We were off down south today - to see if we could find some sun! We were headed to Nha Trang - a beach resort about 500K down the coast. The journey was uneventful - just long.. The ride down was through some very flooded countryside - most fields seemed under water and some houses too. Every river was swollen and seemed to have burst it's banks. This seemed normal for the time of year but it looked pretty miserable if you lived near any river. Arrived in Nha Trang on time (much to our surprise) and found the hotel. We ventured out for a beer before bedtime - The place seemed full of Australians - even had an expat Aussie bar full of over 60s - a sort of minor RSL club.

We explored of Nha Trang the following morning after a little admin (getting rid of all the books we had acquired to make room for shopping- we in fact swapped 2 for 1). Then it was down to the beach - it is very large and I am sure looks lovely in the season, but today the sea was a mud colour (caused by the run off from the rivers at either end of it) rather than the normal turquoise blue. It was also quite windy so the beach wasn't that inviting. In the afternoon we went off to see some Cham towers. It was a brief 4km walk over there and it only rained once! The walk took us through the local part of Nha Trang with the fishing port - the living conditions there were very different from those in the resort area. The towers themselves were better preserved than My Son - if a little smaller. It seems like the Vietnamese had adopted them as shrines - despite the fact that they were Hindu. The funniest part were the big signs saying no burning of incense in the shrines but they had installed extractor fans as so much was being burnt.