I had emailed the hotel we had booked before we'd arrived in Nha Trang to request an early check in as normal time was 1pm. Taking into account some delays and walking time to get there I'd asked if we could check in from 8:30am, the unexpected on time arrival however meant we now had to wake up the security guard at the front to let us in and then wake up the owner to see if we could get a key to the room. Luckily the room was free and we got the key and the owner wasn't too annoyed we'd woken him up either.
Having not slept much on the bus we decided to get a few more hours and went back to bed until 10am. We then went and bought some fruit from a street stall and had a wander around the beach and the rest of the town. There are a few activities beach activities we are keen to do and Nha Trang seemed like the best place for snorkelling so we booked a trip for the next day. That evening we rewarded ourselves for surviving another overnight bus journey and went to a nice pizza restaurant. We'd smelt the pizzas being cooked in a proper stone pizza oven on the walk home from the beach in the afternoon so we knew that was the only place we were going for food! After dinner we found a brew house which brewed their own beers. We tried their 4 different ales / lager taster to sample the local brewed beer which actually tasted pretty good. There was a live band there too so a good atmosphere and good first impressions of Nha Trang.
Sampling the local brewed beers in Nha Trang
It was an early start for our snorkelling trip and we met up with Ayalon on the bus as he was doing a scuba diving course with the same company and it turned out to be the same boat we were on. Snorkelling was good fun, the visibility underwater was pretty good too so we could see lots around. Cherie was a bit freaked out by all the jelly fish though. She'd said before we set off how much she hoped we wouldn't see any and then next thing you know we're surrounded by thousands! Luckily they didn't sting but there was so many at one particular sight we stopped that they were on our faces and arms as you snorkelled around. I could hear her muffled screeching under water every so often which was fairly amusing after an hour or so. Lunch was provided on the boat and we sat on the deck chatting and eating curry, noodles and baguettes. All the swimming had taken it out of us and we spent the rest of the afternoon chilling on the beach.
Cherie looking hot with the snorkelling gear on
In the evening, we met up with Ayalon and two people who had just arrived in his dorm room. Angie from Switzerland and a French guy called Geoff who was travelling through South East Asia on a pedal bike! He'd just cycled 120km that day from Dalat so I felt pretty bad when we spent almost an hour looking for a restaurant to eat at! The restaurant we eventually choose was decided more because we were all starving than the appealingness of the place. The food wasn't too bad but it was good chatting with everyone and hearing all of their stories. On the walk back to our hotels after dinner we were all engrossed in conversation that we ended up taking a wrong turn somewhere along the line, we realised we needed to turn around when we went past a boat yard and getting a bit to close to a set of jet skis and boats, a pack of Rottweilers and other horrible looking things burst out from between them! Fortunately the dogs were all on chains but they were going mad. We made a sharp turnaround and headed the right way home! I was close to needing a change of underwear when I first saw the dogs and didn't realise they were chained up.
During dinner we had made a plan to hire some motorbikes out the following day and head to the mud baths and a waterfall nearby. We met up with Angie and found a rental shop. She hadn't ridden a motorbike before so I explained a few things she needed to know and we were off. It wasn't the easiest place for a first lesson as we were on a busy road and had to turn across the traffic to get out. She did pretty well narrowly avoiding another bike and then we were off.
The mud baths were fairly relaxing. We'd taken the option of going into the shared baths and we soon regretted it as a bunch of drunk Russian's piled in next to us! Not all stereo types are true...this bunch were drinking the local beer at 10am and not vodka though. We sat for about half an hour in the mud 'cleansing' ourselves, then went into a hot water bath (we'd lost the Russians by now thankfully) and finally there were some hot and cold pools to relax a bit more in. Feeling suitably clean and relaxed we hoped on the bikes and headed for a waterfall about 40mins ride away. The road to the waterfalls was along the sea which was pretty picturesque. Cherie wanted to drive so I went on the back and was getting some stange looks from everyone else driving past as the two girls were riding bikes and I was on the back of one! We spent an hour or two climbing up the waterfalls to the top and then swam for a bit. We met a nicer Russian couple who were pretty amusing, the guy was carrying small guitar type thing and would erupt in song every so often!
Swimming at the waterfalls!
We headed back to Nha Trang before it got too dark and the roads were getting busy as we got into the centre but we made it back even with Angie's bike cutting out every so often for no reason - she did pretty well considering it was her first time on a bike...we said goodbye to her as she was getting a bus further north that evening. We met up with Geoff and Ayalon and went to a French restaurant for dinner (the only thing French about the restaurant was the name though). To make up for the lack of Frenchness, we all stopped for a crepe on the way home!
