Well after a ridiculously efficient bus journey we arrived 5 minutes early into Nha Trang ... We had even stopped during the night to change a tyre?! We walked through the waking streets of Nha Trang in search of a guest house, after a taxi ride and a short walk later we arrived at the Perfume Grass Guesthouse which would become our home for the next seven nights. The first day we decided to hit the beach, we managed to discover Louisiana brewery which looked slightly like a small nice micro brewery (for those of your that have seen them in Auz). Except it had a pool along with beach and sunloungers! I got eggs benedict for breakfast and David had omelet, it was like eating breakfast from a 5 star hotel it was that good but without the price tag! The rest of the day we spent day chilling out in the sun, David booked his PADI course with the sailing club, which would start the next day.

The next day I spent the day with Daniel and Niamh at Louisiana working on my tan whilst David did his PADI course. His diving course was one to one with a Harry Potter lookalike called Warren. The first day he watched videos and took to the pool learning all that was needed to know for venturing out into open water. He was very exhausted after trending water in the pool for ten minutes followed by a 200 metre swim. That evening we ate at lanterns which if you ever go to Nha Trang I would recommend it was the food was cheap and yummy.

The following day I headed to sailing club to chill out on the sun loungers there; whilst soaking up the sun I saw in the distance walking into the club Crystal and Niall?! (soo crazy how you just keep bumping into people). Whilst David had his first two dives in open water, on the first dive he got to grips with the basics of what to do when things go wrong in the water, losing mask, running out of air, etc. The second dive in the afternoon he learnt how to do emergence ascend and controlling buoyancy using breathing techniques. That evening we took Crystal and Niall to a restaurant called Texas BBQ which we had eaten in on the first night, run by a Texan who boosted the best BBQ Ribs you would ever taste, smoked for five and half hours over rose wood. Let's just say everyone was impressed with the food that night and none of us could move after it was that good.

The final day of David's diving course it rained so I decided to go to the Oceanography Institution, which was rather interesting I got to see fish that were local to the waters in tanks as well as massive turtles and a giant bone structure of a whale. To top it all off there was a shark tank along with a laboratory of bottled dead fish?! It was really weird they had a mantatee stuffed and bottled in a tank. Meanwhile David did his last day of his course, in which in his first dive he saw pipe fish, scorpio fish, lion fish and lots of other cool fish. He also got a bloody nose (seems diving with a cold isn't such a good idea). The second dive he saw more cool fish and a stonefish (not so fun if you stand on one!) after this he headed back to the hotel with his bible in hand (PADI manual) to revise all the facts he had learnt before he headed back there in the evening to do his test. And of course he passed with flying colours even though his ears were killing him after the dives that day. That evening we went out to celebrate with some of the other divers (a nice couple from Perth Mike and Jem) ... It was the even of David's birthday too! We of course randomly bumped into Crystal and Niall in the bar we were drinking!? Haha it's a good thing we really like them both.

To celebrate David's birthday we chilled out at the Sailing club, ate lunch there too he had a ostrich burger! (it was his birthday after all) after soaking up the suns rays all day we headed back to get changed for our evening meal and the night of celebrations that lay ahead of us. We ate at Good Morning Vietnam (it's a chain we ate there in Hoi An) but they do western wine at affordable prices and yummy food. We were joined by Crystal, Niall, Mike and Jem for the evening. We then went down to the Sailing Club as they held a night of entertainment on a Saturday every week. The guy who ran it (a guy from Blackpool and as camp as a rainbow) and to make matters even funnier he was a fire dance which we would late witness. He had organised for David and another persons who's birthday it was to do a competition on stage in front of about 400 plus people, for the competition David needed someone to help him ... As you have guessed it wasn't going to be me! Mike was the one that was willing to so off they went in front of a crowd of people, the competition was to run from one end to the other end of the stage with a stick, put the stick standing up and run around it five times with your chin on the top of the stick and then attempt to run back to your team mate tag him and then it's his turn. Well a game like this is always going to be funny, so Jem and I got up to the front to watch with camera locked in video mode, the other team cheated by not putting their chins on the sticks ( spoilsports), after David had run around the stick he completely flopped on the floor whilst trying to run fast and not be dizzy. Mike did a better job of it as he didn't fall over but the other team cheated and got back first, even so everyone was winners so they both got some free drinks for the night. We will have to upload the video at a later date! All in all it was a fun night, finished off by a little bit of dancing on the beach.

The day after we decided to venture over to the Disneyland of Vietnam, Vin pearl Land! To get to the island you have to go by cable car, which was pretty high up I might add, and my fear is off heights even though I have abseiled off a the Vermont hotel in Newcastle for charity (it was 200ft high descend). The cable car stopped half way along which scared me greatly, but this was standard it seems and they had to do it even so often, highly amusing for David to watch though. Anyways we made it across with me clinging on to my seat the whole time haha, we headed to the aquarium, which was amazing, they had huge fish, and they had a tunnel where you go round on a conveyer belt, of which we were most impressed by. Next stop the water park; we went on some slides including a slide called tsunami, you went in it in a double ring and were dropped into a massively high half pipe, you were sliding with great speed up and down the half pipe, it was amazing! After a few more slides and the wave pool we were beat, so we headed to the indoor amusement arcade where the games were free! We played on just about every different game in there and then headed out to go back. The cable car on the way back stopped twice and once just before we entered into the station on the other side which is on more a less of a 45 degree angle so with the wind when it stopped we swung a good bit eek! I was scared for a moment or two but I was glad to have my feet on solid ground. We headed out for comfort food which for us is Indian yum, all the Indian restaurants out here have Indian chefs we have been most impressed (we have only been out for a few though).

We woke up to an early start as we headed out on the dive boat with the sailing club to go snorkeling, as David got an ear infection due to his cold so couldn't dive for a couple of weeks, so his fun dives he got with his course for passing he couldn't do. As we headed out to the reef it was good to see some more of the surrounding areas, after all the divers got in the water we got our flippers and snorkel etc on and took to the water, my giant step was more like a drunken one off the back of the boat of which we have photo evidence for you all to see. As we swam around it was good to see all the little fishes and coral, visibility was good as well. We headed back to the boat for a yummy lunch of rice and a Vietnamese curry soup thing which was lovely. The next dive site the visibility was perfect, we saw more fish and coral as well as a stone fish! My waterproof watch died a death that day, some how I had got a crack in the casings of the watch which then meant water was getting into the thing oops, so when we got off the boat at back into the van to take us back, we kept hearing a beeping, I took my watch out the bag to see it and the noise got louder, seems the water getting into the watch caused the alarm to go off constantly eek, so the watch found a new place the bin :(. In the afternoon we went to the Sailing club for a chocolate brownie which are to die for there, even though I am not allowed to eat them, I made an excuse this once the tummy pains would be worth it, and they were. After a hard day in the water what better way to relax then headed to a local mud bath and spa, which David and I as well as Mike, Jem, Crysal and Niall decided to do. For next to nothing we got a private mud bath, hot mineral bath, foot and Indian head massage. It was great fun, we even got a group shot of us in the mud bath to remember the day. As the next day we were headed to Mui Ne and the others were headed away from Nha Trang we thought we better go back to the Texas BBQ place, so if you ever go there check the walls as our photo made it up as we went back a couple of times! But it was too good to miss and the best ribs we had all had ever, seriously!

Next stop Mui Ne, we loved Nha Trang and will definitely be back again at some point in the future.

Ps sorry it's a long one but we were there a week haha.