highland Tours. The boat took us out to a couple different snorkling spots, one at Han Mun Island, and another at Mot Island. There were some assholes standing on the coral reefs despite being told by the tour guide not to because it would kill the reefs that took hundreds of years to form. I'm glad I had a chance to see them, and all the beautiful fish, before they are destroyed by such asshole tourists who don't care about preserving what they are enjoying for future generations. Assholes. Ok, maybe they just didn't understand. But it annoyed me that despite there being several boats there with Vietnamese tourist guides whose livlihoods depend on these coral reefs surviving, no one yelled at these tourists to cut it out. I suppose if tourists don't kill all the reefs pollution eventually will anyway. Very sad.

A tip for snorkling - wear your life jacket. Even if you are a good swimmer, having the life jacket means you don't have to exert much effort, and you can just float around enjoying the sights without being tempted to stand on any of the reefs to rest. The life jacket also protected our backs from getting sun burnt. Even though we had sun screen on, the backs of our legs got a bit burnt and some others on the trip who didn't wear life jackets had their backs burned pretty bad even though they also wore sun screen. And by the way, sun screen in Vietnam is really expensive. I couldn't believe how much I had to pay for it - 320,000 dong! Ok, that's only $15 US, but that's still a lot more than I would have expected to pay.

Po Nagar Cham Towers was another big highlight of Nha Trang. You get some really nice views from there as well as being able to appreciate the ancient religious structures.

We went to Louisiane Brewhouse twice. It's right on the beach, and they also have a pool that's free to use. And their beer is really good! They have a lovely passion fruit beer I quite enjoyed. Good food too. The second day we went back we ate at one of the tables on the beach and ordered the pizza with quail eggs.

A few of the other great restaurants we ate at were Lanterns (34 Nguyen Thein Thuat), Kirin Restaurant (IE Biet Thu), and Thanh-Tranh Cafe (10 Nguyen Thien Thuat). We met a couple friends we made while on the snorkling trip at Lanterns, and the guy said he saw a rat in the restaurant after we finished our meal. He didn't mention it until after it had gone away because he didn't want his girlfriend to scream and freak out. Like the time we saw a rat in a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, Lanterns also had wide open doors so I don't think the presence of a rat should reflect poorly on the restaurant. I imagine it's pretty difficult to keep rats out of a place that faces right onto the steet without closed doors. So I stand by this recommendation despite the rat sighting.

We of course enjoyed some more Vietnamese coffee while in Nha Trang, this time with some coconut ice cream at a nice cafe called Sunrise (which is also a hotel). Do not leave Vietnam without trying Vietnamese coffee, and make sure you buy some to take home with you too. You'll want to buy the simple drip contraption they use as well (see photo.)

We went to Oasis Bar, drawn in by a free drink special. The waitress got to talking to us, curious about how much we paid for our flight from Canada. She said she wanted to travel but could not afford it, and had lots of questions about what Canada was like. I asked her if she liked living in Nha Trang; she said she considered herself lucky to be from such a beautiful place, but was trying to save money so she could see other places. I attempted to impress upon her just how lucky she was by explaining that in Canada, it's a regular occurance for homeless people to freeze to death in the streets. And that the majority of people I knew in Canada also could not afford to travel, even though they would very much like to, just like her.

I feel like sometimes people from so-called "poor" countries can have very idealistic impressions of what "rich" countries are like, perhaps simply because the grass is always greener on the other side, but perhaps also because the only people they meet from rich countries are people priveleged enough to be able to travel. I tried to impress upon our friendly Vietnamese waitress that yes, my partner and I were lucky to have good jobs in Canada, which enable us to travel. But also that we had to save a lot to be able to afford it too. I think we blew her mind a little bit when we told her much we pay for rent in Toronto, hence the fact so many people end up homeless. And on this point, I just want to say that although I recognize I am extremely privleged to have been able to go to all the places I've gone, I do get a little annoyed when people say "Oh, you are so lucky." There are a lot of things we go without in order to be so "lucky", and every vacation is the result of hard work and penny pinching. The way we travel, I usually find myself more exhausted upon returning from a trip rather than well rested. As I get older, I feel this more and more, so can't understand why some people defer traveling until after retirement. To me, I think traveling has always been more an attempt to understand the world and my place in it than some sort of escape. Returning home has always been one of my favourite parts. I guess it can be hard to appreciate where your from until you've been abroad, so I would never encourage anyone to put off traveling until some distant point in the future that may never arrive. But at the same time, for the billions who can only dream of traveling, I would hope they could appreciate the beauty of home without idealizing some far away place as somehow being better. Sure, in a lot of ways it is, but in a lot of other ways it's not. I could also problematize the environmental degradation that results from tourism, of which i am myself complicit. But i've gone on enough of a tangent so let's return to Nha Trang.