Cherie and I decided to have a chill day the next day and I woke up early to go and see the sunrise over the sea with the two other guys. After breakfast we went to book the bus for the following day to Dalat. The rest of the day we spent at the beach and in the evening found a decent Indian restaurant for dinner. As it was a Saturday, there was lots of sport on TV so after the curry we headed to an Aussie bar to watch the SA vs. Australia rugby match, with golf and football on in the background as well. They also had wifi so I could keep up to date with the Dees score as it came through on twitter too! After one drink, Cherie had had enough of the sport and headed home to Skype her parents. Ayalon and I sat with a bunch of Kiwi and Aussies watching the game - a great day of sport with wins for SA, Dunstablians and Fulham! I'd watched part on TV, seen updates from twitter and alerts from Sky Sports News to keep up to date on all of them - awesome!
Dalat (28th - 29th Sept)
The next morning was our early bus to Dalat, it started raining as soon as we got on the bus so were pleased we had chosen today to leave. Dalat was a 6 hour drive away and into the cental highlands of Vietnam. The weather is much cooler and it was funny to see everyone wearing big puffer jackets, gloves and hats as if it was the middle of a snow storm - a bit overkill considering it's still warm enough for shorts and a t-shirt!! We arrived at midday so spent the rest of the day exploring the town, seeing the local market with all the fresh fruit, veg and meat for sale. Cherie got some unimpressed look from one of the fish sellers as a big fish jumped out of its small bowl in front of her and she screamed! One of the other attractions was a strange building called the 'Crazy House' due to its architecture that resembles a tree trunk and 10 rooms inside it that are all a bit strange, anyway it was closed when we got there so we only saw it from the outside (I didn't think anything closed on a Sunday here so I was surprised too!) and then walked for miles to find an old railway station / museum type thing. We decided to just stay 2 days in the town and booked our bus for the next day.
Sweeeets at the Market!
We had half a day before our bus set off at 1pm so ventured back to the market to get some fresh fruit for breakfast. After breakfast, we headed back to the Crazy House to see what people had been raving on about and it was as strange as they had mentioned. There are 10 bedrooms and we could see into a most of them, some had people staying in them as you can book a night or two there. There were lots of twisted staircases that went from one side of the building to another so you end up getting lost. We spent a while looking around and then had coffee in one of the many sitting areas built into the sides of the building. The architect who designed it is still adding rooms and areas onto it so it will get bigger and even more strange I'm sure.
Cherie at the Crazy House
Front of the Crazy House
We checked out of our hostel and went to the bus station to catch our bus to Mui Ne - both of us happy to be heading back to the beach for a few days. The small bus was overloaded with people and lots baggage so everyone was cramped on top of each other for the 7 hour journey. Instead of dropping us at the bus company office in the centre of Mui Ne, the driver pulled over and said we all needed to pay extra to be dropped off closer to our hotels or get out and catch a taxi. An Australian guy kicked off a bit of a fuss and then finally got agreement for the bus to drop us a bit closer, we were still about 1.5 km away from our hotel and Cherie and I, along with another Swedish couple staying in the same hotel decided we'd rather walk than deal with the driver anymore.
Mui Ne (29th Sept - 3rd Oct)
We were glad to finally get to 'Mui Ne Hills Hotel', our room was pretty big and fairly modern. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant with the Swedish couple that evening. The restaurant area had a pool in the middle and was nicely lit with chill out music playing so had a really cool atmosphere.
As we had arrived at night, it wasn't until the next morning that we were able to fully appreciate the ocean view from our room and balcony. The hotel was up a bit of a hill but the view made the location ideal. Cherie and I went for a walk down the beach and looked into learning to kite surf but as the season was changing, the wind wasn't strong so we will have to wait to find another place to learn. We headed back to our hotel in the afternoon to spend the rest of the day around the pool. A group of people were in the pool and we got talking to them, 5 of the guys had bought motorbikes and were driving down from the north to the south of Vietnam. A big group of us sat down together on the top balcony of the hotel restaurant and had dinner together. The owner, Erik had also extended happy hour to last the whole night too! After dinner and a few Tiger beers we all headed out to 'Dragon Beach Club' which was a beach bar / club a few minutes drive from our hotel and we ended up staying there until the early hours.
Surprisingly the next morning we weren't feeling too bad after a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast so we hired a motorbike and took a trip out to the sand dunes about 40 minutes ride away. The road to the dunes was another nice beach side road so made for an enjoyable ride in the sun. The dunes were pretty cool too, we'd gone to the white sand dunes which were slightly further but more impressive than the red ones along they way.
