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Published: March 1st 2009
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I had been to Nha Trang one time before and really enjoyed it. The beach was great and the town was bustling with crowds of tourists. The stores and restaurants were open and busy. So when Thanh suggested going, I agreed immediately.
What neither my friend Thanh nor I realized was that Nha Trang was a seasonal resort. The crowds do not come during the rainy season. Most of the beach front resorts were closed, along with many shops and restaurants. And when we decided to go, it was in the middle of the rainy season.
We decided to take a sleeper bus from Saigon. The night sleeper bus left Saigon at 20:00, and would arrive at Nha Trang in the morning. The trip took about 11 hours, and we could sleep all night, waking up refreshed. We booked the trip through Singh Cafe, an excellent company. The two berths cost 320,000 dong (less than $20.00 USD), quite a bargain.
Thanh and I had berths in the first row, so we had views out the front of the bus as well as to the side. As our fellow travelers assembled at the cafe where we would board the
bus, I noticed most were young Australian back packers. I expected the ride would be a big party. I was wrong. Most of the passengers were sound asleep before we got out of the city limits.
I quickly fell asleep but was awakened by a man kneeling behind the driver yelling about his driving. He kept saying the driver must be drunk and would kill all of us. In fact the driver was very good. He was driving the way everyone drives in Vietnam. Thanh woke up and tried to be diplomatic. She asked the man where he was from. He said “Canada.” The driver did not speak English. Thanh tried to be diplomatic and pointed out that the rules of the road were different in Canada. Our driver was doing fine. I thanked god he wasn’t an American.
About that time the driver started to pass a truck while a vehicle was heading toward us in the passing lane. The man shouted “Stop the bus! Let me out!” We were in the middle of nowhere, so the driver didn’t stop. Several people came to the driver’s defense, but the Canadian would not be silent. In a few
minutes we came to a rest area. The driver stopped and let everyone take a break. The hysterical man and his daughter got off. The last I saw of them they were boarding another bus. I wondered if the new driver met his approval. Somehow I doubt it.
I thought I didn’t sleep much, but suddenly it was dawn, and we were pulling into Nha Trang. Thanh and I gathered our things and had a coffee. Then we walked around until we found a guest house. It was nice, fairly new and very clean. It was two blocks from the ocean front. Our room was on the 6th floor. We could see the ocean. The price was $15.00 USD per night. We put our things in the room, took a quick shower, and hit the street.
After an hour or so we had lunch at an outdoor seafood restaurant facing the ocean. It was good and not very expensive. Then we continued exploring. Thanh went into a few clothing stores, but didn’t buy anything. I found an internet cafe and checked my email.
Later that afternoon we were walking along the beach. The ocean was to the
left, the closed resorts, restaurants and other attractions were to the right. Suddenly a big orange cat ran across our path and onto a closed restaurant patio. “Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!” I called. The cat paid absolutely no attention to me and continued toward the kitchen. Thanh broke out laughing. “That’s a Vietnamese cat. It doesn’t understand English.” She laughed a good twenty minutes, and laughed even more later when she thought of the incident.
We had a light dinner and went to a cafe that had a pool table. It was early. There were only a few other people. We played a few games of pool. Thanh, of course, beat me badly. I was sorry I couldn’t give her a better game. But by this time the cafe began to fill up with back packers. Thanh was in her element. She played pool all night. I watched.
The cafe closed about 01:00. We walked toward our guest house, but Thanh was hungry. We stopped at a street corner vendor. Thanh had a bowl of something. I had a hot beer. The woman running the stand looked at Thanh’s hand and told her fortune. She told Thanh I
was a good guy. I wondered how she knew that from looking at Thanh’s hand. We walked on home, then to bed.
The next day we went to the market. Thanh bought salted cuttle fish (squid) and smoked fish to take to her family. There must have been 30 stalls selling salted cuttle fish. Thanh examined them all before making her selection. They all looked the same to me.
We went back to the guest house, dropped off our purchases and hit the street again. We had lunch and realized we had nothing to do. There were no people. Half of the stores were closed. There was little traffic on the roads. Almost nothing was going on at the beach. It was a little depressing. We decided to return to Saigon the next day.
We walked to a Singh Cafe office and bought our tickets home the next morning. We decided on a sleeper bus again, but booked the day trip rather than the night.
That night we found a good seafood restaurant. They had the all sorts of fish, shell fish, prawns, etc. on display on ice. You picked out what you wanted and they grilled it over charcoal on the sidewalk in the front of the entrance. I had prawns, razor clams and mussels. Thanh had 3 kinds of clams. Everything was great, and it was not very expensive.
Then we wandered over to the same cafe as the previous night. It was the only place that had any people in it. I watched, Thanh played pool. We both drank beer.
When the cafe closed we headed to a different outdoor food stall. Thanh ate, I was happy to find a cold beer. Giant rats were running around. When they got too close, the woman running the stand rattled the metal fence behind us and scared them away. Of course they were back in minutes.
The next morning we were on our way. We took an extended break at Mui Ne Beach where we had lunch in the Singh Cafe resort. Thanh was able to find a game of pool. Then we re-boarded the bus an soon were back in Saigon. It felt great to step off the bus into the crowded, noisy street.
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