Travel Log: Nha Trang (March 7 - 9, 2007)...

Note: This post is part of a series regarding a recent trip.  Please read this preface to the series prior to this post for context.

After a long 7.5hr trip by tour van to get to Nha Trang (photos here) overnight (we left Saigon at 9:30pm) we finally arrive in a pretty poor neighbourhood of what looks like a small town.  Our bus pulled into (... and I mean right into the lobby of ...) a small hotel.  One of the classic 15ft wide by four stories high hotels.

It was about 5:15am and just before dawn, so a little dark out still.  We were shown to our rooms, and they just weren't "doing it for us".  In fact the rooms were very small, moldy smelling and had an adjoining old bathroom that was lacking some essential sanitary "features".

Thuy and I, with Darren and Mel, decided we better take things into our own hands, explore the town a little and find somewhere more suitable.

Sure enough the beach was only about two blocks away and it was beautiful.  By about 6am the sun was coming up and the beach was about as crowded as any Western beach at about noon.  The Vietnamese love their beaches, but are not huge fans of direct sun exposure, so you'll see them out on the beach just as dawn breaks doing Tai Chi and other stretches/exercise, then they'll retreat to their shops, homes, etc. before the day gets too hot.

So we found a nice little hotel, the "Que Huong", on the main strip across from the beach after going to a few bigger ones.  We ended up paying $50USD per night there, but it was well worth it.  (By the way, we later learned that the original hotel was only $12/night...).

We stayed in Nha Trang a few days, soaked up the sun and had a great time on rented scooters.  The most popular form of entertainment in this sun-baked beach town is to go out with your girlfriend/boyfriend (or even family of five) on one scooter and "cruise" up and down the main strip.  We swore the "name of the game" was to see how many common street laws you could disregard as you'll see people blowing through red lights and stop signs, driving on sidewalks or down the wrong side of the road and making quite liberal use of their horns.

The change in climate and food finally caught up with me and I spent the better part of one night sick as a dog in the bathroom.  It turns out I'd only be the first to suffer in the following few days as Thuy, Mel and Darren would all take turns with "the runs".

Another highlight was Bac Hai and his family taking us with Ma to Doc' Let, another large beach that looked prime for (and on the verge of) major resort development.  The beach was like fine flour and kept quite nice.  The area we were at however was exclusively Vietnamese for whatever reason, and Mel, Darren and I were quite the hit with every Vietnamese child under 15yrs old trying out their handful of English phrases ("Hello", "What's your name?", "Where are you from?", "How are you?").

Next we head off to Cambodia, to Siem Reap, where we will be touring the famous Angkor Wat temple (and surrounding temples).

To facilitate navigation this is a summary of posts in this series:

• Vinh Long (February 28 - March 4, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos)
• Saigon (March 5 - 6, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos)
• Nha Trang (March 7 - 9, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos)
• Siem Reap, Cambodia (March 10 - 13, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos from Siem Reap and Angkor Wat)
• Hoi An (March 13 - 18, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos)
• Ha Long Bay and Hanoi (March 19 - 23, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos from Ha Long Bay)
• Saigon (March 23 - 25, 2007) - (Link) - (Photos)