Beach road to the white sand dunes
Beach road to the white sand dunes
We met up with the rest of the guys back at the hotel and had a BBQ served up from the restaurant and had a nice chilled out evening. On our last full day in Mui Ne, Cherie and I still had the bike until the afternoon so went on a ride to the next town on the bike in the morning and on the way back stopped off at the beach for a bit. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around the pool. We had another nice meal at the hotel for dinner and then headed out to Dragon Beach for one last time. The hotel owner Erik took us all to a nearby local restaurant at around 2am for some food which finished the night out nicely.
Dragon Beach Night 2
I was regretting having a few too many Saigon beers and only 4 hours sleep when my alarm went off at 6:30am! We had no choice but to drag ourselves around the room and do the final bit of packing so we could catch the early bus we'd booked to to Ho Chi Minh. Once on the bus Cherie and I both slept most of the way so the journey wasn't too bad. When we got to the city a massive downpour of rain had just started so we ended up getting soaked! Luckily our guesthouse was on the same road the bus dropped us off at so didn't have to spend too long in the rain and could soon dry off.
Ho Chi Minh City (3rd - 8th Oct)
Once the rain had cleared we met up with Ayalon in the evening and headed out for dinner. We found a street food stall and ordered what we thought was stir fried noodles but turned out to be noodle soup. Feeling a bit hungry afterwards we moved onto another street food stall where we could see them cooking fried rice so we couldn't go wrong and filled up on that. On the way home we found a frozen yogurt shop that sold lots of different flavours of yogurt by the weight in the cup so we all tucked into some yogurt for dessert.
We had arranged a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels the following day and hoped on the bus with our local guide. The guides dry sense of humor was pretty funny and he introduced us to bus driver who was a 'good husband for only having one wife and only one mistress!' Along the way to the tunnels we stopped off at a factory setup for people injured in the war who were making ornaments. The Cu Chi Tunnels were really interesting and a chance to see how the Vietnamese lived and fought during the war. The tunnels had been widened 3 times to allow westerners to get in and see but it was still impressive to see although not as claustrophobic as it would have been. There were also examples of the traps used which looked pretty brutal for anyone on the wrong side of it! It was amazing to hear how the Tunnels worked and how the American's had setup a base above some of them and couldn't figure out how they were getting attacked during the night from within the camp with no signs of anyone breaking in.
Cherie at the Cu Chi Tunnels
We stopped at the War Museum afterwards and learnt a bit more of the destruction caused during the war and the shocking use of chemicals that killed off everything in its way and still affects people born today. We got caught in another torrential downpour as we were leaving the museum. We were better prepared and had our ponchos ready as we trudged back in the inches deep of rain water on the roads and pavements! It stopped raining later in the evening and Cherie and I headed back to the street stall we had fried rice at the previous night as the food was pretty good.
We spent our last full day in Vietnam sorting out the bus to Cambodia and buying a few last souvenirs. There was a botanical gardens / zoo in the north of the city which we checked out, the highlight was a young Vietnamese boy banging on the glass of a snake enclosure and me going up behind him and grabbing his shoulders and making a large snort and seeing him look petrified! Haha, still makes me laugh. We stumbled across Japanese Town on our way home from the zoo so stopped there for lunch - udon noodles, sushi and some strange looking fish dough ball which were all pretty nice.
Crazy giraffes in Ho Chi Minh zoo!
Pretty tasty lunch - sushi and fish balls (Udon noodles demolished by this point)
Some of the guys and girls we had met in Mui Ne had arrived in Ho Chi Minh so we arranged to meet up and grab some dinner in the evening with them. The pizza we had were pretty decent and we headed to another bar for a few more drinks and some Sheesha. Cherie and I had to say our goodbyes to the group as it was another early start the next morning for the bus to Cambodia but we seem to be making a habit of feeling ropey for these bus journeys! For hangover prevention purposes I tried to find the $1 noodle woman who served noodles from a small stall near our guesthouse but surprisingly she was nowhere to be seen at 2am...gutted, I settled for a chocolate milk, Oreos and a pot noodle from the 24 hr mini mart.
The late night food binge had helped and we weren't feeling too bad the next morning and our bus being on time was a good sign too. We were all set for the 3hr journey across to the Vietnam - Cambodia border and then another 3 hours to Phnom Penh and entering 'the land of the free - with a few US in your hand' as described by a bunch of kiwi guys I'd met earlier in Nha Trang!
