Nha Trang

---

Nha Trang is a very popular beach destination in Vietnam, the beach is great and the weather was wonderful. It is already built up with a lot of hotels, bars and restaurants and it is going to keep getting bigger and bigger. They were starting to build a Marriott as well as a Crown Plaza so the Western hotel chains are moving in. I stayed at the Asia Paradise hotel because there was a pool on the roof and it was fantastic.

The pool on the roof overlooked the beach and it seemed like most of the hotel guests didn’t even know that the pool existed. It was almost always empty which was great. I would spend most of my days in Nha Trang at the beach in the morning and the pool at night. There are a ton of different bars and restaurants, for bars I liked the red apple and crazy kim’s. The best restaurant we went to in Nha Trang was an Italian place that I found on trip advisor. It was really great. The salad and dressing were amazing (which goes along way especially in Asia) and the pasta was all homemade, it was called Da Fernando.

The beach was like a full service spa. For just a couple of dollars you could have a manicure / pedicure at your beach chair or a massage. I even saw girls getting their legs and armpits threaded right as they lay out, that was interesting.

I found myself playing connect four with a local book seller to determine the price of my book at Crazy Kim’s bar. He was a really nice guy and I ended up talking to him for about thirty minutes about his life, how much rent / food cost for locals, etc. He called himself a street boy which I thought was a little sad and said that girls don’t like street boys; they want someone with more money. It was a little funny though because he followed that up by saying that he doesn’t want to waste his money on girls anyway, he sends most home to his family in a Northern Vietnamese village. I don’t know if I am a sucker but he got my hook line and sinker and of course I bought a book. All of the books of photo copies so they aren’t really legal but so so cheap. I ended up loading up before I left Vietnam.

One of the most popular day trips on Nha Trang are these boat trip / booze cruise type things. They are very very cheap I think $7 for the day and your expectations should match the price. Tons of boats go out each day and you go to a really awful snorkeling location, a rundown aquarium and a beach where you have to pay extra to get on the island. It was almost so bad it was funny. The entertaining part was a homemade band with buckets and such where the staff gets up and sings and makes everyone on the boat sing something native to their country. I don’t share the same affinity for Karaoke as most of the people on the boat but ended up singing Jingle Bells then found myself in a conga line on a little boat. They also make a floating bar and give you the foulest wine I have ever tasted. I guess all booze cruise types are the same thing no matter where you are in the world, either bad rum punch in the Caribbean or wine in Asia.

Nha Trang was definitely a resort town but I really enjoyed my time there and would recommend it as a stop for a great beach in Vietnam.

---

Photos

Selling Fresh Lobsters
This lady had both cooked and live lobsters that she would sell on the beach

At Red Apple Bar
New beer flavor so had to take a picture, I think I had seven different types of beer in vietnam