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Published: November 2nd 2008
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Arriving in Nha Trang on the night bus as a dawn broke was pretty special and that day we had gorgeous weather. A relief after leaving Hoi An in the pouring rain. The sea was warm and rough enough to be great fun, we'd negotiated ourselves a really nice room for 6 bucks and were planning on some serious beach time and snorkeling at the nearby islands. The next day it began to rain.. and rain. And the weather was just so fickle! Every time we decided to move on to Mui Ne the weather would clear and we would have some great time on the beach. Then, when it was too late for us to leave that day, it would start to rain again. But we got into a pretty good routine, getting up and running every morning at 6am. We'd spotted that pretty much the entire Vietnamese population of Nha Trang are out and about at this time doing exercises (some of it pretty funny). We followed the run with a swim in the sea, then relaxed under the palm beach umbrellas (good for keeping off sun and rain)
and then heading out in the evening for a
cocktail bucket and fusball (although we had to avoid this for a little while as a slightly too intense Polish couple kept lying in wait, challenging then beating us). The resort is pretty standard - nothing particularly special about it apart from the gorgeous beach and the weirdly manicured topiaries all along the beach but we hired bikes and spent some time exploring the surrounding area.
One particularly wet day we decided to cycle out to the local mud baths. For a measly 20p we bought some very sexy rain ponchos which fell apart at the first drop of rain. And rain it did. This didn't stop us heading past various sights and seeing the local fishermen out in their strange round boats (really just a basket). They have to paddle in a figure of eight or they would just spin in circles - we are sure there is a reason they design their boats like this but we just can't think why. We were drenched by the time we arrived at Thap Ba Hot Springs but this didn't matter as all we planned to do was sit in a big mud bath and soak anyway. It was a pretty
weird experience but great fun - you float in a huge pool of fragrant mud then go through various other soaks, hydroshowers and pools before relaxing in a big hot mineral pool. It did stop raining in the end (but too late to take any good mud pictures) and we were actually very glad of the cloud cover - on a hot day the heated baths would be too much.
All of this activity was viewed with great amusement by our lovely hostel manager the self-named Germany who found all the foreigners in his hotel completely hysterical. He'd popped up and nabbed us when we were trying to negotiate a room for 5 bucks in another hotel. Promising us a room for 5 and he then, as per usual with hotel owners, showed us one for 7. After some haggling he hit on what he thought was a great idea - we could have the room for 6 if we didn't use..... the lift. Well fine by us - but he was baffled by the failure of his negotiation technique. “Westerners never mind using the stairs” he complained, obviously having tried the 'no dollar-no lift' ruse before with no success.
Well should have tried taking away our aircon buddy....
He also found it hilarious that we shopped for food at the local street market and was convinced that the stall holders weren't used to tay (westerners) shopping there and would take us for a ride. He would question us closely about all our purchases and was often very crestfallen to find out we hadn't been totally ripped off. Speaking of which we found shopping at the local markets wherever we are a really useful way of gaging what is an appropriate price - a pineapple on the market was 7000 dong but being flogged on the beach for 30 000 - a useful saving if your budget is taking a battering due to the exchange rate. Zoe also splashed out on possibly the worst foot massage she had ever had which involved some evil woman rubbing sand into her legs, trying to prise off her knee caps with her fingertips and then pulling all her toes until they cracked. Youch!
Relaxed, glowing from the mud packs and more than a little poisoned by whatever they put in those cocktail buckets we decided to check out Mui Ne. We also considered
hiring motorcycle guides known as the Easy Riders to head into 'real Vietnam' the central Highlands but in the end decided we were up for heading onto Saigon and Mekong delta. We are loving Vietnam but are starting to get itchy feet. Although we will be back to explore more we are looking forward to heading off the beaten track in east Cambodia and south Laos.
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Tracy
non-member comment
Great job!
Hi there! I stumbled onto your blog doing some research for our trip to Vietnam next week and really enjoyed it! I hope it stops raining soon!