Nha Trang

Well, we hopped on the train at 11:30pm in Ho Chi Minh City.  As we had left buying tickets late, James and I were in seperate cars, so I bid him farewell and hoped like crazy my fellow travellers would speak some english.  Unfortunately they didn't.  There was a bit of awquard conversation before we gave up and settled in for the six hours of sleeping ahead.  There was alot of staring going on, so I felt like I was being waited on for an answer, but no, they were just staring.

At 5:30 am the next morning, we got off the train into what looked like a dreary day in a dreary place.  We couldn't have been more wrong.  After fending off the dozen or so offers for cyclo or taxi services, we set off to find the beach.  About 2ks later we were looking at a stretch of golden sand and dumping waves.  Excellent.  We took some advice from a passing jogger suggesting we walk another kilometer south to find the backpacker places.   We got a few offers along the way and decided to check one of them out.  So at 6am in the morning we walk into a place and ask to see a room.  The cheery host said they had a room available and we could drop our bags then and there.  How great is that!  None of the 2pm check-in rubbish!!! And all for $12/night

At this point we were both starving so we set out looking for some breakfast.  James was feeling adventurous so we walked into a more "local" place and had a delicious fried egg with stuff and bread.  The massive dead cockroach on the ground did nothing to put me off my food, I gobbled it down and told James it would be his fault if I got sick.  James left most of his claiming the egg wasn't cooked enough, yea right.

As we both had pretty poor nights sleep, we decided to just take it easy for the day.  With this in mind, I was off to the beach.  The sand on the beach was very coarse, but when you went int to the ocean, it was very fine.  As I said before the waves were very dumpy, which didn't bother me but some of my fellow swimmers got in a bit of trouble, much to my amusement.  I caught a few waves and some rays before heading back to our hotel.   While I was on the beach I bought a book of a peddler but discovered I brought as much money as I thought and as it turned out, 90k short of the agreed price.  The peddler kindly offered to take the money I had in exchange for the book with promises to find me later for the balance.  On the way home from the beach I was stopped by a gentleman named Tam who offered to take my for a day trip around Nha Trang on the back of his motorcyle.  I couldn't agree as I needed to see if James was keen as well.  So I get back to the room promising to be back in 5mins with James to work it all out.  I get back to the room and tell James what had happnened who was frankly shocked exclaiming "I leave you alone for five minutes, and you owe someone money and half agreed to go for a motor bike ride with a random stranger on the street!!!".  So 10minutes later I was back chatting with Tam about his day trip and that we would take it.

After a nice long lunch, the afternoon was spent wandering about aimlessly.  We ended up back at the beach just watching the world go by.

So then today rolled around, and we turned up at the agreed place to meet Tam, who took us to a local place for breakfast.  It was delicious.  Way better than the "authentic" Vietnamese we had been eating at more western places.  Following breakfast, Tam took us to see the Cham Temples, incense making, and mat manufactoring where we both got a go.  I bought a set of place mats (mostly as thanks for showing us how) and we were off into the countryside.  We stopped a couple of times to take photos of the local people working in the fields and the general sceneray, which was very majestic.  After a bit more riding we found our selves at a local water hole where we spent an hour or so lazing about.   We had lunch at another local resteraunt and enjoyed a very nice meal of egg noodles with beef.  Unfortunately this was the end of our bike tour with Tam.  It truely was an excellent day.  We weren't on packed bus, we had an excellent guide, and we didn't find ourselves seeing Vietnam via tourist villages, and conveyor belt photo tours.  Just a couple of locals on motor bikes, definately opened our eyes! 

Nha Trang looking south

Entrance to the Cham towers

The bikes, the rice paddies and the hills.  Makes for a pretty awesome vista!

The waterhole . The waterfalls gave excellent massages