Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2008
Edit Blog Post
Finally pulling ourselves away from the fruit shakes, beating drums and the even friendlier most amazing Vietnamese people yet in Hoi An, we continued South to Nha Trang. This is a coastal town with a winding 6km beautiful beach dotted with coconut trees, amazing food, warm turquoise trees, tiny islands and a laid back traveller/tourist scene. We went to an amazing bar where their aim was to get rid of child trafficking and prostitution called Crazy Kim's, if you ever visit Nha Trangs go here - but be warned the staff are actually crazy.
Our travels for the next few days became a whole lot less cultural and a lot more fun! We hopped onto an Easy Rider and went to some delicious mud baths which are formed from the natural hot spring that is there. After wallowing in the warm mineral mud for a while we then had hot spray water and then a boiling magical mineral water bath. It was so relaxing that I felt kind of dizzy afterwards! Beats a massage for sure.
Then because the sun wasn't lush enough to lie around on the sand all day and we were getting bored of visiting Pagodas,
we decided to do a try dive, as the waters in Nha Trang are meant to be crystal clear. We left in the morning, met the local boat crew (who were hilarious and a bit comm - mental) and set off to our dive spot. We were given briefing on how to equalize and sign language and then jumped in with the heaviest tank ever on our backs. I think this is an amazing place to do your first dive, there are so many different species just below the waves!
I could not believe how psychedelic it was under there - cyberdog wish they could make clothes as neon and weirdly shaped as the marine life! The plants were so soft to touch like flesh, and some opened up to reveal glowing mouths, or, like the big black spiky thing - a rotating neon eyeball! (Sorry about the lack of fish-name knowledge).
I felt like a mermaid as we floated in and out of patterned coral and rocks the Aztecs would have been proud of, giggling at the extreme faces and personalities of all the brightly coloured fish who swam along side pretending they hadn't noticed us, spying
with their marble eyes.
Turltle Dive were definitely a good company to go with, as we got a big free lunch at the end too, and the staff were all really lovely!
It was sad to leave Nha Trang, but I did have to return after leaving my passport in the safety box of the hotel - luckily the bus driver turned round and let me get it though. Vietnamese rock!
We headed inward to the central highlands and Dalat, famous for its 'kitch-ness' and cool English like climate. As soon as we got there we went out to eat, and by chance stumbled into the famous arcitect's 'other' building (he also made the Crazy House...) which was like eating in a winding secret treehouse cave! I could not stop exploring to eat my diner!
The next day we got to see the real Crazy House - this is the locals' nickname, the real name is Hang Nga Guest House. This is a concrete mish mash maze of melting winding tiny steps to nowhere and everywhere, which swizzle in and out of curious cave like bedrooms and alcoves featuring curious sculptures and beautiful walls of stalagmites,
spirals and the female body! It is a fairy tale house of every proportion, the base of which is a tree. As you can imagine, this massive adventure playground for adults meant I was in my element, and we spent a longer time than is probably normal posing for silly Alice in Wonderland-esque photos and running around like children. The arcitect Hang Nga had another of her creations torn down because it was considered anti-socialist. So the craziness is quite political, especially as her father was once the president of Vietnam!
We also visited a flower garden and the Valley of Love, which also featured some very odd plastic animals and places to pose. Apparently its the altitude that makes the residents of Dalat build such strange attractions!
We also did a bit more grown up sight seeing and visited an old church and some remains of the Vietnam war, and one of the places that was attacked in the famous Tet Offensive, where the Viet Cong made bloody asssault on the country's most important religious festival day.
Sorry about all the pictures and not so many words, I have to write down everything before I forget,
there is so many wonderful things to see and do in this beautiful country where piglets, straw hat wearing women squatting at the road side stoves and children on bicycles rush around endlessly.
So to Saigon for the next installment of Gibbon and Onion! (I may explain later...)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0361s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb