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Published: April 11th 2010
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The Beautiful Blue
of the South China Sea. The day after we arrived we were carted off to the harbour to catch a boat for a day of swimming, snorkelling and cruising around the various islands off the coast. We were ushered onto an already quite full boat and any grogginess of the early morning (ok, well it was 9am, but that's beginning to be early for us) quickly disappeared when we listened to one of the tour operators (who was wearing a pink shirt - I'll get to that later) talk into a microphone which was amplified to about five notches above comfortable listening listening level. Mr. Pink Shirt yabbered away in Vietnamese, laughing and cracking jokes. Everyone else seemed to appreciate it but we had no idea what was happening and before long Phoebe and Nick got quite cranky. They decided to go and sit at the back of the boat where they plotted ways of escaping the noise. Nick solution was whack the guy over the head with his microphone a few times and then throw it into the ocean. Phoebe's (much more pacified) solution was to jump off the boat and swim to the next island. After the yabbering stopped Mr. Pink Shirt then broke
Floating Bar
sorry, no conical hat/life jacket/rubber ring ensembles here into song! Giving a heartfelt rendition of what I'm sure was some popular Vietnamese tune. I started slowly looking around to gauge reactions. Most people were looking on, smiling, even tapping their feet or swaying. My gaze then fell on three Poms and a Danish boy who were also looking around, and once they caught my gaze, started laughing. That started me laughing, and as I looked again to Mr. Pink Shirt, this time closing his eyes and hollering down the microphone (not knowing much about that trick that singers do when they take the microphone away at high points in the song, hey, even I know that!). I had to stare at the floor to stop myself cracking up and appearing very rude! Once he was done, Mr. Bao (our English speaking guide) broke in with “Thank-you very much Lady Boy!”. Ah-ha! It was starting to make sense.
First stop was snorkelling at a beautiful spot, with the most beautiful, crystal clear waters. In fact, having not seen any of the South China Sea, we were amazed at the terrific blue. It really was unlike anything we'd seen and made for brilliant snorkelling. After a bit of lunch
Poor Prawns...
looking all impaled Mr Bao was getting very excited saying “Next up....happy hour! You will LOVE happy hour, just wait, we have BIG surprise”. By that point we had climbed up to the roof of the boat which was shaded and safe, and far enough away from the noise. The Poms and the Danish guy had also joined us and we chatted away about what they could possibly have in store for us during happy hour. Then Mr Bao started telling us excitedly to come downstairs because happy hour was going to start and there would be a boy band!! Us terrible, cynical Westerners snickered that that was a good reason to stay on the roof. Soon the music started and the singing too, and we thought we really were being a bit anti-social up on the roof, and well, when in Rome....we should try to enjoy boy bands. Once downstairs we saw that the seats had been converted into a stage and everyone on the boat was up, dancing and clapping away to the music. Mr Bao was up on the 'stage' singing away and who was there next to him but of course Lady Boy himself, wearing a bikini skirt combo
Last Night Dinner
Thanh, Giang, Lin, Phoebe, Nick, Alex and Robert and upturned rice bowls in this bikini top! Soon I came to realise.....”Hang on, this is the party boat!”. No other boats had a Lady Boy, or music, or a stage. As we were docked at a jetty, many people had come up to jump on our boat and enjoy the music. In fact, there were boats next to us full of people trying to scramble onto our boat. At that point we all thought that complaining about noise etc was fruitless and the best thing to do would be to join in the fun. From that point onwards I'd have to say we really relaxed, as did the others. They then opened the stage for anyone keen on a bit of karaoke. No, we didn't join in that fun, but we did enjoy listening to the other passengers as they belted out some songs. Mr Bao then very excitedly announced “ok, floating bar now!”. This was where one guy sits in a ring doling out free rice wine and passengers jump into the sea floating in rubber rings trying to force rice wine down their throats. Many Vietnamese women wearing conical hats and life jackets (that didn't fit and hence floated up above their heads) jumped in, then scrambled into a rubber ring and waded over to try some wine. The whole thing looking quite funny, as we could barely see their faces in amongst the hat, ring and life jacket. We returned tired but happy from our boat trip and met up with Robert the following day to tell him about our very eventful boat trip.
Another day in Nha Trang we took a taxi out to some far off beach. It was lined with tents where you could sit and eat seafood while the waves literally lapped at your feet, so that's what we did! Actually, we ended up putting out bag and shoes in a hammock for fear of them drifting off with the waves. Robert ordered some prawns and along came a brazier, some salt and pepper and lime, and 7 big prawns impaled on skewers. Ooh dear, and they were still wriggling! I looked on eating my egg and salad roll while the poor prawns died a slow death on the brazier.
Admittedly by the time we got to Dalat we had all started to feel a bit of 'Asia Fatigue'. We'd been in Asia for six weeks, and the constant noise, hassling from touts, and always being the look out for being ripped off or having things stolen was getting exhausting. While we were still all happy travellers, we were just missing some of the comforts of home. Strangely, one thing I was particularly missing was sitting on a couch and having a hot drink. See all you people back home....don't take your couch for granted! When Robert invited us to his house for Vietnamese coffee we readily accepted, and I have to say, it did soothe my feelings of homesickness. Actually, just being a big looked after was such a nice relief and by the time we left Nha Trang we felt revived and ready to tackle our next city...Hoi An!
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AlexBK
Nick, Alex and Phoebe
Sorry about the video....
if it doesn't work I am told by Nick that this is because it uses 'beta' software which means sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. We might try getting a You Tube account if we want to post any more videos.