Nha thanks Nha Trang (Day 66 - 68 by Chris & Gemma)

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Saturday 21st November 2015

Literally a day of travel. A quick breakfast of pancakes (standard!), followed by a taxi ride to Da Nang station (about 45 mins away) to bored our 1pm train for the 9 hour journey to Nha Trang, arriving at 10pm. Given we'd be travelling all day, we opted for £18pp soft sleepers rather than seats giving us a bit more room to stretch our legs and the option to have a comfy(ish!) nap. Again, I napped for Britain spending most of our 9 hours in a quiet slumber aboard my top bunk waking up in time to see us approach Nha Trang by night.

We arrived late and took a taxi straight to our Hotel, Duy Phuoc Hotel, which cost us £3.60 each per night. It was very modest, but was clean and had a bed! As we hadn't eaten we popped out for some food and noticed that most of the shops and restaurants had Vietnamese and Russian signage. It transpires that Nha Trang was a big resort full of high rise hotels and was extremely popular with the Russian packaged holiday goers. We stopped into a Russian owned restaurant and ordered 2 pizzas and a beer. After devouring that we headed back to the hotel to sleep.

Sunday 22nd November 2015

Today it rained, rained and rained some more. We had planned on stopping off at the beach, but all we could manage was a 5 min stroll before the heavens opened. There we were, in our rain coats and umbrella whilst lots of determined holiday makers sat in swimwear on the beach. We legged it into a cafe/restaurant where we stayed for the rest of the day. Here we drank coffee & mango shakes, ate some food and mostly caught up on these blogs. In the evening we managed to grab some food at a little Vietnamese restaurant before heading to bed.

Monday 23rd November 2015

Sunshine! The rain had passed so we decided to spend our final day in Nha Trang at the beach. We grabbed a quick breakfast of Spanish omelette and a small baguette from the restaurant we'd moved into the previous day and then found ourselves a sun lounger on the beach. Spending most of the day sunbathing and playing in the sea, being beaten and swallowed up by the huge waves, there's not much to report. Oh, there was a huge dog, with even bigger testicles who sat patiently on the sand waiting for his owner to finish a swim. This dog was struggling in the heat and was probably uncomfortable on the sand so started walking towards Gemma and I and luckily for me, he decided to plant his huge arse and testicles onto Gemma's towel. He was massive, but very friendly and enjoyed having his ears stroked. We headed home after this and hand washed our towels, giving special attention to Gemma's and then headed out for some seafood consisting of huge BBQ shrimps with some rice, vegetables and a beef dish. We then headed back to sleep, ready to be up early for the bus journey to Mui Ne the following day.

Nha Trang was a shock to the system when we first arrived. Having seen Vietnam so far as a backpacking place but which kept lots of its traditional Vietnamese look and charm, we were shocked to stumble into what I can only describe as Sharm El Sheikh of Vietnam. We were happy that the second day was hot so that we could actually see Nha Trang in sunshine as in the rain we felt quite put off, but if you know what to expect (we didn't) then this place can be quite nice. We had a good time here, but neither of us intend to rush back.

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