Advertisement
Published: March 3rd 2009
Edit Blog Post
A Rum and Coke Bucket
A normal drink at the Sailor's Club - It also had a Lady's happy hour with Emily getting as many free cocktails as she wanted in an hour. Made for an interesting evening. Nha Trang - short and sweet as not much happened
We arrived in Nha Trang on the afternoon of the 22nd after a relatively easy and pleasant bus journey. The views coming down from the mountains were superb with thick jungle covering all the visible faces and the valleys being contrastingly bare of foliage.
Once we were dropped off we headed to the best of the cheap guest houses in the city (pleasant enough, but no character) and then walked to the train station (Emily wanted to see if it was possible to catch a train up to Hoi Ann so we walked to the station, stopping at various places, to find out if it was possible. It turned out it was possible, but would have cost more and taken longer than a bus so we didn't take it.)
However the walk was not wasted as even in that short time it became apparent that compared to Dalat and even Saigon, Nha Trang did not have many redeeming features and the ones that it did i.e. the beach, were spoiled by building sprawl. Consequently, we decided to book our bus ticket to Hoi Ann for the next day
and then went in search of a cheap dinner, which we duly found by having the cheapest set meal of holiday so far. With our appetites sated we stumbled across the Yachting Club - (the first expat bar cum club in Vietnam that we had found) which served 'buckets' of rum and coke for 70p (Ian you would be in heaven) and had a lady's hour whereby any so called lady was allowed to have as many free (strongly alcoholic) cocktails as she could drink in one hour. Needless to say that Emily took full advantage of this (generously giving me an occasional sip of the 6 or so drinks she had).
The next day, deciding that we really ought to do something with it, we wondered off to the photo gallery of an internationally famous photographer. The gallery itself was in the photographers house and we spend a good hour looking at his amazing pictures and chatting to the various people in the gallery. Afterwards we went for lunch at one of the street cafes and caught the overnight bus to Hoi Ann.
Alec
Nha Trang
Arrived from Dalat in the afternoon, first point of
call was to find ourselves a hotel for the night. Once done, I thought it would be a good idea to find the train/bus station in order to try and arrange our transport to Hoi An before the Tet holiday, which was in the next few days. However, after a considerably poor bus ride and early start, I had a rather grotty Alec on my hands and my proposal to walk to the station was not taken with much enthusiasm (in fact, it wasn’t much unlike taking an old and stubborn dog out for a walk).
Having discovered train prices were ludicrous and it would take double the time than by bus, we went back to our hotel and booked a sleeper bus bound for Hoi An the following evening. By this point we were both famished, so we got a cheap set menu meal before deciding to attack Nha Trang’s abundant tourist beach bars. We found charm and cheap drinks in the Sailing Club bar (not actually attached to any sailing club). There we enjoyed the novelty of drinking rum and coke out of what could have only been described as a recycled jam jar which they call
a “bucket” (in this I was bitterly disappointed as I was literally expecting a bucket full of rum and coke!). We also discovered that we had stumbled upon Ladies night, so I had access to free cocktails for the rest of the evening, whilst Alec had to take the plebian route of actually paying for his. All in all, a pleasant evening.
The next day in Nha Trang was mainly spent dawdling through the hours waiting for our bus to Hoi An. We however discovered that there was a photography gallery in the centre that was meant to be worth looking at. On our way there, in a moment of hunger madness we thought it would be good idea to stop at one of Vietnam’s famous street side restaurants for lunch. Having struggled to get our order in (the waitresses spoke/understood no English) we sat down at one of the miniature plastic tables (yes, Europeans do look ridiculous sitting at one of these places) awaiting food from an unknown origin and dubious sanitary conditions. Following this hearty meal, and with a much revived Emily and Alec, we had a little look around the gallery. The exhibition was wonderful, really
interesting. Created by a local and evidently renowned artist (he had exhibited internationally and won numerous awards), the pictures captured the many delights and beauties of Vietnam; its culture, landscape, and people. We came away from it totally awe inspired.
The rest of our time in Nha Trang was spent lazing on the beach catching our last few breaths of fresh air before embarking on our 14 hour bus journey to Hoi An.
Emily
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0403s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb