Mud, evil sea and booze cruises!!

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Following 2 days of torrential rain we made our decision to move on once again to Nha Trang which is on the south central coast of Vietnam boasting coconut palms along the beach front. Our journey consisted of an incredibly windy road with dramatic steep drops along the roads edge. One glance out of the bus window would make you dizzy! (you'd have hated it mum!) it was best not to look as the bus sped around the roads, I consoled myself with the thought that this driver must have driven this route thousands of times and not plunged to his death! It took a meer 6 hours with only one stop along the way which just consisted of the side the road for the men to relieve themselves and for the women to hate them for being able to! Stupidly we didn't have any breakfast due to an early start and expectations of a 3 hour journey meant we were ravenous. As normal due to our commission hungry bus driver we were dropped off at a hotel and due to our overwhelming hunger we decided to take a look regardless of our made plans. Luckily the hotel turned out to be a good choice.
Our first meeting with the sea taught us that it shouldn't be messed with as the monsterous waves crashed onto the beach catching me unawares fully clothed. Later on in our stay, once the weather had cleared we were sunbathing on the beach aware of the 2 teenage local girls messing around in the giant waves near us. The next thing we knew people everywhere were screaming and running into the sea. One of the girls was in trouble in the sea and no-one was able to get to her as the current and waves were too strong. To start with she was waving for help and then she would disapear under the waves, float to the surface and then disapear again! Luckily a man was able to grab her and drag her out to the awaiting crowd, she was given rescue breaths and luckily came around and taken to hospital. It was like something out of baywatch!
During our stay in Nha Trang we spent a day soaking in mineral mud which supposedly brings about relief and extreme relaxation. The minerals penetrate into the body providing extra energy and yielding a smoother and more luxuriant complextion. It sure did stink bad but was suprisingly pretty relaxing if you closed your nostrils! suprise suprise jason stuck his head underneath getting mud in his eyes! apparently it stings badly! stupid boy!
We also took a boat trip or more appropriately a booze cruise around 4 islands. The first to Mun Island to sunbath, swim and snorkel. Jason made a dramatic james bond dive from the top of boat and in typical jason style (Yep, you guessed it!) banged his head! don't worry he recovered quick enough to do the dive again! The current was really strong due to the previous couple of days bad weather which made it difficult to swim and made visibility poor to snorkel so we moved on to Mot island. Here we had a sea food feast on the boat followed by entertainment from a group consisting of tourguides and sailors who made a band from improvised instruments playing international and traditional vietnamese music. The fun then began on the floating bar. This consisted of a man on a large floating tyre attached to the boat handing out copious amounts of red wine and pinneaple to anyone mad enough to drink whilst swimming in the sea. Tam Island was our next stop where we sunbathed on the secluded beaches and then enjoyed a fruit party back on the boat which was a great way to try different foods. Our final stop was to Tri Nguyen Aquarium where we saw loads of beastly fish including Eels, sharks, sea urchins and turtles as well as many very ugly fish!
A typhoon is heading for the south central coast of vietnam so after much deliberation we made our decision to move up the coast as we couldn't waste time and hoped the typhoon would head further south.

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Comments

[Hazel]

Sounds as if you are still having a fab time. You really do seem to be settling into the backpackers lifestyle. Poor oa bit accident prone though - keep safe Hazel