We went to Dam Market one morning. I probably would have tried on some dresses and bought some things if the saleswomen were not so grabby. One moment, I expressed some interest in a dress, but quickly became swarmed by women from nearby stalls and it was a bit intense. Not only was it hot, but I had my damp bathing suit on under my clothes in addition to being all sweaty, so it didn't seem appropriate to actually try anything on. And when you get surrounded like that, the instinct is to just get away quickly. So no purchases at Dam Market. We did pay too much money for a couple of fans an old woman was selling on the street between our hotel and the beach. But they were pretty, and she probably ripped us off enough that she was able to go home and eat well for a week without selling anything else. We did bargain a bit, but were much worse at it than she was. And I did buy a nice dress at a different market later on, where I wasn't swarmed and the woman at the stall was actually very helpful. I tried on one dress that was too short, and she found me another of a similar style that was a better length, allowing me to get the hell out of there as quickly as possilbe. Shopping is such a hassle.


From Nha Trang to Mui Ne




After three days and four nights in Nha Trang, we got on a Hanh Cafe Sleeper Bus to Mui Ne. There are some pretty bad reviews of Hanh Cafe on the internet, but I didn't find it that bad. There was no bathroom on the bus, and a young girl in a seat near us kept vomiting in a bag. I started to get a bit concerned three hours in once I began to realize there really wasn't a washroom on the bus, which made me feel like I had to urinate probably more than I did. After a little while of wondering if the driver was ever going to stop, and how the hell could they expect us all to not have to use a washroom for a 5 hour ride, the driver did make a pitstop and all was relieved.

In Mui Ne we stayed at a cute little place called Zenora Beach Resort. There's not much of a beach to speak of during high tide, when the waves crash against the stone seawall. We walked down the only street for quite a ways figuring we would eventually find a public beach access to a point we could see from our hotel that there was sand to sit on. But we never did find that public access - we tried once to walk past a security guard at one of the fancy resorts, but he stopped us. Damn. So you have to be careful if you really want to stay at a hotel with beach access during the whole day. The cheap places like the one we stayed at only has beach at low tide. We also got ripped off for laundry at Zenora, which was mostly my fault. We saw a sign right next door for laundry, but rather than take our laundry there ourselves, we asked the hotel reception how much it was to have them do it. The price sounded reasonable, so we went the easy route, even though we knew she was probably just going to take it next door and it would be cheaper for us to take it there ourselves. But when i went to pick it up, she asked for way more money than she had told us it would be, and rather than dispute it I just gave her all our money. That was stupid. I didn't quite realize what had happened until it was too late. And then cursed that i had just spent $10 US on a couple bags of laundry.

We had shisha, a seafood hot pot and seafood pancake with some beer at a place across the street from our hotel called Smokey House, while we watched the street get completely flooded by pouring rain. Our hotel was also right next door to perhaps the best seafood restaurant in Mui Ne, called Lam Tong. We ate there two nights in a row. We would have liked to eat some lobster or crab being at a good, but cheap, seafood place right on the ocean. But I swear they were charging more for their lobster and crab than you would ever pay in North America, so that didn't happen. Instead we had another seafood hot pot and sweet and sour snapper with rice, and another bottle of Dalat wine. There was a stressed out white blond woman screaming at her kids next to us, for slouching or something stupid, in stark contrast to all the carefree Asian families with their kids happily running around. We got a little concerned when one of the woman's kids stormed off down the stone steps towards the beach in the dark of night, and the woman didn't do anything to follow her or call her back. The kid could drown! But no, eventually the kid came back, probably just as her mother knew she would. Anyway, this contrast made me realize how superior it is to raise your kids communally, that if your going to travel with children, you should do it with other families so the adults can take turns watching out for the kids. The Asian kids always had at least one adult who never let them out of their sight, while a bunch of other adults were back at the table drinking shots and having a great time.

We considered going on a one of the sand dune tours while in Mui Ne, but it would have required us waking up at 4am. As much as i really liked the idea of visiting the sand dunes during sun rise, it was a good thing we didn't book the tour because the next morning was really rainy. I doubt sand dunes would be much fun in the rain.

We only spent two nights in Mui Ne. Our last one we went to Wax at 68 Nguyen Dinh Chieu where I got to drink a free mojito. There was a bon fire on the beach behind the bar where you could snuggle up with your drinks under the stars on some bean bag chairs, it was quite nice. In the morning we got on another Hanh Cafe bus, which took us back to Ho Chi Minh City for a final night before our departure flight. Although I really loved Vietnam, I thought I was ready to leave for the next part of our trip - Bangkok. It didn't take me long in Bangkok before I started to wish we had stayed in Vietnam. We especially should have spent more time in Nha Trang, and I would have liked to check out the Mekong Delta or travel further north.


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