off to Nha Trang

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Got up at 3am to catch the shuttle van to the airport. Starting the tour off by flying to Nha Trang and staying a couple of days there, then we head up to Da Nang.

We condensed our clothes, etc. down into one suitcase each. Less to carry around and lug back and forth to the airport, etc. Plane left right on time, 6am, landed at Nha Trang right at 7am. Our guide was a little late, about 20 minutes, the first van broke down on the way to the airport. Our guide, Khoi, told us that the airport was built by the US for military use and after the war they converted it to civilian use.

The Nha Trang area is just the opposite of Saigon...relaxed, laid back, not nearly as much traffic. It's situated right on the beach and we have a view of the beach from the hotel room. Just sand and ocean...:-)

We got to the hotel about 8:30 am, its a 45-50 minute ride from the airport to the city. Our hotel is right across the street from the beach. We ate a buffet type of breakfast when we arrived while Khoi checked us into the hotel. Rooms are really big and very nice. We unpacked and left with Khoi to tour the city about 9:30 am.

We visited the first Catholic church built in this area, back in the 1800's by the French. Also visited two Buddhist temples. The first one had one of the largest Buddha statues I've ever seen...had to climb this 150 step stairway to get there. The second temple was on the other side of town and our guide said it is over 1000 years old. Both are still active and open temples.

After that we stopped by one of the tourist stops to look for gifts to bring home. Hang found a few things. We stopped for lunch at a resort restaurant on the beach. Had fish cooked in a tomatoe sauce, stir fry beef w/peppers, grilled squid salad, sweet/sour fish soup, curry chicken and fresh fruit. Everything was really good. It's hard to mess up fresh seafood...:-) Went back to the hotel, took a short nap and left to go to Vinpearl.

Vinpearl is sort of a combination of amusement park and seaworld type of place. It also has quite a bit of shopping. We toured the aquarium, which was really cool. Had the longest tunnel going under the aquarium that I've seen. They also had a neat show where they have a girl dress up as a mermaid and she swims in front of the huge downstairs aquarium window. To get out there you either take a boat or ride a cable car. We rode the cable car. It's ranges from 50' at the beginning up to 300' or so at the peak above the ocean and is about a mile long.

We came back over after a couple of hours and had dinner in the restaurant here in the hotel. We had baked clams, fried squid, veggies, claypot fish, soup, chicken stir fry w/peppers and fruit. We thought about going out but everyone was wore out so we crashed about 10pm at the hotel.

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